CHAPTER THREE.

Riley was in the ready room of the Ravensgate Commandery cleaning his gear when an initiate burst in, his face flushed with excitement.

"Sir! Commander Williams was just spotted entering a hotel in New York City!"

Riley took the proffered communications report and quickly skimmed it. The hotel was on the border of Harlem, in an area that the police tended to avoid unless there was a significant issue that needed to be addressed. His team should be able to get in and out again without too much trouble.

"I want Echo on the pad in five minutes," Riley told the initiate. "Have Delta standing by as back-up. Now move!"

The messenger took off at a run, leaving Riley alone to collect his gear and consider his next move. Gamma might have been given command of the search but that didn't mean the other teams weren't authorized to respond in a critical moment. If Riley moved quickly, he could contain what had the potential to turn into a major disaster. Both Echo and Delta teams were made up of veterans who had fought for Cade in the past and as such were far less likely to start a firefight with their former commander. Many of those men owed Cade their very lives and they wouldn't be so quick to want to turn him over to the Preceptor and his minions as some of the newer soldiers would be.

Riley couldn't ignore the call, but at least he could stack the deck so that he wasn't responding with a chopper full of trigger-happy newbies. It was the best he could come up with at short notice.

The room began to fill up as members of both squads arrived to grab their ready bags and head for the chopper. With time being of the essence, they would wait to suit up once they were airborne rather than doing it here. Riley nodded to the veterans, men who he'd fought with repeatedly over the years and come to respect, and he kept his eye on the newcomers. There'd been a time when a man's acceptance into the Order was all that was needed in order to trust him with your life, but Riley knew those days had somehow slipped past when he wasn't looking. The Chiang Shih a.s.sault had severely depleted the Order's ranks and in its wake they'd needed to bring up new recruits faster than usual. Men like the Preceptor had seen that as an opportunity to fill the ranks with their hand-picked cronies, men who were perhaps beholden more to an individual than to the Order itself, and that had caused tension among the teams lately that Riley didn't know how to address. The irony that Echo was being called out to hunt its most effective commander, the man who had put his life on the line to stop the Chiang Shih a.s.sault when he'd been told by his superiors to ignore the warning signs, wasn't lost on Riley either.

Never a dull moment around here, he thought wryly as he grabbed his gear bag and headed for the landing pad.

The commandery in Westport, Connecticut had been Riley's home for several years and it didn't take him long to make his way through the halls and to the landing pad behind the manor house. A Blackhawk helicopter was waiting there for him, the rotors already turning. He hurried over and climbed aboard.

The rest of the squad was only moments behind him.

Once airborne, Riley got Command and Control on the radio and asked them to build a cover that would allow them to land the choppers close to the scene with a minimum of fuss. The Templars operated in secret, but they had people placed in key positions throughout many other government agencies and it didn't take long for Command to get back to him with a plan. Riley and his team would be going in under the guise of a Department of Homeland Security fast response unit holding an unannounced training exercise. They'd be met on the ground by one of their people inside the department who would provide ground transportation and agency credentials that would stand up to short-term scrutiny by both the public and other law enforcement agencies.

It was a good cover and Riley hoped it was a good omen for how the rest of the op would go.

The flight from Westport to New York City took less than fifteen minutes. Their pilot brought them in over the FDR Drive and landed at the 34th Street Heliport, which was normally closed at this hour and it therefore allowed the team to disembark without observation. Their contact was waiting for them there with a pair of armored Suburbans borrowed from the local DHS office to better foster the illusion of their cover. The men pulled on dark blue jackets with DHS emblazoned on their backs in bright yellow letters before boarding the SUVs. Less than a minute after landing the team was headed north on the FDR, sirens and lights clearing the path as they raced ahead, hoping to catch Cade before he left the scene.

Personally, Riley thought he would be long gone by the time they arrived, but the effort still had to be made, if only for appearances sake.

They jumped off the FDR at 120th street and cut across town until they reached 3rd Avenue. From there it was just moments until they raced into the hotel parking lot, slamming to a stop in front of the entrance, the men disembarking and following their commander inside.

Riley was still trying to figure out exactly how he was going to get Cade's location out of the night manager as he walked in the door, but as it turned out he didn't have to. The manager came rushing out from behind his desk to greet them as soon as he caught sight of the team entering the building in their armored vests and dark jackets.

"Oh, thank G.o.d! You're finally here!"

Riley had no idea what the man was talking about, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Give me an update," he ordered as he headed for the elevator, forcing the manager to walk with him in the process.

