Free Perfect Hatred by Leighton Gage Page A

Farsi and Arabic. She can quote the Qur’an like a mullah, and she’s a mine of information about both Sunnis and Shiites.”
Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Unusual in someone who specialized in logistics and supply, don’t you think?
“I do, but we didn’t think it mattered. She was eminently qualified, and languages are always a plus for us, so we were happy to get her.”
“You think she joined up with you lot because she thought it would help her find the people who killed her dad?”
“That would be my guess.”
“And did she? Find them, I mean.”
Hector shook his head. “No. We ran every lead into the ground. They all just . . . petered out.”
“She’s attractive, isn’t she?”
Hector wasn’t about to fall for that one. “I hadn’t much noticed,” he said.
“Oh, really?” she said, folding her arms and making a study of his face. “Well, maybe you can tell me this: Does she have a new boyfriend?”
“Not that I know of. You do love gossip, don’t you?”
“Don’t try to change the subject. You think she’ll go back to Israel?”
“She might. She talks about it sometimes.”
“If she does, will you be sorry to lose her?”
“Well, in a purely professional sense, I suppose I would.”
“Are you suggesting there’s another side to your relationship with Danusa Marcus? Other than purely professional, I mean.”
“Of course not. How about making some more coffee?”
“How about you make it yourself? In case you never noticed, this is an equal opportunity kitchen.”
On Monday morning, when Hector arrived, Lefkowitz, Danusa and Mara Carta were waiting in his office.
    “I’ve spoken to the Federales in Buenos Aires,” Mara said. “The taggants match. The explosive came from the same batch.”
    Hector turned to Lefkowitz. “You have an estimate on how many kilograms they might have used?”
“Judging by the photos we got, and Mara’s conversation with our Argentinean friends, somewhere around ten, maybe a little more. But it was a confined space, so the loss-of-life was higher.”
“What’s the current total?”
“One hundred and two killed, eighty-seven injured,” Mara said, “of which twenty-three seriously.”
“Jesus. Another suicide bomber?”
“Apparently not. The device had a timer. It was under a seat, set to go off during the service.”
“Ten kilograms,” Hector said. “So they’d have somewhere between thirty and forty left.”
“At the moment,” Lefkowitz said, “but what’s to prevent them from buying more? The death merchants in Paraguay are still sitting on seventy-five kilograms short of sixteen metric tons of the stuff.”
“Not a comforting thought,” Hector said. He turned back to Mara. “Speaking of our friends in Paraguay, did you feed them that name Danusa came up with? Salem Nabulsi?”
“I did. I’m waiting for them to get back to me.”
“Anything you can do to speed them up?”
“Sure,” Mara said. “I can pay them. How high are you willing to go?”
“That’s probably not as much of a joke as you might think,” Lefkowitz put in.
“Who’s joking?” Mara said.
“Did you manage to extract DNA from that washer?” Hector asked Lefkowitz.
“I did. And we’re running the comparison with Carlotta Chehab’s blood. The washer, by the way, was soaked in rat poison. The nuts and bolts were as well.”
“Nasty.”
“But not uncommon.”
“And the reason,” Mara said, “that we’re expecting the number of fatalities to go up.”
Hector looked around the table. “Where’s Babyface?”
“I was just getting to that,” Mara said. “It seems Salem had a cell phone, and I’m not talking about one of those prepaid and untraceable things we would have expected him to have. I’m talking about a cell phone for which he had a conventional account.”
“Careless of him,” Hector said.
“Contemptuous, I’d call it,” Danusa said. “He didn’t give a damn if we traced him after his bomb went off.”
“And assumed we wouldn’t be doing