The Cutting Edge

by Jeffery Deaver

  Cooper and Sachs both dressed in gowns and face masks and began to look over the evidence that had been collected at Blaustein’s jewelry store and Rostov’s motel in Brighton Beach.

  Rhyme had some information too. After Sachs had sent him the unsub’s identity, he had contacted Daryl Mulbry at AIS once more, requesting details on the killer. The man had sent a report summarizing what he could find on short notice. Vladimir Ivanovich Rostov. The forty-four-year-old’s history was Russian military and then FSB—one of the successors to the KGB—and then for the past ten years a “consultant,” whose clients included some of the big Russian quasigovernmental organizations, like Gazprom, the oil and gas company, Nizhny Novgorod Shipping, which made oil rigs and tankers and—significantly—Dobprom, the biggest diamond-mining company in Russia.

  Mulbry had learned that Rostov had worked in the Mir mine, in Siberia, from ages twelve through twenty. “Fellow’s a bit off, from what we could learn. Rumors that he killed his uncle, who was in a mine shaft with him. Head crushed with a rock, but there wasn’t any rockslide. The police tended to look the other way when it came to the biggest employer in the region. His aunt died too, not long after that. Apparently one night, she got trapped on the roof of the building, locked out of the access door. No one could figure what she was doing there. She was wearing a flimsy nightgown and no shoes. It was December. The temperature was minus twenty. The authorities looked the other way on that one too. There were complaints that she’d been ne podkhodit, not appropriate, with some youngsters in the building.”

  Quite a background, Rhyme reflected.

  Mines. Well, that explained the obsession with diamonds…and Rostov’s interest in the fake earthquakes at the geothermal site.

  The spy had added that Rostov was non grata in Germany, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Taiwan, suspected of assault, extortion and illegal business practices, as well as a number of financial crimes. Witnesses would not come forward with statements, so he’d never been brought to trial; he was simply told to leave and not come back. In Kraków, Polish authorities detained him after a report that he sexually assaulted a woman and beat her boyfriend. He was quietly released after some intervention by Moscow.

  At the jewelry store, she’d found the man’s real Russian passport—in the name of Rostov—plus a forged passport in the name of Alexander Petrovitch, the .38 Smith & Wesson, loose .38 and 9mm Finocchi rounds—the latter for the Glock—ski mask, cloth gloves, the bloodstained utility box-cutting knife, cigarettes and lighter, cash (dollars, rubles and euros). No keys to the Toyota, though there was no guarantee that the red car outside Adeela’s house had been Rostov’s. He didn’t have a mobile on him, either.

  He had no room keys on him but a fast canvass of motels and hotels in the area revealed that one Alexander Petrovitch was staying at the Beach View Residence Inn in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which Sachs had searched carefully. But she didn’t find much. More .38 ammunition, junk food, bottles of Jack Daniels, the actual passports of the other identities that Mulbry had learned of. No computers or telephones, car keys or trace of or references to lehabahs, the gas line IEDs, or to where they might have been planted.

  And no rough diamonds worth five million dollars.

  Where were the stones? And Rostov’s electronics? She supposed he kept everything, hotel key included, in the Toyota, in case he needed to make a fast getaway. The car key was likely hidden in the wheel well. After Breaking Bad, the TV series, a surprising number of perps had been doing this.

  The lack of leads, she’d explained to Rhyme, had inspired her to conscript the geologist—a bit of a desperate move, she admitted. Though a reasonable one, in Rhyme’s opinion.

  Sachs transcribed the sparse evidentiary finds on a whiteboard and stepped back, hands on hips, worrying a thumbnail with an index finger. Staring, staring, staring.

  Rhyme was doing the same. “Anything more?” he called to Cooper.

  “Just checking the last of the trace from the hotel room. Should be a minute.”

  But what would that show? Possibly some substance from a shoe print unique to where he’d planted a bomb. But what a long shot that would be.

  He grimaced in frustration. A glance toward McEllis. “Anything, Don?”

  The engineer was hunched forward, studying both the online geological maps and the hard-copy one that depicted the previous fires. He said, “I think so. He seems to have set the bombs along the Canarsie fault. See? It goes through downtown Brooklyn, near Cadman Plaza, then into the harbor. It’s two miles long, but most of that’s underwater. About a half mile is on land.” McEllis indicated a line through the densely populated borough.

