The escape plan had been long in the making—from the moment El Halcón had been taken into custody after the shoot-out at the warehouse on Long Island.
Carreras-López had known that a legal defense wouldn’t work—El Halcón had in fact grabbed the pistol of the warehouse manager, Chris Cody’s, and shot Barry Sales, the cop on the tactical team. Escape was the only option. He’d called a troubleshooter whom the cartels in Mexico sometimes used, a man in Geneva, Switzerland, named François Letemps. Carreras-López had paid a million-dollar deposit against a three-million-dollar fee for Letemps to break the man out of custody.
Letemps had suggested staging the escape in some locale other than New York, which he viewed as problematic. But, no, that wouldn’t work. There could be no change of venue; the Eastern District of New York had sole jurisdiction. And once he was convicted, as surely he would be, he would be in high-security lockdown until he was transferred by a government plane to the infamous Colorado super prison, from which escape was not possible.
No, New York was the only option. And since the federal courthouse in Brooklyn was the most vulnerable spot in the system, Letemps set to work on a plan to orchestrate a mass evacuation of the courthouse when El Halcón was present. In the chaos, it should be possible to take control of his armored transport van and escape.
But simply calling in a bomb threat, for instance, would have been far too suspicious and brought even more law enforcement down on El Halcón, Letemps reasoned.
He therefore decided to create a potentially deadly gas leak in the courthouse for reasons that appeared to have nothing to do with any escape attempt. Specifically, Letemps’s plan provided, a mercenary—hired to sabotage geothermal drilling nearby—would set gas bombs in the neighborhood.
Letemps had arranged for a shipment of diamond-rich kimberlite to be delivered to New York from Botswana. Carreras-López had some of his men, who’d accompanied him from Mexico, strew these rocks around the geothermal site and the waste dump where debris from the site was taken. One of the men also took some kimberlite to a famous diamond cutter—Jatin Patel—who had it analyzed and found that it was indeed diamond-rich stone. Whatever Patel thought of the stone was irrelevant. The plot merely depended on getting the kimberlite to him.
Letemps himself pretended to be the contractor representing New World Mining in Guatemala, which was not involved in any way. He hired Andrew Krueger to plant the bombs and kill Patel and the assayer Weintraub. Then that mad Russian had showed up, worried about the diamond find too, but in the end none of that mattered. The important thing was that the police were convinced there was a series of gas line devices planted throughout Brooklyn, near the courthouse.
Any other gas leaks would immediately be attributed to Krueger and his attempts to sabotage the drilling.
Poor Andrew Krueger—he was merely an oblivious pawn; he believed that he’d been hired by the Guatemalan mining company and had no idea that he’d been set up. And set up to fail: A key part of the plan was making sure the police figured out the diamond lode sabotage plot.
Lincoln Rhyme had, unwittingly, accommodated in this regard.
With a frown of concentration, Carreras-López jotted more notes on the pad before him. He shook his head, crossed off one entry. Added another. This was an important document: a grocery list for a dinner party he was planning to cook in Mexico City tomorrow night. His wife did not enjoy the kitchen; he did.
Chicken, poblano peppers, crème fraîche, cilantro, white Burgundy wine (Chablis?).
Now, as El Halcón pretended to read some court documents and fantasized about añejo tequila, the building shook with a faint tremor.
This was the result of a C4 charge planted not by Krueger but by one of Carreras-López’s men at the geothermal site. This IED was not on a timer but had been detonated by radio signal, as the explosion had to coincide with El Halcón’s presence in the courthouse.
The guards in the hallway outside looked briefly at each other, then returned to staring at nothing.
Carreras-López’s mobile gave a brief tone. He looked at the text.
Your aunt has been discharged from hospital.
This meant that the lawyer’s men were beginning to release the natural gas odorant—not the gas itself—into the courthouse HVAC system from outside the building.
Carreras-López switched his screen to the local news. A breaking story reported yet another explosion, meant to mimic an earthquake. Residents in Brooklyn were urged to be on the lookout for gas leaks and to evacuate immediately if they were aware of any. Another text:
Her ride has arrived.
The helicopter had landed and was standing by at a construction site in Brooklyn, near the water—the craft that would spirit Carreras-López and El Halcón to an airstrip on Staten Island, where private jets would speed them to, respectively, Caracas and Mexico City.
Carreras-López prepared himself for what was coming next: the emergency evacuation of the courthouse. The guard detail would have Carreras-López leave and would usher El Halcón to his armored van in the loading dock on the ground floor for transport back to the detention center.
But El Halcón’s evacuation wouldn’t go quite as the federal marshals planned. The armored transport van would not be driven by the guards assigned to the vehicle. Carreras-López’s men, dressed in guard uniforms, would have shot them with silenced weapons and taken over the van. It would drive up to the exit to await El Halcón and his two guards. Once they were in the van and the door closed, those guards would die too and the van would speed to the helicopter.
By tomorrow El Halcón would be enjoying life in his compound outside of Caracas. And Carreras-López—to whom no links to the plot could be proven—would be at home whipping up a Latin coq au vin, his own recipe.
And marveling at the plan.
