The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(80)

The door buzzer again. It was a solid man in a black suit, holding a large carton. Rhyme hit the intercom. “Is that from Tony?”

Carreras-López: El Halcón’s lawyer.

The man leaned close to the speaker. “That’s right, sir.”

The case files he’d asked for, regarding the evidence-tampering claim. He glanced at Sellitto to see if he was paying any attention. But, no. The detective and Cooper were staring at the scene of the fire on the TV.

“Just leave it inside the front door. On the table.”

“Yessir.”

Rhyme hit the door lock, and the man set down the box of the El Halcón case files and left.

He turned to Sellitto. “Fire marshal’s gone back and checked out the prior fires?”

“Yep, every fire that started after the first and second earthquakes? There’re the shells of fake thermostats. Just like at Claire’s.”

Serial fires with sophisticated IEDs. What’s that about?

“As if that wasn’t interesting enough, here’s the juicy part. As soon as it was labeled arson the fire marshal called RTCC to pull the nearby video cams from the past few weeks.”

The computer surveillance center down at One Police Plaza.

He held up his phone. “And look who got videoed slipping into and out of Claire Porter’s building last week. The basement.”

It was a screenshot of a man in dark clothing and a stocking cap, carrying an orange vest and yellow hard hat. A bag was slung over his shoulder. It appeared heavy.

Identical to the image of Unsub 47 as he’d left the geothermal site later that same day, heading for the subway—minus the bag.

Sellitto said, “I had RTCC pull all the videos from her apartment to the drilling site. He walks right to the construction site, puts on his hat and vest and vanishes inside. It was an hour before he left and walked to the subway. And then I ordered videos near the sites of all the other gas fires. Within the space of two hours, Unsub Forty-Seven broke into every single one of them.”

Jesus. The unsub planted gas line bombs meant to mimic fires after the quakes? What was this about? Rhyme said, “I want to see the device. Get it here fast.”

“Already ordered. I thought you would. It’ll be here any minute.”

“And have an ECT crew walk the grid around where it was found in Ms. Porter’s building. Probably contaminated as hell but we’ll give it a shot.”

“K. Will do. Thanks. I gotta go. Mayor wants a briefing. You’ll copy me on all your brilliant insights, right?”

Rhyme grunted.

Sellitto pulled his jacket off the hook and left. Just as he stepped through the door, Ron Pulaski arrived, nodded to the lieutenant and continued into the hallway. Rhyme wheeled into the hallway to greet him.

The young officer sniffed the air and said, “I smell gas.”

Rhyme realized he did too, very faint. “It was Lon.” He explained about the IED that ate through the line at Claire Porter’s apartment. “Disarmed before it ignited. But anybody nearby would’ve picked up some odorant.” Since explosive—and suffocating—natural gas was odorless, sulfur-based chemicals, reeking of rotten eggs, were added to warn of leaks.

He explained they’d learned that the fires after the earthquakes were actually arson.

The young officer frowned at this. “Who set them?”

“It appears…and note that word. It appears to be Unsub Forty-Seven.”

“No way,” Pulaski muttered.

“We’ll see.” Rhyme nodded toward the box of files that Carreras-López’s driver had delivered. “Those’re the files in the El Halcón. Can you run the analysis tonight?”

Not really a question.

“Sure.”

“And I’m going to need you to walk the grid at the scene.”

“What scene?”

“Long Island. The warehouse where the El Halcón shoot-out took place. It’ll all be in the file. And remember—”

The Rookie whispered, “Not a word to anyone.”

Rhyme winked. Pulaski blinked at the alien expression,

The young officer collected the box for his furtive assignment and left.

Back to the parlor—where nobody seemed to have noticed Pulaski’s arrival, sans box, or his departure with it.

The buzzer rang yet again and Rhyme recognized the caller. He instructed the security system to open the door.

Into the parlor walked an officer from the Bomb Squad, based out of the 6th Precinct in Greenwich Village.

“Brad.”

“Lincoln.” Lieutenant Bradley Geffen, a compact, gray-haired man, walked forward and had no hesitation shaking Rhyme’s somewhat functioning right hand. Often people were intimidated by the disability but this was a man who would lie on his belly with tweezers and screwdriver and dismantle IEDs that could turn him into red vapor. Not much fazed him. If he resembled anyone, it would be a drill sergeant, with his sinewy, etched face, crew cut, piercing eyes.

He nodded a greeting to the others and stepped to an examination table in the parlor.

“What do we have?” Rhyme asked.

“Our boys and gals went over it.” He extracted an evidence bag from the attaché case he carried. “Never seen anything like it. But it’s pretty damn smart.”