"One of our security team was watching the monitors and caught a man exiting the stairwell with a gun in his hand," the manager said, as he pulled out a key and used it to call the elevator. "The man found the room he was looking for, kicked the door open, and then he disappeared inside. That's when we called the police."

Not for the first time, Riley was thankful that the Order made a habit out of monitoring the police band in major cities across the US. Someone in the communications department must have heard the 911 call come over the wire and acted swiftly enough to route the request to the Order rather than to the NYPD for whom it was intended.

"I a.s.sume you've been monitoring the room since?" Riley asked, as the elevator dinged and the door opened in front of him.

"As best we can via the cameras in the hallway. No one has come in or out since. If you'll follow me..."

The manager moved to step inside the elevator but Riley put out a hand and stopped him.

"My men and I will take it from here. What's the room number?"

"1407," the manager replied, seemingly relieved that he wouldn't have to go up there. He handed over a plastic pa.s.skey. "This is a master key. It will get you into any room in the hotel."

Riley accepted it with a nod of thanks and then asked, "How many people are registered in the room?"

"Two. A man and a woman. They checked in about fifteen minutes before the man with the gun arrived."

So Cade had either been trailing them or had been alerted to their arrival by someone else at the hotel. Riley bet it was the former.

"What about the rooms on either side of 1307? Are they occupied?"

The manager shook his head. "No, we're not very full this evening and it's, uh, not a very popular floor."

Gee, can't imagine why, Riley thought.

"All right. Fourteenth floor is off-limits to everyone, including your people, until we get this resolved. I will let you know when it is safe to allow access. I don't want anyone accidentally getting hurt, understand?"

"Yes, sir."

As the manager hurried back to his station, Riley turned to his men and ordered them into position, sending First and Second squads to cover the stairs at either end of the floor while leaving Third to manage the lobby and taking the Command squad with him up to the 14th floor to handle the actual a.s.sault.

Inside the elevator, Riley watched the digital numbers above the elevator doors light up.

5...6...7...

He found himself wondering just who it was that Cade had followed inside and then, on the heels of that, praying that they'd given it to him whatever it was that he wanted. Cade was not the type of man you wanted to hide things from, particularly where his wife was concerned, and right now finding Gabrielle was the only thing that mattered to him.

The only thing.

8...9...10...

Riley pulled open a Velcro pocket on the left side of his vest and removed a small dental mirror. He gave its surface a quick shine.

11...12...13...14.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened.

Riley stuck the toe of his boot into the gap between the doors, holding them open, and then extended the dental mirror just past the opening. He used it to look down the hall in one direction, then in the other.

The hallway was clear.

He slipped the mirror into his pocket. Holding the doors open with one hand, he looked back and nodded at the men behind him. One by one they slipped out of the elevator, with Davis and Simmons taking up position across the hall and Martinez waiting for Riley on the elevator side. Then, as a group, they advanced on their target, weapons at the ready.

As they drew closer, Riley could see that the door to room 14o7 was slightly ajar. He stopped just shy of the entrance, signaling his men to do the same, and then he listened for a moment.

Nothing but silence.

He glanced at each of his men and got three nods in return, signaling their readiness for action. Riley nodded back and then counted down with one raised fist.

One...

Two...

On three Riley rushed forward, shouldering the door open and bursting into the room, the other Templars at his heels.

The smell hit him first, the thick coppery stench of spilled blood unmistakable and nearly overwhelming, and then Riley got his first good look at the room in front of him.

The place resembled a slaughterhouse.

Blood as black as pitch had pooled on the bed and been splashed across three of the room's four walls. Some of it had even reached the ceiling. Small pieces of flesh none large enough to be identified as anything specific were scattered throughout the room. Riley had the sinking feeling that if you added them all up you would end up with a whole corpse, but given the color of the blood he was pretty sure it wouldn't have been a human one.

A second body, this one of a naked human male, lay on the floor next to the bed. His head was at such an unusual angle that it was clear that his neck had been broken. Riley noted the way the blood that had dripped down from the bed had pooled against the sole of the man's bare foot and concluded that he'd died before his companion, whoever that had been.

Clearing the room was his number one priority, so Riley didn't stop to examine either the corpse or the other remains scattered throughout the room but headed straight for the partially open bathroom door instead.

He could see that the light was on inside so he didn't hesitate, just kicked the door open and followed it inward, swiveling to check the shower stall and the s.p.a.ce behind the door.

Both were empty; the room was clear.

"Clear!" he called, and seconds later received an answering call from the main chamber behind him.

Lowering his weapon, he moved to rejoin his men in the other room and only then heard the crunch of gla.s.s underfoot and noted what was left of the bathroom mirror strewn over the sink and floor tiles.

