The Frenzy War Read online

  From the bed, Deidre looked at him with tired eyes. She seemed to have aged years since their ordeal had started. i”When are they going to leave?”

  I Marshal sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know. They said they’d have to reduce their numbers after the first forty-eight hours, but after what happened to Rodney and Jennifer …”

  “I want them to leave. We’re prisoners in our own home. I want to help with the grid search. They’re wasting our time. There isn’t going to be any ransom call.”

  “You know what Gabriel said. We have to maintain appearances.”

  “I don’t give a damn about appearances. I don’t give a damn about what these police think we should be doing, and I don’t give a damn about the pack’s need for secrecy. My daughter’s missing, and I want to be involved in the search for her.”

  Looking at her, he tried not to sound angry. “Our daughter.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I feel so helpless …”

  Marshal took her into his arms, and she wilted against him. “I know. I feel the same way.”

  “Five Wolves down, plus Jason. Six in all. Do you think she’s all right?”

  He stroked the back of her head. “I do. She has to be. We’re going to bring her home. And the people who took her are going to pay.”

  “Why her? She’s never done anything to anyone.”

  Marshal had asked himself the same thing over and over. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They knew about the store.”

  “She was so happy working there. Poor Jason …”

  He felt her convulsing against him, and he wanted to offer her more convincing reassurance. They had nothing to cling to but fading hope.

  “When she’s home and this is all over, I want us to leave the city. Let’s get a house somewhere in the country in another state.”

  He knew that even if Rhonda did come home, she would never leave New York City. She loved Manhattan and hoped to move there one day. “Whatever you say.”

  They held on to each other, their desperate need for contact interrupted by shouts from below.

  Soares threw his cards on the table. “I’m hungry.”

  “You just ate a sandwich,” Cato said.

  “I’m bored. I get hungry when I’m bored.” Standing, he stretched his arms.

  Cato glanced at his phone. “It’s 11:40. Our relief will be here in twenty minutes. Let’s go someplace decent to eat after we get off.”

  Yawning, Soares covered his mouth. “Sounds good. I gotta take a leak.”

  Soares went down the hall to the narrow bathroom and closed the door. In his four years with Missing Persons, he had spent a lot of time in the homes of distraught families, waiting for the phone to ring. He had a few happy endings to tell his own kids but not many. Considering the Lourdes kid had been decapitated, he wasn’t holding his breath for a good outcome regarding Rhonda Wilson. Her parents spent most of their time upstairs, and he preferred it that way. He felt bad for them but had learned not to grow close to the family members of case subjects.

  After relieving himself, he washed his hands and returned to the living room, where he saw Cato setting his phone down, a perplexed expression on his face. “‘Sup, yo?”

  “That was Liaguno. From now on, we’re to notify a new task force of any developments in this case.”

  Soares sat across the table from his partner. “What task force?”

  “I dunno. Something connected to Homicide. Tony Mace is heading it.”

  “Where’d they dig that guy up?”

  “Last I heard, he was running the motor pool or something.”

  “A van just parked out front,” said PO Lewis, the uniform stationed at the front window.

  Soares looked for a reaction in Cato’s eyes. They both rose from their seats and headed over to the window.

  Before they reached it, Lewis spun in their direction. “Holy shit, get out!”

  Angelo steered the van beneath the elevated train tracks, then made a right-hand turn when he reached the long metal stairways descending from the station above. Dozens of men and women loitered outside, many of them smoking outside bars. As the busy street receded behind the vehicle, houses and residential buildings came into view, most of their windows dark and the night quiet. Making a left turn onto a side street, Angelo searched the houses for street numbers. Then he saw the empty police cruiser parked at the curb ahead.

  “We’re here,” he said. “All set?”

  “I’m ready,” Henri said in the back.

  Pulling ahead of the cruiser, Angelo slowed to a stop.

