THE ARMAGEDDON COVENANT

CHAPTER ONE

No one seemed to know just how long the children had been there, huddled on the narrow ledge jutting from the massive circular frame of one of Marina Tower’s twin skyscrapers—thirty floors above the sticky, green water of the Chicago River. But everyone knew the terror when it happened. When each child plunged, head first, in a horrifying free-fall to the dirty pavement of Wacker Drive.

One of the office secretaries, spending her noon break on a park bench while watching birds through a pair of purse binoculars, was the first to notice them. At first she thought they were a cluster of pigeons hovering precariously on the side of the building in the balmy May breeze. She shielded her eyes with the palm of her hand. Something seemed a little off but she couldn’t quite say what it was. They appeared to line the rim of the ledge in perfect formation, each exactly the same distance from the next.

Pigeons would never be so resolute.

Suddenly a white rock tumbled from above. It landed a few feet from where she sat. But when it rolled to the curve, she bolted off the bench.

It was a Nike tennis shoe.

She stepped backwards into the street, still holding her hand over her brow. With her head pitched back on her shoulders, she peered through the eyepiece of her binoculars into the blinding rays of the noonday sun. Her eyes stung as she attempted to focus. With one more slight turn of the focusing ring the hazy figures took shape. “Oh God!” One of the figures was lurching back and forth on the ledge. Her whole body shook, and the binoculars dropped from her hand, landing with a bump against her chest as the strap caught them.

There was a screech of rubber on pavement as a Yellow Cab spun toward her, its horn blaring as it swerved in a desperate arc around her. The driver screamed a few obscenities as he sped on down the wrong side of the street.

The woman was oblivious to it all, even as she teetered on one leg and tried to regain her balance from the near hit and run. Her hand shook as she pointed towards the tower. “Look! The tower. It’s children!” The words spilled out in a high-pitched jumble but the alarm in her voice was enough to make people curious.

Heads turned and tilted.

She screamed, still teetering on one leg after the taxi had roared pass. She hauled the tiny binoculars in front of her eyes once more, transfixed.

High above the crowd, the children had gathered in a neat row on the ledge. They stood holding each other’s hands.

“What the—what are they doing up there?”

A few from the gathering crowd ran toward the tower, arms outstretched as if to catch them if they fell.

In the center of the children stood a gaunt, pale, redheaded boy. A gust of wind caught up his turf of hair and licked around his face like fingers of flames. He was flanked by ten others, five to his right, five to his left. At first all stood at attention, staring eastward at the misty haze drifting just above the water of Lake Michigan, a brief residue of the chilly Chicago nights. Each of them wore a pale gold sweater bearing a bold, bright green “H”—their high school colors.

A large crowd now swarmed into the intersection, halting the busy noontime traffic and sending cars and trucks into a maze of screeching stops and turns. “T—ten . . . no, eleven of them!” The secretary reported to anyone that was listening. A smattering of gasps rose from shocked, upturned faces. Cell phones were yanked from purses and pockets, some to dial 911, some hoping to catch the action should anything catastrophic happen.

The redheaded boy slowly turned his head and looked to his left. The cold look on his youthful freckled face thawed into wistful contentment. Then he turned to his right and beamed a knowing smile at the lanky black child standing at the end.

Moments later the black kid stepped into the wind.

One by one, the children left the ledge—still holding hands—following each other like falling dominoes as a collective gasp rose from the crowd, interrupted by the piercing scream of a single onlooker.

The children fluttered to the sidewalk like a twisting, flapping chain of rag dolls, some losing their grip only moments before each of them smashed into the ground. A chubby, black-haired girl landed only a few feet from the secretary, rupturing inside out before her mangled body came to rest with its head twisted completely around. The lanky black kid landed nearby, in a sitting position. He now sat in the middle of the street with eyes wide open, blood trickling from his ears and mouth. Several did not reach the ground, having fragmented into arms, legs, heads and torsos when their bodies smashed into the side of Marina Towers on the way down. Wacker Drive was now bathed in bits of flesh and blood.

An unnatural hush had settled over the crowd when the first child stepped off the ledge, the utter silence broken only by the sound of the faint whimper coming from the secretary. She stood frozen in the middle of the street with her binoculars pressed firmly against her breasts. Her white, chiffon blouse hung heavily from her shoulders, drenched in blood. A howl of sirens, blocks away, broke through the hush. The inert masses suddenly came to life, scrambling as a caravan of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances pulled onto Wacker Drive.

***

A shimmering, moonlit glow had settled over the surface of the Euphrates River as it flowed in its ageless eastward journey into the scant fertile soils of Iraq. Khaled Mozar stood on its riverbank, his speckled red and white keffiyeh scarf flapping around his face as he gazed into its murky waters. His pale, gray Arabian horse had followed the river’s course almost by instinct, an instinct nurtured by its own ancestors since the times of other Arabian nights.

