Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

"What're we doing here?"

"You wanted maps," he said, looking excitedly at all the equipment the way only a born hacker would do, "and this's the most comprehensive physical database of any area in the world. Lincoln Rhyme was saying we needed to know the area. Well, we may not. But they do." He nodded affectionately toward a long row of six-foot-high computer towers.

Lukas said, "They're letting us use the facility, under protest, provided we don't take any printouts or downloads with us."

"We get searched on the way out," Geller said.

"How come you know so much about it?" Parker asked Geller.

"Oh, I sort of helped set it up."

Lukas added, "Oh, by the way, Parker, you've never heard of this place."

"Not a problem," said Parker, eyeing the two machine-gun-armed guards by the elevator door.

Lukas said, "Now, what're the materials Rhyme found?"

Parker looked at the notes he'd taken. He read, "Granite, sulfur, soot, ash, clay and brick."

Tobe Geller sat down at a monitor, turned it on, typed madly on a keyboard. An image of the Washington, D.C., area came on the screen. The resolution was astonishing. It looked three-dimensional. Parker thought, absurdly, how Robby and Stephie would love to play Mario Bros. on a monitor like this.

Lukas said to Parker, "Where do we start?"

"One clue at a time," he responded. "Then start narrowing down possibilities. The way you solve puzzles."

Three hawks have been killing a farmer's chickens…

"First, granite, brick dust and clay," he mused. "They point to demolition sites, construction…" He turned to Geller. "Would they be on this database?"

"No," the young agent responded. "But we can track down somebody at Building Permits."

"Do it," Parker ordered.

Geller made the call on a landline-no cell phone would work this far underground and, besides, like all secure facilities in Washington, Parker supposed, the walls were shielded.

"What next?" Parker wondered. "Sulfur and soot… That tells us it's industrial. Tobe, can you highlight areas based on air pollutants?"

"Sure. There's an EPA file." He added cheerfully, "Its to calculate penetration levels of nerve gas and bioagent weapons."

More buttons.

The business of the District of Columbia is government, not industry, and the commercial neighborhoods were devoted mostly to product warehousing and distribution. But on the screen portions of the city began to be highlighted-in, appropriately, pollution-tinted yellow. The majority were in the Southeast part of town.

"He's probably living near there," Lukas reminded. "What industrial sites are adjacent to areas of houses and apartments?"

Geller continued to type, cross-referencing the industrial neighborhoods with residential. This eliminated some but not many of the manufacturing areas; most of them were ringed with residential pockets.

"Still too many," Lukas said.

"Let's add another clue. The ash," Parker said. "Basically burnt animal flesh."

Geller's hands paused above the keyboard. He mused, "What could that be?"

Lukas shook her head. Then asked, "Are there any meat-processing plants in any of those areas?"

This was a good suggestion, one Parker himself had been about to make.

Geller responded, "None listed."

"Restaurants?" Cage suggested.

"Probably too many of them," Parker said.

"Hundreds," Geller confirmed.

"Where else would there be burnt meat?" Lukas asked no one in particular.

Puzzles…

"Veterinarians," Parker wondered. "Do they dispose of the remains of animals?"

"Probably," Cage said.

Geller typed then read the screen. "There are dozens. All over the place."

Then Lukas looked up at Parker and he saw that the chill from earlier was gone, replaced by something else. It might have been excitement. Her blue eyes were stones still, perhaps, but now they were radiant gems. She said, "How about human remains?"

"A crematorium!" Parker said. "Yes! And the polished granite-that could be from tombstones. Let's look for a cemetery."

Cage gazed at the map. He pointed. "Arlington?"

The National Cemetery took up a huge area on the west side of the Potomac. The area around it must be saturated with granite dust.

But Parker pointed out: "Its not near any industrial sites. Nothing with significant pollution."

Then Lukas saw it. "There!" She pointed a finger, tipped with an unpolished but perfectly filed nail. "Gravesend."

Tobe Geller highlighted the area on the map, enlarged it.

Gravesend…

The neighborhood was a part of the District of Columbia's Southeast quadrant. Parker had a vague knowledge of the place. It was a decrepit crescent of tenements, factories and vacant lots around Memorial Cemetery, which had been a slave graveyard dating back to the early 1800s. Parker pointed to another part of Gravesend. "Metro stop right here. The unsub could've taken the train directly to Judiciary Square-City Hall. There's a bus route nearby too."

Lukas considered it. "I know the neighborhood-I've collared perps there. There's a lot of demolition and construction going on. It's anonymous too. Nobody asks any questions about anybody else. And a lot of people pay cash for rent without raising suspicion. It'd be the perfect place for a safe house."

A young technician near them took a phone call and handed the receiver to Tobe Geller. As the agent listened to the caller his young face broke into an enthusiastic smile. "Good," he said into the phone. "Get it to the document lab ASAP." He hung up. "Get this… Somebody got a videotape from the Mason Theater shooting."

"A tape of the Digger?" Cage asked enthusiastically.

"They don't know what it's of exactly. Sounds like the quality's pretty bad. I want to start the analysis right away. Are you going to Gravesend?"

"Yep," Parker said. Looked at his watch. Two and a half hours until the next attack.

"MCP?" Geller asked Lukas.

"Yeah. Order one."

Parker recalled: a mobile command post. A camper outfitted with high-tech communications and surveillance equipment. He'd worked in one several times, analyzing documents at crime scenes.

"Ill have a video data analyzer installed," Geller said, "and get going on the tape. Where will you be?"

Lukas and Parker said simultaneously, "There." They found they were pointing at the same vacant lot near the cemetery.

"Not many apartments around there," Cage pointed out.

Parker said, "But it's close to the stores and restaurants."

Lukas glanced at him and nodded. "We should narrow down the search by canvassing those places first. They'll have the most contact with locals. Tobe, pick up C. P. and Hardy and bring 'em with you in the command post."

The agent hesitated, a dubious look on his face. "Hardy? We really need him?"

Parker had been wondering the same thing. Hardy seemed like a nice enough guy, a pretty good cop. But he was way out of his depth in this case and that meant he, or somebody else, might get hurt.

But Lukas said, "If it's not him the District'll just put somebody else on board. At least we can control Hardy. He doesn't seem to mind sitting in the back seat."

"Politics suck," Cage muttered.

As Geller pulled on his jacket Lukas said, "And that shrink? The guy from Georgetown? If he's not at headquarters yet have somebody drive him over to Gravesend."

"Will do." Geller ran for the elevator, where he was, as he'd predicted, thoroughly searched.

Lukas stared at the map of Gravesend. "It's so damn big."

"I've got another thought," Parker said. He was thinking back to what he'd learned about the unsub from the note. He said, "We think he probably spent time on a computer, remember?"

"Right," Lukas said.

"Let's get a list of everybody in Gravesend who subscribes to an online service."