“Yes,” Gabe answered, his face twisting in pain. “Then I need you to tell me where to find him,” Coletti said. “If we’re going to win the fight against evil, we have to find him.”

Gabe suddenly turned his face toward the heavens. He saw the purple haze he’d tried so hard to chase with needles. It was there, all around him, warming his cold body and touching his tortured soul.

“He’s up there,” Gabe said, smiling. “Can you see him?”

Coletti’s face crumpled in sadness. He glanced over his shoulder and pretended to see the angel that the boy’s dying mind had conjured up.

“I see him, kid,” Coletti whispered with something approaching sympathy. “He’s coming to take you away from all this. The war’s all over for you.”

Gabe closed his eyes just as fire rescue arrived. When they made their way through the crowd and knelt down beside him, Coletti got up, loosened his tie, and staggered back to his car.

“I’ll go to headquarters and check on the identifications,” a worn-out Coletti told Mann. “You escort the body to the medical examiner’s office.”

Neither of them spoke of the warrants being executed downtown. They didn’t want to risk having hope.

Three officers from the warrant unit and two homicide detectives stepped off the elevator on the sixtieth floor of a downtown high-rise. Their weapons at the ready, they banged on the locked glass doors of one of Philadelphia’s most prominent law firms, startling the receptionist.

“Police!” one of them shouted. “We have a warrant for Ivan Petrov!”

The receptionist was about to disengage the electronic lock, but then thought better of it. Instead, she picked up the phone and tried to call a senior partner. The cops raised their weapons and broke through the door.

The sound of the shattering glass was followed by heavy footfalls as police conducted a room-by-room search of the luxurious suite of offices. Secretaries screamed when they saw the heavily armed men. Lawyers who asked questions were slammed facedown on conference tables.

When finally a partner stepped into their path and refused to move aside, the detective in charge raised his nine-millimeter in one hand and a picture of the suspect in the other.

“Where’s Ivan Petrov?” he asked.

The senior partner started to speak, but he was silenced by the sound of a voice that spoke from behind him.

“I’m Ivan Petrov,” said an elegantly dressed man who looked much younger than his forty-five years. “What’s this about?”

“Murder,” said a homicide detective as he handcuffed the high-profile criminal defense attorney.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Petrov said with a puzzled look on his face.

“You will,” the detective answered.