“Before I show them to you,” he began, “I need to ask if you’re willing to keep this off the record.” He paused. “I also have to request that you don’t ask me where or how I obtained the papers you’re going to see. I have no right to make these demands, but if you do ask me any question on that score, I won’t answer them, except to tell you that even the smallest comment from me could ultimately jeopardize this whole case.”
Hagen and Leary exchanged glances.
“I have no problem with that,” Leary said.
“Nor I,” Hagen confirmed.
Joe opened the attaché case and laid the documents out on the bed. Each individual sheet of paper had been separated and encased in a plastic folder.
“First objective,” he said, taking a smaller slip of paper from an inside pocket, “is to crosscheck this serial number with those on the documents.” He paused. “There are a lot of numbers – I wish I could offer you more people to assist you, but under the circumstances that’s not possible.”
Hagen read the serial number. “Your sister’s?”
“Yes.” Joe looked right at him. “I have no right to ask this of you either. If it’s too much for you, you should tell me.”
“Nothing is too much.”
They worked together. The serial number of Lally’s pacemaker came up on two out of the six documents.
“I wish it weren’t so,” Hagen said, “but there isn’t any doubt.”
Joe felt sick to his stomach.
“We should get to work on the rest,” Leary said. “Why not take a break, Lieutenant? You can’t help any more.”
Joe stood up. “I’ll be outside.” He paused. “We don’t have too long.”
“We know that,” Leary said and, glancing up briefly, he smiled at Joe. It was the first genuine, warm smile that Joe had seen on his face, and it filled him with a new brand of despair. He had always functioned on instincts as much as hard facts, and faced with Leary, Hagen, Ashcroft and Schwartz in those early days, he had picked Leary – as had the others – for his first choice as bad guy. Over the years, Joe had gone through frequent bouts of self-doubt, had always been his own worst critic, but never in his whole career to date, had he felt as ineffectual, as guilty of poor judgment, as impotent, as he did right now.
He gave them twenty minutes, then went back inside.
“What do we have?”
“Everything,” Hagen said, “and nothing.”
Joe waited, his throat so tight and dry it was painful.
“Tell me.” Joe sat down.
“They’re remarkable,” Leary said. “Minutely, perfectly detailed records of everything that was done. Ingredients, method, projected results.”
“What’s the bad news?” Joe asked.
“It’s a game,” Hagen answered. “He – whoever this is – ”
“We all know who it is,” Leary said, grimly.
“No.” Joe’s tone was firm, almost harsh. “We don’t. You mustn’t.”
“Whoever this is,” Leary went on, “is playing with us.” He took a breath. “There are six documents, all of them variations on a theme. We know how he did it. We know how he turned our pacemakers into bombs. But the crucial details – quantities, timer settings and serial numbers – are different enough in each set to make them useless.”
“But that’s not the worst of it,” Hagen said. “All the documents give details of homemade pacemaker batteries created on the outside to look identical to the real thing, but each containing a smaller battery, some circuitry, a detonator and a timing device to count down.” He swallowed. “Four of the documents detail batteries with a half-ounce of plastique explosive added, though not all.”
“And the other two?” Joe wasn’t breathing.
Leary took over, his voice stronger than Hagen’s. “If either of these two documents is the real thing, we’re looking at two alternative forms of detonation. One solely operated by timer, as in the others. One by a kind of hair trigger, using conductive glue.”
“In other words – ” Hagen was looking sicker again.
“They could blow any time,” Leary said.
Joe felt as if everything inside him had stopped again.
“Especially during explantation,” Leary added.
“And correct me if I’m wrong,” Hagen said, softly, “but I believe I’ve read that like plastique, conductive glue doesn’t show up on X-rays.”
No one spoke for several seconds.
“Quite a game,” Leary said.
“Unless we can establish which – if any – is the authentic document,” Hagen said, “we still won’t know precisely which, or how many, devices have been sabotaged – ”
“Or which of the detonation methods have been used,” Leary added.
Hagen’s tone and face were still gentle but grim. “And since your sister’s number tallies with one document detailing plastique only, and one detailing the conductive glue, we have no way of knowing just how volatile her pacemaker is.”
“If either of those documents is the authentic one,” Leary clarified, “it’s very bad news. If it’s one of the others, it’s possible that the only real danger to her could be that the smaller battery would have a shorter life.”
Joe was back on his feet. There was only one person who could tell them what they needed to know, and so far as Joe was concerned, it was a rock solid bet that a man capable of playing these kinds of games with people’s lives would not volunteer the information unless he felt compelled to do so.
Everything they needed now was locked inside Schwartz’s head.
He drove to the Howe Clinic, found Valdez and Morrissey and looked at Lally’s X-rays. They looked past the stainless steel casing of the pacemaker’s battery case, and there was a smaller dummy battery and the circuitry that told them, without a grain of doubt, that Lally’s device was certainly one of Schwartz’s, though they couldn’t tell if it was benign or deadly. Joe felt like going back to Memorial Hospital and killing the son of a bitch with his bare hands, but instead he took Valdez and Morrissey into his confidence – the more people who knew about the mess, the more trouble his career was in, potentially, but that was another story for another day – and Valdez confirmed pretty much what Hagen had said about conductive glue.
