Deadly Heat Read online

  In fifteen seconds, it was over. They had cleared the bedroom, the closet, the bathroom, even searched the modest array of cabinets in the kitchenette.

  “You didn’t really expect her to be in here, did you?” asked Rook when she allowed him in.

  “Not really. Kaye’s a trained agent. She’d been burned, we had her key; she’ll never come here again.” She smiled at him. “But let a girl have her fantasies.”

  “Every wish begins with Kaye,” he said.

  Benigno DeJesus had no trouble finding the place. He had been to the Coney Crest so many times over the years that he’d joked to his forensics team about renting one of the rooms to keep as storage for his gear. While Heat’s go-to ECU detective snapped open his rolling case out on the breezeway and prepared to examine Room 210, he filled Nikki in on the results of his run of her apartment.

  The report didn’t take long. The intruder had gotten in through a closet window. The busted latch had been invisible to her eye when she’d made her check of the place, but DeJesus’s inspection of the window from the outside revealed jimmy scratches and brass shavings on the sill from chiseling and prying. He found no sign of the missing hard drive from her lipstick cam or any evidence of DNA—translated as excrement (not uncommon) or results of sexual gratification—same with inconsistent hairs, fibers, or shoe scuffs. The orange string matched the same lot found on Joe Flynn’s boat. The lab had it, but as with the other strings they’d tested, the prospect of finding anything useful on it seemed bleak. “We did lift some prints, but it will surprise me if they aren’t yours, Mr. Rook’s, and your building super’s.” He put on his scrub cap and added, “I know it won’t make you rest any easier, but it’s like a ghost came to visit you.”

  Instead of feeling spooked, Heat processed his comment dispassionately, as an investigator. She made a mental note to run cat burglars through the RTCC database downtown, then led him into Salena Kaye’s motel room.

  The forensics detective stood quietly in the center of the room and simply looked around. After a few Zen-like moments of stillness, he asked, “Your raid team, how much did they disturb?”

  “Minimal. Once they opened doors and cabinets to clear the room, I sent them out.”

  “Good.” Finished with his overview, he continued, “Fingerprints will be tricky due to volume of room traffic in a place like this. But if she had visitors, you’ll want to know who, so I’ll do my best. We have some partials of Salena Kaye’s from your Starbucks cup, and I assume we’ll get more out of the shoulder bag you found.”

  “Actually, I got it away from her,” said Rook. And, for a little extra hot sauce, he added, “During our fight.” Benigno regarded him a moment, said nothing, and got to work.

  He began in the kitchenette because he’d spotted several plastic bags from a hardware store on the countertop—rather inconsistent with food preparation. “See here?” he said, holding one of the bags open with his gloved hands. “Ball bearings, bulk purchased nails, screws and nuts… I’m betting these are her shrapnel leftovers from the Tyler Wynn bomb. It’ll match, mark my words.” He opened and closed cabinets. When he got to the one beneath the sink, he knelt and shined a work light inside. Then he turned to Heat, speaking casually. “I’m going to stand down until you have the motel evacuated and call the bomb squad. Just a precaution, but take a peek.” She bent to look over his shoulder as he pointed to a plastic dish tub filled with cellophane bags, and an array of electronic parts. “None of it seems hooked up, but I see gunpowder, C4… even a backup remote control device. See that tan garage door clicker next to those firing switches and wires? That’s the same sort of radio controller that was used to detonate the package in Wynn’s apartment.”

  Heat said, “I was told that got set off by a timer.”

  “Not by me,” said the forensics man. “I know a timer from a radio controller.”

  Heat turned to Rook, who had not only read her mind, but already had his scoff on. “Another thorough job by the Queen of Detail, Sharon Hinesburg.”

  On the drive back to Manhattan, Heat put in a call to Detective Hinesburg—or, as Rook had christened her, Defective Hinesburg. “Oh, I was just about to call you.” Somehow Sharon always managed to sound as if she’d gotten caught playing Angry Birds and was covering. It occurred to Nikki that that may have been more than merely an impression. “You know that number you gave me to check out? Burner cell.”

