Hunt had no interest in what his colleagues from the New York field office were saying. He knew what had happened here; he’d helped to plan it. He knew what they would do in response, and it was unfolding around him. The FBI was the perfect reaction machine. Something happened, they checked the playbook, and they deployed.
That kind of thinking was what had brought Hunt to this point. He had grown up in a family of cops. He remembered his grandfather’s frustration when Miranda suddenly became more than just the surname of a Brazilian samba singer. Suspects, even those caught in the act, suddenly had more than just their constitutional rights. Those rights had to be spelled out while the perps spit and swore at you. Hunt’s father was young enough to adjust-and was pushed backward into oncoming traffic on Philadelphia’s Broad Street by a mugger whose rights he was reciting. The elder Hunt never walked again.
Hunt had grown up believing in preventative action, which was why he’d joined the Bureau. He thought he would have the opportunity to infiltrate criminal organizations, sniff out terrorists in their communities, track clearly unrehabilitated felons as they returned to their previous lives. Hunt wanted to do it all with the fidelity, bravery, and integrity that was the FBI motto. He also had his own subset of that, his own personal marching orders: foresight, boldness, and imagination. His father and grandfather often spoke of the sixth sense a lawman had or acquired for knowing who was square and who was not. Hunt possessed that instinct. It didn’t matter to him who had to be put down to protect “the good.” It had never mattered to him.
Even in the more trivial times of his youth, he’d learned that winning was just the beginning of success. Young Alex had been playing king of the hill in the backyard when his neighbor’s Doberman, Sergeant Pepper, was let out, and spurred on by the rowdiness of the kids, it impulsively jumped the fence and went on the attack. Terrified, the other boys scattered toward the house, but it was Alexander, the king, who stayed and faced the canine head-on. His mind quickly chose a different battlefield.
Hunt ran down the hill, across the street, and channeled the pursuing dog into the small cemetery on the adjacent block, where he industriously picked up a collapsed tombstone and used it brazenly to crush the dog’s back before it could fully latch on to his leg.
Sergeant didn’t die instantly, but instead wriggled and whimpered on the manicured lawn while Alexander’s friends slowly congregated and then celebrated their safety with applause and taunts to the now debilitated, squirming creature. Hunt challenged any one of them to finish the job, to match the strike he had been forced to make. And no one stepped forward. Having sustained only a scratched ankle and calf from the initial chase, Hunt took a deep breath and brought his foot down heavily on the creature’s chest, crushing the remaining life out of it. Checkmate. He then methodically dug a hole with his hands and buried the remains under a nearby willow tree, the other boys uselessly stomping the earth down afterward, and then Alex went home without saying another word. His friends kept quiet about the missing dog. The deed was done and couldn’t be undone, no matter what sentence was passed-nor did they wish to answer to Hunt if they spoke up. His equanimity had protected not only him, but them. And to them, the small fee of silence was worth the price of security. And Alex’s reward of preserved loyalty, however useless his cohorts were at the time, taught him to start choosing his associates more carefully. Friends with better hits.
It seemed to Hunt that humankind had become apprehensive and could no longer keep pace with an exceptional willingness to prevail. To stand one’s ground. To fight inflexibly for sovereignty. And sacrifices just became footnotes to his many Bureau successes, casualties of his inviolable crusade for better traction. For the greatest advantage.
Because of the rules, because the Federal Bureau of Investigation was so concerned with rights and with not offending this group or that by profiling, by eschewing critical eyes on the borders, on mosques, on ethnic neighborhoods, or on markedly nonethnic neighborhoods where white supremacists were known to dwell, the FBI had lost the all-important first-strike capacity.
And so the United States of America became the giant who had to take the jabs while waiting for the opportunity to kayo an opponent. That was true at home, and it was true abroad, where most of the hate was nurtured. Trask had said it best in their first meeting.
“No more surgical strikes, no more military body bags,” he’d said. “We’ll turn the desert to glass and clean up with Windex.”
Getting to that point would come with an awful price. But it was necessary. And before Hunt’s father died, the AD wanted to be able to go to his bedside and say, “Dad, we went on offense, big-time.” He wanted to see the old man smile before he died.
Hunt had walked over to the agents to stall his guests. But he was watching them, and when he saw Bishop peel off, he had a good idea where he was going. Hunt was about to excuse himself when his Minotaur beeped. He stepped from the others, watching Bishop, while he took the call.
“Where is Muloni?” the caller asked.
“She was across the street from the lab,” Hunt said behind his cupped hand. He had begun walking briskly toward the retreating Bishop. The crowd would keep him from getting too far. Kealey was watching Hunt. There was no getting around him, and Hunt motioned for the man to move in that direction.
“I checked domestic tracking and ID,” Trask said. “She requested two cab destinations today. The second was to your location.”
“That’s standard operating-”
“I don’t care,” Trask interrupted. “It’s time the renegade was eliminated.”
For Baltimore, for Franklin May, Hunt had assumed a philosophical attitude toward killing: the good of the many outweighed the needs of the few. That made what he was ordered to do palatable.
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” he said as he folded away the phone.
Hunt carried a Sig Sauer P220 Equinox. The Sigs were being phased out in favor of Glocks, with their smoother trigger action, but the AD was fond of his. 45 semiautomatic. He didn’t reach for the weapon in his deep shoulder holster, not yet. But he was folding and unfolding his fingers, his eyes zeroing in on Bishop as he walked, watching the area around him-and making sure, all the while, that he stayed wide of Kealey.
And then Hunt saw Bishop come to a hard stop at the foot of Spruce Street. Kealey was slightly behind him. He couldn’t risk drawing now; the CIA expat was certainly packing, as well. Hunt waited until he was at the edge of the crowd, which thickened as he neared City Hall Park, where the people he put behind him would shield him.
There was not enough room between the cab and the car ahead of it for Bishop to stand in front of the cab. Since he didn’t want it to go anywhere, he yanked open the passenger door.
“Hey, it’s occupado! ” the driver shouted.
“It’s okay,” the passenger told him. “I’m getting out.” She pushed a twenty into the plastic tray and slid from the cab.
The driver muttered his thanks for being stranded in a no-go zone as she slammed the door. Bishop was staring at her.
“You first,” he said.
“That’s not how it’s going down,” she replied.
Bishop was perplexed. He assumed she was here tracking Veil. He hadn’t wanted to say anything until he knew for sure that she knew. That was SOP packaged inside IA uber-caution. But what Jessica Muloni had just said to him was something else entirely. It wasn’t a prelude to information exchange. It was a command, as if Bishop were a suspect and she was the arresting agent.
Muloni pulled him away from traffic, toward the sidewalk. They stood beside the Pace University building. It was less crowded here, beside the bridge.
“Put your hands in your front pockets,” she said. Her voice and eyes were steel, and her right hand was behind her. He felt sick. She had a piece in her belt, under her shirt, and she was prepared to pull it on him.