Entombed (40 page)

Mike Chapman would
have called him a frigging idiot, would have threatened to lock him up
for obstructing governmental administration.

"Hysterical women?
What kind of misogynist are you? Well, if you've disturbed the domestic
tranquillity by giving one of the other Maswana sons the time to get
out of the country this evening before we could get our hands on him,
I'll bring a few of those victims by your office so you can explain the
concept of diplomatic immunity to them face-to-face."

I told Peterson to
carry on the interrogation and to ask the wily Mr. Maswana for his
permission to swab David, in order to exclude him as a suspect. "Keep
someone with him all the time. He's likely to be talking to his son
Hugo by cell phone. And let him think we got called out to the scene of
a new rape. Stall them here as long as you can."

I opened the door and
asked Mercer to step out. "You and I are headed back to the airport
tonight. Tell the ambassador anything you want-anything but that. Tell
him we've been called out on another case. We've got a flight to catch."

39

Shortly before 9
P.M.
we were in Mercer's car, at the
intersection of Sixty-seventh and Park Avenue.

"Which way, Alex? JFK
or Newark?" he asked.

I had called my travel
agent's office in hopes she was working late, but got her voice mail.
"Just go south. If our best bet is Kennedy, we can take the
Thirty-fourth Street tunnel, and if it's Newark, we get the Lincoln at
Thirty-ninth Street."

I dialed Information
for American Airlines. We had crossed Fifty-seventh Street by the time
I got through the recorded menu prompts and was put on hold for a live
human being.

"The night we went to
the airport to get Annika Jelt's parents into the country," I said to
Mercer, "there was that guy at Kennedy who finally helped us work it
out. Did you keep his name?"

He pulled the leather
case that held his gold shield out of his pocket. "The newer business
cards I've picked up are behind the badge."

I found the one for
the Port Authority supervisor and tried his cell phone. He answered on
the second ring and I gave Mercer a thumbs-up.

After I reminded him
who I was and the urgency of our purpose, I asked him to find out what
airlines had late-night European flights to cities that would connect
to something that flew near Dahlakia, like the Ethiopian capital of
Addis Ababa.

Mercer steered up the
ramp that encircled Grand Central Terminal and pulled over while we
waited for an answer.

"Most of your European
flights departed between six and eight o'clock. We've only got a few
going out between now and midnight."

"Where to?"

"London, Paris, Rome
with American. Stockholm on SAS. Moscow via Aeroflot. And it looks like
Rome has been canceled because of a mechanical problem."

"Newark. Can you get
us a fix on Newark?"

"London and Paris.
Both on Continental. They go out around eleven, too."

"This is a police
emergency. There's a felon-possibly a murderer-that we have to stop
before he leaves the country. If I give you his name, can you check the
manifests?"

The supervisor was
silent. "Will you cover me in writing? You know it's forbidden for us
to give out passenger information."

"You have my word,
you'll get whatever you need."

"Just the flights that
haven't left yet?"

"Start with those," I
said. "Then you can work backwards."

There was always the
possibility that if the older Maswana son was actually our man, and was
warned by his father in midafternoon to get out of town, he had done it
by train to another city or by shuttle to other airports that also
serviced Europe. I crossed my fingers that the array of available
flights was so much broader from New York than any other Northeastern
port that he would have taken his chances by staying local.

"Who am I looking for?"

"The surname is
Maswana. Hugo Maswana."

Mercer corrected me.
"What if he's been using his younger brothers' passports? What if he's
taken off as one of them to screw up the computer records? Tell your
guy to check for all three names-Hugo, David, and Sofi."

For five more minutes
we idled at the top of the ramp until our contact got back on the line.
"Skip Newark. How fast can you make it out here?"

"Half an hour," I
said, turning to Mercer. "It's JFK. You got a bubble?"

He reached under the
front seat of the department car and pulled out a red plastic dome. He
opened his window and extended his arm to stick the magnetized light on
the roof of the car, accelerating to high speed and whelping his siren
to move cars out of our way.