  He saw no police officers outside, just a silhouette peering around the curtain of the picture window to his right. Then he unbuckled his seat belt and climbed into the back. “Be fast.” He opened the sliding door. “There’s someone at the window.”

  “Not for long,” Henri said.

  In the dim illumination provided by the dome light in the ceiling, Angelo watched Henri get down on one knee and raise the rocket-propelled grenade launcher to his shoulder, the rocket at the end of the weapon protruding outside the van.

  The silhouette in the window grew darker, almost solid.

  “He sees us,” Angelo said.

  “And I see him.” Henri squeezed the trigger of the antitank weapon. The soft explosion that followed sounded no louder than a standard gun, and white smoke filled the back of the van.

  Angelo turned his head in time to see the upstairs of the house disintegrate in an orange and yellow fireball, the accompanying roar radiating outward as debris rained down on the van. The blast demolished the first floor of the house, which seemed to fold in upon itself before dark smoke cascaded out. The ground shook, triggering high-pitched car alarms all around the block.

  Henri tossed the RPG launcher down on the van’s floor, and Angelo shut the door. Angelo climbed up front, shifted the van into gear, and stepped on the gas. The van shot forward as flaming boards pierced the murky smoke ahead and unseen projectiles dented the top of the van. The smoke dissipated, and in the rearview mirror Angelo saw bright flames leaping out of the smoky ruins of the house.

  The cell phone’s piercing ring caused Mace to stir in the darkness. Rolling over, he blinked at the digital alarm clock as he clicked on the bedside lamp: midnight. Beside him, Cheryl pulled a pillow over her head. For a moment, Mace felt like he was back in their Manhattan apartment. He picked up his phone and squinted at its display, which flashed Detective Bureau at him. It had been a long time since he had seen that identification. “This is Mace.”

  “Captain, this is Sergeant Biro at Detective Bureau Brooklyn,” a male voice said.

  Brooklyn …

  “I have instructions to notify you with any developments in the Rhonda Wilson abduction.”

  Mace blinked sleep out of his eyes. “Go ahead, Sergeant. You’ve got my attention.”

  “The Wilsons’ home in Bensonhurst is in flames, and neighbors reported hearing an explosion. Two detectives from Missing Persons and one uniform were present. There doesn’t seem to have been any survivors.”

  Mace felt the blood draining from his head. Three cops killed. He took a pen from the end table drawer and pressed it against the notepad by the lamp. “Give me the address.”

  The war had begun.

  PART TWO

  THE FRENZY WAR

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After they made love for the second time, Karol slipped out of bed.

  Admiring her nude body, Willy folded one arm behind his head. “Where are you going?”

  Karol stopped for a moment, an odd expression on her face. “To the bathroom.”

  He nodded at her closed hand. “With your cell phone?”‘

  “I just wanted to check my messages without waking .you. We did get kind of busy as soon as we came in.”

  Propping himself up on one elbow, he felt the gold medallion around his neck slide along his chest. “I’m ready to get busy again.”

  She set he
r phone on the bureau. “We’re going to be exhausted tomorrow. I don’t want Mace to think he made a mistake bringing me on board.”

  ”Mira, you kept me waiting a long time. Now I’ve got you right where I want you. I don’t plan to let you go.”

  Positioning one knee on the bed, Karol looked down at him, faint light shining through the windows highlighting her body. She drew her fingers along the inside of her breasts down to her flat stomach. “You want this?”

  Beneath the blanket, Willy spread his legs. “I’d show you how much if it wasn’t so damned cold.”

  Karol descended onto him like a bird and pecked at his swollen lips. Sliding his hands around her waist, he pulled her closer. She slid her tongue into his mouth, then pulled it out, teasing him. Using one foot, he pushed away the blanket separating them and felt her heat against his skin. She rubbed herself against him, and he readied himself for entry.

  A cell phone rang, and he glanced at her bureau.

  “That’s yours,” she said, rolling off him.

  “Give me my pants?”

  “Get them yourself.” She strode past his pants on the floor, took an electric-blue robe from her closet, and put it on.

