Blood in the Water Read online

  For T-Bone

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Tuesday 1 January

  He hummed as he worked.

  An old folk tune he’d learned in El Calabozo as a child.

  He couldn’t remember the words, which was odd; as a rule, he remembered everything. Memories tortured Vincente Carpio, and his tortured mind gave him a special kind of madness. The leadership recognized it early on. That was why they’d sent him to America – because he was willing to do the things that others weren’t. It was a decision many in the leadership now questioned. Now the madness seemed to have taken over.

  He was sweating, and his bald, tattooed head was slick. This one was the eighth he’d done this way, and by far the hardest. He wouldn’t have thought it to look at her. She was young and thin, shorter than him, with a punk haircut; shaved on one side and dyed multiple colors on the other. At first he’d thought she was probably a junkie; Cambridge had its fair share, a consequence of the ultra-liberal orthodoxy of the city that viewed tolerance of everything as an imperative.

  He’d realized quickly that she wasn’t. Junkies put up little resistance. They were so unhappy with their lives that they simply couldn’t find a reason to fight. This girl, though, had been full of fight. She fought so hard he considered aborting the attack and moving on, but that wasn’t a realistic option. If she’d escaped, the police would have combed through the area immediately, and there was little doubt that he would be found. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Eventually she had succumbed, as they all did in the end. Even now, though, she continued to resist in her own way. The sinew around her vertebrae was stringier and less cooperative than he had found with the others, forcing him to work harder, and his perspiration mixed with the blood on his hands, making the task all the more difficult. He found the work invigorating, though, and the blood sliding down the crosses adorning his wrists made him think of the graveyard in his home town – fields of crosses covered in blood.

  He was surprised that he could sweat in the cold. Growing up, he’d thought that the winter in El Calabozo was frigid. The temperatures could sometimes dip into the fifties in January and February. He’d never experienced any cold like a New England winter. He’d left the upstairs windows in the little house open, mainly to keep the flesh refrigerated, and with the outside temperatures below zero, the house was an icebox.

  And yet, still, he was sweating.

  Finally, he finished with the knife and started with the ropes, tying her up the same way he’d done with the others. When he was done with that, he stepped back and examined his work.

  He was satisfied.

  He wondered how long it would take for his work to be found. Two days, he thought. Maybe three. The police were already looking for two of them. And he was a priority for the FBI and the other federal authorities. Even with the cold, the stench was overpowering in the basement. With the windows left open, it would not take long for one of the neighbors to decide that their civic tolerance ended with the smell of rotting flesh, and they would call the authorities. Then the real madness would begin. America would realize what it had wrought unto itself.

  He walked to the basement sink and washed the blood and sweat from his arms and his face. He gave the place one last look. His fingerprints would be everywhere, as would other identifying evidence.

  He didn’t care. He wanted them to know it was him.

  He needed them to know it was him.

  Two

  Wednesday 16 January

  The dream returned.

  Her little boy had come back to her, with a smile that melted her heart and made her long for the chance to hold him just once more. They were by the shore, near the Nantasket motel south of Boston where they’d spent a week every summer of his life – just the three of them, the perfect young family.

  She tried to run to him, but the ground slipped beneath her feet, like a great terrestrial treadmill. She called out to him, begged him to come to her, but he just smiled.

  A foghorn blared in the background. She called to him again, pleading with him to say something – anything – to her. His lips were moving, but the foghorn grew louder, drowning him out. He was slipping away, and she could feel her panic growing …

  She opened her eyes. The dream was gone, but the foghorn droned on, beating in time to the dull throb in her skull until she reached over and grabbed her phone. She looked at the caller ID, recognized the number and was instantly awake.

  ‘Yeah, it’s Steele.’ She listened for a moment, her heart rate climbing, the blood pumping through her body, clearing away the last of the dream-fog as anticipation took root. ‘OK, I’ll be there.’

  She hung up and looked over at the body next to her – a silhouette draped in a sheet. For a moment it brought to mind all the crime scenes she’d worked over the years. She swung her legs off the bed, pulled on her underwear and jeans, a blouse and a jacket.

  ‘Your tip panned out,’ she said. ‘I gotta go.’

  ‘So go,’ the body replied. She’d hoped he was asleep. It would have been easier.

  ‘Thanks for last night. It was nice.’

  ‘Always is.’ He didn’t turn to face her.

  Kit Steele opened her mouth to say something, but could think of nothing appropriate. She grabbed her gun and her bag and headed out of the apartment.