  “You’re sure.” Heat let her testiness come through.

  “Yep. A prepaid phone, probably bought at a CVS or Best Buy. Not traceable.”

  “The reason I’m asking if you’re sure is that you also said the trigger for Tyler Wynn’s bomb was a timer, and I just learned it was a remote. Maybe not the end of the world, but my main concern—Detective—is that I can count on you to actually complete an assignment when I give you one.” Nikki side-glanced to Rook, who was nodding feverishly and throwing shadow punches in the passenger seat.

  “But I did.” The whine did nothing to endear her.

  “Then why did you say it was a timer?”

  “Because when you called on me, I got all flustered. I forgot which it was and said the first thing I thought of. I feel a lot of pressure in those Murder Board meetings.” Hinesburg paused, and Nikki could hear her swallow hard. “I feel like you hate me, and that makes it harder. I’m trying to do better.”

  Heat felt like she was dealing with a preadolescent rather than a homicide detective, and cut her losses. “Here’s where you can start, Sharon. Do what you’re asked, and if you don’t know an answer, don’t make one up, OK?”

  “See, you do hate me.”

  After the call, Nikki growled in frustration and said to Rook, “Last thing I need in the middle of two monster cases is Sharon Hinesburg’s…”

  “… Bullshit?”

  “… Crap.”

  “You go, Nikki.”

  “I can deal with weakness. I can even handle a certain degree of incompetence. Sort of. But what I can’t have is a lack of confidence. And there aren’t enough make-work assignments just to keep her out of the way.”

  Rook said, “You should just bag her.”

  “I can’t, and you know why.”

  Rook smiled as they entered the Midtown Tunnel. “Which is why I’d never sleep with someone I work with.”

  On the sidewalk outside the Department of Homeland Security, Heat made a quick call to Detective Raley before she and Rook went in. “You’re still my King of All Surveillance Media, right?”

  “I’m also clairvoyant,” Raley said. “I predict my future holds canceled dinner plans.”

  “Uncanny. From now on, I’m calling you the Great Ralini. I just left Salena Kaye’s SRO in Coney Island. The motel has some actual working surveillance cams, and the manager is holding the tapes from the last few weeks. I’d like you to scrub them to log her comings and goings and pull video of any visitors she might have had.”

  “On it,” he said, and jotted down the address of the Coney Crest.

  “And Sean, keep this between us, but that’s one of the dives I asked Detective Hinesburg to check out a few days ago. She said she did.”

  Raley didn’t need much prompting. “And you want me to make sure she actually showed up?”

  “Wow,” said Heat. “The Great Ralini sees all.”

  “Building a paper trail?” asked Rook when she hung up.

  “He’s scrubbing the video anyway.” Nikki didn’t know what felt worse, sneaking a check on one of her own detectives or having to because that’s what happened when you lost confidence in a team member.

  A whispered intensity crackled in the DHS basement bunker as Detective Heat and Jameson Rook stepped off the elevator and were met by their uniformed escort. Clearly the mode had shifted down there from serious to urgent. More personnel filled the darkly lit cavern than before, some squeezed double in the cubicles, scanning e-mail traffic, tracking suspects on the Watch List, and networking informants. Others monitored JumboTron
displays of the power grid, reservoirs, and nuclear plants, as well as live cams of bridges, tunnels, airports, and harbor ship traffic.

  Rook said, “If I ever buy a house in the burbs, I’m going to have a man cave just like this in my basem—”

  A screeching, pulsing alarm broke the hush of the control center and a blinding light strobed above the two of them. Glass doors automatically slid shut in the offices lining the perimeter. A rolling metal shudder descended, sealing the door to the Situation Room. Inside its window, Nikki could see Agents Callan, Bell, and other members of the task force get up from the conference table and stare out. A squad of four personnel in moon suits and gas masks rushed out of nowhere, grabbed Heat and Rook, and scrambled them to a small room beside the elevator. Two of the moon suits waited outside; the other pair stayed in with them. One pressed a button that created a vacuum around the door seals they could feel in their ears, as if the room were an airliner gaining altitude.

