--Algonquin security breach in Philadelphia might be related.
--SIGINT hits: code word reference to weapons, "paper and supplies" (guns, explosives?).
--Personnel include man and woman.
--Galt's involvement unknown.
--Cancer patient; presence of vinblastine and prednisone in significant quantities, traces of etoposide. Leukemia.
Chapter 43
LINCOLN RHYME'S MAIN phone trilled.
The caller ID registered a number he'd been hoping to see, though not at this particular moment. Still he immediately clicked ANSWER.
"Kathryn, what do you have?"
No time for pleasantries at the moment. But Dance would understand. She was the same way when it came to a case.
"The DEA guys in Mexico City got the worker to talk--the man who gave the package to Logan just after he slipped into the country. He did take a look at what was inside, like we thought. I'm not sure it's helpful but here it is: a dark blue booklet with lettering on it. He didn't remember the words. Two letter C's, he thought. A logo of a company maybe. Then a sheet of paper that had a capital letter I followed by five or six lines. Like blanks to be filled in."
"He have any idea what they were?"
"No . . . Then a slip of paper containing some numbers. All he remembers is five hundred seventy and three hundred seventy-nine."
"The Da Vinci Code," Rhyme said, discouraged.
"Exactly. I like puzzles but not on the job."
"True."
I
Fill in the blanks.
And: Five hundred seventy and three hundred seventy-nine . . .
Dance added, "Then he found something else. A circuit board. A small one."
"For a computer?"
"He didn't know. He was disappointed. He said he would have stolen it if it'd been something he could sell more easily."
"And he'd be dead now if he had."
"I think he's relieved to be in jail. For that very reason . . . I've had a talk with Rodolfo. He'd like you to call."
"Of course."
Rhyme thanked Dance and disconnected. He then called the Commander Rodolfo Luna in Mexico City.
"Ah, Captain RET
Rhyme, yes. I just spoke to Agent Dance. The mystery . . . the numbers."
"An address?"
"Perhaps it is. But . . ." His fading voice meant, of course, that in a city of 8 million people, one would need more than a few numbers to find a specific location.