Terminal City

THIRTY-FIVE

“Let’s get Coop on her way,” Mike said.

“I’d like her to tell me what this DNA stuff means first, okay? There’s pages of it,” Rocco said. “Then the guys can take her out of here.”

“I’m not going. I know these cases as well as anyone.”

“No time to get stubborn,” Mercer said.

“Let’s see how this develops. I’ve still got my uses, don’t I?” I smiled, trying to diffuse the tension.

“Then get an officer up here, Loo,” Mike said, turning to me. “And you do have your uses. Loop in the Thatcher family, then we’ll get you a laptop and you can be our researcher on whatever comes up.”

“Oh, great. You’re looking for the killer, and I’m in charge of Google Alerts?”

“You stay close to anyone who’s got a badge and a gun, okay?”

Rocco seemed surprised. “No heat?”

“I’ve never had a gun, Loo. Fortunately, Battaglia doesn’t believe in letting his legal staff carry. I’d probably have taken Mike’s head off by now.”

Each of the men had tried dialing out on his cell-Mercer to update his boss at the Special Victims Unit, Mike to check in with his lieutenant at Manhattan North, and Pug to notify his team who were still hunkered down at the Waldorf.

“There’s no reception here,” Rocco said, pushing the spider-phone toward Mercer. “It’s built like a bunker on purpose. You’ve got a couple of different landlines to use.”

Mercer had one hand on the receiver. “Do we have a plan, Loo? Are you going with Blunt as a person of interest?”

“What’s his criminal history?” Mike asked, pointing to the sheaf of papers that Rocco Correlli had passed to me. “How can he be in the data bank and not known to the department?”

“Too many questions at once,” I said, pulling my chair closer and starting to plow through the information about Nicholas Blunt. “He’s not KTD because he’s never been arrested.”

“How’s that possible?”

“The match isn’t arrest-based. That much is clear.”

“Case-to-case?” Mike asked. “DNA from semen in an unsolved rape?”

Rocco was talking over my head. “Person of interest is an understatement. We’ve got his blood on the curtain at the Waldorf and in the sink on Big Timber. Alex, can we call him a suspect? It’s okay legally?”

“Go for it, Loo. I don’t care if you tag him as the perp. As long as the public puts a name and face to the guy who’s running around out there, and they understand that he’s horribly dangerous,” I said, scrutinizing the FBI lab records. “It’s not seminal fluid. The DNA came from a swab. From saliva.”

“An investigation?” Mike asked. “What state?”

“Not an investigation. Voluntary. It’s connected to some kind of job he was working about three years ago.”

“Keep reading.”

“NorthStar. That’s the name of the company that submitted the sample,” I said. “The DNA report itself is not very complicated, Loo. The paperwork is thick because it’s all the lab notes confirming the matches. All they need is the headline you got. The blood found at two of the crime scenes belongs to Nicholas Blunt.”

“That’s helpful. I thought I’d be swimming in double helixes all night.”

“So I guess finding out more about Blunt is my first Google assignment. Where’s the laptop I’m supposed to use?”

“Coming up any minute,” Rocco said.

“You don’t need a search engine for that,” Mike said. “NorthStar. One word, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a security contractor, mostly for overseas work in the most hostile territories in the world.”

“Like Blackwater?” I asked. I remembered stories about the private firm that was created to support government troops abroad after the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

“A lot like it, but much smaller.”

“Tough guys, no?”

“Blackwater had a lot of former military experts,” Mike said. “Smart founders who recruited some very experienced men-and yeah, some hard-hitters. At one point they were up to eighty thousand employees worldwide. They got into some hot water and had to rebrand.”

“But legit?” I asked.

“Mostly. They had a slew of government contracts,” Mike said, as the door opened and a Metro-North cop entered the room with three laptops. “Blackwater actually trained Navy SEALs and military SWAT teams. I don’t know if they’re completely out of that business, after allegations of shooting civilians in Iraq, or if they just regrouped under a new name.”

The newly arrived Metro-North cop was obviously tech-savvy. He began setting up the laptops and connecting them to a power source under the table. I slid one over in front of me and turned it on.

“NorthStar hasn’t been around for that long. Does the same kind of thing as the old Blackwater. High-threat protection. I don’t think the government uses them much, but they provide security for a lot of business entities-like oil companies-that work in risky third-world countries or war zones.”

“NorthStar swabs their employees for DNA?” I asked. “For identification purposes?”

