“Give me a hug, Jer,” Peter said, leaning down toward Jared. He was in street clothes, slacks, and a hunter-green polo shirt.
Standing stiffly, Jared kept his arms at his side and glared at his father.
“Come on, now, buddy,” Peter said, giving his son a bear hug anyway. Straightening up, he turned to Sarah and then to Brian. “So,” he said. “I hope I’m not interrupting something.”
“Not at all,” Brian said. “Just returning from dinner.” He extended his hand. “I’m Brian Lamoreaux.”
Peter smiled at him as a snake smiles at a rabbit. “Peter Cronin. So you’re Sarah’s latest.”
Brian half-smiled uncomfortably. “I should probably leave you three alone,” he said.
“No, Brian,” Sarah said. “Please.”
“I’ve got a long day tomorrow. I should really be getting home.”
“Brian,” Sarah said. “Don’t.”
Peter slipped one arm around Jared’s slender back. “How was camp, Jerry? Hey, I’ve missed you.”
Baumann lingered awkwardly in the background, shifting from one foot to the other, eyes watchful.
“So you’ve been real busy looking for your mad bomber,” Peter said to Sarah. “So busy you don’t have time for Jared, right? You’re parking him in some YMCA all day-you think I don’t know that?”
“Will you please get out of here?” Sarah said.
“No, sorry, I will not,” Peter said. “I’ve come to see Jared for a couple of days. Come on, buddy, let’s get your things, and come on with me. I’m staying at the Marriott Marquis. We’re going to see the sights of New York City that your mom is too busy with her boyfriend and her task force to show you.”
“Come on, Peter,” Sarah said.
“No, Dad, I don’t want to go,” Jared said, face flushed. “I’m having a great time here.”
“Hey, little buddy-”
“You can’t make me,” Jared said. His eyes narrowed, in unconscious imitation of his father. “You can just go on back to Boston. Just lay off.”
Peter stared at Jared, then at Sarah. A slight twist of a smile played on his lips. His face, too, began to redden. He spoke to Sarah in almost a whisper. “You’re turning him against me, is that it? You think you can do that to my son?”
“No, Dad,” Jared said. “She doesn’t even talk about you. It’s me. I’m sick and tired of you bullying me around.”
Peter continued staring, alternating between son and ex-wife. He licked his lower lip, then smiled viciously.
He started to say something, then turned slowly and began walking away.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Shortly after midnight Baumann left Sarah’s apartment. The street was empty, chilly, lit by soft oblique early-morning sunlight. As he walked, he became aware of someone following him.
He turned around and saw Sarah’s ex-husband, Peter Cronin.
“Oh, hello,” he said.
Cronin held his face a few inches from Baumann’s. He shoved Baumann into the mouth of a narrow alley a few feet away and began moving closer, his breath hot against Baumann’s face. He placed a large hand on Baumann’s shoulder and flattened him against the brick wall. Baumann looked around: there was no one in sight. They were alone. No one was passing by.
“Let me be really clear with you, Brian. I’m a cop. I got resources you wouldn’t believe. I’m going to look into your past, find out all about you. You wouldn’t believe the shit I can find out about you, you asshole. The shit I can do to you. I can get you deported, motherfucker.”
“All right, enough,” Baumann said quietly.
“Enough, motherfucker? Enough? I got news for you, fucker. I did a little checking on you, big guy. There’s no record of any ‘Brian Lamoreaux’ entering the country. Either you’re here illegally or you aren’t who you say you are.”
“Oh, is that right?” Baumann said phlegmatically.
“That’s right, buddy. I’m going to turn your whole life inside out, you little shithead. I’m going to make your life a living nightmare, and then I’m going to-”
There was a loud snap, the unmistakable sound of bone cracking, and now Peter’s head was turned around almost 180 degrees. He seemed to have turned to look at the opposite wall; but, his spinal column having been severed, his head was grotesquely out of position. His eyes glared angrily, his mouth gaping in midsentence, frozen in death.
Baumann eased the body to the ground, then took out an alcohol wipe from his pocket and cleaned the prints from Peter Cronin’s neck and face, and in a matter of seconds he was out of the alley and on his way.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
At two o’clock in the morning, Henrik Baumann and Leo Krasner were slogging through the tunnels beneath the Wall Street area of New York City. Though burdened as before with backpacks and air tanks, they moved more quickly this time, finding their destination without pedometer, compass, or map.
They arrived at the central switching area and removed their breathing apparatus. Krasner, angry at having to do this menial task, took out his tools in silence.
Then he turned around and, short of breath, fixed Baumann with a menacing glare. “Before I do jack shit, you listen to me.”
Baumann’s stomach tightened.
“I’m not as stupid as you seem to think,” Leo said. “This whole ridiculous idea of making me go back down here in this fucking cesspool and fix the splice-let’s just say I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We both know you could have left the box here and no one would ever have detected it. Just coming back down here again is a bigger risk than leaving the breakout box on the line. So why would you want to take a chance like that?”
Baumann furrowed his brow. “I don’t want-”
“No, I’m not done, dude. If you have some idea about wasting me down here, you can forget about it. I taped our first meeting. If I’m not home in a couple of hours, a phone call is going to be made.”
“What is this?” Baumann said darkly. At their first meeting, Baumann had carried a small, concealed near-field detector that would have detected a running tape recorder. He was sure Krasner was bluffing.
“It’s my life insurance policy,” the cracker said. “I’ve dealt with assholes like you before. I know the sort of shit you guys sometimes try.”
“This is a business deal,” Baumann said quietly, almost sadly. “I certainly have no intention of killing you. Why should I? We are both professionals. You do the work I’ve asked you to do, you get paid-rather generously, yes?-and then we never see each other again. For me to do anything else would be insane.”
Krasner stared at him for a few seconds longer, then turned back to the wires. “Just as long as we’re totally clear on that,” he said, as he removed the breakout box and respliced the copper cable on which Manhattan Bank’s encrypted financial transactions traveled.
When he had finished his work, he turned around and smiled at Baumann. “And that, dude-”
Baumann reached out his hands with lightning speed and swiveled the computer wizard’s head until the vertebrae cracked audibly. The mouth was open in a half-smile, half-grimace; the eyes stared dully. The large body sagged.
It required considerable effort, but Baumann was strong. He hoisted the dead body and carried it to a blind end of the tunnel, where he deposited it in a crumpled heap. With alcohol wipes, he removed any fingerprints from Krasner’s face and neck.
In this section of the tunnel, there was a good chance that the body would remain undiscovered for weeks, if not longer, and by then it would make no difference anyway.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE