“So the second attempt was a diversion too.”
“That’s right.”
Sachs asked, “How did the assassin really get him?”
“A bomb in a bottle of wine brought to the general’s home by a friend — who didn’t know about the IED.
“My first quote ‘attempt’ was the drone. You’d think ‘bomb.’ But you’d also be thinking it was possibly a diversion. Am I right?”
“You are,” said Rhyme.
“So then there’d be the second attempt — the poison in the vegetables.”
Rhyme shook his head angrily. “But that was just a diversion too.”
Renard said, “You should’ve dismantled the phone. An X-ray alone wouldn’t show the packet of poison.”
“Damn, that call we got,” Sellitto muttered. “You were Carruthers, the detective out of Fraud.”
“That’s right. His name was on the NYPD website.”
“The hell you get my number?”
“I called Major Cases, said I was a detective in Fraud and I needed to talk to you about a case. They patched me through.”
Sellitto grimaced. “Security lapse there...” He frowned. “Then you waited until Thom went shopping and followed him to the store.”
Renard further explained, “This is Manhattan. Because most people walk to grocery stores they can’t carry that much, so they shop frequently. Usually every day. I didn’t think it’d be long before your assistant went out to pick up dinner. That started the plan in motion.”
Thom looked him over, nodding. “And, yes, I did see you — near my cart.”
“I was buying some fruit. When you looked away, I hit the tomato with an insulin syringe. Tap water. It was easy to do. I practiced last night.”
“And that?” Rhyme was looking at the bag that held the contraband Sachs had collected outside Hector Velasquez’s social club.
“I did some internet research into prominent gangsters. I liked the idea of using Velasquez. The authorities had been after him for a long time but weren’t having any luck. I decided that if there was a chance he’d be implicated in a crime the evidence would be sent to you. You were nearby and you are, after all, the best forensic scientist in the city.”
Rhyme offered a grunt, drawing a smile from Sachs.
“I filled a baggie with powdered sugar and hid it under some towels in the grocery bag. I took a train up to Spanish Harlem and then called nine one one and reported a drug deal going down. I waited until two squad cars turned onto First Avenue then made it seem like I was walking away from Velasquez’s club. I pretended to panic. I tossed the bag and my phone and ran. By the time the cops got there, I was gone.”
He stretched back, long legs out. His shoes were a rich brown; they’d been polished to the point of near reflection.
“As for the burner?” He looked toward phone that had spurted the faux toxin. “I modified the vibrator so that when it activated, it cut through a little packet of sugar again. Botulinum is the only airborne poison that would be fatal in such a small quantity.”
“Goddamn smart,” Sellitto whispered. He frowned yet again and said to Rhyme, “If you didn’t know what his plan was, weren’t you worried that it really was an attack and the poison was real?”
“We agreed that when he made the move he’d tell me, or text me, the word ‘goodbye,’ which a real assassin’d never do.”
Renard clicked his tongue. “Unprofessional.” He then gazed at the parlor’s ceiling. “Now, I analyzed my plan afterward and decided if I were a real killer, I’d do several things differently. I would have used a real explosive charge in the drone and blown it up over the pond. To convince you that it really was the murder weapon and not a diversion. And I would have found a cutout — a third party — to pay for the safe house. As it is now, the owner of the place got a look at my face. Oh, and when I was finished, I would have burned the building down, destroyed all the evidence. And, of course, killed the owner.”
Rhyme offered an amused: “Good thing you’re working for us.”
Mel Cooper said, “The drone... it was illegal, you know.”
“Ah, but I thought I’d have to take the chance.”
Sellitto shrugged. “It’ll be fine. If anybody complains, I’ll handle it.”
The student smoothed his fine slacks and said, “Of course, you understand it’s impossible to guess the details of the real killer’s plan. But I found the vulnerability he’ll exploit.”
Rhyme nodded. “The one thing I can’t live without: evidence.”
“Your Achilles’ heel,” Sellitto said.
Renard rose and buttoned his suit jacket. It really was a fine garment, the gray cloth supple and rich. “I’ll see you in class, Professor.”
Rhyme thanked him once more and the curious man left.
As she pitched out the fake evidence she’d collected in Spanish Harlem, Amelia Sachs said, “We may know the how, but we still don’t know the who.”
Rhyme said, “Time will tell.” He then turned his attention to the evidence from the DSE break-in that Andy Gilligan had brought him. And asked Mel Cooper to return to the lab and start the analysis. It was time to get back to work.
“O’Connor?” came the voice from his phone.
Sitting in his flat in Manchester, England, well past midnight, the man responded, “Aye, it’s me. What’s the status?”
“Worked out perfectly. They bought into everything.”
“That’s music to my ears, isn’t it? And the data?”
“I’ve got more than we even dreamed of. It’s encrypted and uploaded to the cloud site.”
The relief was palpable and soon solidified into joy. “I’ll be wiring ya the next portion of your fee in the morning.”
“Thanks, O’Connor. Appreciate it. And next steps?”
“You’ll be hearing from me.” He disconnected the call, slipped on latex gloves and removed the SIM card from the phone. He broke it into several pieces, which he wrapped in foil, to be tossed into a street rubbish bin in the morning. The gloves, which he now pulled off, would be disposed of in acid, as the inside surface contained his fingerprints and DNA.
Pouring a glass of wine, an old Barolo from Piemonte, he pulled his chair to the window, through which he had a pleasant view of a picturesque canal, a Caffé Nero and the massive, brilliantly lit BBC complex. It bustled still; the news never sleeps.
He was glad he could drop the phony Irish brogue and working-class vernacular. The man masquerading as Sean O’Connor was in fact American, born and bred, and it took some effort to maintain a credible performance — necessary because of the minuscule chance that GCHQ or MI5 or the FBI was, in fact, pursuing him.
But he truly doubted that was the case and he now allowed himself to bask in his success.
The plan was unfolding just as he’d orchestrated it — the plan that had two goals. The first was to cause considerable mischief in the city of New York (an assignment for which he was being well paid).
The second was to destroy Lincoln Rhyme. This part of the mission was purely personal.
He thought of the account of the Department of Structures and Engineering break-in spun to the criminalist by Andy Gilligan — the NYPD detective who’d been on his payroll for several years (it was he who had been going by the code name McAdams).
Everything’s on schedule. I’ll be at the target location later...
And Gilligan had done as promised: brought Rhyme into the DSE case and delivered the tool kit, which had intentionally been left by the detective after he himself broke into the department’s server facility and stole terabytes of engineering diagrams and blueprints.