The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

As they approached Wall Street, Sachs nodded toward the site of the September 11 attacks. "Did he want to see ground zero?"

"No," the driver said. "I thought he might. I thought possibly he wanted to gloat, after all he had said. I would have asked him out of the car at that point. But he didn't. He'd grown quiet."

"Where did you take him down here?"

"I just dropped them at this place." He'd pulled over on Fulton Street, near Broadway. "Which I thought was odd. Just on this street corner. They got out and he said they would be several hours. If I couldn't wait here they would call me. I gave him my card."

"What did you think was odd about that?"

"In this area of the city we limo drivers can get almost anywhere if there's no construction. But it was as if he didn't want me to see where they were going. I assumed to one of the hotels, the Millenium or one of the others. That's the direction they walked in."

For a tryst with his voluptuous friend? But then why not just stay at the hotel uptown?

"Did he call you?" Sachs was hoping to get Moreno's phone number, which might still be in the driver's log.

But the man said, "No. I just waited here. And they returned."

She climbed out of the Lincoln, then walked in the direction that the driver had indicated. She canvassed the three hotels within walking distance but none had a record of a guest under Moreno's name on May 1. If they had checked in, Lydia might have used her name though that lead wasn't going anywhere without more information about her. Sachs also displayed a picture of Moreno but no one recognized him.

Had the activist paid her to have sex with somebody else? she wondered. Had they met with someone in one of the hotels or an office here? As a bribe or to blackmail him? Sachs walked back outside into the congested street from the last hotel, looking around her at the hundreds of buildings--offices, stores, apartments. A team of NYPD canvassers could have spent a month inquiring about Robert Moreno and his companion and still not scratched the surface.

She wondered too if Lydia might have received her cash for another reason. Was she part of a cell, a terrorist organization that Moreno was working with? Did they meet with a group that wanted to send another violent message in this financial hub of the city?

This conjecture too, while reasonable to Sachs, was surely something that Nance Laurel would not want to hear.

You mean, you can't keep an open mind...

Sachs turned around and walked back to the limo. Dropping into the front seat again, she stretched, winced at a burst of arthritic pain and dug one nail into another. Stop it, she told herself. Dug a bit harder and wiped the blood on her black jeans.

"And after this?"

Farada told her, "I drove them back to the hotel. The woman got out with him but they went different ways. He went inside and she walked east."

"Did they hug?"

"Not really. They brushed cheeks. That was all. He tipped me and he tipped well, even though it's included."

"All right, let's head back to Queens."

He put the car in gear and made his way east through the dense rush-hour traffic. The time was around 7 p.m. As they plodded along she asked Farada, "Did you get any sense that he was being followed or watched? Did he feel uneasy? Did he act suspicious or paranoid?"

"Hm. Ah. I can say he was cautious. He looked around frequently. But there were never any specific concerns. Not like he said, 'That red car is following me.' He seemed like somebody who tried to be aware of his surroundings. I see that much. Businesspeople are that way. I think they must be nowadays."

Sachs was frustrated. She'd learned nothing conclusive about the man's sojourn in New York. Even more questions than answers now floated. And yet she couldn't shake the sense of urgency, thinking of the STO naming Rashid as the next target.

We do know that NIOS's going to kill him before Friday. And who'll be the collateral damage then? His wife and children? Some passerby?...

They were on the Williamsburg Bridge when her phone rang.

"Fred, hi."

"Hey, Amelia. Listen, gotta coupla things. Had our people look through SIGINT down in Venezuela. Snagged one of Moreno's voice from 'bout a month ago. Might be relevant. He was saying, 'Yes, May twenty-fourth, that's right...disappearing into thin air. After that, it'll be heaven.'"

The 24th was less than two weeks away. Did he mean he was planning some attack and he'd have to vanish, like Bin Laden?

"Any ideas about that?" Sachs asked.

"No, but we're still checkin'."