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The bulk of the ECC was given over to a massive pair of T-shaped conference tables. Each dark gray Formica-topped table seated twenty-six. And each of these fifty-two seats had its own multiline telephone, outlets for laptop computers, and access to secure networks for on-demand communications with other law-enforcement agencies—from local to federal to the international police agency, Interpol—as necessary.

Along the back walls were more chairs to accommodate another forty staff members.

The focal point of the room, however, were three banks of sixty-inch, high-definition LCD flat-screen TVs. There were nine TVs per bank on the ten-foot-high walls. Mounted edge to edge, the frameless TVs could create a single supersize image, or could display individual pictures—each TV could even be used in split-screen mode.

Usually, when the screens were not showing live feeds from cameras mounted in emergency vehicles at the scene of an accident or crime, they showed continuously cycling images from closed-circuit TV cameras that were mounted all over the city—in subways, public buildings, and main and secondary roadways—and the broadcasts from local and cable TV news stations. Images could be pulled from almost any source, even a cell phone camera, as long as the signals were digitized.

The ECC fell under the purview of the Science & Technology arm of the Philadelphia Police Department, which included the Forensic Sciences, Information Systems, and Communications Divisions. Its two-star commander, Deputy Police Commissioner Howard Walker, reported to Denny Coughlin.

Acting on an order issued that morning by the mayor, Walker had alerted the local news media that a live feed of Mayor Carlucci would begin at precisely 12:05 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. The timing gave the TV news programs the opportunity to start their noon newscasts with the announcement that an important statement by the mayor of Philadelphia concerning the rash of recent murders was coming up in five minutes.

“Stay tuned. We’re back with that breaking news right after this commercial break.”

“Thirty seconds, gentlemen . . . ,” Corporal Rapier said.

Four hours earlier, when Coughlin had led his group into the Executive Command Center, he’d found the mayor and the police commissioner already seated at Conference Table One. They had heavy china mugs steaming with fresh coffee before them on the table. Mariana’s mug read SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE COMMAND CENTER. The mayor’s mug read GENO’S STEAKS SOUTH PHILLY, PENNA.

Everyone in the ECC was casually dressed. Even the usually stiffly buttoned-down Carlucci wasn’t wearing a necktie, and he had his shirt collar open. And Matt Payne and Tony Harris still

looked rumpled and messy, the result of having been up most of the night running down leads in the death of Reggie Jones.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Carlucci said in a solemn tone suggesting he meant that it was anything but a good morning. He did not move from his chair except to grab his coffee mug handle.

There was a chorus of “good morning”s in reply.

Mariana added, “Fresh coffee in there.” He waved with his mug across the room, indicating a door that led to a kitchenette.

Carlucci then said, “Sergeant Payne, no offense, but you and Detective Harris look like hell.”

“Considering what we’ve been through, Mr. Mayor,” Payne said dryly, “hell sounds like an absolute utopian paradise. I enjoy the thrill of the chase as much as the next guy, but this one’s a real challenge. Right now we don’t know if we’re dealing with a single shooter-slash-strangler, or if there are others—that is, as someone put it earlier, Halloween Homicide Copycats.”

Ordinarily, a lowly police sergeant speaking so bluntly to the highest elected official of a major city would be cause for disciplinary—if not more drastic—measures.

But Carlucci’s relationship with Payne, and most everyone else in the group, was anything but ordinary.

Back when he’d been a cop, Carlucci had known and liked Matt’s biological father. And that went way back, to when Sergeant John F. X. Moffitt had been the best friend of a young Denny Coughlin before being killed in the line of duty.

Mayor Carlucci was also well acquainted with Matt Payne’s adoptive father, whom he also liked very much, and not only because Brewster Cortland Payne II was a founding partner of Philadelphia’s most prestigious law firm.

And there was another connection between Matt and Hizzonor.

Carlucci had been Coughlin’s “rabbi”—his mentor—and had groomed the young police officer with great potential for the larger responsibilities that would come as he rose in the ranks of the department.

Denny Coughlin had gone on to groom Peter Wohl, son of Augustus Wohl, Chief Inspector (Retired). And then Peter Wohl—indeed among the best and brightest, having at twenty graduated from Temple University, then entered the Police Academy and, later, become the youngest staff inspector on the department—had been in recent years Matt Payne’s rabbi.

And, more or less completing the circle, the elder Wohl had in his time been the rabbi of an up-and-coming police officer—a young man by the name of Jerry Carlucci.

“If I didn’t know better, Matt,” Mayor Carlucci now said, his face and tone suggesting more than a little displeasure, surprising Payne, “I’d say you were on the street working all night.” He paused to make eye contact with the white shirt he’d mentored decades earlier, then went on: “But I do know that must not be the case, because we’d all agreed that the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line would stay the hell out of sight for a certain cool-down period.” He looked again at Denny. “Or am I mistaken?”

Mariana, Quaire, and Washington—the direct chain of command also somewhat directly responsible for seeing that Payne drove a desk so as to stay out of the news—looked a little ill at ease.

Payne saw that Howard Walker was more than a little interested to see Denny Coughlin in the mayor’s crosshairs.

But Coughlin, while deeply respectful of Carlucci, and cognizant of Carlucci’s iron fist and occasional temper, was not cowed by him. Over the years he’d learned a lot from his rabbi, and one of the most important lessons was to make a decision, then come hell or high water to stand by that decision.

Time and again, Carlucci had told him: “One’s inability to be decisive gets people killed. Make up your goddamn mind—based on the best available information, or your gut, or better both—and move forward.”

Denny Coughlin now said evenly, almost conversationally, “Jerry, I had the same initial reaction earlier this morning. But in light of what we’re dealing with, I decided to end the cool-down period as of today. Matt’s been all over the paperwork on these pop-and-drops, and if we have any chance of quickly figuring out who’s doing what—and we need to, or it’s likely going to get ugly very fast—we need to be able to put him back on the street.”