Chapter One

The fire crackled in the background, but somehow never left his line of sight. It licked and roared, tearing at every inch of the building. Soon it would spread down the street. He stretched out his arms, but the further he reached towards the figures on the rooftop, the further away they seemed to be. Somehow he knew he would never reach them without help. He looked down the road. Flashing lights, and a siren. A loud siren. A siren that seemed to stand out from the rest of the world around him.
The alarm cut through his dream like a rusty chainsaw, tossing his fantasies into disarray and blurring his fictional world with his dark, Washington bedroom. Strange noises leaked out of his mouth as he tried to rationalise the shift in location, and suddenly realised the grounding difference between the real and the unreal. Then another thought occured to him. It couldn't be six-thirty already. He reached out a hand and hit the alarm clock once or twice. The noise remained, obtuse and brash.
As reality collected in a pool around his head, the dance of shadows melted into the soft light of late spring that darted over the top of his curtains. The double bed seemed lavish and unnecessary, moreso as he couldn't remember the last time it was filled. He was thirty-three, and in his line of work nights of passion and over-indulgence were painfully rare. He looked over to the table by his bed. His clock stared blankly back at him, as if nodding in the direction of the mobile phone that vibrated in a rhythmic dance of whirring, lights and sounds in front of him. He picked it up and touched the dial button, rolling onto his back and bringing his free hand up to his forehead as his mind registered the time the clock was showing - four fourty-five.
"Keyes." he said, his tone drooping as he faced up to the day. There could only be one voice on the other end of the line - the only man that would dare to call him this early.
"Matt," came a gruff Chicago voice, "Mac wants you in the office in thirty minutes."
Matt let out a long, agonising groan.
"Jack, it's five in the fucking morning. Tell Mac he can shove his emergency callouts..."
There was a click on the other end of the line. A throaty afro-american cut him off.
"The only thing that's getting shoved in an unfortunate place is your job, Keyes, if you aren't here in thirty minutes. It's a department-wide call-in. Now move your ass."
Matt left a pause just long enough to strike a line between respect and irritation.
"'Sir." he said quietly. There was a click again and the line cut off.
The light seemed bland and tasteless, and for the first time he noticed the dry, stickiness in his mouth brought on by the liquor of the night before. A department-wide call-in? That meant bad news. He tossed the phone to the other side of the room, feeling satisfied as he heard the acute smack of plastic and plaster colliding. The clock came back into his mind again.
"Shit."
It seemed like the only thing to say.

* * *

"...but commuters are reminded to plan ahead for the disruptions to city travel around the Manhattan area over the next few months, as the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better."

The view returned to the newsdesk, the presenter's smile no less fixed as before.

"James Kandel, reporting." she beamed. The headline on the running tab beneath her changed. It now read VIOLENCE A GROWING PROBLEM.

"Reports published today in conjunction with the New York P.D. suggest that violent crime has surged in certain hotspots within the last eighteen months. The report, carried out by the independent community safety body TRUST, is a damning indictment of the proposed changes to communities in and around the Manhattan area. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, says that the report is a 'gross exaggeration' of the current situation, but spokespeople for the NYPD say otherwise."

The pictures changed and a fourty-something police lieutentant with a face ravaged more by caffeine than the mean streets of New York City appeared, but his rantings were tamed by the remote control that a disgruntled drinker swiftly reached for.

"Fuckin' politics."

The man was not particularly old, but like the cop he had seen the bottom of one coffee cup too many. Indeed, he was now sitting in the very café that had seen him through many years of loneliness and insignificance, and in front of him sat the very mug that had done a similar job. A waitress bobbed up to him cheerily, but he had been through enough of them to know they meant little.

"'Nother cup, hon'?" she drawled. He didn't bother looking up, but the voice smacked of the sounds of another dissatisfied soul - a voice gravellier than a Beverley Hills driveway, a disinclination to finish words and the stench of coffee and stale smoke.

"Naw, I'd best be going."

This wasn't strictly true - he didn't have anywhere to go to, really. But it was what people were accustomed to saying around here. He would drift somewhere else - maybe his journalist friend would have a job or two for him. He couldn't see her - he was still looking down into the emptied coffee cup - but he imagined the waitress shrugging. He wondered if he could see his fate in the stains on the rim of the coffee cup. They seemed darker today. He snorted. How poetic.

Had the man from across the cafe known what he was thinking, he would have seen it as ironic more than poetic. For the gun that leant against George's breast felt lighter that morning, already one burden less. He had been watching the man for an hour now, the only inhabitants of the all-night café. He looked at his watch. It was after five o'clock now, and the early birds would start filtering in soon. Time to get to work.

In the police files that would be taken down and read thoroughly over the coming weeks, the waitress' description of events seemed frequently out of kilter with reports about the associated incidents. For a start, the female police officer that came to take reports was given a mix of stories which ranged from several gang members bursting in and shooting, to the victim being strangled to death by means of a fiber wire. Once the woman had calmed down, though, the facts came a little clearer. Although there was a lot of repetition and occasional slips, the events seemed altogether clear.

The man who had been sitting in a caffeine-stupor since three that morning collapsed heavily on the counter as a single bullet from a Glock impacted his right temple, shattering most of his cranium and displaying it on the far wall. As the waitress turned around, her surprise turned to horror, and her screaming was silenced only by the gunman hitting her sharply across the back of her head with a vinegar bottle. She collapsed to the ground at the dead man's feet, utterly unconscious.

To his right, he heard someone talking frantically into a phone. To his left, New York City seemed as lifeless as ever. He stepped over the waitress' body and pushed open the cold, glass pane, the gun by his breast a little lighter. Over the road, shivering under a long coat but smiling warmly, was the tired and pained face of Sonia.