Heat surveyed her bull pen full of cops working phones and computers, and sat
in her task chair. “Works for me.”
“First, forensics. We not only put our lab on priority turnaround, we have the
capability of starting some of this process in the vans, on-scene and in-transit.”
Agent Bell didn’t take out a file, a pad, or even an iPad. She did, however,
elevate her gaze slightly above Nikki’s hairline occasionally, as if reading bullet
points in the air. “Fingerprints. In addition to Nikoladze’s, we scored several
lifts from Tyler Wynn down in the lab. Also one from Agent Bernardin.” A sense of
tainted relief enveloped Nikki. Putting the three people together in that basement
tied the elements, albeit in disquieting affirmation. Bell moved on to her next
bullet. “The cage. More prints there. Bernardin. Salena Kaye. That crooked cop.”
“Carter Damon?”
“Yes. And Petar Matic. These IDs came quickly since they’re all in the database.”
Out of habit, Heat made notes. Bell waited for her to catch up. “That dried blood
on the cage does match type for Nicole Bernardin. We can’t get an exact match for
her yet due to the sabotage of her toxicity lab work at OCME. But there’s also a
fiber match to her clothing, so we’ll be able to run a DNA on that just to close
all the loops.” She paused and looked up. “Oh. We also have a positive match for
the lab solvent that was used to disinfect Bernardin’s skin.”
Nikki reflected on the cage, the drain in the floor, and Nicole Bernardin’s awful
fate after discovery—caged, killed, and then baptized in a cleanser by Satan’s
own. Heat said, “So we have confirmed she was murdered there. That’s good to know.
Unfortunately that doesn’t move us forward with new info.”
“This does. We got the same reading from her clothes as your blazer. Smallpox.
Consider yourself up to the moment on the forensics.”
“Good. And I do appreciate this new sense of cooperation.”
Agent Bell shrugged. “You and I got off on the wrong foot from day one. Last night
’s little… confrontation… got me thinking about that. This is me just wanting to
see if we can stay close and avoid any more conflict. Especially considering my last
piece of intel.” She made a perimeter check and lowered her voice. “One of our
deep-cover informants from one of the jihadist terror cells in New Jersey says he
was contacted earlier this week by Salena Kaye.”
“So you’re calling this a Muslim extremist terror plan?”
“Not necessarily. He confirms from his other undercover sources that Ms. Kaye has
been making the rounds of numerous affiliations. She’s basically shopping for a
martyr she can recruit to deliver the punch.”
“Has she found anyone?”
“Don’t know. We only know one thing. We know it’s happening Saturday.”
Nikki felt a chilliness blow through her at the narrowing of the strike window. What
had been two or three days to stop this calamity had been given a haircut to two.
Heat and Bell held eye contact, one absorbing the alarming implications the other
had already processed.
“Excuse me, ladies.” Captain Irons appeared, standing over them. “Heat? My
office?”
Irons closed the door and said, “Do you know what it’s like to sit and watch
everything going on around you and not be part of it?” Her answer, especially in
that moment, would not have been terribly empathic, so Heat didn’t reply. She just
waited for Wally to get to his point, so she could get back to work. “I sit here
sometimes and I look out there and… Well, it’s hard to sit on the sidelines.
Anyhoo, I was thinking, maybe there was something you could give me to help you
with.”
She thought a few seconds. “Cat burglars. Whoever crept into my apartment the other
night knew how to get in and out without a trace.”
“You want me to run cat burglars through the database?”