"Where's it coming from?" Boomer wanted to know, holding Lucia's card in his right hand.

"Same place all this s.h.i.t comes from," Malazante said. "South America. Southeast Asia. And it's landing heavy on the streets. The rock comes in and the cash goes out, usually on the same day."

"That's where Lucia comes in," Boomer said. "How big a hitter is she?"

"She started out small-time." Malazante leaned his large frame against the back of a torn plastic booth. "Now I'd say she's in the top three, easy. She's got a big outfit that's well run and, I guess you could say, unique."

"What's unique about it?"

Malazante finished the rest of his coffee and leaned closer to his friend. "I can help you with this, Boomer," he said. "But only up to a point. I don't know what you're thinking and I don't want to know. You and me didn't talk about this and I didn't leave this folder behind on my seat. If anybody asks, we met, had coffee, and talked about my kids."

"You don't have any kids," Boomer said.

"Then we didn't talk," Malazante said, squeezing his girth out of the booth.

An old girlfriend from the FBI gave Boomer the statistics he needed about crack and a confidential printout on Lucia Carney. She promised to help in the future as well, in return for anonymity and the occasional dinner at Nunzio's. He spent a day working the computers at One Police Plaza, cross-referencing Lucia's name with known cartel bosses and seven-figure dealers. In between, Boomer ate a quiet office lunch with Deputy Chief Ken Wolfson, a bright, personable man who collected rare comic books and was known on the streets as a cop who liked to see jobs done with as few questions asked as possible. He agreed to be Boomer's inside man so long as his involvement was that of a silent partner. Boomer would a.s.sume all the risks. Wolfson's cops would get the credit for any busts. Once that was agreed upon, the deputy chief opened a file drawer and laid out all the NYPD background information on Lucia Carney.

A connection from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms then gave Boomer a stat sheet filled with her known lift-and-drop locations. A neighborhood friend now working for a Secret Service unit in Maryland gave him a detailed report on her money-laundering capabilities and how the fast cash was washed overnight between one flight and the next.

In seventy-two hours, using the sources available to him, Boomer Frontieri knew as much about Lucia Carney as any cop in the country. He studied up on crack and read a.s.sorted medical doc.u.ments detailing its instant addiction. He learned about mules and smurfs and the women who carried drugs and cash for Lucia and the men who killed at her whim. The more he read, heard, and learned, the more determined Boomer Frontieri grew. His anger wasn't fueled by the fact that she was a drug queen. He had heard about other such women working the distribution end of the drug business.

It wasn't even the amount of money involved, even though it totaled out to a numbing multibillion-dollar-a-year network.

It was the way she did it.

Lucia Carney was as cold and as heartless as any drug runner Boomer Frontieri had ever seen. Life meant nothing to her, especially an innocent life that had yet to begin.

That's why he read and reread the folders until his vision blurred, quietly steeling himself toward making the most difficult decision of his life.

DR. CAROLYN B BARTLETT sat on a gray folding chair, her legs crossed, blond hair combed back into a tight bun. The room was filtered with shadows, lit only by a fluorescent bulb attached to the center of the wall, just above the roll-away bed. She read over the contents of a yellow folder which was clutched in her hands, crammed with the detailed notes and observations she had made over the previous four days. sat on a gray folding chair, her legs crossed, blond hair combed back into a tight bun. The room was filtered with shadows, lit only by a fluorescent bulb attached to the center of the wall, just above the roll-away bed. She read over the contents of a yellow folder which was clutched in her hands, crammed with the detailed notes and observations she had made over the previous four days.

Dr. Bartlett, though only thirty-six, was in charge of the hospital's rape and trauma psychiatric unit. In her four years at the hospital, she had seen all the horror imaginable.

Until the afternoon they wheeled in Jennifer Santori.

The sight of the young girl, the condition of her body, the sunken look on the face of the man who had brought her in, made Bartlett, for the first time, truly question what it was she did and what, if any, difference it made.