Gracias, Monsieur François Letemps.
Or, merci.
Accompanying this thought was the first whiff of natural gas.
His eyes rose and met those of his client. El Halcón’s brow furrowed only slightly. Carreras-López ripped the grocery list from his yellow pad and carefully folded and slipped it into his pocket.
Only sixty seconds later the door burst open and the guards streamed inside.
“The building’s being evacuated.” To Carreras-López, one said, “Out the main exit. Front.” Then turning to El Halcón. “You’re coming with us. Not a word. Keep your head down and walk where we tell you.”
Out of courtesy, or adherence to the rules, they repeated the statement in Spanish. El Halcón rose to his feet and a guard bent to undo the shackles from the floor rings.
With concern on his face, Carreras-López asked, “But what’s going on?”
“Gas leak. That asshole set the gas bombs? In the news? He planted one here or nearby. Move. Now!”
“Dios mío!” Carreras-López muttered and, blessing himself, walked to the doorway.
Chapter 69
He had asked for chaos and chaos had been delivered.
Antonio Carreras-López was across the street from the prisoner entrance loading dock of the federal courthouse. He was on the second floor of a coffee shop, where he had planned to observe the operation.
The streets were jammed with rescue workers—actually rescue preparers since no explosions or conflagrations had yet occurred. Fire trucks, police, ambulances. The press too, of course. And plenty of gawkers, arms lifted like saluting Fascists as they held high cell phones to record the anticipated carnage. Loudspeakers urged pedestrians and onlookers to back up behind the barricades. “Immediately! There is a major fire and explosion risk! Move back!” The voices were stern. Nobody paid any attention to the warnings.
Behind this coffee shop Carreras-López’s limo awaited. He had confidence in Letemps’s scheme but, ever a practical man, the attorney was hedging bets. If the plan stumbled now, which was a possibility, of course, and the guards shot and killed his men and kept the Mexican drug lord in custody, the lawy
er would hightail it from the country.
He had a family and a fortune and a cooking engagement awaiting at home. And he had a jet of his own all paid for.
Now he stiffened. He observed the armored transport van assigned to El Halcón pull forward. He had received another text.
Your aunt is on the way home.
Meaning that the prison guards in the van were dead and Carreras-López’s men had taken over as driver and accompanying guard.
Now for the most critical moment.
The two guards from outside the interview room would soon appear, accompanying El Halcón as he walked to the van. Carreras-López could count three other guards, armed with submachine guns, presently outside, eyeing the crowd. It seemed to him that they were distracted, and understandably. Yes, they would not want their prisoner to escape, but they also would not want to burn to death when the gas blew; by now the scent should be overwhelming. And they would know, like the rest of the city, that the timer on the gas line was counting down—ten minutes from tremor to blast.
Then El Halcón and the two guards—only two—appeared from the doorway.
They hurried to the van as fast as they could—the crime boss’s legs were still shackled—and the door opened. In they went. The door slammed shut.
Then, very faint, came several flashes of light from inside.
The silenced pistol killing the guards.
Pulling into the street, which had been cleared of traffic, the van accelerated away and turned the corner.
Another text.
She is doing well.
The last of the coded messages meant that the guards were dead and the van was proceeding to the rendezvous spot.
Carreras-López turned and hurried down the back stairs of the coffee shop to his limo. He climbed inside. The driver greeted him and they started off, the Caddie circling the blocked streets. Soon they hit the highway, about five minutes behind the van.
The security van would have GPS; its progress would be tracked. So Letemps had picked a rendezvous spot that was just off the highway on the way to the detention center. Anyone tracking the van would think that, when it pulled off, it was simply diverting briefly to avoid a traffic jam.
It would stop fast to let El Halcón and the other men out. The stop would eventually alarm the security people at detention. But by the time they got reinforcements here, El Halcón and Carreras-López would be long gone.
Now the Cadillac in which Antonio Carreras-López sat was gaining on the van. He could see it about a hundred yards ahead. In sixty seconds they were at the turnoff, and the van, then Carreras-López’s limo, turned into the empty, weed-filled parking lot that surrounded a dilapidated factory. The towering sign read only H&R Fab icat s, I c. These remaining letters, six feet high, would have been proudly red at one point but were now scarred and sickly pink.
The van and limo stopped near the helicopter, its rotors idling, and a van, in front of which the lawyer’s men stood.
Carreras-López glanced back and saw no police vehicles. Nor any choppers overhead or boats in the choppy water where the East River met the harbor.
None of the authorities suspected a thing. They would have ten minutes before anyone at detention grew concerned about the van’s absence and sent cars.
Carreras-López climbed from the limo. He said to the driver, “Leave now.” He gave the man five hundred-dollar bills and shook his hand.
“Thank you, sir. I’ve enjoyed driving you. I’ll see you when you’re back.”
Which would never happen. But he said, “I’ll look forward to it.”
The Cadillac slowly bounded out of the broken, uneven parking lot.
Carreras-López waved to the van, where El Halcón was probably stripping the dead guards of their money and weapons. His client had once killed a man for his wallet—not for the money but because he liked the embossed leather…and the picture of the victim’s wife and daughter. El Halcón had told Carreras-López that he’d kept the picture on his bedside table for years.