Khaled sat tall in the saddle, an imposing figure of a man. Although the sun had long settled behind the ashen shadows of distant hills, Khaled pulled his keffiyeh over his mouth, its golden band slipping from around his forehead. He fiddled with the cloth until it felt secure. He couldn’t risk any recognition. Not that it was a path many traveled; he had made this trip many times but unlike his Bedouin forefathers, his was not a wandering journey. His purpose was absolute, unquestioned, and preordained by Allah.

His horse shifted restlessly beneath him, as though impatient for the rest it would need before their long journey the next morning. He slid from the saddle and then slid the saddle from the horse’s back and waved it away before he spread a blanket beneath the leafy crown of a large tree jutting out over the bank of the river.

Overhead, the black sky had strewn millions of stars across the horizon, filling the heavens with gleaming white orbs of light. Khaled gazed upward.

“Shukran, Allah,” he whispered, thankful for Allah’s favor on him.

His friends from the east had sent good news. But now it was his turn to bring even more glory to his god and the caliphate. It was for this reason that in the morning he would travel through the shifting sands of the desert, to the place called Ar Rutbah, where he would again join the others.

***

Ivan Brucknov didn’t feel the first bullet. But the second tore into his right thigh with such fury that he cried out in pain.

Something had gone wrong.

He shifted his weight to the left and shuffled toward the front bumper of his black Security-issue sedan. He wrestled his tie from his neck and tied it around his upper leg. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot but with the passing years each wound took longer to heal. He took out a tattered handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Moscow’s Bulvarnoye Koltso was not quite a block away. He had thought it would be secure enough but obviously someone could still see him clearly enough to send a barrage of high-powered bullets his way.

There was a tingle of pain in his side and he rubbed at the scratch left by the first bullet. How could this be happening? His other agents had staked out the building for months. They had put tails on virtually everyone who had entered that apartment block for the past year. In these times of crumbling Soviet life, it was the only way to draw the thin line between a disconcerted citizen and Russia’s own newest adversary—the Red Mafioso, the Bratva..

Brucknov’s bloodshot eyes squinted in the blackening dusk. He regretted deserting his night-vision binoculars and .45 pistol when he dove through the car window in a hail of shattering glass and bullets. He now lay just behind the left front tire in a pool of warm, sticky blood.

Suddenly, the left headlight exploded just above his head, showering his salt and pepper hair with splinters of shrapnel.

“Chert!” The curse broke from his lips involuntarily. They were creeping up on his flank.

Brucknov moved by instinct. In one swift move he rolled to the left, propped his left leg beneath his pelvis and bolted back through the driver’s window.

Another volley of bullets tore into the side of the car door inches below his feet as he slammed into the steering wheel and tumbled to the floor of the car.

“Chert!” he growled again, cursing himself. He had made an unforgivable mistake. He normally would never park his car less than a hundred feet from a neighboring building—it made his own ambush too easy. He had been too cocky. Or too lazy. What was wrong with him?

He slid a hand under the driver’s seat and pulled out his gun. Then he waited.

The events of the past few months streamed through Brucknov’s mind: the frantic call to the Security Ministry from the commanding officer at the Azerbaijan military base, the reports from his agents stationed there, the large sums of money appearing in the bank accounts of Schrevnev. There was no question in his mind that his team had identified a major arms dealer—drugs were not enough. Just one more opportunist taking advantage of the republic’s disintegration since the assassination of Putin. Some felt the reestablishment of the republic had been wrong, but for a time things had improved. At least back then there was a clear leader with solid ideas for the future of the Russian Republic. Now the government was fractured and men like Mikil Schrevnev were taking advantage of the disorder. Schrevnev was more than just dangerous. There was evidence that he was stealing artillery shells. Bombs. Maybe worse.

Brucknov shifted back onto the front seat of the car and inched his way to the passenger’s side. He slipped his hand out the shattered window and gave the side-view mirror a nudge. The concrete building to his left flipped into view.

On the third floor, to the right, a shadow peeked from a broken window. Suddenly, a shriek of spinning tires filled the street, and a beam of light flared into his windshield. He jumped from the car and pointed his gun directly at the headlights bearing down on him. He squeezed off a round. One of the bullets met its mark. The army green truck swerved, missing him by inches.

The front end of his car exploded with the truck’s impact, then spun in a vortex of mangled metal and steaming plumes of radiator fluid.

To his right, he saw a shadow move. He didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger of his automatic Colt .45 and sent a volley of bullets to tear away the window frame and destroy anything beyond. The shooter tumbled out the window, landing on a hedge of shrubbery below. Behind him the truck’s wheels spun furiously. It roared down the street in a mushrooming black cloud of burning rubber. Ivan ran a hand over his face, massaging his thick jawbone before limping across the street to see if there was any life left in the body that had tumbled from the third floor. He had questions that a corpse would likely not be able to answer.