She closed the folder, resting it on the ground next to her Cuban-heeled black Ferragamo shoes, and ran her hands across the starched white sheets of the bed. She took a deep breath and touched the soft hand of the young girl asleep beneath those sheets.

She studied the silent, bandaged face. The girl's rest was disturbed only by the occasional twitch and moan. There were three IV pouches draining off into her right arm and bandages covering a mult.i.tude of wounds. Her left hand was in a cast that brushed up to her elbow, an empty s.p.a.ce where the index finger should have been.

Dr. Bartlett leaned closer and touched each of the wounds with a gentle hand. She had clear blue eyes, a taut athlete's body, and a face that had not begun to betray her years. She had seen a great deal of abuse in her four years at Metro, but never anything close to this. It had taken nurses and interns two full days to wash off the caked blood and three days for Bartlett to get the child to give her anything more than a nod.

She had paid a visit to the suspect. She always made a point of doing that, even though some doctors in the department frowned on the idea. But it was important to her, allowing a rare glimpse into the other side of the room, in an invariably futile attempt to understand why such men-and they were always men-did what they did to their victims.

She didn't get much out of Malcolm Juniper, about as much as she got out of any of them. He smiled, asked for some coffee, even asked her how Jennifer was doing. She turned her back on him when he asked for her phone number, leaving him with a smile on his face and a look in his eyes that told her all she really needed to know. She walked out of the holding room thinking about her father, Richie Bartlett, a twenty-year veteran of the NYPD who had killed two men in the line of duty and who died working three jobs so his dream of a daughter with a medical degree could become a reality. She wondered how long Malcolm Juniper would have survived in a locked room with Richie Bartlett.

Dr. Bartlett sat back in her chair, her eyes locked on Jennifer's face. It was early for the dreams and nightmares to begin, but she knew they would soon be there for the girl who had seen so much darkness in such a short period of time. She knew that the girl's parents would turn to her for answers, for pleas to bring the nightmares to a halt, but all her years of training, all the books and files and reports, now boiled down to one horrible fact: She couldn't make those nightmares stop. They would be a part of Jennifer Santori for the rest of her days.

Helping Jennifer cope with the night visions was the best Dr. Bartlett could do. In truth, it was the only hope she could offer.

There was a bigger problem facing Dr. Bartlett, one she had wrestled with since she was first handed the file folder less than three days before. She knew that the police, the district attorney's office, every prosecutor a.s.signed to her case, would need Jennifer's testimony, demand it, in order to secure a prison s.p.a.ce for Malcolm Juniper. Without Jennifer Santori in the courtroom, there would be no conviction. There wouldn't even be a case. But having Jennifer testify would mean reliving the nightmare. It would mean sitting next to a judge and, worse, across from Malcolm Juniper, telling all in attendance what had been done to her, in full detail, with as many follow-up questions as the defense team could muster. Questions meant to rattle a teenager and release the shackles from a man without remorse.

Dr. Bartlett stood and leaned closer to Jennifer. She stroked her hair, careful not to touch the thick bandages surrounding it, gently brushing back the loose strands. She wondered what she could ever do to make the pretty girl smile again.

Dr. Bartlett leaned down, kissed Jennifer twice on the cheek, squeezed her undamaged hand, and walked out of the room.

Her head was down.

Her decision had been made.

10.

THEY SAT CROWDED around a table in a rear room off the main bar. Boomer held the head, his back against a wood-paneled wall, just below a framed photo of Nino Benvenuti and Emile Griffith slugging it out for the middleweight t.i.tle. Dead-Eye sat to Boomer's left, a large winegla.s.s filled with ice and Pepsi in his hand, a puzzled look on his face. around a table in a rear room off the main bar. Boomer held the head, his back against a wood-paneled wall, just below a framed photo of Nino Benvenuti and Emile Griffith slugging it out for the middleweight t.i.tle. Dead-Eye sat to Boomer's left, a large winegla.s.s filled with ice and Pepsi in his hand, a puzzled look on his face.

