The Twelfth Card

by Jeffery Deaver

  Sachs then asked, "You're sure you don't have any idea who he is or where he lives?"

  "None. He's only been in here once or twice. Maybe more, but he's the sort of person you never seem to notice. Average. Didn't smile, didn't frown, didn't say anything. Totally average."

  Not a bad look for a killer, Sachs reflected. "What about your other employees?"

  "I asked them all. None of them remember him."

  Sachs opened the suitcase, replaced the fingerprint analyzer and pulled out a Toshiba computer. In a minute she'd booted it up and loaded the Electronic Facial Identification Technique software. This was a computerized version of the old Identikit, used to re-create images of suspects' faces. The manual system used preprinted cards of human features and hair, which officers combined and showed to witnesses to create a likeness of a suspect. EFIT used software to do the same, producing a nearly photographic image.

  Within five minutes, Sachs had a composite picture of a jowly, clean-shaven white man with trim, light brown hair, in his forties. He looked like any one of a million middle-aged businessmen or contractors or store clerks you'd find in the metro area.

  Average . . .

  "Do you remember what he wore?"

  There's a companion program to EFIT, which will dress the suspect's image in various outfits--like mounting clothes on paper dolls. But the woman couldn't recall anything other than a dark raincoat.

  She added, "Oh, one thing. I think he had a Southern accent."

  Sachs nodded and jotted this into her notebook. She then hooked up a small laser printer and soon had two dozen five-by-seven-inch copies of Unsub 109's image, with a short description of his height, weight and the fact he might be wearing a raincoat and had an accent. She added the warning that he targeted innocents. These she handed to Bo Haumann, the grizzled, crew-cut former drill instructor who was now head of the Emergency Services Unit, which was New York's tactical group. He in turn distributed the pictures to his officers and the uniformed patrolmen who were here with the team. Haumann divided the law enforcers up--mixing Patrol with ESU, which had heavier firepower--and ordered them to start canvassing the neighborhood.

  The dozen officers dispersed.

  NYPD, the constabulary of the city of cool, put their tactical teams not in army-style armored personnel carriers but in off-the-shelf squad cars and vans and carted their equipment around in an ESU bus--a nondescript blue-and-white truck. One of these was now parked near the store as a staging vehicle.

  Sachs and Sellitto pulled on body armor with shock plates over the heart and headed into Little Italy. The neighborhood had changed dramatically in the past fifteen years. Once a huge enclave of working-class Italian immigrants, it had shrunk to nearly nothing, owing to the spread of Chinatown from the south, and young professionals from the north and west. On Mulberry Street the two detectives now passed an emblem of this change: the building that was the former Ravenite Social Club, home of the Gambino crime family, which long-gone John Gotti had headed. The club had been seized by the government--resulting in the inevitable nickname "Club Fed"--and was now just another commercial building looking for a tenant.

  The two detectives picked a block and began their canvass, flashing their shields and the picture of the unsub to street vendors and clerks in stores, teenagers cutting classes and sipping Starbucks coffee, retirees on benches or front stairs. They'd occasionally hear reports from the other officers. "Nothing . . . Negative on Grand, K . . . Copy that . . . Negative on Hester, K . . . We're trying east . . . "

  Sellitto and Sachs continued along their own route, having no more luck than anyone else.

  A loud bang behind them.

  Sachs gasped--not at the noise, which she recognized immediately as a truck backfire--but at Sellitto's reaction. He'd jumped aside, actually taking cover behind a phone kiosk, his hand on the grip of his revolver.

  He blinked and swallowed. Gave a shallow laugh. "Fucking trucks," he muttered.

  "Yeah," Sachs said.

  He wiped his face and they continued on.

  *

  Sitting in his safe house, smelling garlic from one of the nearby restaurants in Little Italy, Thompson Boyd was huddled over a book, reading the instructions it offered and then examining what he'd bought at the hardware store an hour ago.

  He marked certain pages with yellow Post-it tabs and jotted notes in the margins. The procedures he was studying were a bit tricky but he knew he'd work through them. There wasn't anything you couldn't do if you took your time. His father taught him that. Hard tasks or easy.