  Hell, Rhyme thought, too many basements to search. “We’ve got to narrow it down more.”

  Mel Cooper called, “Got the last of the trace. Nothing pins Rostov to a particular place. Tobacco ash, ketchup, beef fat, soil associated with Brighton Beach geography. More kimberlite.”

  Without looking up from the map, McEllis asked, “Kimberlite?”

  Rhyme said, “That’s right. Our unsub picked some trace up at the first shooting. It’s on his clothes and shoes. He’s left it at a couple of the scenes.”

  “Then you mean serpentinite. Not kimberlite. They’re in the same family.”

  “No, it’s kimberlite. There’re diamond crystals embedded,” Cooper said, looking up. “I thought that made serpentinite into kimberlite.”

  “It does,” McEllis whispered. “But…well, can I see a sample?”

  Cooper looked toward Rhyme, who nodded.

  The tech prepared a sample and set it on the stage of the compound microscope.

  McEllis sat on the stool, bent forward and began adjusting the light above the stage. He focused. Sat back, looked away. Then back to the eyepiece. He used a needle probe to poke through the dust and fragments. His eyes remained against the soft rubber eyepieces but his shoulders rose, as did his heels, slightly. His body language suggested he was looking at something significant. He sat back and gave a soft laugh.

  “What is it?” Sellitto asked.

  “Well, if you found these rocks in New York City, then you’ve just rewritten geological history.”

  Chapter 58

  Kimberlite,” Don McEllis was telling those in the parlor. “You could call it the elevator that carries diamonds to the surface of the earth from the mantle—the part that’s just below the crust. Where diamonds are formed.”

  The inspector returned to the microscope, as if he couldn’t resist, and studied the minerals on the instrument’s stage again. He continued sifting through the samples. “Hm. Well.” McEllis sat back once more and turned the stool to face the others. “Diamond-rich kimberlite—like this—has never been seen anywhere in New York State. The geology of the area doesn’t lend itself to diamond formation. New York is a ‘passive margin’ area. We have stable tectonic plates.”

  “Impossible for kimberlite with diamonds to be found here?” Rhyme asked.

  The man shrugged. “Better to say very unlikely. There’re about six thousand kimberlite pipes in the world but only about nine hundred contain diamonds…and only a couple of dozen have enough rough to make mining profitable. And none in the U.S. Oh, there was a bit of production years ago—in the South. Now they’re all tourist mines. You pay twenty bucks, or whatever, and pan for diamonds with the kids. But then again in Canada miners didn’t find kimberlite or diamonds until recently and now it’s a major producer. So, I suppose it could happen here.”

  The inspector peered briefly into the microscope once more. “Where did you find this again?”

  Rhyme responded, “Several places. At the shop where Patel, the diamond cutter, was killed. Vimal—his apprentice—had a bag with him. We didn’t think anything of it. We thought he was going to make it into jewelry. Or sculpt it. That’s his hobby.”

  “You couldn’t carve kimberlite like this. The diamonds would make that impossible. Too hard.”

  Rhyme scowled. “Assumpt
ion.”

  “And the other sources?” McEllis asked.

  Sachs said, “There was some trace at Saul Weintraub’s house—a witness who was murdered. It came from either the killer’s shoes or clothing.” She shrugged. “That’s what we thought. I suppose it might have come from Weintraub himself.”

  Assumption…

  Rhyme asked, “Say there were some larger pieces of this stuff. Would they be worth a lot? Worth killing for?”

  “The odds of finding any worthwhile diamonds in small samples of kimberlite are like winning the lottery.” Then he was frowning. “But…”

  “What?” Sachs asked.

  “Nobody would kill for a rock like this. But they might for what it represented.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If this sample came from a large lode? Well, I could see people killing either to get the mining rights or to destroy the source, make sure no one found out about it.”

  “Destroy?” Sachs asked.

