The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

Too complicated to explain about bombs.

The device had blown just as she'd shoved the last customer out the door, a contrary young student whining that he hadn't gotten his refill yet.

Sachs had still been inside when she'd felt the detonation in her chest and ears and, through the floor, her feet. Two plate-glass windows had shattered and much of the interior flew into pieces. Instantly the place had been enveloped by that vile, greasy smoke. She'd leapt through the door but stayed upright, sure that if she'd dived to the concrete--a la that cliched scene in thriller movies--her knee would never forgive her.

Now the Bomb Squad officers made their way through the front door. "It's clear," she heard, though it sounded like the lieutenant was speaking through cotton. The bomb had really been quite loud. Plastic explosives detonate at around twenty-five thousand feet per second.

"What was it?" she said and when he smiled she knew she'd been shouting.

"Can't tell for sure until we send off details to the bureau and ATF. But my guess? Military--we found some camouflaged shrapnel. It's primarily anti-personnel. But it works real good for blowing up anything nearby."

"Like computers."

"What?" the officer asked.

Thanks to her haywire hearing, she'd spoken too softly this time. "And computers."

"Works real good against computers," the Bomb Squad officer said. "Hard drive's in a million pieces and most of them're melted. Humpty Dumpty's fucked."

She thanked him. A crime scene team from Queens arrived in the RRV, a van filled with evidence collection equipment. She knew the two officers, an Asian American woman and a round young man from Georgia. He waved a greeting. They'd back her up but she'd walk the grid alone, per Lincoln Rhyme's rule.

Sachs surveyed the smoky remains of Java Hut, hands on her hips.

Brother...

Not only is there nothing so distinctive as the smell of an IED but nothing contaminates a scene like one.

She donned the Tyvek coveralls--the deluxe version from Evident, which protect the wearer from dangerous materials as much as they protect the crime scene itself from the searchers. And because of the fumes she wore sealed goggles and a filtering mask.

Her first thought was: How is Lincoln going to hear me through the mask?

But then she remembered that she wasn't going to be online with him, as she usually was, via radio or video hookup. She was alone.

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That same chill, hollow sense from earlier wafted through her.

Forget it, she told herself angrily. Get to work.

And with evidence collection bags and equipment in one hand, she began to walk the grid.

Moving through the shambles of the place, Sachs concentrated on collecting what she could of the bomb itself, which, as the officer had warned, wasn't very much. She was particularly dismayed that the suspect hadn't used simply a demolition charge but one meant to kill.

Sachs concentrated on the entrance/exit route, the back doorway, where Bruns would have paused before he broke in and where the blast damage was minimal. She took dozens of samplars: trace from the alleyway and doorjamb, enough to draw a profile of substances common to this area of the city. Anything that was unique might represent evidence the perp had left and lead to his home or office.

How helpful this would be, she wasn't sure. Here, as in any New York City alleyway, there were so many instances of trace evidence that it would be hard to isolate the relevant ones. Too much evidence is often as much of a problem as too little.

After she finished walking the grid she stripped off the overalls quickly--not because she was worried about contamination but because she was by nature claustrophobic and the confining plastic made her edgy.

Breathing deeply, closing her eyes momentarily, she let the feeling settle, then fade.

The whistleblower...How the hell to find him now that the security video was gone?

It seemed hopeless. Anybody who used a complicated email proxy system to hide his tracks would have been smart about the mechanics of finding a place to upload the documents. He wouldn't be a regular here and wouldn't have used a credit card. But an idea occurred: what about other customers? She could track down at least some of those who'd been here around 1 p.m. on May 11. They might have noticed the whistleblower's unusual computer, the iBook. Or maybe tourists had taken some cell phone shots of each other and possibly captured an image of the whistleblower accidentally.

She walked up to Jerry, the now very shaken manager of the late store, and asked him about credit card records. When he tore himself away from his mournful gaze at his shop he called Java Hut central operations. In ten minutes she had the names of a dozen customers who were here at the time in question. She thanked him and had the file uploaded to Lon Sellitto. Then she followed up with a call to the detective.

She asked if he could get some of Bill Myers's Special Services officers to contact them and see if anyone had taken pictures in Java Hut on the day in question or remembered anybody with an odd-looking, older computer.