There are ten Emergency Service Squads distributed across the five boroughs. Squads are called “trucks.” The truck we’ll be working with is ESS-6, South Brooklyn. This truck consists of twelve operators working as a “stack,” i.e., the front-to-back lineup that bursts through a door (though we have been assigned only six, a half-stack, because DivSix is considered “apprehension-capable”). We’ll have a canine squad from ESU and an Apprehension Tactical Team as well.

Am I up for this?

Are our teams?

I’m striding two steps behind Gleason and Manning down a corridor of the Six-Eight Precinct station house, the headquarters for ESS-6 at the border between Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. Manning has just finished a ninety-second hallway pitch to our boss to include Jake Instancer on the bust list for tonight. Gleason, ears scarlet, dismisses this.

GLEASON

You know how much heartburn these black-hatted sonsofbitches are giving me? The mayor’s all over my ass, along with two senators, four congressmen, the AJC, the Anti-Defamation League, and every Jewish organization in the city except JDate. I’ve got the White House on my callback sheet for Christ’s sake. Why? Because your mug shows up in a hundred viral videos shot outside the Borough Park murder scene and when the press asks what you were doing there, twenty Chasidim on the street tell ’em you were going toe-to-toe with the devil—Beelzebub himself—and that because you lost the fistfight, Mr. Scratch is about to bring on the Apocalypse. What are you doing to me, Jimmy?

Silver falls in step beside our skipper.

MANNING

I was in Borough Park on my own time, Frank. And I’ll tell you something else—

GLEASON

Don’t tell me nothing! I don’t wanna hear about the end of the world and I don’t want a recap of the plot of Rosemary’s Baby.

Manning again presses Gleason and Silver to include Jake Instancer on the warrant service list.

MANNING

Frank, I was in the room where the Rebbe bought it. The scene is a dead ringer for the murders here and in D.C.

GLEASON

With the LV sign on the forehead?

MANNING

We don’t know.

Manning acknowledges what Gleason already knows from last night—that the Rebbe’s family would not let any civil authority, police or medical, near the sage’s remains.

GLEASON

We don’t know—and we won’t, will we? Because Orthodox Jews bury their dead the day after they croak.

As he strides, Manning dons the dark blue flak jacket with NYPD ESU across the shoulders and a Velcro patch with his blood type on the front. I’m doing the same. Gleason is already suited up, as is Silver. All three carry shotguns or assault weapons.