  McEllis said, “Historically there’re two industries where companies will do whatever it takes to sabotage potential finds, to keep prices high. Oil and diamonds. And when I say whatever, I mean that. Murder, sabotage, threats. It doesn’t happen with industrial-grade diamonds—the cheap ones for grinding, filing, machinery. But for gem-quality, like these.” Another nod toward the microscope. “Oh, yes. Definitely.”

  Sellitto said, “Linc, you’re thinking some diamond company heard about a lode and sent the unsub here to kill anybody who knew about it.”

  Rhyme nodded. “Northeast Geo—they dug up the stuff, so Rostov staged the quakes to have the city shut down the drilling.”

  McEllis said, “It’s not as outlandish as you’d think. There’re even quote ‘security’ companies that you can hire to make sure potential mines never open or existing ones’re closed. Dams get blown up, government officials are bribed to nationalize mines and then destroy them. Russians are particularly active.”

  “And Rostov,” Rhyme said, “had worked for Dobprom in the past, the Russian diamond monopoly.”

  “Oh, they’re definitely players in sabotage. A lot of other producers too but the Russians are number one in the dirty-tricks department.”

  Sachs said, “Weintraub. He was an assayer. Maybe he wasn’t killed because he was a witness. Maybe he was killed because he’d analyzed the kimberlite and found out about the diamonds.”

  Sellitto muttered, “We weren’t thinking. At Patel’s: Weintraub left before the unsub got there. How much help would he’ve been as a wit? Not much. Our unsub wanted him dead because he knew about the kimberlite.”

  Sachs said, “The crimes at Patel’s weren’t about stealing the rough. They were about killing him and anyone who knew about the find. That’s why he tortured Patel—and pistol-whipped Weintraub. He wanted to know if they had any more kimberlite or if anyone else knew about it.”

  Rhyme eased the back of his skull against the headrest of his chair, eyes now closed. Then they opened. “Somebody finds a sample at the drilling site. Takes it to Jatin Patel, who has it analyzed by Weintraub. Word gets back to Dobprom. They send Rostov to stop the drilling and kill anyone who’s learned about it.”

  McEllis said, “Dobprom wouldn’t want a major U.S. diamond operation to get started. Hell, no foreign mine would. It would cut their revenues in half.”

  Mel Cooper asked, “But is there really a risk to the companies? I mean, how realistic is it to mine diamonds in Brooklyn?”

  McEllis replied, “Oh, it wouldn’t be hard at all. A lot easier, actually, than digging subway and water supply tunnels, which the city does all the time. Some legal hurdles but they’re not insurmountable. My department would need to approve the plans and there’d be other licensing red tape. We won’t allow open-cut mining, for instance. But you could easily set up a narrow-shaft automated system. From an engineering standpoint, piece of cake.”

  But, Rhyme thought, if the goal was to stop the drilling, that means—

  Giving voice to what he had been about to say, Sellitto offered, “So Ezekiel Shapiro, he wasn’t a suicide. Rostov murdered him and made it look that way. Kidnapped him, tortured him to get his Facebook passcode, left the suicide note.”

  Rhyme was grim as he said, “He needed a fall guy because we’d found that the earthquakes were fake and the fires were from the gas line devices.”

  Then it struck him. Like an electric jolt.

  “Rubles,” he whispered.

  “Hell.” Sachs apparently was with him. “Rostov wouldn’t plant rubles at Shapiro’s. They were evidence that pointed to him. It was somebody else who broke into Shapiro’s apartment, who killed him—somebody who wanted to make it seem like Rostov was behind the plot. Sure, the Russian was involved: He attacked the couple in Gravesend and that girl from the wedding dress store. And Kirtan—Vimal’s friend. Attacked me, too. But he wasn’t the mastermind.”

  And the conclusion was inevitable.

  In a quiet voice, eyes on Rhyme, she said, “And that was the person who shot him.”

  Rhyme knew this was right. “Edward Ackroyd.”

  “But,” Sellitto said, “we vetted him. And he knew all about Patel. About the diamond rough that had been stolen.”

  “What diamond rough?” Rhyme asked cynically. “Did we ever find it? Did we ever see any trace of it?”

  Of course not.

