Half-Past Dawn

CHAPTER 24

On February 8 two years ago, Nowaji Cristos lay prone above UN Plaza, his left eye nuzzled into the gun sight of the Israeli-made Galil sniper rifle. Dressed in a blue maintenance worker’s jumper, his long black hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, he stared down, watching the motorcade’s approach. Cristos knew that the escort by New York City cops on motorcycles was only for show, a gesture to make the Pashir general and ruler feel important, to boost the already oversized ego of a diminutive military man who rose to power through a coup d’etat two years earlier.

The general was of little significance to the world order. His small jungle country had not moved much beyond colonial times, but he had grown to be a nuisance to certain countries’ national interests, with his border skirmishes with Cotis, India, and Bangladesh, military posturing, and the nationalization of private companies-nationalization being his word for personal take-over. And so certain affected parties turned to Cristos, a man with a one-hundred-percent success rate, whose face was not known to the world and whose chosen name meant “the risen ghost.”

Those who hired Cristos never imagined that he knew General Gjwain. He knew him as the ruthless, Napoleonic sadist who had killed his own family so as to inherit the family farm; he knew him as the man with not one iota of courage, military training, or experience who decorated his chest with medals of valor and bravery. Cristos knew Gjwain as the insignificant man who lived across the border not fifty miles from Cristos’s place of birth, a man who was disappearing those who disagreed with him or stood in his way.

Cristos was a man without conscience, but he thought if he ever had one, it would not be burdened by his coming actions. In fact, he considered it a magnanimous gesture to the people who shared his heritage to remove the depraved ruler. He had accepted the job at his usual rate, but it wasn’t about the money. It never was for Cristos. It was about the challenge, testing his skills, pushing his limits. In the end, if it did not raise his game, he would never accept, walking away in search of a new quest.

As the small general exited the black limo, his silver and gold medals glinting in the bright winter sun, Cristos lined up his gun sight, the cross hairs bisecting the diminutive man’s buzz-cut head. He adjusted for the three-mph cross wind and the dry winter air. He wrapped his fingers around the trigger as he had so many times before, fully exhaled, long and slow, purging his body and mind, tuning his focus. He took a half-breath, held it. And finally pulled the trigger.

Cristos rolled over into a crouch behind the parapet wall and out of sight of the world. He quickly broke down the rifle as he moved, and he had it stowed by the time he arrived at the bulkhead door.

He stripped off the blue jumper to reveal a charcoal-gray pinstriped suit, custom-tailored over a powerful body. He looked every part the nouveau-riche Wall Street banker, with his blue iridescent tie, polished cap-toe shoes, and perfect ponytail, as he walked down the stairs to the thirty-third floor and entered apartment 33A.

The apartment belonged to Naveed and Jasmine Bonsley, a society couple who had emigrated from India forty years earlier and had amassed a fortune from thirteen pharmaceutical patents they held. Their four-million-dollar apartment had nine rooms with a view of the East River and a southerly view of Lower Manhattan.

The Bonsleys were in bed in the other room and had been all morning. They had been out the night before, arriving home after midnight to find Cristos sitting in a club chair and staring out the window.

Confused and impaired by too much champagne, Naveed questioned the man as his wife reached for the phone, but her fingers never made their way to the dial. With primal speed, Cristos burst out of the chair, his hand snapping out, grabbing her thin neck and lifting her six inches off the floor. Naveed stood there in panic as Jasmine’s frail legs uselessly kicked the air, her hands wrapping around her assailant’s as she struggled to breathe.

Cristos carried the fifty-five-year-old woman through the living room, past the dining room, to the master bedroom, flinging her about like a rag doll. He finally gripped her shoulder with his other hand and in a single move snapped her neck. He flung her to the bed, where her limbs splayed out as her dead eyes stared off.

Naveed ran to her side, clutching her, screaming her name as tears flooded his face. He turned to see Cristos above him and didn’t flinch, didn’t move-he just wanted it to end, to be reunited with his dead wife.

