However, it was the third part of her plan that truly mattered. The prize she had dangled in front of the Sons of Man was Andrew Kane, formerly the group's most powerful member. As she told Rolles when he was sent to find out if she could deliver what she promised, Kane was alive and being held captive by the madman David Grale. One of her trusted men on the outside, one of the Russians she'd met with the night before, had been approached by a traitor who told him about Kane and said he could help locate him.

She could only imagine the ripple of both excitement and fear that the news of Kane's whereabouts had sent through the clandestine organization. When he was in power, Kane had seen to it that billions of dollars of the organization's finances were shifted into accounts that only he could access. The Sons of Man had lost billions more due to Karp and his friends, while the organization was not bankrupt, the financial blows had crippled its ability to push its agenda. Getting access to the money Kane had squirreled away would put them again in the driver's seat.

However, even billions of dollars wasn't the most important reason that Malovo's plan to find Kane was so vital to the Sons of Man. Kane knew the ident.i.ties of those members of the group who had yet to be discovered by Jaxon and his agency, one of the few agencies the Sons of Man had been unable to make any inroads into, mostly because of its small size.

As such, there were two possible outcomes for Kane if Malovo's plan worked. Hopefully, he could be "rescued" from Grale and then forced to divulge the information regarding the secret bank accounts. After that, he would be disposed of. However, if Kane couldn't be removed from Grale's lair, it was up to Rolles and his two men, as well as Malovo, to kill Kane and silence him forever.

Malovo was quite certain that Rolles was also supposed to kill her, too. She was a loose end. She knew too much. Of course, she had not told him all of her plan. The image of her former mentor lying in the blood-red snow flashed in her mind and the thought made her happy.

Fortunately, Rolles was as weak as any other man. She couldn't seduce him with her s.e.xuality, but she played to his ambition. She looked up at him again, seeing past the fake canine nose and fangs, through the gray fur headpiece and floppy ears. He was thinking about all the rungs he would be jumping past on the Sons of Man ladder. Maybe right into the inner circle and a seat at its table.

As she watched a marching band of bare-breasted women covered in body paint dance past, Malovo smiled again. Knowing your enemy's plan allows you to make the first move. This advice from her mentor had saved her many times, even if it had not saved him.

Waiting for word that the next phase had been completed, Malovo took in the scene around her. For more than a mile the sidewalks were packed with people, most of them in costume watching the parade. She knew that the marchers had begun lining up early that afternoon, an amazing collection of some of the most outlandish and outrageous costumes. Skeletons and vampires. Satyrs and clowns. Giants on stilts strode by as drag queens in their element proudly posed for photographs with tourists. And at the tail end of the parade was the grand marshal's float-a cemetery with gravestones and ghosts, all presided over by the Grim Reaper.

It had disappointed her to learn that Karp's family would not be on the float with him, though it had not surprised her due to her own warnings about the terrorist threat. But the warnings had been necessary. The most difficult part of her plan had been to lure Grale and his men out of their lair. The traitor had told her that there was no way she could simply storm his stronghold, even if she could find it. He and his people knew the subterranean world and were masters at fighting in the dark. "And if he knows you're coming with too great a force to fight," the traitor had said, "he'll just take Kane and melt away into the dark."

She needed to know how to find Grale's home and Kane, and she needed Grale to be out of it, which is where her attorney Bruce Knight came in. The traitor had told her that Knight had once lived with Grale and still helped with legal issues for his motley collection of Mole People. That meant he could contact Grale and would be trusted. She gambled that Knight could also be trusted to reveal what she was saying and doing to his old friend. So much for attorney-client privilege, she thought with a laugh.

Of all the potential pitfalls in her plan, Grale worried her the most. He answered to no one but himself and by all accounts was insane, which meant he might not react in a predictable way. So she'd come up with several traps to get him out from beneath the streets. The first was to offer herself as bait. She knew from the traitor that Grale felt he was on some sort of mission from G.o.d to rid Manhattan of evil. "He believes that you are inhabited by a very important demon," the traitor had told her. "If he thought he could get to you and kill you, he'd take any chance."

So she let it be known to Knight that she would be at the Halloween parade with very little protection. He would also try to stop a terrorist attack, seeing himself as a force for good, and therefore she made sure that Knight knew enough about the evening's plans to warn Grale.

She wasn't as sure about Grale's feelings about Karp. On the surface, they were enemies-Grale was a ma.s.s murderer and Karp was a by-the-book prosecutor. The traitor had warned that there was some sort of personal connection between Grale and Karp's family, but whether that extended to the man himself, he wasn't so sure. So she also came up with the idea of planting the seed that Karp worked for the Sons of Man, not such a far-fetched idea for a madman. It had paid off when Rolles brought her the newspaper with the front-page story about Grale's attack on Karp.

