Dance Of Death

SIXTY-ONE

Laura Hayward walked briskly up the steps of the Lower Manhattan Federal Building, Captain Singleton at her heels. Singleton was, as usual, dressed nattily: camel's-hair topcoat, Burberry scarf, thin black leather gloves. He hadn't said much on the ride downtown, but that was okay: Hayward hadn't felt much like talking.

It had been barely twenty-four hours since D'Agosta walked out of her office and away from her ultimatum, but it might as well have been a year. Hayward had always been an exceptionally levelheaded person, but as she walked into the Federal Building, she had an almost overpowering sense of unreality. Maybe none of this was happening, maybe she wasn't on her way to an urgent FBI briefing, maybe Pendergast wasn't the most wanted criminal in New York and D'Agosta his accomplice. Maybe she'd just wake up and it would be January 21 again, and her apartment would still smell of Vinnie's overcooked lasagna.

At the security checkpoint, Hayward showed her shield, checked her weapon, signed the clipboard. There wasn't going to be a happy ending. Because if D'Agosta wasn't Pendergast's accomplice, he would be Pendergast's victim.

The conference room was large, paneled in dark wood. Flags of New York and the United States drooped from brass flagpoles on both sides of the entryway, and color photos of various government types lined the walls. A huge oval table dominated the room, surrounded with leather chairs. The coffee urn and the table heaped with donuts and crullers, a staple of NYPD departmental meetings, was absent. Instead, a pint bottle of spring water had been placed before each chair.

Unfamiliar men and women in dark suits were standing around in knots, talking quietly among themselves. As Hayward and Singleton entered, the groups began making their way quickly toward the chairs. Hayward chose the nearest seat and Singleton sat down beside her, removing his gloves and scarf. There was no place to hang their stuff, and as a result they were the only two people in the room wearing coats.

At that moment, a tall, stocky man walked into the conference room. Two shorter men followed on his heels, like obedient hounds. Each of the two carried a brick of red folders under his arm. The tall man stopped for a moment, glancing around the table. Unlike the rest of the faces in the room, pallid from the New York winter, his was sunburned. It wasn't the even, artificial tan you got from a salon: this man had spent long hours working someplace sunny and hot. His eyes were small, narrow, and pissed-off.

He walked to the head of the table, where three seats had been left empty, and took the middle one. His two retainers sat to his right and his left.

"Good morning," the man said in an abrasive Long Island accent at odds with the sunburn. "I'm Special Agent in Charge Spencer Coffey, and with me are Special Agents Brooks and Rabiner. With their assistance, I'll be leading the search for Special Agent Pendergast."

The man seemed to spit out the final word, and as he said it, the anger spread from his eyes to his entire face.

"The facts as we know them so far are these: Pendergast is a primary suspect in four homicides, one in New Orleans, one in D.C., and two here in New York. We have DNA and fiber evidence from all four sites, and we're cooperating with local authorities in an effort to gather more."

Singleton shot Hayward a meaningful look. Coffey's idea of "cooperation" had been a phalanx of FBI agents swooping down on her office, grilling her men, and taking whatever evidence struck their fancy. Ironic how her own request for the Quantico profile had aroused Coffey's interest in the first place.

"Clearly, we're dealing with a mentally unbalanced individual- the psych profile confirms it. There is a high probability he is planning additional homicides. He was last spotted yesterday afternoon at Kennedy Airport, where he eluded security guards and police officers, stole a rental car, and drove away. He abandoned his own vehicle at the rental lot-a Rolls-Royce."

A low murmur went around the room at this, punctuated by several scoffs and dark looks. Pendergast must have made more than his share of enemies during his tenure with the FBI.

"There have been unconfirmed sightings of Pendergast at several convenience stores and gas stations in Nassau and Suffolk counties, last night and this morning. We're following up on those now. Pendergast is traveling with another man, believed to be NYPD lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta. And I've just had news of a high-speed chase in the vicinity of Southampton. Preliminary eyewitness accounts from the officers involved would seem to ID Pendergast and D'Agosta."

Hayward shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Singleton stared straight ahead.

"We have teams searching Pendergast's 72nd Street apartment and his New Orleans town house as we speak. Any information we discover that might shed light on his future movements will be passed down the line to you. We're setting up a command-and-control structure that will allow for quick dissemination of new information. This is going to be a very fluid situation, and we have to be ready to revise our strategy accordingly."

Coffey nodded to his retainers, and they stood up and began walking around the table, passing out the red folders. Hayward noticed that neither she nor Singleton received one. She'd assumed this was to be a working meeting, but it appeared that Special Agent inCharge Coffey already had his own ideas about how to handle the case and neither needed nor wanted input from anybody else.

"You'll find your initial instructions and assignments in these folders. You will be working in teams, and each team will be assigned six field agents. Our immediate priority is to determine Pendergast's movements over the last twenty-four hours, look for patterns, set up checkpoints, and draw in the net until we have him. We don't know why he's running around Long Island, stopping at convenience stores and gas stations: those we've interviewed indicate he's been looking for someone. I'll be expecting hourly verbal reports from each team, made either to me directly or to Special Agents Brooks and Rabiner."

Coffey stood up heavily, sweeping the table with his angry gaze. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Pendergast is one of our own. He knows all the tricks of the trade. Even though it seems we've got him pinned down on eastern Long Island, he could still elude us. That's why we're throwing the entire resources of the Bureau into this. We need to nail this bastard, and quickly. The reputation of the Bureau's at stake."

He surveyed the table again. "Any questions?"

"Yes," Hayward said.

All eyes turned toward her. She hadn't intended to speak, but the word had just tumbled out involuntarily.

Coffey glanced at her, small eyes narrowing to pinpricks of white. "Captain, ah, Hayward, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"Go ahead, please."

"You haven't mentioned the role of the NYPD in the search."

Coffey's eyebrows shot up. "Role?"

"That's right. I've heard a lot about what the FBI's going to do, but nothing about the cooperation with the NYPD you mentioned earlier."

"Lieutenant Hayward, our latest information, if you've been listening, has Pendergast in Suffolk County. There's not a great deal you can do for us out there."

"True. But we've got dozens of detectives here in Manhattan who are familiar with the case, we've developed virtually all the evidence-"

"Lieutenant," Coffey interrupted, "no one is more grateful for the NYPD's assistance in furthering this investigation than I am." But he didn't look grateful-if anything, he looked more pissed-off than before. "At the moment, however, the matter is outside your jurisdiction."

"Our immediate jurisdiction, yes. But he could always return to the city. And given that Agent Pendergast is wanted in two murders I'm in charge of investigating, I want to make sure that, once he's apprehended, we've got access for interrogation-"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Coffey snapped. "The man's still at large. Any other questions?"

The room was silent.

"Good. There's just one last thing." Coffey's voice went down a few notches. "I don't want anybody taking any chances. Pendergast is armed, desperate, and extremely dangerous. In the event of a confrontation, a maximal armed response will be appropriate. In other words, shoot the son of a bitch. Shoot to kill."