The Skin Collector (40 page)

‘But what’s
the target?’ Cooper asked.

The brief silence was broken by Amelia Sachs. ‘My God.’

‘What, Sachs?’

‘IFON.’ She dug what seemed to be a business card out of her purse. And walked fast to the crime scene photos. ‘Hell, I missed it, Rhyme. Missed it completely.’

‘Go on.’

She tapped the screen. ‘Those yellow boxes with
IFON
printed on the side? They’re Internet cables, owned by International Fiber
Optic Networks.’ She held up the card. ‘And the building directly over the Samantha Levine crime scene was IFON’s headquarters. She worked for them. I interviewed the CEO just after she died.’ Sachs then called up the photos of the Chloe Moore scene. ‘There. The same boxes.’

And there was another box visible in the tunnel beneath the parking garage in the Belvedere Apartments.

Sachs said, ‘In
the hospital, in Marble Hill, where Harriet Stanton was attacked, I didn’t go underground to look for any tunnels. But I’ll bet there’re IFON routers or whatever they are somewhere.’

Pulaski said, ‘Somebody wants to blow up the boxes.’ His face finally grew inscrutable. ‘Hey – think about it – the Internet outages? The rumors of the traditional cable companies sabotaging the new fiber-optic systems?
I’ll bet that’s it.’

Sachs said, ‘Our Skin Collector may feel like he’s the Bone Collector’s heir but, bottom line? That’s just a cover. He was hired to smuggle bombs underground to take out International Fiber Optic’s routers.’

Pulaski asked, ‘What would happen if they detonated?’

‘Assume the entire Internet in Manhattan would go down,’ Cooper said.

‘Banks,’ Rhyme muttered. ‘And hospitals,
police, national security, air traffic control. Call Dellray and have him alert Homeland Security. I’m guessing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in losses. Get our computer man, Rodney Szarnek, on the phone. Now.’

Harriet Stanton was returning with her husband, Matthew, from Upper Manhattan Medical Center in Marble Hill.

They were in a cab, which was – so far – about seventeen dollars in fare.

‘Look at that,’ Matthew muttered, eyeing the meter. ‘Can you believe it? It’ll be thirty by the time we get to the hotel. Subway would’ve been cheaper.’ Matthew had always been a bit of a curmudgeon.
Now, after the brush with death – or with New York City health care – his mood hadn’t improved.

Harriet, in her yes-dear mode, replied that given the neighborhood they’d been driving through – the Bronx and Harlem – wouldn’t it be better to spend the money? ‘And look at the weather.’

Where they lived, in downstate Illinois, the weather could be just as cold and sloppy. It didn’t seem, though,
so
dirty
cold and sloppy. Tainted was the word that came to mind.

Matthew took her hand, which was a way of saying, You’re right, I suppose.

His bill of health was, if not clean, then not as bad as it might’ve been. Yes, the incident had been a heart attack – or the ten-dollar phrase, myocardial infarction – but no surgery was called for. Medication and a slow, steady increase in the amount
of exercise should do the trick, the doctor had told them. Aspirin, of course. Always aspirin.

She called their son, Josh, back at the hotel, and told him to collect Matthew’s prescriptions, which the doctor had called in to a nearby pharmacy. Matthew sat back silently in the seat of the taxi and stared at the sights. The people were what interested him, she judged, from the way his eyes danced
from one cluster of passersby to another.

The cab dropped them in front of their hotel. The place had been built in the 1930s or so, Harriet guessed, and clearly hadn’t undergone a renovation for years. The colors were gold and yellow and gray. The scuffed walls and over-washed curtains had brash, geometric designs, ugly. The place reminded her of the Moose Lodge at home.

The decor, along with
the persistent scent of Lysol and onions, set her on edge. But maybe that was just the disappointment about her husband’s heart attack, the disruption of their plans. They rode the elevator to the tenth floor and stepped out, walked to their room.

