Compromised (25 page)

Mike Mara was already aboard the elevator and cringed when it chugged to a stop and the doors parted. He nodded to Burns as he entered and then closed his eyes.

“Late night?” Burns asked.

Mara nodded with his eyes still closed. “Wish I had time for a little hair of the dog. My head is killing me.” The doors closed, and the elevator jolted when it hit the next floor. There was a loud thud on the roof of the car. “What the hell is that?” he asked. “This goddamn building is falling apart. I hope the stupid elevator doesn’t drop to the basement and kill us both.” He pointed to the floor indicators, all of which were illuminated. “Some stupid kid must’ve pressed every one of these goddamn buttons after getting out on the top floor. Real funny, huh?”

Burns shrugged and sipped his coffee. He’d been through far too much pain to let a juvenile prank get to him.

The car clanked on the next floor. “You hear that?” Mara asked. “You sure the cable isn’t about to snap?”

Burns’s coffee was hot and satisfying, and he was happy that Sofia had gotten up early just to make it for him. “Let’s take a look.” He placed his coffee cup on the floor, then stood his large toolbox on end. He put his foot up on the end of the box and boosted himself up. “Just steady me, would you?”

“Sure.” Mara grabbed Jack around the hips and watched as he slid the Celotex emergency panel to the side.

“Oh Jesus,” Burns cried.

“What’s wrong?” Mara said with panic in his voice. “Is it the cable? Is it about to snap?”

“No. Relax. It’s not the cable,” Burns replied, his voice trembling. He retrieved a rag from his back pocket and then reached back up into the space above the elevator. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “Holy goddamn shit.”

Names and contacts for everyone who had witnessed the shooting were on file.
Gus and I had visited three of them by 11:00 a.m. the next morning. They were all shown the sketch of the man who’d killed Aguri Maeda and asked if they remembered anyone like that loitering about Yana and me as we lay on the sidewalk after the shooting. The first witness didn’t recall seeing him at all, but the second two were reasonably sure that the man in the sketch looked familiar.

“It’s a shame this guy’s mug hasn’t popped out of the bureau NGI system,” Gus said. “There must be at least a million rats flying under the radar that we don’t know about at all.”

“Betcha a box of Krispy Kremes that Harry knows who he is, and if he does, there’s a fair chance this guy is known to the Japanese police.”

“Think we’ve got enough juice to get the cooperation of a foreign government in a murder investigation?” Gus asked.

“You’re kidding, right? A high-jingo case like this, the murder of an NYPD police officer?”

“Do we have an extradition treaty with Japan?”

“Absolutely—been in place since the seventies. Besides, if this mope is wanted in Japan, I’m sure they’ll want him back to stand trial.”

“Can we send him back in pieces?” Gus said with a snicker “I can’t wait to get my hands on this son of a bitch.”

“Not fond of the guy who shot your wife, I take it?”

He nodded determinedly. “I just hope that I find him first. I’ll knock his teeth out for starters.”

“Easy, boy, I know you haven’t been getting any, but try to contain your aggression. We don’t want anything getting in the way of this guy getting a life sentence.”

“Yeah. I’d feel better about it if we had some hard evidence, prints or some DNA.”

“And
I
wouldn’t?”

My cell phone buzzed. I was surprised to see Jack Burns’s name on the display. “It’s Burns. I wonder what this is about?” I hit the “Accept” icon. “Hi, Jack.” The excitement in his voice immediately drew my interest. My eyes went wide before I covered the phone and turned to Gus. “Ask and ye shall receive,” I told him. “You will never believe what he just said.”

It appeared that a .30 rifle had been firmly wedged under the elevator pulley bracket until repeated hard floor stops had finally jarred it loose.
It had been banging around for a couple of days before a neighbor complained about it, and Burns took the initiative to open the hatch in the elevator roof to look for the source of the loud and irritating noise.

I was face-to-face with the weapon that had likely slain my partner and aerated my skull. I knew my way around ordnance but had never seen a weapon quite like the one before me.

