After ninety minutes, the press conference dribbled to a close. As far as Nate Winter was concerned, the whole thing could have been wrapped up in fifteen minutes, tops. Announce the results of the joint fugitive task force. Outline its future. Answer a few questions.
Done.
But reporters had an uncanny ability of coming up with another way of asking what they’d just asked and politicians of saying what they’d just said. And the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and New York Police Department brass wanted their fair share of credit. Deservedly so, maybe, but Nate just wanted to get back to work.
He cleared out of the airless meeting room on the ground floor of a fancy Central Park South hotel—the choice of the mayor’s office—and made his way out to the street, welcoming the blast of chilly New York air.
It was midday. Traffic was bad. Some of the pedestrians had unfurled their umbrellas, but it wasn’t really raining. Just misting, not even drizzling. People were craving real spring air—it was the first week in May—but it felt like March again.
Rob Dunnemore, a fellow deputy U.S. marshal, stood next to Nate and hunched his shoulders against the cold. “My southern blood is protesting.”
Nate glanced at his younger colleague. They both had on their best dark suits, plus their nine-millimeter semiautomatics, their cuffs, their badges—the hardware wasn’t visible, but Nate doubted they could pass for New York businessmen, either. “Air feels good to me.”
“It would. I’ll bet the snow hasn’t melted where you come from.”
Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains. Nate hadn’t been home since his sister Carine’s wedding in February. “My uncle tells me there’s still snow on the ridge. It’s melted in the valleys.”
“The frozen north.” Rob gave an exaggerated shiver. He had the kind of blond good looks and southern charm tinged with danger that had an irresistible effect on the female support staff—and more than one female marshal. “New York’s plenty cold enough for me. Come on. I need a dose of springtime. Let’s check out the tulips in Central Park.”
“Tulips? Dunnemore, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I saw about a million tulips when I was in Holland a couple weeks ago visiting my folks.” He gave Nate an unabashed grin. “I’m kind of into them right now.”
Before Nate could respond, Dunnemore seized on a break in traffic and jaywalked across Central Park South. Nate, who was taller and lankier, followed at a slower pace, still unaccustomed to his fellow deputy’s wide range of interests. He had no idea how or why Rob Dunnemore had ended up in the U.S. Marshals Service, never mind being assigned to its southern New York district. The Dunnemores were a prominent Tennessee family—Rob had been educated at private schools in Nashville and Washington, D.C., and graduated from Georgetown. He’d done a year abroad. Paris. He’d been everywhere and spoke six or seven languages, including Arabic and Farsi. Sooner or later, someone in Washington would reel him in and put him to work in intelligence.
After just four months in New York, Rob noticed everything. After five years, Nate didn’t even notice the noise and grime anymore. He liked the city, but he didn’t delude himself. He wasn’t staying there. There was talk of sitting him at a desk at USMS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. It would be a major promotion after more than a dozen years in street law enforcement.
He and Rob walked down the steps at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street and entered the normally busy southeast corner of the park. But on such a miserable day, it was quiet, the noontime traffic above them almost distant, as if they’d entered an oasis in the middle of the tall buildings and millions of people. The grass was lush and green, the spring leaves thickening on the trees and brush on the steep bank along the Central Park South fence and the famous elliptical-shaped pond. There was just enough of a drizzle to cause pinpricks across the pond’s gray water.
“The tulips are something, aren’t they?” Rob walked up the gently curving path along the edge of the pond. “My sister says they’re done for in Tennessee.”
“Rob, Christ. I’ve got work to do. I can’t be wasting time looking at flowers.”
“What’s the matter? We hard-ass marshals can’t appreciate tulips?”
Nate made himself take in the thousands of tulips that blossomed in waves on the sloping lawn to the right of the path, opposite the pond. Dark pink, light pink, white—they added a cheerful touch of color against the gloom. “All right. I’ve appreciated the tulips.”
“When do tulips bloom in New Hampshire? July?”
“We’re a couple weeks behind New York.”
