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turned himself in. At least he’d get a trial. If the mob finds him first, they’ll go straight to sentencing, and wiseguys are firm believers in capital punishment.
    Of course, the way Gibbons was feeling right now, he wouldn’t mind having the bastard alone in a room for fifteen minutes before the legal process officially kicked in. Back in the old days, they used to stop the clock for special cases like this. But then the Supreme Court stepped in and said suspects had rights. Gibbons didn’t exactly disagree with that. He just felt that cops should have rights, too. Like the right to temporarily break the rules when bad guys break them first. It was only fair.
    Ivers walked around the front of the Mercury to where Gibbons was standing. The heels of his loafers made a nice click on the asphalt. Very tony. “Bert, has McDaniels arrived yet?”
    Gibbons shook his head. “He’s on his way.” McDaniels was Petersen’s partner.
    Ivers sighed and looked down at his clipboard. “What do you know about Petersen’s assignment here tonight?”
    Gibbons frowned and shrugged. “I know what you know. He was meeting Tony Bellavita to give him some cash. I don’t know how much.”
    â€œWere those bills marked?”
    Gibbons shrugged. “I don’t know the particulars. McDaniels will know.”
    Ivers pressed his lips together and stared down at his clipboard. He muttered something to himself.
    Gibbons rattled the icebag. The ice had mostly melted, but it was still pretty cold. The only problem was, it didn’t seem to be doing much good for his throbbing tooth. Shit.
    Out of the corner of his eye, Gibbons noticed a dark blue van pulling into the lot. One of the troopers flagged it down and went over to the driver’s side. It was about forty feet away, headlights on, motor running.
    Ivers was pressing his knuckle into his lower lip, intent on his clipboard. He looked up suddenly and stared at Gibbons from under his brow. “We’ve got a big problem here, Bert.”
    No kidding. Gibbons put the icebag back on his face.
    â€œWe’ve got eleven undercover agents out on this operation. If Petersen was shot because his cover was blown—and at this point, I suppose we have to assume that that’s the most logical reason—then every other agent out there is in jeopardy. If they uncovered Petersen, they may have uncovered others.”
    Gibbons rolled his eyes and nodded. Outstanding deduction, Sherlock.
    â€œNow the question is, do we pull in those other agents and shut down Shark Bite, or do we leave them in place until we know more? It would be a damn shame to scrap Shark Bite after all the work and preparation that went into it. Some of those men spent years working their way in. I’d hate to lose all that time and effort. It would take us a good long time to get men in as deep as we have them now. But on the other hand, we can’t leave them out in the cold if there’s some trigger-happy wiseguy on the loose who knows who they are.”
    â€œUmmm.” Gibbons was only half-listening. He was payingmore attention to that blue van. The second trooper had gone over to join the conversation. The first one was pointing at the white Mercury. Gibbons kneaded the icebag as he kept an eye on the van, wondering what the story was over there.
    Ivers was tapping the clipboard with the end of a gold Cross pen. “What’s Tozzi’s current status, Bert?”
    Same as usual, he’s an asshole.
    Gibbons squeezed his eyes shut then as another screamer suddenly drilled through his tooth. This time he was convinced the mere mention of Tozzi’s name had brought it on. Tozzi was the longest-running of all the partners Gibbons had ever had, almost ten years now, and sometimes Gibbons couldn’t believe he and Tozzi had been together that long and hadn’t killed each other yet. Until Tozzi came along, Gibbons had never been