Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

"You bet."

"You bet."

When the agents left, Czisman's drinking buddy said, "What's that all about?"

"Wonder."

"Something's always going down 'round here. Drugs. Bet it's drugs. Anyway, so I gotta truck with a busted block. Wait. I tell you 'bout my truck?"

"You started to."

"I'ma tell you 'bout this truck."

Suddenly Czisman looked at the man beside him carefully and felt that same tug of curiosity that'd driven him to journalism years ago. The desire to know people. Not to exploit them, not to use them, not to expose them. But to understand and explain them.

Who was this man? Where did he live? What were his dreams? What sort of courageous things had he done? Did he have a family? What did he like to eat? Was he a closet musician or painter?

Was it better, was it more just, for him to live out his paltry life? Or was it better for him to die now, quickly, before the pain-before the sorrow-sucked him down like an undertow?

But then Czisman caught a glimpse of the Winnebago door opening and several men hurrying outside. That woman-Agent Lukas-stepped out a moment later.

They were running.

Czisman tossed money down on the bar and stood.

"Hey, you don' wanna hear 'bout my truck?"

Without a word the big man stepped quickly to the door, pushed outside and started after the agents as they jogged through the decimated lots of Gravesend.

By the time the team met up with Jerry Baker two of his agents had found the safe house.

It turned out to be a shabby duplex two doors from an old building that was being torn down-one of the construction sites they'd found. Clay and brick dust were everywhere.

Baker said, "Showed a couple across the street the unsub's picture. They've seen him three or four times over the past few weeks. Always looked down, walked fast. Never stopped or said anything to anybody."

Two dozen agents and officers were deployed around the building.

"Which apartment was his?" Lukas asked.

"Bottom one. Seems to be empty. We've cleared the top floor."

"You talk to the owner? Got a name?" Parker asked.

"Management company says the tenant is Gilbert Jones," an agent called.

Hell… The fake name again.

The agent continued: "And the Social Security number was issued to somebody who died five years ago. The unsub signed up for the on-line service-name of Gilbert Jones again-with a credit card in that name but its one of those credit-risk cards. You put money in a bank to cover it and it's only good as long as there's money there. Bank records show that this is his address. Priors were all fake."

Baker asked, "Entry now?"

Cage looked at Lukas. "Be my guest."

Baker conferred with Tobe Geller, who was carefully monitoring the screen on his laptop. Several sensors were trained on the downstairs apartment.

"Cold as a fish," Tobe reported. "Infrareds aren't picking up anything and the only sounds I'm registering are air in the radiator and the refrigerator compressor. Ten to one it's clean but you can screen body heat if you really want to. And some bad guys can be very, very quiet."

Lukas added, "Remember-the Digger packs his own silencers so he knows what he's doing."

Baker nodded, then pulled on his flak jacket and helmet and called five other tactical agents over to him. "Dynamic entry. We'll cut the lights and move in through the front door and the rear bedroom window simultaneously. You're green-lighted to neutralize if there's any threat risk at all. I'm primary through the door. Questions?"

There were none. And the agents moved quickly into position. The only noise they made was the faint jingling of their equipment.

Parker held back, watching Margaret Lukas, in profile, staring intently at the front door. She turned suddenly and caught him watching her. Returned a cool look.

Hell with her, Parker thought. He was angry at the dressing-down she'd given him about the gun. It'd been completely unnecessary, he thought.

Then the lights went out in the duplex and there was a loud bang as the agents blew in the front door with 12-gauge Shok-Lok rounds. Parker watched the beams from the flashlights, hooked to the ends of their machine guns, illuminate the inside of the apartment.

He expected to hear shouting at any minute: Freeze, get down, federal agents…! But there was only silence. A few minutes later Jerry Baker walked outside, pulling his helmet off. "Clean."

The lights went back on.

"We're just checking for antipersonnel devices. Give us a few minutes."

Finally an agent called out the front door, "Premises secure."

As Parker ran forward he prayed a secular prayer: Please let us find something-some trace evidence, a fingerprint, a note describing the site of the next attack. Or at the very least something that gives us a hint where the unsub lived so we can search public records to find a devils teardrop above an i or a j… Let us finish this hard, hard work and get back home to our families.

Cage went in first, followed by Parker and Lukas. The two of them walked side by side. In silence.

The apartment was cold. The lights were glaring. It was a depressing place, painted with pale green enamel. The floor was brown but much of the paint had flaked away. The four rooms were mostly empty. In the living room Parker could see a computer on a stand, a desk, a musty armchair shedding its stuffing, several tables. But to his dismay he could see no notes, scraps of paper or other documents.

"We got clothes," an agent called from the bedroom.

"Check the labels," Lukas ordered.

A moment later: "Are none."

"Hell," she spat out.

Parker glanced at the living room window and wondered about the unsub's dietary habits. Cooling in the half-open window were four or five large jugs of Mott's apple juice and a battered cast-iron skillet filled with apples and oranges.

Cage pointed to them. "Maybe the bastard was constipated. Hope it was real painful."

Parker laughed.

Lukas called Tobe Geller and asked him to come check out the computer and any files and e-mail the unsub had saved on the hard drive.

Geller arrived a few minutes later. He sat down at the desk and ran his hand through his curly hair, examining the unit carefully. Then he looked up, around the room. "Place stinks," he said. "Why can't we get some upscale perps for a change?… What is that?"

Parker smelled it too. Something sweet and chemical. Cheap paint on hot radiators, he guessed.

The young agent gripped the computer's electric cord and wound it around his left hand. He explained, "It might have a format bomb inside-if you don't log on just right it runs a program and wipes the hard drive. All you can do then is unplug and try to override it later in the lab. Okay, let's see… "

He clicked on the power switch.

The unit buzzed softly. Geller was ready to yank the cord from the socket but then he smiled. "Past the first hurdle," he said, dropping the cord. "But now we need the password."

Lukas muttered, "Won't it take forever to figure out?"

"No. It'll take…" Geller pulled the housing off the computer, reached inside and took out a small computer chip. Suddenly the screen reported, Loading Windows 95. Geller said, "About that much time."

"That's all you have to do to beat a password?"

"Uh-huh." Geller opened his attaché case and pulled out a dark blue Zip drive unit. He plugged this into a port on the computer and installed it. "I'm going to download his hard drive onto these." He tossed a half-dozen Zip disks onto the desk.

Lukas's cell phone rang. She answered. Listened. Then she said, "Thanks." She hung up, not pleased. "Pen registers from the phone line here. All he's called is the connection for the on-line service. Nothing else coming in or going out."