“What about the domestic watch list?” asked a brown-suited man with an
academic’s goatee and bow tie.
“Wouldn’t rule it out. Especially if there’s some new alliance we don’t know
about that’s forming, but Tyler Wynn’s CIA background tugs my sleeve to foreign.
However…” He pointed a finger for emphasis and added, “Let’s not neglect the
splinter cells. We’ve all seen how a pair of foreign exchange students with a
chemistry set and a list from the hardware store can be a threat.”
“That’s a wide spectrum,” said the prof.
“Then we’d better be good,” he said. “And quick.”
As the Situation Room emptied, Heat met up with Callan at the door and said, “Now
that we’re agreed on bioterror, there’s a thread I’d like to follow, and I’m
telling you in advance because, as you’ll recall, it was an issue before. Vaja
Nikoladze.”
“Forget Nikoladze, Detective,” said Yardley Bell, shouldering her way into the
conversation. “He’s a nonstarter.”
Nikki’s expression appealed to Callan to intercede, but he seemed cowed by the
other agent, so she engaged her. “Not to me, he isn’t. Let me count them off for
you, Agent Bell.” Heat held her gaze and numbered with her fingers. “Nikoladze is
a top biochemist. He’s a foreign national, a defector from the former Soviet
Republic of Georgia.”
“Do you think I need a primer on Vaja Nikoladze?”
“And,” continued Heat, undeterred, “he was being spied on by my mother.”
“Here’s all you need to know about Nikoladze,” said Agent Bell. “He’s been a
credible and productive informant in our system for years. Plus, our biochemist is
in a disarmament think tank that promotes the demilitarization of science. If
anything, your mom was using Vaja as an expert source.”
“You were the FBI liaison with my mother back then,” said Nikki to Callan. “Was
that the relationship?”
“I honestly couldn’t tell you one way or the other.”
“Then I want to find out.”
“No, you want to be right and me to be wrong,” Yardley said. “Stop wasting time.
”
Bell stalked out of the room. Callan said, “Heat, maybe there are more productive
lines of investigation to focus on.”
“Sounds like an order.” The DHS man didn’t answer, except to smile. Nikki said,
“Silly me. Here I was afraid if I joined your team I’d find it full of infighting
and dysfunction.”
Captain Irons made a show of turning his back on Heat to stare out at 82nd Street
when she returned from the DHS meeting. Somehow, she’d be able to live with that.
She got to her desk, woke up her monitor, and began clearing accumulated e-mails.
There were a few progress updates from the squad on the serial killer, but most of
her inbox brimmed with statements taken throughout the five boroughs from Rainbow
pretenders. Nikki concentrated on the reports from her own detectives while she
stirred the strawberry compote from the side cup into her two-percent yogurt.
“I had a real lunch,” said Rook as he sauntered over. She moved some files from
her desktop before he could sit on them—and just in time. “No yogurt on the fly
for this man.”
Roach came over, passing a basketball, a long-standing brainstorming habit of
theirs. Ochoa said, “Writer Boy’s been a sulky boy.”
Rook ignored them and went on about his lunch. “I took myself for a chilled seafood
salad over at Ocean Grill on Columbus.”
Raley caught Ochoa’s pass. “He’s all bent because you went to the DHS deal
without telling him.”
“A white tablecloth and real silverware.” He leaned toward her. “Excuse me, is
that plastic spoon cracked?”
“Rook,” she said, “are you really bugged?”
“No, why should I be bugged?”
“Trust me, we had to listen to him. He’s bugged,” said Rales, who then passed the
ball to Rook, who flinched instead of catching it.
While Ochoa shagged the ball from under a desk, Rook blurted, “All right, I didn’t
go to Ocean Grill. I lost my appetite. A task force, Nikki. How could you go to the
DHS Task Force without me?”