Sign of the Maker (Boston Crime Thriller Book 4), Brian Shea [free reads .txt] 📗

Not a good sign. Kelly pulled his phone from his pocket just as Halstead called.

"Kelly." His boss's voice was still ice-cold, but there was a hint the surface was cracking.

"Where have you two been? I've been trying to reach you."

"Interview. Remember, you set it up?"

"I know. No cell reception in there?"

"Apparently not." Kelly heard another alert hit his phone. "Can't be a good thing. What's up?"

"There's been another attack."

Kelly nearly dropped the phone. He took a deep breath just as a prisoner transport passed, spewing exhaust into the air and causing him to cough. "I'm going to put you on speaker. Barnes is here with me, so you can get us up-to-date as we get back into our car."

"Exchange Place. Twenty-first floor."

"That's near the last one." Kelly picked up the pace, and Barnes kept alongside him as they hustled toward the Caprice. "How many?"

"One."

One death was tragic, but Kelly took solace knowing it could've been far worse. "Who was it?"

"Guy by the name of Kevin Doyle. Runs an investment firm. Not much else to go on yet. Scene's still pretty active."

"Are we sure it's our guy?" Kelly felt stupid for asking, but assumptions led investigations astray. His first field training officer, Glen Schuster, beat these words into Kelly: If your mind's not open to all possibilities, it will be closed to the truth.

"Looks that way. Mills is already on scene. We’re thinking it was a mail bomb. According to the secretary, our victim received a small package shortly before the explosion.”

The news brought back memories of the Unabomber and the years he held the nation captive before being caught. Intelligence was Ted Kaczynski’s ultimate weapon. His need to write a thirty-five-thousand-word manifesto ultimately did him in. Kelly hoped their bomber offered them the same opportunity, but so far there had been no communication.

Kelly was already three bombs behind. Doubt crept in. It had taken teams of both federal and local law enforcement agents to bring Ted Kaczynski to justice. The only thing Kelly had going for him in this case was that it seemed localized to the downtown area of the city.

"You need to come by the station. We've just received our first potential communication, a manifesto of sorts. Well, not us; he sent it to the media. Being broadcasted on a loop on every major station right now."

"Who's claiming it?"

"It's cryptic. No direct claim by any one group or person. They're working on breaking it down."

"What about tracking the source?"

"It's encrypted. FBI's got their guys working on it right now trying to crack it. But last I heard, it's been routed through so many different servers that the likelihood of tracing it back to its origin is low, at least for the foreseeable future."

"We're heading back that way anyway."

"That was quick. Figured as much, after I heard Collins kicked loose Langston and Salinger. Get anything out of him?"

"Not yet."

"Not yet?"

"He wants a little tit for tat. He wants to be brought in."

"You're telling me a convicted bomber with ties to the IRA and Connor Walsh himself wants to be dialed in on an active investigation? I don't see the point of what you're trying to do. This isn't good policing. We don't share information with non-law-enforcement entities during the course of an ongoing investigation. Especially if those non-law-enforcement entities are convicted criminals."

"I know what the policy is, Sarge. I'm saying Collins may hold the piece to some very critical information. If sharing something from our end opens the door to catching this lunatic, then I'm all for it."

"That information will spread like wildfire inside those prison walls. Before you know it, every step of our investigative efforts will be laid bare for all the world to see, including our bomber."

"Then it's a good thing he's in the hole for the time being." Halstead didn't respond, and for a second Kelly had to check to see if he'd dropped the call. "Listen, Boss, I'll put my badge on the table for this one." It was a phrase they'd used when he was working the Eleven in Dorchester. Their squad was having their biweekly poker night when Kelly's good friend and academy mate, Chuck Byers, lost his shirt in the game. Out of money, Byers removed his badge and slammed it on the table. The phrase was born and had spread throughout the PD until it was commonplace. To put your badge on the table meant that you were all in and willing to risk everything.

"I don’t like it, Mike."

"You've come to trust me, I think. If so, I'm going to need you to trust me now. I know Collins has something we can use. I saw it in his eyes. I don't know his angle. Maybe he's getting a kick out of somebody using his signature and wants a front-row seat to the show? Doesn't matter how you flip it. Collins is linked to this thing and figuring out how might bring us to a resolution on it. If he wants to see the files, I say let him."

Halstead’s measured silence filled the receiver. "I'll see what I can do."

"We're behind the eight ball right now, and we need to get ahead of it if we're going to stop this guy. And I think Liam Collins might be our best chance of doing that."

"Hopefully you'll get more out of him than Langston did. I just hope he's not jerking you around. With three bombs in less than twenty-four hours, we need every single cop in the city to be on the hunt. Get back here and we'll figure it out." Halstead hung up.

If your mind's not open to all possibilities, it will be closed to the truth, Kelly thought as he drove away from the supermax and back toward Boston.

16

Kelly and Barnes arrived at Homicide forty minutes later amid a flurry of movement. The FBI had assigned every detective not actively working a case some tertiary responsibility to try to hunt down the killer who had locked the city