Lincoln Rhyme: The Kill Room Part 18

Dressed in black jeans, navy-blue silk tank top and boots, Amelia Sachs walked into the lab and was struck again at how different this case was.

Any other week-old homicide investigation would find the lab in chaos. Mel Cooper, Pulaski, Rhyme and Sachs would be parsing the evidence, jotting facts and conclusions and speculations on the whiteboards, erasing and writing some more.

Now the sense of urgency was no less-the leaked kill order taped up in front of her reminded that Mr. Ras.h.i.+d, and scores of others, were soon to die-but the room was quiet as a mausoleum.

Bad figure of speech, she decided.

But it was apt. Nance Laurel was not here yet and Rhyme was taking his first trip out of the country since his accident. She smiled. Not many criminalists would go to that kind of trouble to search a crime scene, and she was happy he'd decided to, for all kinds of reasons.

But not having him here was disorienting.

Odd...

She hated this sensation, the chill emptiness.

I have a bad feeling about this one, Rhyme...

She pa.s.sed one of the long evidence examination tables, on which sat racks of surgical instruments and tools, many of them in sterile wrappers, for a.n.a.lyzing the evidence they didn't have.

At her improvised workstation Sachs sat down and got to work. She called Robert Moreno's regular driver for Elite Limousines, Vladimir Nikolov. She hoped he might know who the mysterious Lydia, possible escort, possible terrorist, might be. But, according to the company, the driver was out of town on a family emergency. She'd left a message at Elite and one on his personal voice mail too.

She'd follow up later if she didn't hear back.

She ran a search for suspected terrorist or criminal activities in the vicinity of where Tash Farada had dropped Moreno and Lydia off on May 1, via the consolidated law enforcement database of state and federal investigations. She discovered a few warrants for premises and surveillance in the area but they related, not surprisingly given the locale, to insider trading and investor fraud at banks and brokerage houses. They were all old cases and she could see no connection whatsoever to Robert A. Moreno.

Then, finally, a break.

Her phone rang and, noting the incoming number, she answered fast. "Rodney?" The cybercrimes expert, trying to trace the whistleblower.

Chunka, chunka, chunka, chunka...

Rock in the background. Did he always listen to music? And why couldn't it be jazz or show tunes?

The volume diminished. Slightly.

Szarnek said, "Amelia, remember: Supercomputers are our friends."

"I'll keep it in mind. What do you have?" Her eyes were on the empty parlor, in which dust motes ambled through a shaft of morning sun like hot-air balloons seen from miles away. Again, she was painfully aware of Rhyme's absence.

"I've got the location where he sent the email from. I won't bore you with nodes and networks but suffice it to say that your whistleblower sent the email and the STO attachment from Java Hut near Mott and Hester. Think about it: A Portland, Oregon, coffee chain setting up shop in the heart of Little Italy. What would the G.o.dfather say?"

She glanced at the header on the copy of the whistleblower's messages taped to the board. "Is the date on the email accurate? Could he have faked it?"

"No, that's when it was sent. He could write whatever date he wanted in the email itself but routers don't lie."

So their man was in the coffee shop at 1:02 p.m., May 11.

The cybercrimes detective continued, "I've checked. You can log onto Wi-Fi there without any identifying information. All you have to do is agree to the three-page terms of service. Which everybody does and not a single soul in the history of the world has ever read."

Sachs thanked the tech cop and disconnected. She called the coffee shop and got the manager, explaining that she was trying to identify someone who had sent important doc.u.ments via the Wi-Fi on May 11 and she wanted to come in and talk to him about that. She added, "You have a security camera?"

"We do, yeah. They're in all the Java franchises. In case we get stuck up, you know."

Without expecting much, she asked, "How often does the video loop?" She was sure new footage would overwrite the old every few hours.

"Oh, we've got a five-terabyte drive. It's got about three weeks of video on it. The quality's pretty c.r.a.ppy and it's black and white. But you can make out a face if you need to."

A ping of excitement. "I'll be there in a half hour."

Sachs pulled on a black linen jacket and rubber-banded her hair back in a ponytail. She took her holstered Glock from the cabinet, checked it as she always did, a matter of routine, and clipped it to her jeans belt. The double-mag holster went on her left hip. She was slinging her large purse over her shoulder when her mobile buzzed. She wondered if the caller was Rhyme. She knew he'd landed safely in the Bahamas but she was concerned that the trip might have taken a toll on his health.

But, no, the caller was Lon Sellitto.

"Hey."

"Amelia. The Special Services canva.s.s team is about halfway through the building where Moreno and the driver picked up Lydia. Nothing yet. They're running into a lot of Lydias-who'da thought?-but none of 'em are the one. You know, how hard is it to name your kid Tiara or Estanzia? They'd be a f.u.c.k of a lot easier to track down."

She told him about the lead to the coffee shop and that she was on her way there now.

"Good. A security cam, excellent. Hey, Linc's really down in the Caribbean?"

"Yep, landed safe. I don't know how he's going to be treated. Interloper, you know."

"Bet he can handle it."

There was silence.

Something's up. Lon Sellitto brooded some but it was usually noisy brooding.

"What?" she asked.

"Okay, you didn't hear this."

"Go on."

The senior detective said, "Bill came by my office."

"Bill Myers, the captain?"

So how does it feel to be repurposed into a granular-level player...

"Yeah."

"And?"

Sellitto said, "He asked about you. Wanted to know if you were okay. Physically."

s.h.i.+t.

"Because I was limping?"

"Maybe, I don't know. Anyway, s'what he said. Listen, a fat old fart like me, you can get away with some bad days, hobbling around. But you're a kid, Amelia. And skinny. He checked your reports and the ten-seventeens. Saw you volunteered for a lot of tactical work, first through the door on the lead teams sometimes. He just asked if you'd had any problems in the field or if anybody'd said they weren't comfortable with you on take-downs or rescues. I told him no, absolutely not. You were prime."

