Troubleshooter

Chapter 60

Thomas was cocked back in his chair, hands laced behind his head. Jim and Maybeck cleared the conference table, tossing crumpled papers at the corner trash can and mostly missing. Miller hauled out chairs, returning them to the surrounding offices. Bear and Guerrera pulled down the pictures from the wall, taking with them Scotch-tape patches of paint or leaving tacks behind. Bear had brought in his dogs, Boston, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and Precious, the medically discharged star of the Explosive Detection Canine Team, named for Jame Gumb's companion in The Silence of the Lambs. Precious, whose nose had saved the life of virtually every deputy in the room, was greeted like the prodigal daughter, pulled from colleague to colleague to be scratched.

Tannino had dissolved the command post, which Tim grudgingly recognized was the right thing to do. It didn't take a command post to track a single fugitive. With the other nomads dead or in custody, the mother chapter crippled, the AT seized, and the distribution network disabled, the threat Den Laurey posed had been diminished, if not eliminated. The Escape Team could pursue him from the squad room, a priority among others, under Tim and Bear's direction. But Tim knew that the imperative dulled once the deputies went back to business and spread out among desks rather than gathering around a single table with a single objective.

He watched quietly from his chair as the post continued to be dismantled, trying to construct a strategy for the next phase and failing miserably. At this point Den was a cutout operative. The last series of arrests had severed all connective tissue; there were no links to trace back to girlfriends, fellow Sinners, or the mother chapter. Even the incipient drug operation had been rolled up. Den was accustomed to living in the shadows-it would take either a huge break or dumb luck to flush him out.

The others, heady from the series of busts, didn't seem to share Tim's despondency. Miller gestured at him apologetically, and Tim rose reluctantly so he could carry away his chair.

"Hey, girl," Jim said, guiding Precious to the end of the table. "Go on and eat a piece of Mrs. Tannino's fruitcake for us."

Precious sniffed the hardened crust, then backed up and sneezed violently.

The room erupted in laughter.

The scene triggered Tim's memory of the kitchen during Dana Lake's and the Prophet's arrests. A sudden uneasiness made itself known, a splinter working its way to the surface.

He thought of Babe lying in her cell. Aside from exercise breaks, that was about the most space she'd be permitted for the rest of her life. Her defiance had been undulled. Sinners don't take orders from no one. Least of all a bunch of ragheads.

He remembered his own words about the Sinners to Tannino and the mayor: Don't expect honor among thieves-they're famous for double crosses, drug burns, cop killings.

What had Smiles said about Allah's Tears? That's the beauty of it. They don't need a continuous pipeline, just a one-off-a single risk with a huge payday.

A chill washed through Tim. The German shepherd. At the Prophet's house. It had been sitting in front of the table holding Allah's Tears. The drug's powerful olfactory signature, even sealed inside the belly bags, should have drawn the dog's attention, not let it fix on a few stale pizza crusts across the room. Tim flashed on the extraction needle lying in the carpet near Al-Malik's head. Unused.

Tim gestured to Bear and Guerrera. They must have noted his intensity, for they came immediately, both dogs at their heels. Jim was gnawing his way through a slice of Mrs. Tannino's own, Miller making odds on his finishing it.

Tim, Bear, and Guerrera headed out of the evaporating command post, laughter trailing behind them.