“This is totally fucked,” said Lynch

“Tell me about it,” said Starshak.

“Will somebody get me a damn coat?” Hickman said, sounding whiny.

“Shut up,” said Munroe.

Lafitpour said nothing at all, standing to the side, not moving. He wasn’t asking anybody for a coat.

Bernstein walked over. The tech was done with him for now, ribs wrapped, left arm in a sling, bound tight to his chest, his ruined blazer and a raid jacket draped over his shoulders.

“What’s he doing here?” Bernstein asked, nodding toward Lafitpour.

“Don’t know,” Lynch said. “Hasn’t said a damn thing. No ID on him, don’t even have his name. And I get the feeling Joe Washington here likes it that way. But he’s awful damn quiet, that’s for sure. I guess the cat’s got his tongue.”

“Persian cat, I bet,” Bernstein said. He stepped up to Lafitpour, directly in front of him, got in his personal space, staring him down. “Bahram Lafitpour, Chicago’s mysterious wizard of Wall Street. What are you now? Second richest guy in town? Won’t do interviews, not even with the financial press, don’t like having your picture taken. And here you are, playing cops and robbers in your shirtsleeves.”

Lafitpour’s eyes flashed with anger, his jaw tightening.

“Careful, Slo-mo,” Starshak said. “I don’t think he’s used to the help talking to him that way.”

“Wait until I try it in Hebrew,” Bernstein said.

Lafitpour spat in Bernstein’s face. Starshak nudged Bernstein aside and drove a fist into Lafitpour’s gut, doubling him over for a second, but Lafitpour straightened quickly, glared at Starshak.

“I don’t give a shit what your connections in DC say,” Starshak said to Munroe. “A suspect spits on a cop, that’s assault. We don’t do assault.”

The Munroe guy chuckled a little shook his head. “You know what? You shut up too, Bernstein. Fucking Jews. Always too smart for your own good. You wonder why everybody’s pissed at you all the time.”

Bernstein turned toward Munroe. “Do I know you?”

“Nope,” said Munroe. “But I know everybody. Oh, and this guy?” He nodded toward Lafitpour. “He’s not here anyway.”

CHAPTER 94

An hour later, Munroe slid the Do Not Disturb sign aside and stuck the key card into the door at the low-end motel out on North Avenue. Card had been in al Din’s wallet. He’d left Hickman to ride herd on the FBI team that was processing the garage in the Loop. Little worried about Hickman. He was getting scared and whiny now that they had a little excrement on the fan blades.

Starshak, Lynch’s boss, he didn’t roll easy, raised quite a stink, trying to get Chicago guys to process the scene, saying the shootings were homicides, and homicides weren’t federal. Munroe had to make some more calls, push the Chicago PD brass to get a better leash on their people. He needed the locals all the way outside the tent on this thing. Fuckers were smarter than he thought, Bernstein putting an ID on Lafitpour; that was a free radical he didn’t need.

And Lynch, Munroe knew about Lynch from the whole cluster fuck the year before. That guy was like Joe Frazier, punch him in the head all day long and he was just going to keep coming, next thing you know you’ve busted your hand on his skull and while he works your body, cracking your ribs one at a time. Had Chicago PD on ice for now, but he knew they be picking at whatever they could pick at. Just needed to box this mess up, get a bow on it, and blow town.

Munroe pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He’d check the room first; decide what he wanted going into the official paperwork. And what he didn’t.

Two beds, shitty desk and chair, cheap dresser, Laptop on the desk, laptop bag on the floor by the chair. He’d be taking that, send it east, let the tech weenies out at NSA see what they could wring out of it. Al Din had a phone in his pocket, which was in Munroe’s pocket now. Put that in the same pouch. Nothing in the drawers. Underwear, socks, some shirts all neatly folded in the suitcase that lay open on the second bed. Three more phones in there, all the same make and model. Throwaways, probably, picked up at a 7-Eleven somewhere. Munroe powered them up one at a time, checked. No call history, no messages, no texts. Leave those for the Feebs; give them something to play with.

Bathroom. The usual shit, although the bottle of Acqua di Gio next to the sink went for something like seventy bucks. Looked like al Din’s tastes had gotten a little too refined for Sandland. Munroe was more of an Aqua Velva guy himself.

Closet. Pants and shirts, all ironed and hung up, couple of sport coats. Munroe checked the labels – Armani, Cardin, all high-end stuff. On the floor, next to a couple of pairs of expensive loafers, an aluminum case.

Munroe put the case on the bed, tried the latches. Locked. Bastard. Munroe pulled a leather case from his pocket, took out a couple narrow metal picks, had to fuck with the case for a minute. Out of practice. Didn’t do that much breaking and entering these days, not personally. Better than usual locks on the case, too. But the latches popped. First one, then the other. Munroe lifted the lid.

The case was lined with stiff black foam, six identical slots cut into it. Five of the slots were empty. In the sixth, Munroe saw a flat black metal tube with a couple of buttons on it. Pretty sure he knew what that was.

The little fucker had deployed the other five, probably some kind of failsafe play. If Munroe made a move on him, al Din could set them off. Or maybe just a safety net, make sure, when he came in, that he had a hole card, something to play if he didn’t think Munroe was honoring the deal. Or maybe he was gonna jack them up for more cash.

The why didn’t matter. Munroe had five devices in the wild that he needed to find ASAP.

He pulled out his phone dialed a number, gave the guy on the other end the address and room number. “I need a runner here soonest. Then get on the phone to Fort Dix, find out the closest Level 3 biohazard lab we’ve got around here, one we can use on the QT. I got a device I needed eyeballed yesterday.”

“Got it,” said the voice. “Anything else?”

Munroe had an uncomfortable thought. Al Din had a phone on him. Gotta figure, if the devices were his failsafe, then he could set them off remotely. That scene in the garage? Did al Din have time to push a button?

“Yeah. Monitor the emergency channels.” Munroe thought through parameters. They’d been tracking al Din as best they could ever since Munroe got the call in Saigon. Fucker’d been everywhere. “Following counties: Cook, Lake, DuPage, Kane, Will, Kendall. Tap their public health systems, too. You start hearing anything unusual, anybody calling CDC for advice, anything like that, I need to know.”

Munroe ended the call, packed al Din’s computer into the laptop bag and closed the metal case. Did a quick scan. Fuck, power cord had come loose from the computer, plugged in under the desk, lying on the floor. Feebs find that, they’re going to start asking about the missing computer. Munroe bent down, yanked the cord, stuffed it in the bag. There was a single knock on the door. Munroe slipped out his Walther, cracked the door. Small guy in motorcycle leathers, Kawasaki Ninja in the spot behind him, next to Munroe’s car, black helmet on the seat.

“I’m your runner,” he said.

Munroe gave him the packages, called Hickman, told him the Feebs could toss the room now, looked at his watch. Not quite 11am. Long day already, and it just got a hell of a lot longer.

CHAPTER 95

The Eagle was in the stairwell at Northwestern Memorial, coming down from eight to seven. Nudged the door open just a fraction of an inch to make sure it was unlocked. It was. Supposed to be unlocked in hospitals, but needed to make sure there was no exception due to the security around the target.