Malovo looked around, wondering if any of the costumed revelers around her were actually an insane killer and his minions. It would be so easy to sidle up to her, just as, according to her plan, it would be so easy for a group of terrorists to join the parade with no one the wiser until the bombs started going off.

Looking across Sixth Avenue, Malovo scanned the crowd to pick out Agent Jaxon and U.S. Marshal Capers. She'd suggested that they stand apart from her as they kept an eye on the marchers and told them it would be easier to spot the terrorists on the parade route than next to her on a crowded sidewalk. She expected Capers to resist the notion of being so far away, but other than insisting that Malovo be cuffed and within arm's reach of Rolles, she agreed.

During a break between groups on the parade route, Malovo spotted the pair. Capers was dressed as a clown in whiteface and wearing a short, bright yellow high school marching band dress and a cowboy hat. Jaxon was dressed as a cowboy, complete with a six-shooter that Malovo knew was not just a prop.

Suddenly, Jaxon's hand flew to his ear, while on his side of the street, Rolles did the same thing. A moment later Rolles turned toward her and grinned. "They caught Grale," he said. "Apparently he got within about twenty feet of Karp's float before Fulton spotted him. And get this, he was dressed like a monk and almost made it through the security line."

Malovo laughed. Then Rolles put a finger to his lips and listened to his earpiece again, and again started to smile. "Just like a row of dominoes," he said. "I'm afraid yet another terrorist cell has been taken down."

This time Malovo nodded. She knew the second report was from Jaxon's ant.i.terrorism team. The next phase was complete. Two blocks away, two sleeper cells of terrorists who'd been helping each other into suicide vests were in the custody of federal agents.

"It's done," Rolles said, looking down at her. "They will relax their guard now."

"Time for the next phase," Malovo said.

Rolles nodded and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He pressed a number and then spoke into the receiver. "Move."

Suddenly, from a side street just up the block, a new group of marchers broke through the throng and the police barricade to join the parade. The group consisted of a dozen young women dressed identically to Malovo as Little Red Riding Hoods and a half-dozen men dressed as wolves like Rolles. The crowd laughed and cheered as the wolves chased the red-caped women toward Malovo and Rolles.

Malovo glanced back across the street and saw Capers frown, then suddenly realize what was happening and start trying to push her way through the crowd. Jaxon followed, drawing his gun.

It was too late. The Red Riding Hoods, who were just young women hired to play the part, surrounded Malovo and Rolles. "Let's go," he said to her, and started to move with the crowd.

She smiled. This was the part of the plan she had not told him about. One of the wolves stepped up to her, cut the plastic wrist cuffs, and handed the knife he'd used to Malovo. It all happened so fast that Rolles did not have time to react before the blade cut through his stomach muscles and pierced his liver. She twisted the knife for both effect and pleasure, and then stabbed him twice more before he could reach out to push her away.

"b.i.t.c.h," he snarled as he started to crumple to the ground.

"The better to kill you, my dear," she laughed, and then bent over and took the cell phone from his hand. She stood and looked at the wolf who had handed her the knife. "Allahu akbar!" she shouted, giving him the cell phone.

"Allahu akbar!" he shouted back, and with the other wolves began to run toward the back of the parade route, where the grand marshal's float was just beginning its journey.

Even those around Malovo did not realize what had happened as she danced off in the middle of the group of other Red Riding Hoods. Not until a pool of blood began to spread around the twitching body of Michael Rolles did anyone scream.

And by the time Capers and Jaxon reached the spot, Malovo was long gone.

35.

STANDING ON TOP OF THE FLOAT, KARP SAW THEM COMING from two blocks away. A half-dozen figures dressed in gray fur with black noses and floppy ears running with purpose against the flow of the parade. Even at a distance he could tell that they moved like men weighed down by a heavy burden.

It was seeing their costumes, though, that had reminded him of one of the offhand comments made by the terrorists in the house with Nadya Malovo: "We will be like wolves among the sheep." And that's when he knew the ident.i.ty of the men who'd been sent to kill him and many others.

The comment might have pa.s.sed him by, but his daughter's discussion about how people sounded different when speaking naturally as opposed to reading had heightened his consciousness about speech patterns. Without knowing why it mattered, he noticed how Malovo's voice had caught when the man spoke before she recovered and tried to hide the slipup.

Now he knew what had been in the boxes that Jaxon's men had discovered at the Bed-Stuy house that afternoon. They had found the boxes when they took the terrorists into custody, but they'd been empty, and it wasn't until the agents discovered an old tunnel below the apartment building that had once been used to transport heating coal beneath the streets that they realized that one group of the terrorists had escaped with their costumes. The others who stayed back were just unwitting decoys, though murderous in their own right.

