The Cutting Edge

by Jeffery Deaver

  “The government buildings. The courts.”

  Rhyme had smiled once more. “And was there any other piece of the puzzle that connected the dots?”

  “I have a feeling,” Sachs had said, “that is an extremely rhetorical question.”

  “The other day Pulaski smelled gas in the town house. I assumed it was because Lon had just come from the scene at Claire Porter’s apartment—where they recovered the lehabah, the gas bomb. It didn’t go off but it did melt through the gas line, and there was a major leak. I figured he’d picked up the scent there. But I called him. And he hadn’t been to the scene.”

  “So where did the scent come from?”

  “From the box of files on the El Halcón case. Delivered to me by Mr. Y.”

  “Mr. Y!” Her eyes glowed. “Carreras-López.”

  “Exactly. One of his minders brought the case files to me. Wherever they’d been, it was also where they’d stored the odorant. Maybe they tested it, maybe it leaked. But some odorant got on the files. So. The gas bombs had some connection with El Halcón’s attorney and, presumably, his trial.”

  Sachs had mused, “And that explains why Carreras-López came to you with that claim about somebody planting the gunshot residue evidence in the warehouse.”

  “Yep. He wanted to get inside the Unsub Forty-Seven op. Keep tabs on us, make sure we weren’t suspicious that the diamond plot was fake. If I hadn’t given Bishop the capital murder lead, I think he would have been a regular guest—well, spy.”

  She’d set down her fork. “But, Jesus, Rhyme. He’s going to try to break El Halcón out…tomorrow, maybe. We’re just sitting here.”

  He’d shrugged. “Nothing can happen until then. I called my new friend Hank Bishop and found out El Halcón’s arriving at ten a.m. Besides, we haven’t finished our meal.”

  She’d given him a coy look. “And you’ve already called Lon, Ron, Fred Dellray and probably someone from ESU. When will they be here?”

  “A half hour. Won’t interfere with dessert. Thom! Thom! Weren’t you going to flambé something special for Amelia?”

  Then this morning Sellitto and Dellray had initiated the operation that had been put together the night before. They decided that Carreras-López probably would have his own men, dressed as guards, hijack the transport vehicle, so FBI agents and undercover detectives did a sweep of the guards in and around the courthouse. They found two men who were imposters—and armed with weapons equipped with silencers. Dellray—in his inimitable, and intimidating, style—convinced them to give up details of the plot in exchange for reduced charges. (“I’m triple-guaranteeing you, you will not be enjoying the par-tic-u-lar prison, not to mention the population, you will be going to, if you don’t help. Are we all together on that?”)

  So far, so good.

  Then had come the debate. Rhyme, Sachs, Dellray and Sellitto—and some senior NYPD brass, as well as City Hall.

  They knew that there was no risk of an actual gas attack. Carreras-López’s men would merely release the odorant, to start the evacuation; they couldn’t risk burning up their client with a real gas leak. The federal marshals and NYPD could simply have ignored the release, and passed the word on that there was no danger. Open the windows, ventilate the place. And let the trial continue.

  But, Rhyme believed, if they could nail Carreras-López, they could offer the lawyer a plea bargain in exchange for El Halcón’s partner.

  Which meant they had to let the escape plan go forward—but divert El Halcón’s van and use a second one, filled with tactical officers, to proceed to the helicopter and take down the lawyer and his entire crew.

  Exactly as had happened, without a glitch.

  Rhyme’s phone now hummed with a text.

  FYI. Carreras-López has accepted plea offer. Identified his U.S. partner: Roger Whitney, Garden City, Long Island. Thx, Lincoln.

  —H. Bishop.

  Rhyme now heard the sound of the Sprinter door opening behind him. He turned.

  Sachs stood in the doorway, her machine gun slung, muzzle down, from her shoulder. Her helmet in her left hand. Rhyme reflected that she was nearly as appealing in this outfit as she had been in the green dress.

  “Can I hitch a ride?” she asked.

  “Think we can fit you in.”

