Free Fanatics by Richard Hilary Weber Page A

slight paunch and returned to his creamy crab Louis salad.
    “Look at the Double-A track record,” Flo said. “They don’t always hit in enclosed public spaces. They prefer outdoors, when the target is on the way to or from a public place. They got the congressman in bed. The three professors were hit in their labs. Radio-controlled bombs within minutes of each other. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. And four grad students killed along with their professors, plus seven more injured.”
    “That’s incredible coordination.” The senator-elect wiped a bit of mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth. “What’s the likelihood of bombs again?”
    “It’s always there,” Frank said. “But we’re sweeping every public place where you appear. Any private place is too much work from their side. Places like in here for instance. They can’t run the risk of trying to get inside.”
    Cecil cast a glance around the Victorian-era club’s dining room. “And what about that congressman in his hotel bed? A bed is a pretty private place.”
    “The Tabard Inn, where he got hit, is a funky little hotel. No elevators, no guards. The front door was locked, as it is every night, so the management says. But the shooter slipped in the back by the kitchen. That’s where the target’s room was, the cheapest room in the hotel near the kitchen. The congressman was a regular and he always took the same room. He’d bring his dates in there.”
    “He was with someone?”
    “No,” Frank said. “The guy had left, he was seen leaving out the back door, like all the other dates the victim brought in. And this guy was never found.”
    “So far,” Flo said. “The Double-A has used a range of killing methods, but the long-range rifle, a scope, a silencer, this seems like their favorite combination. A long-range rifle is an outdoor weapon. That’s how they hit all the Planned Parenthood doctors and the president of the ACLU. She was walking out of NYU law school after a lecture, and they got her right in Washington Square on her way back to her apartment. And then they just disappeared. They don’t blow themselves up. They vanish. They’re well trained and probably educated.”
    “Like that mad mathematician?” Cecil said. “The guy who sent bombs through the mail. He did it for years before he got caught. And I think he was a Harvard grad. Or maybe MIT.”
    “They haven’t resorted to the mails yet. They’re well financed. They’ve got resources. And they must have some kind of base somewhere. Even if it’s virtual.”
    Cecil pushed his plate away and shook his head.
    “Haven’t they ever struck out?”
    “If they have,” said Flo, “we don’t know about it.”
    “Well, bottom line here is I can’t hide for two months. That’s unacceptable. I have to be in public, it’s my job. People have to see me. And I have to see them. Also, what if these threats are fake? A ploy just to tie me down, put me out of the game.”
    “I understand that risk,” Flo said. “But it’s a high-stakes game, if the threats are real. And we’ve no reason to doubt them. All the Double-A hallmarks are there. Frank and I accepted this job, and Senator you’ll just have to put up with us.”
    “So you’re sticking with me like white on rice, if you’ll pardon the expression.” Cecil grinned and called the server over to order a round of coffee. “Okay, you’ll both know everything I’m doing from now to New Year’s. Every last thing…”

Thursday

Media
    8:30 A.M.
    Homicide detective Lieutenant Florence Ott arrived downtown for the new Brooklyn district attorney Jimmy Padino’s first press conference.
    Frank Murphy took up his post with Cecil King at the senator-elect’s family apartment on Eastern Parkway.
    The detectives’ double assignment was well under way. Impossible to say which job would be more demanding, keeping the senator-elect alive—discreetly—or finding Owen Smith/Ballz Busta’s killer, a dilemma the press was