  It's only a question of where you put the decimal point . . .

  He pushed back from the desk, which, along with one chair, one lamp and one cot, was the only piece of furniture in the place. A small TV set, a cooler, a garbage can. He also kept a few supplies here, things he used in his work. Thompson pulled the latex glove away from his right wrist and blew into it, cooling his skin. Then he did the same with his left. (You always assumed a safe house would get tossed at some point so you took precautions there'd be no evidence to convict you, whether it was wearing gloves or using a booby trap.) His eyes were acting up today. He squinted, put drops in, and the stinging receded. He closed his lids.

  Whistling softly that haunting song from the movie Cold Mountain.

  Soldiers shooting soldiers, that big explosion, bayonets. Images from the film cascaded through his mind.

  Wssst . . .

  That song disappeared, along with the images, and up popped a classical tune. "Bolero."

  Where the tunes came from, he generally couldn't tell. It was like in his head there was a CD changer that somebody else had programmed. But with "Bolero" he knew the source. His father had the piece on an album. The big, crew-cut man had played it over and over on the green-plastic Sears turntable in his workshop.

  "Listen to this part, son. It changes key. Wait . . . wait . . . There! You hear that?"

  The boy believed he had.

  Thompson now opened his eyes and returned to the book.

  Five minutes later: Wsssst . . . "Bolero" went away and another melody started easing out through his pursed lips: "Time After Time." That song Cyndi Lauper made famous in the eighties.

  Thompson Boyd had always liked music and from an early age wanted to play an instrument. His mother took him to guitar and flute lessons for several years. After her accident his father drove the boy himself, even if that made him late to work. But there were problems with Thompson's advancement: His fingers were too big and stubby for fret boards and flute keys and piano, and he had no voice at all. Whether it was church choir or Willie or Waylon or Asleep at the Wheel, nope, he couldn't get more than a croak out of the old voice box. So, after a year or two, he turned away from the music and filled his time with what boys normally did in places like Amarillo, Texas: spending time with his family, nailing and planing and sanding in his father's work shed, playing touch then tackle football, hunting, dating shy girls, going for walks in the desert.

  And he tucked his love of music wherever failed hopes go.

  Which usually isn't very far beneath the surface. Sooner or later they crawl out again.

  In his case this happened to be in prison a few years ago. A guard on the maximum security block came up and asked Thompson, "What the fuck was that?"

  "How do you mean?" asked the ever-placid Average Joe.

  "That song. You were whistling."

  "I was whistling?"

  "Fuck yes. You didn't know?"

  He said to the guard, "Just something I was doing. Wasn't thinking."

  "Damn, sounded good." The guard wandered off, leaving Thompson to laugh to himself. How 'bout that? He had an instrument all along, one he'd been born with, one he carried around with him. Thompson went to the prison library and looked into this. He learned that people would call him an "orawhistler," which was different from a tin-whistle player, say--like in Irish bands. Orawhistlers are rare--most people have very limited whistling range--and cou
ld make good livings as professional musicians in concerts, advertising, TV and movies (everybody knew the Bridge on the River Kwai theme, of course; you couldn't even think about it without whistling the first few notes, at least in your head). There were even orawhistling competitions, the most famous being the International Grand Championship, which featured dozens of performers--many of them appeared regularly with orchestras around the world and had their own cabaret acts.

  Wssst . . .

  Another tune came into his head. Thompson Boyd exhaled the notes softly, getting a soft trill. He noticed he'd moved his .22 out of reach. That wasn't doing things by the book . . . . He pulled the pistol closer then returned to the instruction booklet again, sticking more Post-it notes onto pages, glancing into the shopping bag to make sure he had everything he needed. He thought that he had the technique down. But, as always when he approached something new, he was going to learn everything cold before executing the job.

  *

  "Nothing, Rhyme," Sachs said into the microphone dangling near her ample lips.

  That his prior good mood had vanished like steam was evident when he snapped, "Nothing?"