CHAPTER TWO

Doctor Jake Hathaway sat at his research bench and stared intently through magnifying glasses at the dark blue rows of stained material splayed across the sheet of X-ray film he held above his head. A thin smile spread across his normally serious face but failed to reach his large brown eyes. They hadn’t smiled in years and were unlikely to start today, even if he had finally uncovered what could be a career-making discovery.

“It’s there.” he whispered, disbelief and wonder at war within him.

He snatched the glasses off his nose and cleaned the lenses on his shirt before having another look.

No question about it, those were the indicators he had been looking for. Six years of doubts, frustration, and defeats disappeared. He held in his hands an answer to a lifetime of struggles. This thin film of plastic held the proof, that he could finish something in life without giving up. It looked like switching paths partway through medical school wasn’t such a bad choice after all.

He gently laid the film on his workbench and walked over to the window, opening it wide, he inhaled deeply, his smooth chocolaty skin turning a warm caramel in the late afternoon sun.

Outside, the lush green campus of the National Institutes of Health reminded him that he had indeed made it. He was employed at the most prestigious research institute in the world. He should be grateful. He knew he should, but no matter how many good things happened in his life this last year, something was still missing.

He looked out on the midday gathering of laboratory workers milling around on the grassy hillock below. His thoughts wandered back to his childhood, back to the balmy Chicago nights spent roaming with his buddy, Pete, up and down the alleyways and secluded shops clustered in Old Town, back to the steamy evenings spent on the roof listening to the old recordings of Prince, Whitney Houston, and Lionel Ritchie left behind by his grandparents, back to the summers of pirated fire hydrants and the screaming pleas of the neighbor kids as he and Pete would jokingly drag them into the deluge spewing onto the street.

Always intruding on those happier memories came the disappointments, starting with the realization that his father was an alcoholic—a lost, wasted soul. And with that realization came the first twinges of his own doubt, his own growing fear of failure. They said that kids of addicts often become addicts themselves. He vowed never to drink, never to be like his dad. But what if it was inevitable? “What if” became the question he obsessed over, his insecurities worsening when his father died while he was still in high school.

The year 2016 had been one of insecurity on a global scale, governments swinging from left to right and right to left. Major political upsets, major earthquakes, major unrest, and the growth of Daesh. But sitting there in his grade ten social studies class, young Jake was consumed with fear over his own family situation. Abruptly, he had found himself the head of his household. At fifteen he should have been out with one of the myriad of girls that texted him all night long. Instead he was cooking macaroni and cheese for his baby brother and doing his best to keep their mother from crying all night in her room. There was no other choice. Even back then he knew that life was unforgiving. There simply was no room for mistakes. No room for weakness or bad luck. Everyone knew that life in Chicago asked for so much, and often gave so little in return.

Somehow, Jake had carried on right through high school and university. He had supported Joe as he navigated his way through the turbulent waters of preadolescence. He had taken care of his mother, even as her depression worsened to the point that she had to be admitted to the Mantino Mental Hospital. He’d even taken Joe to live with him during his first year of medical school, working as a lab assistant to pay the rent on a squalid little apartment near the university.

By the time his second year of medical school rolled around, something in him cracked. It was a stress fracture that broke him to pieces, one cold November night. He had tried to do it all, but all was too much. His mother was living out her days in the sterile confines of an institution. His brother needed him more than he could be there. The 72 percent on his last paper showed the strain he was under. It would only get worse. Better to cut his losses. He dropped out the next day, moving him and little Joe back into their home. His mother was released a few months later and Jake was once again the head of their broken household.

Jake shook his head as if to clear it. He grinned grimly. It was just when he thought he couldn’t go on living that he’d met Alice. She had come into his life on a spring day just like this one. It was fitting somehow. She brought with her a freshness and light that he hadn’t known since his childhood. She’d been the one to convince him to go back to school. She was the one cheering the loudest when he had climbed up on the platform to be handed his doctorate. She was the one to use her connections to get him the position he held now, although she would also have been the first to tell him that it was totally his own ability that made him one of the most sought-after and brilliant biochemists in the nation.

There was a familiar tightening in his chest as he thought of Alice. Without Alice he had lost the zeal. Even now, the realization of his major discovery didn’t bring the thrill it should have.

Jake slowly shut the window and glanced at the green fluorescent time hologram he projected in front of his eyes after tapping an icon on the telephone watch on his wrist. It was barely past noon but Jake decided to call it a day. He shoved a pile of notes into his briefcase and walked out of his lab, ignoring the questioning look on the ruddy face of Mary, his technician.

May sunshine had cloaked Washington, DC, with a blanket of cherry blossoms and filled its zigzagging streets with early tourists, turning the usual congestion into frustrating chaos. He didn’t often come home in the middle of the day, but when he did, he felt sorry that he had not done it more often in the past—when his wife was still alive. He was entitled to six months of paternity leave when their daughter was born, and he’d taken two days. But who could have foreseen that just three years later she would be gone?