There were four others gathered around the table, three men and an attractive woman in tight jeans, white crew neck, and soft leather jacket. Dead-Eye knew that they were all cops. They had the look and the att.i.tude, each coming into the room with a swagger, greeting Boomer with only a handshake and a cautious nod.

If they were all cripples, like Boomer said, then they managed to hide their handicaps successfully. You couldn't tell much by looking at them, except for the guy hanging loose in the far corner, a young, dark-haired man in a hooded sweatshirt that couldn't hide the reddened, burnt skin around his neck, hands, and along the right side of his face.

Dead-Eye also had the guy across from him figured, more or less. He was tall and muscular, sitting with his hands spread flat across the tablecloth, a large gla.s.s of skim milk in front of him, a bowl of ice cubes off to the side. The others had asked for beer, wine, or booze. Generally, only two kinds of cops order milk in a restaurant: those trying to stay on the wagon-and this guy didn't look shaky enough to be walking down that street-and those who'd been shot in the gut. Dead-Eye was even willing to bet that a pat-down of the quiet guy in the bombadier jacket would shake out several packets of Maalox and a half-empty bottle of Zantac.

There was little in the way of small talk. Everyone waited for Boomer to open the conversation. But Boomer just sat there, sizing up each cop. The gla.s.ses were close to empty and the chunky guy in the bowling jacket was already on his third cigarette, when Nunzio came in with a fresh tray. He rested it in the center of the table, closed the door behind him, and sat on a corner stool.

"The place is closed, Boom," Nunzio said. "I just checked the last couple out."

"You got any pretzels to go with this?" the guy in the bowling jacket, Jimmy "Pins" Ryan, asked, lifting a long-neck Bud from the tray and taking a swig.

"We'll eat later," Boomer said. "After we talk."

"Talk about what?" Delgaldo "Geronimo" Lopez, the man nursing the gla.s.s of milk, said.

"A lot of things, Geronimo. We're going to start it off with a story about a lady. After that, if you're still interested, I'll tell you one about us."

"Did Boomer just call you Geronimo?" the guy in the scruffy sweatshirt, Bobby "Rev. Jim" Scarponi, asked. "I mean, like the Indian?"

"You bothered by it or just curious?" Geronimo looked at Rev. Jim with a hard set of eyes.

"Neither one, Chief," the Rev. said. "And I mean that with respect."

"Just so we're all on the same page and n.o.body steps on the wrong foot," Boomer began, "know this. Everybody in this room was once a cop. Each top of the line, best in the department. I'm including myself in there. And now we're all disabled, all of us collecting tax-free checks every two weeks. Everybody except for Nunzio over in the corner."

"And he is what?" the woman, Mary "Mrs. Columbo" Silvestri, asked.

"A friend," Boomer said. "And we're gonna need us one of those."

"Does that mean the drinks are on the house?" Rev. Jim asked.

"He said I was a friend," Nunzio told him. "Not an idiot."

"You really know how to warm up a room," Mrs. Columbo said to Rev. Jim.

"I give it my best." The Rev. winked. "That's all you can ask."

"You need us for something, Boomer," Geronimo said. "And it's not to sit here and drink with you. So, let's hear it."

"I just finished something with Dead-Eye," Boomer said. "It started out as a favor for a friend. It ended up taking us to a whole other place."

"I heard about it," Mrs. Columbo said. "A kid got grabbed off the streets. You caught the lifter and somehow his partner managed to walk into your gun."

"The lifter had a business card in his pocket," Boomer went on. "With a woman's name on it. Lucia Carney is what it says on the card, and that's what she likes to be called. At least this week."

"What's her angle?" Rev. Jim asked.

"I told you guys on the phone about her day care center," Boomer said. "That covers her, money-wise, with the IRS."

"So what's her second job?" Geronimo said.

"She moves cocaine into the country," Boomer said. "Cocaine and crack. And then she moves the cash payments out. Guy I know in D.C. tells me she's got herself a crew of at least four hundred spread out across the country. Half of them are smurfs, all of them women. The other half work as muscle."

"What the h.e.l.l's a smurf?" Nunzio asked.

