Christopher Reich - Rules of Vengeance

Twenty-one hours and forty-one minutes, to be exact .

Baxter kept track of such things.

Alastair McKenzie was waiting at the door to the lab. Baxter noted with pride that the man was wearing the same clothing as the day before. He smelled like last week’s garbage, but so what? Cleanliness might be next to godliness, but it didn’t do a thing to solve an investigation.

“Nearly killed myself getting over here,” said Baxter, taking McKenzie’s hand in his own and nearly crushing it. “Better be worth it.”

McKenzie’s answer was a tight smile and a direction to follow him.

Baxter entered a conference room and found a team of white-coated techs waiting. “Right, then,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

“Keep in mind that we had bugger all to start with,” said Evans, the chief of the forensics squad. “Two grotty little remnants of the circuit board that Mr. McKenzie was kind enough to bring us, and that was it. We used a bit of epoxy to piece the board back together, cured it in the autoclave, and here’s what we came up with.” Evans handed Baxter a warped chunk of sky-blue plastic shaped like a wee pistol. “You can see the place for the screen, and here’s where the microphone goes. What gave it away was the placement of the antenna feed pad. Only Nokia puts it there. We had a look at their manuals and straightaway saw that it was a model 9500S.”

“Entry-level model,” piped up one of Evans’s assistants.

“Give ’em away free with a two-year subscription plan,” said another.

“But what’s most important,” continued Evans, “is that the 9500S is brand spanking new.” He took back the reconstructed piece of circuit board and held it up to the light for examination. “Problem was that we didn’t have the entire serial number. Now, every circuit board gets its own number. Costs the manufacturer a penny more, but it keeps out the counterfeiters and helps law enforcement in the bargain. This particular board showed a 4-5-7-1 and a 3. We checked it against the prototype and saw that it was missing the first two numbers. Here’s where we got lucky. I called my counterpart over in Helsinki and we conferenced the boys at Nokia. Turns out that very few of the phones using these new circuit boards have been sold as yet. In fact, the only buyer is Vodafone. The lads at the company were only too glad to be of service, provided we kept quiet about its being one of their customers who planted the bomb.”

Baxter said he would do his best to keep the company’s name out of the news, but if it came to trial, the circuit board would have to be admitted as evidence.

“Fair enough,” responded Evans. “Here’s where the story gets interesting. Vodafone’s been selling the phone exclusively in the UK for the past two weeks. According to their records, phones manufactured with a circuit board ending in 4571 were sold in three metropolitan areas: Manchester, Liverpool, and London. My boys spent half of yesterday and all of last night calling every sales outlet and checking to see who did or didn’t have phones with the serial numbers in question. Turns out that neither Manchester nor Liverpool has placed their wares on the shelves yet. That left London, where batches beginning with 12 through 42 were delivered. Because it’s a new phone, the people at Vodafone were conducting what they called ‘a soft rollout,’ meaning they put a few on the shelves here and there to see if anyone liked the ruddy things. The warehouse manager looked round and confirmed that of batches beginning with the numbers 12 through 42, he still had 28 through 42. That means only batches 12 through 27 were gone. To make it short, we kept calling and narrowed down the place of sale of the phone used to detonate that bomb to three locations: Terminal Five, London Heath row; the Vodafone store on Oxford Circus; and an independent sales agent in Waterloo Station.”

“They still have them?” asked Baxter, who by now was perched on the edge of his seat, nearly driven mad by the wait.

“The store at Oxford Circus has all its phones with the serial numbers in question, and so does the sales agent in Waterloo Station.”

“So our phone was sold at Heathrow,” said Baxter.

“Five days ago, to be precise,” said Evans. “A cash transaction, I’m sorry to say.”

“The name? Was there a name?” He knew the answer. There had to be. Law required people to supply a name and identification when purchasing a mobile phone.

“Total nonsense, as was the address.”

“Dammit.” Baxter’s heart sank.

“Still, we do have some news that might be of use,” continued Evans.

“A number?” declared Baxter, rising out of his chair, fists clenched. “They sold the bloody phone with a SIM card, didn’t they?”

“SIM” stood for Subscriber Identity Module. It was the SIM card that gave a mobile phone its number as well as recording all information about calls placed to and from that handset.

“Not one SIM card, Mr. Baxter. Three.” Evans handed him a typed sheet.

Den Baxter grabbed it as if it were a lifeline. He thanked Evans profusely, then turned his attention to McKenzie. But instead of appearing happy, Baxter wrinkled his face in disgust. “We’re done here, lad. Get home now and take a shower. You smell like a rubbish bin.”

Jonathan ducked into the kiosk across the street from the Hotel De La Ville and purchased two newspapers, the Corriere della Sera and the International Herald Tribune . On its front page, the English-language paper carried a follow-up article about the London bombing. Jonathan was mentioned as an accomplice to the attack, but thankfully, there was no picture. The Italian paper carried a shorter article about the attack on an interior page. The latest Italian political shenanigans generated more than enough scandal to fill the headlines. Finished checking the papers, he tossed them into a trash can and headed down the main street, the Largo Plebiscito.

In the short time he’d been inside the hotel, the seaside town had sprung to life. Besides drawing visitors to view its ruins, Civitavecchia functioned as the main port of call for Mediterranean cruise ships visiting Rome. Earlier he’d counted no fewer than four liners docked in the harbor, and another three anchored at sea. It seemed that half the men and women crowding the street carried travel bags emblazoned with the name of one cruise line or another. Like mice fleeing a fire, they spilled out of hotels and tour buses and taxis and scurried toward the docks.

Threading his way through their ranks, Jonathan kept a sharp eye out for police. It was likely that Lazio had supplied them with a copy of Emma’s hospital admittance form. A savvy investigator would surmise Jonathan’s course of action and send men to scour the area. Jonathan paused, scanning the street. But it was far too busy to tell if anything was askance.

Ahead he saw the sign for the Hotel Rondo. Passing the hotel, he closed his fingers around the paper bearing the address of the man from France who’d rescued Emma from a Roman hospital and paid her hotel bill. VOR S.A. of Èze. But who was the man? And was he the same person Jonathan had glimpsed in the Rondo years ago? Jonathan had no doubt but that their relationship was professional. Why else would he foot her astronomical bills?

Apart from the address in France, Jonathan knew nothing more about him than that he was older, gray-haired, and spoke English with either a British or a German accent. Was he the person who had contracted her to carry out the car bombing? And if so, had Division’s attempt on her life been an effort to stop her? Jonathan could assume that if he was the “friend” Emma had come to visit in the first place, then he, too, must be an enemy of Division’s.