Jake blinked as he exited the old brick building, the sun more intense than it had felt from his office window. For a moment he toyed with the idea of picking Jessica up early from school and taking her for a picnic but at eight his little girl was too much like him. She would worry the whole afternoon about what she would be missing in class.

He climbed in his car and it purred to life. He could probably convince Shelley to play hooky from work. They’d only been dating a few months, but he could tell she was already much more committed than he was. She was amazing in every way. Clever, beautiful, kind, loyal . . . but she wasn’t Alice, and a small part of him had trouble forgiving her for that.

Nope, he wouldn’t bother her. Not with the mood he was in. Instead he punched “home” into the GPS and let his car take him home.

Jake’s black Jeep crept along Bethesda Avenue for an hour before he was able to head south to his small brick bungalow in Tacoma Park.

He scooped up the pile of mail just inside the door and called out, “CNN” to the TV. The theme music for AC 360, one of the longest-running news programs, came on with a blast and he hummed along as he walked down the hall to the kitchen where he groped in the refrigerator for lunch. His watch buzzed with a phone call from an unknown number; he ignored it. He liked that he still had the option to refuse a call. He got teased at the office for the relic on his wrist, but so many of them were a slave to the chip. It’s hard to ignore a call when the number keeps flashing in your peripheral.

Anderson Cooper’s reedy voice filtered in from the living room. It always gave him a sense of nostalgia. The old man was a little thicker framed and a lot more grizzled than he had been in Jake’s childhood, but somehow it seemed as if he was one constant in a rapidly changing world.

“President Mitchell, today, sent Vice President Tidwell to Moscow for the first NATO meeting ever to be held on Russian soil, since the new Russian government received full membership status.

“A French scientist at the Pasteur Institute, Francois Renault, has just been nominated for the Nobel Prize for his revolutionary work on a new drug that reportedly cures virtually all the major psychiatric illnesses which plague millions of people worldwide. Many are wondering what affect this will have on . . .”

Jake stopped rummaging in the refrigerator briefly and listened.

“the drug industry as billions of dollars are spent each year on antidepressant medications. Although little is known about how this new drug works, there is no question that it will alter the social fiber of many countries by eliminating the scourge of psychiatric disease for the first time in history.”

Pictures of his mother in various states of mental distress flashed in Jake’s mind. Hope flickered in his heart for just a moment before reason extinguished it.

“And big Pharma will do all they can to block it.” He mumbled into the refrigerator; as he pulled out a pickle jar to get at last night’s leftover pasta.

“In other news, a nuclear physicist from Pakistan was kidnapped from his research lab today in Karachi. The security footage released from the research labs at Aga Khan University shows several masked men brandishing automatic weapons. As you can see, the attackers burst into the office of Dr. Kazi, chaining him and moving him via hover board to a black Mercedes Benz waiting outside. And closer to home . . . a popular evangelist claims—”

A long pause came from the television down the hall. Jake grabbed a fork and took the leftovers to the living room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are just now receiving reports that a group of students from Hall Tech High School in Chicago have, by all appearances, committed mass suicide.”

Jake’s head snapped up, as his knees gave way and he dropped onto the sofa.

“Office workers in downtown Chicago are still in shock following the bizarre and devastating incident there this noontime. We have been informed that the eleven teenagers jumped to their deaths from the thirtieth floor of one of the Marina Towers skyscrapers.”

Jake’s heart began to thunder in his chest. A familiar sense of disquiet was building in his stomach.

The screen flashed images from the scene on Wacker Drive. Mr. Cooper’s comments, spoken with calm concern, continued while the camera panned the steep, cylindrical concrete and glass of the twin skyscrapers. The scene changed again, this time to the aftermath of the carnage on the street. Pedestrians and police wandered in and out of the view, still stunned by what they had seen.

“It is reported that the eleven Hall Tech students left their campus around 10:00 a.m. today and were next spotted at 11:30 a.m. on the ledge of the west tower of Marina City, where a witness says they rode the freight elevator to the thirty-second floor. After breaking into a vacant apartment, they apparently climbed out onto the ledge, held hands, and plunged more than thirty stories onto the concrete below.”

The camera focused on a bloodstained white Nike tennis shoe.

Jake now stood frozen in the middle of the room, fork and leftovers in hand. His brother, Joe, went to Hall Tech. Would they name the victims? His watch buzzed again. The little tub of penne slipped from his hand, crashing to the floor and leaving a blood red spray of tomato sauce. He glanced at his wrist; it was his mother’s number. He hesitated before answering, already knowing what he was going to hear. He’d had this feeling before—too many times.

“Jake.” His mother’s voice sounded calm, which meant she was anything but. “You need to come home. Something’s happened to Joe.” That was it. There was a heavy silence as the line disconnected and then the sound on the television resumed.