  “Because it never existed,” Sachs said,

  Rhyme nodded. “He faked the diamond envelope at Patel’s. It never occurred to me! Why leave it? He could have just taken the stones in the envelope. He did that to work his way into the investigation…to find out who VL was. And we let him into the chicken coop. Goddamn.”

  “How’d that work, Linc?” Sellitto asked. “Amelia called Grace-Cabot Mining in South Africa.”

  Sachs exhaled. Her face was taut and her words angry. “No, I didn’t. I called the number on the envelope for the rough. I didn’t look the company up online. Is it even a real company?”

  “Well…” Rhyme cut an impatient glance to Pulaski. He nodded and found the Grace-Cabot receipt, then went to Google.

  He was nodding. “It is a real diamond mine. But the office number isn’t the one on the receipt.” He tried that one. “It just says leave a message.”

  “Llewellyn Croft?” Rhyme asked.

  Pulaski scrolled through the site. “He is the managing director of Grace-Cabot.”

  “If you found him, then Ackroyd—I mean our real unsub—could’ve found him too.”

  Sachs continued, in a soft, disgusted tone, “The man we talked to, pretending to be Croft, was an associate of Ackroyd’s. Probably in one of those security companies Don was telling us about. He sent us to Milbank Assurance. Same thing, a real company but he faked his connection to it.”

  Rhyme snapped, “Now. I want to find out now.”

  The ensuing series of phone calls to Grace-Cabot and Milbank Assurance confirmed that the scam was just as they believed. Llewellyn Croft was managing director of the former but he assured them now that he’d never sent any rough to Patel for cutting. He himself hadn’t been in the United States for several years. Nor was Milbank their insurance carrier.

  At Rhyme’s request, the FBI special agent Fred Dellray contacted someone in the State Department. They confirmed, from Customs and Border Protection, that Croft had not been in the country recently. Calls to Milbank bore out the fact that the insurance company had no connection to Grace-Cabot. Yes, the company had a senior investigator by the name of Edward Ackroyd and, yes, he was a former Scotland Yard inspector. But he had also been in London for the past week, at the company’s home office.

  His face a sardonic mask, Lon Sellitto said, “Okay, for the slow guy: I’m lost. The fuck’s going on, Linc?”

  “Some diamond-mining company learns about the kimberlite find and is worried a competitor’s going to start production. Ackroyd’s hired to set up the earthquakes and stop the geothermal drilling. And to find out who knows about the
kimberlite and kill them too: Patel and Weintraub and Vimal. He murders the first two but the boy gets away. So Ackroyd claims that his client’s rough was stolen, to work his way into our investigation so he can find out where Vimal is.”

  Sellitto asked, “How does Rostov fit in? Were they working together, for the Russians?”

  Rhyme said sourly, “You don’t usually shoot your partner in the head.”

  Sachs said, “No. Two different companies both heard about the kimberlite. One sent Ackroyd here and Dobprom sent Rostov. Ackroyd set up Rostov to take the fall, if everything went south.”

  Rhyme muttered, “I should have seen it! Black polyester fibers at the Patel and Weintraub scenes. Only black cotton at the other. That meant maybe two different types of ski masks. Two different weapons. Glock and Smittie. Look.” He pointed to the recent evidence chart. “Rostov had some nine-millimeter rounds on him at Blaustein’s store but Ackroyd could have slipped those into his pocket.”

  “Rhyme!” Sachs sounded alarmed.

  He suddenly understood. “Hell. There’s another reason to kill Rostov.”

  “Why?” Sellitto asked.

  Sachs said, “To make it look like Unsub Forty-Seven’s dead—and Vimal is safe. So we’d release him from protective custody.”

  “Is he out?” the lieutenant asked.

  Sachs grimaced. “Hell, yes. I called the security detail on Staten Island and they were driving him to the ferry. And Vimal doesn’t have a phone anymore. There’s no way to get in touch with him. I’ll call his family.” She swept out her mobile.

  Rhyme said to Sellitto, “And call the precinct in Brooklyn where they took Ackroyd. Tell them to detain him.”

  “I’m on it.” The detective placed the call. He had a brief conversation, then, with a grimace, disconnected. “Ackroyd, or whoever he is, he’s been released without charges. His phone’s dead. And the address he gave the shield’s fake. Nobody knows where he is.”