“Bombers use it instead of running wires – it conducts electricity and we can’t see a goddamned thing on X-rays.”
“What about magnetic resonance scanning?” Joe wanted to know.
“Magnetic resonance imaging,” Morrissey corrected. “Unfortunately, MRI isn’t suitable for pacemaker wearers.”
They all looked back at the lit X-ray pictures on the wall.
“So we could be looking at plastique and this glue stuff right now,” Joe said, “and just not be able to see it.”
“You got it,” Valdez said, grimly.
“What now?” Morrissey asked.
“We need the right document,” Valdez said.
Joe said nothing, fought to hold himself together, to use his anger and his fear, to pump it all into strength and clarity.
“What are you going to do, Lieutenant?” Morrissey asked softly.
“I’m going to get what we need,” Joe said.
The Howe Clinic felt more like a large, sumptuous and tranquil private house than a hospital. There were flowers everywhere, not grand displays, but lovely, simple splashes of colour charmingly arranged to cheer and calm. The paintings were mostly landscapes, and framed photographs of grateful patients hung on almost every wall.
When Joe came in to see her, Lally, ordered by Morrissey to rest, was compromising by sitting up, still fully dressed, on top of the bed in her pretty pastel-coloured bedroom on the third floor. Hugo, gaunt from worry and lack of sleep, was sitting in an armchair on the window side of the bed.
“Hi, gorgeous,” Joe said, lightheartedly, as he entered the room and bent to kiss the top of her head. “You look okay – are you okay?” He glanced at Hugo. “Barzinsky, you look like hell.�
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“Thank you,” Hugo said.
“I am okay,” Lally said, “but I think I’m going a little stir-crazy.”
“You’ve only been here a few hours,” Joe pointed out.
“I’d like to be back in Key West.”
“I wish you could be.”
“How long before they do something?” Hugo asked.
“A little while yet,” Joe replied.
“You know we’re waiting for Dr Ash,” Lally said.
“I think it’s nuts to wait,” Hugo said for about the twelfth time.
“What’s another few hours?” Lally’s sense of unreality had returned with the X-ray session, though she thought that perhaps the tranquillizer Dr Morrissey had persuaded her to swallow had something to do with it.
“Can’t you talk some sense into your sister?” Hugo pleaded with Joe.
“I agree with her,” Joe said. “There’s no imminent danger.”
“How can you say that?”
“Easily,” Joe lied. “The people who died all had their pacemakers implanted for much longer than Lally’s had hers, so another few hours aren’t going to make any difference.”
“Why don’t you trust Dr Morrissey?” Hugo wanted to know.
“It has nothing to do with not trusting him,” Lally tried to explain. “But Dr Ash and Joanna King and Bobby Goldstein are all on their way, and since they put the thing into my chest – since Dr Ash was the one who threaded those wires through my veins into my heart – I figure no one else knows his handiwork as well as he does. Surely that makes sense to you, Hugo?”
Hugo looked at Joe, saw him nod, almost imperceptibly.
“I guess so,” he said.
“Where’s Chris?” Lally asked Joe.
“At my house, sleeping.”
“Good,” she said. “He must be exhausted.”
“We’re all exhausted,” Hugo said, a little tetchily.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Lally asked. “I keep telling you to.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” she said.
Joe was mindful of time slipping away. “I have to go, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Is there anything you need?”
Lally shook her head. “Not a thing.” She smiled at him. “It’s really a lovely place, don’t you think? There’s no hospital smell, and it’s so quiet. When no one’s talking, and the TV’s off, you can hardly hear a sound.”
“It’s a fine place,” Joe agreed. He saw no necessity to tell Lally that the reason her room was so silent was that every other patient in her wing had been moved, prior to her arrival, to a safe distance. What Morrissey had said at O’Hare about others not being at risk was true enough as far as it went, but as Tony Valdez had said hundreds of times, anyone who was complacent about any kind of bomb was either insane or very dumb. Bombs were unpredictable, and though Joe was still praying that Lally’s pacemaker was one of Schwartz’s benign dummies, if it wasn’t, there was no way of knowing for sure that it would behave in the same way Marie Ferguson’s or Alice Douglas’s had.
“How’s Jess doing?” Lally asked.
“She’s doing great. No more pains, and they’ll probably be sending her home – or at least to her mom’s – tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful.” Lally saw the urgency in her brother’s eyes, and reached for his hand. “You can go, Joe, honestly. I really am okay.”
“I know you are.” Joe held onto her hand for another moment. “You do what they tell you, sis, okay?”
“I promise.” Lally paused. “Will you come back before they operate?”
“You bet I will.”
He forced himself to walk slowly to the door. The instant it had closed behind him, he began to run.
It was twenty minutes before six.
Commander Jackson had a dinner to attend. He was sitting behind his desk, resplendent in a tuxedo, and he was impatient to get away.