"Drug and cash couriers," Rev. Jim muttered.

"She calls her smurfs the Babysitter's Club," Boomer said.

"Like the children's books," Mrs. Columbo said. "I just bought a couple of them for my niece."

"Right," Boomer said. "The ladies she uses are all neat and clean. No record, no arrests, no history of drug usage. Half of them don't even know they're movin' s.h.i.t."

"How do they work the transport?" Dead-Eye asked. "If they don't know they're transporting?"

Boomer took a deep breath before he answered, scanning the faces in the room one more time.

He knew he was going to go after Lucia Carney. That decision was made the minute he ran her aliases through the DEA's BCCI computer. What he didn't know was whether he could get the people in the room to go along with him. He had chosen each of them very carefully, using his instinct but also a.s.sessing their individual backgrounds. They were all adrenaline junkies whose daily rush had been taken away long before they were ready to give up the high. Now they were all drifting, living from paycheck to paycheck, working second jobs they couldn't care less about, feeling closer to dead than alive.

They faced a dark future, one crammed with regrets, memories, and could-have-beens.

Boomer knew it.

He was betting they would too.

"Dead babies," Boomer finally said when every face in the room was still enough to focus only on his answer. And his answer got everyone's attention.

"How?" Dead-Eye asked quietly.

"She finds a baby any way she can," Boomer said. "After our experience with Malcolm and Junior, we know there's no shortage of sc.u.m out there willing to lift a kid."

"The dealers work the runaways," Rev. Jim said. "Always have. Turn 'em on to the junk, then throw 'em to the streets to earn what they spend on smack. Some of the girls get pregnant, they carry through and sell the kid. But that market's not big enough to supply a whole team of mules."

"This crack s.h.i.t's changed all the rules," Boomer said, standing and resting his hands on the table. "And Lucia's got every s.p.a.ce covered. She's got the runaways, but instead of having 'em turn tricks, she has her crew get them pregnant and hand the babies over to her."

"Probably buys whatever else she needs on the black market," Mrs. Columbo said. "You could move five, maybe ten thousand babies a year that way."

"At the least," Boomer said. "And when all else fails, she lifts them. Home invasions, backseat of a car, front end of a stroller. Anywhere, anyplace, Lucia's crew will make the grab."

"How much she moving?" Geronimo asked. "Cash wise."

"The feds put a rough estimate on it of at least two hundred and fifty million," Boomer said.

"A year?" Pins asked.

"A month," Boomer said.

There was a respectful silence before Dead-Eye asked, "What about the babies? How's she work that angle?"

"She keeps the kids until they're about six, seven months old. Then they kill them."

"I don't know if I want to hear this part," Mrs. Columbo said, downing her scotch and wishing she had another.

"Didn't warm my insides either," Boomer said. "But it's what's out there and what's gotta be stopped."

"They use the dead babies as mules," Rev. Jim said. "Cut 'em open, empty them out, fill them with cocaine for the flight up, and cash for the flight down."

"You knew about this?" Pins asked, putting down his empty bottle of beer.

"I've heard rumors," Rev. Jim said. "Never knew if they were legit."

"They're legit all right," Boomer said. "You get on a plane sitting next to a woman holding a sleeping baby in her arms, you don't even think twice."

"Probably smile and tell her what a beautiful baby she has," Dead-Eye said. "Don't even notice that the baby slept through the entire flight."

"I grew up with hard people," Nunzio said. "Tough people. Some were criminals, ran numbers, owned brothels, couple shot a guy or two. But I don't know any who would turn this way."

"Where are the feds on this?" Mrs. Columbo asked.

"They're on it," Boomer said. "As best they can be. But you can't convict what you can't nail down. And it's not the mules they want. It's Lucia."

"What do we know about her?" Dead-Eye asked. "Besides her little habits of killing babies and burying husbands."

"I've got private access to whatever they have," Boomer said. "And through them, the locals too. Files, surveillance, taps. What I get, I'll pa.s.s on to each of you. It's not a lot, but it should be more than enough to get us started."