  "Nobody's seen him."

  "Where are you?"

  "We've covered basically all of Little Italy. Lon and I're at the south end. Canal Street."

  "Hell," Rhyme muttered.

  "We could . . . " Sachs stopped speaking. "What's that?"

  "What?" Rhyme asked.

  "Hold on a minute." To Sellitto she said, "Come on."

  Displaying her badge she forced her way through four lanes of thick, attitudinal traffic. She looked around then started south on Elizabeth Street, a dark canyon of tenements, retail shops and warehouses. She stopped again. "Smell that?"

  Rhyme asked caustically, "Smell?"

  "I'm asking Lon."

  "Yeah," the big detective said. "What is that? Something, you know, sweet."

  Sachs pointed to a wholesale herbal products, soap and incense company, two doors south of Canal on Elizabeth Street. A strong flowery scent wafted from the open doors. It was jasmine--the aroma that they'd detected on the rape pack and that Geneva herself had smelled at the museum.

  "We might have a lead, Rhyme. I'll call you back."

  *

  "Yeah, yeah," the slim Chinese man in the herbal wholesaler said, gazing at the EFIT composite picture of Unsub 109. "I see him some. Upstair. He not there a lot. What he do?"

  "Is he up there now?"

  "Don't know. Don't know. Think I saw him today. What he do?"

  "Which apartment?"

  The man shrugged.

  The herbal import company took up the first floor, but at the end of the dim entryway, past a security door, were steep stairs leading up into darkness. Sellitto pulled out his radio and called in on the operations frequency. "We've got him."

  "Who's this?" Haumann snapped.

  "Oh, sorry. It's Sellitto. We're two buildings south of Canal on Elizabeth. We've got a positive ID on the tenant. Might be in the building now."

  "ESU Command, all units. You copy, K?"

  Affirmative responses filled the airwaves.

  Sachs identified herself and transmitted, "Make it a silent roll-up and stay off Elizabeth. He can see the street from the window in the front."

  "Roger, five-eight-eight-five. What's the address? I'm calling in for a no-knock warrant, K."

  Sachs gave him the street number. "Out."

  Less than fifteen minutes later the teams were on site and S and S officers were checking out the front and rear of the building with binoculars and infrared and sonic sensors. The lead Search and Surveillance officer said, "There're four floors in the building. Import warehouse is on the ground. We can see into the second and the fourth floors. They're occupied--Asian families. Elderly couple on the second and the top's got a woman and four or five kids."

  Haumann said, "And the third floor?"

  "Windows are curtained, but the infrared scans positive for heat. Could be a TV or heater. But could be human. And we're getting some sounds. Music. And the creaking of floors, sounds like."

  Sachs looked at the building directory. The plate above the intercom button for the third floor was empty.

  An officer arrived and gave Haumann a piece of paper. It was the search warrant signed by a state court judge and had just been faxed to the ESU command post truck. Haumann looked it over, made sure the address was correct--a wrong no-knock could subject them to liability and jeopardize the case against the unsub. But the paper was in order. Haumann said, "Two entry teams, four people each, front stairwell and back fire escape. A battering ram at the front." He pulled eight officers from the group and divided them into two groups. One of them--A team--was to go through the front. B was on the fire escape. He told the second group, "You take out the window on the three count and hit him with a flash-bang, two-second delay."

  "Roger."

  "On zero, take out the front door," he said to the head of the A team. Then he assigned other officers to guard the innocents' doors and to be backup. "Now deploy. Move, move, move!"

  The troopers--mostly men, two women--moved out, as Haumann ordered. The B team went around to the back of the building, while Sachs and Haumann joined the A team, along with an officer manning the battering ram.

  Under normal circumstances a crime scene officer wouldn't be allowed on an entry team. But Haumann had seen Sachs under fire and knew she could pull her own. And, more important, the ESU officers themselves welcomed her. They'd never admit it, at least not to her, but they considered Sachs one of them and were glad to have her. It didn't hurt, of course, that she was one of the top pistol shots on the force.

