Too Many Murders(114)
“The Commissioner will be lodging his .38 as soon as he comes in,” he said to Sergeant Tasco. “We don’t know whose round nailed the sniper, so both weapons will have to go to Ballistics for a test fire.”
“Sure thing, Carmine.” Tasco looked a little stunned. “After all these years, the Commissioner finally used his old long-barreled .38! I didn’t know you packed a long barrel too.”
“Better aim at a longer distance,” Carmine said. “Came in handy this morning.”
“How close were you?”
“About thirty yards.”
“But the sniper was farther away than that by far!”
“When under fire, Joey, run toward the guns, not away.”
He went upstairs on foot, to find Delia had already put chairs out for the meeting sure to happen; she was composed and efficient, apparently taking the threat to her boss and her uncle in stride.
Abe and Corey came in with the Commissioner; Carmine’s team were more rattled than Silvestri, who glanced at the wall where the wilted arum lily had hung.
“Thank God you got rid of it,” he said to Carmine as he sat down. “Mickey has a weird sense of humor.”
“I’m putting up pictures of Desdemona and Julian instead.”
They were all seated, including Delia, but no one seemed to want to open proceedings.
Silvestri spoke: “Is this a campaign of terror?”
“Ulysses would like us to think so, sir,” Carmine said.
“Are we any closer to catching the bastard? Do we even know who he is?”
“The who is still in the wind,” Carmine said seriously. “I have vague ideas, but nothing strong enough to send my other suspects home yet. However, I do think we’re closer. Why? Because the evidence is mounting. How’s Danny?”
“He can go home from the hospital in three or four days. Poor Netty’s the basket case.”
Abe and Corey exchanged a glance not lost on Carmine; it said, as if spoken aloud, that Danny’s winged arm would save Bart Bartolomeo’s life. Simonetta had bigger things to discuss than Bart and a charity banquet.
“I’m going to fill in M.M.,” the Commissioner said in his noarguments voice. “His security clearances are probably higher than the other President’s, but I don’t care anyway. Chubb is more important than Cornucopia in my book. It’s been around far longer and benefited the world one helluva lot more.”
“Yes, sir, no one would deny that, or your decision to fill him in,” Carmine said patiently. “Among other things, two of our murders were committed inside Chubb colleges. Chubb’s under attack too. There is an element of terror involved, and that fact gladdens my heart. It says that Ulysses is very worried. He’s trying to send us in a dozen different directions at once, like racked-up balls on a pool table. Imagine the chaos if the sniper had picked off M.M., the Mayor, Hank Howard and however many more he managed to get before someone found out where he was roosting. Shots echo, the leaves would disperse the sound, and a good marksman with a Remington .308 would have kept on plugging away. We’d have been inundated with Staties, Feds, you name it. The place would have boiled over, and in the confusion Ulysses would have had time to smooth out the tracks Erica made him leave.”
“May I ask a question?” Delia ventured.
“Ask away,” Carmine said.
“I gather you think the sniper was prepared to die. Does that mean he’s a political assassin? A man prepared to die for an ideal? It does, doesn’t it?”
“A question needing to be asked,” Carmine said. “However, I don’t believe the Reds are so swimming in assets that they can afford to sacrifice good men for relatively nothing. I think of them as pretty much like us—scratching to make ends meet. The USSR is rich, but the USA is richer. Cornucopia is yielding them secrets, admittedly, and items with military applications must be at the top of their wish list. But it’s my opinion that the whole operation is entirely at the discretion of Ulysses—that Moscow’s interest is insulated from the realities Ulysses is facing. Erica Davenport had to be Moscow’s mistake rather than the KGB’s, so you can bet those in Moscow responsible are busy covering their asses. It’s up to Ulysses to remedy Moscow’s blunder, he’s aware of that. From what I know about him, he’d use his black arts to search the market for a professional assassin, a man without political ideals of any kind.”
“But to die?” Delia’s face paled under its makeup. “A professional assassin would want to live to enjoy spending his fee, which I imagine would be very large indeed.”