The Cutting Edge

by Jeffery Deaver

  “How do you know?” Cooper asked.

  He knew because, though he couldn’t prowl the streets as he used to when he was mobile, Lincoln Rhyme still studied every borough, every neighborhood, every block of his city. “A criminalist is only as good as his or her knowledge of the locale where the crime occurs,” he wrote in his forensics textbook.

  The specific answer to the question was the combination of bee wings, honey, that Rooflite soil, fertilizer and felt. He believed those materials had come from the Brooklyn Grange at the old Navy Yard. It was the largest rooftop farm in the world, two and a half acres devoted to raising organic fruits and vegetables. Rooflite was a soil substance in which vegetables could grow quite well but that weighed far less than regular soil, which would be too heavy for rooftop gardening. The Grange also was a major producer of honey.

  The closest residential area to it was Vinegar Hill, filled with old wooden structures. Perfect targets for Krueger, whose goal had been to rouse the city and state into banning the drilling. The more deadly fires the “earthquakes” caused, the better.

  Don McEllis hunched over the map of the city and with a red marker drew exactly where the fault line ran under Vinegar Hill. It headed northwest then jogged north into the harbor.

  “Here. I’d look about three blocks on either side of that.”

  It would be a much more concise search than the entire fault, but there were still scores of buildings whose basements might contain the gas line devices.

  “Scan the map, Mel, and get a copy to the supervisors—fire and police—in the area. Do it now.”

  “Sure.”

  “Sachs, you and Pulaski get down there.”

  As they hurried out the door, Rhyme said, “Mel, call Fire…and the local precinct. Get as many bodies as they can spare, checking basements. Oh, and call the Detective Bureau, too. Larceny. Have somebody pull recent break-ins where nothing was taken.”

  Cooper nodded and picked up his phone.

  Rhyme called: “And not just Patrol. I want anybody with a badge. Anybody!”

  Chapter 64

  Almost impossible.

  That was Sachs’s impression as she sped her Torino, a deep-red blur, along the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn. She was glancing to her left—at Vinegar Hill. Ron Pulaski was probably feeling the same.

  How could anyone possibly find the devices? Dominated by a single, towering smokestack from Algonquin Power’s electrical substation, the neighborhood was bigger than she’d expected. Six square blocks, the precinct commander had told her. But small blocks they were not.

  She downshifted and tore off the exit ramp, skidding onto Jay Street, drawing a faint gasp from Ron Pulaski, though after all these years he was pretty immune to her Danica Patrick approach to driving. The blue flasher cut silently but urgently through the shadowy street, lined with industrial buildings, houses, apartments and residential lofts. The brick and stucco and stone walls were scuffed and scraped but largely graffiti-free. The trash cans were battered and cracked but the garbage remained inside.

  The muscle car had bad-girl suspension and she felt the road in her back and knee, still sore from the abuse of the past few days. And the streets of Vinegar Hill were not all fully paved. The original Belgian block, sometimes erroneously called cobblestones, had worn through in many stretches. In others the granite rectangles, smoothed by centuries of horse, foot and wheel traffic, had never been asphalted over and were the only roadway.

  Sachs swung the car toward John Street, the agreed-upon staging area. It was across from the substation, the sprawling yard like a science-fiction film set. Gray metal boxes, wires, transformers. She skidded to a stop in front of a red brick industrial building. Probably a factory in a former life, it was now home to a half-dozen advertising agencies, design firms and boutique manufacturers. “Monti’s Gourmet Chocolates” occupied the ground floor, and her nose told her the company made their enticing products on-site. She wondered when she’d last eaten. Couldn’t remember. Then forgot the question altogether.

  In addition to four fire trucks and an FDNY battalion chief’s car, a half-dozen blue-and-whites and an unmarked sat clustered on the substation side of John Street. There were eight uniformed officers, two plainclothes detectives and a captain from the precinct, wearing a suit. He was a tall African American, lean, with skin very dark and a perfectly bald head. Archie Williams. She’d worked with him before. Liked his humor. He’d once put a very shaken assault victim at ease by saying, No, no, it would be easy to remember his name: Archibald. And he pointed to his shiny skull.

