“Don’t shoot!” a voice yelled. “He’s a cop!”
“And he’s a reporter!” yelled another.
Jack. I laughed, never happier to hear the old man’s voice.
Three cops ran over to us, guns trained, and led us back to the group. We were dirty, bleeding, but didn’t feel any of it.
The shooting had stopped. All guns were still trained on the warehouse, but the area had gone silent. The calm after the storm.
Then I felt a pair of arms squeezing me to death, and
I looked up to see Jack O’Donnell.
“Jesus Christ, kid, what are you, a method journalist?
You don’t need to kill yourself to get the story.”
I laughed, hugged the man right back. “You followed us,” I said.
“Damn right. I have to admit it was a little selfish.
Didn’t want you and your cop buddy learning the truth without me.”
A man came over to us. He said, “Louis Carruthers,
Chief of Department. Who’s left in there?”
“I don’t know. At least three are dead. Leonard Reeves, another gunman and Rex Malloy.”
“We’ve taken out another three, but we don’t know how many there were to begin with. Are there any other innocents? Do we need to go back in?”
“Back in? Why would you do that?”
“Look,” Jack said.
I turned around to see orange flames licking at the windows of the warehouse, thick black smoke pouring from inside.
“How’d it catch on fire?” I said.
“Don’t know,” Carruthers said. “But that smoke isn’t from fire.”
“The Darkness,” I said. “Somebody’s burning the place down from inside.”
Before I could speak again, I heard a single gunshot report. Then there was something wet and sticky on my chest. Then I looked into Jack’s eyes and knew what had just happened.
“Henry,” Jack said, “what…”
Then the old man was flung backward, a red rose blooming on his white shirt.
“Jack?” I said.
He looked at me as he fell, his eyes wide and fearful.
Then another gunshot sounded out, this one hitting the adjacent car, less than six inches from where I stood. We ducked for cover, waiting for the firing to end. I stared at
Jack, then quickly looked up to see who was shooting at us.
Eve Ramos was standing at the doorway, gun out, her face covered in blood and ash.
And then a barrage of gunfire like I’d never imagined tore the air apart, ripping Ramos apart in a hail of bullets and blood. Her body was flung through the air like a puppet, her gun firing wildly into the air, before she fell, lifeless, next to the burning building that housed her life’s work.
I knelt down next to Jack, a knot in my throat as I hovered over him. A thin trickle of blood was streaming from his mouth.
“We need an ambulance!” I shouted as loud as I could.
“Somebody help us!”
Two cops ran over, one of them carrying an orange kit.
He placed it beside Jack, opening it, and began to work on my friend. My mentor. The man who was responsible for the person I’d become.
“You’re gonna be fine, Jack,” I said, holding his hand, praying for one squeeze.
Jack’s eyes were open, and to my surprise he was actually smiling. That’s when I felt that squeeze, the old, cracked palm in mine. The blood on my shirt from a man who’d lived a life that had seen more than I could ever hope to.
“It’s okay, Henry,” he said, his voice weak, raspy. “I’ve told my story.”
“No,” I said, tears welling, as I squeezed his hand harder. “You can’t. This is our story. You and me.”
Jack smiled. Then he said, “I know. Butch and Sundance, Henry. Thank you for saving my life.”
Then Jack O’Donnell closed his eyes for the last time.
Epilogue
Amanda held my hand through the entire funeral. I didn’t cry once, and when the service was over, when the church had emptied, I hated myself for that. But then I realized that Jack had ended his life the way he wanted to, chasing that one big story, his name once again where it belonged. His final story.
Through the Darkness Comes the Dawn by Jack O’Donnell and Henry Parker
Rex Malloy was dead. Eve Ramos was dead. Sevag
Makhoulian was found less than an hour after Jack’s death, hiding in a gas station in Queens. He was under indictment for enough crimes to keep him in prison until the rapture.
No less than a dozen people, ranging from accountants who handled the 718 assets to the mayor himself, were under investigation. And I had no doubt that what they would find would end perhaps the largest drug conspiracy the city had ever seen.
And by investigators’ estimates, nearly ten tons worth of narcotics had gone up in flames in that warehouse.
Though he died to tell the story, Jack had saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives.
He would be remembered the way he deserved to be.
A journalist who told the truth, a man who uncovered the greatest stories never told.
The day of the funeral, the Gazette ran a special edition with an insert that collected some of Jack’s most famous pieces from his nearly fifty years on the job. Reading them on the subway to work reminded me of just what an amazing career he’d had. And just how rich a life had been lost.
When I got to my desk, there was a voice mail waiting for me. It was from Linda Veltre, the woman who’d edited
Jack’s book Through the Darkness nearly twenty years ago, chronicling the rise of the drug trade, the story where
Jack had first learned of the Fury. Her publisher wanted to reissue Jack’s book. And she wanted me to write the introduction.
Plus, she said, if I had any thoughts of writing my own book about the investigation of Eve Ramos and 718 Enterprises, she’d love to talk to me over lunch. Apparently she’d already received a call from Paulina Cole’s literary agent expressing interest in writing a book about the story, but the editor felt mine was the right one to tell.
It was something to think about, but another day.
The day after Jack’s funeral I walked into the offices of the New York Gazette, and immediately something felt different, off. I received several nods from my colleagues, the same ones who congratulated me with their eyes, but were afraid to speak because they knew what Jack had meant to me.
Sitting down, I looked out over Rockefeller Center, at a city Jack had known better than most people know themselves. It was a city that pulsed with a million dif-372
Jason Pinter ferent veins, a million different stories. And those stories were still out there, waiting to be discovered.
Life would go on. Jack would have wanted it to.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Wallace Langston making his way across the newsroom floor. There was somebody with him. I couldn’t see who it was, but Wallace was talking to him earnestly, pointing at things as they walked.
As they got closer, I could see that Wallace was leading around a young man. He looked to be twenty-one or
