Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

Within a moment, the entire lobby turned blue, as uniformed ACPD officers rushed from all corners upon the men holding Sylvester. “Drop your weapons or we will fire upon you!”

Sylvester smiled: Sergeant Garcia had his back.

Scrambling to lay their guns on the ground, the outnumbered men in suits screamed “FBI! FBI, for God’s sake, FBI!”

The suited men stepped away from Sylvester, who still had his arms bound behind him, as they pulled their federal badges from under their suit jackets while keeping one hand in the air.

“FBI? Jesus Christ. Who are you!?” Sylvester yelled at them.

“Us? Who the hell are you?” the tallest of the suited FBI agents yelled back to Sylvester as he slowly laid his government-issued nine-millimeter handgun on the cool marble floor of the wax museum.

“Detective Sylvester, ACPD,” Sylvester panted. A uniformed cop was behind Sylvester, cutting his hands free from the plastic restraints. Dozens of ACPD officers were now frisking the outnumbered FBI agents, checking their badges, chaos all around.

A senior FBI agent suddenly arrived on the scene, his beard stubble grizzled and long wrinkles running across his forehead.

“Senior Agent Wilkins, Special Crimes,” he identified himself. “What the hell’s going on here with my investigation?”

His hands free, Sylvester walked up to this lead FBI agent, red colouring his face.

“Your investigation? Goddammit!” Sylvester yelled, spinning around on his heels.

“Come on, David, calm down, calm down. It’s OK,” Garcia was trying to pull him back.

“We’re all on the same team here, detective,” the senior FBI man said.

“Are we?” Sylvester demanded.

“My men detained you as a matter of safety and precaution.”

“Precaution for what? Senior agent, you just pissed all over my meet-up with a confidential informant in a high-profile case! I’m going to have your ass for breakfast!”

The FBI man looked at Sylvester. “Informant? You mean Jesse DeWinter?”

“I don’t have his name. We were supposed to meet here at noon. He’s gone now, though, spooked for ever!”

Wilkins shook his head. “Jesse DeWinter died instantly at eight forty-four this morning when his car struck the median at high speed heading eastbound on I-10 near the Washington Boulevard exit. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Sylvester reeled. “Dead?”

“We searched his apartment shortly after. We’ve been keeping an eye on him here in Angel City as a potential political radical. We found a photo of you, along with this note.”

Wilkins reached into his coat and pulled out a photo of Sylvester that had been printed from the Internet, along with a small scrap of paper: “Wax Museum – noon.”

“It was a meet-up,” Sylvester said quietly, sitting down on the bench. “He was coming in . . . someone found out.”

“HDF literature and bomb making materials were found in his car – or what remained of the car after it burned,” Special Agent Wilkins said. “We had our suspicions. Now it’s a pretty open-and-shut case that the HDF was behind the bombing. The next step is to move into the HDF organization itself.”

Sylvester shook his head, hands plunged into the pockets of his overcoat. Was that it? After Minx obviously sent DeWinter on to Sylvester himself. Why would he be turning against the HDF now? Whom did he fear?

“Forensics is running tests on the residual bomb material, but early results say it’s a one hundred per cent match to the bomb used earlier this month.”

Sylvester absently looked out of the glass walls at the waves of pedestrians walking down Angel Boulevard. Tourists were stopping outside the front glass wall and taking pictures of Maddy’s wax statue through the glass.

“Of course it’s a one hundred per cent match,” Sylvester said softly. “I bet it wasn’t even damaged in the fiery accident.”

“It’s just a shame we couldn’t talk to DeWinter before his accident. It would’ve been helpful,” the FBI lead said.

Sylvester, breaking from his mental fugue, looked at Wilkins through his wire-framed glasses.