Her own smile faded after she walked over to post this news on the Murder Board and saw that it was already sort of up there. The medical examiner’s e-mail had provided confirmation but no momentum. Worse, it only reminded Heat that a puzzle piece she’d long been holding still didn’t fit anywhere. Nikki’s board was replete with floaters, orphans, odd socks, coincidences, contradictions, and names of the deceased—all proving that this was indeed about more than one man falling from the sky. Sounding to herself more like Rook than Rook, Heat believed that when this scattered array of disparate pieces finally did come together, it would expose a conspiracy of some kind. What kind? She wasn’t sure. Nikki found the notation for RODERICK FLOYD—FINGERNAIL DNA, took a marker, made a check mark beside it, and called that progress. For now.
Coming back from grabbing a Greek yogurt from the break room, Nikki heard her iPhone purring on her desk and lunged for it, fearing she’d miss a callback from Rook. But the 631 area code told her it was the Hamptons.
“Detective Heat, it’s Detective Aguinaldo; sorry I missed your call a bit ago, but I think you’ll forgive me when I share my reason.”
“Hey, no problem, Inez.” Heat set her Fage cup down and cleared space for notes. “I didn’t want to be a pest. Just making my rounds; you know how it goes.”
“Well it goes a bit slower here in Southampton Village, but yes. When you called I was back at Conscience Point. I wanted to knock on some doors after we were up there yesterday, but I couldn’t clear any officers, so I went up there myself this morning.”
“No explanation necessary. I appreciate you making the effort.”
“A number of folks weren’t home. Being that we are so low and coastal, people are heeding the warnings and caravanning to the mainland. The Cross Sound Ferry just announced they’re going to cancel Monday service because of Sandy, and you can imagine the backup of vehicles waiting to get on a boat at Orient Point.” Heat calculated the number of cars she had already seen leaving the day before and could only guess that the exodus now must be looking like the fall of Saigon.
“But I got an interesting piece of news for you. Know how the road forks left to Scallop Pond Road? Of course you don’t, but it’s right near the marina, take my word for it. One of the residents there said that the night we’re talking about, he heard what he thought were kids setting off M-80s, you know, firecrackers.”
“How many?”
“Two. And pretty close together. Bang. And then bang. I asked him to time it out for me.”
Nikki jotted down two bangs. “Is this the right time frame?”
“Perfectly in the hammock.”
“Your witness. Is this person reliable?”
“Solid. Bright guy. Does PR for one of the vineyards on the North Fork.”
“And he didn’t call it in because he thought it was firecrackers?”
“Exactly. You get a lot of that up there, kids being kids. He did step out to investigate, and said he heard two cars speed off, so he thought, why bother, they’re gone anyway.”
Heat tapped her pen on her lips. “He said two cars?”
“I circled back on him to confirm. Definitely two.”
“He say he heard anything else. Voices? Shouting. A cry?”
“I asked. He said that would have made him call it in.”
“Inez, this is very helpful.”
“Not done yet,” said the Southampton detective. “I’ll keep on this, even if I have to put on my waders.”
“Tell me you do not have waders,” said Nikki. She could hear Inez Aguinaldo laughing when she hung up.
Heat spent the next ten minutes in a near-meditative state, sitting in a chair, staring at the Murder Board. The exercise, which she employed whenever she felt “this close” and yet “that far” from a solution helped her clear away the noise of a case and let the graphic elements before her eyes speak to her. Well, she hoped they would. They didn’t always. In fact, sometimes they downright mocked her.
“Detective Rhymer,” she said when she’d had enough and stood to stretch.
“What’s up?” Opie asked, crossing over from his desk to join her.
She tapped a blank spot amid the riot of pictures and notations. “There’s too much white on my whiteboard.” There was a name above the open space. “You were checking on the whereabouts of Alicia Delamater, right?”
“With no joy. Same as last update. No customs dings, not using her credit cards, her cell phone, nothing.” Nikki beckoned him to her desk and he followed, waiting while she went through her notes. She found what she was looking for, copied it onto a pad, and handed the page to him.
“What’s this?”
“Alicia Delamater’s home number in Southampton. Call it and leave a message.”
“All right…” he said tentatively and turned the paper around and around between his forefinger and thumb. “What makes you think she’s going to call me back?”
“Because you are not Detective Rhymer, NYPD. You are the new senior manager of the marketing firm that just won the account to reboot Sean Combs’s White Party at The Surf Lodge in Montauk—And you want to interview Alicia about a job to be the event planner.”
He grinned. “Always thought I would make a good creative type.”
“I have nothing but faith,” she said. “Make us proud.”
No sooner had Rhymer gone off to make, or more likely, practice, his phone call, Detective Feller strode up to her desk with a little extra kick. “I just got a hit on your friend from Chelsea with the assault rifle. I forwarded you the bulletin.”
He waited while Heat scanned the Interpol rundown of the man she had nicknamed the Cool Customer. One piece of information at the end stopped her cold. She reread it to make sure she had it right and stood, grabbing her keys and her phone. “Come with me. You and I are taking a ride to see an old friend.”
On their way out, Heat palmed the form of her gun on her hip just to reassure herself it was there.
