The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(127)

Which was that within the hour, El Halcón would be free. The plan to break him out of the courthouse here and spirit him away to a compound in Venezuela was proceeding perfectly.

There is a rumor that there is no extradition treaty between the United States and that troubled South American nation. That’s not correct. The 1922 treaty between the two nations remains in effect, though the extraditable offenses are a bit bizarre—bigamy, for instance. There are rules about shipping fugitive murderers and drug dealers back to the U.S. but, of course, they are enforced only if the foreign authorities want to enforce them. And, depending on where the decimal point falls, the Venezuelans’ motivation for enforcement can be a bit limp.

The escape plan had been long in the making—from the moment El Halcón had been taken into custody after the shoot-out at the warehouse on Long Island.

Carreras-López had known that a legal defense wouldn’t work—El Halcón had in fact grabbed the pistol of the warehouse manager, Chris Cody’s, and shot Barry Sales, the cop on the tactical team. Escape was the only option. He’d called a troubleshooter whom the cartels in Mexico sometimes used, a man in Geneva, Switzerland, named Fran?ois Letemps. Carreras-López had paid a million-dollar deposit against a three-million-dollar fee for Letemps to break the man out of custody.

Letemps had suggested staging the escape in some locale other than New York, which he viewed as problematic. But, no, that wouldn’t work. There could be no change of venue; the Eastern District of New York had sole jurisdiction. And once he was convicted, as surely he would be, he would be in high-security lockdown until he was transferred by a government plane to the infamous Colorado super prison, from which escape was not possible.

No, New York was the only option. And since the federal courthouse in Brooklyn was the most vulnerable spot in the system, Letemps set to work on a plan to orchestrate a mass evacuation of the courthouse when El Halcón was present. In the chaos, it should be possible to take control of his armored transport van and escape.

But simply calling in a bomb threat, for instance, would have been far too suspicious and brought even more law enforcement down on El Halcón, Letemps reasoned.

He therefore decided to create a potentially deadly gas leak in the courthouse for reasons that appeared to have nothing to do with any escape attempt. Specifically, Letemps’s plan provided, a mercenary—hired to sabotage geothermal drilling nearby—would set gas bombs in the neighborhood.

Letemps had arranged for a shipment of diamond-rich kimberlite to be delivered to New York from Botswana. Carreras-López had some of his men, who’d accompanied him from Mexico, strew these rocks around the geothermal site and the waste dump where debris from the site was taken. One of the men also took some kimberlite to a famous diamond cutter—Jatin Patel—who had it analyzed and found that it was indeed diamond-rich stone. Whatever Patel thought of the stone was irrelevant. The plot merely depended on getting the kimberlite to him.

Letemps himself pretended to be the contractor representing New World Mining in Guatemala, which was not involved in any way. He hired Andrew Krueger to plant the bombs and kill Patel and the assayer Weintraub. Then that mad Russian had showed up, worried about the diamond find too, but in the end none of that mattered. The important thing was that the police were convinced there was a series of gas line devices planted throughout Brooklyn, near the courthouse.

Any other gas leaks would immediately be attributed to Krueger and his attempts to sabotage the drilling.

Poor Andrew Krueger—he was merely an oblivious pawn; he believed that he’d been hired by the Guatemalan mining company and had no idea that he’d been set up. And set up to fail: A key part of the plan was making sure the police figured out the diamond lode sabotage plot.

Lincoln Rhyme had, unwittingly, accommodated in this regard.

With a frown of concentration, Carreras-López jotted more notes on the pad before him. He shook his head, crossed off one entry. Added another. This was an important document: a grocery list for a dinner party he was planning to cook in Mexico City tomorrow night. His wife did not enjoy the kitchen; he did.

Chicken, poblano peppers, crème fra?che, cilantro, white Burgundy wine (Chablis?).

Now, as El Halcón pretended to read some court documents and fantasized about a?ejo tequila, the building shook with a faint tremor.

This was the result of a C4 charge planted not by Krueger but by one of Carreras-López’s men at the geothermal site. This IED was not on a timer but had been detonated by radio signal, as the explosion had to coincide with El Halcón’s presence in the courthouse.

The guards in the hallway outside looked briefly at each other, then returned to staring at nothing.

Carreras-López’s mobile gave a brief tone. He looked at the text.

Your aunt has been discharged from hospital.



This meant that the lawyer’s men were beginning to release the natural gas odorant—not the gas itself—into the courthouse HVAC system from outside the building.

Carreras-López switched his screen to the local news. A breaking story reported yet another explosion, meant to mimic an earthquake. Residents in Brooklyn were urged to be on the lookout for gas leaks and to evacuate immediately if they were aware of any. Another text:

Her ride has arrived.



The helicopter had landed and was standing by at a construction site in Brooklyn, near the water—the craft that would spirit Carreras-López and El Halcón to an airstrip on Staten Island, where private jets would speed them to, respectively, Caracas and Mexico City.