Chapter one

Chapter  One

Greenwich Village, New York, March 14, 2009, Saturday, 2:20 A.M.



              Red heels on long legs in expensive jeans, surged out of the back of the dirty checkered cab and began slicing the cold morning air with each forceful step. It was early, way past what working stiffs consider over time, and Kore Ginn was pissed. It wasn’t the hour that bothered her, it was the cabbie. The stupid little rag head kept trying to chat her up with his broken English, leering at her in the rear view mirror, talking sex, asking if she wanted to trade the fare with some fuckie-fuckie. She ignored his stupid ass, but enough was enough. 

         “Let me out, right here, now,” she demanded, throwing money through the little window in the partition. It was only two more blocks to her place, but she’d had enough. It was either walk now or re-wrap that turban around his stupid neck.

               Hands swinging loosely at her side, an angry Kore Ginn power walked the rest of the way to Thompson Street. A touch of paranoia kept her alert. It was always wise to know who was around. No one watching her would suspect that the long legged lady was team leader for a special circumstances FBI task force. 

         Kore preferred her leather fanny pack to a purse. It was basic black, contained everything she needed, while keeping her hands free. She wore an oversized men’s white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a red paisley vest for color. The oversized vest hid the silver Browning Hi-Power tucked in the sidekick holster in the hollow of her back. Kore was a good-sized woman, with a lot of leg, and she walked with a loose confidence that kept away all but the most crazed and determined.

         Almost in the heart of Greenwich Village, Thompson Street was busy even at two-thirty in the morning. Kore stopped at the corner of her block, seemingly to check out her make-up in the dirty convenience store window. What she was really was doing was scoping out the block while checking out her make-up. She liked her make-up.          

         Downtown was so crowded and active that Kore could come and go at all hours, blending in with the other weirdlings living in this famous, or was it infamous, section of Manhattan. She had to be careful. Once the predators knew that you knew about them, you can never let your guard down. They may be deranged and evil but they are clever. Unknown to most of the citizenry, the predators, publicly dubbed serial killers, are more organized than law enforcement has let on, thanks to the internet. Everyone was on the world wide web, sex traffickers, slave traders, pedophiles, and murders of every style. 

             Kore smoothed down her shirt and vest and made her way to her apartment building, just a few store fronts from the corner. She moved quickly up the short flight of ill repaired steps and entered the phone-booth sized, black and white tilled foyer. Always athletic, she took the steps two-at-a-time to the second landing and, with keys ready, she was in her apartment like an uninterrupted breeze. She waited silently in the dark, just to the side of the closed door, four slow exhalations and nothing. She relaxed and turned on the light.

         Kore’s apartment was a one bedroom, which, in the Village meant that the contractors took the master bedroom of a once elegant brownstone and made it into a fancy efficiency. Then, they converted the huge walk-in closet to a cute, but tiny bedroom. Viola! Rental squalor at its best.

             As usual, Kore was home alone. She didn't mind being in and out of relationships, never did seemed to get the whole male/female thing. There was no lack of men, but they never lasted. Somehow, she seemed to drain them.

             Kore was looking forward to a quiet night with a taped episode of True Blood. She loved Sci-Fi, bubble gum for the mind she called it. In her line of work there was drama and danger far beyond anything fiction had to offer. Unlike television, when someone was in trouble, there were no last minute surprise rescues, and no miraculous resurrections in the next episode. Instead, there was lots of blood and everyone was permanently dead. Kore felt very permanent and she smiled to herself. All the time in the world.

             The past few weeks had been a bit much. The serial murderer the media had dubbed Spinal Tap, whose signature after rape and torture, was the removal of the fifth lumbar vertebrae, had been cornered in the very small town of Simpson, Montana. Simpson, was truly in the middle of no place, a stone’s throw away from the Canadian border. The assumption was that Spinal Tap was heading to Canada to escape U.S. law. If that was true then he was stupid because the US has extradition with Canada. Then again, maybe he was just moving on to new hunting grounds. The why of it will forever remain a mystery because Spinal Tap, A.K.A. Monte Montele Risell, is dead. Kore shot him. It was a righteous shoot.

             Truth be known, she enjoyed the kill. It was like sex at its best, with all the sweat, ending with a gut wrenching climax as good as any in-the-sack. The real difference was that in this case the wet spot was always under the other guy. Kore had no moral dilemma about snuffing a killer. She was the FBI’s current best. Her career had skyrocketed, first as a desk-jockey profiler, and then as a VICAP advisor. Kore was a success in a man's profession, although no one seemed to know when she had started working. She just seemed to be on the job one day. Her life was a charmed one.

         She had been trained by the Marines, but more than that, she was gifted with a powerful intellect and equally high athletic skills. Nature did not stop at that, Kore was an unnatural beauty with pinkish tan skin and dark eyes that often appeared to have no pupils. Her classic Hebraic face was made more pronounced by her hair, which she wore Marine-style, high and tight. No natural flaws, scars, or tattoos, marred her skin.

