Red Alert(NYPD Red #5)(53)

“Like I started to say,” Kylie boomed, “we’ve got a search warrant for your cell phones and your iPads. Hand them over, boys.”

The two of them were dumbstruck. Troy handed his phone over immediately. Dylan balked.

“Thank you,” Corcoran said, yanking Dylan’s phone out of his hand and giving it to Kylie. “Now, which way to the iPads?”

“I don’t have a fucking iPad,” Dylan said.

“Then have a seat,” Danny said, grabbing him by the shoulder and forcing him to the floor.

Troy was more cooperative. “I don’t have an iPad. I have a Kindle. Is that okay?”

“Let’s just start with Dylan’s phone,” Kylie said, thumbing through his apps. “I heard you’re an actor. Have I seen you in anything?”

Dylan spit in her direction.

“Son of a gun…Dylan must have a drone, because he’s got one of those DJI apps. Let’s take a quick peek at your flight history.”

“You have no right to look at my shit, bitch.”

“Read the warrant, dude. I’ve got plenty of rights. Hey, Zach, take a look at this. Friday, May twelfth. Dylan was flying his bird over the High Line at the exact same time we were there. He loses altitude around Twenty-Fifth Street, then takes off again and heads for Penn Station.”

I leaned over her shoulder. It was all there. “You know what the cops call this, Dylan?”

He scowled.

“Hard evidence,” I said.

“And speaking of rights,” Kylie said, “Dylan Freemont and Troy Marschand, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.” She finished the Miranda warning and asked if they understood. Troy, tears streaming down his face, said a meek “Yes.”

“Dylan,” Kylie said. “Do you understand?”

“Yes! What’s the fucking charge?”

“Conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy for what?”

“Well, we’ve got you cold for extortion,” Kylie said. “But we’re looking to put murder on the table.”

Troy made a loud retching sound and vomited down the front of his lavender shirt.

“We didn’t kill her,” Dylan said. “I swear to God.”

My phone rang. It was Cates. I held up my hand. “Hold that thought, Mr. Freemont.”

I answered the phone. “Yes, Captain?”

“I don’t care what you’re doing,” she said. “Drop it now, and get your asses over to Foley Square.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nathan Hirsch is sitting on the courthouse steps handcuffed to a bomb.”





CHAPTER 50



“You take the happy couple,” I said to Corcoran and Fischer. “We’re out of here.”

Kylie followed me out the door. As we ran down the stairs I told her all I knew. “Nathan Hirsch. Handcuffed to a bomb. Foley Square.”

We jumped in the car. I hit the light bar but kept the siren off. I still had Cates on the phone. I put her on speaker.

“We’re on the way,” I said. “What have you got?”

“Ten minutes ago Hirsch was on his way to court. A male Hispanic comes up behind him, cuffs a briefcase to his wrist, shoves a burner phone in his hand, and says, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come.’”

“Segura,” I said.

“We have a positive ID,” Cates said.

“Then what happened?”

“He called 911.”

“What?” Kylie yelled. “Segura tells him not to do anything stupid, and the first thing he does is call 911?”

“You’re not tracking with me, MacDonald,” Cates said. “Hirsch didn’t do anything, except probably piss his pants. Segura called 911. Then he patched it into a three-way call: the victim, the perp, and the 911 operator.”

I heard what she said, but I couldn’t make sense of it. “Why?” I asked.

“My best guess is that Segura wants Hirsch to confess all his sins, and calling 911 guarantees that it’s all going to be recorded and released to the press.”

Kylie made a hard right onto Lafayette.

“Right now Hirsch is spilling his guts out,” Cates said. “He owned up to the Thailand drug run twenty years ago, he admitted he’s got this hooker set up in a condo in Jersey, and he just confessed to bribing a witness in a libel case he won last year. That alone will get him disbarred.”

“Segura spent twenty years in a Bangkok prison because of this asshole and his friends,” I said. “Do you think he’s going to be happy with Hirsch losing his law license and doing a Martha Stewart in a minimum security country club?”

“Almost there,” Kylie said, making a left on Duane.

“I don’t care how good a lawyer Hirsch is,” I said. “He’s not going to be able to argue for his life. Segura wants him dead, but first he wants to completely humiliate him—destroy whatever legacy this weasel may possibly have. And I’ll bet that as soon as Hirsch coughs up every smarmy, slimy thing he ever did, Segura is going to blow him up the same way he killed the other two.”

We turned left onto Centre Street, and Kylie hit the brakes. The New York County Supreme Court building at 60 Centre is directly across the street from Foley Square, an iconic landmark in lower Manhattan steeped in history and the site of the sculpture Triumph of the Human Spirit.