make a sound unless you’re told to. When you speak, speak quietly. Understood?”
He could see Dortmund’s eyes wide and gleaming in the dark bedroom and felt him nod his head. He released his grip over the priest’s jaw and face, but kept his knee on the chest. Dortmund did not say a word.
Jack lifted his knee away and nodded at Biehn, who crawled awkwardly off the priest’s lower half. He stepped back and allowed the detective to step forward. Dortmund was frantic to ask a question, but the authority in Jack’s voice still held him in silence.
“You’re Father Dortmund from St. Monica’s,” Biehn said menacingly.
“Y-yes,” the man said. He was mid-sized, perhaps 160 pounds, Jack guessed, with close-cut brown hair. His face was slightly chubby. There was terror in his eyes.
“You know Aaron Biehn?” the detective asked. He fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot. His hands twitched inside the cuffs, but Jack could see that they were still on.
Dortmund looked bewildered for a moment, then replied, “Y-yes, I know him. He’s a good kid—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Biehn said, his voice quiet but as intense as a scream.
“Please, what did I—?”
“Don’t ask what you did! Don’t ask. You know. You tortured my son. You molested him!”
Had Jack been present for Frank Giggs’s interrogation, he would have seen that Dortmund’s reaction was entirely different. Giggs had been forced to confront his monstrous self for the first time, and in public, and it had sent a shudder through him. Dortmund’s reaction was fearful, of course, but there was more disappointment and resignation than sudden self-loathing.
“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” the priest said. “I didn’t do anything.”
Biehn’s hands twitched again, and Jack knew that he wanted to strike the priest. He was glad he’d kept the handcuffs on. “You violated my son. My son, you sick son of a bitch.”
“Please,” Dortmund said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jack needed this all to happen much faster. “We already have one confession,” he said. “You might as well confess, too.”
“Confess—?” Dortmund said. “Are you… are you the police? I want a lawyer.”
“We are the people who decide what happens to you next,” Jack threatened. “And that depends on what you say next. Did you sexually abuse Aaron Biehn?”
Despite the darkness, he could see Dortmund look from one of them to the other, trying to decide what to do. Jack suspected that the priest saw the madness in Biehn’s eyes, and that it scared him, because he finally said in a tiny voice, “Yes.” Biehn said something that was lost behind a choked sob.
“Who else?” Jack demanded. “Who else did this? We know there were others. Tell me now, or I won’t be able to control him.” He pointed at Biehn.
“Giggs. Father Giggs,” Dortmund replied. “And Mulrooney.”
“The Cardinal?” Biehn said.
“Not… He didn’t… didn’t do it,” Dortmund said. “But he knew why I moved to this diocese. He helped make the arrangements.”
Dortmund nodded. “In my old parish. The church moved me after the parishioners complained. They moved me here. I was supposed to… was supposed to control myself.”
Jack’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. Shit. This couldn’t come at a worse moment. “Wait,” he said. He stepped back so that he’d be out of earshot, but kept his eye on Biehn. The man was still twitching, still asking Dortmund a question, but Jack had to answer this.
“Carlos, go,” he said quickly.
“Hey, man,” the NSA operative said. “We got you something. Your boy works late, like me. He made a call a little while ago. Having a meeting at three a.m. at his place with someone. They were definitely talking about plastic explosives. He wants to get hold of more for a new client, he said.”
“That’s a harder one, my friend,” Carlos replied, a little dejected. “Someone with a little sophistication. It was a scrambled line, and sent our tracers all over the damned planet. Could have been right next door for all I know. But we’re on it. He calls that number again, and we’ll get ’em.”
“Thanks, Carlos. This was helpful. I—”
What happened seemed to occur in slow motion. Jack saw Biehn’s hands twitch again, but this time they twitched and came loose. The handcuff stayed on his good hand; the bandaged one came free. Jack was already in motion. He’d already taken one step by the time Biehn’s good hand snatched up the loose ring off the handcuff, turning it into a weapon, and Dortmund’s eyes were growing big as saucers. Jack was finishing his second step and taking his third when the detective punched downward, smashing the sharp edge of the handcuff into Dortmund’s throat.
Life sped up again, and Jack was tackling Biehn across the bed. Biehn turned into a rag doll and Jack rolled him onto the floor, crashing against a dresser. He put Biehn on his face and dragged his hands behind him. He couldn’t see the hands clearly in the darkness, but by the feel of it he could guess what had happened. Biehn’s hand was more damaged than he realized. The fingers had dislocated. Biehn’s twitching had been an effort to dislodge them further. He’d popped his own thumb out of its socket, letting him slip the cuff.
“Damn it!” he cursed. He cuffed Biehn again, this time digging the cuff in so tight it drew blood. He couldn’t leave the cuff like that forever or the man would lose his hand. But for the moment he was taking no chances. Jack pulled his second pair of cuffs out again and resecured Biehn’s feet.
He jumped up and vaulted the bed to check on Dortmund. The priest was in the middle of convulsions, gagging and clutching at his throat. Jack reached for the small lamp on the nightstand and turned it on. He pulled Dortmund’s hands away from his throat. A deep bruise was already forming there, and Jack knew what had happened. Biehn had crushed his throat with the blow. Dortmund was choking to death.
“Calm down. Calm down!” he said, slapping Dortmund. The man’s thrashing was not helping. Shit, he had to do something. If he didn’t, he was an accomplice to murder. Jack pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand. It was a gallimaufry. He dug through the odds and ends, shoe polish kits and old watches, until he found a Bic pen. Using his teeth, he tore the top off it and plucked out the ink tube in the middle, until all he had left was a hard plastic straw.
Dortmund was turning blue and clutching at his throat. Urgent, terrified, gurgling noises came out of him, and his eyes were shiny with tears and fear. “I’m trying to fucking help you!” Jack said, shoving him back down on the bed. He stuck the tube between his teeth and pulled a knife out of his pocket. It was a small folder. He snapped it open and held it over Dortmund. He made his voice calm. “Don’t move. This is going to hurt. But it will help you breathe. Understand? Don’t move.”
Dortmund nodded but couldn’t stop from twitching. Jack jumped on top of him, straddling him, his knees pinning the priest’s arms to his sides. With his free hand, Jack grabbed Dortmund’s forehead and pushed it hard into the pillow and mattress. Then, quick as he could, he touched the tip of the knife to the throat below the bruise. He made a quick incision. There was blood, but not much because Jack hadn’t come close to the carotid arteries. Jack put down the knife and snatched the pen tube out of his mouth. Lining it up with the hole he’d just made, he pushed it, driving it steadily through the resistance he felt. A second later, a wet rasping sound emerged from the outer end of the tube. Dortmund’s chest heaved and the wet sound was repeated. After a moment, the priest’s natural color returned. He moved his mouth but could not speak.
“Don’t try,” Jack said. He touched his own throat. “Your throat was crushed. I gave you a kind of tracheotomy.”
Dortmund’s hands probed his throat.
“Don’t touch. It’s a pretty bullshit emergency rig. You need to get to a hospital.”
The priest looked at Jack with something like tearful appreciation. Jack sneered at him. “Don’t thank me. You’re a piece of shit and you probably deserve to die. But I don’t have time to deal with it right now.”
The door opened on Nina’s second loud knock. The man who answered was in his mid-forties, with a well- trimmed dark beard and soft black eyes behind a pair of wire-framed glasses perched crookedly on his nose. He was