  “What’s happening?” asked Nikki. They didn’t answer, just separated her from Rook and began scanning both of them with sensors that resembled microphones on the ends of yellow garden hoses attached to whirring filter machinery.

  “Nikki,” said Rook. He tilted his head to a sign on the door that she had to read backward: “Contamination Quarantine.”

  Then one of the machines began to chirp and blink an array of yellow lights. The word “POSITIVE” flashed on the monitor.

  The positive reading came from the machine testing Heat.

  FOURTEEN

  “You set off our sniffer.” Agent Callan held open the door to Quarantine, and Nikki emerged in a borrowed DHS hoodie and mismatched sweatpants. As he walked her to the Situation Room, he said, “But I like the style. You can keep that while we test your clothes and find out exactly what bioagent you had on them.” He gestured to the robotlike air sampling machine she had set off. “This here’s the li’l guy that busted you.” Heat had seen versions of these bioaerosol monitors throughout Manhattan, part of the city’s—and Homeland’s—attempt to get early warning of a dirty bomb or bio strike. “You aren’t, by chance, moonlighting in a terror cell, are you?”

  “Right. In all my spare time.”

  While Nikki changed, Rook had found a seat at the conference table—right beside Yardley Bell, who was deep in conversation with him until Callan and Heat came in and all eyes turned their way. “Prelim from the lab is some kind of trace material on her blazer,” announced Callan as he took his spot at the head of the table. “Whatever set it off, it’s not in sufficient quantity to be harmful, but at least we know the air sampler works.”

  “Great. Maybe we can wheel it person-to-person around New York City during the next few days and find out who’s planning the attack,” said the professorial man in the bow tie. His crack was no joke, but an acerbic snarl of frustration. “I would be curious to know where you picked up this virus or bacteria, Detective.”

  Callan asked, “You didn’t have any physical contact with Salena Kaye, did you?”

  “No. Not today, anyway.”

  “Tough one,” said Yardley Bell, sounding baldly condescending. “Don’t feel too bad. Sometimes they just get away from you.”

  “Even the good ones.” Nikki didn’t need to toss a glance at Rook. Yardley was smart enough to get it. Heat chided herself for stooping to soap opera—even though it felt good on a primal level; oh-snaps were a trashy seduction. She redirected herself to the bow tie man.

  “I could have picked something up at the place I just came from. The motel room where Salena Kaye has been hiding out.” Nikki felt that announcing her rogue mission would be an unpopular bit of information, and she wasn’t wrong. Throats cleared, butts shifted, faces grew taut.

  “You mounted a raid on our suspect without notifying us?” asked Callan.

  Rook jumped in, blurting, “There wasn’t time,” then shrank back in his chair after the looks he got.

  Nikki explained the course of events, from finding Kaye’s shoulder bag, to tracking down her gym, to the lead on her SRO and the bomb materials she discovered there. “Sometimes you have to make a command decision in the field. Given the fluidity of this situation, mine was to act with all speed rather than stop and wait for protocols.” McMains, the NYPD counterterrorism unit commander, caught her eye; his alone twinkled in unspoken agreement. Callan asked her the name of the place then picked up his Bat Phone to dispatch a DHS swab team to the Coney Crest.

  In this most uncomfortable moment, while Bart Callan made his call and Nikki felt the judgmental stares of the task force, a curious sense of ease cloaked her. Because even with all the tension and scrutiny coming her way, at least she felt a respite from the two killers hunting her. Down in that stress-filled bunker, Nikki felt safer than she did on the streets of New York. Then she wondered, What does that say about my life?

  Her reflection got interrupted by a text from Lauren Parry at OCME. “I suppose there’s one other possible source of my contamination,” Heat said after Callan hung up. “I just learned the body we exhumed—Ari Weiss, the man who was my mother’s informant in the terror cell—contained residue of a biological toxin. Ricin.”

  Agent Callan pressed another line and told someone on the other end to test Heat’s blazer for ricin first. Putting the phone back in the cradle, he asked, “Is there anything else you’re not telling us?”