Harriet felt like she should help her husband into bed or, if he chose to stay up, help him on with his slippers and into some comfortable clothing
and order some food. But he waved her off – though with a faint smile – and sat at the battered desk, going online. ‘See. I was saying. Fifteen dollars a day for the Internet. At Red Roof it’s free. Or Best Western. Where’s Josh?’

‘Getting your prescriptions.’

‘He probably got lost.’

Harriet placed a load of dirty clothing into the room’s dry-cleaning bag, which she’d take to the guest self-serve
laundry room in the basement. This was one thing that she would not pay for, hotel valet service. It was ridiculous.

She paused to look at herself in the mirror, noting that her tan skirt needed no pressing and the brown sweater, clinging to her voluptuous figure, was largely hair-free. Largely but not completely. She plucked off several strands and let them fall to the floor; they had three
German shepherds at home. She wound together stray strands of her own hair, milking to white, and pinned them into her severe bun.

She noted that in her haste to get to the hospital she’d hooked her silver necklace on backward and she fixed it now, though the design appeared abstract; no one would have noted the mistake.

Then a grimace; don’t be so vain.

Leaving Matthew, she walked into the
hallway with the laundry and took the elevator to the lobby. It was crowded. She waited in line at the front desk, to get change. A gaggle of Japanese tourists clustered around their suitcases like pioneers protecting their women. A couple that appeared to be honeymooning stood nearby, adoring each other. Two men – gay, she could see – chatted enthusiastically about some plans that night. Young,
leather jacketed musicians lounged, their feet up on battered instrument cases. An obese couple pored over a map. The husband was in shorts. In this weather. And with those legs!

New York. What a place.

Harriet suddenly had a sense that somebody was watching her. She looked up quickly. But didn’t see anyone. Still, she was left with an uneasy feeling.

Well, after the close call at the hospital,
it was natural for her to be a little paranoid.

‘Ma’am?’ she heard.

‘Oh, sorry.’ She turned back to the desk clerk and got change for a ten.

She took the elevator to the basement and followed signage down two corridors to the laundry room, a dim space, dusted with spilled detergent and smelling of dryer exhaust and hot lint. Like the hallways, the room was deserted.

She heard the click and
then the rumble of the elevator going up. A moment later there came the sound of a car returning to this level. If it was the same one, it had only traveled to the main floor.

Two dollars for a one-use container of detergent? She should have had Josh pick up a bottle of Tide at the drug store. Then reminded herself: Don’t be like Matthew. Don’t worry about the petty things.

Were those footsteps
coming from the direction of the elevator?

She glanced toward the doorway, the shadowy corridor. Heart thudding a bit faster, her palms dampening.

Nothing.

She added the clothing to the least-dirty machine and shoved in the six quarters.

Then footsteps again, growing louder.

She turned, staring at the young man in the tan leather jacket and green NY Mets cap. He carried a backpack and a canvas
work bag.

Silence for a moment.

Then she smiled. ‘Billy.’

‘Aunt Harriet.’ Billy Haven looked around to make certain they were alone and then stepped inside the room. He set down the bags.

She lifted her hands, palm up. Like summoning a child.

Billy hesitated then came to her and let himself be drawn into her arms, which closed around him, enwrapping him tightly. They were about the same height
– she was just under six feet herself – and Harriet easily maneuvered her face to his, kissing him hard on the mouth.

She sensed him resist for a moment but then he gave in and kissed her back, gripping her lips with his, tasting her. Not wanting to but unable to stop.

It had always been this way with him: reluctant at first, then yielding … then growing commanding as he pushed her down on her
back and wrestled off clothing.

Always this way – from the very first time, more than a decade ago, when she’d pulled the boy into the study above the garage, the Oleander Room, for their afternoon trysts, while Matthew was busy with – aunt and nephew sometimes joked – God knew what.

Typically – and irritatingly – Rodney Szarnek was listening to some god-awful rock when he picked up the call from Rhyme’s parlor.

‘Rodney, you’re on speaker. It’s … Can we lose the music?’

If you could call that head-banging crap music.

