Джеффри Дивер - The Cutting Edge

She knew the scrapyard and barge dock. They were south of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Piers, about five minutes away — at least in the Torino — if traffic cooperated. Which it decidedly was not doing. She set the blue flasher on her dash, downshifted and returned to the shoulder. She accelerated again, hoping fervently that nobody would have a flat and swerve in front of her.

“Lon, my ETA’s five minutes, I hope. Get uniforms and ESU to the scrapyard. Silent roll-up.”

“Will do, Amelia.”

She didn’t bother to shut off the phone, letting Sellitto disconnect. Sachs didn’t dare remove her hands from the wheel as she sped along the rough shoulder, with side-view mirrors inches from the concrete abutment on the right and traffic on the left.

Thinking: Am I too late?

She traded sixty miles an hour for eighty.

Sachs beat the blue-and-whites and ESU to the debris transfer station.

She skidded into the site — a sprawling yard, which she remembered as a dusty, shimmering sprawl in the summer but was now forbidding and gray. The large gate was open and she saw no security. There was no parking lot, per se, but as she cruised around, the Torino bounding over the rough ground, she came upon a level area, free of scrap, between two large mounds of shattered concrete and rotting wood and plaster. A Ford was parked here, by itself; all the other vehicles were dump trucks and bulldozers. The few personal vehicles were pickup trucks and SUVs.

She skidded to a stop and climbed out. Drawing her weapon, she made her way cautiously to the Ford. Nobody inside.

She reached inside, pulled the trunk release.

A huge relief seeing the empty space.

Vimal Lahori was, possibly, still alive.

A flash of motion caught her eye. Two squad cars from the local precinct sped up and stopped nearby. Four officers, all in uniform, climbed out.

“Detective,” one said, his voice soft. She knew the slim, sandy-haired officer. Jerry Jones, a ten-year, or so, veteran.

“Jones, call in the tag.”

He fitted an earbud — to keep his Motorola quiet — and put in the request. Adding, “Need it now. We’re in a tactical situation. K.”

She nodded to him and the others — two white men and an African American woman. “You got the description of our perp?”

They all had.

Sachs said, “We’ve got one of his weapons but assume he’s armed again. Glock Nines may be his weapon of choice. No evidence of long guns. He’ll have a knife too. Box cutter. Remember that the younger man with him is a hostage. Indian, dark hair, twenty-two. I don’t know what he’s wearing. The suspect was last seen in a tan overcoat but he’s worn dark outer clothes, too. We want this perp alive, if there’s any way. He’s got information we need.”

Jones said, “He’s planted those gas bombs, right?”

“Yeah. It’s him.”

“What’s he want here?” the woman officer asked.

“A pile of rock.”

The uniforms glanced toward one another.

No time to explain further.

“Jones, you and I go west, to the docks. You three, south. You’re going to stand out in your uniforms, against the landscape—” It was beige and light gray. “—So keep your eye out for sniping positions. He’ll kill to take out witnesses. No reason to think he won’t target us.”

“Sure, Detective,” one of the uniforms called and the trio started off.

She and Jones moved perpendicular to them, toward the water.

Jones’s radio gave a quiet clatter. He listened. She couldn’t hear the transmission. A moment later he told her, “ESU, ten minutes away.”

The two of them moved quickly through the valleys between the piles of rock and refuse. Jones cocked his head — he’d be receiving a transmission through his earbud. And whispered, “K.” He then turned to Sachs. “Vehicle on monthlong lease from a dealer in Queens. Lessee is Andrew Krueger. South African driver’s license. Address in Cape Town. Gave an address in New York but it’s a vacant lot.”

The uniform lifted his phone and showed an image of the driver’s license photo. “That him?”

Confirming that Krueger had been acting the role of Ackroyd all along. She nodded.

Like Rostov, Krueger would be one of those security operatives in the diamond business, working for a competitor to Dobprom.

You don’t usually shoot your partner in the head...

Now Sachs brought all her senses to the game. In a recent case a suspect — a bit psychotic, more than a bit fascinating — had decided that Sachs was an incarnation of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt.

One of her finest compliments, even if it had come from a crazy man.

They moved as fast as they dared. Sachs and Jones kept low, scanning constantly, left right, the ridges of the trash mounds, which were indeed perfect sniper nests. Breathing hard, muscles knotted.

Oh, how Amelia Sachs loved this.

She ignored the pain in her left side from the fall at the muddy grave at the construction site, ignored the pain from her run-in with the Russian. There was nothing in her mind except her prey.

She used hand signals to tell Jones where to look, when to hurry, when to slow. He did the same from time to time. She suspected he’d never been in a firefight. Uneasy, tense but willing... and able: He held his Glock with confidence and skill.

They proceeded slowly. She didn’t want to stumble on Krueger and force a gunfight; she needed to find him, unawares, for a bloodless takedown.

Alive...

She also didn’t want him circling around on her and Jones. Two hundred feet away a huge backhoe was filling a barge with scrap. The roaring engine and the clatter and boom of the rock tumbling into the vessel obscured all sounds. Krueger could easily get close to them without their hearing.

So she scanned forward, to the sides and behind. Constantly.

Another fifty feet. Where, where, where?

She and Jones were nearly to the water when she spotted them.

Between two large piles of rocks and timber and twisted metal, Krueger was pulling Vimal along behind him. In a gloved left hand he gripped the kid’s collar; his right was under his short, dark jacket. He’d be holding his weapon.

Jones pointed to himself, then to the crest of the scrap pile near Krueger and Vimal. It was on the officer’s right, about twenty feet high. He then pointed to Sachs and made a semicircular gesture, indicating the pile on the left.

Good tactical plan. Jones would cover Krueger from above and Sachs would flank him. She pointed back to their staging area, held up three fingers — meaning the other officers — and pointed a palm his way. Meaning to have them hold position. Sachs didn’t want the others stumbling onto the scene and she had no way of explaining to them exactly where the target was.

Jones stepped aside and made a quiet call to the others. He holstered his weapon and began climbing the debris pile. Sachs trotted to the left, around the base of the mound to the right and began to close on where she’d last seen Krueger and Vimal.

As she eased around the pile, she noted that, yes, it was going to work, if she could just get closer. Jones was atop the debris heap to the right and had his weapon trained on Krueger. Sachs just needed to close the distance a bit more so she could demand his surrender — over the sound of the chugging backhoes and bulldozers.

Jones looked her way and nodded.

She reciprocated and then moved closer yet toward the suspect and Vimal, who had stopped. Krueger’s cold face — so different from the man he’d pretended to be — bent close and whispered something into his ear. The kid, who was crying and wiping tears, nodded and looked around. Then he pointed and the two of them turned abruptly and hurried down another valley, away from Sachs and Jones. Apparently Vimal had spotted the piles of kimberlite.