A Wild and Lonely Place (36 page)

“Except for the fact that Dawud Hamid is alive and well in his back room. Who’s the other possible?”

“Kahlil Lateef, sole survivor of today’s bombing.”

I liked that better, though not a lot. It did fit with my suspicion that the bombing might have been an inside job, though.
Lateef would have known Dawud was coming to the consulate; he could easily have planted the bomb before he took his daily
stroll to the Marina Green. But had he known Chloe Love? Very likely; Das Glücksspiel had been a diplomatic hangout.

“Okay—the details?”

“Assistant trade attaché at the San Francisco consulate, eighty-seven to November of eighty-nine. Personal aide to Ambassador
Jalil, eighty-nine to June of ninety-one. Trade attaché, United Nations delegation, ninety-one through two. Returned to Azad
due to family tragedy, ninety-three through October ninety-four, when he was reposted here.”

So Lateef had been in San Francisco when Love was murdered and Hamid disappeared. Somehow he’d given me a different impression.
I reviewed my luncheon conversation with the trade attaché; he’d been vague on the date of Dawud’s disappearance and said
nothing about him being a suspect in the Love case. That was odd, for such a malicious gossip as Lateef. Unless he had a bad
memory, or feared the consul general’s wrath too much to open that can of worms. Or unless he had something to hide.…

“Shar?”

“Nothing more on the Web?”

“I haven’t checked in a while.”

“Do, then. I’ll hold.”

Both the suspects fit the physical profile of the bomber, such as it was. Both had been in the right places at the right time.
Lateef had had access to the consulate this afternoon. And yet…

Did either of them have it in him to coolly walk up to the door of the consulate and hand a bomb to a nine-year-old girl?
Was either a sociopath who would taunt and toy with the authorities? Was either a thrill-seeker who got off on power?

Who could tell? The bomber was a good actor; he’d proven as much time and again.

“Shar? Nothing new on the boards.”

“Well, keep monitoring them. I’m going to pay a call on Newton.”

* * *

Langley Newton’s eyes narrowed when he saw me standing in the circle of light from the overhead bulb on his porch. He wore
the same threadbare bathrobe as the last time I visited, and a pair of half-glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Ms. McCone,”
he said, removing the glasses, “what is it? Has something else happened?”

“That depends on what you mean by ‘else.’ The Azadi Consulate was blown up this afternoon, and all but one person are presumed
dead.”

“I know; I saw it on the TV news.” He glanced over his shoulder, then stepped out in his stockinged feet onto the porch and
pulled the door shut behind him. “I’m sorry I can’t invite you in. I’ve a guest, someone who’s a light sleeper. I don’t want
our voices to carry.”

“Ah, you have a friend visiting.”

After a slight hesitation he nodded, his low-slung halo of silver hair looking tarnished in the light from the bulb.

“Or is he a friend of a friend?” I asked.

“…I’m sorry?”

“Perhaps your visitor is a friend of Leila Schechtmann?”

Newton frowned, probably wondering if Leila had told me Hamid was there. He took a step to the side and leaned against the
old wringer washing machine that sat next to the door, folding his arms across his chest.

“Mr. Newton,” I said, “how long does Dawud Hamid plan to stay with you?”

“Hamid?”

“Come on, I know Leila sent him to you earlier today. I know he’s sleeping in your back room. For how long?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

“Well, a day or two anyway.”

“So he can try to get hold of his daughter.”

Newton nodded slightly and shifted his weight, his gaze sliding away from mine. “Why are you interested in Hamid?”

“Someone I know is looking for him. I want to put them in touch before Hamid leaves the country.”

He scanned the darkness around us, as if he thought the person might be lurking in the trees. “You’re lying to me.”

“About what?”

“Nobody you know is looking for Hamid. The only person besides you who’s interested in him is the Diplobomber.”

I hesitated, framing my reply, warning myself to proceed cautiously. “What do you know about the bomber?”

“Only what I’ve seen on the news and what Hamid’s told me. I know about the woman Dawud killed, and about the bomber torturing
the Azadis with messages every time he struck.”

“Does Hamid know who he is?”

He shook his head.

“And he admitted to the murder?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you’re letting him stay here, even though he killed your friend?”

