The office, high above downtown Manhattan, looked out over Jersey. The crap in the air made the sunset absolutely beautiful.
"We gotta."
"We can't."
"Gotta," Fred Dellray repeated and sipped his coffee--even worse than in the restaurant where the Scruff and he'd been sitting not long before. "Take it away from 'em. They'll live with it."
"It's a local case," responded the FBI's assistant special agent in charge of the Manhattan office. The ASAC was a meticulous man who could never work undercover
--because when you saw him you thought, Oh, look, an FBI agent.
"It's not local. They're treating it local. But it's a big case."
"We're down eighty men because of the UN thing."
"And this's related to it," Dellray said. "I'm positive."
"Then we'll tell UN Security. Let everybody . . . Oh, don't give me that look."
"UN Security? UN Security? Say, you ever heara the words oxy-moron? . . . Billy, you see that picture? Of the scene this morning? The hand comin' outa the dirt, and all the skin cut offa that finger? That's a sick fuck out there."
"NYPD's keeping us informed," the ASAC said smartly. "We've got Behavioral on call if they want."
"Oh, Jesus Christ on the merry cross. 'Behavioral on call'? We gotta catch this ripper, Billy. Catch him. Not figger out his tick-tocky workings."
"Tell me what your snitch said again."
Dellray knew a crack in a rock when he saw one. Wasn't going to let it seal up again. Rapid fire now: about the Scruff and Jackie in Johannesburg or Monrovia and the hushed word throughout the illicit arms trade that something was going down at a New York airport this week so stay clear. "It's him," Dellray said. "Gotta be."
"NYPD's got a task force together."
"Not Anti-Terror. I made calls. Nobody at A-T there knows zippo about it. To NYPD it's 'dead tourists equal bad public relations.' I want this case, Billy." And Fred Dellray said the one word he'd never uttered in his eight years of undercover work. "Please."
"What grounds're you talking?"
"Oh-oh, bullshit question," Dellray said, stroking his index finger like a scolding teacher. "Lessee. We got ourselves that spiffy new anti-terrorism bill. But that's not enough for you, you want jurisdiction? I'll give you jurisdiction. A Port Authority felony. Kidnapping. I can fucking argue that this prick's driving a taxi so he's affecting interstate commerce. We don't want to play those games, do we, Billy?"
"You're not listening, Dellray. I can recite the U.S. Code in my sleep, thank you. I want to know if we're going to take over, what we tell people and make everybody happy. 'Cause remember, after this unsub's bagged and tagged we're going to have to keep working with NYPD. I'm not going to send my big brother to beat up their big brother even though I can. Anytime I want. Lon Sellitto's running the case and he's a good man."
"A lieutenant?" Dellray snorted. He tugged the cigarette out from behind his ear and held it under his nostrils for a moment.
"Jim Polling's in charge."
Dellray reared back with mock horror. "Polling? Little Adolph? The 'You-have-the-right-to-remain-silent-'cause-I'ma-hit-you-upside-the-motherfuckin'-head' Polling? Him?"
The ASAC had no response for that. He said, "Sellitto's good. A real workhorse. I've been with him on two OC task forces."
"That unsub's grabbing bodies right and left and this here boy's betting he's going to work his way up."
"Meaning?"
"We got senators in town. We got congressmen, we got heads of state. I think these folk he's grabbing now're just for practice."
"You been talking to Behavioral and not telling me?"
"It's what I smell." Dellray couldn't resist touching his lean nose.
The ASAC blew air from his clean-shaven-federal-agent cheeks. "Who's the CI?"