3rd Degree

Chapter 41

CHARLES DANKO STEPPED INTO the depressingly drab lobby of the large municipal building. There was a security station to his left, two desultory guards inspecting bags and packages. His fingers tightened around the handle of the leather case.

Of course, Danko wasn't his name right now. It was Jeffrey Stanzer. Before that, it had been Michael O'Hara. And Daniel Browne. He had gone through so many names over the years, changing them, moving on whenever he felt people getting too close. Names were fungible, anyway - as easy to change as making a new driver's license. What had remained con-stant was a belief that burned deeply inside his soul. That he was doing something here that was very important. That he owed it to people close to his heart, people who had died for a cause.

But the scary thing - none of that was true.

Because Charles Danko believed in nothing but the hate burning inside of him.

He made a check of the security officers going about their work, but it was nothing new. He had seen it many times before. He stepped up to the platform and started to empty his pockets. He'd done this so many times over the past few weeks that he might as well actually work in this build-ing. Case over there: he mouthed the words before they were spoken.

“Case over there,” the security guard said, clearing a spot on the screening table. He flipped open the top.

“Raining yet?” he asked Danko as he passed it through the X-ray scan.

Danko shook his head, his heart barely skipping a beat. Mal had built a masterpiece this time, the contents molded right into the lining. Besides, these drones wouldn't know how to find the bomb even if they knew what to look for.

Danko walked through the metal detector and a beeper went off. He patted his jacket up and down and seemed sur-prised when he took the bulging device out from one of his pockets.

“Cell phone,” he said, smiling apologetically. “Don't even know it's on me until it rings.”

“Mine only rings when it's for the kids,” the genial guard said with a grin.

How easy it was. How asleep these people were. Even with all the warnings around them. Another guard pushed his case to the end of the platform. He was in. The so-called Hall of Justice.

He was going to blow it to bits! He'd kill everyone in here. Without regrets or remorse.

For a moment Danko just stood there, gazing at the oh-so-busy people rushing back and forth, reminded of his years of staying low, the quiet, trivial life that he was leaving behind. His palms began to sweat. In a few minutes they would know he could strike anywhere. At the epicenter of their power, the very heart of the investigation.

We will find you, no matter how large your house or power-ful your lawyers....

What he was carrying was enough to blow out an entire floor.

He stepped inside a crowded elevator and pushed the but-ton for the third floor. It filled with people coming back from lunch. Cops, investigators from the D.A.'s office, pawns of the state. With their families and pets, watching the Giants on the tube, they probably felt they weren't responsible. But they were. Even the man who swept the floors. They were all responsible, and if they weren't, who cared?

“Excuse me,” Danko said on three, squeezing himself out with two or three other people. Two uniformed cops passed him in the hallway. He didn't flinch. He even smiled at them. How easy it was. The home of the D.A., the chief of police, the investigation.

They had let him walk right in! Morons!

They wanted to show they had this whole G-8 thing under control. He would show them that they didn't have a clue.

Danko took a breath and came to a stop in front of Room 350. HOMICIDE, it said.

He stood there for a moment, looking as if he belonged.

But then he turned and walked back to the elevator. Dry run, he thought as he took the next car down. Practice makes perfect. Then... Boom! Yours truly, August Spies.