  Three

  Vincente crept along the pier, careful with every step to avoid a slip. The fall wouldn’t kill him, but the water probably would. Not right away, but within a matter of minutes. Even in the dark he could see the chunks of ice floating in Boston Harbor, gathering at the edge of the shoreline as though conspiring to take over the waterway – choke it off, force it to grow still. Carpio had heard that it had happened once,
a few years before, when the ice floats had become so large that ships had to be diverted, and the harbor had to be closed for two days as icebreakers were called in.

  He was the hunted now. Every newscast flashed his picture and pleaded with the public to join the chase – to feed the police information regarding his whereabouts. The skulls tattooed over his entire head captured the imagination like a horror film, and he was regarded as a supernatural predator by all of Boston. It was understandable, given the carnage he’d brought down upon the surrounding area. What none of them understood was that everything up to now had been a prelude. He was growing stronger, and he would continue to take his revenge until he’d killed as many as he could.

  He was looking for a new area in which to hunt. It was getting more difficult with his growing notoriety. It would be hard for anyone not to recognize him. Images of the dead and blood and bones and carnage covered his entire body. Even his eyeballs had ink in them – two crosses flanking both irises. He could keep his hood up, but that wouldn’t work to hide his identity for long. He’d now taken to sleeping during the days and hunting at night in the deserted areas of Boston, where his work would attract less attention.

  The pier ran along the side of the harbor, in what was known as the Seaport District. It was a patchwork of high-end developments at the edge of South Boston, just across Fort Point Channel from the Financial District and Downtown. Five years before it had been a wasteland of warehouses and parking lots, but now it was the hottest growth area in the city. A dozen high-rises were already up, with a mixture of office space and luxury condos nestled around the federal courthouse, which for a decade had been the area’s lonely architectural sentinel. Seven more complexes were under construction and the shoreline was pocked with construction sites.

  It was a perfect hunting ground. There was enough development to provide prey, but it was still new enough that there were few people who walked the streets at night. He’d had little luck on this night, though, and he decided to go down to the water to see whether there might be a drunk passed out by the shore. He’d gotten lucky in such ways before.

  He’d been forced to hop a chain-link fence to climb onto the pier, which was nearby one of the newest developments. He saw the boat approaching and his hopes rose. If the vessel was pulling in, he might be able to overpower those on board. Perhaps his luck had changed.

  Suddenly a spotlight on the front of the boat flashed so bright that it felt like an explosion. He was looking straight into it, and it blinded him, almost knocked him to the ground. He stumbled back into a piling, his hand defending his eyes as they adjusted and tried to make out shapes.

  It was futile. A siren screamed, and the hands protecting his eyes flew to his ears. It continued for a few seconds, and then cut off abruptly. A voice came over a bullhorn. ‘Freeze!’ It was a woman’s voice, and he recognized it instantly. ‘FBI! You are under arrest!’

  The voice spurred him to run. He had always known the risks of capture, but to be captured by her was too much to bear. He stumbled in the direction of the shore, still blinded, unable to see the rotted wood beneath him. It was only twenty yards from the edge of the pier to solid ground, but the pier was only ten feet wide, so there was precious little room for error. The odds were low that he would make it, but he was willing to take that chance.

  * * * * *

  On the lead boat, Kit held the megaphone. There were two other vessels in the group – all boats currently at the disposal of the joint task force through the Coast Guard and the Boston Police Department. Some of the brass had grumbled at the excess. There was a sense that it was overkill, but the tip indicated that Vincente Carpio was crawling the shoreline at night, looking for fresh meat. No one was willing to risk him slipping through their fingers once more. He was the most wanted man in the United States, and, of greater political importance, he had previously escaped from their custody. His escape had been an embarrassment that had tarnished every branch of law enforcement. No one wanted to be the one who called for fewer resources in the effort to bring him to justice, so Kit had gotten everything she’d asked for.

  Now she had him again. She could see him running, his hands covering his bald, tattooed head, crashing into the fence by the edge of the pier, scurrying like a cockroach in the brightness of the spotlight. As the boat approached the pier she felt every muscle in her body tense, adrenaline driving through her veins. There was a special operations detail on land, closing in from the other side of the construction site, so there should be no way for Carpio to escape, but his elusiveness had taken law enforcement by surprise before, and she was unwilling to take chances. As the boat came within a few feet of the pier, Rich Alvarez, the Coast Guard Commander captaining the vessel, cut the engine, and Steele dropped the megaphone, took three strong strides and launched herself toward the pier.

