Sealey said, “Rigby’s coming out.”

  Walter turned again. Pain screamed up his back. He’d been sitting still too long. Didn’t think to bring water, either. His throat felt like he’d been swallowing sand, and the mucus coming up from his lungs gummed up the entire works. He coughed into the crook of his elbow, cleared it as best he could.

  Her stance was different.

  Tense.

  Red was right. They’d move anytime now.

  He had less than nineteen minutes.

  Walter watched the salt truck start on another lap as Rigby crossed the intersection and stepped up to the damaged patrol car.

  She said, “Lincoln Sealey, Alfred Larson. Who else do you have out here?”

  “I’ve got a small army. And Larson prefers to be called Red.”

  “We need to talk about the people inside that club,” she replied. “I just hung up with my boss, and the people I answer to are getting nervous. They think you’ve got that bomb on a timer and that you plan to set it off no matter what happens. They think this business with the girl is bogus. Got a dozen people poring through your service record, and they’re all telling me you’re nothing short of psychotic. Delusional.”

  Walter knew what she saw—an old man. Frail. Broken. A cripple with a cane, beaten down, covered in scars. “I take it you’re on board with that assessment?”

  Rigby said, “Give me an alternate theory. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing for the past twenty-four years? Let’s start there.”

  “Would you believe I’m an agent with an elite government unit operating off the books for the DOD?”

  Not even a smile. “No.”

  “Then stick with delusional.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re serious? You want me to believe you’re all part of some off-the-books DOD op?”

  Walter shrugged. “I don’t expect you to believe anything.”

  “You’re forcing my hand. I can’t let you blow up that club.”

  Walter looked down at his hands. “How many snipers do you have on me right now?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Six.”

  “And you’ve got shooters watching my shooters. You’ve got teams in the tunnels, ready to go. Ready to take my people out. Sounds like you’ve got all the bases covered. So why are you standing here?”

  “Truth?”

  “Why not.”

  “Because you don’t seem the least bit worried about all that, and that scares the hell out of me.”

  “Some things are more frightening than bullets.” He looked up at her. “Did you watch Red Larson’s video?”

  The look on her face told him she had.

  He went on. “CIA shot that. Sent a man to the middle of hell to talk to him when he was found. Not sure if you caught the dates—the night he talked about, the night he went missing, was March ’68. He didn’t turn back up until August. Vanished for five months. That thing that attacked him killed the two men he was with and got a good start on him before some locals stumbled onto their camp and ran it off. Took five months in their care to nurse him back from that. Physically, anyway. I’m not sure his psyche ever recovered. They called it preta. Means hungry ghost. Eater of life.” He looked her dead in the eye. “Here in the States, we call it a succubus.”

  She almost said it.

  He caught the twitch in her mouth.

  Not real. Bullshit.

  But she didn’t.

  That told him two things—first, she’d seen enough of the drive to at least pique her curiosity. And two, Red was right—they were prepping to move and she was stalling, maybe here to distract him. None of that mattered.

  Walter cleared his throat. “Don’t ask me to explain the hows of it all; I’m not sure anybody can. There’s only theories. Legends. Lore. Campfire tales. I can tell you, nobody sees the same thing when they look at her. Best I can describe it, they see their ideal woman. That’s how she draws them in. Then she feeds. Give her enough time, and she’ll suck a body dry. Savor it like wine. Can do it with just a touch.” Walter wrapped the fingers of his right hand around his left wrist and flashed back to the ME’s office all those years earlier. God, he had been naive back then. “Kills surrounding tissue. Causes cells to go haywire. Looks like cancer, but that’s only part of it. She drains the life out. Give her enough time, and she’ll leave nothing behind but a dried-out husk. If she’s in a hurry”—he tapped the side of his head—“instant aneurysm or blood clot. She’d been taking her time with Red when the locals in ’Nam got him out, left him in a bad way. They somehow nursed him back with something called oxenberry. Reverses things to a certain extent. Poisonous to her. Took all of those five months to get him back on his feet again, sans one digit.” He held up his left index finger. “Still don’t know why she takes them. At first, I thought they were souvenirs, but Red found some old texts out of Italy that said, and I quote, ‘Consumption of a victim’s senses increases strength and vitality.’ Nose, eyes, fingers—smell, sight, touch—she just happens to have a thing for fingers.” He paused for a moment, gathered his thoughts. “We almost had her at Bakersfield, then things went bad. Sealey took the heat for that one, but we all got shitcanned. Some pencil pusher in Washington caught the ear of the right senator and convinced him our little operation was bad for business. Consequences be damned, best to let the monsters roam free than risk negative press.”

  “The date on Bakersfield was what, ’09? What have you been doing since?”

  “Trying to forget. Trying to walk away. And failing at both,” he said flatly. “She’s my white whale, and this particular Ahab is dying. I can’t let it go. Can’t let her go.”

  Whether she believed any of this or not, she couldn’t help but ask, “And you think she’s inside this club?”

  “I know she is.”

  “How?”

  Walter thought of the text. “She contacted me. Wanted to see me.”

  “If she knows you’re trying to kill her, why would she do that?”

