Threat Level Black - Страница 51

“Nah. Door’s been stuck for a year.”

Fisher got up and looked at it. It had at least a dozen coats of white paint and several varieties of locks, including one keyed dead bolt about six feet from the ground.

Higher, he thought, than Mr. Brown could reach.

“Mind if I try it?” asked Fisher.

“Suit yourself.”

“You got the keys?”

“Don’t need keys from the inside.”

“When was the last time the apartment was painted?” Fisher asked.

“Oh, God, before I moved in. The landlord’s offered to spruce things up, but it’s fine with me.”

“Maybe you should try the door,” suggested Fisher.

Brown got up and went to it, opening all of the locks — except the dead bolt.

“See?” said Brown.

* * *

Macklin was unsympathetic when Fisher called him from the stakeout car.

“Let me get this straight,” said Macklin. “You want a warrant to search the apartment of a blind man because there’s a lock on the door he can’t reach?”

“Pretty much.”

“With nothing to link the blind man to the terrorists.”

“That’s right. He’s not involved.”

“You know, Fisher, I used to think you were a genius,” said Macklin. “Now I think you’re a crank.”

“Since when are those mutually exclusive?”

“You missed the phone conference. Kowalski was asking for you.”

“And?”

“DIA wants to close down the task force.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s finished.”

“You haven’t found out who bought the sarin gas or where they were going to use it, or how. You don’t have Faud. And then there’s the E-bomb.”

“The E-bomb was a red herring,” said Macklin. “Like your door lock. Look, we got a good bust on the sarin warehouse. We’re still interviewing those guys we picked up in Washington Heights — ”

“Who don’t know anything,” said Fisher.

“Who claim they don’t know anything. Meanwhile, this Daud Faraghmeh—”

“Faud Daraghmeh.”

“Whatever. He’s gone. He hopped a plane out of Kennedy, I guarantee. He’ll turn up twelve months from now in some CIA report on Egypt.”

“ Yemen.”

“Whatever. Listen, in these days of budget cuts, we all have limited resources—”

“You been talking to Jack Hunter?” Fisher asked.

“As a matter of fact, he was in on the conference call, and he agreed that the task force is no longer necessary. We need to shift our resources around, especially with the President coming to town. The locals can take over the investigation and fill in the holes for the prosecutors. Hunter was mentioning a corruption case that he wanted you to—”

“We must be going through a tunnel,” said Fisher. “You’re breaking up.”

“I thought you were still with the surveillance team.”

“Can’t hear a word you’re saying.” Fisher hit the End button, then turned to Witt, who had a bemused expression on his face.

“Zone sergeant would dock your pay if you tried that as a uniformed trooper,” said the detective.

“Fortunately, Macklin’s not a sergeant,” said Fisher, “though he is often zoned. Let’s go get something to eat. Bag the surveillance.”

“Bag it completely?”

“Until Wednesday. That’s when his home aide comes to take him shopping.”

Chapter 6

Alice didn’t look quite as beautiful as Howe remembered when he met her at the restaurant.

Somehow that made him feel even better about her. He took her hands and then leaned forward over the table to kiss her as she rose; she held back a moment before kissing him, her lips soft and wet with the wine she’d been sipping.

Howe ordered a beer, then began looking at the menu.

“How’s their spaghetti?” he asked.

“You’re having beer with spaghetti?” said Alice.

“That’s not good?”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

“I’m not really a fancy guy,” said Howe. “I think that’s why I didn’t get all that excited about the house the other day. To me, you know, a house is just a house.”

“It’s more than that.”

“For some people, sure.” He saw by the look on her face that she’d taken that as an insult. He tried to change the subject by apologizing for the kidnapping.

“Well, you didn’t kidnap me,” she said.

“I’m sorry that you got involved, I mean…”

The waiter appeared with his beer, then took their orders. Alice chose a special; Howe stuck with the spaghetti.

“Can we start all over?” he asked as the waiter left.

“Why?”

