Deadly Heat

SEVENTEEN

Heat started at a speed-walk through the lobby, past the duty sergeant, but something about the jolt of the buzz lock made the armored door feel like a starting gate. She punched the push bar, flung it open, and broke into a jog. Hinesburg chattered at her heels all the way, trying to keep up with Nikki’s pace on the way to the squad room.

“I’m not absolutely sure it’s her.”

“What did she say to you, exactly?”

“I didn’t talk to her,” said Sharon. The switchboard transferred it. But remember that tipster who called me the other day-”

“I do.”

“After I messed up with him, I didn’t want to blow this.”

“Good.”

“So I went and got you.”

“Are you running a trace?”

“Switchboard is on it already.” She read something in Heat’s glance and insisted, “They are. Why are you looking at me that way?”

The bull pen was empty; all the other detectives were out on assignment. Hinesburg pointed to Nikki’s desk. “It’s the blinking line.”

Heat reached for the phone, then hesitated. She took a few seconds to calm her pulse and fasten herself to the moment. Be present, Nikki, she thought. No time to get sloppy. Ready, she turned to Hinesburg. “Is this call set to record?”

“It should be.”

“ ‘Should be’? Really?”

“It’s set.” Hinesburg bent over the small tan junction box coupled between Heat’s phone and a hard drive. She flipped the toggle switch to On and a green mini-lamp lit. “Now it is.”

“Maybe you should go grab Raley.”

“I’m telling you it’s set. The call will record, just pick up.”

Nikki flipped to a clean sheet in her notebook and pressed the line. “Detective Heat.”

“It’s me,” said the woman. And then, after a short pause, “Salena.” The voice sounded like hers, only grittier and more subdued. Nikki tried to compare it to the one she had heard a month before when Salena Kaye insinuated herself into her life masquerading as Rook’s physical therapist. Back when the two of them laughingly nicknamed her his Naughty Nurse and Heat had written her off as an airhead with a massage table. So much for profiling.

Nikki said, “You’re going to have to prove it.”

“I expected that. Do you want me to tell you about the twin freckles on your boyfriend’s ass or how the shit Vaja Nikoladze cooked up is going to kill a couple thousand people?”

Heat ignored the personal bait. Instead her eye flicked to verify the green record lamp. She said, “Let’s talk about what Vaja cooked up.”

“You first,” said Salena, who then chuckled derisively.

But lurking behind her contempt, Nikki heard something off in Salena Kaye’s voice, something tight, like her bluster was fake. She sounded drunk. Or… afraid? Over years of interrogation Nikki had learned that shifts in demeanor were huge tells. Of what, she’d listen carefully for. “You called me. What do you want?”

After some throat clearing from the other end, a sigh. “Protection,” she said. “I want to turn myself in, but I want protection.”

“Like you gave Petar?”

“Can you give it to me?” Her voice rasped, sounding throaty and dry. Definitely scared. What was going on here?

Whatever it was, Heat didn’t let up. “What’s the problem, Salena? Running low on people to kill?” There was a long pause and Kaye muttered something. “Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“They turned on me.” Another pause. The fear mixed with something else. Remoteness, defeat. “They are going to find me and kill me just like Tyler Wynn.”

“Excuse me, but I believe that was you.”

“They have others. They can do it.”

“Who are they, Salena? Names.” While Kaye breathed heavily across the mouthpiece Heat signaled to Hinesburg, swirling the hurry up circle with her forefinger. Sharon dialed the switchboard and checked on the trace. “Start with one name, I can wait.”

“You’ll never trace this call, so don’t bother trying to stall me.”

“I think you’re the one wasting my time.”

“No, don’t go,” she shouted. “I do have names. I know everything. I’m just not giving it up. Not until I’m in.” She slurped saliva. “And safe. Then I’ll tell you everything.” Heat had heard thousands of plea deal offers. Kaye was saying all the right words, but there was something about the way she said them that didn’t sell. To Nikki, they had to pass the Valentine’s Test. “I love you” has to feel like it. No tingle, no deal.

Over at her desk, Hinesburg waved for attention and gave the thumbs-down.

With no trace coming, Nikki moved things to the next round. “Tell you what, Salena. You come in, and I’ll do my best for witness protection. But no promises unless you deliver.”

“Agreed!” Jumping at that a bit quickly, Heat thought, for a cold-blooded assassin.

“Good. Do you know where the Twentieth Precinct is located? West Eighty-second off Columbus?”

“Nice try. No way.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Heat, pushing the sarcasm. “You want us to come to you.”

“If you were me, wouldn’t you?” Nikki had to admit, she had a point. After more rustling and throat clearing, Kaye said, “Remember the East River Heliport?”

“Hard to forget.”

“Yeah, you lost me there after I spiked your coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts.” But it had been Starbucks, not Dunkin’. Odd. Would Salena forget a detail like that? Nikki wondered if maybe she really was drunk. Or something else… “Eight-thirty tonight. Come alone. I trust only you.”

Heat jotted down the place and time but said, “No, Salena, you come here.”

