"I'm leaning toward male," Kincaid countered. "Tell you why in a minute. He uses the gendered pronoun 'he,' referring, it seems, to his van. That's typical of several different foreign languages. But what
really narrows it down is the two-member nominal phrase in the genitive construction."
"The what?" Rhyme asked.
"The genitive construction--a way to create the possessive. Your unsub wrote 'my delivery van' at one point."
Rhyme scanned the note. "Got it."
"But later he wrote 'plans of mine.' That makes me think your boy's first language is Arabic."
"Arabic?"
"I'll say it's a ninety percent likelihood. There's a genitive construction in Arabic called i.daafah. The possessive's usually formed by saying, 'The car John.' Meaning, 'The car of John.' Or, in your note, the 'plans of mine.' But the rules of Arabic grammar require that only one word is used for the thing that's possessed--the 'delivery van' won't work in Arabic; it's a two-word phrase, so he can't use i.daafah. He simply says 'my delivery van.' The other clue is the misuse of the indefinite article 'a' in 'a alley.' That's common among Arabic speakers; the language doesn't use indefinite articles, only the definite 'the.' " Kincaid added, "That's true of Welsh, too, but I don't think this guy's from Cardiff."
"Good, Parker," Sachs said. "Very subtle, but good."
A faint laugh came from the speakerphone. "I'll tell you, Amelia, everybody in the business's been doing a lot of boning up on Arabic in the last few years."
"That's why you think it's a man."
"How many women Arab perps you see?"
"Not many . . . Anything else?"
"Get me some more samples and I'll compare them if you want."
"We may take you up on that." Rhyme thanked Kincaid and they disconnected the call. Rhyme shook his head, staring at the evidence boards. He gave a scoffing laugh.
"What're you thinking, Rhyme?"
"You know what he's up to, don't you?" the criminalist asked in an ominous voice.
Sachs nodded. "He's not going to rob the exchange. He's going to blow it up."
"Yep."
Dellray said, "Sure--those reports we've had, about terrorists goin' after Israeli targets in the area."
Sachs said, "The guard across the street from the museum said they get shipments of jewelry every day from Jerusalem . . . . Okay, I'll get the exchange evacuated and swept." She pulled out her cell phone.
Rhyme glanced at the evidence board and said to Sellitto and Cooper, "Falafel and yogurt . . . and a delivery van. Find out if there are any restaurants around the exchange that serve Middle Eastern food and, if so, who makes deliveries and when. And what kind of van they use."
Dellray shook his head. "Half the city eats that stuff. You can get gyros and falafel on every street corner in the city. They . . . " The agent stopped talking as his eyes met Rhyme's.
"Pushcarts!"
Sellitto said, "There were a half dozen of them around the museum yesterday."
"Perfect for surveillance," Rhyme snapped. "And what a cover. He delivers supplies to them every day, so nobody pays attention to him. I want to know who supplies the street vendors. Move!"
*
According to the board of health, only two companies delivered Middle Eastern food to the pushcarts in the blocks around the jewelry exchange. Ironically, the largest of them was owned by two Jewish brothers with family in Israel and who were active in their temple; they were hardly suspects.
The other company didn't own the carts but sold gyros, kabobs and falafel, along with the condiments and sodas (as well as the heathen but ever-profitable pork hot dogs), to dozens of carts in Midtown. The operation was based out of a restaurant/deli down on Broad Street, whose owners hired a man to make the deliveries around town.
With Dellray and a dozen other agents and cops surrounding them, these owners became extremely--almost tearfully--cooperative. The name of their deliveryman was Bani al-Dahab, and he was a Saudi national, here on a visa long expired. He'd been a professional of some sort in Jeddah and had worked as an engineer for a time in the U.S. but after he went illegal he'd taken what work he could--cooking occasionally and delivering food to pushcarts and other Middle Eastern restaurants around Manhattan and Brooklyn.