With the morning sun pouring in, Cristos looked out the living-room window to the south toward the entrance to the UN, where police had swarmed the area and cordoned off First Avenue. He knew the drill: they would fan out in hopes of finding the killer but knew he was probably long gone, lost in the city of eight million plus, never suspecting that he was five hundred yards away, looking down on them with the confidence of accomplishment and continued freedom.

Cristos stepped into the elevator, hitting the button for the ground floor. As the polished brass doors closed, he stared at his reflection, adjusting the small knot of his tie. His face was pure, unblemished, a facade to the world in so many ways.

His private charter was scheduled to leave the Westchester airport upon his arrival, and with the half-hour drive, he estimated wheels up for 11:15. The six-hour transatlantic flight would put him back home before midnight local time. He was exacting in all areas of life, planning, timing, playing out every scenario in his mind before engaging in any task, be it the purchase of a new Bugatti, making personal investments, or committing murder. While he had used the rifle that day-leaving it on the bed between the Bonsleys’ cold bodies to taunt and confuse the authorities-he had engaged in all manners of dispensing death: poisons, accidents, knives slipped between the ribs of unsuspecting marks. There were assassinations of subterfuge and grandeur: politicians dying of heart attacks in the throes of illicit passion; crime figures sitting in Parisian cafes torn asunder by horrific explosions of world-headline proportions; prime ministers’ wives trapped in their cars as they tumbled down mountainsides.

And all the while, there was never a single piece of evidence tying back to Cristos. Credit was never taken, responsibility never assigned. His disparate methods never allowed the connecting of any dots. Too often, in so many jobs, pride was the greatest enemy. When credit was taken, egos were inflated, dulling the mind, softening drive.

The feeling of invincibility flowed in with such delusions of grandeur, and while they might not prove life-threatening to an ad exec, it was deadly to someone like Cristos.

When he arrived last night, slipping past the sleeping concierge, he stepped into the elevator, confident that his image wouldn’t be picked up by the security camera. The small device in his pocket emitted a magnetic pulse that interfered with the circuitry of the camera. It was of Israeli design, the Mosad having developed it to help them hide under a cloak of invisibility. Now, as he rode toward the lobby, he dug his hand into his pocket, running it over the small matchbook-sized device.

But all of the planning and preparation in the world cannot eliminate pure chance. Sometimes the wheels of fate turn in different ways. And in such a manner, the bearings on the counterweight cable of the elevator wore out with a belabored squeal, fusing themselves under the grinding pressure, bringing the cab that Cristos was riding in to a halt.

At the same time, a tall, matronly woman named Charlotte Newman arrived at the concierge desk, flowers in hand and a small elegant gift box under her arm. She was there to surprise her friend Jasmine Bonsley for her birthday and to whisk her off to a surprise-filled day of massages, facials, and lunch.

The cab was out of service for all of two minutes when the maintenance staff entered the shaftway one floor above the crippled elevator to make sure that none of their elderly tenants was in the car. With no video feed, no one was going to take the chance of some senior having a claustrophobic panic attack because of faulty security equipment.

But when they pried open the sixteenth-floor door and peered down the shaft onto the car ten feet below, they saw the impeccably dressed man climbing up through the emergency hatch, a man none of them recognized, a man who was now trapped with nowhere to go in the thirty-five-story shaftway.

With the sudden radio call about the horror found inside apartment 33A by Charlotte Newman happening in conjunction with the mayhem out in front of the UN, you didn’t need a detective to put the pieces together.

The headlines screamed of the arrest of Nowaji Cristos, the murderer of the head of state of Pashir and the executioner of a wealthy couple in their bed. The New York City police were praised by all for apprehending the criminal so quickly. But as he was arrested, no one had any real idea who they had in custody or the atrocities he had committed the world over.

And so the man who had remained invisible to mankind, who killed without witness, who walked the world like a ghost, was brought down by the failure of a handful of twenty-cent ball bearings and an overeager best friend.

Twelve hours later, under cover of darkness, a four-boat flotilla headed out to Trudeau Island. The boats were driven without running lights, their captains aided by infra-red goggles as they peered through the cold night.

