Sachs continued, telling those present that the search of Shapiro’s small apartment in upper Manhattan, where he’d lived alone, gave up no leads either. But it did offer explanations.
Hidden under a mattress she’d discovered a map of the geothermal site, with the shafts of Area Seven circled, five hundred thousand Russian rubles—about eighty-five hundred dollars, presumably a bonus for Unsub 47 when the job was finished—and two burner phones, presently inoperative. Their call history was cleared.
“I printed the phones—negative on that—and I sent ’em down to Rodney. We’ll see if the computer geniuses can extract any info. The guy he hired? The Russian? Sure, he’s a mercenary. But he’s also cut from the same cloth, I’m betting. Saving the earth, getting even for the damage we’ve inflicted. He just did Shapiro one better: the torture, the gas line bombs.”
Sachs added that she’d recovered a great deal of trace evidence in Shapiro’s apartment, some situating the activist at various places around the metropolitan area: samples of minerals and soil and sand and diesel fuel and plant material. Some might have been carried into Shapiro’s home on Unsub 47’s shoes but without more evidence to narrow down the locales they did the investigators no good in finding him.
Rhyme noticed Sachs looking at the chart on which she’d written the findings. Her face seemed wistful. She looked back and noticed his gaze. She said, “It was sad, you know.”
“Sad?” Sellitto muttered. “The asshole killed a half-dozen people.”
“Oh, I know. He got carried away, lost in the cause. But you should’ve seen his apartment.” She explained that it was filled with easily a thousand books, mostly about the environment. There were dozens of protest posters and photos he’d taped up on the scabby walls: of Shapiro and colleagues in jail or being arrested—once being teargassed—as a result of various protests. She imagined he’d mounted them with pride and fond memories.
“It was like a shrine to his cause. He did a lot of good. Up until now, that is.”
Murder was, of course, murder.
Rhyme noticed another picture Sachs had taken in Shapiro’s apartment: a black-and-gold ceramic urn on which was a bronze plaque. It contained his wife’s ashes. He commented on it. Sachs added, “I looked her up. She died of cancer, probably due to a toxic waste spill when she was a teenager.”
Rhyme now turned and wheeled closer to their insurance expert, Edward Ackroyd, who was the man of the moment—since it was he who’d been instrumental in cracking the case. He was trying to get in touch once more with the diamond dealer in Manhattan who had put him onto Ezekiel Shapiro. The activist had called the dealer asking about Jatin Patel’s source for diamonds. Was it true that he bought them from mines that exploited indigenous people?
Ackroyd hoped that the dealer might have additional information—maybe even a lead about the Russian that Shapiro had hired.
Rhyme focused out the window. A lethargic ice storm during the night had encased the vegetation in front of his town house. He wondered if the sharp crystals had killed the plants, or if the ice had had no effect whatsoever other than to temporarily enwrap leaves and buds in a clear cocoon, which would flash with rainbow fire, like a diamond, under the sun.
Now Ackroyd was disconnecting his phone. “Okay. I got through to him: the dealer. He’s still jittery but I think the guilt got to him—that Patel was killed after he told Shapiro about him. I’ll go have a chat with the gentleman.”
Rhyme watched the man pull on his coat with precise movements.
Ackroyd added, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
His voice hesitated as he glanced Rhyme’s way, suddenly recalling, it seemed, that Lincoln Rhyme was not a person who had the ability to cross any fingers.
Their eyes met and they shared a smile.
*
From a very sour-smelling vantage point in a stand of bushes in Central Park—apparently popular with urban dogs—Vladimir Rostov watched the medium-built, sandy-haired man in the beige overcoat step outside the town house he’d learned belonged to one Lincoln Rhyme. The man drew the garment tighter about him, against the chill.
Cold, cold? Ha. This is nothing, kuritsa. Come to Moscow in January.
The man walked down the disabled-accessible ramp and onto the sidewalk, avoiding a few patches of ice. He turned north and walked to the cross street, then west, away from the park.
Rostov pushed through the bushes and strode quickly after him, passing between two cabs. Closing the distance, Rostov kept his head down. You assumed CCTVs were everywhere and fitted with high-definition lenses. He also supposed some had facial recognition software, though he wasn’t, as far as he knew, in any FR databases. At least not here, in the United States.
Ah, kuritsa, slow down, slow down. You’re walking too fast for a whore of a hen.
Rostov’s mood had improved and he’d overcome his anger at the latest setback—at the house of Adeela, the raven-haired Arab girl. Making it worse, as he’d fled, the police approaching, he’d caught a glimpse of Vimal himself in the garage! He was at the house. And he’d be in protective custody now.
Angry then, better now.
Concentrating on the task ahead of him.
Yes, the Promisor has yet another backup plan, kuritsa! Don’t you know?
Rostov saw the man he was following approach a gray Ford and push the fob button. The lights flashed briefly. Rostov was only twenty feet behind him and he sped up, head still down. When the man pulled open the driver’s door and dropped into the seat, Rostov did the same on the passenger side.
“Kuritsa!”
The driver reared back in shock, blinking. Then he and Rostov locked eyes.
The Russian smiled. And stuck his hand out. The driver shook his head, with a wry laugh, gripped Rostov’s meaty palm and, with his left hand, pressed the man’s biceps, a gesture conveying a cautious warmth. It was the sort of greeting that might transpire between two soldiers who’d been enemies in the past—and might yet be in the future—but who, for the moment at least, were allies with a common cause.
Chapter 51
So, kuritsa, what I am calling you? What is name? Surely not Mr. Andrew Krueger?”
“Using my real name? Now, what do you think, Vladimir? No, I’m Edward Ackroyd.”
“Yes, yes, I like that. Distinguished fucker. Is real somebody?”
Krueger didn’t explain that the identity he’d stolen, Edward Ackroyd, was, yes, a real employee of Milbank Assurance—a company that insured hundreds of diamond and precious metal mines and wholesalers. Ackroyd, as he’d told Rhyme, was a former Scotland Yard detective and presently was a senior claims investigator with Milbank. Beyond that, Krueger knew nothing of the real Ackroyd; he’d made everything else up, like riffing on his sexuality: He played his fictional version as gay—a casting choice intended to work his way, subtly, through Rhyme’s defenses; the consultant seemed like a man who valued tolerance. (Krueger had told his business partner in his company, Terrance DeVoer, the most hetero man you’d ever meet, that Terry and Krueger were now married—to the South African’s great amusement.)
The cryptic crossword puzzles—which were a hobby of Krueger’s—were also intended to ingratiate himself with the criminalist. A number of Krueger’s clients were British so he could easily feign being English.
In the driver’s seat of the rental car Krueger eased back a bit from the Russian. Rostov stank of pungent cigarettes and onion and excessive drugstore aftershave. “And you? You’re not Vlad Rostov, I assume.”
“No, no.” The Russian laughed. “So many fucking names in the past week…Now I am Alexander Petrovitch. I was Josef Dobyns when I landed. Now Petrovitch. I like better. Dobyns could be Jew. You are liking Alexander? I do. It was only passport this asshole in Brighton Beach had. Charge me fortune. I like Brighton Beach. You ever go?”
Rostov was known, in the diamond security industry, to be a loose cannon and also more than a little crazy. The rambling was typical.
“You know, Vlad—”
“Alexander.”
“—I’m not here to sightsee.”