"Miss Cooper? Give me
your phone number. Your party's been playing games with us. He first
booked on the ten
P.M.
Paris, then switched
to Rome, and when that canceled he put himself back on the midnight to
Paris. He's not ticketed yet. London leaves at eleven and it's wide
open. He hasn't checked in anywhere as of this moment. I'll get the
Port Authority police on the gates and security checkpoints. He may be
waiting to make a last-minute dash for the flight so he doesn't raise a
flag once he's formally ticketed and checked in."

The tunnel was
practically empty and Mercer sailed out on the Belt Parkway, making
time I wouldn't have dreamed possible if I had to make a plane on a
tight schedule.

"No wonder the
ambassador came into the station house like such a lamb," I said. "He
must have had Hugo banned from the household for a few years, thinking
he'd outgrow his penchant for raping women. Wife and children back home
in Dahlakia would settle him down."

"I'm sure you're
right. That's why the cases went cold four years ago. Maswana probably
called Hugo at his office today and told him not to pass Go, not to
collect his two hundred dollars, but hightail it to the airport and
head for home."

"And the father was
smart enough to bring us a decoy-the middle son, who looks enough like
Hugo-and the sketch-to make us salivate. It whet our appetite, it
stalled us from looking anywhere else, and Maswana knew there'd be no
risk because even if we held David overnight, the DNA results would
exclude him tomorrow."

By nine-forty, Mercer
parked the car in a no-standing zone in front of the sprawling American
Airlines buildings. I called my Port Authority contact, who told us he
was inside Terminal A. The flights to London and Paris both departed
from Concourse C, at gates only fifty yards apart.

We walked inside
slowly and separately, in case Hugo Maswana was looking for a pair of
investigators that his father may have described to him.

I walked past Mercer
and whispered under my breath, "I'll check the Admirals Club to see if
he's waiting up there."

Mercer turned off to
the concourse, in the direction of the security screening.

I took the staircase
to the club, and smiled at the hostess who tried to stop me to show my
identification. I scanned both sides of the room and saw only a handful
of bedraggled business passengers waiting for their late-night
departures.

My phone rang at the
same time I heard the PA system: "Announcing the last boarding call for
American flight 605, nonstop to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Final
boarding, please."

I flipped open the
cell and it was our Port Authority contact, telling us Maswana just
bought an e-ticket at a kiosk in the terminal and was confirmed on AA
605.

I ran back down the
steps and up the incline to the security gate.

As I approached, I
could see Hugo Maswana seated in a plastic chair just beyond the
screening machine. He was dressed in a suit, but had removed his shoes
to put them through the system. He reached into the basket to lift out
a brogue and replace it on his foot.

At that very moment,
Mercer got the attention of one of the Transportation Safety
Administration screeners. He must have been trying to explain that he
was a cop and had a gun that would set off the metal detector when I
saw the man put the palm of his outstretched hand against Mercer's
chest.

Hugo looked up at the
commotion and seemed to realize that Mercer was there to intercept him.
He stood up and dropped the pair of shoes before he bolted toward the
gate.

Where the hell were
the Port Authority cops? There was no one in sight, and I could only
hope they were waiting for us at the boarding gate.

I caught up with
Mercer, who had his badge in his hand. "It's the damn gun, Alex. He
won't let me in with it."

I looked at the TSA
agent, paralyzed by the bureaucratic necessities of his job, and trying
to figure out whom to call to help him. I turned away from Mercer and
made a dash through the frame of the metal detector. It screamed its
alarm-maybe my gold watch, my belt hook, or my underwire bra had set it
off-and I kept on running past the newsstand and fast food concessions
after Maswana.

I was glad for the
ringing bells, sure they would bring someone to capture me as well as
my fleeing target.

The only advantage I
had over Hugo Maswana's greater speed was the slipperiness of the
flooring under his socks. Twice I saw him slide and fall to one knee as
I gained on him, running in my rubber-soled loafers.

