Stone - 25 - Collateral Damage

“Would you be kind enough to get the DNA profile to our FBI?”
    “Of course, and to Langley, too.”
    “That’s very kind of you.”
    “Is there anything else we can do for you?”
    “A latitude and longitude on Jasmine Shazaz would be very nice.”
    “The moment we get it. Good morning.” He hung up.
    Stone and Holly hung up, too. “I suppose that’s progress of a kind,” he said.
    “Yes,” Holly replied. “Now we’ll be able to positively identify her remains.”
    “That’s pretty cold of you,” Stone said.
    “Yes, it is,” Holly said. “I find myself getting colder about these things.”

Jasmine sat in the rear of her stolen taxicab, leaning against a door and looking out the rear window toward the building on the corner behind her.
    Habib’s cell phone rang. “Yes? Thank you.” He hung up and turned around. “The car is one minute out,” he said.
    “You gave the driver my instructions?”
    “Yes. When he rings the bell he is to say that his passenger is Director Katharine Lee.”
    “Good. Now let’s move down the street to the end of this block. I’ll still be able to see the garage door from there, and I don’t think we want to be this close.”
    “As you wish.” Habib put the idling taxi into gear and rolled down the street. As he stopped, a young woman walked up to the cab and rapped on the front passenger window.
    Jasmine stiffened. “What does she want?”
    Habib rolled down the window and accepted a shopping bag from the young woman, then he rolled up the window, and she walked away. He turned around and handed Jasmine the shopping bag. “Cover,” he said. “Purchases from Bloomingdale’s made a few minutes ago, complete with receipts.”
    “Good,” Jasmine said, breathing a sigh of relief. She looked out the rear window. “Here comes our package,” she said.
    The black Lincoln turned into the driveway of the corner building, blocking the sidewalk. She watched as the driver’s window slid down and a hand reached out toward the metal box cantilevered toward arriving cars. Half a minute’s wait ensued, then the garage door rolled up, and the Lincoln drove inside. Suddenly, flashes of light came from the garage, and she heard automatic weapons fire. She pressed the speed dial button on her cell phone. Seconds later, a roar of sound and flame erupted from the garage, engulfing pedestrians and cars on the street.
    “Go,” Jasmine said, but she did not stop looking out the window. “The building didn’t collapse,” she said.
    “Perhaps it is strongly reinforced,” Habib replied, putting the cab into gear and turning downtown at the next corner. “Subway coming up on your right,” he said.
    She handed him the cell phone. “Dispose of this,” she said, then hipped her way across the backseat and got out of the cab, which immediately drove away. She saw the off-duty sign on top go on.
    Jasmine walked down into the subway station, inserted her Metrocard in the slot, and made her way through the turnstile. She had stood on the platform for less than a minute when the train arrived, and a flood of people got off. She waited for them to clear the car, then got on and took a seat. She checked her pulse: seventy-two, not bad. She began taking slow, deep breaths, and she noticed that she felt wet between her legs. The train rolled out of the station; after it had traveled only a few yards the lights went out in the car and the train squealed to a halt. Probably a momentary power failure, she thought, but it turned out not to be momentary. She sat in the car for perhaps five minutes when she realized that the train had probably been deliberately stopped.
    A uniformed policeman entered the car from ahead. “Stay in your seats, please. This is a police stop. We’ll get moving again as soon as we can.”
    The train had stopped for her, she realized. She opened her bag and removed the wallet Habib had given her the night before, containing a New York ID and several hundred dollars in cash. For just a moment, she considered trying to get the car door open and fleeing down the tunnel, but she restrained herself.
    They sat there quietly in the dark for another seven or eight minutes, then the lights came back on, but the train still did not move. She looked out the window and saw flashlights playing on the wall of the tunnel, and a moment later the door to the car behind her opened, and four men, two of them uniformed policemen, came into her car.
    “Listen up,