“You really care—about your work, about the case, and most of all, about justice. You care.”
D’Agosta still felt out there, almost dizzy with what had happened. He ran his hand over his hair, adjusted his pants. He wasn’t sure what she meant.
“I guess you earned that Title 3. With a little thought, I should be able to make something up.”
He paused. “That wasn’t why—”
She sat up, laid a finger on his lips. “Your integrity just earned you the Title 3. Not the—the other thing.” Then she smiled again. “I’ll tell you what. We kind of got things backwards here. Do what you have to do. Then you can take me out for a nice, long, romantic, candlelight dinner.”
{ 34 }
The wire room of the lower Manhattan Federal Building was a nondescript space on the tower’s fourteenth floor. To D’Agosta, it looked just like a typical office: fluorescent ceiling, neutral carpeting, countless identical cubicles forming a human ant farm. Depressing as shit.
He looked around guardedly, half hoping, half afraid he’d find Laura Hayward waiting for him. But there was only one of her detectives, Mandrell: the same guy who had called at lunchtime with news they’d obtained a Title 3 order from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The FBI, with its superior equipment, would execute the Title 3, in a joint operation with the NYPD. Coming through the NYPD had made it somehow politically acceptable.
“Sergeant,” Mandrell said, shaking his hand. “Everything’s set up. Is Agent, ah, Pendergast—”
“Here,” said Pendergast, striding into the room. His beautifully cut black suit, pressed to perfection, shimmered under the artificial light. D’Agosta wondered just how many identical black suits the guy owned. Probably had rooms at the Dakota and the Riverside Drive mansion devoted to them.
“Agent Pendergast,” D’Agosta said, “this is Detective Sergeant Mandrell of the Twenty-first Precinct.”
“Delighted.” Pendergast briefly shook the proffered hand. “Forgive me for not arriving earlier. I fear I took a wrong turn. This building is most confusing.”
The Federal Building? Most confusing? Pendergast was a fed himself, he had to have an office in here somewhere. Didn’t he? It occurred to D’Agosta that he’d never once seen, or been asked to visit, Pendergast’s office.
“It’s this way,” Mandrell said, leading the way through a maze of cubicles.
“Excellent,” Pendergast murmured to D’Agosta as they fell into step behind the detective. “I’ll have to thank Captain Hayward personally. She really came through for us.”
She came through, all right, D’Agosta thought with a private smile. The whole of the night before—Pendergast spirited away by the mysterious caller, his own totally unexpected encounter with Laura Hayward—seemed dreamlike, unreal. He had fought the temptation to call her all morning. He hoped she’d still want that long, candlelight dinner. He wondered if this would complicate their working relationship, decided it would, realized he didn’t much care.
“Here we are,” Mandrell said, stepping into one of the cubicles. It looked just like all the others: a desk with an overhanging credenza, a computer workstation with attached speakers, a few chairs. A young woman with short blonde hair sat at the workstation, typing.
“This is Agent Sanborne,” Mandrell said. “She’s monitoring the phone of Jimmy Chait, Bullard’s right-hand boy here in the States. We have agents in adjoining cubicles logging the phones of another half dozen of Bullard’s associates. Agent Sanborne, this is Sergeant D’Agosta of the Southampton P.D. and Special Agent Pendergast.”
Sanborne nodded at them in turn, her eyes widening at the name of Pendergast.
“Anything?” Mandrell asked her.
“Nothing important,” she replied. “There was some traffic a few minutes ago between Chait and another associate. Seems they’re expecting a call from Bullard any time now.”
Mandrell nodded, turned back to D’Agosta. “When was your last tap, Sergeant?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Then let me get you up to speed. Everything’s done by computer these days, one workstation per phone number being monitored. The phone line goes right through this interface, and the conversation’s recorded digitally. No more tapes. Agent Sanborne, who’ll be transcribing the line sheets, can work the transport controls either by keyboard or foot pedal.”
D’Agosta shook his head. It was a far cry from the low-tech setups he’d worked as a new jack cop in the mid-eighties.
“You mentioned Chinese?” Mandrell said. “Are we going to need a translator?”
“Unlikely,” Pendergast replied.
“Well, we’ve got a man standing by, just in case.”
The cubicle fell silent as Mandrell and Sanborne hovered over the screen.
“Vincent,” Pendergast murmured, taking him aside. “I’ve been wanting to tell you. We’ve made a very important discovery.”
“What’s that?”
“Beckmann.”
D’Agosta looked at him sharply. “Beckmann?”