Kaye held her ground. “Take it or leave it. And if you bring anyone else, deal’s off. And you can thank yourself when this city turns into a fucking hot zone.”

The line went dead.

“She gone?” asked Hinesburg. Heat simply nodded, deep in thought, pondering the strange call and the drastic change she read in the bold killer. “What did she want?”

“To turn herself in.”

“Holy fuck.” Then Hinesburg said, “Fuck, sorry about the ‘fuck.’ I heard you mention the precinct. Is she coming here?” Nikki didn’t answer. “Hello?”

Heat looked up. “Sorry, just thinking something through.” Nikki tapped her notepad then shoved it aside. “I need some air. If she calls back, you know where to find me.”

Out on the sidewalk Nikki felt a new vulnerability. Not just from recognizing her exposure on the streets of New York these days, but something more intimate. That phone call represented critical movement in the terror investigation-not to mention her mother’s case-but at the same time, something inside her-Nikki’s innate wariness-struggled for attention. So many things about that outreach did not add up: its unexpectedness; the treasure of information it offered so easily, like a dangling carrot; the strained quality of Salena Kaye’s demeanor.

Nikki pondered all that as she sidestepped the ancient discs of dried chewing gum that had blackened the concrete. Her self-talk balanced the allure of capturing Salena Kaye with the bigger picture of her experience the past week.

And with what she had just seen in her video screening.

Detective Heat’s innate wariness whispered in one ear, but a louder voice spoke in the other and filled her with the butterfly sensation that she may have arrived at the hinge point of two big cases. That voice shouted to her, telling Nikki to act-calling for her not just to seize the opportunity but make the most of it.

After ten more laps around the chewing gum obstacle course, she began forming an idea of just how to go about that.

Rook picked up a nanosecond before the voice mail dump. “Sorry, couldn’t hear the ringer, it’s so noisy here.” It sounded like a saloon in the background for a good reason. “My Hollywood lunch segued into Manhattan happy hour.”

“How’s that going?”

The long squeak of a heavy door filled Heat’s earpiece. The background din on Rook’s end quieted and his voice echoed in a vestibule. “It’s too bad you’re not a media whore, Nikki. Between the two of us, we’d clean up.”

“Help yourself. I’m calling because I won’t be able to make seven-thirty with Puzzle Man tonight.” Heat told him about the unexpected call from Salena Kaye and the proposed surrender meeting.

When she finished, Rook said, “Of course you told Kaye you wouldn’t show.”

“I did.”

“And yet, you’re informing me you can’t make our meeting. What the hell are you doing?”

“I’ve been thinking it over, and I have an excellent hunch why Salena reached out. I need to see this through.”

“A hunch? Flaky hunches and wack theories are my department. Are we going to be one of those old couples with matching track suits and his-and-hers aluminum foil hats?”

“As long as we don’t start to look alike.”

“And I can’t talk you out of this?”

“No more than you can convince me to let you come. She said alone, and this woman’s got experience and a secret agent’s radar. She’ll know if I’ve got backup.” Nikki chuckled. “And besides, what are you going to do, squirt her with one of your fountain pens?”

He paused. “You should at least call Callan.”

“No.”

“He not only has a stake in this, too, he’ll know how to back you up, undetected. Did you hear him talk about his surveillance dome over Tyler Wynn the other night?”

“And how did that work out?” She let that sink in and continued, “Rook, listen to me. There are too many leaks screwing everything up at every turn. I’m not telling anyone.”

“You sure?”

“And neither are you. I mean it.”

“Fine. What do I tell Puzzle Man?”

“Tell him to figure it out.”

“Zinggg. Do you at least have a plan?”

“I do.” Then she said, “And I’ve got until eight-thirty to come up with it.”

According to the Web site for the East River Heliport, New York City ordinances closed them for air traffic at 8 P.M. daily. Heat made a check of the time. Almost six. She didn’t stop to close the window on her monitor. She rolled her chair away from her desk, made a holster check, grabbed her jacket, and hurried to the door. She got to the hall, stopped, and made a U-turn and came back into the bull pen.

“You all right?” asked Hinesburg.

“Uh, yeah, just a little hassled for time.” Heat unlocked a drawer and took out an extra clip for her Sig Sauer. “Oh, Sharon?” she mimed a phone with her thumb and pinkie. “Check the hard drive, will you? Make sure that phone call recorded? And nobody else goes near it.” Then she left. She didn’t look back. She didn’t even take the sheet from her pad on which she’d written the time and place of her meeting.

Somehow Nikki didn’t think she’d forget.

She got there early and flashed her badge so the attendant would let her park in the rehab center lot at East 34th Street. He even moved a cone to open a spot for her where she could sit in her Crown Victoria and observe the entrance to the heliport across the service road that ran underneath the elevation of the FDR Drive.