  Sachs climbed in and slammed the door. She sat, pulled the magazine from her weapon and ejected the round in the chamber. Their eyes met.

  “So,” she said. “That’s it.”

  “That’s it, Sachs.”

  Chapter 71

  Vimal Lahori had not seen his father yesterday.

  After supper with his mother and brother, Vimal had gone to spend the evening with Adeela. He’d returned late and by the time he arrived home, he noted his father’s car was in the drive but he had gone to bed.

  Upon waking this morning, he learned that Papa was again out.

  Whatever business the man was about, he hadn’t shared it with his wife, much less his younger son. But then Papa never shared anything unless it was a pronouncement coming down from on high.

  Vimal knew, without doubt, but with dread, what the man’s mission was: finding Vimal another apprenticeship. But it wouldn’t be easy, despite Vimal’s skills. The young man was tainted. He was now associated with the worst thing that could happen in the diamond world—a robbery and murder. Oh, he wasn’t guilty of anything himself, and the crimes had turned out to be something quite different, but diamantaires wouldn’t dwell on those distinctions. They would forever link Vimal with the death of the genius Jatin Patel, one of their own.

  Vimal Lahori had become a living reminder of the dark and perilous side of these miraculous gems, from blood diamonds in Africa, to slave labor in Siberia, to armed robberies in Belgium.

  But his father would beg or bluster until someone signed Vimal on.

  He was presently in his studio, looking over a two-pound piece of lapis lazuli. Vimal loved this intensely blue mineral. It was generally used for jewelry but one could find pieces large enough for sculpting, at reasonable prices. The metamorphic rock has a long history in both jewelry and art. Tutankhamun’s funeral mask featured it, and Chinese artists would carve miniature mountainside villages into vertical pieces, just as they did with jade. Lapis was first discovered in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan and is now found there, as well as such exotic places as Siberia, Angola, Burma, Pakistan and—where this particular stone had come from—Pleasant Gulch, Colorado.

  He was turning the stone over and over in his hand, waiting for it to talk to him and explain what incarnation it wished to achieve through Vimal’s eager hands. Yet at the moment it was silent.

  Then footsteps on the stairs.

  Vimal knew the tread falls. He set down the brilliant blue stone, layered with gold pyrite, and sat on the work chair.

  “Son.”

  Vimal nodded to the bleary-eyed man. He reflected: must be hard work trying to pimp a whore nobody wants.

  Papa was carrying two envelopes, one large and one small. Vimal glanced at them, supposing they were contracts for cutting assignments. His eyes slipped back to his father.

  The man said, “I missed you last night. I was very tired. I went to bed. But your mother told me you were well. Unharmed after that incident with the man. The killer.”

  Incident…

  “Yes.”

  “I was very grateful for that,” Papa said, then seemed to realize the absurdity of the words.

  His father’s eyes were on the lapis. “Mr. Patel’s children and their families have come to town. They and his sister have held the funeral and cremation privately.” In the Hindu religion, cremation is the only acceptable way to treat the body. In India the funeral and the cremation occur at the same place—traditionally, of course, the body is burned on an open pyre. Here, the Hindu funeral rites, the Antyesti, are modified to allow for Western custom and laws.

  His father added, “But they are holding a memorial at his sister’s house tonight. That’s on
e reason I’ve been away. I was helping with that. You will come?”

  “Sure. Yeah, of course.”

  “You can say something if you like. But you don’t have to.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. You’ll do a good job.”

  Silence.

  One reason I’ve been away…

  Now it was time to learn of the other reason. Who was to be his new master?

  Well, Vimal Lahori decided. No one would be. This was the end. He was going to say no to the man.

  At last he would say no.

  He took a deep breath to do so but his father handed him the smaller of the envelopes. The trembling of his hand was not so bad today. “Here.”

  Vimal held back on the monologue he was prepared to deliver and took the envelope. He glanced into his father’s eyes.

  The man’s shrug said, Open it.

  Vimal did. He looked at what was inside and his breath stopped momentarily. He looked to his father then back to the contents.