         “Butch and lesbo,” was said behind her back and despite these rumors, it was assumed that she had slept her way up. Kore didn’t care, at thirty-eight she was one of those women everybody loved to hate. Last week she had competed in the Women's Fitness Competition, at the Fontainebleau in Miami. She won. The competition worked like a beauty pageant, but the focus was on the athletic and acrobatic ability of the women. Of course, Kore knew that the swimsuit portion went a long way to assuring her victory. Although only five-nine, her legs were near perfect, a source of pride as well as a pain-in-the-ass. Every dick who wasn’t blind gawked at her, but she didn’t mind as long as they kept their mouths shut. 

             When she returned to her New York office the walls around her cubicle were plastered with pictures of her from the tabloids showing her posing in her almost nothing swimsuit. Kore wasn’t one to get flustered. She called the men’s bluff, got out her sharpie, and signed every picture. They were gone the next day.

             An enigma to most, Kore fostered the mystery and therefore was even more the focus of attention. She was rumored to be an orphan from upstate New York. It was said that her guardian, who may have molested her, enrolled her in a co-ed military school. Bored with the limited mentality of the military, Kore did not re-enlist and entered the FBI where she was invited to join the Investigative Support Unit, formerly the Behavioral Sciences Unit. There, she founded the In-Field-Violent Crimes Apprehension Team (ifVCAT), a mobile task force designed to actively hunt and capture serial killers. Even within the clannish FBI, Kore Ginn was a loner. The only people she let near were her own hand-picked team.

               All of this had brought her to this evening, home, and cueing up her favorite Sci-Fi show. She had changed into an oversized red T-shirt with white letters stretched across her breasts that read: All this and brains too. Successful and dangerously gorgeous, nevertheless, Kore was alone. Not one to brood, she told herself that she lived for her work, with Sci-Fi binges in-between. The show had just begun and Bill Compton was finally and awkwardly making his feelings for Sookie known when the phone rang. That's how it always started. A phone call.

         Kore reached and felt the hopeful stirrings of excitement. She almost never got social calls, so she wondered if this was about a new killer, or one of the many still operating. No one ever seemed to be able to explain why there were so many multiple murderers. As soon as one was killed or apprehended another took his place. One after the other, almost as if there was a waiting list for the psychotic. Kore knew why, but that was her secret.

             “Ginn here,” she spoke clearly and with authority.

             "Ah, you're up. Don't you ever sleep? I hope I didn't interrupt anything?" the man said, his tone insinuating that she must be getting some if she wasn't asleep.

             It was Lou Walters. He always felt obligated to throw some sexual jab because she was a good looking female and he was an old school male and hated to have answer to her. Of course, she always felt obligated to justify his suspicions. Kore never let the men on her team forget that she knew that every one of them jerked-off to her image in mind. She almost always got the last word, too, and that really pissed them off.

             "Don't worry Walters, the twins need a break anyway." She said casually, and moved the phone away from her mouth, speaking sharply into the empty room, “Boys! Stop it. Momma’s on the phone!”  Then back to Lou Walters, "Now, what's up?"

             "Twins?" Walters croaked, weakly. He could be real slow on the up-take, but the team respected him, referring to him as their icon. The best part was that he never could tell if she was joking or not.

             "Oh... Okay," he recovered, chuckling, and then got down to business. He was excited. "It's a fresh scene. Looks like a first time. Everything fits the protocol and I predict we'll be in thong land, F. L. A., real soon. A section of South Miami called the Redland. Everyone's very dead and done up all artful like. I am pretty sure we got a new one."  Before she could respond he rushed on, "I figured you’d want everybody, so I already made the calls. Everybody will rendezvous at Quantico in forty-eight hours."

             "Miami," Kore mused out loud. "Weird. You know, I was just there a week ago." 

             "I know," Walters replied with reverence in his voice. "I got one of the photos you signed. Nice. Real nice."

             Kore snapped back into focus and in a cold voice, said, "Something for your old age, Walters?” He stuttered something. “Never mind,” she cut him off. “By the time we get there it'll be cold. Does it look like we can expect another  performance?" Walters made noises to the affirmative. She felt sure he was correct. He was a good agent, not brilliant, but very competent, even if he was a little too full of himself. "All right. Good. Get everyone assembled by 1330. I want all available information. That should be enough time to get it all together, right?” 

             “Not a problem. I’m already on it. It‘s not like I’ve got twins to deal with, you know,” he snorted.

             Kore let the remark pass. “Walters. Get Face on the jurisdiction shit. Make sure the local blues know that the very bad snowbirds are coming. I don’t want any bullshit like we had in Montana. Who's our liaison in Miami?" she asked.

             "Special Agent Ted Cairo," he shot back.

             "Yeah. I remember him... short, pudgy, efficient. Good. Get him on it, too. And one more thing," she added, “book the second floor conference room. I'm tired of being in the basement.” 

         The offices, made famous in movies as the Behavioral Science Unit, were located sixty feet below ground, just florescent lights and forced air. It was like a furnished tomb. Perhaps its depth, a mathematical ratio to the depth of a grave is apropos considering the type of crimes that are dealt with by its agents. Walters was asking questions and Kore pulled her mind away from thoughts of murder and the FBI basement and focused. "Yes, that's right. Okay. See you soon, old man."

         She hung up and walked over to the only window in the big room, moving aside the heavy curtains just enough to stare at the filthy, dull brown and gray street. No one was there to see the wolf's head grin that lit up Kore’s lovely face.

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