“Yeah, in the event any of the workers go DOA. Their profiles are already in the data bank. The military does the same thing.”

“So what else can we find out about Nicholas Blunt?” I said, typing his name into the search function.

Mercer sat down opposite me. “I’ll do NorthStar.”

It was Rocco Correlli’s turn for the landline. He called the head of the Metro-North police and asked his questions after the formalities were done. “I need an officer to be assigned to a prosecutor working in the situation room tonight. Pronto. Got someone for me?”

“I get the feeling I’m going to have a new best friend any minute now,” I said, scrolling down through all the Blunts whose names appeared on my screen.

“Excellent. I’d like that as soon as possible,” the lieutenant spoke into the mouthpiece.

“I can’t believe how many Blunts there are.”

“Nicholas?” Mike asked.

“I’m trying to eliminate by age. The people-finder search engine has more than thirty of them, and at first glance, nothing’s a match.”

I reached for the stack of papers again and tried to find the original submission request.

“So NorthStar opened its doors about eight years ago,” Mercer said. “Usual vague stuff on the website. More than fifteen thousand employees on missions around the world, mostly in Asia or Africa.”

“Would Blunt have needed military experience?” I asked. “We could get a load of information about him that way.”

“Not necessary, the site says. In fact, most of the employees don’t,” Mercer responded while writing numbers on a pad. “Could you get a man on military records, Loo? I’ll call NorthStar headquarters, though I’m not likely to get anybody at a corporate firm after hours on a Friday night. The feds will probably cut through that faster than we can.”

“This will help, guys,” I said. “Having a eureka moment.”

I stood up, waving the paper in my hand.

“What?”

“Surname Blunt. Given name Nikolay.”

“Don’t we already know that?” Mike asked.

“Father’s given name is Walter. Mother’s given name, Zoya. The spelling of Nicholas is eastern European,” I said. “Probably Russian. Zoya’s a Russian name, too.”

“And Blunt?” Rocco asked.

“Could be just plain old English,” Mike said. “Or Ellis Island neutral. Not everybody came through with all their vowels intact, Loo, like you did.”

“So?”

“So I’m getting from Coop the idea that we ought to look for a link between our Russian victim and Mr. Blunt.”

“That’s where I’m headed, Mike,” I said.

“That’s challenging, don’t you think? Lydia Tsarlev’s from Russia, and it’s possible this Blunt kid may have Russian roots. I can get that far. Next step is to see whether he’s got a psych history of any kind, or other witnesses who’ve heard about the voices in his head. The whole scenario could get really scary with a schizoid Soviet who’s been playing paramilitary enforcer. A Putin puppet with a grudge of some kind.”

“Slow it down, Mike,” I said.

“Hey, every one of those ‘Stans’ has some disgruntled former Soviets. I was mostly just relieved that the name attached to this DNA wasn’t Arabic.”

“The master of political incorrectness, Detective. The prosecution rests.”

“Strings, Coop. They’re all coming together for me. Hustler, hostler. Nicholas, Nikolay. Same bastard, whatever he calls himself.”

“You’re thinking the guy hearing voices in Lydia’s apartment is Blunt?” Rocco asked Mike and me.

“Better than a long shot,” Mike said. “We need a picture bad, Coop. We need to get the roommate to give us a scrip and to stick around to identify a photograph of him as soon as we get one. It can’t be a coincidence that the guy fighting with Lydia in her bedroom, trying to enlist her to join his cause-well, it’s got to be related.”

“Didn’t the roommate say he had no accent?” Rocco asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But who knows where he was born? Or his mother? I’m just telling you guys not to ignore that possible Russian background connection as we go forward.”

“Who asked me if there’s a plan?” Rocco said.

“I did,” Mercer said.

“Give it another five minutes. Then we go back downstairs to meet with Scully, who expects to be here before eight thirty. Get me everything you find online.”

“Here he is on Facebook,” I said. “Nik Blunt.”

“How do you know it’s our guy?” Rocco asked.

“There are a few others, but all spelled the traditional English way. And only one who listed the Animal Liberation Front as his favorite organization, Loo. How’s that for a start?”

“Does he have any friends, or did he kill them all?” Mike asked. “I knew putting you on Google was the right move. You’re a total geek, Coop.”

“This Nik Blunt hasn’t posted anything in two and a half years.”

“Not even photos that give an idea where he was then?”

“The Great Dismal Swamp.”

Mercer looked up from his laptop. “You got to be kidding. There’s such a place?”

