A Killer's Game (Daniela Vega Book 1)Paperback

CHAPTER 1

FBI Special Agent Daniela Vega assessed her environment and calculated her chances. She had less than seven minutes to get to her meeting with the special agent in charge of the New York Counterterrorism Division. A stickler for protocol and punctuality, SAC Steve Wu would not appreciate her showing up late.

She eyed the barista. If he kept up his frenetic pace, she could make it from the packed Lower Manhattan coffee shop to SAC Wu’s office on the twenty-third floor of 26 Federal Plaza at a fast walk with sixty seconds to spare.

A woman elbowing her way toward the pickup counter jostled Dani into the man beside her, who was dumping a packet of sugar into his open cup. His piping-hot coffee splashed onto the back of Dani’s hand.

“What’s the matter with you?” the man snapped at her.

Dani pressed her lips together and shook the steaming droplets from her hand, where an angry splotch had already blossomed. The man placed a lid on his cup, sent her another scowl, and squeezed through the crowd toward the door.

The barista shouted her name above the din. “Dark roast, black with an extra shot,” he said, handing the cup to her. “That should jump-start your day.”

It would take a lot more than a jolt of caffeine from strong coffee to get her heart pounding. Perhaps searching a building with a hidden IED would move the needle, but those days had ended with her final deployment before she joined the Bureau ten months earlier.

“Breakfast of champions.” She lifted the cup in salute, then turned and shouldered her way through the throng to the sidewalk. She was about to take her first sip when buzzing from inside her pocket stopped her.

“Hey,” a man sitting on the sidewalk holding a cardboard sign called out to her. “How about some change?”

She slid out the phone with her free hand and lifted it to her ear. “Vega.”

“Have a heart, lady,” the man continued, shifting his gaze to the cup in her hand. “I bet that coffee tastes good.”

SAC Wu’s voice carried through the small speaker. “Where are you?”

“Just left the Starbucks at the corner of Lafayette and Worth, sir,” she said. “Right across the street from you.”

“I’m postponing our meeting,” Wu said. “Someone called in a bomb threat at the courthouse. Given the target, this could be terrorist related. Go over there and check it out.”

Her eyes traveled across the street to the other side of Thomas Paine Park. “Which courthouse?”

The New York County Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse, and the US District Court for the Southern District of New York were all past the park on the other side of Centre Street.

“County Supreme Court,” Wu said. “And—to make matters worse—there’s a group of over a hundred schoolkids touring the building right now.”

“On my way.” She disconnected and thrust her untouched coffee toward the man on the sidewalk.

“Bless you,” he said, taking it from her outstretched hand and clutching it protectively against his chest.

“You’re wel—” An angry shout drew her gaze across Lafayette Street to the opposite corner.

“Hey,” a man in a business suit called out to a fellow pedestrian who had bumped into him. “Watch where you’re going.”

It was a common sight in the bustle of early-morning foot traffic, and the special agent in charge had directed her to report to the scene of a bomb threat nearby. She should not have registered the brief interaction.

Yet she did.

Some would call it hypervigilance, but to her it was a combination of experience and situational awareness. She shifted her gaze from the man who had made the remark to the person who had collided with him. She couldn’t see his face but took in his short dark hair and billowing tan trench coat. Tall and broad shouldered, he tucked a folded black mini umbrella close to his body, pivoted, and started across Worth Street.

It was late May, and rain was in the forecast, so it wasn’t his foul-weather gear that had caught her eye. Instead, she’d noticed the way he carried the umbrella, which was clasped tightly in his right hand. He gripped it in a way she would describe as tactical. His purposeful steps and powerful bearing reinforced the impression.

Commotion pulled her attention back to the businessman, who had collapsed to the ground. She rushed across Lafayette Street. By the time she reached him, he had begun to convulse. Flecks of foam spewed from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

A woman screamed. Several onlookers took out their cell phones. Some called 9-1-1; others began taking videos and narrating the scene.

Dani had witnessed acute toxin poisoning before and recognized its effects. The reason behind the umbrella became apparent. It had been the delivery system. Given the speed of the reaction, she knew she could do nothing for the man in the business suit, now lying motionless on the sidewalk. But she could catch the man with the umbrella, the man who had crossed Worth Street and was heading toward Thomas Paine Park.

She slid out her cell phone and started after him. Aware NYPD dispatchers were already fielding calls from the crowd around the victim, she tapped redial, connecting her directly to the person who had the authority to activate every resource in the city. Responding to the victim had delayed her, and Umbrella Man had a substantial lead.

Wu barely had time to answer before she blurted out her situation, ending with a description of Umbrella Man.