Wild Card

50

Stone and Dino were warming themselves by the fire and their innards with brown whiskey, when Dino’s phone made a noise, and he turned it on. “Security-camera footage from the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge area.”

Stone walked behind Dino’s chair and looked over his shoulder, while the phone downloaded the footage.

“Here we go,” Dino said. They stared intently at the screen; the shot was taken from upriver, apparently from a camera affixed to the bridge. “Long shot,” Dino said.

A man wearing a windbreaker and a baseball cap walked over to the only bench in sight and sat down. Then he answered his phone and walked away. “These have already been edited for best use,” Dino said.

Shortly, a figure appeared, walking up the river, a man in a black topcoat and a black hat, carrying a briefcase. “Who wears a hat these days?” Dino asked.

“Somebody who doesn’t want to be seen by a security camera,” Stone ventured. “It’s the upper-class hoodie.”

“Yeah.”

The second man sat down on the bench, upriver side. He set down his briefcase and turned to face the man in the baseball cap, who had walked toward him.

“No luck on the guy in the hat,” Dino said. “But that’s a clear shot of the guy in the baseball cap.”

“They’re a long way off from the camera, though,” Stone said.

“We’re already working on enhancing the face,” Dino said.

The two men conversed for a short time, then the man in the hat rose and headed back the way he came.

“Did you see that?” Dino asked.

“See what? His back?”

“He left the briefcase under the bench when he got up.”

“You’re right,” Stone said.

The man in black disappeared off screen, then the man in the baseball cap reached under the bench and brought out the briefcase.

“Here we go,” Dino said.

The second man seemed to inspect the briefcase, then stroked it with one hand, then both his hands moved into position to open the case. The explosion was noiseless, since there was no audio, but the force of the blast was visible. The man in the baseball cap simply disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

They watched as debris began to fall around the bench.

“There’s the arm we saw,” Stone said, as it landed a few yards from the bench.

“Right,” Dino replied. He quickly ran the three other camera views, but it was obvious that the shots from the first camera were the best. Dino set down his phone.

“It’s not every day you see a guy blown to pieces,” Dino said.

“Thank God for that,” Stone replied.

Dino’s phone made the noise again, and he picked it up. “Enhancement coming in,” he said.

Stone stood behind him and watched as the shot from the first camera ran again in the enhanced mode. “Looks like a cashmere topcoat,” he said.

“Yeah, but that’s not going to help us.”

“And a Yankees ball cap.”

“Right again.”

The motion stopped, a square was drawn around the head of the man in the Yankees cap. It was enlarged, then enhanced before their eyes.

“Hey, that’s good!” Dino enthused. “Our facial recognition software ought to be able to do something with that.” He turned off the phone, and Stone sat down.

“He looked sort of Mediterranean,” Stone said.

“So did the guy at Bloomingdale’s.”

“So, a Middle Eastern terrorist shoots two women in Bloomingdale’s and another Middle Eastern guy gets handed a briefcase with a surprise inside,” Dino said.

“The guy at Bloomingdale’s thought he was shooting Elise and Elena,” Stone said, “but he got it wrong, then his cohort goes to accept payment for the job from a guy by the river, only the guy by the river didn’t want to pay. That makes sense.”

“It does,” Dino said. Then his phone rang, and Dino put it on speaker and set it on the coffee table. “Bacchetti.”

“Boss, it’s Lieutenant Perdido, in intelligence tech services,” a voice said.

“What have you got?”

“A connection between the guy at Bloomingdale’s and the one from the bridge. Their passports, though their numbers were not consecutive, were both issued at the American embassy in Paris, and both on the same day.”

“Bingo!” Dino said. “What home addresses were on the passport application?”

“The same address: a New York apartment.”

“Well, get a warrant and get somebody over there,” Dino said. “And send those shots to the D.A.”

“Yes, sir!” The lieutenant hung up.

“I’d call that progress,” Dino said. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Not yet,” Stone said. “All you’ve got are two corpses, one in pieces, and they got their passports from the same forger, probably in Paris. If you can find another guy in the cell, then that will be progress.”

“That was going to be my next move,” Dino said petulantly. “I’m calling the D.A.” He picked up his phone. Someone answered, said the D.A. was unavailable, and took a message. “Probably not before tomorrow,” she said.

Dino hung up in disgust.