“It’s got all the bells and whistles,” explained Lloyd Bochner, the department ballistics expert. “Pound for pound, it’s one of the most deadly accurate guns in the world. Hell, with one of these mothers I could plug a pigeon’s anus at twelve hundred yards while whistling ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’” The British-made L115A3 AWM rifle was made expressly for snipers. It had a night-optics scope, an adjustable cheek piece to allow the sniper to align his eye with the scope, and an adjustable bipod to support the rifle in a stable position. “It’s fitted with a suppressor to reduce flash and noise signature, and a short five-round clip—not large enough to interfere with alignment, but just big enough to give the shooter a couple of do-overs.”

Do-overs?
Bochner’s use of the expression made me cringe—what a cavalier way to speak about Yana’s death. From all we had learned, my guess was that Yana had been the sniper’s intended target. The first shot had missed and ricocheted off the pavement before striking me, and Yana . . . Yana was the do-over, the killer’s second chance at hitting his mark.

“How does a weapon like this even get into the country?” Gus asked rhetorically. “A weapon made exclusively for war.” He shook his head. “Fucking black market. You can get your hands on any goddamn piece of weaponry you want if you’ve got the money and a scumbag willing to sell it to you.”

“These rifles were used in Afghanistan and Iraq, two of the world’s biggest shit holes. Drugs, guns, and stolen oil—anything is fair game in the world of jihad.” Bochner was a former marine weaponry expert. He’d been deployed to the Middle East and had come home with a deep hatred for the region. “Those Hezbollah motherfuckers! The entire world reeks from their revolting stench.”

I winked at Bochner. “Indeed.”

“At least we got prints off it,” Gus said.

“No surprise there,” Bochner said. “No marksman worth his salt covers the tips of his fingers. If it’s cold, they cut the fingers off their gloves so that they don’t lose any trigger sensation.”

“We were lucky. The weapon had been wiped down, but in his haste to escape, the shooter had neglected to wipe down the portion of the magazine that fits into the stock, leaving a full thumb and partial index print.”

“Lucky is good,” Bochner said with a smile. “I’ll take lucky any day of the week. So how close are you to nailing this mofo?”

“We’ve got prints, an artist’s sketch, and a solid theory. We’ll get him.”

“Ballistics will be back PDQ,” Bochner said. “Stick around and you’ll know for sure if this gun is a match to the slug they yanked out of your gray matter . . . Not that there’s much doubt.”

“No. Not much doubt at all.” The longer I looked at the weapon, the more upset I became. I pictured the projectile exiting the long barrel and reaching through the night to strike me in the back of the head. I shut my eyes. “I need a decaf break.”

“Decaf?” Bochner questioned with disbelief. “I don’t see you as a low-joe kind of gal. Decaf, Chalice? Really?”

“The docs are concerned that caffeine may short out my mangled brain wiring—an enduring gift from the guy who capped me in the head.”

“No bean? Damn, that’s harsh. Does the caffeine give you seizures or something?”

“They’re afraid it might. That’s the theory, anyway.”

“Sorry, Chalice. I’d brew you a pot of decaf myself if I had any unleaded lying around. Anyhow, there are about twenty coffee shops within a five-minute walk in any direction.”

“Thanks, Lloyd. We’ll be back,” Gus said as we exited the ballistics lab. “You coming unglued?” he asked.

“I’ll be all right. It was just that looking at that gun and knowing it almost ended my life . . . It’s a little unnerving is all.”

“Maybe it’s a good time to go home and kiss your son. You know, remind yourself what’s really important in life and how lucky you are to still be alive.”

My throat tightened. “I’m dying to do that, but I have to stay with this until the end. I have to . . . I have to get the SOB who killed Yana.”

“Yeah, but you can’t make yourself crazy over it.”

“You’re funny,” I snickered. “We both know
that
ship has sailed.”

An official request had been made to the Japanese government to assist in the identification of our unsub, but we had yet to hear back from them. I was hoping that with fingerprints to beef up our request, a response would be immediately forthcoming.

We hit a café where I was able to get a tall cup of reasonably good decaf and a scrumptious scone. “So Harry is once again in the wind and we’re playing the waiting game while some Japanese muckety-muck decides whether it’s in the nation’s best interest to cooperate in an American manhunt.”

“Are you all right, Steph? You seem really tense today.”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“Something on your mind? I mean other than scar tissue from the slug the doctors dragged out of your brain, and an unforgiving need for retribution?”

