Jeffery Deaver - The Twelfth Card

So far, his plan was working.

After beaning the cop, he’d ejected a shell from the man’s Glock. This he’d rubber-banded to a lit cigarette – a fuse, in effect – and set the homemade firecracker in the alley. He’d placed the gun in the unconscious cop’s hand.

He’d stripped off the mask, slipped through another alley, east of the building, into the street. When the cigarette burned down and detonated the bullet, and the two plainclothes cops disappeared, he’d run to the Crown Victoria. He had a slim jim to pop the door but hadn’t needed it; the car had been unlocked. From the shopping bag he took several of the items he’d prepared last night, then assembled and hid them under the driver’s seat and carefully closed the car door.

The improvised device was quite simple: a low, wide jar of sulfuric acid, in which rested a short glass candleholder. And sitting on top of that was a foil ball containing several tablespoons of finely ground cyanide powder. Any motion of the car would roll the ball into the acid, which would melt the foil and dissolve the poison. The lethal gas would spread upward and overcome the occupants before they had time to open a door or window. They’d be dead – or brain dead – soon after.

He peeked out through the crack between the billboard and what was left of the building’s front wall. On the porch was the brown-haired detective who seemed to be in charge of the guard detail. Beside him was the male plainclothes cop and between them the girl.

The trio paused on the porch as the detective scanned the street, the rooftops, cars, alleys.

A gun was in his right hand. Keys in his other. They were going to make a run for the deadly car.

Perfect.

Thompson Boyd turned and left the building quickly. He had to put some distance between himself and this place. Other cops were already on their way; sirens were growing louder. As he slipped out of the back of the building he heard the detective’s car start. The squeal of tires followed.

Breathe deep, he thought to the occupants of the car. He thought this for two reasons: First, of course, he wanted this hard job over with. But he also sent the message to them for another reason: Dying by cyanide can be extremely unpleasant. Wishing them a speedy, painless death was what a person with feeling would think, a person who was no longer numb.

Grape, cherry, milk …

Breathe deep.

Sensing the wild rattle of the engine – it shook her hands and legs and back – Amelia Sachs sped toward Spanish Harlem. She was doing sixty before she shifted into third gear.

She’d been at Rhyme’s when they got the report: Pulaski was down, and the killer had managed to get some sort of device into Roland Bell’s car. She’d run downstairs, fired up her red 1969 Camaro and hurried toward the scene of the attack in East Harlem.

Roaring through green lights, slowing to thirty or so at the reds – check left, check right, downshift, punch it!

Ten minutes later she skidded onto East 123rd Street, going against traffic, missing a delivery truck by inches. Ahead of her she could see the flashing lights of the ambulances and three squad cars from the local house. Also: a dozen uniforms and a handful of ESU troops, working their way along the sidewalks. They moved cautiously, as if they were soldiers under fire.

Watch your backs …

She brought the Chevy to a tire-smoking stop and jumped out, glancing at the nearby alleyways and vacant windows for any sign of the killer and his needle gun. Jogging into the alley, flashing her shield, she could see medics working on Pulaski. He was on his back and they’d cleared an airway – at least he was alive. But there was a lot of blood and his face was hugely swollen. She’d hoped he’d be able to tell them something but he was unconscious.

It looked like the kid had been surprised by his attacker, who’d lain in wait as he’d walked down the alley. The rookie had been too close to the side of the building. There would’ve been no warning when the man attacked. You always walked down the center of sidewalks and alleys so nobody could jump out and surprise you.

You didn’t know …

She wondered if he’d live to learn this lesson.

“How’s he doing?”

The medic didn’t look up. “No guess. We’re lucky he’s still with us.” Then to his partner: “Okay, let’s move him out. Now.”

As they got Pulaski onto a backboard and hustled him toward the ambulance, Sachs cleared everybody away from the scene to preserve whatever evidence might be there. Then she returned to the mouth of the alley and dressed in the white Tyvek suit.

Just as she zipped it up a sergeant from the local house walked up to her. “You’re Sachs, right?”

She nodded. “Any sign of the perp?”

“Nothing. You going to run the scenes?”

“Yep.”

“You want to see Detective Bell’s car?”

“Sure.”

She started forward.

“Wait,” the man said. He handed her a face mask.

“That bad?”

He pulled his own on. Through the thick rubber she heard his troubled voice say, “Follow me.”

With ESU backing them up, two Bomb Squad Unit cops from the Sixth Precinct were crouched in the backseat of Roland Bell’s Crown Victoria. They weren’t wearing bomb suits but were in full biohazard outfits.

Wearing the thinner, white suit, Amelia Sachs stood back ten yards.

“What’ve you got, Sachs?” Rhyme called into the microphone. She jumped. Then turned the volume down. The line from her radio was plugged into the gas mask.

“I haven’t gotten close yet; they’re still removing the device. It’s cyanide and acid.”

“Probably the sulfuric we found traces of on the desk,” he said.

Slowly, the team removed the glass-and-foil device. They sealed up the pieces in special hazardous materials containers.

Another transmission – from one of the Bomb Squad officers: “Detective Sachs, we’ve rendered it safe. You can run the car, you want. But keep the mask on inside. There’s no gas but the acid fumes could be dangerous.”

“Right. Thanks.” She started forward.

Rhyme’s voice crackled again. “Hold on a minute…” He came back on. “They’re safe, Sachs. They’re at the precinct.”

“Good.”

The “they” were the intended victims of the poison left in the Crown Victoria, Roland Bell and Geneva Settle. They’d come very close to dying. But, as they’d prepared to rush out of the great-aunt’s apartment to the car, Bell had realized that something about the crime scene of Pulaski’s assault seemed odd. Barbe Lynch had found the rookie holding his weapon. But this unsub was too smart to leave a gun in the hand of a downed cop, even if he was unconscious. No, he’d at least pitch it away, if he didn’t want to take it with him. Bell had concluded that somehow the unsub himself had fired the shot and left the gun behind to make them think that the rookie had fired. The purpose? To draw the officers away from the front of the apartment.

And why? The answer was obvious: so that they’d leave the cars unguarded.

The Crown Vic had been unlocked, which meant the unsub might have slipped an explosive device inside. So he’d taken the keys to the locked Chevy that Martinez and Lynch had driven here and used that vehicle to speed Geneva out of danger, warning everyone to stay clear of the unmarked Ford until the Bomb Squad had a chance to go over it. Using fiberoptic cameras they searched under and inside the Crown Vic and found the device under the driver’s seat.

Sachs now ran the scenes: the car, the approach to it and the alley where Pulaski had been attacked. She didn’t find much other than prints of Bass walking shoes, which confirmed the attacker had been Unsub 109, and another device, a homemade one: a bullet from Pulaski’s service automatic had been rubber-banded to a lit cigarette. The unsub had left it burning in the alley and snuck around toward the front of the building. When it went off, the “gunshot” had drawn the officers to the back, giving him a chance to plant the device in Bell’s car.