Mike said, “North Carolina,” at the very same moment I said, “Virginia.”

“Which is it?”

“North Carolina,” Mike said. “Acres of swampland. Like a national refuge now. If there’s some kind of animal you never wanted to meet? It’s there. Blackwater set up headquarters in the Great Dismal to train their men, prepare them for conditions in Iraq, if that gives you any idea of how dismal it is.”

“The larger part of it’s in Virginia,” I said. “It’s probably where NorthStar trained its people, too. There are no clear faces in the photo, but lots of men in camo.”

“Suddenly stepping in on my military expertise?”

“It’s my literary bent, Mr. Chapman. The swamp was the subject of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s second novel,” I said, knowing the subject would interest Mercer. “The Great Dismal was a refuge for runaway slaves.”

“C’mon, guys,” Rocco said. “Anyone come up with a photograph of Blunt’s face yet?”

“Not finding one,” I said.

“What do the employee records show for his family’s address?” Mercer asked. “For the father?”

“He’s dead, and the mother moved somewhere upstate,” Rocco said.

“I want the address from when his father worked here,” Mercer said. “We can figure a high school location from that and maybe find a yearbook picture.”

Rocco flipped through the Metro-North employment file of Walter Blunt and found an address in Queens. “Looks like Forest Hills,” the lieutenant said. “Does that help?”

“I can give it a try.”

“Okay,” Rocco said. “Three minutes and we’re downstairs to meet Scully. We’ll take off as soon as an officer shows his face to hang with Alex. One of you see whether Motor Vehicles has anything on their site?”

“I’m hunting, but most of the official stuff like that is only going to be available to us Monday morning,” I said. “We’ll be stiffed for now on government records.”

“Where else can we get photos?”

“The girl who was in today-Lydia’s roommate,” Rocco said. “Mike’s right. Bring her back over here and nail down a description of the guy she saw fighting with Lydia. Drag her boyfriend in, too.”

“How come no one has mentioned the word ‘guns’?” I asked. “With NorthStar in his background, he’s bound to be armed.”

“That’s our worst nightmare, Alex. It’s on all of our minds,” the lieutenant said, wringing his hands. “But at this very moment, there’s not a thing we can do about it, except prepare all the details coming in on the search.”

“And clear the terminal,” I said. “For whatever good that will do.”

“Monday morning may be too late to pull all this information,” Rocco said. “I’ll get a man assigned to contact all the agencies and business links first thing tomorrow. Somebody has to be minding the store on weekends. Meanwhile, the stationmaster is trying to find out where Blunt’s mama is and to locate his siblings-see whether they’re still around.”

“Anybody check Match.com? ‘Likes track rabbits; likes to dance. Could be terminal.’ There are all kinds of selfies on those sites,” Mike said. “We can’t meet the feebs without a photo. They’re bound to have one they’ll want to shove down our throats to show how superior they are.”

This time I heard footsteps approaching the room.

A young woman entered, wearing a Metro-North police uniform, with the nameplate Y. FIGUEROA on her chest, below several merit decorations. She held up a hand to all of us. “Police Officer Yolanda Figueroa.”

The lieutenant introduced himself to her and to everyone else in the room.

“I’m your charge,” I said, eyeing the Glock holstered on her hip. She was shorter than I by two or three inches, with curly black hair and light brown skin. “I’m Alex Cooper.”

“Good to know you.”

“Same here. Nice of you to do this.”

“All right,” Rocco said. “Let’s get you guys going. Time’s running out on us.”

I shut down the computer and pushed back from the table, standing up between Pug and Mike.

“Not you, Alex,” Rocco said, pointing to the chair I’d been sitting in. “Commissioner Scully was firm about that.”

“He was what?”

“You’re to handle all the interagency contacts, if you want to stay here till we close the terminal. Do all the research you can for us online. Put your tail in that chair and Officer Figueroa here will make sure you’ve got everything you need.”

I couldn’t protest to Keith Scully if he wouldn’t give me an audience. “The district attorney is so not going to like this,” I said, doing a slow burn as I seated myself again. “You know how he hates to be the last to know what’s going on.”

“Yolanda just needs to make sure you’re boarded on the nine fifty-nine to Vickee’s house. See if she can teach you to scramble up some eggs for breakfast. Chances are Mercer and I will be there in the morning for a victory celebration,” Mike said, flashing a grin at me. “You’ve been grounded, Coop. Sit down and fasten your seat belt.”