The four ofus are in the elevator at 4:58 a.m.
Alessandro. Matteo. Luca. Me.
Matteo presses the button. The doors close.
The doors open.
Luca is whistling.
The song Frank used to whistle when he was leaving for a shift.
He does not stop when he sees me recognize it. He tips his chin at the SUV.
"You ride with me, Detective."
"I ride with you."
We areon the FDR by 5:04 a.m.
Matteo's earpiece crackles at 5:09.
He listens. The micro-tightening at the eyes. The half-second of recalculation.
He looks at me.
"Crane's secure line just pinged from inside the estate."
"I thought he was in a container in Red Hook."
"So did I."
The FDR runs north along the water. The city behind us. Dark ahead.
"He's alive. And he's waiting for us."
We drive.
17
NADIA
The helicopter ride is nineteen minutes.
I am awake for sixteen of them.
I lose the first three minutes to the sedative they put in me at the dock to make sure I do not fight. Small. The sedative of a man who wants me dazed enough not to run when the helicopter touches down, not unconscious.
The men who put me on the helicopter at the Red Hook dock at 4:08 a.m. are not Crane's men. Crane's men are dead.
Only Kostas Stavros moves pieces this cleanly.
I am one piece. Sean is the other.
I do not yet know whether he is coming.
I know him.
He is coming for me.