"Thanks, Lon," she whispered. "Is he thinking of ordering a physical?"

"The subject didn't come up. But that doesn't mean no."

To become an NYPD officer an applicant has to take a medical exam but once on the force-unlike firefighters or emergency medical techs-he or she never has to again, unless a supervisor orders one in specific cases or the officers want to earn promotion credit. Aside from that first checkup, years ago, Sachs had never had a department physical. The only record of her arthritis was on file with her private orthopedists. Myers wouldn't have access to that but if he ordered a physical, the extent of her condition would be revealed.

And that would be a disaster.

"Thanks, Lon."

They disconnected and she stood motionless for a moment, reflecting: Why was it that only part of this case seemed to involve worrying about the perps? Just as critical, you had to guard against your allies too, it seemed.

Sachs checked her weapon once more and walked toward the door, defiantly refusing to give in to the nearly overwhelming urge to limp.

CHAPTER 28.

AMELIA SACHS HAD A 3G MOBILE PHONE, Jacob Swann had discovered.

And this was good news. Cracking the encryption and listening to her conversations were harder than with phones running GPRS-general packet radio service, or 2G-but, at least, it was feasible because 3G featured good old-fas.h.i.+oned A5/1 voice encryption.

Not that his tech department was allowed to do such a thing, of course.

Yet there must have been a screwup somewhere, because just ten minutes after discussing the matter casually-and, of course, purely theoretically-with the director of Technical Services and Support, Swann found himself enraptured by Sachs's low, and rather s.e.xy, voice, coming to him over the airwaves.

He already had a lot of interesting facts. Some specific to the Moreno investigation. Some more general, though equally helpful: for instance, that this Detective Amelia Sachs had some physical problems. He'd filed that away for future reference.

He'd also learned some troubling information: that the other investigator on the case, Lincoln Rhyme, was in the Bahamas. Now, this was potentially a real problem. Upon learning it, Swann had immediately called contacts down there-a few of the Sands and Kalik drinkers on the dock-and made arrangements.

But he couldn't concentrate on that at the moment. He was occupied. Crouching in an unpleasantly aromatic alleyway, picking the lock of the service door to a Starbucks wannabe. A place called Java Hut. He was wearing thin latex gloves-flesh-colored so that at fast glance his hands would appear unclad.

The morning was warm and the gloves and concealing windbreaker made him warmer yet. He was sweating. Not as bad as with Annette in the Bahamas. But still...

And that G.o.d-awful stench. New York City alleys. Couldn't somebody blast them with bleach from time to time?

Finally the lock clicked. Swann cracked the door a bit and looked inside. From here he could see an office, which was empty, a kitchen in which a skinny Latino labored away with dishes and, beyond that, part of the restaurant itself. The place wasn't very crowded and he guessed that since this was a tourist area-what was left of Little Italy-most of the business would be on weekends.

He now slipped inside, eased the door mostly closed and stepped into the office, pulling aside his jacket and making sure his knife was easily accessible.

Ah, there was the computer monitor, showing what the security camera was seeing on the restaurant floor at the moment. The camera scanned slowly back and forth, in hypnotic black and white. He'd have a good image of the leaker, the whistleblower, when he scrolled back to May 11, the date the p.r.i.c.k had uploaded the STO kill order to the District Attorney's Office.

He then noticed a switch on the side of the monitor: 1234.

He clicked the last and the screen divided into quadrants.

Oh, h.e.l.l...

The store had four cameras. And one was presently recording Swann himself, crouching down in front of the machine. Only his back was being shot but this in itself was still very troubling.

He quickly studied the computer and was even more troubled to see that dismantling it and stealing the hard drive, as he'd planned, was impossible. The large computer was fixed to the floor with straps of metal and large bolts.

Right, as if somebody would steal a five-year-old piece of c.r.a.p, with Windows XP as the operating system. He equated a machine like this to a plastic Sears hand mixer, versus what he had: a six-hundred-dollar KitchenAid, with a bread kneading hook and fresh pasta maker.

Then Swann froze. He heard voices, a giddy young woman's and then a Latino man's. He reached for the Kai Shun.

Their words faded, though, and the hallway remained empty. He turned back to his task. He tested the bolts and straps. They weren't giving way. And he didn't have the right tools to undo them. Of course he could hardly blame himself for that. He had a basic tool set with him but this would require an electric hacksaw.

A sigh.

The next best thing, he decided, was to make sure that the police didn't get the drive either.

Too bad, it wasn't his first choice, but he had no other options.

Now voices from the front of the restaurant again. He believed a woman was saying, "I'm looking for Jerry, please?"

Could it be? Yes. The tone was familiar.

Good old-fas.h.i.+oned A5/1 voice encryption...

"I'm Jerry. Are you the detective who called?"

"That's right. I'm Amelia Sachs."

She'd gotten here faster than Swann had expected.

Hunching forward to hide what he was doing from the camera, he reached into his backpack and removed an improvised explosive device, an anti-personnel model that would not only destroy the computer but send a hundred bits of jagged shrapnel throughout the back half of the coffee shop. He debated a moment. He could have set the timer for a minute. But Swann decided it would be best to set the detonator for a bit longer. That would give Ms. Sachs enough time to come into the office and start scrolling through the tapes before it blew.

Hitting the arm b.u.t.ton and then the trigger, Swann slipped the box behind the computer itself.

He then rose slowly and backed out of the office, careful not to display his face to the camera.

CHAPTER 29.

THE AIR IN JAVA HUT WAS RICH with a dozen different scents-vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, berry, chamomile, nutmeg...and even coffee.