Diplomatic Immunity Read Online Free PDF Page B

A delay in the vote, the way the momentum is running, would be a certain prelude to defeat for the Japanese. Patrick swears.
    Right then Mike emerges from the Assembly building. He sees us immediately and jogs over, one hand resting on the walkie-talkie at his hip. “No tape,” he reports, coming to a halt in front of us. “The camera in the basement corridor was turned off.”
    Oh, Jesus, says Patrick.
    “Ten last night through to six this morning,” Mike tells us, his voice strained. “Maintenance. Getting ready for today.”
    “Maintenance,” Patrick moans, screwing up his face.
    But last night there was a reception held in the public concourse, cocktails for the nongovernmental organizations. I ask Mike about that. The concourse is just one floor up from the basement; I can’t believe the NGO event wasn’t taped.
    “Sure, we got that. But nothing in the basement. They’re telling me the work on the cameras was scheduled days ago. I got someone chasing up the maintenance crew.”
    “Someone could have strolled down from the NGO reception, we wouldn’t know?” says Patrick.
    “We’ll check the concourse tapes. See if we can spot anyone disappearing downstairs who shouldn’t be.” From Mike’s tone, a long shot. His face is red now, an equal measure of embarrassment and fury.
    I turn to Patrick, expecting some decision, a plan of action. But Patrick seems overwhelmed by the steady escalation of the problem. He stares right past us, lost in some private thought.
    “One call,” Mike suggests. “I can have a Homicide forensics team here in twenty minutes.”
    Patrick’s head snaps around. “You don’t call anyone. No one. Not Homicide, not NYPD Forensics, no one. This isn’t Harlem, for chrissake. The New York cops come in here, half the bloody delegations will up and walk out. You feel like explaining that upstairs?”
    “We need some help here,” Mike protests. “Professionals.”
    “No one,” Patrick repeats.
    Mike pulls a face, but Patrick is right. The legal fiction that these few acres at Turtle Bay are not part of the U.S. is treated as divine law by most of the delegates. Any intrusion into these grounds by U.S. officialdom, whatever the reason, would set off major diplomatic fireworks.
    “Isn’t there a coolroom in back of the basement canteen?” Patrick wonders aloud.
    “What about it?” Mike returns, deadpan.
    “You could put him in there. Just for now.”
    “No forensics?”
    Patrick doesn’t reply.
    “And then what?” says Mike. “Go home?”
    Patrick starts to move off, telling me that he’s going to speak to the SG. But Mike lays a hand on his arm.
    “I’m reporting this to Eckhardt as a murder.” Eckhardt, Mike’s boss, the head of UN Security. “And I can tell you now, he’s gonna flip if he finds anything got done without him hearing about it first.”
    So tell him, Patrick says.
    “And I’ll be telling him that unless we get an investigation started now, we got no chance of nailing this.”
    “An investigation?”
    “Homicide,” says Mike.
    Cornered, Patrick turns right, then left. A full-blown investigation, the kind of unpredictable political currents it might stir up in this place, at this time—it is the very last thing Patrick needs so close to Thursday’s vote. And Mike senses that.
    “Put Sam on it with me.” I shoot Mike a look, but he ignores me and continues to press his case with Patrick. “I’ll do what I can with the detective work, let Sam play prosecuting attorney, keep it legal. I mean, look at it. What’s the alternate plan?”
    A fair point. Patrick considers. “What are the chances you can actually find out what happened down there last night? Given that you don’t get your NYPD buddies involved.”
    “Not great,” Mike tells him. “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
    Not great, Patrick echoes. He strokes his throat a moment, then faces me.
    What I would like to do, of course, is pass right on by, let the nightmare fall on