  Hopping out of bed, Willy snatched up his pants, removed his cell phone from its holder, and pressed it against his ear. “Diega.”

  “It’s Ken. The Wilsons’ Bensonhurst home was obliterated. Tony’s on his way to the scene. Soares, Cato, and a PO were inside. No survivors.”

  Willy stood straight. “Damn. W—I’ll be right there.”

  “Negative. Tony says he can handle whatever needs doing. He just wanted everyone to know.”

  “I’ll call Karol. You worry about Candice.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

  “Yeah.” Willy shut down his phone.

  “What’s going on?” Karol said.

  “Somebody roasted Rhonda’s house. Her parents, Soares and Cato, a PO—no one made it out alive.”

  “My God,” she said, lowering her voice. “We’re going, right?”

  “Tony says no. He wants us rested for tomorrow.” Climbing back into bed and under the covers, he raised the blanket for her.

  She got in beside him, and they held each other without speaking.

  Mace lived two miles away from the Wilsons’ neighborhood, and he parked a block from the fire scene. Three fire engines, several squad cars, and a pair of ambulances occupied the street, and multiple news crews recorded the inferno, which had spread to the houses on each side of the Wilson home. Uniformed officers held the crowd back while firefighters hosed the houses.

  As Mace showed his ID to a PO and ducked beneath the safety tape, he felt the heat from the flames on his face. White-hot embers rose to the sky on thick, billowy smoke. Standing between two fire trucks with his hands in his coat pockets, he watched the ruins of the middle house smolder. He spotted some Brooklyn DATF detectives and several clean-cut men in suits.

  FBI? Homeland Security?

  He wondered if they would discover the charred carcasses of decapitated Wolves inside the wreckage.

  “This is a hell of a first day, isn’t it?” Norton said behind him.

  Turning, he saw Shelly beside Norton. “Yeah, so much for getting a jump on things,” Mace said. He surveyed the walking suits. “Yours?”

  “Some of them,” Norton said. “There are a lot of agencies here. The preliminary suspicion is that an RPG was used to blow up the house. We’re checking satellite surveillance.”

  Jesus, Mace thought. “What a game changer.”

  “You can say that again,” Shelly said. “Every antiterrorism unit with jurisdiction will be working overtime on this.”

  “So will every cop in the city, with three men down. So much for our secret war.”

  “Why did you come alone?”

  “There’s nothing for my people to do here. I’d rather let them get some rest.”

  “After you met with them without us.”

  Are you following me? “I have a relationship with most of those people. They needed certain reassurances.”

  “We’re part of this team too. From now on, we want to be included in every briefing, even if it’s over drinks.”

  He saw no point in angering them. “Fair enough.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything any of us can do here. Why don’t we all go home and get some sleep?”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  As they approached the crime scene tape, Mace saw reporters and cameramen bunching together, forming a gauntlet. He recognized several of the faces but not all of them.

  “Captain Mace!”

  Ducking beneath the yellow tape, Mace raised it for Norton and Shelly.

  “Why are you back in the field, Captain?”

  “Does the NYPD believe that drug lords destroyed this house?”

  Steeling himself, Mace faced the reporters. “I have no comment.”

  Gabriel shook his sleeping wife’s shoulder.

  Melissa woke with a start, blinking at him in the glare of the bedside lamp. “What is it?”

  “Marshal and Deidre were killed.”

  Sucking in her breath, Melissa sat up.

  “The Torquemadans blew up their house, taking three police with them. Things are going from bad to worse fast.”

  “I don’t want to leave.”

  “You have to think of the children. You have to protect them.”

  “You should be protecting them.”

  Gabriel caressed her cheek. “You know I wish I could.”

  She glanced at the alarm clock—1:30 AM. “Can’t we leave in the morning?”

  “No. Take a quick shower while I pack the car.”

