The Kill Room lr-10 Read online

  “But that’s—”

  Sachs had grabbed Jerry by his ideogramed arm and dragged him into the restaurant, calling for the baristas, dishwasher and customers to flee. She’d held up her badge. “NYPD, evacuate now! There’s a gas leak!”

  Too complicated to explain about bombs.

  The device had blown just as she’d shoved the last customer out the door, a contrary young student whining that he hadn’t gotten his refill yet.

  Sachs had still been inside when she’d felt the detonation in her chest and ears and, through the floor, her feet. Two plate-glass windows had shattered and much of the interior flew into pieces. Instantly the place had been enveloped by that vile, greasy smoke. She’d leapt through the door but stayed upright, sure that if she’d dived to the concrete—à la that clichéd scene in thriller movies — her knee would never forgive her.

  Now the Bomb Squad officers made their way through the front door. “It’s clear,” she heard, though it sounded like the lieutenant was speaking through cotton. The bomb had really been quite loud. Plastic explosives detonate at around twenty-five thousand feet per second.

  “What was it?” she said and when he smiled she knew she’d been shouting.

  “Can’t tell for sure until we send off details to the bureau and ATF. But my guess? Military — we found some camouflaged shrapnel. It’s primarily anti-personnel. But it works real good for blowing up anything nearby.”

  “Like computers.”

  “What?” the officer asked.

  Thanks to her haywire hearing, she’d spoken too softly this time. “And computers.”

  “Works real good against computers,” the Bomb Squad officer said. “Hard drive’s in a million pieces and most of them’re melted. Humpty Dumpty’s fucked.”

  She thanked him. A crime scene team from Queens arrived in the RRV, a van filled with evidence collection equipment. She knew the two officers, an Asian American woman and a round young man from Georgia. He waved a greeting. They’d back her up but she’d walk the grid alone, per Lincoln Rhyme’s rule.

  Sachs surveyed the smoky remains of Java Hut, hands on her hips.

  Brother…

  Not only is there nothing so distinctive as the smell of an IED but nothing contaminates a scene like one.

  She donned the Tyvek coveralls — the deluxe version from Evident, which protect the wearer from dangerous materials as much as they protect the crime scene itself from the searchers. And because of the fumes she wore sealed goggles and a filtering mask.

  Her first thought was: How is Lincoln going to hear me through the mask?

  But then she remembered that she wasn’t going to be online with him, as she usually was, via radio or video hookup. She was alone.

  That same chill, hollow sense from earlier wafted through her.

  Forget it, she told herself angrily. Get to work.

  And with evidence collection bags and equipment in one hand, she began to walk the grid.

  Moving through the shambles of the place, Sachs concentrated on collecting what she could of the bomb itself, which, as the officer had warned, wasn’t very much. She was particularly dismayed that the suspect hadn’t used simply a demolition charge but one meant to kill.

  Sachs concentrated on the entrance/exit route, the back doorway, where Bruns would have paused before he broke in and where the blast damage was minimal. She took dozens of samplars: trace from the alleyway and doorjamb, enough to draw a profile of substances common to this area of the city. Anything that was unique might represent evidence the perp had left and lead to his home or office.

  How helpful this would be, she wasn’t sure. Here, as in any New York City alleyway, there were so many instances of trace evidence that it would be hard to isolate the relevant ones. Too much evidence is often as much of a problem as too little.

  After she finished walking the grid she stripped off the overalls quickly — not because she was worried about contamination but because she was by nature claustrophobic and the confining plastic made her edgy.

  Breathing deeply, closing her eyes momentarily, she let the feeling settle, then fade.

  The whistleblower…How the hell to find him now that the security video was gone?

  It seemed hopeless. Anybody who used a complicated email proxy system to hide his tracks would have been smart about the mechanics of finding a place to upload the documents. He wouldn’t be a regular here and wouldn’t have used a credit card. But an idea occurred: what about other customers? She could track down at least some of those who’d been here around 1 p.m. on May 11. They might have noticed the whistleblower’s unusual computer, the iBook. Or maybe tourists had taken some cell phone shots of each other and possibly captured an image of the whistleblower accidentally.

