“Penny,” said the thick-necked guy.
“Kevin Stoddard,” Franks said, dropping the badge and holding out his free hand. “On temporary assignment to the New York office. My boss said I should come out to spell you if you need to take a leak and at least get you some coffee.”
Penny shook his hand, took a cup, looked Franks in the eye. “Who’s your SAC?”
“Warner,” Franks said. “I’m on the assignment sheet.”
Cox pulled out his phone, started typing with his thumbs. Franks acted serene but inside he was praying the hacker had done his work the right way. Otherwise, Franks was going the wrong way and fast.
Cox looked up and nodded. “Where you based usually, Stoddard?”
“Big Easy,” Franks said. “Past nine years.”
“Counterfeiting?” Penny asked.
“Mostly,” Franks said. “But you get threats now and then you have to investigate. Some of those backwoods-bayou boys got tempers and go spouting off about killing the Fed chairman. That kind of thing.”
Penny laughed. “I’ve heard a few of those. What’re you doing up here?”
“There’s a flood of well-crafted bogus fifties down our way,” Franks said. “Two months ago, the same quality bills started showing up in Queens. We’re trying to trace the common denominator.”
Cox took a coffee, said, “Those guys are getting damn good with the digital stuff.”
Penny said, “What happened to your cheek?”
Franks made a show of looking disgusted and amused. “My eleven-year-old nephew, my sister’s kid, he’s been taking tae kwon do? He asked me if he could show me some moves the other night. I wasn’t expecting a spinning roundhouse to the side of my head. Almost knocked me cold!”
Penny and Cox started laughing.
Franks did too, said, “So much for my badassery.”
He set the cardboard tray and napkins on the hood of the Suburban, took the third cup of coffee for himself. “What time are you boys in the air?”
Penny looked at Cox, said, “Wheels off the ground at eleven.”
Franks said, “Helps when you have a motorcycle escort clearing the way to JFK.”
Cox shook his head. “No escort. Bowman doesn’t like them, prefers to blend in.”
Penny said, “I think she’s right. Once she’s in and we’re rolling, we’re just another mobile master of the universe heading toward the corporate jet.”
Franks drank from his coffee. He liked these guys. Salt of the earth, as his mother used to say. Ex-military. Wife. Kids.
Deep down, however, he felt no pity, just building anticipation and thrill.
At four minutes to ten, the agents put their hands to their earbuds.
Cox said, “Roger that.”
Penny headed toward the passenger door. “Thanks for the designer mud, Stoddard.”
“Glad to be of service,” Franks said. He picked up the empty coffee carrier and stripped off a.25-caliber Ruger pistol taped to the bottom.
He shot Penny through the skull from three feet away, then turned the gun on Cox and said, “Don’t.”
Chapter 54
Cox’s hand froze in mid-reach for his weapon.
“Both guns on the hood,” Franks said. “Don’t screw around. I can do this with you living or dying. Doesn’t matter to me.”
Cox reached in, got out his service weapon, then took a backup from his ankle. He put them on the hood.
“Steady,” Franks said, still aiming across the hood as he took the smaller weapon and put it in his pocket, then squatted and tore Penny’s earbud and radio off his corpse.
“Get in,” Franks said, opening the passenger-side door. “You’re driving.”
Cox said, “Whatever you’re planning—”
“Save it for someone who cares.”
Cox hesitated but then climbed behind the wheel.
Franks got in, nudged aside a closed umbrella on the floor, and shut the door.
“Drive.”
“Where?” Cox said.
“Don’t be cute,” Franks said. “I know the plan. Follow it.”
The Treasury agent made a show of putting the Suburban in gear and then tried to backhand Franks.
The assassin anticipated the move and swatted the blow away, then put the Ruger against Cox’s temple. “I’m so far ahead of you, Agent Cox. Do what I say, and you get to live to see the wife and kids. One more dumb move like that, you won’t.”
The agent was furious but put both hands on the wheel. He drove. His service weapon slid off the hood and clattered onto the parking-garage floor.
They exited the garage into drizzle that had turned to steady rain by the time Cox turned on Broadway, heading south into the financial district.
In Franks’s earbud, a man said, “This is Thomas. Shamrock wants to move.”
“Roger that,” Cox said.
“Minute out,” Franks said.
“Copy.”
Franks said, “When you get there, pull over smooth, put it in park.”
“What the hell are you going to do?”
The assassin said nothing as they rolled to a stop in front of Trinity Episcopal Church. The second Cox put the SUV in park, Franks put his finger in the agent’s free ear, aimed behind Cox’s jaw, and shot him through the top of his spine, killing him instantly.
The shot sounded loud to Franks, but it was buffered by the bulletproof glass; people on the sidewalk, rushing to get out of the rain, didn’t seem to notice. He grabbed the umbrella, stepped out, shut the door, and put the umbrella up just before the front door to the church opened.
A big black man in a suit and trench coat came out, carrying an umbrella above a short, dark-haired Caucasian female in her fifties wearing a long blue rain jacket and pumps. The muscle was taking pelting rain to his eyes.
Franks kept his umbrella tilted to block his face. As the pair crossed the sidewalk, he reached as if to open the rear door and then swung toward the woman and shot her in the face at point-blank range.
The agent exploded toward Franks, slashing the umbrella at him and then getting his shoulder into the assassin, driving him back against the SUV. Franks went ragdoll, as if he’d been stunned.
The second he felt the agent go for the submission, he aimed through the umbrella and fired. He heard a grunt before the man fell at his feet, wounded but not dead and going for his weapon.
Franks aimed at the middle of the agent’s forehead.
He pulled the trigger.
Click.
Franks whipped the empty gun at the wounded man’s face, hitting him. He pivoted, raced around the SUV to the driver’s side, pulled Cox’s corpse out, and left him there sprawled in the bus lane.
He threw the car in drive, put on his blinker, and started to pull out into traffic just as the agent started firing. The first round punctured the rear window, blew through both seats, and shattered the radio display.
The second shot...
Chapter 55
As nobody lost in nowhere in no time, three hours passed like minutes for Pablo Cruz. His watch beeped at 8:00 a.m.
He woke feeling deeply rested and ready for the task at hand.
Cruz got up, dusted off his pants, put the cleric’s collar on, and then put on the excellent toupee. Then he exited the darkened storage facility into the basement hallway.
He put on a pair of conservative black-framed glasses fitted with photochromic lenses that adapted to changes in light, darker in sunlight, almost clear inside. Walking quicker now, Cruz left the subbasement and climbed the staircase. Beyond the door, he heard the din of a gathering crowd.
Cruz crisply opened the door and eased out into a stream of earnest youth from all over the world and their adult leaders and chaperones. He smiled at a young woman guiding a group of Asian teens, and she grinned back.