  Williams said, “Detective.” He then glanced at Pulaski, who identified himself. A nod.

  Beside the captain was the FDNY battalion chief, in uniform. The pale, stocky man was in his mid-fifties. Vincent Stanello. When he shook hands, Sachs was aware of an extensive scar, from a burn years ago.

  He explained that firefighters were spreading out throughout the neighborhood with gas keys—long rods used to shut off gas mains underground, whose valves were accessed through small square doors on streets and sidewalks and in yards. “We’ve got a half-dozen shutoff teams working. Captain Rhyme said to stick to a swath through the center of Vinegar Hill. His office sent us this.” He held up his phone, which showed Don McEllis’s map.

  “It’s the fault line. We need to search about two blocks on either side.”

  Stanello sighed. “You know, we’ve got miles of pipes here. And you have to remember, we can only shut off utility-supplied natural gas. A lot of customers use propane from private companies. There’s no way to shut that off except at the tank in the home or office.”

  Williams said, “I’ve told our Central Robbery people to drop everything else and start checking the paperwork. And we’ve got a bot running the nine-one-one tapes from Vinegar Hill.” He shrugged. “But unless somebody saw him in the act, I’d bet it wasn’t even called in.”

  Williams asked, “When did he plant the device?”

  Pulaski said, “Sometime in the past week, we think. Ten days. We aren’t sure.”

  “So CCTVs won’t do much good,” Sachs said. Looking around at the hundreds of structures—all old and largely built of wood.

  Sachs said, “Evacuate.”

  “Evacuate what?” Stanello asked.

  “Everything. Every building for two blocks on either side of that fault.”

  “That’d be chaos,” Stanello said uncertainly. “There could be injuries. Elderly residents, children.”

  Williams said, “And the press’ll have a field day if there is no bomb.”

  “And what’ll they say if there is one and we don’t get people out?” Amelia Sachs hated to have to state the obvious.

  The supervisors, Williams and Stanello, regarded each other.

  The battalion chief asked, “You sure there’s a device in Vinegar Hill?”

  Sachs thought: Sure? What exactly is sure?

  She said, “Absolutely.” Then added a truthful component: “And he’s set one every day for the past two days. No reason to think he’ll change his pattern now. And if the prior devices’re any indication, we’re late in the day at this point. I’m thinking it’ll detonate at any time.”

  A moment of silence. Then Williams said, “All right, we’ll do it. Evacuate as many as we can, check the gas lines in the basements, mark them safe and the residents can go back in.”

  Stanello nodded. He lifted his radio to his lips and gave the command to his officer to start evacuating residents.

  “And there’s a school here, right?” Pulaski asked.

  “PS Three Oh Seven. A few blocks away.”

  “Empty it,” the young officer said.

  “It’s not along the center line,” Stanello said, nodding at the map on his phone.

  Sachs was about to intervene but Pulaski said firmly, “It’s a school day. Evacuate it.”

  Stanello paused a moment. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Williams walked to his officers. “Everybody, i
nto cars. Loudspeakers. Just say there’s a possible gas leak, and everybody should leave the buildings immediately. Don’t take any belongings, just leave.”

  “Come on,” Sachs said to Pulaski. “We’ll start knocking on doors too.” She called to Williams and Stanello, “We’ll start south, work our way east then north.”

  They piled into the Torino and sped down to York. Pulaski was looking around, his face troubled. “How many people you think live here? Where his target zone is?”

  She guessed the population of Vinegar Hill was fifty thousand or so. Much less in the area around the fault but she supposed a good number. “This time of day, eight thousand.”

  “How many you realistically think we can evacuate?”

  Sachs’s answer was a grim laugh.

  Chapter 65

  Carmella Romero often said, gravely, that she was a spy.

  The fifty-eight-year-old had shared that comment with her four children and eleven grandchildren. The basis for her claim was that she worked for the government as an agent.

