“Because it’s restricted.”
“Like that’s ever stopped me.” From anyone else, it would have seemed like an
empty boast.
Detective Ochoa said, “My partner and I have been tossing around the idea of this
van, the one that had Nicole Bernardin’s blood and traces of lab cleaning solution
in it. No sit-down lunch for us, either.”
“What did you come up with?”
“OK, follow this,” said Raley. “Let’s suppose, like you said at the briefing,
that Nicole Bernardin picked up some sort of biological toxin on herself while she
was checking out whatever Tyler Wynn was into. Whoever caught her snooping around
and killed her must have worried her body might register telltale contamination.”
Ochoa picked up. “Which is why they scrubbed her corpse before they dumped it. They
didn’t want to set off any alarms.”
“And since Carter Damon’s van had both Nicole Bernardin’s blood and traces of lab
cleaning solvent,” continued Raley, “I think it’s a good bet that van got used to
transport her body from where she was stabbed and scrubbed to where she got left in
the suitcase. So our thinking is, if we can figure out where Damon’s van traveled
the night of her murder—”
“—We might just find the bioterror lab she discovered,” said Heat. She added a “
might” but liked this feeling, the little spark that could possibly kindle a break.
“But how could you ever learn where the van traveled?” asked Rook.
Detective Feller chimed in from his desk. “Doesn’t Homeland Security have cameras
that scan license plates at key intersections and toll plazas so they can track
suspicious vehicles that enter and drive around the city?”
“They do. They’d have video archives,” Raley said. “So would NYPD.”
Heat thought about the experience she’d just had in the bunker and said to Roach,
“Start with NYPD.”
“Your task force meeting was that good?” said Rook as Raley and Ochoa moved off to
work the new lead.
“Shut up,” she said, hiding her smile in her yogurt. “Let a gal enjoy her lunch.
”
“Sure. And while you do, let me share some thinking I tossed around with my
partner. I’ll admit it’s an imaginary partner, which is why I’m so glad you’re
back.”
“Rook, are you having a reality break, or does this have a point?”
“My point,” he said, “is that if Tyler Wynn had so many foreign connections, why
didn’t he get out of Dodge instead of hanging around a month after you put the APB
out on his traitorous ass?”
“Simple. To see the plot through.”
“That’s where I bump. What was the first thing Wynn said to you after the blast?”
“He asked me if Salena Kaye did it.”
“No, exact quote, please, Detective.”
Heat pictured the old man down on the kitchen floor. It all replayed like a movie.
“He said, ‘Was it Salena? Did Kaye find me?’ ”
Rook said, “See, now that’s not just big, that’s an XL.”
“He’s right.” Randall Feller couldn’t resist joining the spitball and came over.
“The ‘find me’ part sounds like Wynn was hiding out from his own accomplice.”
Rook continued, “And if Salena Kaye turned on him, and he was still hiding in New
York, it suggests that his own organization cut him off and he lost the resources to
flee these borders undetected. I’ve seen this before with my European spy friends.
One day you’re center car of the motorcade, the next you’re hiding in Dumpsters,
afraid to show your face and unable to board an airplane.”
“The question is, why did they all of a sudden want him dead?” asked Feller.
“I hope to find that out,” said Heat. “Maybe because I compromised him by
surviving. When I came out of that subway alive, Uncle Tyler got on somebody’s hit
list because if we captured him, he might give up his co-conspirators.”
“Good a reason as any,” said Rook. “It also tells you why Salena hung around. To
finish him off.”