Riley had seen a similar tableau too many times not to know what it meant.

Cade had been here. He'd used the Beyond to avoid Riley's squad and escape the room without being seen. Heaven only knew where he was now.

d.a.m.n it, Cade! You're not making this easy, now are you?

The fact that they'd probably only missed him by moments did nothing to a.s.suage Riley's frustration. He needed to find Cade before Gamma did or who knew what disaster would result?

With Cade having already fled the scene, there wasn't much more that Riley could do aside from figuring out what had drawn Cade here in the first place.

He knew that it had something to do with the Adversary, for finding the creature was Cade's sole focus right now. He would hunt the abomination to the ends of the earth in an effort to rescue his beloved wife, Gabrielle, and Riley knew Cade would be utterly relentless in doing so.

Utterly ruthless, too, if the scene in the other room was any indication. So who, or what, had Cade encountered here that led him to such extremes?

Riley didn't know.

But he knew if he was going to be of any help to his old friend, he was going to have to figure it out.

Quickly, too.

He stepped back into the main room where his men were waiting.

"Simmons get on the horn and get an evidence collection team in here asap. I want to know who the dead guy is and I want pictures and samples of everything before we turn this place over to the NYPD."

"Roger that!"

Riley looked at the mess in the room around him and sighed.

It was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER FOUR.

"We need to talk," Dr. Gardner said gently and Debbie Harris felt something break deep inside her at the tone of his voice. Whatever it was, it wasn't good news; she knew that much before he said another word. She glanced at her son, Henry, lying unmoving in the hospital bed beside her and then followed the doctor out into the hall.

Henry had done two tours in Iraq, driving a heavy truck for the U.S. Army. He'd been ambushed repeatedly, taken a bullet in the shoulder, and even had his vehicle blown right up underneath him by an I.E.D., but in the end he'd come home safe and sound and ready to start a life together with his girlfriend just they'd always wanted.

The irony of it all was almost unbearable. To survive that h.e.l.l overseas, to come home with body, mind, and soul intact - not an easy thing to do if the other veterans she'd met were any indication - only to be sideswiped by a drunk driver while coming home from the grocery store a week ago. The collision forced his car across the middle lane and directly into the path of an oncoming eighteen wheeler. The truck driver said that it happened so fast that he hadn't been able to do anything and Debbie believed him. It hadn't been the truck driver's fault.

The emergency personnel who'd pulled Henry from the wreck had been amazed that he was still alive, given the two-foot piece of steel embedded in his skull, entering above his left eye and exiting just behind his right ear. They transported him to the ER at St. John's Hospital where the surgeons had immediately gone to work, removing the steel rod a piece of the car's steering mechanism as it turned out and doing what they could to stop the internal bleeding. It had taken eleven hours to stabilize him, but that had only been the start. Long days of agonized waiting followed; the doctors needed the swelling to come down before they could even begin to a.s.sess the amount of damage done to Henry's brain as a result of the injury.

The results of that a.s.sessment must have just come in.

Gardner led her a few steps down the hall to a set of plastic chairs. He took a seat, waited for her to do the same, and then launched into what it was that he'd come to say.

"I'm sorry, Debbie, but the news isn't good."

"The results from the CT scan came back and the situation's even worse than I feared. The rod that punctured Henry's skull damaged major portions of the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the cerebrum. If he were to regain consciousness and I have to be honest, that's a big if he wouldn't be Henry. At least not the Henry that you knew. The personality centers of his brain, the parts that made Henry Henry, have been irrevocably damaged. He would be an entirely different individual."

"But at least he'd be alive, right?" Debbie asked, reaching for the slim bit of hope she thought she saw lurking between the doctor's statements.

Gardner grimaced and shook his head gently. "Alive, yes, but at what cost, Debbie? His ability to think and reason for himself is gone. You'd be caring for nothing more than an empty sh.e.l.l."

"What...what would you have me do?"

"With all due respect," Gardner said, "I would recommend that you turn off the life support devices and let your son die with the dignity he deserves."

Debbie stared at the doctor in horror. "Turn off his life support?"

"Yes. It is for the best. Honestly."

"For the best? Turning off his life support killing my son is for the best?"

Debbie could hear her voice growing louder and more shrill as she went on, but she couldn't seem to help herself. Kill her son? He wanted her to kill Henry? Was he insane?

Gardner glanced up and down the hall, then turned back to face her. "Is there someone I can call to be with you right now?" he asked. "Someone who can sit with you, help you make the right decision? A husband perhaps?"