Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(21)

“She wouldn’t have survived it—at least low odds—anyway. Nearly severed her spine. So that tells me the kill was imperative, not just the strike. And maybe that’s why he stopped at three. Panic’s starting, people heading for cover, or bunching up, ducking down. You’re going to get some solid strikes, but maybe not solid enough for a kill. This way, he’s three for three.”

“Don’t take chances, lower your percentage.” Peabody blew out a breath as Eve turned toward the lab. “How many buildings on the short list?”

“Enough that I’m pulling in whoever’s not working a hot to help check them out.”

Inside, in the warren of the lab, Eve headed straight for Dickhead.

While most of the techs wore white lab coats, the slick of dark hair on his egg-shaped head made him easy to spot as he huddled over his long work counter.

She imagined his spidery fingers working over a keyboard or on a screen. The man was a creepy pain in the ass, but he had skills. And she needed them.

He glanced up as she approached, and nearly knocked her off her stride. The poor excuse for facial hair he’d been trying to grow now resembled an anemic caterpillar over his mouth, and a tattered spiderweb on his chin.

If he’d developed the new look to lure women—and luring women was his greatest wish—Eve predicted brutal disappointment.

“LDSK,” he said, with what might have been pleasure.

“That’s right.”

“We don’t get those every day. Long-range laser rifle—Lowenbaum’s right on the model, I figure.”

“It has to be military grade. Morris said the first vic—as far as he’d gotten this morning—had damage to internal organs.”

“Yeah, yeah, echoes. I figured it.” He zipped down the counter on his stool, tapped a screen.

“See here? CGI sim of a strike with a Tactical-XT, military grade. Laser beam in red, range here is a thousand yards. Trigger to strike? One-point-three seconds. See the red hit the body, how the strike pinpoints, then spreads? That’s your echo. See, it hits, then it blooms.” He lifted his hands, upturned palms cupped, then drew them apart. “You ain’t walking away from that.”

“I have three people in the morgue who didn’t walk away from that.”

“You’re on the dead. I’m on the weapon. ME says military grade, echoes, that caps that for me, as that’s what I’m seeing on the security feed. Talked with Lowenbaum, and we’re agreed on it.”

“I’m not arguing it.”

He just waved that away. “You gotta figure the range of a military-grade Tact-XT is—known record—three-point-six miles.”

“I got that, Berenski, I need—”

“In the right hands, these strikes could’ve been made from a barge in the fricking East River. You gotta get that. But I want to meet the son of a bitch who could make that strike, that strike in New York, considering sight lines, wind variance, temperature, not to mention the movement of the targets.”

“When I nail the son of a bitch, I’ll introduce you.”

“I’ll hold you to it. But I don’t figure we’re talking full range, okay? I’m working on narrowing it. Working on a program to narrow it down, given the angles, speed, and so on.”

“I’ve narrowed it down. I’ve got a program.”

“The one we’ve used isn’t—”

“I’ve got a new program.”

He stopped waving her away, scowled at her instead. “What program?”

“Peabody.”

“I’ve got it here on my PPC. And now,” she said, after a few commands, “it’s on your unit.”

He ran it through once, hunched forward. Ran it through a second time. “Where’d you get this? NSA?”

“Roarke.”

“Huh. How long’s he had people working on this?”

“Just Roarke, last night.”

He swung around on his stool. “You bullshitting me?”

“What for? I got three dead people, for God’s sake.”

“This is fricking genius.” Running it yet again, Berenski rubbed the back of his neck. “I can see it could use a little fine-tuning.”

“Don’t mess with it.”

“I ain’t going to mess with it, I’m saying if he or his people fine-tuned it, he could sell it for . . . Guess he doesn’t need to.”

“It’s not about need,” she muttered.

“You show this to Lowenbaum?”

“I sent it to him, but it was late last night. He may not have seen it yet.”

“When he does, he’s going to say same as me. You got as close to accurate as you’re going to. See here, he calculated the wind variance at the time of the strikes, temperature, humidity, the angle of the strikes, the time between, the elevation, the sight line. It’s all here. You’re going to be humping for weeks clearing these buildings, but you’ve got a solid direction.”

“Take out mid-to high-level security buildings.” Eve glanced at Peabody again.

“Can I?” Without waiting, Peabody leaned over the counter, took the program to the next phase.

“Sweet. Yeah, yeah, hard to get that kind of weapon through security.”