"It's the wolves, Clay!" he shouted at the large ghost standing next to him.

"The wolves?" Fulton repeated, then nodded. "I see them." He cued his radio. "We've spotted the targets. Five-no, six men dressed as wolves, running toward the float. On my signal, jam them! Take-down team, be ready!"

As his would-be a.s.sa.s.sins approached, Karp prayed that none of them would panic and attempt to detonate his vest until they were close to him. Although it was believed that the vests were going to be detonated by remote control, they couldn't be sure that there wasn't a manual means as well.

A block away, the wolves picked up speed. One of them held up a cell phone.

"Now!" Fulton shouted.

Screaming, "Allahu akbar!" the wolves halted in a semicircle in front of the float as the leader with the cell raised it high above his head and pressed the Send b.u.t.ton. For a moment it seemed to Karp that time stopped and the world stood still. But instead of a blast followed by a million tiny steel b.a.l.l.s flying through the air, tearing bodies to pieces, nothing happened.

The terrorists looked at each other in confusion. Several shouted again as the leader punched at the phone. But that was his last act before all six wolves were tackled hard and taken to the ground by two dozen burly NYPD SWAT officers dressed as Roman gladiators. Before any of the a.s.sa.s.sins could reach for a manual detonation device, their arms were wrenched behind their backs and each was subdued and cuffed by two officers while a third held a gun to the head of a prisoner.

Throwing back his cowl and removing his Death mask, Karp looked over at a pretty female ghost standing on his other side. "Nice work," he said.

"What?" Lucy said, still looking at the squirming wolves on the ground.

"The cell phone detonator," Karp said.

"Oh," she said. "It was nothing."

"Yeah, nothing, but it saved a lot of people," Karp replied.

It was Lucy who'd figured out that Malovo would want the suicide vests to explode simultaneously for maximum effect and the best way to do it would be to use cell phones attached to the vests as detonators. Her clue, as she explained in his office at lunch, had been the attack on the ferry. She'd been listening on some of the world's most sensitive audio equipment when she announced that the remaining terrorists on the crippled boat wanted to surrender. "No one was threatening to blow up the boat," she said. "But right before it exploded, I heard a cell phone ring. We checked transmissions to and from the vessel, including those from Aman Ghilzai that morning. At the exact moment of the explosion, there was a call placed to a cell phone on the boat from one of the apartment buildings overlooking the harbor."

Karp looked at Fulton. "We better set off the fireworks," he said.

"Blow 'em!" Fulton shouted into his radio.

The command was followed by several large explosions from the rooftops of buildings on either side of the grand marshal's float. As the crowd around the float, some of whom were still trying to figure out if the scene with the handcuffed wolves was real or a joke, cheered, the big detective smiled. "Sounded like a successful suicide attack to me," he shouted.

Karp nodded, wondering how the night would end, but grateful that so far it was without the deaths of many innocent people.

Pulling that off had been no small feat and had taken the full focus of Jaxon's team, as well as Karp and Fulton. That alone had been tough for Karp, who'd had to switch gears from the trial and sudden appearance of Nonie Ellis.

Fortunately, the good guys had several things working for them. One was knowing that everything Malovo and her accomplice had said aloud was intended to deceive them. Whatever she was planning, it didn't depend on the six men in the house who thought they were going to martyr themselves.

Of course, Jaxon's team still had to follow the men and, when they met with the other sleeper cell, take them down as they prepared for mayhem and murder. The two Russians Malovo had been speaking to had also left the house, but these men, and a third unidentified man who'd gone with them, were left for Grale to deal with as part of his bargain with Karp.

It was Grale who'd figured out that while Malovo and Rolles, whom they now a.s.sumed to be a double agent with the Sons of Man, were serious when planning the terrorist attack on the Halloween parade, it wasn't just to sow fear and terror, or even just to kill Karp. Those were just side benefits. Their main objective was to kill or capture Andrew Kane.

Grale had realized early on that a traitor was working against him. A man who'd been exiled from the Mole People and had somehow contacted Malovo and informed her that Kane, whose information would be invaluable to both law enforcement and the Sons of Man, was being held captive. This traitor had led her to Bruce Knight, whom she'd tried to use to sow disinformation.

Grale had countered by having one of his loyal followers contact the traitor and, in conversations, let himself be convinced to work for Malovo, too. Then Grale tested his theory by having his man tell the traitor that he would be meeting with Lucy Karp in Central Park and that he would have Kane with him. He'd been well aware of the man in the shadows at the boathouse.

"Whatever her plans, she is working hard to make sure that my focus, and your focus, is on the Halloween parade," Grale had said at their meeting. "She's even tried to divide us by suggesting to me that you work with the Sons of Man. All of it to lure me away from my stronghold and her prize."