  ‘Shit!’ Alvarez shouted. ‘Steele! What the hell are you doing?’

  Bill McCaughy, a captain in the Boston Police Department also on board, barked angrily, ‘Get back here, missy!’

  She ignored them both.

  She could hear the commotion behind her as guardsmen lashed the boats to the pier, but she didn’t look back. As soon as her feet hit the splintered wood she drove forward. Her gun was drawn, and she focused on the dark figure just now clearing the fence at the edge of the pier. She ran faster than she ever had before, possessed by the need to capture and to punish. She would not let him escape. She was no longer motivated by her job; she needed to fulfill a moral imperative, and as she pushed herself to the edge of her physical abilities, she knew that she had crossed a dangerous line where her perspective and her judgment had been compromised. Even that realization was not enough to stem her obsession, though, and she pushed on faster.

  Four

  Carpio’s feet hit the hard, uneven ground on the other side of the fence. Earthmovers had spent the better part of two months on the site before the freeze set in, pushing giant mounds of dirt and rock from side to side, removing debris to be carted off, and their tracks had cut into the ground, leaving a checkerboard of pits and ridges in the frozen mud. He landed awkwardly on the edge of one of the ridges and heard a loud popping in his right ankle. He let out a muffled scream, but stifled it immediately. He rolled to his left and stood, taking most of his weight on his left leg as he hobbled forward.

  The construction site was a maze of heavy equipment and materials and he ducked behind a tall pile of rebar, moving steadily toward the side of the site that bordered Northern Avenue. If he could get there, he might have a chance. It was a slim chance, but it was all he had at that moment.

  He crept forward, ducked under a giant crane and around a temporary trailer that served as the nerve center for the construction site. He slid his back along the side of the trailer until he could see around the corner, and caught sight of the fence at the far side of the site. His spirits leapt at his good fortune when he saw that there was a gap in the gate, wide enough, he thought, that he might be able to squeeze through. His ankle throbbed, but there was hope if he could make it to the street.

  He took a deep breath and felt the frozen air stinging his lungs as he started what was the closest to a sprint he could manage. He’d only got two strides from the trailer when the break in the fence widened, and a stream of police flooded through into the construction site. They were clad in full body armor and armed with military rifles. The sight brought him up short and he reversed course, diving back to the cover of the trailer.

  He was trapped now. There was no question of escape – not for the moment, at least. He was resigned to that, and knew in his heart that he would eventually escape again. Revenge was his destiny. He still needed to play the part of the hunted, though. And if he was going to be captured, perhaps he could at least kill her.

  He made his way back along the side of the trailer and slipped into the maze of rebar and construction equipment. As he hobbled forward, he tripped and went down, his hands grasping in front of his body to
brace against the fall. His fingers touched metal, and he grasped a two-foot length of rebar that was lying on the ground. He picked it up and held it like a club, ducking into a dark recess in between two piles of gravel.

  He could hear them as they spread out through the construction site. He could smell their fear and it made him feel powerful. He was but one man among all of them, and yet he was the one who was feared. It was further confirmation of the strength there was in terror, and that strength validated everything he had done. He wanted all of America to feel the terror he’d known his entire life. It was only fair, after all.

  Crouched silently in the shadows, he could hear her now. She was approaching slowly from the water, breathing heavily. Her footsteps were muffled but unmistakable, and it made him angry to think that she believed that she could take him herself. The muscles in his arms tensed, and he gripped the length of rebar tightly in his hand, readying himself to strike.

  * * * * *

  Kit Steele could see the police special operations teams moving in from the street. They were spreading through the site, starting at the perimeter and working their way in toward the center. They worked in pairs, spaced in a military formation that allowed them to protect each other, providing cover and safety as they methodically searched the lot.

  She should back off, she knew. There was no chance that Carpio could escape now, and the ops team was better equipped to root him out without bloodshed. They were appropriately armed and dressed in the best protective gear available. She, on the other hand, was in jeans and a windbreaker, and while the bright yellow ‘FBI’ stencil on the back of the windbreaker might impress some civilians in the daylight, it wouldn’t stop a bullet.

  She couldn’t back off, though. She needed to see his face when he was taken. She needed him to see her face, and know that she had caught him once more. This time she would make sure that he would never see freedom again.

  The cold sliced through the windbreaker and her jacket underneath, and it felt as though her fingers were frozen to her 9mm Glock. She could have worn gloves, but she didn’t trust the feel of a gun through the material. Even in the freezing cold, she was more comfortable with her skin against the weapon