“My…?”

He didn’t know. “The woman Dawud raped and strangled was Chloe Love.”

“Chloe…Chloe’s dead?”

“Yes, in January of eighty-nine. Hamid was the prime suspect, but he walked because of diplomatic immunity. Since he told
you he killed a woman, that pretty much erases any last doubts about his guilt.”

But Newton wasn’t listening; he seemed to have withdrawn, as though the news of Love’s murder had been too much for him to
absorb.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He moved his hand in a blind gesture, his eyes focused somewhere behind me.

I said gently, “Why don’t you call the police, Mr. Newton? Turn Hamid over to them?”

“Why? You said they couldn’t do anything to him when it happened.”

“Times have changed. A case might be made otherwise. They’re starting to crack down on diplomatic crime; the D.A. brought
charges against the Irish consul general last year when he injured all those people in that drunk-driving accident. And this
is a far more serious crime.”

Again he made the blind gesture. “A lawyer of the caliber Dawud can afford would surely get him off. Why should I start something
that never can be finished?”

It was the response I’d been hoping for. I wanted Hamid to stay safe and unsuspecting at Newton’s bungalow; he was my only
bargaining chip with the bomber. With Kahlil Lateef, apparently.

“Mr. Newton, can you keep Hamid here?”

He shrugged. “Not if he doesn’t want to stay. He’s younger and stronger than I.”

“What if you tell him that someone who has a lead on his daughter will contact him in the morning? Would that make him stay
put?”

“Probably, if I don’t give away…what you just told me. And that may be difficult.”

“Please try. The bomber’s aware that Hamid wasn’t in the consulate this afternoon. He’s been posting on the Techno Web—do
you know what that is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s been posting that he’ll make his demands known soon. One of those is sure to be Hamid, in exchange for the policewoman
he’s holding.”

Newton glanced nervously at his front door. “You’d give him over in exchange? Just like that?”

“In a heartbeat. The policewoman’s a friend of mine.”

“But it’s like…cold-blooded murder.”

“No, Mr. Newton, it’s more like justice.”

He seemed to think about that, and after a moment he nodded. “All right, I’ll keep Hamid here by the method you suggested—or
barring that, any other I can come up with.”

“Thank you.”

He turned, then paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Do you have any idea who the bomber is?”

“I think so: Kahlil Lateef, trade attaché at the consulate. He’s a consummate actor, has hidden his true emotions extremely
well.”

“I should take a lesson from him,” Newton said. “After what you’ve told me tonight, I’m going to have to keep my own feelings
on a very tight rein.”

I retreated to the eucalyptus grove and watched Newton’s bungalow. There was no sign of activity in the back room where Hamid
was staying, and after a while the light in the parlor went out. I stayed put for about fifteen minutes, but the house remained
dark and no one came outside. Finally I cut through the grove to the MG and checked in with Mick. Nothing further had been
posted on the Techno Web.

“It’s weird, Shar,” he said. “I’m sitting all alone in front of this screen in the middle of the night, and I can feel hundreds
of thousands of other people doing the same thing out there. We’re all waiting to see what he does next.”

“You really think that many people are following what’s happening?”

“Oh, sure—and not just law enforcement and the press. The boards’re buzzing. Nighttime’s when they get heavy use, anyway;
people are lonesome and it helps them feel connected.”

I thought of our cross-country flight and the long, dark leg between Phoenix and Mirage Wells. The mutterings across the nighttime
radio waves had helped me feel connected while Hy and Habiba slept.

“Well, keep monitoring the boards,” I told Mick, “but I need you to do something in addition to that: locate Kahlil Lateef.
The operator at RKI can probably tell you where he is, if you don’t let on that you’re asking for me.”

Mick said he’d think of some way to get the information, and I settled down for a long surveillance. Stakeouts were just a
notch below paperwork on the list of things I didn’t like about my work, but I couldn’t lose track of Hamid and I needed Mick
at the computer, so the tedious task fell to me. God, how I wished I could afford to hire another operative! Rae had been
making noises lately about leaving All Souls; she’d be perfect. But how to manage it? The reward money the feds had posted
for the bomber? If I could claim even a portion of that—

Don’t get ahead of yourself, McCone.