Jack rode out with Peter Womack, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District. He knew him well; following parallel ascending career paths, they had worked together on several cases, even sharing dinner, with their wives, on occasion. While many complained about friction between the state and federal levels, none of that existed between Peter and Jack.

The evidence against the assassin was overwhelming. They had the rifle, the bodies, Cristos in the building at the time of incident, and while there were no prints, the circumstantial evidence was undeniable. The interim Pashir government, although secretly happy about the death of the despot, pressed for an expedient trial and execution, blaming the New York City police for the failure to protect their leader. The city of New York cried out for justice for the Bonsleys, and the public demanded a trial on the world stage to show that you don’t mess with New York.

The debate facing them was whether to charge Cristos on the local, federal, or military level. As an enemy combatant, he would not be afforded the rights of an American citizen, but this alternative, while satisfying the Pashir government, would not provide needed justice to the city of New York. If there were separate trials-the general’s murder in federal and the couple’s by the state-the matter could drag on for years with independent resulting appeals, but if the matters were handled concurrently, swift justice could be served, satisfying all concerned.

The four boats pulled up to a long, deep water dock on the eastern side of the island. The varied topography of the small spit of land was mostly undulating hills of old-growth trees and scattered bedrock. The North Shore was truly a misnomer, as there was no shore, just a sixty-foot sheer dropoff onto a rocky, riptide sea. A once-grand lighthouse stood on a precipice, holding court with its outstretched hand of guiding light to the now-diminished fishing fleets returning home. The western and southern sides of the island were large, sandy beaches that would be the envy of any Hamptons resident and would fetch in the tens of millions for a fraction of their white sand and magnificent views, if not for the large stretch of graveyard just beyond the scrub and tree line, a potter’s field of forgotten dead.

Jack and Peter watched as the twelve-man lead team of police, FBI, and Justice Department personnel disembarked and disappeared into the shadows of the windswept island to prep and secure the vacant facility.

From the second boat, four guards in black military fatigues, pistols strapped to their waists and rifles on their backs, climbed down onto the dock. The four turned as Cristos emerged from the boat’s cabin with shackled wrists and leg irons around his ankles. The four guards flanked him as he shuffled down the gangway, and they, too, disappeared, swallowed by the cold night.

Jack and Peter, dressed in heavy winter coats, finally leaped from the boat as the two Justice Department guards tied it up.

A large man in a black pinstriped suit greeted Jack with an outstretched hand. “Special Agent Carter Dorran, FBI.”

Carter stood just over six feet, a commanding presence in both stature and voice, with a deep tone that his fellow agents mocked behind his back. Despite the weather, he wore no coat and seemed unaffected by the elements.

“Jack Keeler,” Jack said as he shook his hand.

Dorran helped his agents secure the unmarked powerboat and turned to Jack. “Please excuse the formality, but we need your ID and to check your person.”

Jack smiled, his breath coming out in great clouds. He fully understood the procedure. He pulled out his wallet, flipped it open, and displayed the two-year-old picture. At Dorran’s nod, Jack extended his arms out, allowing him to run his hands up and down his body in the usual manner. Jack looked at Peter, who was enduring the same treatment, smiling at the irony; neither had ever been on this side of a pat-down.

Under the glow of a full moon, Jack looked up at the mansion in the distance. The enormous Georgian-style house, made of field-stone quarried from the island’s bedrock, was more than twenty-five thousand square feet and was entirely self-sufficient, with a power plant, a water desalination station, and a communication center all installed in the late ’70s when the mansion had seen extensive use as a classified government facility. Being off the radar, the island and the once-magnificent home were the perfect location to be forgotten. During the first half of the ’80s, it had been used for everything from a safe house to a refuge for Russian defectors at the end of the Cold War. In recent years, its location and function had fallen off even the radar of the government.

Dorran led Jack and Peter up the gangway and ushered them into a waiting golf cart. He drove up the long cobblestone pathway, the sides of which were overgrown with knee-high grass and weeds that poked up through a dusting of snow. Several felled trees, evidence of hurricane season, had yet to be removed, their haphazard patterns adding to the ominous appearance of the mostly wooded island. The enormous Georgian mansion was overrun with ivy that wove and flittered along its stone, giving it a Gothic feel.

