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I twisted my face as I looked at Emily.
She nodded.
A spy? That’s why Emily had been stalling the help she’d promised me. She was after a bigger prize.
The world seemed to be spinning too quickly. I’d had my run-ins with the FBI over the years. I’d cracked a lot of jokes about the federal agency. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought they were capable of taking control of a suspect who was in the midst of confessing to multiple homicides. The only real question I had was if they had fabricated an excuse to steal my suspect, or if they’d specifically withheld information and waited for the right time to screw up my case.
It was Robert Lincoln who took advantage of my shock. He stepped forward and slipped into the interrogation room so smoothly, I barely even noticed him sliding past me.
I stepped back into the room as well. Ott didn’t acknowledge anything unusual going on.
Lincoln looked at him and said, “You’re Daniel Ott, correct?”
He nodded.
“I’m Robert Lincoln with the FBI. You’re in the custody of the NYPD, but I have a federal warrant. It has nothing to do with the homicides Detective Bennett has been questioning you about.”
Ott said quietly, “I’ve been expecting you. My previous employer must have sent you.”
“And who would that be?”
“The Russian government.”
I stepped between him and the FBI ASAC. I turned to the FBI ASAC and said, “What the hell are you talking about? What’s your warrant for?”
The athletic, well-dressed man smiled. “Espionage. He came to the US about twelve years ago working for the Russian government. They lost track of him almost a decade ago. And so did we. But now we finally have him.”
“You mean, I have him.”
“Not any longer.”
Chapter 97
The little interview room was crowded with NYPD brass and FBI agents. Ott continued to sit quietly on the plastic chair with his handcuffed hands folded in his lap. Two FBI agents stood on either side of Ott like someone from the NYPD might try to grab him and run.
Ott wasn’t Jason Bourne. And he wasn’t Andrei Chikatilo. But he was dangerous.
I was smart enough to let Harry Grissom do most of the talking. The way he snatched the warrant out of Robert Lincoln’s hands told me just how pissed off he really was.
Harry turned to the FBI ASAC and said, “Where’s the affidavit for the warrant?”
“It’s sealed. National security. You don’t need to see it anyway. All you need to know is that it’s a legitimate warrant that says the FBI is taking custody of Daniel Ott. Are you disputing that?” Lincoln was sharp and not about to wilt under the searing glare of my lieutenant.
Emily Parker quietly tugged on my elbow and moved me out into the slightly less crowded hallway. She said, “This is no joke, Mike. The case is legit. Daniel Ott came here as a spy under the assigned American identity David Hastings. He was told to marry and raise an American family, but about ten years ago he met a Polish woman and used her contacts to change his identity. Then he disappeared.”
“Is serial killing part of his assignment?”
“He is a trained assassin, but we’ve learned that as a young man, he developed an interest in the Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo that escalated into an obsession when Chikatilo was executed in 1994. He was never known to have acted on it. We now know that was false information.”
“How’d you pick up on the fact that Daniel Ott used to be David Hastings?”
“We suspected it from a DNA hit from a cold case in Omaha. Then we heard from a source in the NYPD that you’d made an arrest, and the source also sent us a copy of Ott’s fingerprints from here at the precinct. All we had to do was fill in the last part of the affidavit and here we are.”
“So this isn’t just some cheap ploy by your asshole boss?”
“He’s been circling for days, waiting for you to make the solve. Several of us wanted him to wait until after you finished your interviews and Ott was booked into Rikers Island. Lincoln did want you to get credit for that.”
I wanted to believe my old friend, but Lincoln never wanted to share credit, especially with me. I stepped back into the room. An agent I didn’t recognize spoke to Ott in what sounded like Russian. Ott answered him. Also in what I assumed was Russ