  “Same reason she didn’t kill Red when she found him again in that hospital. Same reason she didn’t kill me all those other times. This is all some kind of game to her. Like I said earlier, I think she gets bored. Something like her, something older than dirt…how would you fill the time?”

  “This is it, fellas,” Red said in Walter’s earbud. “Go time.”

  “It’s been a pleasure working with you both,” Sealey replied.

  Red chuffed. “Stow that shit. Ain’t over yet.”

  The commander looked Walter dead in the eye. “So Sealey and this Red Larson are in those buildings? Who else? We identified eight. Who are the others?”

  He had no reason to lie to her. It wouldn’t change what was about to happen. “If I told you it was just the two of them, would you believe me? When I learned she’d be here, I got the band back together for one last show. Just me and the boys playing our old hits.”

  “We know you have more. Who do you have in the club?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Why aren’t they answering the phones?”

  Walter didn’t have an answer to that, so he said nothing.

  There it was again, that twitch at the corner of the commander’s mouth. Her hand was resting on the butt of her service weapon, and the movement of her eyes told him a million thoughts were passing through her head, riding a wave of adrenaline.

  In a voice that didn’t waver, slowly and perfectly enunciated, the commander said, “You do understand you’ll go to jail for this? Possibly for the rest of your life? Won’t matter that you’re sick. If you don’t surrender, if you don’t tell your people to step down, you’ll face a litany of charges.”

  And that was when they went.

  Chapter

  85

  Rigby’s gun was out of the holster and on him in one swift motion, inches from Walter’s head. From several rooftops, shots cracked from high-powered rifles. Sharp snaps quickly followed by the sound of shattered glass as Detroit PD targeted all locations simultaneously.

  In his mind’s eye, Walter pictured the bullets tearing across the intersection, bursting through windows, and burying themselves in center mass as Sealey and Red huddled over their weapons. Hearts exploding. Bodies falling. Both men dead in an instant. Or maybe they were head shots. No way to know for sure.

  From the lower floors of the two buildings housing his friends, flash-bang grenades went off. More windows shattered, and it wasn’t difficult to see these highly trained SWAT officers quickly moving on the locations identified by thermal imaging cameras, clearing all as they went. Moving fast but with caution, even though someone on their radio channel was most likely reporting all shooters down.

  Oblivious to all this, the snowplow truck rounded the club again, belching dark smoke.

  Without lowering her gun, Rigby shouted out, “Shut that thing down, now!”

  Several officers surrounded the truck, weapons drawn. The taillights glowed red. The engine switched off, and the driver leaned out the window, extending both hands toward the sky.

  In a low voice, Walter said, “Go easy on that guy. He’s not part of this. I found him in a homeless shelter on Eighteenth and gave him a couple hundred bucks to drive the truck. We stole it, not him. I figured he would have stopped a long time ago. He’s just a kid.”

  She heard him, but she was listening to the chatter on her comm, too.

  Walter could only imagine what that sounded like, an operation this big.

  More flash-bangs went off.

  He glanced over at the reporters. One was ducking down, pointing over her shoulder behind her while rattling off something in her microphone. Two others were obviously live on the air, standing, with the chaos as their backdrop, as if they were safe because they were behind those flimsy barricades. Cameras swirled around everywhere—not just the press, but the crowd—a hundred-plus arms holding up cell phones and twisting them around to capture whatever they could. The choppers had moved in closer, too. One cameraman was hanging out an open door with a harness holding him in place.

  Chaos.

  Exactly what they wanted.

  Probably a million or more eyes watching now.

  The flash-bangs stopped.

  The echo faded and died.

  Commander Rigby’s face went from frustrated to confused and back again. To someone in her comm, she said, “Bring him down. I want him right here.” The grip on her gun tightened, and she glared at Walter. “Where are the rest? Who has the detonator? Fucking Sterno cans? Are you kidding me!?”

  The Sterno had been Red’s idea. They lit up cans of Sterno behind desks, places without direct line of sight, to mimic heat signatures.

  Bring him down. They’d caught at least one.

  With her free hand, she plucked the earbud from Walter’s ear and jammed it in her own. Listened.

  “My people are off comms now,” Walter told her.

  Walter heard Sealey then, shouting.

  He turned to see three officers pulling him from the federal building where he’d been holed up. He was in handcuffs, and one of the officers was carrying his rifle. They brought him over and forced him to his knees on the pavement at the commander’s feet.

  Sealey glanced at Walter but didn’t say anything. Nothing to say.

  Commander Rigby cupped a hand over her ear, listening to all the communications chatter. Her frown deepened, and she trained her gun on Sealey. “Where’s Larson? Does he have the detonator?”

  Walter exchanged another look with Sealey, then said, “There is no bomb. We lied.”

  “You lied.”

  For a second, Walter thought she might pistol-whip one of them. But she was fully aware of all the cameras on her and smart enough to hold back. “Out of that car, on the ground, now!”

  “Come on, I have a bad—”

  One of the SWAT officers who had brought Sealey over grabbed Walter by his heavy vest, yanked him out of the battered police cruiser, and forced him to the ground next to Sealey. Walter’s leg and back both screamed, and he felt a sharp pain in his chest. A ball of phlegm rolled up his throat and he choked it out, spat it to the pavement. Red, black, and diseased.

