Cronley then looked beyond Greene and the men barring his way. There were two male bodies on the floor of the foyer. One, partially and inadequately covered by a bloody tablecloth, Cronley recognized as Pavel Dumlovski, one of his DCI agents.
“Ginger?” Cronley asked, quickly. “Mrs. Moriarty?”
“You don’t want to go in there,” Greene said.
Cronley turned and pushed his shoulder past Greene’s men, bolting into the house. Ostrowski followed, in the process knocking one of the men off his feet. Greene stepped back.
Cronley then saw that the foyer held a third body, another Polish DCI agent. Cronley ran toward the dining room door, where smoke flowed out the door.
Father Jack McGrath was laying on his back, his chest bloody and his unseeing eyes wide open. The dining room table was on its side.
Cronley entered the room and walked around the table.
And then he saw her.
Ginger was laying on her back, her legs twisted in a grotesque way, her midsection torn open, the left side of her face gone.
“Jesus Christ, no!” Cronley wailed.
He knelt beside her, his right knee in the pool of blood from her head. He reached out and caressed the right side of her face.
And then he jumped to his feet.
“Bruce!” he yelled, rapidly scanning the room. “Where the fuck is the baby?”
Ostrowski went to Cronley, wrapped his arms around him, then half dragged, half carried him out of the dining room into the foyer.
Greene’s men hurried to help Ostrowski control Cronley.
The sound of an indignant infant crying came from somewhere nearby.
Cronley turned to the sound and saw a German fireman in black rubber coveralls coming down the stairway holding the infant, wrapped in a blanket, in his arms.
“Oh, Jesus!” Cronley groaned, shook free of Ostrowski’s grip, and went to the fireman. “Give him to me. He’s mine.”
The fireman, more than a little reluctantly, gently handed over the infant.
Cronley automatically held Baby Bruce in his arms, as Ginger had taught him, then rocked him gently. The baby stopped howling.
&nbs
p; Cronley said, his voice breaking, “Looks like it’s just you and me from now on, little man.”
Greene walked to him. “Is he all right?”
“Hungry, I’m sure. He’s always hungry. And he smells like he needs his diaper changed.”
“My people tell me he’s the . . . sole survivor.”
Cronley nodded but didn’t trust his voice to reply.
Cohen, Serov, and Alekseevich walked up to them. Cronley saw that they weren’t out of breath and that Serov was carrying the briefcase with the money in it. Cronley reasoned that the credentials of one of them had been good enough to get past the policeman.
“This place looks like a slaughterhouse,” Serov declared.
“And among the slaughtered are Father Jack and Ginger,” Cronley said.
“Dear God!” Cohen exclaimed. “Jim, I’m so sorry!”