Nicholas said, “We heard him curse the victim in German.”

Dr. Janovich nodded. “Sounds right. He was wearing a pair of socks with a small Metro label, and that’s a European store, in Germany as well.”

Mike asked, “In all this excitement I nearly forgot. Have you isolated what killed him, whether it was a poison of some sort? Or how it worked so quickly?”

Janovich stepped back to the body. “I need toxicology to be specific, but it was some sort of deadly neurotoxin. It caused an almost immediate heart arrhythmia, followed quickly by cardiac arrest. Take a look.” He used his calipers to spread the man’s upper lip back from the teeth, showing a small gap in the gingiva. “It came from right here, I think. There’s a pocket of sorts, almost like a small abscess, but it’s definitely man-made. There’s a scar, in the tissue, from a laser cut. There was also some sort of residue, in a gel form. Thicker than saliva, clear and tacky. I swabbed it and sent it to tox, but like I said, it’s going to take some time to identify what exactly it is. Currently, I have to list it as undetermined. But whatever was in here, I’m certain it’s the culprit.”

“Did I kill him?” Nicholas asked.

Janovich put a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder and said, not unkindly, “You fought with him, true, but based on his facial bruising, I believe the gel pack was hit externally, and that broke open the abscess and activated the poison. But, Agent Drummond, it was an accident, you are not to blame.”

26

26 Federal Plaza

3:00 p.m.

Mike called Ben the moment they got in the car. “We’re on our way back. We have big news. Do you have Sophie Pearce?”

“We do,” Ben answered.

“Good. Ask Gray to scan photos of all the German nationals who entered the United States in the past week, see if he can find Mr. Olympic on a flight manifest.”

“Will do. See you in ten.”

She hung up her cell and looked over at Nicholas. He was staring at his tapping fingers on the dash.

She said, “I know you’re frustrated, Nicholas, but stop it, okay? Dr. Janovich was right, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was. I was the one who popped him in the jaw with my elbow, I think. And that means we’d know what all this was about if I hadn’t killed him.”

“Your activating the poison was a fluke. Look at it this way. If Mr. Olympic hadn’t died, and Janovich hadn’t found the implant in his brain, we could never have known that someone was watching everything through his eyes, listening to everything we said. And now we know it’s someone who’s connected to one of the big nano-biology firms. It’s all good.”

Nicholas stopped tapping his fingers. “Yes, of course you’re right.”

Still, she understood. Any death, even accidental, unleashed demons that visited in the night. She said simply, “We all live with it, Nicholas. You know even better than I do that it’s something we have to deal with. Now snap to, Superman, I need you.” And that made him smile.

“Good. Now, we’ve got to figure out what we’re missing. Jonathan Pearce was lured to Wall Street by Mr. Olympic and killed. Sophie Pearce lied through her teeth to us and her brother, Adam, is probably wanted by the intergalactic police. What are they hiding? What are they up to?”

He was focused again. “I’m going to go out on a short limb here and say Mr. Olympic, our dead German, was sent to access Pearce’s files. He’s definitely the one who broke into the system before we arrived at Mr. Pearce’s apartment.”

“You don’t think it could have been Adam Pearce?”

“No, no reason for him to access his father’s computer since he’d have everything duplicated on his own computer. If you were looking for something specific, and you had a man you could send in who could visually upload everything he saw, and heard? I’d say Mr. Olympic.”

Mike said, “We really need an ID on Mr. Olympic, like now.”

“We also need to look at another possibility here, Mike. The information on the spy satellite is certainly worth spending some time tracking, if that’s what they were after. Again, for a layman to have those plans on his personal computer is more than worrisome.”

“What are you saying? Do you think Jonathan Pearce was involved in some sort of espionage?”

He said, “You saw the list of people he dealt with, they’re all over the world, and all very powerful. Was he simply mailing classified information to the highest bidder inside the books they bought? If so, it’s rather elegant, actually, and very old-school. Al Qaeda, for example, uses handwritten notes for their biggest operational plans since computer communications between terrorist franchises aren’t secure.”

She nodded. “Okay, yes, it’s the only safe way of moving information in this new digital age, especially since it’s virtually impossible to erase information.”

He said, “You’re right. I can resurrect nearly any hard drive. Everything leaves a footprint, no matter how ghostly. And to think, Pearce’s son is a well-known hacker. I’m going to say father and son were in cahoots.”

“Cahoots? From a Brit?”

He glanced at her, saw she was smiling. “I’m flexible. And yes, cahoots. Now I hope Sophie Pearce is going to give us some real answers.”

When they stepped off the elevator, Nicholas said, “I recall something in Pearce’s files about a company out of Germany doing groundbreaking nano-biotech work. There wasn’t a name, but I’m sure it would be easy to find. Do you remember Pierre Menard, from FedPol?”

“Of course. How could I forget him? He was smart, fast on his feet, and the biggie, he really liked me. Maybe you, too, but not as much.” Menard had been a vital part of their search for the Fox and the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

“I’m going to call him. Maybe he’ll know of a German nano-biotech firm that would fit the bill.”

Ben ushered them into the room next to the interview room where they could observe Sophie pacing, back and forth, muttering all the while.

“She’s mad,” Nicholas said. “It’s fun when a witness is mad, they tend to lose control more easily. I really don’t understand, though, why she’s so upset.”

“Pretty obvious, don’t you think?” Mike said. “Her dad was murdered this morning and now she’s trying to protect her brother. We’re the cops, her brother’s biggest enemy.”

“Here’s something else,” Ben said, handing Nicholas a transcript. “There was so much, we got Agent Jack McDermitt on loan from the Investigation Unit. He and Gray took apart the forensic data from Pearce’s phone and computer, looking for ties to his son, and to any foreign entities who might benefit from the plans of the spy satellite. Here’s the extended transcript of the texts from Pearce’s phone back and forth to EP—Adam Pearce. Father and son were searching for something, what we don’t know since it’s all coded. But Gray and Jack both think it’s something major.”

Ben was right, the conversations were indecipherable, full of abbreviations and numbers. Nicholas wanted to study them himself, but they didn’t have the time now. He folded the papers, stuck them in his jacket pocket.

“See anything?” Mike asked.

“Like Ben said, it’s all coded. We need some time and the key, a codex of some sort. We’ll ask Sophie, odds are she knows what it all means. Ben, will you watch, see if anything stands out for you?”

“Of course.”

He said to Mike, “Do you want to be the good cop or the bad cop?”

She punched his arm. “Can’t you tell I’m the spitting image of Glinda the Good Witch?”

“Let’s do it, then,” and he crossed the hall into the interrogation room.

27

Nicholas stomped into the room, impatience and annoyance rolling off him, heavy as a noxious cloud. He took a seat across from Sophie Pearce and stared at her, his look dark, violent, scary, because he didn’t say a word. Mike followed him more slowly, stood against the wall, her arms crossed, silent.