Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [105]
“Sergeant?” Trentkamp said. “Come up here please.”
Rizzo awkwardly stepped forward, hoisting a Styrofoam chart up on a metal stand. On the chart a police artist had sketched the major buildings of the financial district in black and white. The structures which had been bombed were colored traffic-signal red. Each of the bombed-out buildings also had a bold violet ring drawn around it. Caitlin noticed that the purple rings were at widely different levels on the fourteen buildings.
Rizzo began, “The buildings marked with red were all hit around six-thirty on December fourth. The bombs were definitely detonated by remote signals. The signal might have been operated from as far away as eight to ten miles.”
Rizzo paused, blew his nose unselfconsciously in a big white handkerchief, then went on: “The violet rings on the buildings were drawn to indicate where the explosions actually took place. The plastique packages were actually placed. Here, here, here, et cetera.
“As you can see, the plastique was planted on different floors in all fourteen buildings. The second floor at Twenty-two Broad. Fifteenth floor at Manufacturers Hanover. And so on. You can see that plainly.”
Rizzo looked around at the faces in the room as if he were challenging someone to disagree.
“There’s no special pattern to this. At least, that’s what we’ve thought up to now. Last night though, we found a connection we’d missed…
“Look here! Each of the circled floors actually contains one of that building’s messenger drop-off and pickup rooms. Either a drop-off or a package mail station. What threw us off this approach was the fact that messenger drop-off stations and the mail room in these buildings isn’t always the same. Not even on the same floor. Some of the Wall Street buildings have drop-off stations on every floor. You all see what I’m driving at?”
Sergeant Rizzo paused for effect.
Rizzo said, “Gentlemen, the bombs were all hand-delivered. Probably by a regular commercial messenger, who would go unnoticed.”
Rizzo once again looked around the quiet room. “There are more than two hundred messenger services in and around Wall Street. Jimmy Split. Speedo. Fireball, Bullet, to name a few. You’ve seen most of them yourselves. Chances are at least one of them was contacted by our friends Green Band. Perhaps several were used to deliver the plastique on December fourth!”
Rizzo paused again. “What this means is that some goofball messenger is going to help break this thing open! Tonight we hit the streets and run this thing down to earth!”
Caitlin felt the tremendous energy that coursed through the meeting room as the men began to disperse. They had come alive, after days of pounding on unyielding walls, days of pursuing an investigation that had been going absolutely nowhere. She was almost swept aside as policemen and detectives crushed toward the door.
A Wall Street messenger service.
A shiver suddenly traveled through her.
Messenger service?…
Caitlin turned and left the meeting room; she started back in the direction of her own office. She had just remembered something, except she wasn’t sure now if her memory was playing tricks on her.
Caitlin started to run down the corridor inside JNo. 13.
Chapter 77
CARROLL WAS CERTAIN he had been followed back from Washington. A dark car had tracked his Checker taxicab from Kennedy Airport all the way into the Financial District.
When he stepped out of the taxi at No. 13 Wall, the tracking car went skirting past.
He couldn’t see faces inside, only shapes, two or three men huddled together. Why were they following him? Who had sent them? Who was tracking the tracker?
He disappeared inside No. 13 and went straight to Caitlin’s office on the second floor. He hurried because he was filled with the strongest need to see her, to talk to somebody he could trust.
She rose from behind her desk, where she’d been studying a printout of the names of U.S. veterans the computer had supplied before. She stepped out to hug him, and Carroll