“Because we’re kind of on the wrong foot here,” he said. “I mean, we’re different and—”

“Being different bothers you?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He took a sip of the beer.

This was all a mistake, he thought to himself. But he was stuck now, and she was stuck too. She tried making conversation and he tried not stumbling. Their salads came. Howe had never been very good at small talk but tried some now, asking about the difference between romaine and iceberg lettuce. She told him the leaves were different.

“Why’d you want to have dinner with me?” he asked finally.

Alice put down her fork. “You wanted to have dinner with me,” she said, taking her napkin off her lap.

She put it on the table and pushed her chair back.

“Wait,” he said reaching for her arm. “The food’s just coming. We might as well eat.”

“Thanks anyway,” said Alice, taking her hand back and walking away.

Chapter 7

“You want Syracuse over Kentucky?”

“I don’t want anything over anything,” Fisher told Macklin. “I don’t bet.”

“You don’t bet? Go on. You have every other vice possible. You’re telling me you don’t gamble?”

“A man has to draw the line somewhere,” said Fisher. He continued scrolling through the notes on the computer, where the case information was compiled.

“ ‘Final Four, first time in New York City,’ ” said Macklin, obviously parroting a commercial Fisher hadn’t heard. “ ‘Games this weekend, with the championship next Monday. Come on. Join the pool. You have a one-out-of-four chance of winning.’ ”

“And a three-out-of-four chance of losing my money.”

“All right, Fisher. Just don’t pout on Tuesday when we’re splitting the winnings.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Listen, the Secret Service is asking for a little cooperation running down some leads…”

“I don’t have time to talk to every nut in New York City, Michael.”

“It’s not every nut. Just the violently psychotic ones.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have time.” Fisher got up from the computer.

“Where are you going?”

“Grab a smoke.”

* * *

Fisher hadn’t lied exactly: He did have a cigarette immediately upon going outside the house.

It’s just that he had that cigarette in one of the task force vehicles, which he drove to FBI headquarters in Virginia. Six hours and countless cigarettes later, he corralled his quarry, Martha Friedrickberg, an expert on identity theft who had investigated the credit card ring that was selling IDs to the terrorists.

Martha worked in an office that could have passed for a surgical scrub room. The whitewashed walls had nothing on them, her metal desk was bare, and even her computer was immaculate. The distinct odor of Listerine filled the air as Fisher entered the room.

Friedrickberg looked up from her computer. “Andy Fisher. Oh, Gawd.”

“Happy to see you, too, Martha. How’s the germs?”

“In stasis until you arrived.”

“Stasis is good or bad?”

“Neither. That’s the point: balance.” Friedrickberg pulled a spray bottle out from a bottom drawer and placed it at her elbow. “What do you want, Andy?”

“I need some information on that credit card ring.”

“Which one?”

Fisher started to explain.

“You could have just called on the phone,” said Friedrickberg, turning to her computer.

“You would have taken the call?”

“Of course not.”

“Yes, well, you’re an exception in many ways.”

She pulled up a list of numbers and pointed to it. Fisher leaned over the desk to look at it; Friedrickberg wheeled her chair backward.

“Just a lot of numbers, right?” said Fisher.

“And streptococcus is just another bacterium.”

Fisher straightened. “I’m guessing it’s not.”

“Have you had your sinuses flushed lately?” Friedrickberg wheeled herself back behind the desk, closer to her bottle. “You’d be surprised what lurks in your septum.”

“What about those numbers?”

“Fifty-three point six percent are from Asia, primarily Japan. We’ve tracked a significant subset to American tourists and businessmen.”

“And this has something to do with strep throat?”

“I despair sometimes, Andy. I truly do.”

Fisher instinctively reached for his pack of cigarettes. Friedrickberg was quicker on the draw, however: She had the bottle squared and ready to fire before he took the pack from his pocket.

“No smoking in the building,” she intoned.

“Yeah, I know that,” said Fisher. He twirled the pack between his fingers.