and resumed their conversations.
Lisa-Marie left the line to go and stand in the middle of the corridor to try to see what was happening. The fire doors were closed. There was nothing to see.
Then one of the doors shook. It began to open. A legappeared, then the rest of the body. Holding something strange in its hand …
Lisa-Marie didn’t hear the next shots go off, nor the panicked shrieks of those nearby.
Her head had just exploded.
The boy she had fancied a second earlier was now covered with her brains, splinters of bone and burnt fragments of her long red hair.
Lucas let out a long sigh. The deafening noise was getting closer and boring into his head. What on earth was that racket? Roadworks?
Right now, though, he had something else to worry about.
He was late. And he absolutely had to go to class. He was stoned and if Derringer, his maths teacher, noticed him because he was late he would be in big trouble.
Get up.
He saw a girl he didn’t recognise run past him, fast. Lucas frowned.
Then two more ran past.
Then another.
They looked terrified.
What the hell?
Lucas wanted to stand up but couldn’t. The state he was in, he’d have to try harder.
That was some shit he’d smoked.
Four more figures ran past him.
The hammering noise started up again. Louder than before.
Lucas put his head in his hands, moaning.
The next moment someone was standing in front of him.
He sat up a little to see who it was.
Did he know him?
There was a strong smell coming from him, pungent.
‘What d’you want?’ Lucas asked, straining to make out the guy’s face.
The other boy raised his arm. There was a gun in his hand. Lucas made a face, wrinkling his nose.
‘Oh, man …’
The next second the impact of the bullets flung his bodybackwards so violently he ended up embedded in the bay window.
His blood began to flow down the outside of the glass.
A dozen dark-red rivulets dripped to the ground.
And the shots continued to ring out.
8.34 a.m. Fourteen people were dead.
Twenty-one were wounded, some permanently.
Hundreds would be scarred for ever by what they had seen.
Outside, the world was waking up.
To start another day.
1
Lamar Gallineo was nervous.
He was driving his old Pontiac up Third Avenue towards Harlem, and the coffee he had just picked up threatened to spill all over the dashboard.
Lamar was hunched over, too tall to sit comfortably in a normal car. He was slightly over six foot seven.
His height had made it difficult for him to join the police department. Nothing about him was standard, and that was a bad thing.
After studying law, he had wanted to join the NYPD at the highest possible level, as a detective. Which was another bad thing. Since he was black. Or African-American as everyone was supposed to say nowadays.
At the time, the old-timers in the NYPD administration still thought that six-foot-seven black men should be playing basketball, not working as police detectives.
Twelve years on, Lamar carried his badge proudly.
Even better, he worked for the central homicide squad ofthe NYPD. A few brilliant flashes of intuition meant that he had been put in charge of several significant cases, which he had solved without making waves. He had rapidly climbed through the ranks. Now he was a lieutenant. The new politics of affirmative action had helped him; he was under no illusion about that. But so much the better, he thought. You had to take your chances where you could find them.
He’d got used to many things over his twelve years. Bad racist jokes from his partners. Long gruelling hours that had destroyed his private life. Decomposing corpses.
But he had never been able to get the hang of driving fast in Manhattan.
His head was bent over the steering wheel in order not to brush against the roof of the car. He was frowning, trying to anticipate the path of the vehicles that might cut him up. The Pontiac’s flashing light turned silently, without the siren – Lamar
Lisa-Marie left the line to go and stand in the middle of the corridor to try to see what was happening. The fire doors were closed. There was nothing to see.
Then one of the doors shook. It began to open. A legappeared, then the rest of the body. Holding something strange in its hand …
Lisa-Marie didn’t hear the next shots go off, nor the panicked shrieks of those nearby.
Her head had just exploded.
The boy she had fancied a second earlier was now covered with her brains, splinters of bone and burnt fragments of her long red hair.
Lucas let out a long sigh. The deafening noise was getting closer and boring into his head. What on earth was that racket? Roadworks?
Right now, though, he had something else to worry about.
He was late. And he absolutely had to go to class. He was stoned and if Derringer, his maths teacher, noticed him because he was late he would be in big trouble.
Get up.
He saw a girl he didn’t recognise run past him, fast. Lucas frowned.
Then two more ran past.
Then another.
They looked terrified.
What the hell?
Lucas wanted to stand up but couldn’t. The state he was in, he’d have to try harder.
That was some shit he’d smoked.
Four more figures ran past him.
The hammering noise started up again. Louder than before.
Lucas put his head in his hands, moaning.
The next moment someone was standing in front of him.
He sat up a little to see who it was.
Did he know him?
There was a strong smell coming from him, pungent.
‘What d’you want?’ Lucas asked, straining to make out the guy’s face.
The other boy raised his arm. There was a gun in his hand. Lucas made a face, wrinkling his nose.
‘Oh, man …’
The next second the impact of the bullets flung his bodybackwards so violently he ended up embedded in the bay window.
His blood began to flow down the outside of the glass.
A dozen dark-red rivulets dripped to the ground.
And the shots continued to ring out.
8.34 a.m. Fourteen people were dead.
Twenty-one were wounded, some permanently.
Hundreds would be scarred for ever by what they had seen.
Outside, the world was waking up.
To start another day.
1
Lamar Gallineo was nervous.
He was driving his old Pontiac up Third Avenue towards Harlem, and the coffee he had just picked up threatened to spill all over the dashboard.
Lamar was hunched over, too tall to sit comfortably in a normal car. He was slightly over six foot seven.
His height had made it difficult for him to join the police department. Nothing about him was standard, and that was a bad thing.
After studying law, he had wanted to join the NYPD at the highest possible level, as a detective. Which was another bad thing. Since he was black. Or African-American as everyone was supposed to say nowadays.
At the time, the old-timers in the NYPD administration still thought that six-foot-seven black men should be playing basketball, not working as police detectives.
Twelve years on, Lamar carried his badge proudly.
Even better, he worked for the central homicide squad ofthe NYPD. A few brilliant flashes of intuition meant that he had been put in charge of several significant cases, which he had solved without making waves. He had rapidly climbed through the ranks. Now he was a lieutenant. The new politics of affirmative action had helped him; he was under no illusion about that. But so much the better, he thought. You had to take your chances where you could find them.
He’d got used to many things over his twelve years. Bad racist jokes from his partners. Long gruelling hours that had destroyed his private life. Decomposing corpses.
But he had never been able to get the hang of driving fast in Manhattan.
His head was bent over the steering wheel in order not to brush against the roof of the car. He was frowning, trying to anticipate the path of the vehicles that might cut him up. The Pontiac’s flashing light turned silently, without the siren – Lamar
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