“I’m just wondering if things are ever going to be the same or if they’re going to be messed up forever.” I shook my head wearily. “I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

Gus took my hand. “You know that’s never going to happen, right? That bullet changed our future forever, but it doesn’t mean we can’t be happy. It’s the card you were dealt. You’ve got to pick it up and play your hand.”

“Really sucks,” I lamented. “You know that my days with NYPD are numbered.”

His mouth tightened. “Your days as a homicide detective might be running out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go in another direction. Ever think about a career in command?”

“A bureaucrat?
Puh-lease,
I’d rather chew off my arm than spend day after day in meetings talking about policies that civic groups have come up with to jeopardize the safety of officers on the street.”

“Like I said, you’ve got to play with the cards you’ve been dealt. I’m sure there’s a future for you in LE, one that’ll keep you happy.” He paused and seemed to be searching for the right words. “Look, I know this is upsetting, but it’ll all work out. I promise.” He kissed my hand. “Jesus, Stephanie, we almost lost you. You’ve got to see the big picture.” His cell phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket and read a text. “It’s from Bochner,” he said. “‘Ballistics in. Confirmed, the AWM is our murder weapon.’” He smiled. “See that? We’re coming down the home stretch.”

I grabbed my empty paper cup and chucked it into the trash. “Let’s turn up the heat on our diplomatic liaison. It’s time to nab this dirtbag and put him away for good.”

“Chalice?”
Pam Shearson seemed stunned to see me walking down the corridor at 1 Police Plaza. On second thought, it was probably the blonde pixie cut that rocked her socks.

Our former CO had rocketed up the ranks and was now a deputy commissioner. She’d never been the warm and fuzzy type, but I knew she was a hard working lady. Our relationship had improved after she received her first promotion. She’d even come by to visit while I was laid up in the hospital and had brought me a present, an Eberjey pajama set in which I could recuperate in silky-soft style. Shearson was a fashion plate with lots of disposable income. Today, she was wearing an absolutely gorgeous cap-sleeve dress.

“Max Mara?” I asked.

She grinned. “You always did have an eye for fashion, Chalice. How are you, and what the hell did you do with your hair?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It was time for a change.”

“A
change
? Honey, this is a total metamorphosis. My hairstylist clips two inches and I go into shock. This . . . this would send most women into apoplexy.” She swept a lock of blonde hair away from my eyes. “My, but you’re a gorgeous woman. You certainly don’t look any worse for the wear.”

“I guess lead agrees with me.”

“Lead agrees with you? Ha! You’re like one of those comic-book characters who suffers a catastrophic accident and emerges a superhero. You got a cape and tights on under your clothes?” She shook her head. “Seriously though—what are you doing here? I figured you’d be on the DL for months yet.”

“I am. I just stopped by to see if I could help Gus out with an unusual request.”

“What kind of unusual request?” she asked apprehensively.

“Print ID and an artist’s sketch on the suspected shooter.”

Her eyes grew large. “Your shooter? The cop killer?”

“Yes.”

I could see in her eyes that her interest was peaked. “When did we get prints?”

“The news just came in. Ballistics confirmed the murder weapon not thirty minutes ago. We have a full thumb and a partial, but there was no match through IAFIS. We believe the shooter is an illegal from Japan and we’re petitioning the Japanese government to assist.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news. Who are you working with on it?”

“Wilkins.”

“Wayne Wilkins?” she asked with dismay. “Oh Jesus,” she lamented. “He’s such a namby-pamby little man. He walks on eggshells with his foreign counterparts. He’ll get stonewalled in red tape until we’re all in assisted living. No. That’ll never do. You come with
me
,” she insisted. “I’m not going to let Wilkins pussyfoot around this one.”

We’d had our differences in the past, but there was no denying that Shearson was a woman of action. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“To see my boss. You think I’m going to sit back and let some diplomatic wimp play kiss ass while a cop killer is free on our streets?”

“Hell no?”

She grinned and put her arm over my shoulder. “Hell no is right. By the way, how did those pajamas work out? It’s not easy shopping for a woman who’s built like a chiffonier with the top drawer pulled out.”

I blushed.

“Don’t blush, honey. If the big-ass bra fits, rock it like a porn star.”