It had been almost three years since Heat rode the express elevator to the top floors of the black glass, high-rise near Grand Central. From Vanderbilt Avenue, it looked like any other Midtown office building with sidewalk retail and a mix of law firms and corporate offices filling the tower up to the topmost two stories. Those floors belonged to a company not listed on the lobby directory. That clandestine touch was characteristic of Lancer Standard, which called itself a consulting firm. But that was only another layer of camouflage. Because Lancer Standard’s prime-consulting service was mercenary operations.
For years it had thrived—often controversially—as a CIA contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. With secret (read: publicly denied) training facilities in the remote Nevada desert and who knew where else, Lancer Standard, Inc. provided freelance commandos, assassins, saboteurs, and personal security for state leaders and business tycoons in the world’s hot spots.
After refusing to check their service weapons, an exercise Heat had gone through (and prevailed at) on her first visit, she and Randall Feller were ushered from reception by three gentlemen of lethal handsomeness through the secure, thumbprint-activated, reinforced air lock and up a flight of internal stairs to the penthouse office of the CEO, Lawrence Hays.
Unlike last visit, Hays gave Heat a smile with the handshake upon entry to his corner office. Unlike last visit, Hays was not a prime suspect in the murder of a parish priest. Things like that have a tendency to put a strain on a meeting. He dismissed their minders and pushed a button that closed the door as they sat in the conversation area of his sprawling office.
“Funny,” he said. “Human nature. You sat in the exact spot last time.”
“Some memory.”
“Rely on it.” He cocked his head to her and threw his blue-jeaned leg over an arm of the easy chair exactly as he had before. Heat had a sense of recall, as well. It told her Hays still play
ed the aging Steve McQueen down to the close sandy haircut and more than a few hours spent in the gym. “What’s the occasion, Detective? I can assume you’re not here to try to browbeat me into a false confession this time.”
“No, actually, I’m interested in testing the memory you’re so proud of.”
Hays held up one of the bottled waters resting on the coffee table, which had been fashioned out of the elevator wing from the tail of a Black Hawk helicopter. It was hard not to notice the spray of bullet holes dimpling it. After both detectives declined, he twisted the cap and took a sip, ready to listen. But his demeanor tweaked when she said, “I need to find a man who has done some work for you.”
“We don’t share information about personnel. Not even to confirm their employment.”
“This man is a killer.”
“You know, I see that on a lot of résumés. Might even be a plus.” He flashed a quick smile, showing off the cocky knowingness insiders like to play up to outsiders. “Hate to shut you down, Detective, but you have to get me behind a closed-door joint congressional subcommittee, and even then, I’m not one to go all Dr. Phil and open up the goods.”
“He’s operating in the city.”
“We don’t do that.”
Feller hopped in. “Oh, just like you guys don’t cross the border from Texas to disrupt the drug cartels?”
Hays appraised the street detective as if deciding if he could measure up to a job. “I go to Juárez for the cuisine. Try El Tragadero in Calle Constitución. Best rib eye you’ll ever eat.”
Heat said, “But Mr. Hays, you do have a domestic entity. What about Firewall Security?”
“Rope-line bouncers and celebrity-threat assessment. Nothing more.” He capped his Fiji and stood. “We all happy now?”
Nikki said, “So you’ve never heard of Zarek Braun?” The tonal shift was striking. For the first-time ever, Heat saw him falter. Maybe it wasn’t fear she saw on his face, but something close to it. The cockiness sure got dialed down.
“You’re after Braun?”
“So you do know him.”
“He’s here?”
Heat held out the CCTV capture of Zarek Braun emptying the assault rifle at her, and he sat back down to study it. “G36. The Z-man still likes his toys.”
“He was playing with me when that got taken.”
“And you’re still here. I’m impressed.” Hays meant it. Heat decided to ride the unguarded moment.
“Our Interpol report said he was Polish military, an employment gap, then Lancer Standard, and now nothing. Fill in some holes for me here.”
He fluttered the photo across the Black Hawk wing to her. “Zarek Braun came on my radar after he mustered out of the Polish army. He was some fucking soldier. Led a platoon of Poland’s First Special Commando Regiment in Operation Swift Relief in Pakistan in 2005. Moved on with them to Bosnia, then Iraq, then kicked some ass in Chad in 2007.
“Got into some trouble for being trigger-happy for a UN peacekeeper—which I had no problem with—and so, when he got drummed out, we used him. Mainly for sabotage at first, then for our extraction teams in places I will not name, but you have seen on the nightly news. He had a lot of skills but, man, it was his temperament. The guy kept himself so mellow. I swear he pumped Freon instead of blood.”
Heat thought of her nickname for him and pictured Braun’s cool, casual air sauntering toward her on West Sixteenth. A trickle of discomfort ran through her and she wondered if her face registered the same uneasiness she just saw on Lawrence Hays. “Are you going to tell me if he still works for you or make me guess?”