  She walked up to Jerry, the now very shaken manager of the late store, and asked him about credit card records. When he tore himself away from his mournful gaze at his shop he called Java Hut central operations. In ten minutes she had the names of a dozen customers who were here at the time in question. She thanked him and had the file uploaded to Lon Sellitto. Then she followed up with a call to the detective.

  She asked if he could get some of Bill Myers’s Special Services officers to contact them and see if anyone had taken pictures in Java Hut on the day in question or remembered anybody with an odd-looking, older computer.

  Sellitto replied, “Yeah, sure, Amelia. I’ll order it.” He grunted. “This takes the case to a whole new level. An IED? You think it was Bruns, or whatever his real name is?”

  “Had to be him, I’d think. It was hard to see in the video but he roughly fit the description from the maid at the South Cove Inn. So he’s cleaning up after the assignment — probably on Metzger’s orders.” She gave a sour laugh. “And Java Hut’s about as clean as it can be.”

  “Jesus — Metzger and Bruns’ve gone off the deep end. It’s that important to them, to keep this kill order program going that they’re taking out innocents.”

  “Listen, Lon. I want to keep this quiet.”

  He gave a gruff laugh. “Oh, sure. A fucking IED in Manhattan?”

  “Can we play up the story it was a gas leak, still being investigated. Just keep the lid on for a few days?”

  “I’ll do what I can. But you know the fucking media.”

  “That’s all I’m asking, a day or two.”

  He muttered, “I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anyway, listen, I’m glad you called. Myers’s canvassing boys tracked down the woman that Moreno drove around the city with on May 1, Lydia. They’ll have her address and phone number in a few minutes.”

  “The hooker.”

  He chuckled. “When you speak to her? I don’t think I’d say that.”

  CHAPTER 34

  His right hand rose slowly to his mouth and Lincoln Rhyme fed himself a conch fritter — crisp outside and tender within — dabbed with homemade hot sauce. He then picked up and sipped from a can of Kalik beer.

  Hurricane’s restaurant — curious name, given the local weather — was austere, located on a weedy side street in downtown Nassau. Bright blue and red walls, a warped wooden floor, a few flyblown photographs of the local beaches — or maybe Goa or the Jersey Shore. You couldn’t tell. Several overhead fans revolved slowly and did nothing to ease the heat. Their only effect was to piss off the flies.

  The place, though, boasted some of the best food Rhyme had ever had.

  Though he decided that any meal you can spear with a fork yourself, and not have to be fed, is by definition very, very good.

  “Conch,” Rhyme mused. “Never had any univalve tissue evidence in a case. Oyster shells once. Very flavorful. Could you cook it at home?”

  Thom, sitting across from Rhyme, rose and asked the chef for the recipe. The formidible woman in a red bandanna, looking like a Marxist revolutionary, wrote it down for him, cautioning to get fresh conch. “Never canned. Ever.”

  The time was nearly three
and Rhyme was beginning to wonder if the corporal had given him the tantalizing invitation just to keep him occupied while, as Pulaski suggested, he was preparing an arrest team.

  That is where I have lunch!..

  Rhyme decided not to worry about it and had more conch and beer.

  At their feet a black-and-gray dog begged for scraps. Rhyme ignored the small, muscular animal but Thom fed it some bits of conch crust and bread. He was about two feet high and had floppy ears and a long face.

  “He’ll never leave you alone now,” Rhyme muttered. “You know that.”

  “He’s cute.”

  The server, a slimmer, younger version of the chef, daughter probably, said, “He’s a potcake dog. You only see them in the Islands here. The name comes from what we feed stray dogs — rice and green peas, potcake.”

  “And they hang out in restaurants?” Rhyme asked sardonically.

  “Oh, yes. Customers love them.”

