Judge & Jury

"I know who you're talking about, Frank."

"Well, wouldn't ya know, I got one after all. How 'bout that?"

I stood up."Where is he, Frank?" It was more of a demand than a question.

"Where is he?" Delsavio chuckled, clearly finding amusement in twisting me on a string."He's at the end of the earth, Nicky-boy! He told me to tell you that." The scumbag started laughing."That's what he said to say, ‘the end of the fucking earth, Nicky Smiles.' "

Maybe he knew. Maybe he knew I was out of the game-that I couldn't touch him, whatever he said or did. I clenched my fists and felt the blood surging through my veins.

"I told him you needed to know and it was urgent," Frank Delsavio said, still chuckling."He told me to send you his regards. He said to make sure I said that-those exact words.End of the earth. ‘Come and get me, Nicky Smiles.' "

Part Three. THE EEL

Chapter 85

YOU NEVER QUITE KNOW when the breakthrough comes, that one, case-altering clue. Usually it's not anahha! Just someone talking to someone else, rolling over to escape prison time. Sometimes it's one of those moments, though. A blur in a sky full of shining stars that all at once takes shape and becomes stu

For me, that moment came while watching the courthouse tape. Thoseforty-seven seconds I'd been over so many times.

A buddy in C-10 kept me going with updates on the case for old times' sake. A female court employee named Monica A

The getaway Bronco had been ripped apart for prints and DNA. The house where Denunziatta's sister had been killed turned up nothing. The neighborhood around Paterson, New Jersey, was being canvassed. Every toll camera on I-95 and the Jersey Turnpike was being reviewed.

It was the middle of the night when I found it. I hadn't been able to sleep.

I was at my desk on my computer, going through the courthouse tape for maybe the thousandth time. I had printed off the face of the guy with the beard to show to Ogilov, ru

I'd let the tape roll to the end. My eyes were growing heavy. It was after two in the morning. I needed a little sleep. I made a move to rewind.

Then suddenly, I stopped.

I blinked. It was a eureka sensation, as though I'd just found a cure for cancer or a deadly virus.There it was.

I leaned forward, pa

On the sonovabitch's shoes.

I pressed the remote, zooming in on the shoes. I was wide-eyed now. There was a distinct rubber logo above the heel.

Some kind of circle-with a wavy line bisecting it.

Jesus, Nick! Why hadn't I seen this before?

I knew those shoes.

My chest started to pound. Three years before I had made a special trip to the Middle East, to train inspectors.

The shoes were Israeli-made. For the Israeli Army.For extra support.

I had even worn them when I was there.

Chapter 86

CAVELLO'S ACCOMPLICE had to be Israeli. I actually had something.

The frustration of losing that black Bronco was fading away.

It was almost morning. It took another cup of strong coffee to keep me focused, but I started going back through the books of terror suspects I had gotten from Homeland Security. I felt I had something to fix on. The needle in the haystack had just gotten a bit larger. Most faces appeared to be Middle Eastern, but I leafed past those. I was looking for a European. I had an approximate height and weight.

Three o'clock turned into three thirty. Then four. There were books and books of faces to scan through. Hundreds. Pakistanis, Basque separatists, al Qaeda sympathizers, FALN. IRA. All were on some kind of terror-watch radar. All had been thought to be in the country at some time. Many had explosives knowledge. Four started to bump up to five. I never even noticed when the first rays of light hit my window.

Then something made me stop. I came upon someone else. Maybe I'd passed him before. Maybe I'd passed the face a dozen times.

The man had short brown-gray hair and Slavic features, serious, slate-gray eyes.

Russian-and that wasn't all that interested me.

He was an ex-member of the Spetsnaz Brigade. Army Special Forces. He'd been stationed in Chechnya. In 1997 he went AWOL. For a long time he had simply disappeared. He was thought to have gone over to the rebel side.

Remlikov. Kolya.

I pulled out the file.

He'd been implicated in several Mafia-type slayings throughout Russia and Europe. A corrupt police inspector in St. Petersburg. A testifying gangster in Moscow. He was also being sought for questioning in the very public killing of a Venezuelan oil minister a year ago in Paris.

But what really stopped me wasn't just his résumé. Which had promise. Or even those brooding, dark eyes.

It was that he'd been wounded-in Chechnya. His right leg had been struck by shrapnel from an exploding grenade. He was thought to still walk with a slight limp.

I was thinking about those shoes.

I put the small file photo close to the screen, side by side against a frame from the courthouse tape.

Holy shit! It was a long shot, but it just could be.

I glanced at the clock. It was already after five. Nothing was going to happen here, but that meant it was lunchtime halfway around the world.

I opened my desk and leafed through packets of business cards I had held together with rubber bands. I had a number, somewhere, for the antiterror desk at the Russian Security Service in Moscow. I'd used it when we wanted to extradite a contract killer who had worked for the Russian mob and had fled back home. I frantically searched through my files and found it. Lt. Yuri Plakhov. Federal Security Service. FSS. I dialed the thirteen-digit European number. I was praying to find him at his desk. It was a prayer answered when I heard his voice.

"Plakhov,vot. "

"Yuri, hello. You may remember me." I reintroduced myself, reminding the Russian official who I was. It was a bonus to be able to keep this call this far away from the Bureau.

"Sure I recall you, Inspector." Yuri Plakhov's English was well practiced and colloquial."We tracked down that mafioso of yours. Federev, right?"

"Good memory, Yuri," I congratulated him."Now I need you to run someone else through your files." I read him off the name.

"Rem-li-kov?" He stretched it out."Rings a bell." I gave him a moment while he punched it in."A little early back there, is it not, Inspector?"

"Yes," I answered quickly, not into small talk."It is."

"Here it is, Inspector.Remlikov, Kolya. Wanted in questioning with several murders throughout Russia and Europe. Quite a dossier. Among his credits, he's suspected of taking part in bringing down an entire apartment building in Volgodonsk, in which a government official resided. Twenty-four people were killed."

My adrenaline was pumping."How do I find this man, Yuri?"

"I'm afraid I'm unable to give you his mobile number, Inspector." Plakhov chuckled."It's clear here he's used several aliases and passports. Estonian, Bulgarian. Names of Kristich. Danilov. Mastarch. We think he was in Paris last year, when that Venezuelan oil minister was killed. The trail is very gray. I doubt he is in Russia. It says he is known here, Inspector, as theeh-oop, the Eel. Very slippery, yes? I can send a facsimile of his fingerprints, if you like."