One hour to go. The sun wasn’t due to set for about fifteen minutes; however a storm front pushing in from the Ohio Valley had cast a high curtain of black thunderheads against the western sky-enough to cause the cyclists using the esplanade’s bike path between her and the heliport to switch on their helmet lamps. The air thrummed, trash swirled, and the last Sikorsky of the day ascended over the East River, rotated, and banked a graceful turn east toward Long Island. Ten minutes later the fluorescents switched off in the mobile office trailer that served as the headquarters and boarding area for the helicopter facility. Two cars exited, the last one stopping as the driver, who wore a white shirt with epaulettes, got out and padlocked a chain through the gate before he left, too.

She waited, watching everything closely now. The number of joggers and cyclists dwindled, and cars became sparse, with only an occasional taxi passing by on its way somewhere else at that hour. Then the lights around the helipad all cut off, all at once: the orange floodlights, even the red aviation lamps that ran along the edge of the pier. Strange. Could they be on a timer, or had they been doused deliberately?

A truck from a paper shredding company blasted its horn at an ambulette servicing one of the nearby hospitals. While the drivers exchanged shouts and fingers in front of the heliport, she momentarily lost sight of the area. When they cleared away, everything seemed as before.

Five minutes away, close enough. She reached up to switch off the dome light before she opened the car door and got out.

As a precaution, she walked half a block down the road to cross over beyond the heliport’s line of sight. Keeping to the shadows, she arrived at the one-story modular office-trailer for the helicopter operation. The building just fit beneath the underbelly of the FDR, with about five feet of headroom to spare. The side facing the road had no doors, only four unlit windows. She lowered her head as she passed them and came to the north end of the structure, near the gate. Her vision had adjusted enough to the darkness when she got there to see that the chain around the gate now hung free. It had been popped, and the heavy-duty padlock swung at the end of it, tapping lightly against steel pipe. She drew her gun and squeezed through the opening.

The knob of the entrance door inside the gate wouldn’t turn, and a serious deadbolt above it was likely engaged. There wasn’t enough light for her to see in the crack if the brass tongue had been thrown. She moved on, inching forward, pressing herself against the corrugated steel siding toward the landing area. She brought her service weapon up to an isosceles brace and peered around that corner.

A fresh wind rolling down from Hell Gate blew across the blacktop helipad before her. The only other sound to compete with Manhattan’s ubiquitous white noise of traffic came from the lapping of the East River against the pilings. The area was empty but for a single, parked helicopter occupying the space designed for five choppers. Nylon tie-down straps held its rotors in place, although they rocked slightly in the night air. The Sikorsky remained as it had landed, nose-in toward the building, with its tail above the red and white striped curb that marked the edge of the pier as a guide for pilots as they approached over the river. The craft appeared every bit like a stealth bomber’s cousin at that moment: an ominous form, pitch-black except for a faint glow coming from inside. Curiously, that glow was the most foreboding thing on the pier. Because it beckoned to her in the darkness.

She waited with her back against the steel, measuring risk. Twenty feet of exposure stretched between her and the helicopter. To her right, at the south end of the tarmac, a vacant parking lot-minimal worry there. To her left, a parking lot full of double-decker stacked cars bordered the north end of the blacktop. Lots of cover. That’s where trouble would come from.

Her eyes became attracted to that light, and she made a decision. She broke across the open space, a crouching silhouette cleaving to the shadow of the helicopter when she got there. She panted, listening. A dinner yacht churned by, a charter spilling party sounds and light. Only when it left did she dare to move and peek inside the cockpit window.

It was empty. She ducked quickly to stay in the shadows and ran a memory recap. The glow had come from the rear compartment. Duckwalking a little over a yard, she used the body of the chopper for cover. Then she rose up and peered in the window of the rear door.

What she saw stopped her heart.

Salena Kaye stared back at her from the passenger seat through dead eyes. Her mouth hung open in a frozen scream, exposing smashed and missing teeth. Welts and cigarette burns marked her face. A picklock protruded from the nearest ear canal, above a dried flow of blood and plasma that had streamed down the side of her neck, staining the shoulder of her white T-shirt. The handle of a large, military-style knife jutted out of her sternum above an oval blotch of red. And around the knife’s knuckle grip, someone had tied a string. An orange string.

Attached to a dangling bullet.

At that moment, lying prone atop the flat roof of the heliport’s office, Rainbow watched her silhouette through the sight scope of his rifle. She had come to him like all the others had. Inducing her had taken more doing than with the rest of them; Salena Kaye had required an extraordinary amount of persuasion to make that phone call. But her torture opened a surprising new door to his enjoyment. And the result of it had succeeded in luring her to him. None of them could resist the seduction of a great clue. Not even the famous Detective Heat.

Rainbow took his time, waiting for the moment. He wanted to witness the juncture of horror’s full absorption-the lightning-crack realization when all the tumblers fell into place, when all the strings connected. The months of planning and the weeks of execution came down to this, and it would not be rushed. The taking of Nikki Heat’s life had to come right at the instant he saw the revelation break across her face.

To rush made it cheap. To wait made her his.

Patience. He settled the rifle stock on the sandbag and held the back of her head center-scope so the crosshairs would track across her ear to her temple to her brow to her forehead when she came around.

At last she began to turn.