  Rhyme grunted and stared at the door, through which he expected momentarily to see either Mychal Poitier or a couple of armed, uniformed RBPF officers with an arrest warrant.

  His phone buzzed and he lifted it. “Rookie, what do you have?”

  “I’m at the South Cove Inn. I got it. The number of the man who called about Moreno’s reservation. It’s a mobile exchange from Manhattan.”

  “Excellent. Now, it’ll be a prepaid, untraceable. But Rodney can narrow down the call to a fairly small area. Maybe an office or gym or a Starbucks where our sniper enjoys his lattes. It won’t take—”

  “But—”

  “No, it’s easy. He can work backward from the cell base stations and then interpolate the signal data from adjacent towers. The sniper will’ve thrown the phone out by now but the records should be able to—”

  “Lincoln.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not prepaid and it’s still active.”

  Rhyme was speechless for a moment. This was unbelievably good luck.

  “And are you ready for this?”

  Words returned. “Rookie! Get to the point!”

  “It’s registered in the name of Don Bruns.”

  “Our sniper.”

  “Exactly. He used a Social Security number on the phone account and gave an address.”

  “Where?”

  “PO box in Brooklyn. Set up by a shell corporation in Delaware. And the social’s fake.”

  “But we’ve got the phone. Start Rodney scanning for usage and location. We can’t get a Title Three at this point, but see if Lon or somebody can charm a magistrate into approving a five-second listen-in for a voiceprint.”

  This would allow them to compare the vocal pattern with the.wav file the whistleblower had sent and confirm that it was, in fact, the sniper, who was presently using the phone.

  “And have Fred Dellray look into who’s behind the company.”

  “I will. Now, a couple other things.”

  Couple of other things. But Rhyme refrained. He’d beaten the kid up enough for one day.

  “The reporter, de la Rua? He didn’t leave anything here at the inn. He came to the interview with a bag or briefcase but they’re sure the police took it with them, along with the bodies.”

  He wondered if Poitier — if he actually showed up and was in a cooperative mood — would give them access to those items.

  “I’m still waiting to talk to the maid about the American who was here the day before the shooting. She gets in in a half hour.”

  “A competent job, Pulaski. Now, are you being cautious? Any sign of that Mercury with our dope-smoking surveillers?”

  “No, and I’ve been looking. How about with you?…Oh, wait. If you asked me, that means you gave ’em the slip.”

  Rhyme smiled. The kid was learning.

  CHAPTER 35

  “So Lydia’s not a prostitute,” Amelia Sachs said.

  “Nope,” Lon Sellitto replied, “she’s an interpreter.”

  “Translating wasn’t a cover for being a call girl? You’re sure?”

  “Positive. She’s legit. Been a commercial interpreter for ten years, works for big companies and law firms. And, I still checked: no rap sheet — city, state or FBI, NCIC. Looks like Moreno had used her before.”

  Sachs gave a brief, cynical laugh. “I was making assumptions. Escort service, terrorist. Brother. If she’s legitimate, Moreno wouldn’t have used her at any illegal meetings but odds are she’ll know something helpful. Probably she’d have a lot of information about him.”

  “She’d have to,” Sellitto agreed.

  And what exactly did Lydia know? Jacob Swann wondered, sitting forward in the front seat of his Nissan, parked in Midtown, listening to this conversation in real time, having tapped once again into Amelia Sachs’s 3G, easily tappable phone. He was now pleased she hadn’t been blown to nothingness by the IED in Java Hut. This lead was golden.

  “What languages?” Sachs was asking. Swann had the other caller’s mobile identification number. Lon Sellitto, another NYPD cop, the Tech Services people had told him.

  “Russian, German, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese.”

  Interesting. Now, more than ever, Swann wanted her surname and address. If you please.

  “I’ll go interview her now.”

  Well, that would be particularly convenient: Detective Sachs and a witness, together in a private apartment. Along with Jacob Swann and the Kai Shun knife.

  “Got a pen?”

  “I’m ready.”

