Renard now pulled on clear latex gloves once again and extracted the device.
Again looking around and, making sure he was unobserved, he used a phone app to launch the craft into the air. It flew with silent elegance, smoothly under his practiced commands.
Flying a drone in Manhattan is illegal for nearly everyone. The city is mostly Class B airspace — because there are so many airports nearby — and that means you need FAA permission to fly. Also you must be certified under FAA regulations, Part 107, which Renard was not.
City statutes prohibit the craft too.
One could be charged with both civil and criminal counts, including reckless endangerment. But finding and arresting the operator was another matter, especially with a drone purchased for cash in a different city and launched in the absence of witnesses.
He reflected too that with an explosive charge inside, there would be nothing left — not even DNA — to trace back to a suspect.
Lincoln Rhyme did not fret.
He did not worry.
His existence was more precarious than that of most people — given his condition — and he had long ago accepted that his body might betray him. Then too he had indeed made many enemies and it was not unreasonable to posit that a certain percentage were angry, and probably crazy, enough to get even.
But you did what you could.
You followed sound medical advice, you established home security. And you concentrated on your job.
The doorbell sounded and Rhyme instructed the system to unlock. NYPD Detective Mel Cooper, Rhyme’s key lab man, stepped inside and greeted the criminalist. Sellitto too.
“My,” he said, eyeing the security devices.
Sellitto told him about the threat.
“Well, not surprising, I suppose. You’ve put some pretty bad people behind bars.”
The detective asked, “Hey, Mel, didn’t you have some competition or something?”
“Ah,” the slim, bespectacled man replied modestly, “we prevailed.”
Cooper and his stunning Scandinavian girlfriend contended as ballroom dancers throughout the tri-state area. They were, apparently, quite renowned.
Rhyme had probably heard about the contest but he never had time for, or interest in, small talk and tended not to listen when it was proffered.
“Thom’s out shopping,” Sellitto said. “But he made coffee.” Pointing to a pot.
“I’m good.”
Sellitto was looking through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that separated the public portion of the parlor from the sterile lab. There were a half-dozen items of evidence Amelia Sachs had collected at a crime scene yesterday. “You know, we oughta scan all of that.” He was nodding. “We don’t know how long this guy’s been after you. He could’ve hid a bomb in some evidence.”
To Rhyme that seemed far-fetched. He hadn’t blown up yet. But he supposed it couldn’t hurt.
Cooper dressed in booties, hat and gloves, then donned a clean white lab coat.
He turned to Rhyme. “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”
Rhyme stared, wondering why Sellitto was laughing.
Cooper stepped into the sterile portion of the room and collected the evidence. With Sellitto guiding him through the instructions, he ran the items through the sensors in the hallway.
“All clear,” Sellitto announced.
Cooper headed back toward the lab, asking, “Where’s Amelia?”
“Spanish Harlem,” Sellitto said. “Some drug deal went down, and it might have Hector Velasquez’s prints all over it. I’m speaking figuratively about the prints — but I damn well hope it’s literal.”
Velasquez was one of the most ruthless organized criminals in the city. And one of the most elusive. It had been a priority of the NYPD’s OC Task Force to nail the mobster but they’d made no headway — until now. It seemed a drug deal had gone bad, and clues found at the scene, they hoped, might implicate the gangbanger in chief.
Sellitto’s phone hummed and he took a call. He listened and then held the unit away from his face. “It’s Andy Gilligan, gold shield I work with, Major Cases. He’s running a B and E, downtown. He’s asking if you’ll take it on.”
“Breaking and entering? Was there any battery, homicide?”
“No.”
Lincoln Rhyme had little patience for cases that did not challenge him. And simple larceny rarely rose to the occasion. “Then why me?”
“Because of where he hit. The DSE.”
“Which is?”
“The Department of Structures and Engineering. He got into the main repository. Downloaded the details of every existing and proposed construction project in the city. The mayor and the chief’re convinced it’s for some terror attack. You know, they have the layout for any building they want to hit.”
“Have they already run the scene?”
“Yeah. Evidence collection team out of Queens. And they got some interesting things. Looks like he missed an alarm. It went off and he had to book on out fast. Left behind a tool kit or something.”
“Tell him I’ll take a look.”
Fifteen minutes later the detective arrived. Gilligan, a slim, balding man, shook Sellitto’s hand then, as instructed, ran the two evidence bags through the security systems. Sellitto looked the readouts over and said, “All clear.”
Gilligan seemed reverential in Rhyme’s presence. “Honor to meet you, sir. I’ve followed your work for years.”
The criminalist greeted the awe as he usually did — that is, by ignoring it. He was looking at a half-dozen plastic evidence bags Gilligan carried in a carton. Inside were tools, a knife, several pieces of paper containing printed and handwritten numbers and words that Rhyme could not make out.
“Thanks for doing this, Captain Rhyme. The mayor’s beside himself. You can imagine. Every building in the city’s vulnerable.”
Sellitto asked, “Any threats from known risk elements?”
“No.”
“We’ll run it today,” Rhyme told him.
Gilligan handed off the evidence to Mel Cooper who set the bags on another workstation in the sterile portion of the lab.
The detective thanked the men again. “See you back at the office, Lon. We’re taking Mannie out after work. Birthday.”
“Think I’ll have to pass,” Sellitto muttered. “Got this thing we need to handle here.”
“Okay. Take it easy.”
A few minutes after Gilligan was gone, the door opened and Thom arrived from a trip to the grocery store. He started past the men in the parlor but Sellitto eyed his two grocery totes, frowned and said, “Uh-uh.”
“How’s that?” the aide asked.
Rhyme chuckled. “He thinks somebody might’ve snuck a hand grenade in with the avocados.”
Once the groceries passed the security check, Thom continued toward the kitchen, saying, “Don’t see them very much in the city.”
“See what?” Sellitto asked absently. On a large whiteboard, devoted to the DSE break-in, he was itemizing the evidence Andy Gilligan had delivered.
“Drones.”
“Because,” Mel Cooper called, “they’re illegal in Manhattan. A lot of other parts of the city too. I have one, but I go out to Long Island to fly it.”
“Well,” came the voice from the kitchen, “there’s one outside now.”
Rhyme shot a glance to Sellitto, who muttered, “Shit. Where?”
Thom appeared, his face troubled. He nodded. “Over the town house south of us.”