A thought that even now gave the lawyer a shiver. What a man I have for a client.
The door to the van opened.
“Hola!” Carreras-López called.
Then he froze. He whispered, “Mierda.”
Because it wasn’t El Halcón climbing from the vehicle. But a redheaded policewoman, in full tactical gear and holding a machine gun. She was followed by three, no four, no six other officers, half with the letters ESU on their body armor. Half with FBI.
“No!” the lawyer cried.
Two of these officers ran to the helicopter and dragged out the pilot, and the others arrested the men by the van. The policewoman stepped quickly to the lawyer, with a younger, blond male officer. “Hands!” she shouted. The lawyer sighed, licked his lips with a dry tongue and lifted his arms. He remembered seeing her in Lincoln Rhyme’s apartment.
How? How had it happened?
A perfect plan.
So perfectly ruined.
How? The question looped through his mind.
As he was cuffed by the woman and patted down by the man, he tried to figure this out.
The texts were the right codes.
El Halcón had gotten into the van. I saw him.
I saw the flashes of the gunshots.
Or did I?
A clever man himself, he thought: No, no, no. They had learned of, or guessed, the plan and had located Carreras-López’s men before they could murder the driver and guard. The police had offered them a plea bargain in exchange for the codes and the details of the escape.
The flashes from inside the vehicle weren’t a gun but a cell phone or flashlight to convince anyone watching that the second set of guards had died. As soon as the van was out of sight, it had diverted and this one, with the tactical officers, had taken its place for the trip to the factory here.
But that didn’t answer the bigger question of how: How had someone—Lincoln Rhyme, surely—come to suspect that an escape was in the works, in the first place?
The policewoman said, “Sit down here. I’ll help you.”
She eased him to the ground. “Please. How did you figure it out? How did you possibly know what we were doing? I want to know. Will you tell me?”
She ignored him as her attention was drawn to an approaching black limo. It stopped and a tall, lean man got out.
Carreras-López sighed. It was Henry Bishop, the U.S. attorney.
The policewoman walked to the man and they had a conversation. Not surprisingly, as they spoke, they both kept their eyes on him.
Finally, Bishop nodded. They both began walking, in slow strides, to the lawyer.
Chapter 70
Rhyme was in his accessible van, not far from the takedown site by the water’s edge in Brooklyn.
He was presently watching through the window and listening to the staccato voice traffic on the police scanner.
Yes, he and Sachs had had a lovely dinner last night.
But they hadn’t discussed movies or politics or the thousands of other topics grand and topics small that husbands and wives talked about over meals; they talked about the loose ends that had piqued Rhyme’s interest about the Diamond District case.
“Anomalies, Sachs. Pieces don’t fit quite right.”
“Such as?”
She had been enjoying quite the nice Burgundy. Chardonnay, of course. But not overly oaked, a subtlety that the French—unlike the Californians—had mastered. Rhyme took this on faith; he had swapped the Glenmorangie for a Cab. If one had to drink wine, it should be red and formidable.
He’d explained the loosest of the ends: “How did Jatin Patel come into possession of the kimberlite in the first place?”
She’d cocked her head. “Never thought about it. A good question.”
He’d asked with more than a dusting of irony, “Somebody strolling past the geothermal site or the refuse dump happens to notice an unremarkable dark hunk of rock and takes it to a diamond merchant for assessment?�
��
“Doesn’t make sense.”
“Another problem: Didn’t the whole fake-earthquake thing, didn’t it seem just a bit improbable? Almost as if we were supposed to figure out it was staged.”
“True. You get caught up in a fast-moving case, you don’t step back.”
Rhyme had said, “Say there’s a Mr. Y.”
“Is ‘X’ taken?”
A smile. “Remember? I used that before.”
“Okay, go ahead. Mr. Y.”
“He has a plan too. Mr. Y or somebody working for him calls Krueger—anonymously—and claims he’s working for New World Mining. They’re all in a frenzy because a drilling site in Brooklyn has dug up diamond-rich kimberlite. They hire Krueger to create fake earthquakes to shut down the drilling and kill Patel and anyone else who knows about it.”
“And,” Sachs had said, “Mr. Y ships some kimberlite from Africa and plants it at the geothermal site.”
“Exactly. Remember the trace we found? Coleonema pulchellum—the confetti bush—also from Africa.”
Rhyme had then enjoyed another piece of veal in a fennel cream sauce, laced with vermouth. Back in the day, for years after the accident, Thom had had to feed him. Of late, as long as someone cut up his food, or it arrived naturally in bite-sized form, he could handle the dining part on his own just fine.
She had said, “Got it, so far. Mr. Y sets up this elaborate plan for fake earthquakes apparently to stop diamond production…but he’s got some other plan entirely. Which is…?”
“I couldn’t figure that out. Not at first. But then I asked myself, why Brooklyn, why the Northeast Geo site? Mr. Y could’ve picked any construction site in the area. No, there was something special about Cadman Plaza. And what was unique there?”
The Cutting Edge Page 39
