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New York Minute: Chapter 10

Later that day I walked into Jessica's office to find Winchester waiting for me with an evidence team. He smiled sadly and gestured to a pair of latex gloves. The four of us began to comb through the office, we started by dusting for prints, checking the phone for tapping, looking for listening devices anything that would point to...to something. Winchester, for his part, thought he'd be funny by whistling the theme song from CSI.

We were hours in that office, and it began to grow stuffy, when one of the officers stood up.

"I've got something," she said, and began to pry a small, black square from the top of one of Jessica's desk drawers. "It's a listening device. But, it's been disabled." She dusted it quickly. "But...we do have prints. And the signal generator is still intact, which means we should still be able to at least trace the the bandwidth it was operating on. Sort of...like checking it's IP address."

I shrugged. "But you can mask an IP."

She nodded, her short brown hair falling infront of her face. "Yeah. But you can't mask a transmission that goes in bursts. What they were doing in this case was recording, then sending short bursts of information to another reciever where it was re-assembled by a computer into a sound that could be interpereted. You can detect a masked IP floating around, even if you can't break it. It's almost impossible to detect burst transmissions if you aren't actively looking for them, and the NYPD doesn't."

"Shit.."

"Yeah." She said. "My thoughts exactly. Still, at least we have prints now. I'll run it through the system, see if we have anything on file. If we do...well, we know where to start looking. We have this guy's MO, anyways. All of the bombs? C4."

Winchester looked up. "Upon my word....C4? Why the...are you quite sure?"

Her partner looked at Winchester with a grimace on his face. "Yeah, unfortuneately we are. C4 with a burst transmission detonator. None of the dets survived though. That said, whoever this is? He knows his shit. There was just enough C4 to do what he needed to do in each case. Blow up a car...torch one office in a building...blow up an apartment. "

"So, what are you saying? We have some sort of legitimate terrorist organization in on this?"

Winchester turned to me. "They've been blowing up buildings, and killing innovent people. Of course it's a legitmate terrorist group, my boy. What else could it be?"

I shrugged. "One man, or woman."

He shook his head. "It's still a terrorist act. Besides we already know that it goes much deeper than that. We have Alex locked up at the moment for Doctor/Patient. We have Louise's sister who's dropped off the face of the earth, and the doctor. I suspect we should speak with him first, before he's killed as well."

I nodded. "We should speak to him." I agreed. "Get an officer to call him, and get him to the station ASAP. I'm going back there now to question Alex. Has she requested counsel?"

Winchester shook his head as the other two kept recording information and finger prints. "No. She hasn't. Most strange."

I rolled my eyes. "No, not really. Before she became a therapist she was a lawyer. She can represent herself." I put my coat back on, and adusted the USP on my hip. Checking it out of habbit to make sure it was still there. My revolver was still in my chest holster, and the P7 was in a small holster a little further back behind the USP. Driving through the rainy streets..it was still raining, I pulled into the police headquarters and went in to talk to Dick.

"I need to talk to Alex."

He looked up, quietly. "I'm not sure I should allow that. She's a former....attachment. It could poison you during interrogation."

"Hardly. I did everything in my power during my little chase with her to get her to stop before I shot. I even allowed someone else to marandize her. I've never been rude, or crass. Any lawyer she has, which...she won't ask for by the way, can't touch me."

Dick sighed. "I suppose it's your case, and I can't really afford to pull you off it, being the head of homocide and everything....Ok, talk to her. But you're going to have a third part present. I'm appointing counsel to the station to mediate."

"Fine." I said, and turned to walk away.

"Nice hardware," he said. "I see you've picked up a few....toys."

I smiled. "I have the credentials for them." He nodded and I walked out. Entering the interrogation chamber just slightly ahead of the officer with Alex. Counsel arrived next. He was a overweight, blading man. But Bert was a nice guy. Sharp mind, and kind. A good father too.

"Ok, Jason. I'm here to mediate. If I think you're going to cross the line, I will order you to stop. Understood?" I nodded at him. "Ok, good. Ask your questions."

I sighed, and took off my coat, allowing my weapons to be shown. She knew that I only ever carried the P7. The other two pieces of hardware were a little much. "So, I'll put it bluntly. Why were you running, and why did you shoot me?"

Alex smiled that beatific smile. That placating smile that pissed me off. "Why, Jason, my love. It should be obvious. I didn't want to be caught."

"First, don't call me that. Second. Why didn't you want to be caught. What could you have possibly done wrong."

"You know as well as I do."

"Cute." I said. She was smart, that was certain. "You wanna know what I think? I think you're a dumb broad. I think you thought that you'd get a piece of whatever this little girls inheritance was. And I think that appealed to you. I think you got greedy. So...you had some pressure applied to the doctor to change Louises' medication."

"Do you now?" She asked. "You really think I have that kind of pull?"

"Why not? You're a therapist to the rich and famous. I know from our...previous encounter that they aren't all legitimate. You used to confide in me, Alex. I know some of the people you trafficked with. I think, because of you, a little girl died. A mother went insane and a father committed suicide. I think, because of you, there are more deaths coming. I think, because of you Jessica is dead."

She smiled. "Maybe. I'd be pleased if she was. Is she?"

I stood up and slammed my hands on the table. "You sadistic bitch..."

The councel shoved me back into my chair. "Stay to the questions, officer, or I'll kick your ass."

My phone rang. I answered it, and listened to the person on the other side. "Oh dear, Alex. It seems we found your fingerprints on the listening device in Jessica's office."

Her smile faltered for a moment. "Liar."

I smiled again. The fax machine in the room started, printing out the report. "No. I'm not."

She gasped. "THAT BITCH! She said that..." Then Alex regained her composure.

"Who are you talking about Alex?"

"Why should I tell you? What reason could you possibly have that would get me to co-operate."

"Murder 2, instead of one."

"That's still life in prison."

"Yeah, but it's not death by lethal injection."

She blinked at that. "You plan on executing the highest person on the rung you find, don't you?"

I shurgged. "The courts will, but yes." Then, Alex began to tell me everything. The inheritance hadn't been money. It hadn't been information. It hadn't been an item. It was all three. A computer with a list of every bank account, and every dollar that Louises' father had owned. Over 150 million dollars. But that wasn't everything. There was information on someone called " Bauman". The list went on and on. Everything he had ever done in his lifetime with...my jaw dropped. Winchester had been right. Terrorists. Mafia of a sort.

Bauman and, at one point Louise's father, had been part of Murder Inc. And Bauman still ran a crew of Jewish mafia. The Blaumberg family, Louises' family, had this information, and the cash as protection and guarantee that they wouldn't spill the beans on Bauman.

"But, Alex. She was just a little girl." I said.

She smiled and shrugged. "It was also 15 million dollars. Fair trade."

I closed my eyes, stood, and walked out. That was the last I'd ever see of Alex. I put my report in to the NYPD about the bargain I'd made. They rejected it, stating that, while she had protection for the death of Emma, I hadn't offered clemency against Louise's death, the defense attourney and everyone else in the Jessica's apartment building.

She died, after a speedy trial. Lethal injection. Her last words were reported as being "But he promised..." And somehow...I wasn't sad. This was only the first on my road.