Time dragged. The fog began to drift, fooling me more than once into thinking I saw a person slipping through it. It grew
cold in the car, and I discovered that the blanket I usually kept in the trunk had mysteriously disappeared. I desperately
wanted a cup of coffee, but had to content myself with some stale chocolate I found in the glove box. Over the past couple
of years my passion for chocolate had waned; the Hershey Bar looked and tasted as if it had been melting and solidifying in
there for at least that long. I threw half of it out the window and continued to watch the edges of the grove and the plank
bridge. No one came or went by either route, and by one-fifteen I was half crazed with boredom.

The phone buzzed, a welcome diversion. “Yes, Mick.”

“Shar, brace yourself! The bomber’s posted again. He wants to communicate with
you
, personally!”

“What! How?”

“He’s switching from the boards to the Web’s live discourse. And he wants you on-line at quarter to three. The task force
called here; they’re setting up for you at their headquarters. Parkhurst wants to see you right away.”

“Jesus.” I glanced at the plank bridge. “This surveillance—we can’t let Hamid go anyplace, and I don’t know if Newton can
hold him if he gets it into his mind to leave. I’ll need you to take over down here.”

“I’m already on my way; I’m talking to you on a cellular unit I borrowed from a friend this afternoon.” He recited its number,
and I scribbled it down. “You better leave now. It won’t hurt if the place is uncovered for a few minutes. Now listen: the
press is already onto what’s happening, and they’re massing outside the Federal Building annex. You’re to go to the back of
the building, down the alley that opens off Larkin Street. Park by the red dumpster. Craig Morland’ll be waiting to take you
upstairs.”

“Okay.” Heart racing, I reached for the ignition. “Oh, Mick, did you locate Lateef?”

“Nobody knows where he is. I spoke directly with Gage Renshaw, pretending to be a worried relative. Lateef walked away from
Jackson Street this afternoon and nobody’s heard from him since.”

Nobody except the authorities, the press, and half a million hackers.

* * *

When I got to task force headquarters I met with Ed Parkhurst in his office and briefed him on the bomber’s probable identity.
Although I hadn’t intended to, at the last minute I kept RKI out of it, citing instead an “anonymous source” at the consulate.
It wasn’t that I was trying to protect Renshaw, or even the firm in which Hy held a substantial interest. What it boiled down
to was a clear-cut matter of ethics: I’d signed a contract with them guaranteeing confidentiality. Once I’d given my word,
I wouldn’t retract it.

Besides, my fit of moral purity made me feel several steps farther removed from the thin line that separated them from me.

Parkhurst called in two of his people and assigned them to tracing Lateef. “If he is our man, he’ll be stuck at his computer
for a while,” he said. “You get a quick fix on the son of a bitch, and we might take him unaware.”

The pair didn’t look any too optimistic as they filed out, and I couldn’t say as I blamed them. They’d been handed a near
impossible task.

Parkhurst remained at his desk, rubbing his stubbly chin and regarding me with thinly veiled dislike. “I thought of keeping
you out of this, Ms. McCone,” he finally said. “I don’t like involving outsiders, especially ones who don’t play by my rules.
The bomber isn’t going to be able to see you; any member of this task force could deal with him—and much more effectively.”

I bit back a sarcastic remark about the task force’s effectiveness up to this point and asked, “So why
did
you bring me in on it?”

“Two reasons. One, he was adamant that he would communicate only with you. There’s a reason for that and until we know what
it is we can’t risk noncompliance. Two, he may ask a question that only you can answer, as a means of identifying you. And
now, if this Lateef is really our man, we have a third reason: he’s personally acquainted with you and thus equipped to pick
up on some nuance of phrasing that might tip him if we used a ringer.”

“How do you know it’s actually him you’re dealing with, rather than someone who’s fooling around?”

“All along he’s revealed details that we’ve never made public—but that doesn’t concern you. Now, a few pointers on how to
play this: Don’t let on that you think you know who he is. Don’t antagonize him. Don’t ask questions unless absolutely necessary
for clarification. Feed into his game, agree to all of his demands, no matter how outrageous. Get instructions, and we’ll
take it from there.”