Security aside, life in the city had slowed noticeably, especially on the East Side. Fisk wondered what the exact algorithm was, the relation between the number of automobiles with diplomatic plates and the density of New York City traffic.

Diplomats parked anywhere. Loading zones, valet drop-offs, cab stands, but especially out in front of hotels. Gridlock outside the Waldorf had turned Park Avenue into a parking lot north of Grand Central Terminal. Traffic patterns weren’t Fisk’s concern, but the speed of incident response was, so he had to plan for it.

All in all, he was surprised at how okay he was with the assignment. It was challenging and it allowed him to focus. Alternatively, being off the street full-time kept him away from the places and people he associated with Krina Gersten. She hadn’t just been a colleague, she had been his girlfriend, and he was finding it difficult to move back into life at Intel Division full-time. Despite what he had told Dubin, he had been thinking about other opportunities elsewhere. But for him it wasn’t about moving up, it was about moving on. Every success had come with a grievous loss of life. It seemed to Fisk like there wasn’t much left for him here at Intel.

Fisk had been living under a dark cloud both professionally and personally for the past year. Maybe it was time to go out in search of blue skies elsewhere.

He disliked his lack of direction but felt stuck, rudderless. And if Fisk wasn’t decisive, then he wasn’t anything at all.

“Fisk!” It was Bluestein, over on the Threat Desk. “Line two.”

Fisk picked up. “This is Fisk.”

“How ya doin’?” The accent was outer borough and strong, that of a man who probably had not spent more than twenty minutes outside the environs of the city of New York. Fisk heard something that was either distant traffic or a steady wind blowing into the caller’s cell phone. “My captain said I should call you.”

Fisk rubbed his forehead. The prime minister of Canada lock his keys out of his car? An envoy from Poland get in a fender bender? “Who are you and what can I do for you?”

“Kiser at the One-oh-one. Robbery Homicide.”

Fisk picked up a pen. “Rockaway?”

“The Mediterranean of the east. You hear about this thing yet?”

Fisk said, “Just got back to my desk. What thing?”

It was definitely wind, whipping at the phone, making it difficult for Fisk to hear Kiser, whose response sounded like, “The heading thing.”

Fisk said, “This sounds like a mistake, Robbery Homicide. I’m on UN Week duty here. You got a diplomatic threat out in Rockaway?”

Kiser said, “Judging by the tattoos, I’d say these bodies definitely aren’t diplomats.”

Fisk said, “You said ‘bodies’?”

Kiser said, “This is maybe a little more serious than you’re expecting. Let me give you an address for your GPS and you can come on down to the beach.”

CHAPTER 16

Fisk badged his way inside the perimeter, parking in a sand-strewn beach parking lot that was a portrait of the desolation of the end of summer. Mostly empty and silent under an overcast sky. He stood out of his vehicle, and a burst of wind brought gritty particles of sand to his face, as well as a hint of ocean spit. Nothing dies so alone as a summer beach in September.

He crossed the boardwalk into the dunes. Dress shoes walking in sand. He followed a path through the sea grass, at first trying to be careful, taking shallow steps. Then the first spoonful of sand beneath his heel and it was over. Only pride kept him from rolling up his pant cuffs and walking out there barefoot. Another pair of shoes ruined.

“I’m looking for Kiser?” Fisk said at least three times. A Crime Scene Unit photographer finally heading back to his car pointed Fisk down the shore. He saw a dozen or so uniformed cops standing around a temporary fence of white plastic sheeting whipping in the wind and started toward it.

Nothing out on the horizon, no barges, tankers, or pleasure boats. The sky was gray but visibility was good. Fisk shivered and stuck his hands in his pockets, and it was the first climate-related chill he had felt since at least June.

“Kiser?” said Fisk, finally reaching the crime scene.

A slight man in his forties looked up from his notepad. He wore khakis and a pink button-down shirt with a heavy, wrinkled, unzipped all-weather jacket. He had a fringe of dark hair, just enough to clip his yarmulke.

“Fisk?” he said, offering his hand.

Fisk shook. He could not see over the top of the plastic sheeting yet. Most of the cops standing around it were holding the wooden stakes into the sand, keeping the temporary fence from lifting off and tumbling back to the parking lot.

Kiser said, “I know you?” Then, seemingly in reference to Fisk’s name: “I thought so.”

He stood looking at Fisk a moment, placing him as the guy who got Jenssen. The pause was not one of admiration or respect, but more along the lines of Why is this guy riding the UN Week desk?

Fisk, referring to the fence, said, “How bad is it?”

“It’s grim. Worse than grim.”

Fisk figured it was violent. That was why the plastic sheeting. The Post loved making a front-page meal out of murder scenes. Fisk looked up at the dunes. Any one of them could have hidden some punk with a four-hundred-millimeter lens.

“Killed here or dumped?”

“Dumped,” said Kiser, with a nod of certainty. “We tried scouting the sand for tire tracks, footprints, but this thing happened overnight.”

Fisk stepped over to the fence. He was unprepared for what he saw.

“Jesus.”

Kiser said, “A baker’s dozen. There were seagulls picking at them. Dog walker found them.”

The bodies had been decapitated. Thirteen of them, all shoulders, trunks, and limbs. Amazing how incomplete and inhuman a body looks when the head is gone.

Fisk looked back toward the dunes again. “Dumped.”

Kiser said, “No cameras on the beach parking lot. You got Kennedy airplanes masking your noise. We’re going to have to get plenty lucky to find anybody with eyes on this thing.”

Fisk looked back at the bodies. An identification nightmare. Only fingerprints and tattoos. Not so bad if they were felons, but Fisk could already see that they’d be lucky to get ten names out of thirteen.

Kiser said, “Ever work a mass murder before?”

Fisk shook his head.

Kiser said, “This precinct, you know, tends to be more your floaters, your hobos OD-ing under the boardwalk, night swimming accidents, late-night domestics. Things of that nature.”

Fisk was still thinking crime scene contamination. “You should string off the most direct path from here back to the dunes.”

Kiser followed Fisk’s eye line.

“Schlepping bodies is hard work, especially through sand. They parked somewhere up there. As they string, have your guys sift for trash. Things get lost on beaches in the dark. Check the parking lot up there, too. Pay special attention to the edges, because of the wind. You never know.”

Kiser nodded. He went off and spoke to another officer, leaving Fisk to look at the dead bodies again.

He could see the seagull bites. A few of them circled overhead now, beach vultures raised on Doritos, half-eaten hot dogs, and trash. They had picked at the edges of the neck wounds, which were otherwise surprisingly flat and neat. Fisk wondered what kind of tool had been used.

Kiser came back. “Thanks for the help. Thought Intel didn’t work crime scenes.”

“We don’t. Almost never, anyway.” Intel was about collating information, working sources, going undercover, but rarely working a scene. “But I was a cop before I was an Intel cop.”

Kiser was nodding, debating whether or not to say what was on his mind. “I gotta get this outta the way. I saw the Dateline on you—”