It was then that Grale had proposed his deal with Karp, who now looked north up Sixth Avenue. It's in your hands now, David, he thought just as two police officers led a struggling man dressed in a brown monk's robe up to the float.

"Let go of me ... p.i.s.s c.r.a.p b.a.l.l.s whoop whoop oh boy ... you p.i.s.sants, I'm working with the DA!" the man shouted.

An amused smile crossed Karp's face. "David Grale, I presume," he said.

One of the police officers pulled back the hood from the robe, and Dirty Warren Bennett grinned up at Karp, his face twitching. "Hey, Butch, I got a ... oh boy oh boy ... good one for you," the news vendor said. "What are the two things the Gypsy woman says to Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man?"

Karp laughed. "Let's see, 'Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.'"

"Yeah, yeah, that's the ... t.i.ts a.s.s whoop ... one everybody knows," Bennett said with a grin. "What's the other one?"

"Boy, that's a tough one," Karp replied.

"Woo-hooo!" Bennett cackled. "Tonight I'm going to ... son of a b.i.t.c.h oh boy ... win for once!"

Karp grinned. "Sorry to disappoint you, my friend, but how's this? 'The way you walked was th.o.r.n.y, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end.'"

"Aw, I knew you'd get it ... oh boy whoop whoop," Bennett said. He pointed down at the sewer cover he was standing on. "It just seemed appropriate ... c.r.a.p nuts ... it being Halloween and the predestined end and all. You know what I mean?"

"Yes, Warren, I know exactly what you mean."

36.

THE LITTLE MAN CREPT LIKE THE RAT HE WAS THROUGH THE sewers and pathways beneath the city until he came to the dimly lit junction of tunnels where he knew he would be challenged. "I'm looking for the entrance to the kingdom of heaven," he called out.

"And how do you gain entrance?" a voice shouted back from the dark outside the circle of light.

"The love of Christ," the man answered, praying that the pa.s.sword had not changed.

A moment later, another man stepped out of the shadows with his rifle pointed. "James? What are you doing here? You know David exiled you on pain of death!"

"I have important news for him, Brother Harvey," James said.

"And what might that be?" Harvey replied before a fit of coughing took him.

"That his reign is over," James snarled. "And so is your life."

Harvey looked up just as a red beam intersected his chest. The bullet that followed knocked him to the ground, so that he ended up sitting in a puddle of dirty water with his back against the tunnel wall. "Judas," he whispered.

"How's it feel, Harvey?" James asked, squatting so that he could peer in the dying man's eyes with a penlight. "What does it feel like to die?"

"Like freedom," Harvey replied, and died with a smile on his lips.

The traitor James stood up, confused. He'd thought there would be more satisfaction; Harvey had been the one to escort him from Grale's kingdom and kick him out onto the streets. But there wasn't more time to think about it as two more men walked up behind him and stood looking down at the dead man.

"Now what?" James asked.

"We wait for Malovo and Rolles," one of the men said, and looked at his watch. "They should be here any minute."

James nodded. He'd been the third man at the meeting with Malovo in Bedford-Stuyvesant and felt important because of the role he'd been given. After being kicked out of the kingdom, he'd brooded over his exile, thinking of ways to get even. Then he remembered a conversation Grale had had with Harvey regarding Boris Kazanov and the Russian gangster's ties to Malovo. So he went to Little Odessa in Brooklyn and let the word get out that he wanted to speak to Kazanov about "something worth a lot of money to Nadya Malovo."

The gangster had found him shortly after and listened to his story about the man Grale kept captive in his lair, Andrew Kane. He convinced Kazanov that Malovo would be willing to pay millions for the information and a.s.sistance. The brutal Russian had taken it from there.

James found Malovo extremely attractive and fantasized about what s.e.x would be like with the blond G.o.ddess. He was surprised and delighted when she started flirting with him, suggesting that one of his rewards would be an intimate one.

Waiting with the two NIDSA agents for word of the explosions from lower Manhattan, James imagined how grateful Malovo would be when he delivered her prize. When they heard the signals, he practically ran through the sewers and tunnels to reach the junction where they were to take out the guard and wait for the others.

The moment he was waiting for soon arrived when Malovo ran up. But there was no sign of Rolles.

"He's dead," Malovo answered truthfully when the agents asked why he was not with her. "That son of a b.i.t.c.h Jaxon shot him at the Fourteenth Street subway station. I barely escaped. But I heard the explosions; that part of the mission is complete."

The two agents exchanged puzzled looks. "I don't believe you," one said, and raised his silenced submachine gun. But he never had a chance to pull the trigger before a bullet caught him in the mouth, killing him before he even fell to the ground.