The fact that the victim had been clutching algae, and I’d bet a handful of sand, as he was dragged across the ocean floor meant that he had been alive when he went into the water. Drowning, I had learned over the years, was a diagnosis of exclusion. A complete autopsy would be necessary for each of the Golden Voyagers who had washed up on the windy beach, despite how obvious the circumstances appeared to be to us.

“What do you plan to do, Donny?” I asked. “I mean, with the survivors.”

There was no good answer to this question. It was commonplace for these individuals whose lives at home were already overcome with despair to risk everything for this run to freedom, only to find themselves handcuffed in the backseat of a patrol car to begin the next leg of their ugly journey. A few might eventually be granted political asylum, some would be deported, but the majority would wind up in immigrant detention centers somewhere in the heart-land of America.

Baynes stammered as he surveyed the bleak scene stretched out across the waterfront.

“I-I haven’t had an operation of this size since I-uh-since I was appointed to the task force. Frankly, I don’t know what becomes of these poor souls.”

The noise overhead was a police helicopter, probably carrying Commissioner Keith Scully, whom Donovan, Mike, and I all knew well.

“Not jail,” I said. “We can’t let them rot in jail while we sort it out.”

“Scully’s too smart for that,” Mike said.

“You’ll have to start working with the women right away, Alex,” Baynes said. “We’ll have them checked out medically and then each one needs to be interviewed. You’ve got backup?”

“The senior people in the bureau will be on it with me.” I had a great team of lawyers assigned to my unit by Battaglia, experienced in the courtroom and compassionate in their interactions with traumatized victims.

I could hear wailing now, a cacophony of voices that seemed like it could carry for miles. Cops were trying to move a small cluster of bedraggled survivors toward the dunes, to the vans waiting in the street that would shuttle them to whatever police facility Scully designated. The men were refusing to separate from their comrades despite prodding-all still focused on the others being ferried ashore, all still searching the waves for signs of missing friends.

“C’mon, Coop. You’ll rerun this movie in your brain all day and all night,” Mike said, taking my arm to turn me away from the sight. “You got what Battaglia sent you for. Donovan’s not doing anything on this case without your input.”

My feet were firmly planted in the sand. “I want to talk to Scully, Mike. Let go.”

“Scully’s running late.”

My head whipped around as I recognized the voice of Mercer Wallace. I squinted in the sunlight and shaded my eyes with my hand to look up at him. His six-foot-six frame towered over my shivering five-foot-ten-inch body.

“Good to have you here, buddy,” Baynes said, shaking his hand. “We’ve got a monster of a problem on our hands.”

Mercer was one of the only African American detectives in the city to make first-grade. He was my best ally at the Special Victims Squad-a former partner of Mike’s from his days in Homicide-and I had urged Donovan to include him on the JTTF-the Joint Trafficking Task Force, assembled to combat the increasingly desperate fight against human trafficking into the New York area.

“I’m waiting on the commissioner to land,” Baynes said, staring as the chopper banked and circled out over the freighter. “We’ll fill you in.”

“You sleep in today or what?” Mike asked Mercer. “Half a tour?”

“Scully’s not making it here, guys. I’ve been with him for hours,” Mercer said, sipping from a cardboard cup of coffee.

“Where at?” Mike said. “Anybody think to tell him this slave ship just capsized in his very own territorial waters?”

“The commissioner knows all about it, Mr. Chapman. He’s got his hands full with some other business.”

“The mayor won’t want to be stonewalled on this one,” Baynes said.

“He and Scully are together as we speak,” Mercer said, offering me a slug of his coffee. “Counting on you to hold this down, Donovan, till they get on it.”

“Something more important than this, huh? Lemme guess,” Mike said, tugging at the fringe on the end of my scarf. “You got a mayor who wants to be president and a commissioner who wants to be mayor. Ship of fools gets trumped by what? A whiff of political corruption with maybe a dollop of sex. Am I warm? Somebody passing money to a cross-dressing candidate in the stall of a men’s room at Grand Central Station?”

Mercer was taking in the panorama of disaster that spread out before us. He crossed his arms and walked off to the side. “You’re not too far wrong.”

“Give me a hint.”

“Ethan Leighton.”

Mercer Wallace had everyone’s attention with the mention of the name of the forty-two-year-old congressman from Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

“What’s he complaining about now?” Mike asked. “That guy’s been a whiner since he was born.”

“Ethan’s a good guy. You know we were classmates at Columbia Law,” said Donny Baynes. “His dad’s always had big plans for him, he’s under a lot of pressure.”

“Yeah, well, either way, this time he’s on the other side of the complaint,” Mercer said. “Leighton’s the perp.”

Donovan Baynes seemed blindsided. I knew he and Ethan had even worked together after law school in the Southern District. “What are you talking about?”

“Ethan Leighton flipped his car on the FDR Drive at three thirty this morning. Hit a van before he plowed into the railing. The two guys in the van broke some bones, but they’ll make it. The congressman was intoxed. Maybe tanked’s a better word,” Mercer said. “Where do you want me to start? DWI? Reckless assault? Leaving the scene?”

“Is Ethan hurt too?” I asked. He was a rising congressional star who hoped to be New York’s next governor. In all likelihood Donovan Baynes was one of his closest advisors.

“A few bruises. Dead drunk, and somehow he fled the scene-or staggered away from it-before the cops got there. Tried to have one of his former aides take the weight.”

“I don’t believe it,” Baynes said, squaring off against Mercer. “Ethan’s such a straight shooter.”

“I guess he had a rough night with his girlfriend,” Mercer said. “The baby was sick, spiking a really high fever, and they fought about whether to rush her to the emergency room.”

“That’s nonsense,” Baynes said. I’d never seen him so agitated. “Where did you hear that crap? It can’t be true. There’s no sick baby. Ethan doesn’t have a girlfriend. Just because the mayor’s got a grudge against his old man-or, or he’s looking for some bait to get the paparazzi off the scene of this shipwreck-you’re buying into that? Who’s peddling these lies?”

“There’s apparently more than enough fodder to go around,” Mercer said, breaking away from Baynes as he headed in the direction of the morgue. “Ethan’s got a girlfriend, all right, and what the tabloids will undoubtedly call a love child.”

“Who fed you this story?” Baynes said, charging after Mercer, challenging him to answer. “I want to know where you picked that up.”

Mercer turned and put his arm out to bring Donovan to a stop. “You got a sea of misery right here, Donny. Let’s deal with that. Don’t be getting in high dudgeon over Leighton.”

“He’s my closest friend, Mercer. I need to know where this is coming from.”

“It’s Ethan’s wife who told me, okay? I heard every sorry detail from Ethan Leighton’s wife.”