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seemed like a plant. Anxiety was sapping his determination.
    No more. There was no perfect time. He had to do it now.
    He dropped the canvas covering on the other side and unlocked his wheels. He pulled out the wooden wedges and started rolling the cart, pushing it south through busy Times Square toward the subway entrance.
    F isk saw two male “tourists” fold their maps and start moving in the same direction as Shah moved with his cart. The FBI was stirring, but still not pouncing.
    Fisk said to his Intel cops, “Stay close.” He said, “Peavy, you tracking?”
    “Don’t worry about me,” came the sniper’s voice.
    Fisk had watched the entire exchange with Shah from Gersten’s point of view. He saw the nervous anticipation in Shah’s face. Most of all he wondered what Shah had in the bottom of his cart. What Shah didn’t want Gersten to see.
    “Stay close, everyone,” said Fisk, pulling down his headphones. He pivoted too quickly, forgetting his sore ankle, and started off at a limp. “I’m coming down.”
    G ersten trailed Shah from a distance, still pretending to be following her map. He was pushing the cart along with his head out to the side to avoid oncoming tourists. He crossed Forty-fourth and kept going south.
    She was screened by a cluster of tourists, and just as she got around them, she saw Shah looking back, spotting her looking his way.
    Shit. She had no other choice but to own it. Thinking fast, she waved her map and jogged toward him, catching up.
    “Hey, hi, this coffee—it’s so terrible. Can I just get a refund?”
    He stood very still. His eyes held the most vacant expression she’d ever seen. The brown pupils were glassy, looking dead from the inside out, and she recognized the stare of a true fanatic, someone in a self-induced psychotic trance. She knew then that she was looking into the eyes of a terrorist.
    His skin had gone ash gray with blotches of red on his neck, like hives. He struggled to speak.
    “Go away,” he whispered.
    Gersten hesitated. She waited for Fisk’s order. Shah pushed his cart ahead a few more yards—then abruptly set it down.
    He reached into the shelf beneath his cart, removing a gym bag, and started running.
    F isk finally got out of the hotel, dodging tourists and hawkers, and he hobbled across the crowded square. He hustled along on his bad ankle until he spied Gersten and her Yankees cap way down past Forty-fourth standing with Shah. Fisk raised his hand and waved, pointing his men to intervene—but they were already a few steps behind the FBI, closing in from four different directions.
    P eavy pivoted. Wally gave him a new range, which he punched into the optical ranging system computer. The mark had been moving right to left, pushing his cart, moving at a slow rate. When he took off running with the bag in hand, Peavy exhaled and kept him in his sights.
    “Tell me,” he said to Wally, who was hooked up to Fisk.
    “Nothing yet.”
    The mark was darting in and out of people, and Peavy had him all the way. The sniper’s motto was “Don’t Bother Running—You’re Already Dead.”
    Wally tracked him with the glasses. “What’s he got in the bag?”
    “Nothing much,” said Peavy. “Just a few pounds of boom.” He watched the rabbit run, needing to rerange. “Dammit, Fisk.”
    S hah turned and took off, and Gersten broke into a run after him.
    He hoisted the gym bag strangely, running with it held behind his head.
    Gersten had just dodged a surprised and unaware cop when, all at once, two men in suits tackled her.
    FBI agents, yelling that she was under arrest.
    “NYPD!” she said, trying to kick the assholes off her.
    Fisk arrived, grabbing the agents by their collars, waving his shield and yelling. Then he continued on, forgetting his pain now.
    He looked beyond the intersection, searching for Shah’s target. When he cut to the right, staying on Seventh Avenue, Fisk knew.
    “The Forty-second Street subway entrance!” he said into the