  As for Sachs herself, well, she just plain liked doing kick-ins.

  Sellitto volunteered to remain downstairs and keep an eye on the street.

  Her knees aching from arthritis, Sachs climbed with the other officers to the third floor. She stepped close to the door and listened. She nodded to Haumann. "I can hear something," she whispered.

  Haumann said into his radio, "Team B, report."

  "We're in position," Sachs heard in her earpiece. "Can't see inside. But we're ready to go."

  The commander looked at the team around them. The huge officer with the battering ram--a weighted tube about three feet long--nodded. Another cop crouched beside him and closed his fingers around the doorknob to see if it was locked.

  Into his mike Haumann whispered, "Five . . . four . . . three . . . "

  Silence. This was the moment when they should've heard the sound of breaking glass and then the explosion of the stun grenade.

  Nothing.

  And something was wrong here too. The officer gripping the knob was shivering fiercely, moaning.

  Jesus, Sachs thought, staring at him. The guy was having a fit or something. A tactical entry officer with epilepsy? Why the hell hadn't that shown up in his medical?

  "What's wrong?" Haumann whispered to him.

  The man didn't reply. The quaking grew worse. His eyes were wide and only the whites showed.

  "B team, report," the commander called into his radio. "What's going on, K?"

  "Command, the window's boarded up," the B team leader transmitted. "Plywood. We can't get a grenade in. Status of Alpha, K?"

  The officer at the door had slumped now, his hand frozen on the knob, still shivering. Haumann whispered in a harsh voice, "We're wasting time! Get him out of the way and take the door out. Now!" Another officer grabbed the seizing one.

  The second one began to shake too.

  The other officers stepped back. One muttered, "What's going--"

  It was then that the first officer's hair caught fire.

  "He wired the door!" Haumann was pointing to a metal plate on the floor. You saw these often in old buildings--they were used as cheap patches on hardwood floors. This one, though, had been used by Unsub 109 to make an electric booby trap; high voltage was coursing through both men.

  Fire was sprouting from th
e first officer's head, his eyebrows, the backs of his hands, then his collar. The other cop was unconscious now, but still quivering horribly.

  "Jesus," an officer whispered in Spanish.

  Haumann tossed his H&K machine gun to a nearby officer, took the battering ram and swung it hard at the wrist of the officer gripping the knob. Bones probably shattered, but the ram knocked his fingers loose. The circuit broken, the two men collapsed. Sachs beat out the flames, which were filling the hallway with the revolting smell of burnt hair and flesh.

  Two of the backup officers began CPR on their unconscious colleagues, while an A-team cop grabbed the handles of the battering ram and swung it into the door, which burst open. The team raced inside, guns up. Sachs followed.

  It took only five seconds to learn that the apartment was empty.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bo Haumann called into his radio, "B Team, B team, we're inside. No sign of the suspect. Get downstairs, sweep the alley. But remember--he waited around at the last scene. He goes for innocents. And he goes for cops."

  A desk lamp burned and when Sachs touched the seat of the chair she found it was warm. A small closed-circuit TV sat on the desk, the fuzzy screen showing the hallway in front of the door. He'd had a security camera hidden somewhere outside and seen them coming. The killer had gotten away only moments ago. But where? The officers looked around for an escape route. The window by the fire escape was covered with plywood. The other was uncovered but it was thirty feet above the alley. "He was here. How the hell'd he get away?"

  The answer came a moment later.

  "Found this," an officer called. He'd been looking under the bed. He pulled the cot away from the wall, revealing a hole just big enough for a person to crawl through. It looked like the unsub had cut through the plaster and removed the brick wall between this building and the one next door. When he saw them on the TV monitor he'd simply kicked out the plaster on the other side of the wall and slipped into the adjoining building.

  Haumann sent more officers to check the roof and nearby streets, others to find and cover the entrances into the building next door.

  "Somebody into the hole," the ESU commander ordered.

  "I'll go, sir," a short officer said.

  But with his bulky armor, even he couldn't fit through the gap.