  Though in her case, the employer wasn’t the CIA or James Bond’s Secret Service. It was the New York City Traffic Enforcement.

  The stocky, gray-haired woman, a lifetime resident of Brooklyn, had decided two years ago after her last daughter had flown the nest that she was going to get a job. A fan of TV shows about police, like Blue Bloods, she thought a career in law enforcement might be nice (and Tom Selleck could be her commissioner any day!).

  Being a gun-toting cop wasn’t in her future, given her age (the cutoff at NYPD is thirty-five), but there was no age limit for TEAs. Also, she was regularly furious when Mr. Prill, a neighbor, parked wherever the hell he wanted to—in front of the hydrant, on the sidewalk, in the crosswalk. And he was rude when you called him on it! Imagine. And she decided she’d had it. He and people like him weren’t going to get away with anything anymore. Carmella Romero had a sense of humor, as well, and appreciated that quality in others. She’d loved it when Traffic Enforcement put up signs: Don’t Even Think of Parking Here. How could she not want to go to work for an outfit like that?

  No, she wasn’t in the Blue Bloods world of law enforcement but now she had a chance to do something a little closer to what real cops did. She and all the other TEAs (never “brownies,” don’t ever say that), as well as every city worker in this part of Brooklyn, had been enlisted to evacuate buildings and get into basements in Vinegar Hill to see if there was a little white device that looked like a thermostat attached to the gas line.

  An IED!

  Improvised explosive device. (She knew the phrase thanks to, ta-da, a case that Tom Selleck’s son had run; it didn’t come up much in Traffic Enforcement briefings.)

  Carmella Rosina Romero was Bomb Squad Girl for a day.

  The block she had been given contained three-, four- and five-story walk-ups. Like many in Brooklyn, with easy access to Manhattan, they would be packed with tenants. And the construction was old. Oh, there should have been recent renovations to bring them up to code—maybe, if the landlords were honest—but the buildings still would be tinderboxes, compared with new construction.

  She was walking to the first one on her “beat,” on the corner, when she froze.

  Beneath her there was a trembling.

  Was that it? The fake earthquake she and the other city folks had been briefed about?

  Her radio clattered, “Be advised. All those on evac duty. That was confirmed as a detonation of an IED near Cadman Plaza. Evacuation is now critical. You’ve got about ten minutes until secondary explosion and fire.”

  Romero sped forward on stocky legs, feet pointed outward, to the corner building, intent on hitting the intercom and ordering the evacuation.

  Flaw: No intercoms. Not even a doorbell. You apparently had to let somebody know ahead of time you were coming to call. Or maybe you just shouted your arrival.

  She shouted.

  No response.

  Think, woman. Think, Agent! What the hell? Pulling a loose paver from the street, she smashed the glass of the door and leapt back from the falling shards. She opened the door from inside and burst into the building, calling, “Police. Gas emergency, evacuate the building!” Pounding on doors and repeating the warning.

  A door in the back opened and a Latino man in T-shirt and jeans stepped out, frowning. He was, it turned out, the superintendent. She told him about the danger and, wide-eyed, he nodded, promising he’d tell the tenants.

  Her radio clattered, “TEA Romero, come in. K.”

  With a thumping heart—she’d never been summoned by dispatch before—she called in. “Romero here. K.”

  “You’re on Front Street?”

  “Affirmative. K.”

  “Further to the evac, Central Robbery in Brooklyn reported a break-in a week ago. Eight Oh Four Front. Somebody in hard hat and safety vest was seen using a bolt cutter to get through the basement window. Nothing was missing. That’s the profile of the suspect. We think he might’ve put the device in there.”

  “It’s three doors down from me!” Then she reminded herself of protocol and said, “K.”

  She said this coolly. But was thinking, Dios mío! Crap!

  “We’ve got Bomb Squad on the way, Romero. Try to get out as many as you can. You’ve got about nine minutes left. Keep that in mind.”

  In the distance, sirens began to wail.

