Ted Bell - Tsar

“How’s everybody doing?” Stoke said with a smile. “This the team?”

“This is the team,” the ME said.

Spurling said, “Mr. Jones, let’s cut right to the chase. I understand from my director, Mike Reiter, and our colleagues at both Langley and Homeland, that you and Agent Brock may have some information that would help us in this investigation. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is. But if you don’t mind, before I share that information, it would be helpful to hear what you’ve got so far. Is that all right with you?”

“Certainly. Won’t take long, because we haven’t got much. Why don’t we start with you, Bruce? Dr. Barnett here is the state ME assigned to the multiple homicide by Salina PD.”

The medical examiner pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Yes, well, there were no casualties from the explosion, as you know, Mr. Jones. So, I’ve spent the last twelve hours with the four murder victims at 1223 Roswell Road. The home of Mayor Bailey and her family.”

“Who found the bodies?” Stoke asked.

“The housekeeper when she arrived at work that morning,” Bruce Barnett said.

“Is she available? I might want to talk to her.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the crime scene.”

“No forced entry. The killer was freely admitted into the home. So, he was known to the deceased or used some ruse to gain entry. Two of the victims, children, female, ages four and nine, were found in their beds. The husband died of a gunshot wound to the head. Mayor Bailey died the same way her children did. Poison gas.”

“Jesus,” Stoke said. “He gassed them?”

“Yeah,” Spurling said. “It gets worse. He had some fun with the mayor before he killed her.”

“Tell me,” Stoke said.

“Raped and sodomized.”

Stoke looked away for a second. “You guys anywhere near identifying the gas?”

“Some kind of incapacitating narcotic, administered at a lethal dosage level. Best early guess is a formula based on the drug fentanyl. We sent lung-tissue samples from the victims to the Bureau’s lab in D.C., see if we get any database matches with known material. So far, all I can tell you is it’s of foreign origin, nothing of ours. We’re waiting to hear.”

Stoke looked at the bomb-squad guy. “What the hell kind of nonnuclear explosives could cause the kind of destruction I just saw?”

Peter Robb said, “First of all, it wasn’t one bomb. It was hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” Stoke said.

“Maybe a thousand. Maybe more. EU-BDC’s primary responsibility is forensically examining bombing evidence to identify bomb components. Looking for a signature. So far, all we’ve got is this.” He handed Stoke a small, jagged piece of very thin metal. Silvery, glassy, almost like mirror. He tried to bend it and couldn’t.

“What is this stuff? I saw it everywhere.”

“Checking on that now. But it was found at every single scene.

The whole town is littered with it. My men are now doing materials analysis on it, looking for explosives residue, and performing accelerant examinations. So far, we’re coming up empty. It’s the craziest crime scene I’ve ever seen, Mr. Jones, and I’ve been doing this a long, long time. Whatever this bomber used, it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Robb?” Stoke asked.

“Multiple bombs strung like firecrackers. All connected by one fuse and all going off simultaneously. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the only way I can explain it.”

“Thank you,” Stoke said, turning his attention to the two uniforms. “And you two men were the officers who located the straggler? The guy delivering doughnuts, right? You spoke with him. You were with him when the bomb went off.”

“Yessir,” Andy Sisko said. “Patrolmen Sisko and Southey.”

“And you got his name?”

“Happy,” Officer Gene Southey said. “Happy the Baker. Had it stitched on his shirt. Said he’d been in town a few days. Sleeping off a migraine and never left his motel.”

“What did he say when the town blew up? What was his reaction?”

The two cops looked at each other. “What did he say, Andy? You remember?”

“I don’t think he said a damn thing,” Sisko replied. “I think he just got in his truck and drove away.”

Stoke looked at him. “Big white truck? ‘Happy the Baker’ on the side?”

“Yessir, that’s it, all right.”

“And he just drove away. Leaving two witnesses behind.”

“Witnesses to what?” Southey asked.

“His crime. Happy the Baker blew up your town, officer. I don’t know how or with what, but he’s your guy.”

“Holy shit, I mean, damn! We were sitting right there with the guy!”

Agent Spurling said, “Mr. Jones, please tell us what-”

“Hold on a sec,” Stoke said whipping out his cell phone. He speed-dialed Sharkey’s number at his new Coconut Grove office in Miami. The phone rang four, five times. Stoke could see his office, the little pink stucco bungalow hidden by the banana trees, all the windows open, the bamboo chaise where he’d take a nap when things were slow. He could even see Luis there now, snoozing on those soft green and white cushions.

“Tactics,” Shark finally said, too cheery, trying to sound awake.

“You napping on the job, son?”

“No, sir, I was in back, you know, a pro’lem with the air conditioner and-”

“Time to jump and scatter, Shark. We’ve got something out here.”

“Tell me, and it’s done.”

“Luis, listen carefully. That tape we shot a week ago in the Grove. That night from the boat? Not all of it. But pull every scene that includes Paddy Strelnikov, a.k.a. Happy the Baker. It’s at the very end of the tape, coming out of the house with the cake. Edit. Burn a disc. I want you to email that footage to, hold on, what’s your e-mail address, Agent Spurling?”

She told him, and Stoke gave it to Sharkey. “We need this stuff now, okay? Keep the disc as backup. FBI’s got to get this guy’s face on the national wire right now. Call Barry Pick at Miami-Dade. Tell him cake boy did Salina. Tell him to watch the airport, Happy could be coming home or even there already. You cool?”

“Cool runnin’, mon.”

“Later, Shark.”

Spurling was looking at him.

“You’ve actually got tape on this guy?”

“Lots of it. We were surveilling Chechen Russian mob guys on another matter and picked him up accidentally. He’s involved with a guy we’re looking at for something else. Yurin.”

“Urine?” Agent Spurling said, a puzzled frown creasing her brow.

“I know, I know. It’s confusing, isn’t it? But it’s Yurin with a Y. All Beef Paddy, that’s Happy’s moniker, was delivering a bomb in the form of a birthday cake. This was at a party where this guy Yurin was running security. Did you put out an APB on the white truck?”

“Happening as we speak, Mr. Jones,” Spurling said, snapping her phone shut.

“You have to figure he dumped it nearby. Way too easy to spot. He hides the truck somewhere, steals an abandoned car, heads to an airport. I’d get everybody available working that truck. Five-mile radius.”

“Yeah. Sorry. We didn’t even begin to make this guy as a suspect. Just a nutjob. Who the hell is he?”

“His real name is Paddy Strelnikov. American-born Russian. Mafiya type from Brooklyn. We think he’s KGB. A sleeper assassin, possibly working directly for someone in the Kremlin. The last time I saw Paddy, he was in Miami. He killed a Chechen terrorist responsible for attacks against the Russian population and the threats against the Kremlin.”

“Holy shit,” Officer Southey said. “Russians in Salina?”