Jake stood in the middle of the floor, staring at the thin screen in front of him. He slipped his watch from his wrist and threw it on the couch as if it had burned him. In front of him the television was filled with the distraught faces of those on Wacker Drive and the rows of black coroner’s vans lining the street. His mother hadn’t needed to say much. What more could she tell him that what wasn’t already common knowledge?

He grabbed up his watch once more and called Shelley at the lab. When she answered the breathless worry in her tone told him she had already heard the news. He always felt weaker when people were kind and sympathetic, but with Shelley her concern actually bolstered him. But he would need her to look after Jess while he was away. “Do you mind picking her up from school and staying with her at our place?” He felt a little guilty even as he asked; she would do it, of course. She hadn’t made it a secret that she loved him. It felt like taking advantage when he wasn’t quite there himself.

“You just go.” She assured him. And that was it. She had no more questions and needed no more instruction. She really was incredible. She had said something just last week about learning a long time ago that when it came to Jake, some questions had answers she wished she had never heard. Maybe taking everything as it came was her way of protecting both of them from ghosts of the past.

***

Pete Jacobs loved New York City. And he loved the Department of Homeland Security. The problem was that he never wanted to admit it to himself or anyone else. He most definitely was not willing to admit it easily to others in the office. That would tarnish his image. He had gotten accustomed to appearing as the disgruntled, obstinate, take-no-guff senior member of the department. Not that he was in any way senior but there was a mature confidence about him that gave some of the guys the idea that he was a wise old bugger. He was fine with that. More times than not, his image had kept him from getting bad assignments and even from getting killed on more than one occasion. The work was exciting, the pay acceptable, and the city dangerous—there was a strange sort of comfort in that sameness.

He sat with his feet propped up on his desk in a tiny office overlooking a forgotten tributary of the muddy Hudson River. The office would be bare except for a single black file cabinet standing in a corner. From the outside no one would suspect the building was even occupied. It looked like any of the numerous other dilapidated, vacated factory shells along the riverbank. Nor would one have guessed that it was home to one of the Bureau’s most prominent field offices—the New York division of Homeland Security’s Counterterrorism unit. Pete Jacobs, with his plaid shirts and scruffy good looks, more closely resembled a construction worker than its most celebrated special agent.

Pete slipped an unlit cigarette into his mouth and let it dangle, smokeless, from his lips—a habit he still had despite the fact that he had stopped smoking five years ago. It enhanced his bad-boy image even more than the three-day-old stubble of his beard. His pale blue eyes stared out the office window, fixed on the New York skyline. Through the window he could see the towers that had replaced the World Trade Center some fifteen years ago. The cluster of buildings stood in homage to the two glorious buildings that once rose there—he remembered hearing about it at school. His first-grade teacher, explaining with watery eyes that some very bad men had done something too horrible for words. That’s when it started for him, this desire to make things right. To fight the bad guys, no matter the danger to himself.

Things were quiet now, but the images of billowing smoke, crumbling edifices, and mangled body parts he had seen as a boy still haunted him years after the disaster there that informed America that there are no true sanctuaries on this earth.

By the time he joined the Bureau in his early twenties, Osama Bin Laden had long ago been found and killed. He momentarily believed that it meant the beginning of the end for Islamic extremism. And then came Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a man more wicked than his predecessors. Extremism was on the rise in all corners of the world, and it was not contained to militant Islam. With the rise of social media platforms, he witnessed for himself the rise in mob mentality in all areas of our so-called civilization.

In 2021, when the bomb was detonated in the parking garage of Trump Tower in New York, it was Pete’s team that traced what was left of the van to the Ryder rental agency in Alabama. From there to Muhammad Saleh in Jersey City and to the Sheik Abdul Talman, who had already decided that the way to martyrdom was to kill a few more infidels by also blowing up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. It was Pete himself that discovered the plot to take out the United Nations.

That was almost a decade ago. A lifetime in Bureau years. At thirty-one Pete was one of the old-timers. The freshmen talked about him with a type of reverence Pete felt he didn’t deserve. If they knew how many times he failed, especially in those early days when his freewheeling, hot-headed “take no prisoners” attitude cost them more than they gained. It was after his transfer to the Department of Homeland Security, a couple years back, that Pete began to see the value of taking a breath before charging ahead.

The best advice he’d ever been given came from his boss, Todd Matthews. Todd had been with the Bureau before too; he transferred about two years before Pete had. His second day on the job, Pete had roared into Matthews’ office full of piss and vinegar. Todd looked at him over the top of his glasses, and before Pete could say a word, held up a hand and said, “Take a minute to connect all the dots.” And his advice was spot on. If things looked simple and straightforward, they never were. If they seemed complicated and twisted, they likely were.