  So am I, thought Jacob Swann.

  Sellitto said, “Her full name’s Lydia—”

  “Wait!” Sachs shouted.

  Swann winced at the volume and held his mobile away from his ear.

  “What?”

  “Something’s wrong, Lon. It just occurred to me: How did our perp know about Java Hut?”

  “Whatta you mean?”

  “He didn’t follow me there. He got there first. How did he find out about the place?”

  “Fuck. You think he’s got a tap on your phone?”

  “Could be.”

  Oh, hell. Swann sighed.

  Sachs continued, “I’ll find a different phone, a landline, and give you a call through the main number at headquarters.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m dumping my mobile. You do the same.”

  The line disconnected, leaving Jacob Swann listening to pure silence.

  CHAPTER 36

  AT FIRST, AMELIA SACHS WAS CONTENT to pull the battery out of her phone.

  But then paranoia seeped in like water in the badly grouted basement of her Brooklyn town house and she pitched the unit into a sewer grate outside the smoking cave of Java Hut.

  She found a Patrol officer and swapped her smallest bill, a ten, for four bucks’ worth of change and called Police Plaza from a nearby pay phone, then was transferred.

  “Sellitto.”

  “Lon.”

  “You think he was really listening?” he asked.

  “I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Okay, fine with me. But it pisses me off. That was a new Android. Fucker. Now are you ready?”

  She had pen in hand and a notepad balanced on the stained shelf under the phone. “Go ahead.”

  “The interpreter’s name is Lydia Foster.” He gave Sachs her address on Third Avenue. Her phone number too.

  “How’d the canvassers find her?”

  “Legwork,” Sellitto explained. “Started at the top floor of that office building where Moreno picked her up and worked their way down twenty-nine stories. Naturally, they didn’t get a hit till floor three, took ’em forever. She was working freelance, translating for a bank.”

  “I’m going to call her now.” She added, “How the hell did he tap our lines, Lon? It isn’t just anybody who can do that.”

  The older detective muttered, “This guy is too fucking connected.”

  “And he knows your number too now,” she pointed out. “Watch your back.”

  He gave a gruff
laugh. “That’s a cliché Linc definitely wouldn’t approve of.”

  His words made her miss Rhyme all the more.

  “I’ll let you know what I find,” she said.

  A few minutes later Sachs was speaking with Lydia Foster, explaining the purpose for the call.

  “Ah, Mr. Moreno. Yes, I was very sad to hear that. I interpreted for him three times over the last year.”

  “Each time in New York?”

  “That’s right. The people he met with spoke pretty good English but he wanted to speak through me in their native languages. He thought he could get a better feel for them. I was supposed to tell him what I thought their attitudes were, in addition to the words.”

  “I talked to the driver who took you two around the city on May first. He said you had some general conversations with Mr. Moreno too.”

  “That’s right. He was very social.”

  Sachs found her heart pounding a bit faster. The woman could be a well of information.

  “You and he met how many people on the latest trip?”

  “Four, I think. Some nonprofit organizations, run by Russians and some people out of Dubai, and at the Brazilian consulate. He also met somebody by himself. That man he was meeting spoke English and Spanish. He didn’t need me so I waited at Starbucks downstairs in the office building.”

  Or maybe he didn’t want you to hear the substance of that meeting.

  “I’d like to come over and talk to you.”

  “Yes, anything I can do to help. I’m home for the day. I’ll find all my transcripts for the job and organize them.”

  “You keep copies of everything?”

  “Every word. You’d be surprised how many times clients lose what I send them or don’t back them up.”

  Even better.

  Just then her phone hummed with an incoming text, marked urgent. “Hold on a second, please,” she told Lydia Foster. And read the message.

  Bruns’s phone in use. Voiceprint checks — it’s him. Tracking in real time. He’s in Manhattan at moment. Call Rodney Szarnek.

  — Ron

  She said, “Ms. Foster, I’ve got to follow up on something but I’ll be there soon.”