A belching choke filled the night, as a generator muscled to life in the distance. And almost immediately, lights around the estate began to go from a dull orange, intensifying like the rising sun, into a full glow. The shadows around the mansion were chased away as walkway lights and decorative sconces flanking the entranceway lit the stone home into a semblance of its former glory.

Arriving in the circular courtyard, Jack and Peter hopped out of the cart and walked past two large stone lions that flanked the slate step and led to an enormous mahogany entrance door.

The choice of venue was Jack’s, which Peter, the FBI, and the Justice Department quickly agreed to in order to avoid the prying eyes of the press, or worse. It was the perfect location to hold Nowaji Cristos, the perfect place to conduct his interrogation.

Jack followed Dorran and Peter through the large doors and couldn’t help pausing in wonder, looking around the place that only existed in his dreams, a place that had sat two miles from his childhood home. It had lived in his imagination, in tales from a bygone era, when high society arrived in magnificent yachts for weekend parties that dragged on all summer. He couldn’t help picturing flappers and Gatsby types dancing until dawn, sipping champagne, the jazz band never tiring.

He had only seen the island from the perspective of sandy beaches and the overgrown graves in the potter’s field on the far side. He had never thought that the grandeur might exceed his imagination. The marble foyer was cavernous, his footsteps echoing off the decorative floors and dark-paneled walls. Dual staircases mirrored each other, their polished banisters and maroon carpeted stairs leading up to fourteen bedrooms.

As they walked, Jack peered into the library, an Old World room wrapped in floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books and ghostly mementos of those long gone. The fireplace was enormous, speaking of an age before furnaces and heat. The oversized mantel and the shelves and furniture were caked with dust.

They walked past a billiard room and a parlor, through a chef’s kitchen that hadn’t known the smell of food in years, and came to a stop in the rear service hall.

“Bit of a surreal setting,” Peter said.

“Yeah, especially when the ghosts from the potter’s field come out and you realize you’re isolated on this island.”

“Did you get a look at this guy yet?” Jack asked. “Any sense of what we’re dealing with?”

“There is something in his eyes. A coldness. I don’t know if he’s practiced the look or it comes natural.” Dorran shook his head. “Cute name, Nowaji Cristos, loosely translated as ‘risen ghost.’”

“Nice,” Jack said. “Safe to say that’s not the name his mama gave him. Is this guy stable, or are we thinking he’s going to play the insane card?”

“The docs will check him out, but I don’t think he’s insane at all. A sociopath, yeah, but his mind knows what he is doing. There is no disconnect.”

“Do we have a file on him yet?” Jack asked.

“Beyond a name, we’ve got nothing else,” Dorran said. “No intelligence, background, nothing. CIA, Interpol, all came up blank so far.”

“No one has spoken to him, correct?”

“He was taken into federal custody, under my orders,” Peter said. “Not a word was said.”

“Think he was working alone?”

“Yes and no. He’s a hired gun. Someone was paying his way, though he seems too fastidious, too confident, to rely on any accomplice. Weapon, clothes, watch, all expensive but untraceable.”

“Any thought on who hired him?”

“CIA sent an operations officer; he’s here somewhere. He’s the expert on the political machinations of Pashir.”

“He’s not going to try to jockey for position, is he?”

“No, within our borders, it’s just you, me, and Dorran’s FBI,” Peter said. “Consider him a source for all the things you can’t find on Google.”

“Seriously,” a thin, prematurely balding twenty-five-year-old said as he came out of a side room. “I’m reduced to human search engine?”

“Cyril Latham,” Dorran said as he pointed at Jack and Peter. “Womack and Keeler.”

Latham handed them each a file. They quickly scanned them as they continued to walk. Peter finally looked up and said, “So, this guy he killed, this general, he’s a despot?”

