Джеффри Дивер - The Cutting Edge

Behind this coffee shop Carreras-López’s limo awaited. He had confidence in Letemps’s scheme but, ever a practical man, the attorney was hedging bets. If the plan stumbled now, which was a possibility, of course, and the guards shot and killed his men and kept the Mexican drug lord in custody, the lawyer would hightail it from the country.

He had a family and a fortune and a cooking engagement awaiting at home. And he had a jet of his own all paid for.

Now he stiffened. He observed the armored transport van assigned to El Halcón pull forward. He had received another text.

Your aunt is on the way home.

Meaning that the prison guards in the van were dead and Carreras-López’s men had taken over as driver and accompanying guard.

Now for the most critical moment.

The two guards from outside the interview room would soon appear, accompanying El Halcón as he walked to the van. Carreras-López could count three other guards, armed with submachine guns, presently outside, eyeing the crowd. It seemed to him that they were distracted, and understandably. Yes, they would not want their prisoner to escape, but they also would not want to burn to death when the gas blew; by now the scent should be overwhelming. And they would know, like the rest of the city, that the timer on the gas line was counting down — ten minutes from tremor to blast.

Then El Halcón and the two guards — only two — appeared from the doorway.

They hurried to the van as fast as they could — the crime boss’s legs were still shackled — and the door opened. In they went. The door slammed shut.

Then, very faint, came several flashes of light from inside.

The silenced pistol killing the guards.

Pulling into the street, which had been cleared of traffic, the van accelerated away and turned the corner.

Another text.

She is doing well.

The last of the coded messages meant that the guards were dead and the van was proceeding to the rendezvous spot.

Carreras-López turned and hurried down the back stairs of the coffee shop to his limo. He climbed inside. The driver greeted him and they started off, the Caddie circling the blocked streets. Soon they hit the highway, about five minutes behind the van.

The security van would have GPS; its progress would be tracked. So Letemps had picked a rendezvous spot that was just off the highway on the way to the detention center. Anyone tracking the van would think that, when it pulled off, it was simply diverting briefly to avoid a traffic jam.

It would stop fast to let El Halcón and the other men out. The stop would eventually alarm the security people at detention. But by the time they got reinforcements here, El Halcón and Carreras-López would be long gone.

Now the Cadillac in which Antonio Carreras-López sat was gaining on the van. He could see it about a hundred yards ahead. In sixty seconds they were at the turnoff, and the van, then Carreras-López’s limo, turned into the empty, weed-filled parking lot that surrounded a dilapidated factory. The towering sign read only H&R Fab icat s, I c . These remaining letters, six feet high, would have been proudly red at one point but were now scarred and sickly pink.

The van and limo stopped near the helicopter, its rotors idling, and a van, in front of which the lawyer’s men stood.

Carreras-López glanced back and saw no police vehicles. Nor any choppers overhead or boats in the choppy water where the East River met the harbor.

None of the authorities suspected a thing. They would have ten minutes before anyone at detention grew concerned about the van’s absence and sent cars.

Carreras-López climbed from the limo. He said to the driver, “Leave now.” He gave the man five hundred-dollar bills and shook his hand.

“Thank you, sir. I’ve enjoyed driving you. I’ll see you when you’re back.”

Which would never happen. But he said, “I’ll look forward to it.”

The Cadillac slowly bounded out of the broken, uneven parking lot.

Carreras-López waved to the van, where El Halcón was probably stripping the dead guards of their money and weapons. His client had once killed a man for his wallet — not for the money but because he liked the embossed leather... and the picture of the victim’s wife and daughter. El Halcón had told Carreras-López that he’d kept the picture on his bedside table for years.

A thought that even now gave the lawyer a shiver. What a man I have for a client.

The door to the van opened.

“ Hola! ” Carreras-López called.

Then he froze. He whispered, “ Mierda. ”

Because it wasn’t El Halcón climbing from the vehicle. But a redheaded policewoman, in full tactical gear and holding a machine gun. She was followed by three, no four, no six other officers, half with the letters ESU on their body armor. Half with FBI .

“No!” the lawyer cried.

Two of these officers ran to the helicopter and dragged out the pilot, and the others arrested the men by the van. The policewoman stepped quickly to the lawyer, with a younger, blond male officer. “Hands!” she shouted. The lawyer sighed, licked his lips with a dry tongue and lifted his arms. He remembered seeing her in Lincoln Rhyme’s apartment.

How? How had it happened?

A perfect plan.

So perfectly ruined.

How? The question looped through his mind.

As he was cuffed by the woman and patted down by the man, he tried to figure this out.

The texts were the right codes.

El Halcón had gotten into the van. I saw him.

I saw the flashes of the gunshots.

Or did I?

A clever man himself, he thought: No, no, no. They had learned of, or guessed, the plan and had located Carreras-López’s men before they could murder the driver and guard. The police had offered them a plea bargain in exchange for the codes and the details of the escape.

The flashes from inside the vehicle weren’t a gun but a cell phone or flashlight to convince anyone watching that the second set of guards had died. As soon as the van was out of sight, it had diverted and this one, with the tactical officers, had taken its place for the trip to the factory here.

But that didn’t answer the bigger question of how: How had someone — Lincoln Rhyme, surely — come to suspect that an escape was in the works, in the first place?

The policewoman said, “Sit down here. I’ll help you.”

She eased him to the ground. “Please. How did you figure it out? How did you possibly know what we were doing? I want to know. Will you tell me?”

She ignored him as her attention was drawn to an approaching black limo. It stopped and a tall, lean man got out.

Carreras-López sighed. It was Henry Bishop, the U.S. attorney.

The policewoman walked to the man and they had a conversation. Not surprisingly, as they spoke, they both kept their eyes on him.

Finally, Bishop nodded. They both began walking, in slow strides, to the lawyer.

Rhyme was in his accessible van, not far from the takedown site by the water’s edge in Brooklyn.

He was presently watching through the window and listening to the staccato voice traffic on the police scanner.

Yes, he and Sachs had had a lovely dinner last night.

But they hadn’t discussed movies or politics or the thousands of other topics grand and topics small that husbands and wives talked about over meals; they talked about the loose ends that had piqued Rhyme’s interest about the Diamond District case.

“Anomalies, Sachs. Pieces don’t fit quite right.”

“Such as?”

She had been enjoying quite the nice Burgundy. Chardonnay, of course. But not overly oaked, a subtlety that the French — unlike the Californians — had mastered. Rhyme took this on faith; he had swapped the Glenmorangie for a Cab. If one had to drink wine, it should be red and formidable.