‘Hey, Lincoln. That’s you, right?’

Rhyme turned to Sachs and rolled his eyes.

The cyber detective was probably half deaf.

‘Rodney, we have a
situation.’

‘Yup. Go on.’

Rhyme explained about the bombs and where they’d been set – near key International Fiber Optic Networks routers and under the company’s headquarters.

‘Man, that’s tough, Lincoln.’

‘I have no idea what the detonator timing situation is. It’s possible we can’t render-safe before one or maybe all of them go off.’

‘Are you evacuating?’

‘Under way right now. They’re
gunpowder bombs, not plastic explosives – that we know – so we don’t think there’s a risk of major casualties. But the infrastructure damage could be significant.’

‘Oh.’

The detective didn’t sound concerned. Was he checking his iPod for a new song list?

‘How can I help?’ he finally asked, as if his sole purpose was to fill the growing silence.

‘Whom should we call, what precautions should
we take?’

‘For what?’ the computer cop asked.

Jesus Christ. What was the disconnect? ‘Rodney. If. The. Bombs. Go.
Off
. The Internet – what precautions should we take?’

More silence. ‘You’re asking if bombs take out a couple of the fiber-optic routers.’

A sigh from Rhyme. ‘Yes, Rodney. That’s what I’m asking. And the IFON headquarters.’

‘There’s nothing to do.’

‘But what about security services,
hospitals, Wall Street, air traffic control, alarms? It’s the Internet, for God’s sake. Some cable company’s hired industrial saboteurs to blow it up.’

‘Oh, I get it.’ He sounded amused. ‘You’re thinking like some Bruce Willis movie thing? The stock markets crash, somebody sticks up a bank because the alarms are off, kidnaps the mayor, since the web’s out?’

‘Well, along those lines, yes.’

‘Look, the cable syndicate versus the fiber-optic outfit? That’s way old news. Used chewing gum.’

I don’t need two fucking clichés in a row. Get to the point. Rhyme fumed, but silently.

‘They don’t like each other, IFON and the traditional cable providers. But nobody’s going to sabotage anything. In fact, in six months International Fiber Optic will’ve bought out or signed licensing agreements
with the other cable companies.’

‘You don’t think they’d try to blow up IFON routers?’

‘Naw. Even if they did, or
anybody
did, you’d have a five-, ten-minute interruption in service in isolated parts of the city. Believe me, Chinese and Bulgarian hackers cause more problems than that every day.’

Sachs asked, ‘You’re sure that’s all that would happen?’

‘Hey, hi, Amelia. Okay, maybe twenty minutes.
ISPs’ve thought of this before, you know. There’s so much redundancy in the system, we call it dedundant.’

Rhyme was irritated both at the bad joke and that his theory was in the toilet.

‘At the very worst, signals’d be rerouted to backup servers in Jersey, Queens and Connecticut. Oh, traffic’d be slower. You couldn’t stream porn or play
World of Warcraft
without the signals’ breaking up but
basic services’d keep running. I’ll call the providers and Homeland Security, though, and give them a heads-up.’

‘Thanks, Rodney,’ Sachs said.

The music rose in volume and the line went to blessed silence.

Rhyme parked in front of the evidence boards and photos. He had another thought, discouraging. He snapped, ‘Sloppy thinking – speculating that Samantha Levine, from IFON, was the target.
How would the unsub know she’d go to the bathroom at just that time, and be waiting for her? Careless. Stupid.’

The idea of the syndicate of traditional cable Internet providers taking down the fiber-optic interloper had seemed good – sheep ranchers versus cattle barons. Like most conspiracy theories, it was sexy but ultimately junk.

His eyes strayed to the tattoos.

Rhyme read them out loud.

Pulaski, next to him, leaned forward. ‘And those wavy lines.’

‘Scallops,’ Rhyme corrected.

‘I don’t know what a scallop is except a seafood thing that tastes pretty bland unless you put sauce on it.’

‘The shell that
seafood thing
comes in is shaped like that,’ Rhyme murmured.