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 Godfather 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 documents 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 crappy 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 canvass 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 fuck 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.”
Shit.
“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-fashioned 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 sexy, 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 helpfuclass="underline" 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 god-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.