Robert Crais - The Last Detective

She said, "I can't have kids."

"I'm sorry."

"Jesus, I can't believe I told you that."

Now neither of us was smiling. We sat in the parking lot, drinking our caffeine as Starkey smoked. Three men and a woman came out of the Bomb Squad and crossed the parking lot to a brick warehouse. Bomb techs. They wore black fatigues and jump boots like elite commandos, but they goofed with each other like regular people. They probably had families and friends like regular people, too, but during their shift they de-armed devices that could tear them apart while everyone else hid behind walls, just them, all alone, with a monster held tight in a can. I wondered what kind of person could do that.

I glanced at Starkey. She was watching them.

I said, "Is that why you're on the Juvenile desk?"

She nodded.

Neither of us said very much after that until John Chen came out. He had the prints.

time missing: 47 hours, 04 minutes

White concentric circles covered the wrapper in overlapping smudges. People don't touch anything with a clean, singular grip; they handle the things they touch – pencils, coffee cups, steering wheels, telephones, cigar wrappers – their fingers shuffle and slide; they adjust and readjust their grip, laying fingerprint on top of fingerprint in confused and inseparable layers.

Chen inspected the wrapper through a magnifying glass attached to a flexible arm.

"Most of this stuff is garbage, but we've got a couple of clean patterns we can work with."

I said, "Is it going to be enough?"

"Depends on how many typica I can identify and what's in the computer. It'll be easier to see when I add a little color."

Chen brushed dark blue powder on two sections of the wrapper, then used a can of pressurized air to blow off the excess. Two dark blue fingerprint patterns now stood in sharp contrast to the white smudges on the wrapper. Chen hunched more closely over the magnifying glass. He grunted.

"Got a nice double-loop core here. Got a clean tentarch on this one. Couple of isles."

He nodded at Starkey.

"Plenty. If he's in the system, we can find him."

Starkey laid her hand on Chen's back and squeezed his shoulder.

"Excellent, John."

I think he purred.

Chen pressed a piece of clear tape on the blue fingerprints to lift them from the wrapper, then fixed the tape onto a clear plastic backing. He set each print onto a light box, then photographed them with a high-resolution digital camera. He fed the digital images into his computer, then used a graphics program to enlarge them and orient them. Chen filled out an FBI Fingerprint Identification Form that was basically a checklist description of the two fingerprints with their characteristics identified by type and location – what Chen called "characteristic points": Every time a ridge line stopped or started it was called a typica; when a ridge split into a Y it was a bifurcation; a short line between two longer lines was an isle; a line that split but immediately came together again was an eye.

The FBI's National Crime Information Center and the National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System don't compare pictures to identify a fingerprint; they compare lists of characteristic points. The accuracy and depth of the list determines the success of the search. If a recognizable match is even in the system.

Chen spent almost twenty minutes logging the architecture of the two prints into the appropriate forms, then hit the Send button and leaned back.

I said, "What now?"

"We wait."

"How long does it take?"

"It's computers, man. It's fast."

Starkey's pager buzzed again. She glanced at it, then slipped it into her pocket.

"Gittamon."

"He wants you bad."

"Fuck him. I gotta have a cigarette."

Starkey was turning away when Chen's computer chimed with an incoming E-mail.

Chen said, "Let's see."

The file downloaded automatically when Chen opened the E-mail. An NCIC/Interpol logo flashed over a set of booking photos showing a man with deep-set eyes and a strong neck. His name was Michael Fallon.

Chen touched a line of numbers along the bottom of the file.

"We've got a ninety-nine point nine-nine percent positive match on all twelve characteristic points. It's his cigar wrapper."

Starkey nudged me.

"So? Do you know him?"

"I've never seen him before in my life."

Chen scrolled the file so that we could read Fallon's personal data; brown, brown, six, one-ninety. His last known residence was in Amsterdam, but his current whereabouts were unknown. Michael Fallon was wanted for two unrelated murders in Colombia, South America, two more in El Salvador, and had been indicted under the International War Crimes Act by the United Nations for participating in mass murder, genocide, and torture in Sierra Leone. Interpol cautioned that he was to be considered armed and extremely dangerous.

Starkey said, "Jesus Christ. He's one of those people with a fucked-up brain."

Chen nodded.

"Lesions. They always find lesions in people like this."

Fallon had extensive military experience. He had served in the United States Army for nine years, first as a paratrooper, then as a Ranger. He had served an additional four years, but whatever he had done during those years was described only as "classified."

Starkey said, "What the fuck does that mean?"

I knew what it meant, and felt a sharp tightness in my chest that was more than fear. I knew how he had come by the skills to watch and move and leave no sign when he stole Ben. I had been a soldier, and I had been good at it. Mike Fallon was better.

"He was in Delta Force."

Chen said, "The terrorist guys?"

Starkey stared at his picture.

"No shit."

Delta D-boys. The Operators. Delta trained for hard, hot insertions against terrorist targets, and membership was by invitation only. They were the best killers in the business.

Starkey said, "All this Army stuff, maybe he got a hard-on for you while he was in the service."

"He doesn't know me. He's too young for Vietnam."

"Then why?"

I didn't know.

We kept reading. After Fallon left the service, he had used his skills to work as a professional soldier in Nicaragua, Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Colombia, El Salvador, Bosnia, and Sierra Leone. Michael Fallon was a mercenary. Lucy's words came to me: This isn't normal. Things like this don't happen to normal people .

Starkey said, "This is just great, Cole. You couldn't have a garden-variety lunatic after you. You gotta have a professional killer."

"I don't know him, Starkey. I've never heard of him. I've never known anyone named Fallon, let alone someone like this."

" Someone knows him, buddy, and he sure as hell knows you. John, can we get a hard copy of this?"

"Sure. I can print the file."

I said, "Print one for me, too. I want to show Lucy, then talk to the people in her neighborhood. After that, we can go back to the construction site. It's easier when you show people a picture. One memory leads to another."

Starkey smiled at me.

"We? Are we partners now?"

Somewhere in the minutes between the parking lot and our waiting for the file, it had become "we." As if she wasn't on LAPD and I wasn't a man desperate to find a lost boy. As if we were a team.

"You know what I meant. We finally have something to work with. We can build on it. We can keep going."

Starkey smiled wider, then patted my back.

"Relax, Cole. We're going to do all that stuff. Play your cards right, and I might let you tag along. I'm gonna put this on the BOLO."

Starkey put it on the BOLO, then phoned a request for information about Fallon to the L.A. offices of the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Sheriffs. After that, we rolled back to Lucy's. We.