“God,” Hardin said. “I forgot about the bear.”

When he was a kid he used to walk down to the park a lot. One of the few places on the East Side where you’d see a lot of West Siders, kids wearing new clothes, not hand-me-downs, place where you could imagine some other kind of life.

They used to have a bear at the zoo, not a very big bear. Brown bear, Hardin guessed. He was no expert on bears. Fake stone grotto with metal bars in the front and a cement floor that was always puddled with urine and bear shit. Floor of the cage was maybe as big as a decent-sized living room and that bear had been locked inside since the day it arrived. Thing never seemed to move, just lay on the cement, dead eyes staring straight ahead, while kids tossed rocks and sticks at it through the bars trying to get it to do something. Bear had been there the first time Hardin could remember coming to the park, he figured he was four or five. It had still been there two decades later when he left for Africa.

“I hated coming here,” Wilson said. “That bear, it broke my heart.”

Some things had changed. The golf course had a makeover, new clubhouse. Nice little visitors’ center at the zoo, educational stuff for the kids. Big new water park on the south end, on Montgomery Road, place that used to be a big, empty field, place where Hardin and Esteban and some of the other guys from the neighborhood could get up a sandlot game while the little leaguers from the good neighborhoods played real ball on the real diamonds a little to the east. Mastodon Lake was still there, place where some WPA guys had found mastodon bones back in the Thirties when they fixed up the park on the Feds’ dime.

And cameras. Of course cameras. Security cam on the visitors’ center, another at the parking lot, more probably.

Hardin stood next to a white Camry in the parking lot, turned to face the camera, took off the broad-brimmed hat he’d been wearing everywhere and wiped his brow, did a slow turn, checked all the roads in and out.

He hoped that was enough.

“You sure this is the best idea?” Wilson said. “Our hometown? Seems like the kind of place they’ll be watching.”

“Fouche gets us a deal, we’ll have to make the handoff someplace. Maybe I want a home field advantage.”

“And maybe not.” Wilson said, smiling.

“Maybe not,” said Hardin.

They walked out of the park and down Ashland to the parking lot in front of the taco stand where they’d left the Honda. No cameras there. Not the kind of place that could afford them. But the food was good.

CHAPTER 72

Munroe sat up in bed, reached for his phone. He lifted his head from the desk, felt the knot behind his right ear. That little bastard al Din. Munroe’s head was going to be sore for a while. The cell buzzed again. He picked it up, looked at the screen. The surveillance guys.

“Yeah,” he said.

“We picked up a hit on Hardin,” said the voice on the other end.

“Where?”

“In Aurora. Got it quick because we have a priority feed running on any cams out there. Him and Wilson. They were poking around a big park on the east side, Phillips Park.”

“Get it in time to angle anybody in?”

“No. Even with those cams at the top of the pile, there’s still like a ninety-minute processing lag.”

“What was he doing?”

“Recon’s my guess, unless you think he had a sudden urge to go to the zoo.”

“Hold on a sec,” Munroe said. He opened his laptop, brought the park up on Google Earth. Big place. Got a few ways in and out, more than a few if you’re on foot. Trees, some hills it looked like, plenty of stuff to screw with sightlines, but he’d need boots on the ground to get the topography. Public as hell.

And Hardin would know the park. Wilson would know it. The park and everything around it. Might know some people, too.

One more thing caught his eye. A building on the west edge of the park. Munroe switched to street view. Ten stories maybe? Apartments, it looked like.

Munroe knew he’d been brought in on this whole deal because DC wanted subtle. After the cluster fuck in Chicago last year, the last thing they wanted was another firefight. Munroe was still hoping to avoid that, but he was going to need boots on the ground. Boot with guns. This thing went right, then it would come down to one shot. If it went south, though, well…

“OK,” Munroe said. “Get an SOG team out there, have them eyeball the place, give me their best guesses on scenarios and solutions. And find out about that apartment building on the west side. Find me a way to get somebody on the roof.”

CHAPTER 73

Starshak was happy. The waitress play worked. Took about an hour to get a good spread out of the tech guys, another hour for Lynch to get her in to eyeball it, but she picked out al Din right off, no hesitation. Recognized him, recognized his clothes, said she saw him by the elevators right before she found Stein’s body.

Starshak knew eyewitness stuff was crap half the time. But this was solid gold. Cute little All-American girl like that up on the stand? Solid gold.

So now he had a BOLO out on al Din, had the good picture out on the wire, and the tech guys were running it against the rest of this mess. Having a good morning so far.

Then he saw Hickman walking off across the squad toward his office. Fuck. “Lynch, Bernstein,” Starshak yelled across the room.

They looked up, followed his eyes, saw Hickman.

“Fuck,” Lynch said. He and Bernstein headed for Starshak’s office.

Hickman wanted them to pull the BOLO on al Din. “I thought I’d made it clear you were supposed to back off on this,” Hickman said.

“You didn’t make shit clear to me,” Starshak said. “You told Jablonski to lay off Hardin and Wilson, he told me. You see me running anything on Hardin or Wilson? But we like al Din for…” A pause, Starshak turned to Bernstein, “ah jeeze, what’s the count again, Bernstein?”

“Nine,” Bernstein said.

“Nine homicides. Being cops and all, we thought maybe we’d take a shot a clearing those.”

Hickman nodded. “I understand your frustration, Captain, but there are larger issues in play here. This connection between the cartels and Al Qaeda presents a unique opportunity, and it’s something we have to approach with a little tactical discretion.”

“Unique opportunity for whom?” said Bernstein.

“Pardon me?” Hickman asked.

“You think we’re buying all this shit?” Lynch said. “This whole drug cartel and terrorist pile you keep shoveling at us? We know Hernandez has a beef with Hardin over his brother. And we think maybe Hardin’s got some diamonds he stole from some bad guys over in Africa. What we don’t see is any evidence that the one thing’s got anything to do with the other. But you keep telling us there’s this grand conspiracy between Al Qaeda and the cartel. So what Bernstein’s asking, I think, is we see an opportunity for you – we’re just wondering how it works out for anybody else.”

Hickman smiled. “It works out for everybody who’s on the team, Detective. I should think you’d be pleased with the idea of taking the gloves off with the drug lords and street gangs for a change.”

“Just raises all those line-drawing questions,” Bernstein said. “Slippery slopes and all that. But, what the hell. It’s just the Constitution, right?”

“Oh my,” said Hickman. “Playing the Constitution card already? I suppose I should go home and polish my jackboots. You really worried if we dot every I and cross every t for a guy like Hernandez?”

“Yeah, and the cameras all over town are nothing to worry about either, not if you’re not up to anything,” said Lynch. “Except we find out the whole system is out there on pay-per-view and Hernandez is one of the guys with a subscription.”