Net Force - Tom Clancy [5]
Toni nodded. Let me guess. Nobody saw anything.
You should go into law enforcement, the captain said. His voice was sour. You have an eye for detail.
Somebody in this crowd must have outstanding warrants for something, Toni said. She waved one arm in accusatory benediction.
The captain nodded. He knew the drill. When a cop was killed, it didnt matter if he was local, state or federal, you did what you had to do to find whoever did it. Squeezing some low-life drug dealer or even a citizen with too many parking tickets for information was penny-ante stuff. Whatever it took. You did not let cop-killers slide.
Toni looked up, and saw the new Chrysler town car glide to a stop just outside the police barricade. Two men, the bodyguard and the driver, got out first and scanned the crowd. The bodyguard nodded at the passenger in back.
Alex Michaels alighted, saw Toni and headed for her. He held his badge case up, and was waved through by the cops blocking the street.
Toni felt that mixed rush of emotion she always felt whenever she saw Alex for the first time on any given day. Even in the middle of all this carnage, there was a certain amount of joy, of admiration, even of love.
Alexs expression was not grim, but as he habitually wore it, neutral. He didnt let himself show that he felt such things, even though she knew it had to be causing him great pain. Steve Day had been his mentor and his friend; his death must be stabbing deep into Alexs heart, though he would never let on, even to her.
Maybe even especially to her
Toni.
Alex.
They didnt speak as they toured the murder scene. He squatted and examined Steve Days body. She caught a flash of tightness in his face, a quick flex of jaw muscles as he looked at Day. Nothing more.
He rose, moved to the limo and looked at the other dead agents and the ruined auto. FBI and local police agents still circled around with light bars and videocams, covering the entire street. Forensic techs drew circles around each of the spent shells on the street and sidewalk, noting the location of each empty hull before they bagged it. Somebody would do the super-glue steam on those shells, the fine mist of cyanoacrylate ester that could, when done properly, find a fingerprint on a sheet of toilet paper; and they would do the biological-activity scan that could find a germ in an ocean. But Toni figured that coming up with useful prints or DNA residues wasnt going to be likely. It was almost never that easy. Especially on something as well planned as this obviously had been.
After hed gotten as good a look as he wanted, Alex turned to her. Okay. Lay it out.
As nearly as we can tell so far, it was an assassination, Commander Day the target. A bomb under a manhole cover kicked the limo into a light pole. The door in the rear was blown open-probably a marine limpet of some kind-and the passengers were cut down by several attackers. From the ejected brass patterns, there were three or more shooters. Porter will run the ballistics stuff, but hes pretty sure from what hes already seen they were using 9mms, at least a couple of submachine guns, and one handgun.
She kept her voice level, as if talking about sports stats. She came from a family of expressive Bronx Italians who wore their hearts on their sleeves and who laughed hard or cried hard as needed. It was tough to keep the emotion from her words-shed liked Steve Day and his wife-but it was her job.
Boyle and Day both returned fire. Boyle managed to get off twelve rounds, Day three. Porter has come up with a couple of deformed handgun slugs found on the street whose impact shapes indicated they hit something harder than Kevlar and bounced off. Hell have to run the nose prints to be certain, but-
Alex cut her off. The assassins wore armor, probably military-grade ceramic or spider-silk plate. What else?
Over here.
She led him to a spot behind Days body. The coroners people were bagging the corpse, but Alex didnt spare them or his friend a glance; he was all business now. Days brass was found there, there,