  She kissed him, and he watched her go into the bathroom and close the door. Then he walked downstairs and helped Arick load the luggage into Melissa’s maroon Subaru. Members of the security detail stood on the sidewalk, scanning the trees and buildings.

  When Arick closed the hatchback, Gabriel clasped his shoulder. “I’m trusting you with my family. Don’t let me down.”

  “I won’t, but I wish I was staying here. I don’t like the rumblings of dissent I’m hearing.”

  He didn’t ask what rumblings Arick meant. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Can you tell me where I’m going at least?”

  “Just get to the Canadian border. Melissa will take it from there.”

  Arick smiled. “You’ll never change.”

  Melissa appeared in the doorway, carrying Damien. To Gabriel’s surprise, Elias appeared behind them, carrying Gareth. Gabriel opened the rear passenger door and held out his hands. Melissa passed the sleeping boy into his arms. He considered allowing him to sleep but decided instead to shake him awake. “Damien …”

  Damien opened his eyes.

  “You and your brother are leaving with your mother and Arick now. I want you to do what your mother says. Do you understand?”

  Rubbing his eyes, Damien nodded.

  “And take care of your brother. You’re the oldest.” Gabriel kissed him on the forehead, then set the boy on the booster seat inside the car and fastened a seat belt around him. Damien went limp almost immediately. Turning back, Gabriel took Gareth into his arms. The boy, already half awake, blinked at him.

  “Are you ready for your trip?”

  Gareth nodded without much enthusiasm.

  “Behave.”

  “I will.”

  Gabriel kissed him and seated him next to Damien. Closing the door, he shook Arick’s hand.

  “May I come straight back?” Arick said.

  “No, but I hope to see you soon.”

  Arick nodded, glanced at Elias, them circled the car and got in behind the steering wheel.

  Melissa moved before Gabriel, her eyes shiny even in the streetlight. “The boys and I can make the trip alone. Arick should stay here with you.”

  He cupped her face. “It’s better this way. I’ll worry less.”

/>   “But I won’t.”

  He kissed her lips, then held her.

  Melissa looked into his eyes. “Settle this fast. I want us back together as soon as possible.”

  “I intend to.”

  They kissed again, then Gabriel opened the front passenger door for her and she got in. He closed the door, and Arick drove off. The vehicle grew smaller, then disappeared into the city.

  “I never married,” Elias said beside him. “I have no children.”

  Gabriel glanced at his companion. “Then what are you fighting for?”

  Elias seemed to consider the question. “For our species, but I value my own life as well.”

  Offering him a slight smile, Gabriel returned to the safe house.

  Mace found Cheryl sitting in the living room with Manhattan Minute News playing on TV.

  “What are you doing up?” He already knew the answer.

  “You just missed yourself,” she said. “‘No comment.’ I bet it felt good to say that again.”

  “It didn’t feel good under the circumstances.”

  “The story made the other local channels as well. They actually interrupted infomercials for the news. Are we under attack by terrorists? Or is it still drug dealers?”

  He pulled off his tie. “No comment.”

  Tony …

  “I’m going to bed.”

  Cheryl followed him. “‘Captain Mace,’” she said in a low voice. “‘Why are you back in the field, Captain?’”

  In the bedroom, he peeled away his clothes.

  “‘Does the NYPD believe that drug lords destroyed this house?’”

  Mace climbed under the covers. “Good night.”

  She got in beside him and pressed her body against his for warmth. “Did you know the men who were killed?”

  He searched his memory. “I don’t think so.”

  She didn’t say anything else.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Wlly opened his eyes just after 5:30 AM, with Karol sleeping half on top of him. It had been a good night for him beyond the sex. He knew that Karol’s concerns about their working partnership were valid, but now that his promotion had come through, he would be transferred out of Homicide soon enough. Then they wouldn’t have to worry about potential conflict—as long as they both survived the insane assignment Mace had thrust upon them. Gazing at her sleeping features, he promised himself he would not allow Karol to put herself in danger.