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She told the agent what Farada had explained about this being Moreno's last trip to New York and his mysterious meeting in the vicinity of ground zero.
"That'd fit," Dellray said. "Yeah, yeah, could be he's got something nasty in mind and is going to ground. Makes sense--'specially when you hear the other thing I'm about to tell you."
"Go on." Her notebook was on her lap, pen poised.
The agent said, " 'Nother voice-call trap. Ten days before he died. Moreno was saying, 'Can we find somebody to blow them up?'"
Sachs's gut clenched.
Dellray continued, "The tech geeks think he mentioned the date May thirteen, along with Mexico."
This was two days ago. She didn't remember any incident but Mexico was largely a war zone, with so many drug-related attacks and killings that they often didn't rate a mention on U.S. TV news. "I'm checking t'see if something happened then. Now, lastly--I said coupla things; I meant three. We got Moreno's travel records. Ready?"
"Go ahead."
The agent explained. "On May second Moreno flew from New York to Mexico City, maybe to plan for the bombing. Then the next day on to Nicaragua. The day after that to San Jose, Costa Rica. He stayed there for a few days and then flew to the Bahamas on the seventh, where--coupla days later--he had his run-in with the fine marksmanship of Mr. Don Bruns."
Dellray added, "Some casual surveillance was conducted on him in Mexico City and Costa Rica, where he was spotted outside the U.S. embassies. But there was no evidence that he was lookin' like any kinda threat, so your boy was never detained."
"Thanks, Fred. That's helpful."
"I'll keep at it, Amelia. But gotta tell you, I ain't got oodles of time."
"Why, you have something big going down?"
"Yup. I'm changing my name and moving to Canada. Joining the Mounted Police."
Click.
She didn't laugh. His comment had struck too close to home; this case was like unstable explosives.
A half hour later Tash Farada parked in his driveway and they got out. He struck a certain pose, unmistakable.
"How much do I owe you?" Sachs asked.
"Well, normally we charge from garage to garage, which isn't fair for you. Since the car was here. So it will be from the time we left to the time we arrived." A look at his watch. "We left at four twelve and we've now returned now at seven thirty-eight."
Well, that's some precision.
"For you, I will round downward. Four fifteen to seven thirty. That's three hours and fifteen minutes."
And that's some speedy calculation.
"What's the hourly rate?"
"That would be ninety dollars."
"An hour?" she asked before remembering she'd added the qualifier with her prior question.
A smile. "That's three hundred and eighty-two dollars and fifty cents."
Shit, Sachs thought, she'd assumed it would be about a quarter of that. So, one more reason not to be a limo girl.
He added, "And of course..."
"I agreed to double it."
"That is a grand total of seven hundred and sixty-five dollars."