Latham nodded. “The list of people who wanted him dead is long. We’re running ballistics against both ours and Interpol’s database. We’re cross-referencing everything Carter has given us against the world stage. This guy was bad news. The only person who would truly mourn him is his mother, but he killed her years ago.”

“Nice,” Peter said.

“As terrible as the general was,” Latham said, “the United States has an international obligation to try this man.”

“And the Pashir government isn’t looking for extradition?”

“They barely have laws,” Latham said, “let alone a judicial system. They want him tried and hung on our soil so as not to create a martyr or make a mistake.”

“And the CIA’s position on him?” Peter asked.

“Unless we can somehow tie him to some other activity, Director Turner will not stand in your way. He’s currently an unknown to us.”

“I suggest the three of us do the initial interrogation,” Peter said to Jack and Dorran. “Let’s see where this goes.”

“I’ll lead,” Carter said. “Feel free to interject, ask questions, whenever you want.”

Jack was actually a very skilled interrogator; he was good at getting people to speak, whether it be on the stand, in an interrogation room, or at a party, but he was happy to defer and step in when needed.

A man approached from the opposite end of the hall.

“This is Alex Casey,” Dorran said, introducing Jack to the red-haired FBI agent.

“Mr. Casey will escort us and remain during the interrogation.”

Jack looked the man over. He was dressed in dark loose-fitting clothes, not the usual dark suit and tie or blue windbreaker of the FBI. Like the other guards, he had a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol at his side, while an HK submachine gun was strapped over his shoulder. Casey possessed the lean, strong body of a swimmer, his eyes focused and alert. There was no question about the man’s abilities.

Casey slipped his key into the lock, opened the door, and ushered Dorran, Peter, and Jack into a dark room. The only source of light leaked through enormous red velvet curtains that had been drawn across a picture window.

Casey flipped a switch, flooding the room with a harsh, bright light courtesy of a temporary flood in the corner of what was now seen to be a parlor. The walls were covered in chintz wallpaper, the floor in wall-to-wall burgundy carpet. A guard stood silently in the corner, his rifle clutched tightly against his chest.

All furniture had been stripped away except for a metal table in the center of the room and several hard wood chairs. Casey drew back the curtains, revealing an eerily lit backyard, the leaf-filled pool, a tennis court with a torn net. The picture window was obscured by a chain-link fence that reached from floor to ceiling; its galvanized metal links stood in sharp contrast to the room’s decor.

In the center of the room sat Cristos in a large wooden high-backed chair, his wrists cuffed to the thick oak arms, his ankles chained to the heavy legs. He was dressed in the dark charcoal-gray suit he was captured in; the knot of his blue tie was perfect. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The day’s growth on his face only served to enhance his ominous appearance, which agitated even the guards. It was as if they had caged Satan and were awaiting his retribution.

But it was his eyes that disturbed Jack the most. They were dark, malevolent, and fixed on Jack, like a predator lying in wait to strike down its innocent prey. He studied Jack for several seconds before turning his assessing eyes on Peter and Dorran.

Casey walked backward, practically disappearing into the corner. He spun his rifle forward, gripping it tightly to his chest, thumbing off the safety as if to send a message.

The three sat down before Cristos, Dorran in the middle, Peter to his left, Jack to his right.

“I am Special Agent Carter Dorran. You are in the custody of the United States government and the state of New York and are being charged with murder. This is Peter Womack from the U.S. Justice Department.” Carter pointed at Peter and then at Jack. “And Jack Keeler, the DA from New York City. Would you like an attorney?”

“Not yet,” Cristos said softly.

“Understand that our legal system provides-”

“You should be aware that I understand your judicial process as well as, if not better than, you.” Cristos spoke as if he wasn’t bound, as if he wasn’t being interrogated, as if he was before a legal committee in a large corporation.

“Do you wish to offer a confession,” Dorran said, “or should we proceed?”

Cristos nodded.

“Can you explain what you were doing in that building’s elevator shaft?”

“No,” Cristos answered.

“Were you in the Bonsleys’ apartment?”

