The Devils Teardrop

government to sit tight or get outof town and if so how they ought to do it. What routes are safest, how many congressmen’ll survive, how many senators. That sort of thing. Like the war room in Fail Safe. Way cool, hmm?”
    “What’re we doing here?”
    “You wanted maps,” he said, looking excitedly at all the equipment the way only a born hacker would do, “and this’s the most comprehensive physical database of any area in the world. Lincoln Rhyme was saying we needed to know the area. Well, we may not. But they do.” He nodded affectionately toward a long row of six-foot-high computer towers.
    Lukas said, “They’re letting us use the facility, under protest, provided we don’t take any printouts or downloads with us.”
    “We get searched on the way out,” Geller said.
    “How come you know so much about it?” Parker asked Geller.
    “Oh, I sort of helped set it up.”
    Lukas added, “Oh, by the way, Parker, you’ve never heard of this place.”
    “Not a problem,” said Parker, eyeing the two machine-gun-armed guards by the elevator door.
    Lukas said, “Now, what’re the materials Rhyme found?”
    Parker looked at the notes he’d taken. He read, “Granite, sulfur, soot, ash, clay and brick.”
    Tobe Geller sat down at a monitor, turned it on, typed madly on a keyboard. An image of the Washington, D.C., area came on the screen. The resolution was astonishing. It looked three-dimensional. Parker thought, absurdly, how Robby and Stephie would love to play Mario Bros. on a monitor like this.
    Lukas said to Parker, “Where do we start?”
    “One clue at a time,” he responded. “Then start narrowing down possibilities. The way you solve puzzles.”
    Three hawks have been killing a farmer’s chickens. . . .
    “First, granite, brick dust and clay,” he mused. “They point to demolition sites, construction . . .” He turned to Geller. “Would they be on this database?”
    “No,” the young agent responded. “But we can track down somebody at Building Permits.”
    “Do it,” Parker ordered.
    Geller made the call on a landline—no cell phone would work this far underground and, besides, like all secure facilities in Washington, Parker supposed, the walls were shielded.
    “What next?” Parker wondered. “Sulfur and soot . . . That tells us it’s industrial. Tobe, can you highlight areas based on air pollutants?”
    “Sure. There’s an EPA file.” He added cheerfully, “It’s to calculate penetration levels of nerve gas and bioagent weapons.”
    More buttons.
    The business of the District of Columbia is government, not industry, and the commercial neighborhoods were devoted mostly to product warehousing and distribution. But on the screen portions of the city began to be highlighted—in, appropriately, pollution-tinted yellow. The majority were in the Southeast part of town.
    “He’s probably living near there,” Lukas reminded. “What industrial sites are adjacent to areas of houses and apartments?”
    Geller continued to type, cross-referencing the industrial neighborhoods with residential. This eliminated some but not many of the manufacturing areas; most of them were ringed with residential pockets.
    “Still too many,” Lukas said.
    “Let’s add another clue. The ash,” Parker said. “Basically burnt animal flesh.”
    Geller’s hands paused above the keyboard. He mused, “What could that be?”
    Lukas shook her head. Then asked, “Are there any meat-processing plants in any of those areas?”
    This was a good suggestion, one Parker himself had been about to make.
    Geller responded, “None listed.”
    “Restaurants?” Cage suggested.
    “Probably too many of them,” Parker said.
    “Hundreds,” Geller confirmed.
    “Where else would there be burnt meat?” Lukas asked no one in particular.
    Puzzles . . .
    “Veterinarians,” Parker wondered. “Do they dispose of the remains of animals?”
    “Probably,” Cage said.
    Geller typed then read the screen. “There are dozens. All over the place.”
    Then Lukas looked up at Parker and he saw that the chill from earlier was gone, replaced by something else. It might have been excitement. Her blue eyes were stones still, perhaps, but now they were radiant gems. She said, “How about human remains?”
    “A crematorium!” Parker said. “Yes! And the polished granite—that could be from tombstones. Let’s look for a cemetery.”
    Cage gazed at the map. He pointed. “Arlington?”
    The National