  “Roger. K.”

  She sprinted to the building, an old one, four stories high. It wasn’t the biggest on the street but it was the most vulnerable, given its all-wood frame. It would go up like a gasoline-soaked rag. The windows were closed against the March chill but she could see lights inside some of the front-facing ones.

  No intercom again.

  And this building didn’t have a door containing a window; it was solid wood.

  Hell.

  Eight minutes left, she reckoned.

  She looked at the basement windows, protected by metal grates, which were secured by heavy-duty padlocks.

  “Get out!” Romero began shouting. “Gas leak. Get out!”

  Nobody responded. She picked up a stone and flung it at a second-floor window—the first-story windows were, like the basement, protected by gratings. The projectile shattered a pane. If anybody was inside, they didn’t notice or chose not to respond.

  Yes, this was the target. She could smell the gas now.

  “Evacuate!”

  No response.

  Looking around, she noted a line of cars parallel-parked across from the building. She noted a Lexus and other nice vehicles too, in addition to some more modest wheels. If Agent Carmella Romero knew anything, it was cars. She walked up to the Lexus and kneed it hard in the front fender, denting the metal. The alarm began braying.

  She passed by the Taurus and a Subaru. But slugged a Mercedes and an Infiniti. Horns sounding fiercely.

  Windows began opening. On the top floor of the building, Romero noted a woman and two small children looking out.

  “Get out! There’s a gas leak!”

  Her uniform apparently added authority to the command. The woman disappeared fast. Several others appeared in windows too and she repeated the command in English and Spanish.

  Romero looked up and down the street. No Bomb Squad yet. No other police.

  Six minutes now.

  The front door was opening and people were running out. The smell of gas was very strong. She held the door and encouraged them to run, as she shouted loudly into the dim hall, “Gas leak, gas leak! Evacuation. The building’s going to blow!”

  If even just three-quarters of the apartments were occupied, there had to be at least twenty or thirty people remaining inside. Some asleep maybe, some disabled.

  No way to get them all out.

  A deep breath. Carmella Romero, flashing on Commissioner Selleck, ran to the basement door. She descended the rickety stairs on her thick, sure legs. Her nose tightened at the rotten-egg smell of the gas odorant. A wave of nausea hit her.


  The basement was damp and dim, the only light from the grated windows in the front, small ones, above eye level. It was hard to see anything at all, let alone a tiny device on a gas line, which was probably intentionally hidden from sight. But there was no way she was going to click a light on.

  Thinking: We’re looking for bombs in basements; they damn well could’ve issued us flashlights.

  Four or five minutes left, she guessed.

  There seemed to be three rooms down here, large rooms. The one in the front, where she stood, was mostly for storage. A fast examination revealed wires overhead and sewage pipes but nothing that seemed to carry gas. The second room contained the furnace and water heater, dozens of pipes and tubing and wires. The smell of gas was stronger here. Romero was growing light-headed and felt about to faint. She jogged to a window, shattered a pane with her elbow, took a deep breath and returned to the second room, searching among the labyrinth of pipes and tubing for the device.

  She glanced toward the water heater but noted that it was electric. She found the furnace. The unit was hot but wasn’t running at the moment. Of course there’d be a pilot light or some kind of ignition device. Apart from the bomb that man had planted, the heating unit itself might turn on at any moment, igniting the gas. She found and pressed the emergency cutoff switch.

  Dizzy once more, she dropped to her knees. Apparently natural gas was lighter than air and was rising to the ceiling; there was more breathable air down here. She filled her lungs again, fought the urge to gag, and then rose. She located the furnace gas feeder hose and followed it to the incoming pipe. It was about one inch in diameter. In one direction it disappeared into the concrete wall. In the other, it continued into the third room. She hurried there and, after debating, flicked on the flashlight of her phone.

  No explosion.

  She played the beam along the pipe, to where it disappeared behind a dozen boxes and other items stored by tenants: rolled carpets, battered chairs and a desk.

  One minute remaining, she guessed.