Sirens wailed in the distance.
Sutton gave a rattling cough. His eyes fluttered open, and he appeared to see Caruso for the first time.
Adara pressed her palm over a hissing stab wound in his chest, doing her best to seal it until paramedics arrived.
“Dom?” Sutton coughed again, croaking, wincing from the effort.
With his hand literally half buried in Sutton’s flesh, Caruso could feel the man’s hummingbird pulse—rapid but extremely weak, as his heart worked to deliver the little blood left in his system to his brain.
The agent blinked. “What . . . What are you doing here?”
“Tell you later, bud,” Caruso said. “Who did this to you?”
“Rene . . .” He coughed again. “She stabbed the shit outta me. Rene Peng . . . hiding down here while I followed her husband . . .” Sutton swallowed. “You got any water? I’m really thirsty.”
“Sorry,” Dom said. “We’ll get an IV in you as soon as the ambulance arrives. Save your strength.”
Sutton shook his head. “Pengs are Chinese nationals. Run . . . snakeheads out of the docks.” He shuddered, spit out a mouthful of blood, then stopped to catch his breath.
“Ambulance is almost here,” Adara said.
“Trying to get these bastards for months . . . Took my wife and kid to Vincent’s . . . damned if I didn’t see Rene walk by on the street . . .”
Sutton’s eyes widened. “My wife . . . I told her to wait . . . at restaurant.”
“I’ll go get her,” Dom said. “We’ll bring her to the hospital so she can visit with you.”
“Thanks . . . dude,” Sutton said, panting harder now. “Oh, man . . . I should . . . never have brought Melissa here . . .”
Caruso patted the agent’s cheek, gently but firmly. “Stay with us, Nick. No going to sleep. Where do you think Rene Peng is going?”
“No idea,” Sutton said, his words slurred. “If I woulda known that, I coulda caught ’em already . . .”
Ding’s voice broke squelch on the radio. “We have a woman wearing a white ball cap coming at us on East Broadway, toward the bridge. She’s restrained, like she’s trying to look relaxed but isn’t. There’s a guy with sunglasses and blue hoodie about three steps behind her.”
“That has to be them.” Dom looked down at Sutton’s wounds. “There no way she doesn’t have blood on her. Either that or she changed shirts.”
“Stand by,” Chavez said. “She’s walking past me now . . .” He whispered the next. “Bingo on the blood. It’s them, all right.”
* * *
—
The swath of red across the front of Rene Peng’s shirt was almost hidden by her arms. Her husband moved up beside her as she passed Ding, stuffing a cell phone back into his pocket and trotting to catch up as if he’d been on a call. He said something to her and they both laughed.
“Heartless bitch,” Ding mumbled, ignoring Clark as he came out of a little bodega and fell in behind the couple. Ding fell back, taking a moment to check out a vendor with a table full of used books in Chinese.
“I have the eyeball,” Clark said. “Half a block from the bridge.”
“Nearly there,” Midas said. “We’ll trap them in a pincer—”
“Let’s hold off on that,” Clark said. “If it looks like they’re going to get away, we’ll take them.”
“John,” Dom said, the need for vengeance straining in his voice. “They slashed the hell out of an FBI agent.”
“And he was after them for a reason,” Clark said. “Let’s see where they’re going. Dom, Adara, you deal with the police. The rest of you move toward the bridge. Let’s get a net around these bastards.”
At first it looked like the Pengs might take the Manhattan Bridge pedestrian walkway that led over the East River to Brooklyn. Instead, they stayed on East Broadway, going under the bridge, then paralleled the bridge along Forsyth Street. It looked like a county fair. Folding tables were laid out for several blocks, covered with assorted produce, from dragon fruit to durian—things Chinese people, not tourists, came to buy. Wizened faces sat under the makeshift shade of blue plastic tarps or large canvas umbrellas. Boxes of fruit were stacked high on the sidewalks behind the vendors. Refrigerated box trucks lined the streets.
It was still early enough that sunlight hit this side of the bridge, and the odor of fish and trash from the shadowed side streets gave way to the fruity perfume of the vendors.
Clark hung back a hundred feet or so, head down, shoulders hunched a little. Ding had fallen in behind him shortly after he’d taken over the eyeball, matching his pace but staying in the crowd of pedestrians.
With her back to Clark, Rene Peng stopped at a fruit stand where the street above began to curve back to the east over the sidewalk. Garret walked a few steps past her, glancing up at the pedestrian walk overhead, and then across Forsyth. He seemed tense, but Rene moved fluidly, now calm as a summer morning. She picked up a pear, held it to her nose, chatting amiably with the woman at the scale. The old woman nodded, looked up, past Clark, toward Ding. She leaned forward and whispered something. Rene held up the pear as if she was about to buy it—and then bolted.
The pear seemed to hang in midair for a long moment.
“They’re running north on Forsyth!” Clark snapped. “Toward Confucius Plaza and the bridge ramp. They may try and split up.”
Rene shot a glance over her shoulder, toward Clark again. She shouted in Chinese to her husband, and then both of them dug in, picking up their pace.
“Get after them, Ding!” Clark said. He’d done more than his share of running over the years, but it was no longer his strong suit. In any case, he had other ideas. “Jack, tell me you’re at the northeast corner of the bridge.”
“They’re in sight,” Ryan said.
Ding ran past Clark, the leather bag o’ guns looped over his shoulder, bouncing on his back.
“I’m here, too, Boss,” Midas said. “We got it all covered, the steps, Canal. Dave is posted in front of the Greek Orthodox church.”
“Outstanding,” Clark said. “Ding, cut to the east side of the street near Dave. They may split up.”
“John, they’ll see me—”
“Do it now!” Clark snapped, leaving no room for argument. “The rest of you spread out. Give me a ten-count, then make yourselves known. Remember, this pair just tried to murder an FBI agent. Ding and I are the only ones armed at the moment.”