  “This is—” He actually choked.

  “Yes, a check from Dev Nouri’s company.”

  Payable to Vimal Lahori. Only to him.

  “Papa, it’s almost one hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You will have to pay tax on it. But you’ll still keep about two-thirds.”

  “But…”

  “The rough that you cut for him. That parallelogram.” The word came awkwardly from his mouth. “Dev sold it at private auction for three hundred thousand dollars. He was going to give you ten percent.”

  A talented diamond cutter in the New York area could expect to make around fifty thousand dollars a year. The thirty that Mr. Nouri had offered for a one-day job was very generous by any standard throughout the world.

  “But I said no. He and I had some discussions. He agreed, as you can see, to thirty-three percent. It’s less than an even one hundred, because he insisted on subtracting the money he’d already paid you. I thought we could not object to that.”

  Vimal could not help but smile.

  “Open an account, deposit it. It’s your money. You can do with it as you like. Now, I will say something else. You will be getting many phone calls. There is not a single diamantaire in the New York area that does not want you to work for them. I have heard from a number of them who would want you to apprentice to them. They have all heard of the parallelogram. Some people are calling it the Vimal Cut.”

  The news was interesting—he was not a pariah— but it was also disheartening. The pressure from his father was back. More subtle, but pressure nonetheless.

  Papa muttered, “You can get a job at any one of them and they will pay very well. But before you do that, think about this.” He offered the larger envelope.

  Vimal removed from it a college catalog, for an accredited, four-year university on Long Island. A yellow Post-it was stuck in the middle. Vimal opened to the page, which described the MFA, master in fine arts, program. There was a track for sculpting, which included a semester abroad in Florence and Rome.

  Feeling his heart stutter, he looked up to his father.

  The man said, “So. I have been the messenger. The rest is up to you. You may want a different school, of course. Though your mother and I were hoping that if you do, we would prefer you become the Michelangelo of Jackson Heights, rather than of Los Angeles. But, as I say, it’s up to you, son.”

  Vimal had no intention of flinging his arms around his father but he couldn’t help himself.

  The awkwardness faded quickly, and the embrace lasted considerably longer than he and, he guessed, his father anticipated. Then they stepped away.

  “We will leave for Mr. Patel’s sister’s at five.” He turned and started for the stairs. “Oh, and why don’t you invite Adeela?”

  Vimal stared. “How did…?”

  The look on his father’s face was cryptic but the message might very well have been: Never underestimate the intelligence—in both senses of the word—of one’s parents.

  His father left the studio and trooped upstairs. Vimal picked up the lapis lazuli and began turning it over and over and over in his hands once more, waiting for the stone to speak.

  Chapter 72

  Barry.” Rhyme was in his parlor, on the speakerphone.

  “Lincoln. I’m pissed off at you, you know that.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “I was a bottom-shelf kinda guy. You turned me on to real scotch. The pricey stuff. Actually, Joan is pissed at you. Me, not so much.”

  A pause.

  Then Rhyme said, “We nailed him, Barry. He’s going away forever. El Halcón.”

  “Jesus. I thought the case was dicey.”

  “It became undicey.”

  More silence.

  “And we got his partner. The American.”

  Rhyme could hear the man breathing.

  “You have anything to do with that?”

  “Not much. A little.”

  Sales laughed. “Bullshit. I’m not believing that.”

  “Well, believe what you want.”

  “That’s the Lincoln Rhyme I know and love.” Then, diverting from the edge of maudlin, Sales said, “Hey. Talked to my sister? She had an idea. I’m getting a temporary prosthesis. Just a hook, you know. She’s going to bring the kids over and, guess what? We’ll do the Wolverine thing. They’ll love it.”

  “The what thing?”

  “The movie. You know.”

  “There’s a movie about wolverines?”

  “You don’t get out much, do you, Lincoln?”

  “Well, I’m happy it’s working out.”

  “We’ll get together soon. I’ll buy the whisky.”