“This had better be good, Duval. Mrs Jackson is waiting, not to mention the one hundred and ninety-eight other people expecting to hear my speech.”
“It isn’t good, sir,” Joe said. “What I’m hoping it will be is off the record, at least for another twenty-four hours.”
“What have you done, Duval?” The words were uttered on a sigh. “Or can I guess?” Jackson shook his head in frustration. “For the love of God, tell me you didn’t search Schwartz’s apartment.”
“I wish I could.”
Jackson stood up, walked around the desk, checked the door was properly closed and pulled down the blinds on the window through which he could see and be seen by the detectives in the open plan office outside.
“You’d better sit down,” he told Joe.
They faced one another, the desk separating them.
“You need coffee?” the commander asked.
“No, thank you, sir.”
“You better tell me then.”
“Are we off the record?”
“Maybe.”
“I need to know, Commander.”
“You don’t need to know anything, Duval. You just need to tell me the whole miserable fucking truth and when you’ve finished, you need to keep your mouth shut.”
Jackson seldom swore. Joe knew it was not a good sign.
He told him everything.
“Is that it?”
“It is.” Joe waited.
The commander’s jaw was set tight. “So, to sum up your day’s work, you not only ignored my express orders and conducted not one, but two illegal searches – you also broke into both apartments, you bribed one civilian and involved a second in your crimes, which have resulted in his injury and hospitalization.”
Joe knew the time had come to keep his mouth shut.
“And now you’re asking me to ignore all that, and to let you run with the case for another twenty-four hours.”
Again, Joe said nothing.
“Do I have that right, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me again why you think I should give you that time.”
“Because I think I can finish it.”
“What you mean is, you think you can help give your sister a better chance of survival.” Jackson’s voice was stony.
“I mean I think I can do that,” Joe said as steadily as he could, “and break Schwartz at the same time.”
“Using inadmissible evidence.” The documents lay on the desk, plastic folders piled almost three inches high.
“Plus what we now know about his condition.”
“Don’t tell me any more.” Jackson’s dark eyes were narrow and very sharp. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just suspend you right now and hand the case over to someone who understands our state and federal laws.”
“Whose hands would be tied because my searches were illegal.”
“Your hands are tied too, Duval.”
“Only as far as the evidence I found during the search.”
The commander stood up, walked over to the dark wood wall on his left, and stared at the photograph that included Marie Ferguson’s father. For several moments, he remained deep in thought, and then, at last, he turned around.
“Is the rest of this plan of yours legal?”
“It is.”
“Is it ethical?”
Joe hesitated only briefly. “It may not be strictly orthodox, but in my opinion it is ethical.”
“In your opinion.” Jackson didn’t trouble to hide his sarcasm.
“Yes, sir.”
“Does this plan involve any other member of the police department?”
“No, sir.” Joe paused. “Except for the Bomb and Arson team already on alert for Lally’s surgery.”
“Does anyone know where the documents were found?”
“No, sir. I believe that Hagen and Leary have a pretty shrewd idea that Schwartz is our man, but they’ve agreed to ask no questions.”
“Do you believe” – the commander looked Joe straigh
t and hard in the eye – ”do you honestly believe that my letting you go ahead with this may save the lives of others as well as your sister?”
Joe looked back steadily. “Lally’s the guinea pig for every other one of Schwartz’s victims. If her pacemaker does turn out to be a bomb, we’ll be able to assist other hospitals around the country.”
“And do you believe you can still get me a case against Schwartz?”
“I think I can.”
Jackson waited several more seconds. “You have till eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
It was more than Joe had hoped for. “Thank you, Commander.”
“You’ll be on your own. I won’t let another officer help you on this, not Lipman, not even Cohen.”
“I understand that.”
“And after the deadline, you may be on suspension.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want your word on something, Duval.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“If you realize at any point during the next” – Jackson checked his watch – ”fourteen hours, that you’ve made another mistake – that it’s going wrong – you come to me right away. Other than that, I don’t want to know. The only other news I want from you is a result.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“You realize you could lose your job, whichever way it goes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which is a goddamned waste.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m about as angry and disgusted with you right now as I’ve ever been with any officer under my command.”
“I understand that, sir.” Joe stood up. “I’d better get going.”
“You had.” Jackson paused. “I’ll pray for your sister.”
“Thank you,” Joe said again.
In silence, they walked back to the front door.
“So far as I’m concerned, Duval, you have not been here.”
“No, sir.”
“That’s as much for myself, as for the sake of the case. I’m not prepared to stand up with you on this one.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Joe said.
Jackson’s hand was on the door knob.
“If you go down, you go down alone.”
It was snowing when Joe walked out of the station. He unlocked his car door and got in. The clock on the dashboard read twenty-five minutes after six. If flights were running to schedule, Lucas Ash and his team would have landed by now and would shortly be on their way to the Howe Clinic, and before much longer, everyone and almost everything would be in place for Lally’s surgery. The rest – the missing link – was still in Schwartz’s head, and it was entirely up to Joe now to extract it.
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