As Dorran continued his questioning, Jack opened the file and examined the images of the dead general, a single bullet hole above his left eye; of the Bonsleys’ laid out against each other, their heads tilted at odd, impossible angles. Jack fought the sour feeling in his stomach, trying to hide the emotion from his face.

While most would succumb to the horror and reality of death, of brutal murder, their minds overcome with grief and revulsion, Jack was different. Anger had arisen in him at the violation of the most basic tenet of human existence.

As he continued listening to the line of questioning, in a slow reveal of emotion, Cristos smiled as he glimpsed Jack’s reaction.

“You killed a head of state,” Peter said. “Was this on behalf of a foreign government?”

Cristos took a deep breath and turned his full attention to Jack. “Mr. Keeler is the most skilled man in the room, yet he is silent.”

Peter paused a moment before continuing. “Are you working on behalf-”

“I’m only going to have a conversation with one of you,” Cristos said, still staring at Jack.

“You don’t dictate how this interrogation goes,” Dorran said.

Cristos glanced at Jack’s wedding ring. “Married?”

Jack didn’t respond.

“Children?” Cristos paused. “Children are amazing. They make us see the world from a whole new perspective. They teach us patience, tolerance, and sacrifice.”

Jack stared at Cristos, assessing him, letting him continue.

“It’s interesting how every child starts off innocent,” Cristos continued, “but each follows a different path. Some become men like you; some become men like the general; some become like me.” Cristos paused. “Do you think it’s fate, someone pulling strings, or do we choose our own path?”

Jack had conducted too many interrogations to count. There were moments to listen, moments to speak, moments to challenge, and moments to play mind games. He knew the personality types: the passive-aggressive who attacked with charm; the ultraviolent whose rage was obvious and explosive; the compliant and cooperative who answered every question without hesitation, weaving stories on the spot that they believed as much as they hoped the interrogator would. And then there were the types like Cristos.

“What you did today was monstrous,” Jack finally said.

Cristos leaned forward, becoming more attentive.

“In the last twenty-four hours,” Jack continued, “you took three lives.”

“And how many did I save in the process?”

“Save?” Jack asked with a raised brow.

“How many people would have died at the order of the general just in the next month?”

“So your defense is that you killed three to save more?” Dorran said, trying to reenter and resume control of the conversation. “Well, that’s not how it works.”

Cristos ignored Dorran and spoke directly to Jack. “When a soldier, a military man, kills another man, when a fighter jet drops a bomb destroying a village, it’s for honor and country. But when an individual kills, it is called murder. Why is that?”

“Don’t equate war with this,” Jack said.

“We’re all at war in some way or another. Some people use their words to fight, to tear the opposition apart emotionally. Others”-Cristos tilted his head at Jack and Peter-“use their legal system of laws, to take down and destroy their opponents’ freedom and security. And others forgo destroying the character, choosing just to eliminate the individual altogether.”

“Did the Bonsleys deserve to die?”

“Do the people in a poor village where an errant bomb was dropped deserve to die? Dispatching death in a war, when a country deems it necessary to success, is understood by humanity, but when it deals in eliminating a single man, when the public doesn’t understand its purpose, it’s horrific, shocking, evil.”

“Did you kill those three people today?” Jack asked.

Cristos smiled. “You’re going to have to do at least a little work here, Jack. Let me ask you a question. Are you the type who is more interested in justice, truth, or an eye for an eye?”

Jack said nothing.

“Could you look me in the eye and kill me so others might live? Put your lawyerly self aside. Could you be the hangman? Hold the pistol to my head and pull the trigger to save lives?” Cristos paused, waiting for Jack to answer. “I didn’t think so. It’s always so much easier from behind the curtain, pulling other people’s strings to do your bidding. Well… I just think you should know, if you asked me the same question, I’d have no problem laying that pistol right up against your temple and pulling the trigger.”

“Too bad you’ll never get that chance. You no longer have control of any strings.”

“You think you’re in control here.” Cristos smiled. “But are you?”

Jack stared at him.

