He pictured this upcoming summer. He and Becca had a small summer house on Chesapeake Bay. The house had been in her family for generations. It was in a beautiful spot, on a bluff overlooking the water. A rickety staircase hugged the bluff down to their boating and swimming dock. In the summers, Luke kept an old motorboat there. Gunner was an age now where Luke could teach him some things. Maybe Luke would get him out on water skis this year. Maybe hed teach him how to drive the boat.

Luke created an image in his mind. It was of the three of them, sitting at the table on the back patio at the summer house, as the sun set over the water toward the west. It was the end of a long day of swimming and boating. They were eating steamed mussels, and a bottle of chilled white wine was open on the table. He could see it all in vivid detail. As they all sat and laughed, an air raid siren shattered the quiet. It howled and howled, the shriek of it rising and falling.

He opened his eyes. His phone was ringing.

Are you going to answer that? Ed Newsam said. Or you want me to?

Luke picked it up without looking to see who was calling.

Stone, he said.

Luke, its Trudy. Listen, I know you lied to me. I know youre suspended. Thats an issue for another time.

Okay.

Some information just came in. Its up on the big board right now. A man was brought into Baltimore Memorial Hospital in critical condition about forty minutes ago. He has acute radiation poisoning and at least two gunshot wounds in his back. He was found by two fishermen under a highway overpass along the Baltimore waterfront.

Who is he?

His name is Eldrick Thomas. Also known as LT. Also known as Abdul Malik. Twenty-eight-year-old African American. Born and raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Substantial rap sheet, with multiple prison sentences over the past ten years. Assault, armed robbery, weapons possession. He is one strike away from going inside for a long time.

All right, hes been a bad boy, Luke said.

More to the point, he was incarcerated with Ken Bryant on two occasions. Once for five months at Rikers Island, and once for almost two years at Clinton Correctional Center. He was affiliated with the same prison gang as Bryant, the Black Gangster Family. He converted from Christianity to Islam while in prison, and took on the Abdul Malik name. He had three disciplinary infractions where fights broke out because he was proselytizing to other inmates, especially about the need for jihad within the borders of the United States. One of these landed him in solitary confinement for a month.

Luke was becoming alert. He glanced at Ed. Ed had picked up on Lukes body language and sat up straight in his seat.