  The commander ignored this, pressed a finger to the earbud she’d taken from Walter. “Alfred Larson—surrender immediately to the closest member of Detroit PD!”

  Sure, that would bring him out.

  In her own comm, she growled, “He’s in one of those buildings. Look again.” She looked back toward the SWAT van and the mass of uniformed officers and patrol cars around it. “Unit commanders, coordinate with the team leaders, assist. No way he got out of here. I want a complete canvass.”

  Around the west corner of the club, Walter spotted six more SWAT officers in full tactical gear huddled against the wall and crouched low. Commander Rigby turned toward them. “Hersh, Yellow team—you’re a go on the club. Bomb squad, I want you on their backs. Clear everyone out as quickly as possible and search every inch of that place. Hurwitz, bring in the buses. I want every person searched and placed on a bus. Nobody leaves our custody. We’ll interview them back at HQ. Use caution—any one of them could be part of this.”

  Walter had figured they’d use buses. There were at least two hundred people inside the club. He wouldn’t let anyone go, either. It was all a complete waste of time, but necessary.

  Procedure.

  Procedure.

  Procedure.

  Six SWAT officers crossed the pavement and rounded the valet stand at the front door soundlessly. More went around to the back—welded shut or not, they covered all egress points. Uniformed officers lined up behind SWAT, weapons out.

  At the front door, one of them held a large battering ram. He quickly set it aside when he realized the door wasn’t locked. Using a small mirror, he checked all edges of the door for potential traps, switches, or triggers, then nodded back in the commander’s direction and mouthed something into his radio Walter couldn’t hear.

  Commander Rigby nodded. “Go,” she said into her comm.

  An eerie quiet fell over the crowd of bystanders, the press—all eyes on the club as the officer in the lead pulled the door open and the others quickly filed inside.

  Chapter

  86

  Rigby’s body tensed. If she was breathing, Walter didn’t see it. There was only a slight tremble in the corner of her jaw as she stared at the club, stone-faced, one hand over her ear.

  Listening.

  Thirty seconds ticked by.

  One minute.

  Two.

  In a low voice, she said, “Yellow team, report.”

  Although she spoke in an even tone, there was a slight waver just beneath the surface.

  She tapped on her earpiece, as if the device had stopped working and she was trying to coax it back to life. “Hersh, I said report.”

  Nothing.

  “They’re dead, Commander,” Walter said softly. “She killed them. Probably the second they stepped inside. They didn’t even get a shot off. That’s why nobody’s answered the phone. They’re all dead. We need to stop her before she gets out.”

  Sealey bobbed his head toward his rifle; it was hanging around the neck of one of the men who had brought him over. “Your guns are useless. The bullets in that weapon are coated with oxenberry. They’re deadly to her.” He paused a second. “Commander, everything we told you about her is true. We’re equipped to deal with this; you are not. I strongly suggest you back down and let us do our job before you lose additional personnel.”

  If Rigby hadn’t connected Sealey to the voice on the phone earlier, she certainly did now. Walter saw the recognition flood her gaze. That realization only served to anger her more. “Why isn’t this man in restraints? Get cuffs on him. Now.”

  Two officers quickly tugged at Walter’s wrists, and he felt zip ties tighten in place.

  Commander Rigby tapped her comm again. “Breach team, report.”

  No reply came.

  “Anyone have visual on the interior? Hurwitz—what do you see on the body cams?”

  Walter couldn’t hear what was said in reply, but whatever it was, it caused a frown to deepen on Rigby’s face.

  Another minute ticked by.

  One of the officers standing on Walter’s right pointed at the club. “There!”

  The first person to stagger out was maybe twenty-five, wearing a tight satin T-shirt and dark jeans. His hair was mussed, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. He looked out at the large crowd outside the club and froze in the doorway. A SWAT officer appeared behind him and gently urged him on. The man stumbled out. Another officer pointed him toward one of the buses. It took him a moment to understand, then he started toward it, slowing only when he encountered the thick swath of salt. The crowd was still so quiet, Walter could hear the salt crunching under the man’s feet. Then he was on the bus, and three more people appeared at the club’s door.

  Four more behind them.

  Men and women, all appearing exhausted, formed a line from the club to the buses in a rushed evacuation as members of the bomb squad darted in the opposite direction, vanishing inside.

  Walter knew they wouldn’t find anything.

  Near the SWAT van, a gray Ford Taurus screeched to a stop and an older man in a dark suit got out, seemed to assess his surroundings, then flashed an ID wallet and badge at the nearest officer, who pointed him at Commander Rigby, and the man started over.

  “Feds are here,” Walter said.

  The man’s eyes locked on Sealey as he approached the commander. “Are you in charge here? I believe someone told you I was coming?”

  Rigby offered a quick nod, then spouted off orders into her comm. Bomb squad, no doubt searching room by room.

  To Sealey, the man said, “A lot of people want to speak with you.”

  Sealey shifted his weight but said nothing.