Things that happened today can sometimes be traced back thousands of years, to the sins and decisions of ancient generations. The siege on Aleppo in 2016 was evidence of that. Fighting between Sunni and Shiite factions had begun shortly after the birth of Islam and continued today. The bomb dropped in northern Syria a year later, meant to dismantle the ever-growing Daesh, had a computer chip, the same type found in an explosive device hidden in a Toshiba radio carried by a terrorist arrested earlier in Frankfurt, Germany, a member of the Population Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The contents of the brown Samsonite suitcase that held the bomb took them right to Libyan operatives, Abel Basset and Abu Fhimah. Sunni and Shiite, at war with themselves and the rest of the world.

That was a long, long time ago. Finally, after all these years the pieces of the puzzle were fitting together. It was time for those who caused terror to answer to someone. And Pete decided it might as well be him.

“Pete!” A voice startled him from his reverie. Speak of the devil: Todd Matthews’ grim face swung around the open doorway. “You’d better switch on your screen. There’s something coming over the network from Chicago.”

Pete brushed his finger over a button on his computer, his eyes following the frantic back and forth as blue light filled the space above his desk. Messages and images flashed in front of his eyes. It took him only a few seconds to grasp what he was looking at.

Matthews touched an image floating just above Pete’s coffee. It opened into a video. A three-dimensional rendition of the events on Wacker Drive. For a moment Pete’s breath caught as the first small form hit the pavement. “Man. What a mess.” He sounded infinitely more collected than he felt.

He waved a hand to the left and the video reversed. Bodies floated back up only to stall in midair where the video began. Matthews pursed his thin lips and shook his head. “There was a lot of video they could tap into. Some was even volunteered.”

Pete held his wrist up to his computer and waited as the file transferred to his chip. He went back to the previous images and messages, skimming over the pages of information the department had gathered so far. “That’s strange,” he whispered, reading the message a second time.

Matthews raised a brow. Pete pointed at the words that had given him pause. “Witnesses all agree that the eleven high school students committed suicide. There is no evidence that currently suggests foul play.”

Matthews nodded. That’s what they say, “Unhappy, stressed-out kids in a suicide pact.”

“I don’t buy it. I can’t see that many kids . . . not just agreeing to a suicide pact but willingly carrying it out without any outside interference? No matter how unhappy or stressed they are . . . kids talk too much. They don’t just silently kill themselves when they’re unhappy with the world . . . not like that.”

Matthews nodded. Something, Pete learned, was a sure sign that Matthews wasn’t in agreement.

“You think I’m wrong?”

The lines on Matthews’ forehead formed a peek as he deliberated. “It’s happened before. Back in 2011. A group in San Diego.”

“That kid and his girlfriend that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge? Don’t you think that’s totally different? Two kids egging each other on is very different than eleven. Eleven kids? That’s martyrdom. These kids were trying to send a message.” He flipped through the images again until it landed on a handwritten letter. “Or someone else was trying to say something.”

Matthews leaned in closer, squinting at the scrawl of handwriting. Pete enlarged the image until it filled the space between them. “Kids don’t usually leave suicide notes. Adults do. Most kids don’t even know how to handwrite anymore”.”

Matthews stroked his goatee. Pete appreciated that he wasn’t the kind of boss to dole out commands without listening to input from his subordinates. Pete sank down onto his chair. “I think that the way they advertised their deaths is probably the most blatant suicide note in the world. Why leave this? These words say a lot less than their actions.”

“Well, that’s up to Criminal Investigations to figure it out. Don’t go stepping on any toes.” Pete grinned at the familiar command. Matthews always covered his butt by telling Pete to stick to his role, knowing full well that Pete always went above and beyond the call of duty. Matthews shook his head at him, but there was a little smirk behind those hooded eyes. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Remember, if there are no obvious links to terrorism, it’s not our department. Let the feds do the heavy lifting. They’ll call us in if they need us.”

“Ha!” Pete couldn’t contain the laugh. Never in all his time with the Bureau did he ever feel he needed help from the Department of Homeland Security. He had always found a way to keep his cases under his own jurisdiction.

Pete would see Matthews was about to launch into a lecture about how things are done in the department. His lectures often started with an almost clinical description of the chain of command and ended with a reminder that no matter how celebrated Pete was, he still ran the division. And he ran it by the book.

“I apologize, Todd. But I promise you, I know my place.” It was Matthews who couldn’t hide a chuckle; he shook a finger at Pete who grinned impishly. “Don’t worry, boss. I promise not to get you into trouble with the Department Head.”

Matthews clamped his hands on Pete’s shoulders, “I would just appreciate it if you allowed me to exit the Bureau the way I came in, and not in a body bag.” He rubbed a hand across his chest, “If you don’t give me a coronary—“

“Loosen up, boss.” Calling Todd Matthews “boss” was another of those things Pete always did to get his goat. “This obviously has nothing to do with us.”

