The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,61

A huge screen with a computer-generated map of the city dominated one wall; the software was capable of marking the map with points of concern of all sorts, from traffic jams to bar fights, from electrical system failures to buildings on fire.

Dupree and the team spent time briefing each of the operators about what kinds of reports to relay immediately to the FBI agents next door: a series of gunshots, four, five, or more in rapid succession; all members of a single family killed by gunshots inside their residence; or all bodies grouped in one room.

They’d have to be prepared for anything after the call came in: flooded streets, blocked doors, fallen trees, and downed electric lines. They’d count on the firefighters for transport if the streets proved impassable for ordinary traffic.

In the early afternoon, Dupree suggested to Amaia that they make a tour of the city, escorted by Bill and Bull. They were enveloped in unexpected quiet as they crossed the parking lot. Rain began to fall. The shower was surprisingly gentle, considering the threatening gusts that had gathered force in the course of the morning. The interior of the vehicle was silent except for radio reports updating the command center on earlier incidents. Out in the city, they found that the cars previously parked on both sides of the streets had disappeared overnight. From the vantage point of Poydras Street, they saw crowds streaming toward the Superdome’s access ramps. Many were senior citizens on crutches or in wheelchairs. Some in the crowd carried infants, and others had arms full of blankets and pillows to spend the night in the stadium.

Dupree was dismayed by the crowding outside the entrances. He wondered if Nana was out there. He said nothing, but the others noticed his worried look.

“They started arriving last night,” Jason Bull explained. “Officers in the stadium report there are ten thousand inside already, and more keep coming.”

No one said anything. Bull switched on a commercial radio station, perhaps to break the silence.

Interstate 10 had cleared up somewhat, and traffic was moving. There’d been few police control points the previous evening, but now they were in place all across the city. Officers were insisting that everyone either leave the city or go to designated shelters. The streets had to be completely empty by the six thirty curfew. They made it clear that everyone outside after that would be detained for their own safety.

The radio warned that Katrina’s leading edge was approaching. Amaia watched as curtains of rain lashed across the city from east to west. A phone rang. Bull lowered the radio volume, and Dupree answered the call. He listened intently and then ended it.

“Detective Bull,” he said to the driver before turning to the others, “we’re going back to the operations center. They have the bullet from Andrews, the father. It’s not the same as those that killed the others. The techs found it was old, manufactured decades back, and when they put it in the system, all kinds of alarms went off. The ballistics match the weapon used to murder a family in Madison, Wisconsin, eighteen years ago.

“Madison and Quantico are sending everything they have to us. We have a conference call with Tucker and Emerson in twenty minutes.”

23

EVIL

New Orleans, Louisiana

Martin Lenx, his wife, two sons aged twelve and sixteen, and a daughter of fifteen lived in a big house in a small community outside Madison, Wisconsin, with Alma, Martin’s elderly mother. Martin had no siblings, and he’d inherited the house after the death of his father, a stern Lutheran pastor. Reverend Lenx had escaped from Austria to the United States during the Second World War. Alma’s inherited wealth had allowed them to live well. After her husband’s death, Alma moved into a separate suite on an upper floor. The family’s bodies were found in a state of advanced decomposition, after neighbors began to wonder why the Lenxes hadn’t returned from visiting relatives.

They’d been dead for a month.

The house was unheated, but even so, the stink was appalling. The pealing bells of the fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique incessantly sounded their warning knell as a counterpart to the hideous dark brown trail of blood leading to the mansion’s music room. There, laid in a line with their heads oriented toward the north, were the bodies of the entire family—except for the father, a devout Christian, a corporate branch office manager with a good reputation in the community.

Martin Lenx had disappeared. In his office, the police found