Now people were
screaming and guards were charging from both directions-some coming at
both of us from the departure gate and others overtaking us from behind.

Two of them lunged at
Maswana first and wrestled him to the ground. Another one grabbed at my
shoulder and tried to twist me around. I shook him off as he pushed me
down and I fell on top of the suspect's back.

Maswana writhed on the
ground and shoved me away, still kicking at the guards. As I grabbed
his hand to keep it from striking me, I scratched at it with my nails
and a thin line of blood trickled out on the surface of his knuckles. I
wiped at it with my jacket.

Mercer Wallace and the
PAPD supervisor jogged into sight, confirming to the men who had
brought Maswana down that he was, in fact, the suspect we were after.

"Is he under arrest,
Detective?" one of them asked Mercer. "You taking him in?"

"Not exactly," Mercer
said, motioning the agent to step to the side, explaining-I was
sure-that we might just be detaining him here for questioning until we
could establish probable cause for his arrest.

I stood up and joined
their conversation. The agent was nonplussed. "I mean, we can hold him
for a security breach at the airport. It may only keep him a day or
two."

"That's all we need,"
I said to Mercer. "Between the blood on my sleeve and the skin cells
under my nail, we'll know this time tomorrow if we've got a case."

40

"You're late," Laura
said, following me into my office. I glanced at the clock and saw that
it was ten thirty-five.

"I didn't get home
until almost two. Just couldn't move myself this morning," I said,
reaching for the message slip in her hand.

"I think your body is
trying to tell your brain to take-"

"Check the personals,
Laura. My brain wants to rent new space. A body with a lower
metabolism, no stress, one that moves at a slower rate of speed.
Sluggish would be good for a couple of months. Maybe there's someone in
appeals who wants to get on this treadmill for a while. Judge
Tarnower?" I stared at the message on the pink slip of paper. "Did he
tell you what it's about?"

The chief
administrative judge rarely dealt with anyone other than Battaglia. I
was afraid I'd gotten into his crosshairs over the lockup of the
phlebotomist at the Midtown Community Court a week earlier, but Paul
Battaglia hadn't warned me about any effort by Tarnower at interference.

"Only that it's
urgent. I told him you were on your way in."

I dialed the number
and waited for his secretary to patch him through. Ellen Gunsher walked
into my office and I held up a finger to suggest that she wait till I
finished the conversation.

"Judge Tarnower? Alex
Cooper, returning your call." I used my right hand to flip through
yellow-back complaints to find the file on the phlebotomist's case.

"How've you been,
Alex?"

"Fine, thanks."

"I'm calling to try to
save you a bit of embarrassment. You and Battaglia."

That was about as
likely as me signing up for a gynecological exam with Pierre Foster,
the defendant in the case. "Always nice when someone's looking out for
me, Judge. Whose toes did I step on?"

He chuckled, and we
seemed to be vying to see whose voice sounded less sincere. "No damage
done yet. Any publicity in the pipeline on your matter?"

"Pierre Foster won't
be arraigned on the indictment until next week. I'm sure the district
attorney will prepare a press release. It's likely there are other-"

"Who's Foster? That's
not what I'm talking about. It's the fellow they're holding out at the
airport. He's halfway home, Alex. Why can't you just let go?"

I turned my back on
Ellen Gunsher. "May I ask, Your Honor, who got to you on this?"

"Got to me? That's a
hell of a way to put it, young lady. Nobody got to me. We're talking
about diplomatic immunity, the Vienna Convention. The ambassador and
his family are immune from all criminal prosecution."

"Not if the State
Department asks the Dahlakian government to waive immunity. Any
publicity in the pipeline is what you want to know? If the DNA matches
my case samples, as I expect it will, we're talking one of the biggest
serial cases in the city in years."

"I have an assurance
from the premier's office, Alex, that if the Maswana kid is the perp,
he'll be taken care of by the authorities in his own country. It may
even be a more appropriate kind of sentence, if you get my drift. Hell,
I've never been to Dahlakia, but they may still believe in public
castration in the town square."