Ruiz looked at the lights in the high black towers, the water of the Hudson below them like a plain of brushed steel.

“Look, Paw. Them building scrapers are even bigger than our silo,” one of Ruiz’s commandos said in a hick drawl.

“Can it, Boyer,” Ruiz said.

“Less than ten,” the pilot called over the comm link.

Ruiz smiled around the chaw of chewing tobacco in his mouth as they choppered east at about the height of the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

He actually loved this shit. He had always been a daredevil. He was from the South Side of Chicago and used to train-surf the Loop along with his ghetto buds when he was a kid. Twelve years old, speeding out in the cold, holding on for dear life at the curves.

Faster than a speeding bullet, he thought, chuckling as he spit. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

There was another crackle on the comm line as they flew over a tourist boat on the Hudson a thousand feet below.

“Where now? That circular building?” the pilot called out.

“That’s it,” Ruiz said, looking down at Madison Square Garden between his legs as they approached it.

“Why do they call it a square garden when it’s a damn concrete circle?” the pilot said.

“Beats the shit out of me,” Ruiz said, spitting down at the boat. “Remember, go in high then drop down to about thirty or so midbuilding at the back.”

“Hover above the alley in between. Got it, bro. I can see it now.”

Ruiz looked down at the old gray brick hotel as they swung downward toward it. He would have loved a fixed position shot at a distance, but Room 14H was in the back opposite a windowless warehouse. At least the FLIR body heat infrared scope on his rifle would be sharp as a razor out here in this cold.

They went even faster as they lost some altitude.

The comm line crackled again.

“Okay, we’re a minute now. One minute.”

Ruiz held up a finger to his three men beside him on the skids in the buffeting wind like an infielder reminding his teammates that it was one out.

The pilot glanced at Ruiz through the bubble of glass between them and gave him a Tom Cruise smile.

“You guys do realize you’re all out of your minds, right?” he said.

The wind snapped at the cloth of Ruiz’s black tactical pants as he tugged at the harness and the rappelling rope.

“Just keep the black egg in the air,” Ruiz said as he clicked his M4’s selector off Safe with his gloved thumb.

50

“Okay. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the latest. What is this episode? Number 352, I believe,” Gannon heard Eric Wheldon saying.

Gannon sat there in the side room beside the slightly cracked-open door, fidgeting in his kitchen chair. Even though it wasn’t TV and his voice would be disguised, and it wasn’t even live, he was still nervous about saying something stupid and screwing it up. A memory of being an altar boy came to him. Standing next to the priest, wide-eyed up on the bright altar with the eyes of the entire parish staring at him waiting for him to trip over his feet.