“In my business you get a share of madmen acting out. That’s the life. Things happen in battle we can’t judge sipping mineral water in air-conditioned comfort. So there’s leeway. Zarek Braun, though. Braun is in a league of his own. I’m not going to run it all down, but during a covert action we were asked to spearhead called Operation Dream Catcher, we started getting feedback from the field about atrocities and some majorly diabolical shit. So, when I made a trip over there to our little hamlet in our undisclosed location, I had a sit down with him.” Hays tapped the photo on the table showing Braun passively emptying the gun. “This is what he looked like through the whole conversation. Long story short, I booted him. That night Zarek Braun set an IED in my base camp. Killed my best bodyguards.” The CEO stood and pulled up his black polo shirt to reveal a salad of pinched, discolored tissue, jagged scars, and disfiguration from burns. He let the fabric drop and said, “I don’t know where he is now.”
“You can find out.” Hays gave her a blank look, but she now knew it was personal with him so she pushed harder. “This guy is not only out there in the city firing assault rifles at cops like it was Kandahar, Mr. Hays, I need him for multiple homicide cases I’m working. You want him to pay? I can get him. Will you at least say you’ll help?”
Lawrence Hays considered, and Nikki thought just maybe she had reached him. But then he said, “I make it a point of never saying anything.” He pressed a button and the door automatically opened to let in their escorts.
Feller got out and folded in the side mirror so Heat could snug her car close to the Roach Coach when she double-parked outside the precinct. She was gauging the width of West Eighty-second to make sure she’d left enough room for traffic to pass when her phone rang. “Hey,” said Rook. “Can you meet me? I mean right now.”
Rook was waiting for her just where he said he’d be, in the playground by the swing set. But not so much by the swing set as on it, and when Heat spotted him after her short walk down Amsterdam from the precinct he looked all of eleven years old with one heel planted on the ground, leg extended, pivoting from the chains. All he needed to complete the effect would be to play bombardier with his spit over an ant.
A troupe of marathoners left the running store across the avenue on a training run, and the slapping of their waffled soles on pavement drew his attention Nikki’s way as she approached. The late October sun had already set, kids were home having supper, and Tecumseh Playground was all theirs. The awkwardness of the prior night muted the greetings. He kept seated in his swing; she took the empty one beside him, leaving them to sway shoulder-to-shoulder but facing opposite directions.
“Hope you don’t feel too exposed here, but I wanted some neutral ground away from work, or your turf or mine.” Then he added, “And away from liquids. If you plan on dousing me, you’re going to have to push my face into that drinking fountain.”
Nikki wished she could laugh, but her soul felt encased in shame. “Not one of my proudest moments.” She offered that olive branch and studied him, trying to get a fix on his state of mind. She got it. His brow was set low and he wasn’t smiling.
“You know, you hit me where I live when you accused me of being out to undermine you.”
Nikki started to speak, desperate to get out ahead of this; to let Rook hear all she had been mulling about her behavior, not just the previous night, but everything leading up to it. If she could just come up with the words to make this right, maybe she could reset them to where they were before. But this was his meeting, and he had something to get off his chest, too. “It’s not easy pulling off the balancing act we do,” he said, echoing Lon King’s observation from that morning’s emergency counseling. “The job stress, the hours, the travel, the disagreements.…”
He paused and watched another wave of after-work marathon trainers set a course for Central Park. Heat didn’t speak, just yielded the moment, even though this conversation was feeling like the prelude to an ending—like the watershed after three years, with each making civilized promises to stay friends on Facebook. It didn’t make her feel any better when he finally continued. “But what I always counted on as our glue was the value we shared. And that’s trust. When you called my actions and motives into question on this case, you weren’t just going after my journalistic integrity,
Nikki. You made a laser strike at who we are.” Salt stung her eyes and she wondered if she’d feel this same drill boring into her heart every time she passed this playground. But then he took an unexpected turn.
“Which is why I wanted to give you something that would symbolize our trust and cement it for the future.” Her chest fluttered as he reached into his side-coat pocket.
“Rook. What are you doing?”
“Something that can’t wait another minute. It’s why I called and said I needed to see you right away.” His hand came out of his pocket, but he wasn’t holding a jewelry box. It was a small Ziploc bag. “Ta-da.” He beamed triumphantly and held it before her. She looked through the cellophane and found no engagement ring in there. “You can’t see what this is? Here, I’ll hold it up to the light.” He dangled the bag so that it was backlit by the Chirping Chicken fast food sign, which had just come on.
She examined it, dumbfounded. “Is that…?”
He bobbed his chin. “That’s right. A bullet. But not just any bullet. A .38 caliber bullet.”
Thoughts of both a breakup and a marriage proposal sufficiently elbowed aside, Heat snatched the bag from him and pored over the mangled slug inside it. “Where did you get this?”
“After our little—shall we call it, dustup on the rooftop—I couldn’t sleep when I got home.”
“Me, neither, I was thinking all about you.”
“Yes. Ahem, I also was thinking about the case. Especially your theory about some kind of payoff happening at Conscience Point. So I thought, screw it. I got up and drove out there. Arrived about four A.M. Sat in that parking lot with my flashlight and thought to myself, if Fabian Beauvais’s gunshot was indeed a slicer, maybe, just maybe, the slug got lodged somewhere.”