  They disconnected and Rhyme was wheeling back to the evidence table when his mobile hummed with an incoming call.

  He hit Answer.

  “Lincoln,” came the voice through the phone, obscured by a cacophony of electric guitar licks.

  Rhyme snapped in response, “Rodney, for God’s sake. Turn down the music.”

  “You do know that’s Jimmy Page.”

  A sigh. Which the Computer Crimes expert couldn’t possibly hear, owing to the raw decibels.

  “All right. Just saying. Did you know that Led Zeppelin holds the number two record for most albums sold in the U.S.?” Szarnek dimmed the volume. Somewhat. You’d expect him to have shoulder-length curly hair, inked skin and body piercings and wear shirts open to the navel—if that’s what heavy-metal band lead guitarists still looked like. In fact, though, he fit the image of the computer nerd he was.

  Amelia Sachs walked into the parlor, bent down and kissed Rhyme.

  Szarnek said, “Found some things you’ll want to know about the Kimberlite Affair.”

  “That’s what you’re calling it?” Sachs asked. Her voice was amused.

  “I kind of like it. Don’t you? Nice ring. K, here’s what I’m talking about. You sent me the number of that lawyer’s burner phone, Carreras-López? I checked the log. A lot of calls were to the folks who got rounded up at the courthouse and helipad and in the hoosegow.”

  “The what?”

  “A jail. Like in old-time Westerns. The pokey.”

  “Rodney. Get to the point.”

  “But this’s interesting. Most of the calls and texts were to and from somebody in Paris. In the Sixth Arrondissement. That means ‘district.’”

  “I know,” Sachs said.

  “In and around the Jardin du Luxembourg. That’s a garden. But you probably know that too.”

  “That I didn’t know.”

  Szarnek added, “Whoever it was, the lawyer called and texted him or her a lot over the past few weeks. Almost like he was reporting in.”

  “Maybe a consultant,” Sachs said, walking to the evidence cartons on an examination table. “You thought the lawyer was Mr. Y, who planned it all out. Might have been this person.”

  “Could be.”

  “Rhyme,” Sachs said, lifting an evidence bag. It was Carreras-López’s day plan
ner. Pasted inside the cover was a Post-it note with the name François Letemps. A series of numbers was beside it. Account numbers maybe.

  French name. Was he the man on the other end of the line in Paris?

  Szarnek said, “Now, here’s the weird part.”

  In an already weird case.

  “The texts were encrypted with exactly the same algorithm you were asking about a few days ago. Duodenal. Using numbers zero through nine plus the upside-down two and three. Never rains but it pours.”

  Jesus. Rhyme’s eyes slowly eased to the evidence boards.

  “And no chance of cracking it?”

  “About the same as me appearing on Dancing with the Stars.”

  “The hell is that?”

  “Let’s say impossible.”

  “I’ve got to go.” Rhyme disconnected and shouted to Mel Cooper, “That package we got from the Alternative Intelligence Service? The international delivery?”

  It had arrived last night but Rhyme had been too preoccupied with the case to look at it.

  Cooper sliced open the box. There was no letter, only a note from Daryl Mulbry.

  Here you go. Any thoughts would be helpful.

  Cooper lifted a small evidence envelope. Inside was the small crescent of metal that had tested positive for radiation, though not of any dangerous dosage. Rhyme now studied it.

  He recalled that Mulbry was concerned that the bit of springy metal might be a timer in a dirty bomb—part of a mechanical detonator, intended to avoid the countermeasures to defeat an electronic one.

  This, Rhyme now knew, was not correct.

  But the truth behind the bit of metal was, in a way, even more troubling.

  Rhyme placed a call to Mulbry now.

  “Lincoln! How are you?”

  “Not much time here. Maybe have a situation. That bit of metal you sent me?”

  “Yes.” The man’s voice was sober.

  “Let me ask a couple more questions.”

  “Of course.”

  “You found anything more about your suspect, the man who dropped it?”

  “We finally found the café he was hanging out in when he made a lot of his calls. It was—”