Poitier added, "Apparently you must be fast here securing evidence when you run a scene. I'm learning that. The lawyer I was mentioning?"
"The prominent lawyer."
"Yes," Poitier said. "After he was killed and before our detectives got there, half the office was looted."
Rhyme said, "You have the bullet, though."
"Yes. In our evidence locker. But that meeting with Assistant Commissioner McPherson after you left headquarters? It was to order me to deliver to him all the evidence in the Moreno case. He has taken custody and sealed the locker. No one else can have access. Oh, he also ordered me to have no contact whatsoever with you."
Rhyme sighed. "They really don't want this case to go forward, do they?"
With a bitterness Rhyme had not heard before, he said, "Ah, but the case has gone forward. Indeed, it is concluded. The cartels have murdered the victim out of retribution for one thing or another. Who can tell, with those inscrutable cartels?" The man grimaced. Then his voice lowered. "Now, Captain Rhyme, I couldn't get you your physical evidence, as I'd hoped. But I can play tour guide."
"Tour guide?"
"Indeed. We have a wonderful tourist attraction on the southwest coast of New Providence Island. A spit of land a half mile long, ravaged by hurricanes, composed mostly of rock and beaches with tainted sand. The highlights are a trash tip, a metal fabrication plant cited frequently for polluting and a company that shreds tires for recycling."
"Sounds charming," Thom said.
"It's quite popular. At least it was for one American tourist. He visited it on the ninth of May. At around eleven fifteen in the morning. One of the more attractive sights he enjoyed was of the South Cove Inn. An unobstructed view, exactly two thousand one hundred and ten yards away. I thought that you, as a tourist to our country, might enjoy the sights as well. Am I right?"
"You are indeed, Corporal."
"Then we should go. I will not have a career as a tour guide for much longer."
CHAPTER 38
AS SHE SPED DOWNTOWN, Amelia Sachs disconnected the call from Rodney Szarnek, with the Computer Crimes Unit. She'd used a prepaid mobile--paid for out of her own pocket, with cash, of course--and was confident that the conversation hadn't been intercepted by the man they were now in the process of tracking down.
Szarnek had told her that the NIOS sniper was presently having a conversation near the Wall Street area of the city while on foot.
The cybercrimes cop had given Sachs the general location of the man and she was speeding there now. When she arrived she'd call back and Rodney'd try to pinpoint the exact coordinates.
She slammed the clutch of her Torino Cobra to the floor and downshifted hard, rev-matched and then sped up, leaving a twin-stripe signature in rubber on the concrete.
She wove through traffic until a jam loomed. "Co
me on, come on." She detoured onto a crosstown street east, skidding into what would have been a U-turn, except to avoid a sudden jaywalker she had to make it a Q. She tried again and was soon bolting through side streets, making her way east and south, toward downtown.
"Hell," Sachs muttered, faced with another jam, and decided to conscript the closest cross street, which was more or less clear, though it happened to be one-way, against her. The maneuver threw drivers into panic and raised a symphony of off-pitch horns. Some single fingers too. Then she zipped past a yellow cab just before the driver sought the sidewalk and she was on Broadway, heading south. She paused for most of the red lights.
There's a lot of controversy about cell phone companies' giving law officers details about phone use and location. Generally in an emergency, the providers will cooperate without a warrant. Otherwise, most will require a court order. Rodney Szarnek didn't want to take any chances and so after learning the sniper's number from Pulaski in the Bahamas he'd contacted a magistrate and gotten paper issued--both for a five-second listenin, to snag the voiceprint, and to track the location.
Szarnek had learned that the phone was in use around the corner of Broadway and Warren Street, using basic triangulation for that information, which gave rough estimates. He was presently working on interpolating signal data from the nearby network antennas. Searching in urban areas was much easier because many more towers were erected there than in rural areas. The downside, of course, was that there were many more users in any given area of a city, so it was harder to isolate your particular suspect than, say, in farmland.
Szarnek was hoping to nail down GPS data, which was the gold standard of tracking and would give the location of the sniper to within a few feet.
Finally Sachs arrived in the general vicinity, took a turn at forty, missing both a bus and a hot dog stand by inches, and skidded to a stop on a side street off Broadway. The aroma of baking tires rose, a smell nostalgic and comforting.
She looked around at the hundreds of passersby, about 10 percent of them on their phones. Was the shooter one of the people she was peering at right now? The lean young man with the crew cut, wearing khaki slacks and a work shirt? He looked military. Or the sullen, dark-complected man who was in a badly fitting suit and looking around suspiciously from behind darkly tinted sunglasses? He looked like a hit man but might have been an accountant.
How long would Bruns stay on the line? she wondered. If he disconnected they could still follow him, unless he pulled the battery out. But it was easier to spot someone actually using a phone.
She reminded herself too: This could be a trap. She recalled all too clearly the explosion at Java Hut. The sniper knew about the investigation. He clearly knew about her; Sachs's phone was the one he'd tapped to learn about the coffee shop. A trickle of electric fear down her spine once more.
Her own mobile trilled.
"Sachs."