Fast and Loose

41

Stone called Ed Rawls, who answered immediately.

“Ed, I need your advice,” Stone said. He told him of Macher’s effort to blow up the St. Clair building. “We don’t have enough evidence to prosecute him. Have you any advice as to how to proceed?”

“Shoot the son of a bitch and don’t get caught,” Rawls said.

“That’s excellent advice, Ed, but I need a way ahead that doesn’t involve life in prison without parole.”

“I said don’t get caught, didn’t I?”

“Ed, I was a homicide detective for a long time, and I never encountered a perfect murder. These days, there are too many kinds of evidence that didn’t exist all those years ago.”

“Yeah, DNA, and all that crap.”

“Right. How do we defend ourselves from somebody with no scruples at all? Somebody who’s willing to do anything?”

“Stone,” Ed said, “if I knew that, Macher would already be dead.”

Lieutenant George Marconi, who commanded one of the NYPD’s bomb squads, sat at his desk and stared at the burner cell phone that had been attached to the bomb found in the St. Clair mansion. He pressed the recent button and found a single phone number. Could this possibly work? He retrieved a small recorder from a desk drawer and plugged it into the cell phone, then pressed send. It was answered on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Macher, this is George Marconi, how are you?”

“Okay, I guess, who are you?”

“I want to be sure that I’ve got the right person,” Marconi said. “Is this the Erik Macher who, until recently, ran the St. Clair company?” He heard Macher suck in a breath, then stop.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Macher said, and hung up.

Marconi sighed. Nearly had him. Macher wouldn’t be answering that phone again. He went to his computer and found a secure directory of all cell phone numbers in the Northeast, entered his password, then did a search for Erik Macher. There! He called the number.

“Erik Macher,” a gruff voice said. The same voice he’d just heard on the burner.

“Mr. Macher, it’s George Marconi again. Why did you hang up on me?”

“How’d you get this number?” Macher demanded.

“Oh, I can get anybody’s cell number,” Marconi said, “even a burner number.”

A long silence, then, “What’s a burner number?”

“That’s a number on a throwaway cell phone, like the one you attached to your bomb at the St. Clair mansion.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you, I’m George Marconi.”

“That doesn’t tell me who you are.”

“I’m curious, Mr. Macher, where did you get the design for your bomb?”

Another silence, then, “Bomb? What bomb?”

“Come on, Erik, you’re not going to play dumb, are you? Would you like me to go to the police and tell them you’re the guy who planted the bomb at the St. Clair mansion, and I can prove it?”

“Prove what?”

“That you’re the man who planted the bomb.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m a reasonable man,” Marconi said, trying to get him talking, “I can be bought off, and for less than you might imagine.”

“Bought off?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? Okay, you pay me twenty-five thousand or I’ll tip off the police and give them your whereabouts. Is that clear enough for you?”

“What’s clear to me is that you’re a crazy person. I don’t know anything about any bomb.” He hung up.

Marconi’s phone rang almost immediately. “Lieutenant Marconi.”

“Marconi, this is Bacchetti.”

“Afternoon, Commissioner.”

“What are you turning up on the bomb at the St. Clair mansion?”

“Funny you should mention that, sir. I was just on the phone with Erik Macher. I called the phone number that the burner phone attached to the bomb heard from — the one that Mr. Barrington answered?”

“And who did you get?”

“Erik Macher. And I recorded the two conversations I had with him.”

“Play the recordings for me.”

Marconi did so.

“That was a really good idea,” Dino said, “except for the part about it not working.”

“It nearly worked, Commissioner.”

“So, it was a really good idea that didn’t work.”

“I guess you could put it that way.”

“How about coming up with an idea that works?”

“I’m working on that, Commissioner.”

“You do that, Lieutenant.” He hung up.

Marconi hung up and called his lab.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Have you come up with anything on that explosive I sent you?”

“Funny you should mention that, Lieutenant. I just did.”

“Tell me.”

“You know, a few years back, there was an experimental program started that was supposed to help us trace explosives?”

“No, I didn’t know that. What kind of program?”

“The idea was that the manufacturer would place a marker in the explosive that would allow it to be traced back to the manufacturer, who would keep a record of who the explosive was sold to.”

“Did it work?”

“Sure, it worked, but Congress wouldn’t pass a law allowing that to be done. There was another suggestion that ammunition could be marked the same way, and they were apparently afraid the NRA would shout that they were infringing on gun owners’ rights, so they wouldn’t approve it for either ammunition or explosives.”

“So why are you telling me all this?”

“Because, Lieutenant, the explosive you sent me was apparently part of the experimental program. It contained a tracer element.”

“So, did you trace it?”

“Yes, sir. I called the manufacturer, and they were able to look it up and tell me who they sold it to.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, man, who did they sell it to?”

“The CIA.”

Marconi’s jaw dropped. “You’re telling me that the explosive I sent you came from the CIA?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Lieutenant. So I called the CIA, and eventually I got connected to somebody in the technical services division, who would have issued the explosive to somebody at the Agency.”

“And who did they issue it to?”

“They wouldn’t tell me.”

“What? Did you explain that the explosive was part of a criminal investigation?”

“I did, sir, but they denied all knowledge of it. So I guess it was kind of a dead end.”

Marconi groaned. He thanked the man and hung up. He called the commissioner back but got his voice mail, so he left a message describing his conversation with the lab.