“And let’s try and keep it that way,” Matthews said, realizing as the words left his mouth just how ludicrous his statement was. The thing was, he really hoped it had nothing to do with them. But as he’d learned and as he’d always said, almost everything is connected if you find the right thread. Pete could find threads that almost no one else could . . . sometimes those threads were only visible to Pete. The last time he’d meddled, his whole division ended up being reviewed.

Matthews searched Pete’s face looking for some sort of affirmation that Pete would keep calm and carry on. It wasn’t there. Matthews cleared his throat once more but said nothing. With a slow, deliberate turn he headed for the door.

“You know, I went to that high school in Chicago.”

Pete’s words stopped him. From the tight set of his shoulders and his clenched fists, Matthews looked as if he were bracing himself. Pete ambled over to him and whispered, “Brings back memories.”

“Do me a favor, Jacobs. Keep the memories to yourself . . . and stay out of trouble.”

“Sho’ thing, boss,” Pete said in an exaggerated drawl.

Matthews shook his head and stalked out of the office.

Pete grinned. He actually liked Matthews a lot. It was Matthews who had taken a chance on him ten years ago when he first came into the Bureau—a know-nothing kid with a degree in accounting and a huge chip on his shoulder. Matthews nurtured him, encouraged him, protected him, and lied for him. Pete repaid him by becoming the best agent in the whole Bureau. And Pete was pretty sure it was Matthews who initiated his transfer to the Department of National Defense. What saddened Pete was the reality that he saw in Matthews all the traits he had longed to see in his own father. A father he remained at odds with.

Pete grabbed his holster from the drawer of his desk and strapped it to his chest. It held the .357 laser-guided magnum that the department still felt uncomfortable with. He logged out of his computer before heading home.

Outside, he hopped into his 1970 blood-red convertible Mustang. He’d inherited the streamlined beauty from his grandfather and changed out the engine a few years back as a way of bonding with his son. Up until last year you could still buy gasoline, but now it was practically contraband. It was a pity there was nothing like the old purr of a gasoline engine.

As Pete crossed the bridge to Staten Island, he sank back into his seat. There was a familiar loosening in his shoulders. As much as he loved New York, Staten Island was home. When he and his wife, Kathryn, first moved there from Chicago they were blown away by how much it still looked and felt like a small town. It was hard to believe that only a few miles away people still died and were killed with a regularity that sometimes numbed the senses. The Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn remained the only direct route from the other boroughs, and every day when he headed west, he felt as though the terrors of life were left behind.

He drove through the wooded hills just at the outskirts of Wagner College and turned down a road shaded profusely by old elm trees and lined by large gabled homes. Just before he pulled into the driveway, he plopped his unlit cigarette into the ashtray. He didn’t want Kathryn to start worrying needlessly about his old habits coming back.

From the driveway, he could see her round face pressed against the living-room window. As usual she had been waiting. As far back as he could remember Kathryn had greeted him with a kiss when he got home. It didn’t matter if he was home safe from a mission or had just spent the day at the field office, she never seemed to let herself forget that each day’s goodbye had to be offered as though it was the last, and each hello with unfeigned delight. It was only after their son was born that Pete understood her need.

Pete jogged up the stairs and threw open the door before she could reach it. “Your hero has returned.” Kathryn laughed that deep throaty laugh of hers and pressed moist lips to his. “And . . . which renegade force did we put out of commission today?” she asked, locking her arms around his neck.

“I only had time to obliterate a few before lunch,” Pete joked, playing along.

“Well, that’s inexcusable,” she pecked his cheek. “You know you have only a few years to clean up the mess we have made in the world before the next generation gives it a shot.”

“Then, I guess I should put in a few more hours this week.”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“How’s the kid?”

Kathryn’s smile faded and her arms dropped from around his neck. “I was hoping you’d talk to him, actually. He came home without saying a word and he’s been in his room watching the news ever since. Asher’s mom messaged, said the principal called an assembly so that they could talk about it.”

Pete pulled her into his arms and let his fingers play in her soft black hair. She may have gained a few extra pounds in recent years, but she’d gained them in all the right places. She pushed away. “Quit trying to calm me down. I was just about in full rant!” Her tone was cold but her eyes were smiling.

“Your dad called just before you got home.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “And?”

She pulled a phone from the pocket of her skirt and held it out to him, “Come on, Pete. Make a little effort. He’s not getting any younger.” Pete’s pale blue eyes turned a slate gray. No matter how well he controlled any physical evidence of temper, his eyes tattled on him.

Kathryn took his hand and placed the phone in it. “Shall I dial too?”

“I better check on Steve first.”

Kathryn nodded. “But don’t leave it too long. Your dad’s trying—”

“Oh, he’s definitely trying . . . you’ve got that right.”

Kathryn swatted his buns as he started up the stairs.

“Try and get him to come down for supper.” She called after him.

Pete saluted as he jogged up the last few stairs.

