“He mentioned cartels or gangs as a threat?”
Cross leaned back and thought for a moment. “You know, not by name. But he said he was being followed.”
“Tell me.”
Cross ran a finger over a cluster of moles on his neck. “He said there was this guy who was there but not there, you know what I’m saying? Following him on the street.”
“Any description?”
“White, a guy. Looked tough. That’s it.”
She thought immediately of Barry Shales and Unsub 516.
“But there was something else. The airplane. That freaked him out the most.”
“Airplane?”
“Roberto traveled a lot. He said he’d noticed this private jet three or four times in different cities he’d been in – places with small airports, where a private jet was more, you know, noticeable. Bermuda, the Bahamas, Caracas, where he lived. Some towns in Mexico. He said it was strange – because the plane always seemed to be there before he arrived. Like somebody knew his travel schedule.”
By tapping his phone, for instance? A favorite sport of Metzger, Shales and Unsub 516.
The cigar got chomped. “The reason he recognized it: He said most private jets’re white. But this one was blue.”
“Markings, designations, numbers?”
A shrug. “No, he never said. But I was thinking, somebody in a jet’s following you? What’s that all about? Who the hell could it be? Those things cost money.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“Sorry.”
Sachs rose and shook his hand, reflecting that the convoluted trail here – starting with the limo driver – had paid off with a solid clue. If a cryptic one.
The blue jet …
Cross sighed, looking at another picture of himself and Moreno, this one snapped in a jungle. They were surrounded by cheerful workers. More shovels, more hard hats, more mud.
“You know, Detective, we were good friends but I’ve gotta say I never quite figured him out. He was always down on America, just hated the place. Wouldn’t shut up about it. I told him one time, ‘Come on, Roberto. Why’re you dissing the one country on earth where you can say those things and not get shot in an alley by a truth squad or hauled off to a secret prison in the middle of the night? Ease up.’”
A bitter laugh escaped the fat, damp mouth. “But he just wouldn’t listen.”
CHAPTER 52
Jacob Swann braked his car to a stop a half block from Amelia Sachs’s, near Lincoln Rhyme’s town house.
He’d followed her downtown, where she’d had a meeting on Chambers Street, and he’d looked for a chance to shoot. But there had been too many people down there. Always a problem in Manhattan. Now she was back, aggressively parallel parking in an illegal spot near the cul de sac once again.
He looked up and down the shadowy avenue. Deserted at last. Yes, this would be the place and the time. In his latex gloved hand Swann gripped the SIG Sauer, adjusted it to be able to draw quickly.
He wasn’t going to kill her. He’d decided that would create too much of a stir – too many police, too intense a manhunt, too much press. Instead he’d shoot into her back or legs.
Once she stepped out, he’d double park, climb out, shoot her and then drive off, pausing a few blocks away to swap plates again.
Sachs got out of the Torino, looking around carefully again, hand near her hip. This keen gaze kept Swann in the front seat of his Nissan, head down. When she started up the street he opened the door of the car but paused. Sachs didn’t head for the cul de sac leading to Rhyme’s town house or toward Central Park West but rather walked across the street – to a Chinese restaurant.
He saw her step inside, laughing as she spoke with the woman at the register. Sachs examined the menu. She was getting an order to go. A glance up and then she was waving at one of the busboys. He smiled back.
Swann pulled the Nissan forward, noted a space a few car lengths away. He parked and shut the engine off. His hand slipped inside his jacket and made sure once again he knew just where the pistol was. The receiver was more cumbersome than a Glock’s, with safeties and slide catches, but the gun itself was heavy, which guaranteed the subsequent shots after the first would be particularly accurate; light weapons need more recentering on target than heavy ones do.
He studied Sachs through the streaked glass.
Such an attractive woman.
Long, red hair.
Tall.
Slim too. So slim. Did she not like to eat? She didn’t seem the cooking type. This made Swann dislike her. And takeout from a place like this, salt and overused grease? Shame on you, Amelia. You’ll be right at home for the next few months, eating Jell O and pudding while you recuperate.
In ten minutes she was out the door, take out food in one hand, and playing the cooperative target: walking straight into the cul de sac.
She paused at the entrance, looking into the bag, apparently making sure the restaurant had included the extra rice or fortune cookies or chopsticks. Still fiddling with the bag, she continued toward Rhyme’s town house.
Swann eased his car back into the street but had to brake fast, as a bicyclist sped in front of him and stopped, debating for some reason whether to turn around or continue on to Central Park. Swann was angry but didn’t want to draw attention by honking. He waited, face flushed.
The biker headed on – opting for the beautiful green of a spring park – and Swann punched the accelerator to get to the cul de sac fast. But the delay had cost him. Walking quickly, Sachs had reached the end of the L shaped passage and disappeared to the left, toward the back of the town house.
Not a problem. Better actually. He’d park, follow her in and shoot her as she approached the door. The geometry of the cul de sac there would mute the gunshots and send the sounds in a hundred different directions. Whoever heard would have no idea where they came from.
He looked around. No cops. Little traffic. A few oblivious passersby, lost in their own worlds.
Swann pulled the car into the mouth of the cul de sac, put the transmission in park and stepped out. With the gun drawn, but hidden under his windbreaker, he started over the cobblestones.
He recited to himself: two shots, low in her back, one toward the knee. Although he vastly preferred his knife he was a good marksman. He’d have to–
A voice behind him, a woman’s: “Excuse me. Could you help me?” British accent.
It belonged to a slim, attractive jogger in her early thirties. She stood about eight feet away, between him and the open driver’s door of his car.
“I’m from out of town. I’m trying to find the reservoir. There’s a running path…”
And then she saw it.
His windbreaker had eased away from his body. She saw the gun.
“Oh, God. Look, don’t hurt me. I didn’t see anything! I swear.”
She started to turn but Swann moved fast; he was in front of her in an instant. She took a breath to scream but he struck her in the throat, his open handed blow. She dropped hard to the concrete, out of sight of a couple across the street, arguing about something.
Swann glanced back up the dim canyon between the nearby buildings. Would Sachs be inside by now?
Maybe not. He didn’t know how far the L of the cul de sac extended behind Rhyme’s.
But he had only a matter of seconds to decide. He glanced down at the woman, gasping for breath, just the way Annette had in the Bahamas and Lydia Foster had here.
Uhn, uhn, uhn . Hands to her neck, eyes wide, mouth open.
Yes or no? He debated.
Choose now.
He decided: Yes.