Free The Execution by Dick Wolf

one.”
    Fisk felt icy needles enter his chest—even as he was trying to figure out this guy’s game.
    Link added hastily, “I’m not talking anything physical. You want to kick his ass, you’re shit out of luck. Can’t make that happen. But we can do this. The marshals are on board. Jenssen would have no warning.”
    Fisk snuck a look at his hands. No shaking.
    Link said, “ ‘Closure’ is such a bullshit word. You’re never gonna get that. This guy took your lady. Even if you did take him out—fantasy talk here—as good as that might feel in the moment, it gets you nothing. But sitting before him, eye to eye . . . with no pretenses. No cameras. No judge to play to. Nowhere for him to hide. Sit with him as you sit here with me.”
    Fisk was shaking his head.
    “Don’t say no yet.”
    “No,” said Fisk. “You just said, it gets me nothing. Nothing.”
    “I think what it gets you is up to you.”
    Fisk put his hand around his cold glass of beer, but did not drink from it. “And? What’s it get you?”
    “So suspicious,” said Link, taking a drink. “I’m being up front about wanting to do this for you. Will we be listening? You can assume we will.” Link gave a cursory glance around the immediate area for eavesdroppers. “Jenssen is a very disciplined guy. But he’s also a braggart. Big ego. And it was kind of mano a mano between you two. You kicked his Swedish ass. Took him apart like a chest of drawers from Ikea. So, sure, Jenssen could be off his game here, knowing the future he’s facing. His last chance to bark and be heard. Maybe he’s holding something big back? Maybe it slips? Maybe it’s a name, or some little detail? Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe we do you this solid for exactly the reason I’m giving you. Because you earned it.” Link knocked once on the table. “Catharsis, man.”
    Fisk just wanted to finish his beer and get out of there now. “No,” he said. “Appreciate the offer.”

CHAPTER 9
    F isk walked ten blocks with his phone in his hand. He had Dr. Flaherty’s number, or at least her answering service. She had told him many times to call if ever he needed counseling, and he had never taken her up on it, never even come close. This didn’t feel like a crisis necessarily, but at least something he should raise with her.
    Did I do the right thing?
    But hitting Send, connecting that call, was a line he was loath to cross. And why did he need her to tell him what was right and what was not? And she wouldn’t decide that for him anyway, she would insist that he answer his own question, which was what he was doing right now.
    What would you hope to gain from sitting with Jenssen?
    So the therapy had indeed been a success: Dr. Flaherty had taken up residence inside his own head.
    So had the booze. What was he really doing here? He was calling her to tell her what he had done. He was calling to say, I am fine. I did the right thing.
    He was calling for her approval. He was acting for the therapist in his head. He was doing what he thought she would want him to do, what he thought would please her.
    Fisk stopped in the middle of crossing the street.
    What would please Krina Gersten?
    Hers was the only voice he needed to satisfy.
    The voice Jenssen had silenced.
    The car horns came into his consciousness only gradually. Drivers yelling at him to get out of the way, calling him a drunk.
    He was not drunk. He reached the curb and looked at his hand, the one holding the phone.
    The phone screen was still and readable.
    His hand was not trembling. His mind was clear.
    He knew what he was going to do.
    He dug into his pocket for Link’s card, cleared Dr. Flaherty’s number, and started dialing.

CHAPTER 10
    July 23
    Nacimiento de los Negros, Mexico
    N acimiento de los Negros meant Birthplace of Darkness . “One hell of a name for a village,” said MacClesh.
    The little town was situated several miles off State Road 20, a loop of empty highway circling around a desolate upwelling