The Burning Edge

Felk examined the FBI agent’s badge and his ID.

Special Agent Gregory Scott Dutton stared at Felk from his laminated ID photo. All-American pumped with righteousness from Bridgeport, Connecticut. Felk looked through Dutton’s wallet. It held about a hundred in cash, credit cards, bank card, loyalty cards; a receipt for a headlight set from a Newburgh, New York, dealer. A woman’s face beamed at Felk from a snapshot.

That would be the wife.

Felk looked back at Dutton’s bureau ID. The agent’s eyes were burning bright, duty-bound; fated to make a stupid move. Yet some of the news reports portrayed him as a hero who’d sacrificed his life. Probably get some sort of hero’s full-color honor-guard funeral at Arlington. Felk sneered.

What did his men get for their sacrifice?

They were dragged through a backwater street like animals, their bodies desecrated.

And what about his men held captive and tortured?

What awaited them if Felk’s squad failed to deliver the ransom?

Decapitation.

There’d be no honoring of their work; the risks they took, the price they paid, the blood they’d given, the toll exacted. No memorials. They were throwaway heroes, every one of them.

Including his younger brother.

Clayton.

“Don’t leave me!”

Staring out the window to the lake, Felk suddenly saw himself at ten in Ohio during winter.

Just him and Clay, getting set to play hockey on the frozen pond near the house. The Felk brothers are the first of the boys to arrive for the game. No one else is in sight and Clay’s practice pass bounces over Ivan’s stick and the puck glides far over the ice.

So very far.

Ivan skates after it over smooth-as-glass ice, so clear he can see the muddied bottom with undulating grass, even fish, it’s like he’s flying until the air cracks and the ice collapses under him and instantly he’s in the water, so cold it punches his breath from him as he plunges to the bottom where he drives his skates into the mud and pushes up, breaking the surface, body stabbed numb, ears ringing with hysteria.

“Clay! Help me, Clay!”

In his thrashing panic Ivan sees his little brother skating…AWAY! OH, GOD, HE’S SKATING AWAY! NO!

“Clay, don’t leave me! C-C-Cla—Clay—HELP ME!”

At eight years old, Clay’s heart is nearly bursting, skating so hard to old man Corbin’s dock, and the post that has that white old-fashioned lifesaver with the rope. Snow covers the ice and now Clay’s running on his skates, snot tears tightening on his face as he yanks and jerks and pulls the rope and trips and runs then skates while crying choking sobs, hearing Ivan’s screams, praying he’s still thrashing in the water. Clay skates, but it’s so far and the rope’s uncoiling behind him, but Clay skates and skates and like Dad showed them drops to his belly on the ice near Ivan and slides the lifesaver to Ivan who gets it over his arms yelling, “Pull, Clay!” Clay slides to the end of the rope, digs in his blades, feeling the weight of his big brother’s life at the end and Ivan feels the strength of Clay’s will dragging him from the icy jaws of death, wrapping his jacket around him and practically carrying him to old man Corbin’s door where there’s a hot stove going inside pounding on that stinking cracked door hearing his old mutt yapping the old man’s eyes JESUS! Ivan’s covered in ice his lips are blue heat spills from the house and Clay’s begging help my brother please! Oh please help him…

Felk turned from the window to his computer and replayed the last video from the insurgents, his rage building as he watches the sword rise over his brother’s head as Clay’s cries echo with his own from the pond.

“Don’t let me die! Ivan, please! Don’t let me die!”

Hang on, I’m coming, Clay.

Felk swallowed and turned back to the bag of items collected by Rytter from the service center. What’s this? There was something else that got swept up with the cash Rytter had recovered.

It was a plastic photo-ID employee card for Good Buy Supermart.

Felk looked at the woman on the card.

Her face was familiar: She was the woman next to the cop.

Was she the eyewitness? Was she the threat, the one thing that could stop them? No. No way. She didn’t see anything.

Right?

She didn’t see anything. There’s no goddamn way a supermarket clerk can stop this operation. Who is she?

He studied the ID

Lisa Palmer.

Felk stared at Lisa’s face for a very long time.

21

New York City

Tense from a troubled sleep, Jack Gannon woke early.

In the predawn light he saw his files blanketing him, fished out his splayed notebook and paged through his late-night thoughts on his tipster.

Mr. Anonymous could be linked to the heist.

In the wake of the murders, the caller’s cryptic information now rang too many alarm bells. Gannon had to steal time to chase this lead down, but couldn’t tell anyone what he was doing.

If it dead-ended, then no one would know.

If it turned out to be something, he’d alert Lisker.

Following a hunch never sat well with editors and, unlike some reporters, Gannon never oversold a story.

He started a pot of coffee then climbed into the shower.

After a breakfast of microwaved bacon on a cold bagel with lettuce, tomato and mayo, and orange juice, he fired up his laptop and got to work. He downed his coffee while checking the major news websites to see if his competition had advanced the story.

Nobody had hard news, mostly rehash. All was good until he read the lead item from the New York Daily News.

$6.3M Armored Car Heist Killers Fled Upstate The ice-cold killers who vanished with $6.3M after gunning down three guards and an FBI agent may be in Upstate New York near the Canadian border, sources told the Daily News.

Gannon cursed. The Daily News reported that locals near Alexandria Bay, New York, told police they’d spotted sport bikes that fit the general description of those in nationally broadcast security video. The exclusive gave the tabloid the jump. Expecting Lisker to call soon and scream at him, Gannon turned to his work.

He would devote as much time as he could get away with to pursuing his instincts on the caller. Then he’d turn to another angle: New York State police trooper Brad West, his friend who’d helped him at the scene.

Later he would press Brad to get his wife, the Ramapo cop, to help him find out more on the eyewitness.