The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(119)

Krueger’s company was AK Associates. He was managing director; his partner was a former mine labor enforcer, Terrance DeVoer. The company specialized in “security work” for the gem and precious metals and materials industries.

That vague description translated, one SAP detective told them, as “corporate mercenary.” Attempts to interview DeVoer were unsuccessful; he and his wife had disappeared.

When he’d been among Rhyme, Sachs and the others, Krueger, as Ackroyd, had professed a knowledge of the diamond world and this wasn’t fiction. A raid on his Cape Town digs by the SAP revealed a genuine obsession with the stones: Hundreds of books on the subject, photographs, and documents about diamonds, from the scientific to the cultural to the artistic. He himself, one inspector said, had even written poetry about the gems.

“Very bad verse, I will tell you.”

They found actual diamonds too. Rough and finished. Close to two million dollars’ worth, another investigator said. An odd display sat on Krueger’s bedside table, the officer added. A low-power spotlight was aimed upward from underneath a lens of clear glass, on which Krueger had placed a dozen diamonds. The light beamed the translucent forms of the stones onto the ceiling, like constellations, the edges of each one radiating with the colors of rainbows.

Rhyme recalled that the name for this refraction was “fire.”

The raid revealed the likely employer. Bank records showed that two wire transfers of $250K each had been deposited at Krueger’s company. They originated from a numbered account in Guatemala City. These had been received within the past two weeks. The memos on the wires reported the payments were for “Installment 1” and Installment 2.”

The police also found printouts about a company called Nuevo Mundo Minería—New World Mining—a diamond producer located in Guatemala City.

But nothing in the raid or an examination of police records, including Interpol and Europol, had revealed what they needed so desperately: information about where the final gas IEDs had been planted.

Maybe the evidence from Krueger’s motel would have that answer. He was about to find out. He could tell this from the roar of a sports car engine and the squeal of brakes in the street outside his town house.

*



Sachs had walked the grid—twice—at Krueger’s extended-stay motel in Brooklyn Heights.

Lincoln Rhyme and she were now looking over the results of her efforts. Mel Cooper was processing some of the finds, as well. McEllis was still present, waiting to help them narrow down the possible locations that the bombs might be, based on his knowledge of the half-mile-long geologic fault.

In Krueger’s motel were diagrams of the geothermal site, photos of the drilling operation, maps of the area around the site, articles about explosions whose seismic profile had been mistaken for earthquakes, emails from untraceable accounts with attachments on the diamond content of kimberlite samples, echoing what Don McEllis had told them. Krueger had researched Ezekiel Shapiro and the One Earth movement as well. The dead environmentalist’s address was on a Post-it note.

Sachs had found an attaché case that matched the one Krueger’d had with him at Patel’s. It contained a small but powerful portable microscope, some tools and pieces of kimberlite. He’d taken it with him to Patel’s shop to analyze the rock, Rhyme supposed. If the kimberlite proved diamond-rich, he’d steal it and torture Patel to find more information. Here too was a carton that contained traces of RDX, the main component of C4, and another with the label on the side: ?????????. Which was Hebrew for “thermostats”—which the gas line IEDs were meant to impersonate.

Sachs taped up pictures of the rooms. She said, “One thing real? His love of crossword puzzles. He had dozens of puzzle books.”

This reminded Rhyme.

He glanced at the present—the electronic cryptic crossword device the killer had given Rhyme.

Edward Ackroyd—the man he thought he could become friends with.

Five-letter word beginning with J meaning “betrayer.” Then he shot that moment of melodrama dead.

He told Mel Cooper, “See if there’s a transmitter inside.”

“A—”

“See if he fucking bugged us.”

“Ah.” Using a set of miniature computer tools, Cooper removed the backing. He looked it over and scanned it with a transmission-detecting wand.

“Nothing. It’s safe.”

He started to reassemble it. But Rhyme said softly, “No, throw it out.”

“You don’t want—”

“Throw it out.”

Cooper did, and Rhyme and Sachs returned to the evidence.

Where the hell were the gas line bombs?

No maps or notes suggested an answer. Krueger’s computer was locked and had gone to Rodney Szarnek downtown, along with two burner phones, and the one he’d had with him at the waste site in Brooklyn—which was not locked and showed calls to a number in Moscow. The numbers had been dialed after Rostov had died, and Rhyme believed that Krueger himself had done so to make it seem that Vimal’s killer was an unknown associate of Rostov. This was exceedingly unlikely—especially since Sachs also found a Russian cigarette and rubles in Krueger’s pocket, meant, obviously, to be strewn around Vimal’s body. A feint.

Unlikely, yes, but until Rodney confirmed the calls were made at the same place that Krueger’s phones had been located, Vimal would stay safely in a local precinct house.