“No,” said León insistently. “President Vargas himself will not stand for this.”

“He will!” said Garza. “He will have no choice. I give him no choice. Either he turns a blind eye to this . . . or else I tell everyone in the country just who was behind his rise to prominence. Who funded his miraculous political victory. And that the person he entrusted to help craft this antitrafficking treaty was a filthy trafficker himself.”

Garza backed to the only door to the room, opening it.

“Whereas if he goes along, then it is simply another example of the former administration being corrupted by association with the criminal element.”

CHAPTER 80

Fisk never made it inside the consulate. In part because of his own dire warnings while trying to be let through the outer perimeter, the vice president’s interior security ring closed ranks around the detail. No one was allowed in or out until the vice president and his eleven-car motorcade were many blocks away.

Dubin returned from a conversation with a Secret Service agent he knew and pulled Fisk aside on Park Avenue. “Nobody was killed. No shots fired. The dinner went off without a hitch.”

FISK ARRIVED AT TETERBORO AIRPORT in New Jersey just in time. The presidential jet was idling on the tarmac, the big Boeing 737 having been cleared for the small airport by a rare special dispensation from the FAA. Bags were being loaded in.

Fisk’s arm was screaming at him, his fingers and thumb completely numb. He used his Intel badge to get onto the tarmac. Though well outside the radius of the Boeing 737, he was close enough to see the heavyset man in the gray braid being led aboard the plane by EMP agents—in handcuffs.

Fisk felt all the tension go out of him then. It was an incredible feeling, as though Garza’s soul had been spared. León was alive. He held his bad arm, hoping to take some of the pressure off it, and was about to turn and leave when he saw Cecilia Garza leave the contingent boarding the aircraft, starting toward him.

It must have been the blue sling that caught her eye. Her raven-black hair whipped around from the night wind and the wash from the turbines.

She looked drained, exhausted. He must have looked like hell, too.

“You watched the video,” he said.

She looked away and nodded.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I wanted to kill him,” she said. “I wanted it so badly. To put him down right there inside the consulate . . . and suffer the consequences, whatever they might be.”

She looked behind her to make sure she still had time. The last people were starting up the stairs. She only had a moment.

She turned back to Fisk. “I learned from you. I am bringing him to justice. As you did Magnus Jenssen. I am obeying the rule of law, not of vengeance. Blood vendettas are the old Mexico. This”—she pointed to the aircraft, its prisoner waiting on board—“is how we will bring about real change. By owning our past and looking to the future.” She touched the shoulder of his bad arm gently. “You set the example. I thank you.”

She kissed him again.

“I said it before,” she said. “We are too much alike.”

She gave his good arm a squeeze, then turned, black hair flying, jogging to the bottom step of the wheeled staircase and then up to the door of the plane, looking back at him one more time before entering.

CHAPTER 81

Eight days later, Fisk was lying in his bed, sleeping fitfully with his arm in a cast, when his cell phone awoke him. He looked at the display, then sat up, pushing a pillow behind his head. The phone rang twice more while he was trying to decide whether or not to answer it.

“Fisk,” he said groggily.

“You bastard.”

It was Dave Link, his friend from the CIA. “Hi, Dave.”

“You fucked me. If it gets out that I got you inside for that meeting, I will deny everything. Then I’ll fucking drone-strike your house.”

“Okay.”

Silence on the other end.

“Okay?” said Link. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? How’d you do it? On TV, they’re saying it was karma. I know better. I know it was Jeremy Fisk.”

Fisk’s mouth was painfully dry. “I gotta go, Dave.”

“Lose this number. You and I are strangers from this moment forward. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Click. Fisk lowered his phone. He felt very warm and a little shaky.

He sat there in bed for a while before turning on the television.

The news jumped out at him from CNN. Magnus Jenssen was dead, after serving only a few weeks in prison. The cause of death was apparently a previously undetected, fast-moving cancer.

The CNN graphic read: A FITTING END?

Fisk turned off the television, letting the dark reclaim the room. He stared into the nothingness, his left forearm itching as though the hard cast were infested with bugs.

He thought of his meeting with Jenssen, the terrorist taunting him about the weakness of America’s overly tolerant system of justice. Fisk remembered the aftermath of the meeting, how he cleaned up the remains of the cupcake he had brought for him using the thick foil wrapper Fisk had baked it in . . . which was designed to shield the bearer from exposure to alpha radiation from the microgram of deadly polonium-210 contained therein. Polonium that Fisk had stolen from the evidence in the smoky-bomb case he had busted.

Fisk settled back into bed.

Jenssen was dead and gone.

Fisk tried to picture Krina Gersten in this moment of supposed victory, and the awful truth was . . . he could not. Not completely. Not anymore.

Gersten was fading away.

He could picture Cecilia Garza, however. Leaving him on that airplane with the criminal she had spared, thanks to his example.

Fisk rubbed his good hand over his chest. He wondered how much his exposure to radiation had shortened his life. How much his organs had been affected on a cellular level, and what health surprises lay ahead of him.

This retributive act had corrupted him—not only morally, but also physically.

Which, to him, seemed just. Time would tell.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Noelle, Olivia, Serena, Elliot, Zoe, and Rex for their patience, support, and understanding. To Chuck Hogan for his friendship and support. And to Richard Abate and David Highfill for making me look good. Thank you all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DICK WOLF, a two-time Emmy award–winning writer, producer, and creator, is the architect of one of the most successful brands in the history of television—NBC’s Law & Order, among the longest-running scripted shows. Wolf has won numerous awards, including Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series (Law & Order) and Outstanding Made-for-Television Movie (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee); a Grammy; and an Edgar. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Intercept; The Execution is the second book in his Jeremy Fisk series. He lives in Southern California.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

ALSO BY DICK WOLF

The Intercept

CREDITS

Cover design by Mary Schuck

Cover photograph © by Sam Edwards/plainpicture