  Instead of rising to his bait, Heat stayed on point. “The significance of the new autopsy on Weiss is that his COD wasn’t a blood disease, but a knife wound.”

  “Same as your…” Callan didn’t finish, and took the silent interval to switch gears. “We can discuss protocols and team sharing later. Let’s move forward. Dr. Donald Rose is here from CDC in Atlanta to brief us. Don?”

  The expert from the Centers for Disease Control, a tall, lean support system for a walrus mustache, appeared more like an aging rodeo cowboy than a research chemist. He poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher in the middle of the table. “Thanks, Bart, appreciate it.” Nikki wondered if the drink would wash the gravel out of his voice, or if he’d just down it and say, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.”

  “I’m here to bring you up to speed on what’s out there in terms of biological agents,” he began. “Down in Atlanta, I coordinate prevention and preparedness in the event of a bioterror strike.” He smiled. “I tell my wife, If I do the first part right, the second part’s a breeze.” Not one chuckle. Instead of soothing, his laconic approach made his content all the more frightening. “Through our syndromic surveillance unit, we collect data on patients and symptoms at hospitals and walk-in clinics nationwide. We survey the size, spread, and tempo of viral and bacterial outbreaks. The idea of this is to track risks so we stay on top of them. Think of it like the Doppler radar you see on your TV news, except instead of sniffing out storms, we search for signs of an outbreak.

  “What are we looking for? Lots. Let’s start with anthrax. We all remember the anthrax incidents of 2001. It’s on our danger list but—not to minimize it—anthrax is statistically inefficient for widespread dissemination in a big event scenario. We do stockpile ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, and amoxicillin to treat it, though.

  “One potential weaponized bioagent is ricin. Others out there, the filoviruses like Ebola and Marburg, as well as arenaviruses, can cause viral hemorrhagic fevers. Their classification is Biosafety Level-4 pathogens, or BSL-4s. A spread among the general public would be swift and difficult to contain. These viruses cause massive simultaneous organ shutdown and hypovolemic shock. Field medics treating hot zones in the Third World called it hell on earth, and that’s using restraint. It’s a messy, painful, gruesome death.”

  Rook turned to Nikki. “Personally, I’d lose that blazer.” The laughter that followed was brief but welcome. Everyone needed to breathe.

  The CDC expert paused and took another sip of water. Everyone waited, nobody moved. This was now The Dr. Don Rose Show. “Smallpox, if you don’t know, was officially erad
icated in 1979. Only two stores of Variola major and Variola minor exist in the world. In Russia and at the CDC in Atlanta. We watch for it, but unless someone manages to cook up a batch, smallpox is under lock and key. And for good reason. Smallpox is one of the bad boys. It has a thirty-five percent mortality rate.”

  “How would one of these bioagents likely be spread?” Agent Bell asked.

  “Could be person-to-person. Could be food- or product-borne. But that would be a slower process, albeit unsettling. For your terror bang for the buck, I expect the release would likely be aerosol. Probably from a sealed metal container carrying it in liquid form with a propellant to help it get atomized.”

  Nikki asked, “What size container?”

  “In a dense population center like this? We’re talking mere gallons.” As the needle-in-a-haystack implications sunk in on all of them, he added, “Also, any part of New York City exposed to a mass release would be shut down and quarantined indefinitely.”

  “So we know the ugly,” said Callan, turning to his DHS intelligence coordinator. “How bad’s the bad?”

  “Bad about says it,” answered Agent Londell Washington. He looked to be in his late forties, but sleeplessness and stress had added ten years. You aged fast in this business. “We’ve ramped up surveillance since this landed in our laps. We’re leaning hard on all our informants and undercover agents. Nothing. We’ve tracked movements of all known and suspected terror likelies on our Watch List to see who’s gathering, who’s become suddenly active, and who’s gone underground. There’s no anomalous behavior. We’re monitoring phone calls, e-mails, chat rooms, Tweets, taxicab two-ways, even Love Line record dedications on the radio—I kid you not—nada. All the jihadists and ideologues are acting to pattern; there’s no chatter like we usually get before an event, no spike in sick days among employees at the power plants, train stations, and so forth.”