Probably more than a couple weeks this year, according to his uncle. Even for a tried-and-true northern New Englander like Gus Winter, it had been a long winter. More snow than normal, more days with temperatures that fell below zero—and a Valentine’s Day wedding in the middle of it. The second of Nate’s younger sisters, Carine, and her childhood friend, Tyler North, had finally married. They’d almost made it to the altar the previous Valentine’s Day, but called the wedding off at the last moment. It had taken a murder in Boston and a dangerous showdown with a madman on infamous Cold Ridge in the White Mountains before they came to their senses and finally married.
The previous October, Nate’s other younger sister, Antonia, had married Hank Callahan, now the junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
No one had said, “Two down, one to go,” but Nate had heard the words in his mind. He had no intention of getting married while he was still working on the streets. He’d been orphaned as a little boy. He liked not having anyone worrying about whether he’d come home that night. A wife, kids. A dog. He didn’t even own a cat.
Gus, at least, left him alone. His uncle was in his fifties now and had never married. He was just twenty when he’d ended up raising his nephew and two nieces after their parents died of exposure on the ridge that loomed over their small New Hampshire town of the same name.
Nate had left Cold Ridge at eighteen and never went back to live.
He never would.
“I caught the dogwoods when I was home in April,” Rob said in his amiable southern accent. “You don’t see so many dogwoods up here.”
“Dunnemore? Are you going to keep talking about goddamn flowers all afternoon?”
“Dogwoods are a flowering tree—”
“I know. Give me a break.”
“You should come to Nashville. My sister—” Rob flinched suddenly, his body jerking back and up, his knees stiffening as he grabbed his upper left abdomen and swore. “Fuck. Nate…shit…”
Nate drew his Heckler & Koch, but told himself Rob could just be having a back spasm or a heart attack. The guy almost never swore. Something had to be wrong. Maybe a bee sting. Was he allergic?
Rob staggered back a step, his suitcoat falling open.
Blood.
It seeped between his fingers and spread across his white shirt on his upper left side.
A lot of blood.
“I’ve been shot,” he said, sinking.
Nate caught him around the middle with his left arm, still holding the HK in his right hand, and glanced around for cover, spotted a rock outcropping near the pond on the other side of the path.
The shooter—where the hell was he?
Rob tried to keep his feet moving, but Nate more or less dragged him toward the rocks, then realized he hadn’t heard any gunfire. Apparently no one else had, either. People were going about their business. Two elderly women with Bergdorf Goodman bags, a middle-aged man jogging on the path, a park worker inside a fenced area near the far edge of the tulips. They were all potential targets.
“Get down!” Nate yelled. “Federal officers! Get down now!”
The park worker dove for the ground without hesitation. The women and the jogger were confused at first, then did likewise, covering their heads with their hands and going still, not making a sound.
The rocks seemed a million miles away. Nate had no idea where the shot had come from. Fifth Avenue? Central Park South? The undergrowth along the shore of the pond presented a number of places for a shooter to conceal himself.
A trained sniper could be within hundreds of yards.
A bullet tore into Nate’s upper left arm. He knew instantly what it was. He swore but didn’t let go of Rob, didn’t let go of his semiautomatic.
Definitely no gunfire. Even with the street noise, he should have been able to hear a shot.
The asshole was using a silencer.
“Put pressure on your wound,” he told Rob. “Don’t let go. You hear me? I’ll get help.”
But before Nate could get to his feet, a mounted NYPD police officer rode toward them. “What’s—”
“Sniper,” Nate cut in. “Get off your horse before—”
He didn’t need to finish. The NYPD cop saw Rob’s bloody front, saw his badge on his belt and dismounted, shouting into his radio for help. Officers down. Sniper at the pond in Central Park.
Nate knew the cavalry would be there in seconds.
The young NYPD cop stayed calm and crept toward the rocks. “You both hit?”
Nate nodded. “We’re deputy marshals. The shooter’s using a silencer.”
“All right. Stay cool.”
Rob moaned, his arm falling away from his wound. Nate took over, applying pressure with his hand, as he’d learned in his first-aid training. He could feel his own pain now. His suit jacket was torn and bloody where the bullet had ripped through the fabric. What caliber? Where was the bastard who’d shot him?
Who was next?
The NYPD cop yelled instructions to bystanders.
Sirens. Lots of sirens on the streets above them.
Nate looked at the thousands of tulips brightening the dull landscape.
What the hell had just happened?
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