Prologue

May 8, 1997
9:50 a.m.
Whatever it was they had injected him with was wearing off, and Enrico’s legs were stiff and leaden and exquisitely painful. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand up. While the plane taxied to the terminal, he gently massaged the area around where it hurt, careful to avoid touching the grotesque swollen lumps. When they had put him on the plane, he was so drugged up his vision was blurred and fish-eyed, and they’d practically had to carry him. But now as he looked around, cold sweat pasting his hair to his temples, the world appeared acutely harsh and cold and white.
When it came time to disembark, Enrico’s constricted eyes darted in all directions helplessly. He didn’t exactly know what he was hoping to see—perhaps somebody offering to help him up? Strangely enough, someone did. One of the stewardesses who’d been watching him the entire flight, probably convinced he was going to puke or worse, approached when the people around him had finished unstuffing their overhead bins and lent him her hand. Stronger than she looked, she levered Enrico from his seat, and helped him down the aisle to the gaping convex portal. It felt like the single greatest act of kindness ever bestowed upon him, and had his exocrine system not been utterly confused by drugs and trauma, he would certainly have shed tears of sentiment.
On his own now, Enrico made his way down the long tubular ramp to the gate. With each step he took, he couldn’t imagine where the strength would come from to take the next. He thought he must pass out, actually longed to let go and collapse. But the thought of what would happen if he were taken to a hospital gave him the strength to go on. Ten agonizing minutes later he approached the baggage carrousel for his flight. Three pieces of his luggage were circling around on the thing somewhere, but he couldn’t care less about them at the moment, and he hobbled on past it toward the lines for the customs checkpoint. He selected the shortest one, and queued; only to discover that his body had by now settled into a kind of stasis as he shambled along, and the interruption of standing still actually made him feel worse.

Meeting hundreds of new and interesting people every day, all coming from far away and exotic lands, United States Customs Agents are uniquely positioned to contract all the latest interesting and exotic diseases to which Americans have yet to be exposed or developed any immunity to. As such is the case, the agent to which the pale and clammy Enrico extended his passport not only refused to physically handle the document, but couldn’t get rid of it’s bearer fast enough. And so, Enrico soon found himself struggling down the departure hall, the ink of a hastily stamped visa still drying on his Dominican passport. Although he did not know it, his labored steps marked the culmination of a carefully planned chain of events begun eight years previously; and set into motion an even more ambitious, and much more dangerous, plan.

* * *

Casper Montalvo was not wearing a suit today. At thirty-two, he had worn a suit every single day for the past nine years. He had grown accustomed to having the finer things in life—or at least his perception of the finer things. His voluminous closet contained thirty-three suits: twelve mulberry silk, nine ultrafine merino wool, eight Irish linen, and four brushed cotton; all Versace, Hugo Boss, or Armani. They were arranged by season, material, color, and shade in that precise order, and not a one was more than eighteen months old. He ate one meal every day at one of his four favorite restaurants—Jimmy’s Bronx Café, Mirage, The Audubon Grille, or Gonzalez Y Gonzalez. His winter wear was Nordica, his watch was Movado, his shades were Calvin Klein—all six pairs—and his ride was a Lexus GS400. He wore Aramis, silk boxers, and an ounce and a half of yellow gold in rings and chains, and four karats in diamonds seven days a week. Except today.
Today, Casper had on Express men’s jeans, a Polo sweatshirt, and an official Yankees fitted baseball cap. He had been specifically instructed to wear jeans today and leave his jewelry home. He didn’t own jeans, so that morning he’d gone out and bought a pair; he borrowed the sweatshirt and hat from his cousin. And so, here he was, standing in Kennedy International Airport, dressed—in his opinion—like a bum.
Casper had never met Enrico before, but recognized him quickly enough by the way the man was hobbling down the arrivals hall like a fucking holocaust survivor. Not very inconspicuous. Casper pulled the prepaid cell phone he’d picked up the day before from his pocket. The display read 10:13 a.m. He hit the "send" button twice and the phone called the first and only number on its redial list.
Half a ring, then, "Well?"
“He’s here,” Casper said. He replaced the phone in his pocket and made his way over to the hobbling man. "Señor Delarosa?" he asked.
"Si…si…," Enrico rasped. "Es usted Casper?"
"Si," Casper said, extending Enrico an arm. Not knowing if Enrico had any English, he continued in Spanish, asking, "How was your flight?"
Enrico looked bewildered at the question. "My damn legs are killing me!"
"Ssh," Casper shushed discreetly. "Be careful what you say here. Where is your luggage?"
Enrico waved a dismissive hand. Casper hoped this meant that he hadn’t brought any, but it was too late to do anything about it if this wasn’t the case, so he led Enrico through a pair of glass doors to the taxi waiting area. Two black Lincoln Town Cars with dark tinted windows pulled up in front of them with precision timing. Casper opened a rear door to the first of the two Lincolns and helped Enrico into the car. He got into the second car and tapped the driver twice on the shoulder. At once, the driver keyed his CB transmitter, and said, "Vaminos."
The two sedans pulled into traffic with businesslike uniformity, and melted into the traffic of the Grand Central Parkway.