Pete found Steve huddled in front of his computer display. He leaned against the doorframe.

“Whatcha watching, kiddo?”

Steven shrugged, red-rimmed eyes locked on a continual loop of bodies falling, landing in abnormal angles and splatters of red only to jump once again. It was set to some awful, sappy tribute song. Pete settled himself on the bed behind his son. Steven sniffed once and with a flick of his hand went to the next story on his newsfeed. An image of the Temple Mount popped up and Steven sat a little straighter.

Pete suddenly realized how much his son had grown into his image over the past fourteen years. Steve glanced his way. “Did you hear about this, Dad?” Poor kid always wanted to share news with him, but nothing Steve knew was ever going to be news to Pete.

“I was talking to this kid in Germany, and he said his parents were there today when the Sheikh finally gave back the Temple Mount. Now Israel can really be at peace.” Pete tugged Steve into a headlock and ruffled his shaggy brown hair.

“Dad!”

Pete loosened his grip and Steve struggled the rest of the way out from under his arm. “But it’s cool that it’s happened in our lifetime, right Dad?”

Pete shrugged, “If it takes.”

Steven’s brows knit together. “You don’t think it’s gonna last?”

“Everything our people ever gained came at a great cost.” Steven nodded slowly. Pete immediately regretted taking the wind out of his sales. “But don’t worry, kiddo. It’s a part of our history that makes us who we are. Look what happened to my dad’s grandfather in Auschwitz. He suffered but he survived and he became an inspiration to hundreds of people.”

Steven glanced up at his dad. “They made us all come to the auditorium today.”

Pete waited, letting Steven figure out how to say what he wanted to say.

“They wanted us to ‘open up.’” Steven made air quotes. Pete chuckled, definitely his son.

“Chicago?”

“Yeah, it was dumb.” Steve looked like his mother when he got riled up. “Really, do they think some weirdo counselor from victim services is going to get seven hundred kids to open up to them in an auditorium? You know what I mean?”

Pete looked into his son’s questioning eyes. “Did any of the other kids talk about it later?”

“Some . . . some of them said they got it, you know?” Steve said, turning away. “Don’t worry, Dad. I wasn’t one of them. I still don’t understand it.” Pete squeezed his shoulder.

He dug in his memory, back to his own years of adolescent insecurity and fear, years of moral turmoil and self-realization that made him hate all the lies taught to him by adults in this ugly world. He could easily see that same uneasiness in his own son even now, just below the surface of his innocent façade.

“I don’t get how things could be so bad for some kids that it wouldn’t be worth it to wait a little bit to see if they got better.” Steve picked at the carpet unable to meet his dad’s eyes.

Pete ran a rough palm against the back of his neck. Steve’s quiet confession was disquieting. It was said with such intensity that Pete hesitated before he spoke again, choosing his words carefully.

“Life’s hard and very unfair for some kids. For some kids, sometimes it may seem the only way out. Sometimes kids are born to parents that aren’t good parents. Or something happens to them that should never happen to a kid.”

“But they don’t all kill themselves.” Steve pulled a carpet thread free and wrapped it around his finger. Pete hugged him close.

“No, they don’t all kill themselves. My best friend growing up had a pretty crappy life.”

Steve looked up hopefully. “And he didn’t . . . you know.”

“No, he didn’t. Life took a chunk out of him, and it was rough going for a while. But he kept going. He didn’t give up.”

Steve’s face looked pale. It could just be the blue light of the display playing tricks, but Pete hated to see his kid so bothered by this.

“Did he ever . . .” Steven swallowed whatever words were on the tip of his tongue.

“Did he ever . . . ?” Pete prompted.

“I know some kids who, you know . . . they do drugs and stuff when they’re depressed.”

Pete’s heart sank. How much longer could Steven retain that last remnant of naïveté? “What kind of drugs, son?”

Steve looked incredulous. “You know, weed and stuff. A couple of the guys got expelled for it last year. You didn’t hear about it? Mom knows.”

Pete sighed. “Look, Steve—”

Steve suddenly looked panicked. It was probably the same look Pete had had on his face when his dad sat him down for the sex talk.

“Everything’s cool, Dad. I don’t do that stuff. I know it’s dumb.” Steve glanced up but averted his eyes as soon as Pete’s met his.

“Dinner!” Kathryn’s voice carried up the stairs.

Pete squeezed Steven’s shoulder. Steve smiled briefly and then bolted up and headed down the stairs. Pete sat watching the blue display play out another mashup of images from the suicides. There was something unsettling about how their conversation had ended.

Pete still felt troubled when he climbed into bed that night. Even Kathryn’s soothing lovemaking didn’t completely calm his restlessness. He had finally fallen to sleep when his fragile dreams were shattered by the sound of the phone. His heart went into overdrive when he looked at the number.

“Pete, it’s Jake. I need your help.”