“Do you know whom to trust? You don’t think I’ve been captured before? You don’t think I have ever escaped?” Cristos smiled again. “Always remember, control is tenuous at best.”

“I’ll remember that,” Jack said with a placating tone as he looked at Cristos’s chains.

The two men studied each other, the moment drawing out.

“OK,” Dorran said. “I think-”

“I was in love once.” Cristos ignored Dorran, cutting him off.

“And she loved you in return?” Jack asked.

“She died before I ever knew the truth.”

“Is that supposed to make me sympathetic?”

“No, just a reminder.” Cristos looked at Jack’s wedding ring. “We never know how long we have with the ones we love.”

Anger flowed into Jack’s face, wiping his calm away as he realized that he had let Cristos lead the conversation. “We’re done,” Jack said as he stood up. Dorran and Peter followed his lead.

“Are we going to finish our conversation?” Cristos said.

“You are being charged with the murder of three individuals,” Jack said as he looked into Cristos’s dark eyes. “We have every intention to try, convict, and see you executed for the deeds you have done. Your smugness, your overconfidence, will only help me make this happen quicker.”

Jack turned and headed for the door.

“I’d hold tight to your wife and kids,” Cristos said. “God knows what might happen if a monster like me ever got hold of them.”

Jack, Peter, and Dorran silently walked through the grand mansion, past the library and the parlor; this time, the rooms didn’t even register.

“What do you think?” Peter asked.

“This guy is far more than I or anyone thinks,” Jack said.

“Meaning?”

“Hired gun, very cool, and very experienced. He has a resume we probably couldn’t even fathom.” Jack looked at Dorran “Think we can tie him to anything else?”

“No. Not yet, at least,” Dorran said. “The fact that we caught him is pure luck.”

“Then let’s get him formally charged and on trial,” Peter said.

“State or fed?” Dorran asked.

“State will be quicker,” Peter said to Jack. “If we get him convicted, the fed can wave off. Do you think your office can get a conviction?”

“Yeah, and I’ll make sure he hangs.”

Six months later, Jack was sitting in the viewing theater at Cronos Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Although the state had reinstituted the death penalty two years before, not a single execution had been carried out.

But this matter was different. Convicted after a three-week trail, Cristos waived his right to appeal, demanding that his sentence of death by injection be carried out immediately. Although the liberal left had cried out to spare his life, he spat in their faces and railed against anyone who stood in the way of his execution. Cristos did have a final request: he wished to speak to Jack Keeler alone.

Against the advice of all, against the advice of Peter, Carter Dorran, Mia, Frank and everyone else he trusted, Jack walked out of the viewing room and was escorted down to death row, which was in a dark, windowless basement.

There had been no one to come forth for Cristos, no family, no friends; in fact, not a single person in the world stood up and said they even knew the man. He requested no priest, rabbi, monk. In fact, like everything about him, no one knew if he even had a religion.

As vile a man as Jack thought him to be, as dangerous as this man without a soul was, everyone deserved a last request, a final statement before dying.

Jack entered the basement cell to find Cristos sitting on the bed, his legs and arms chained. He was dressed in a deep blue suit, no tie or belt, and wore a pair of black Gucci loafers, looking as if he was about to go out for a fancy dinner. While the condemned were usually put to death in their prison uniform, Cristos had asked and was granted the right to die in his favorite suit.

He made no move as Jack sat in the chair across from him, their eyes settling on each other. The silent moment held; each could hear the other’s breathing, the committer and the committed.

“How’s the weather today?” Cristos asked in his low, accented voice.

Jack was surprised at the question. “Sunny, clear, a warm fall day.”

Cristos nodded. “Did it occur to you what is happening here today?”

Jack said nothing, letting the condemned man say his last words.

“Jack, you accused me of murder, of ending lives, yet you are doing the same.”

“This is your sentence for the lives you have taken.”

“I asked you before, could you pull the trigger, Jack?”

Jack remained silent.

“I understand many years ago, your partner died and that you killed two people, children, I believe.”

Jack felt his heart fall in his chest.

“Were you condemned for that? Did anyone hold you accountable for their deaths?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jack hated that he was explaining himself to this man.

“Was it more like collateral damage in doing your job?”

“The Bonsleys weren’t collateral damage.”

“Oh, yes, they were. In order to stop a very wicked man. Even you have to admit after learning about that general that he deserved to die, that his death saved countless others. I bet you would have loved to put him on trial in your courts after all of the murders he committed.”

“Is this how you wanted to spend your last moments? Imparting some kind of guilt?”

Cristos smiled, although his dark eyes stayed emotionless. “You should hold tightly to your family.”

“Is that a threat? Is somebody after my family?”

“No, Jack. I have spoken to no one. But sometimes we lose sight of what is precious to us.”

“Do you have family?”

Cristos paused. “I did.”

Jack didn’t respond. He had not thought of Cristos as anything but a murderer; his actions spoke nothing to the contrary. Jack wasn’t sure if he was being played or seeing a glimpse of the man’s soul.

“Is this what you wanted to see me about?

Cristos shook his head.

“What do you have to say, then?” Jack finally asked.

“Nothing is as it seems.” Cristos looked Jack directly in the eye and whispered, “Remember this, death is not always final, not always permanent; death is never the end.”

With Cristos’s words ringing in his ears, Jack watched through the plate-glass window as the man he had convicted of murder was strapped down to a black leather gurney. The room was small, covered with lime-green tiles and taken up by several medical monitors. Cristos’s Zenga suit jacket had been removed; the white sleeves on either arm were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms. Cristos lay on the gurney, staring straight up, his eyes focused elsewhere. There was no emotion on his face, no fear or anxiety in his body language. He appeared calm, as if awaiting a simple medical procedure.

Beside Jack in the viewing room, seated in the rows of chairs, were Peter Womack, Carter Dorran, the two grown children of the Bonsleys, members of a Pashir delegation who had flown in from Asia, and various members of the federal and state law-enforcement community. Not a word was spoken; a prayer-like silence had fallen over the room as if awaiting the start of some religious ceremony.

Within the execution chamber, two medical technicians entered and stood on either side of the gurney. Each swabbed Cristos’s arms, inserted a needle in a vein in each arm, and a saline drip commenced, ensuring a proper flow into Cristos’s system.

The lead technician, an overly tall and gaunt man, leaned over and unbuttoned, Cristos’s shirt, exposing his chest. And as the tech’s eyes fell on the condemned’s torso, so did every other eye in the room, and an almost collective gasp cried out. No one expected to see what Cristos had hidden under his fine suits, masked from the world. His burned and scarred skin was inhuman, like melted flesh from a horror film.

The technician quickly set back to work, affixing the heart monitor to Cristos’s mangled flesh, and checked the readout to ensure that it was working, surprised at the slow heartbeat of a man who was about to die.

At the subtle nod of his head, the two techs confirmed they were ready. They pressed a button on the wall and signaled the executioner.

In an adjacent room, unseen by all, sat a third technician before a console. The IV lines in Cristos’s arms ran into this room, terminating at a middle-aged man in a lab coat who sat at a coldly white, antiseptic desk. Before him were three syringes, each conspicuously labeled.

With a methodical nature, he picked up the first syringe, flicked his finger against the needle, and slipped it into the port in the IV line. The administered drug was sodium thiopental, a barbiturate and anesthetic agent.

Out in the execution room, Cristos’s eyes fell shut as the chemical flowed into his system, rendering him unconscious.

Back in the side room, the technician inserted the second syringe into the IV line. Pancuronium was a muscle relaxant that caused complete paralysis of the skeletal striated muscles, including the diaphragm and respiratory muscles, that would eventually cause death by asphyxiation if the third drug didn’t do its job.

And finally, the technician picked up the third syringe and injected it into the line. The potassium chloride acted quickly, and within two minutes, the heart monitor affixed to Cristos’s chest registered no heartbeat.

With little fanfare, before an audience of twenty including Jack Keeler, the medical examiner stepped into the room, read the monitor, laid his stethoscope to the deceased’s chest, and declared Nowaji Cristos dead.