The Bourne Betrayal by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader Page B

corridor that, except for her, was utterly deserted. Just inside the suite, she found Overton, a stoop-shouldered detective with a long, mournful face, squinting at his notes.
    “What the hell happened?” she said after introducing herself. “Any ideas?”
    “Possibly.” Detective Overton flipped open a notebook. “The occupants of this corner suite were Jakob and Lev Silver. Brothers. Diamond merchants from Amsterdam. They came in at seven forty-five or thereabouts. We know that because they had a brief conversation with a concierge-”
    He flipped a page. “-named Thomas. One of them ordered a bottle of champagne, some kind of celebration. After that, Thomas didn’t see them. He swears they didn’t leave the hotel.”
    They went into the suite proper.
    “Can you give me the lowdown on what caused the explosion?”
    “That’s what I’m here for.” She snapped on latex gloves, went to work. Twenty minutes went by as she hunted down the epicenter of the blast and worked her way outward from there. Normally she’d take carpet samples-if an accelerant had been used, it was most likely to be a highly inflammable hydrocarbon-based liquid, such as turpentine, acetone, naphtha, or the like. Two telltale signs: The liquid would have seeped into the carpet, even into the underlayer. Also, there would be what was commonly called headspace-short for headspace gas chromatography-which would pick up the traces of the gases released when the accelerants ignited. Since each compound released a unique fingerprint, the headspace could determine not only if an accelerant had been used but also which one.
    Here, however, the fire was of such intensity that it had eaten through the carpet and the underlayer. No wonder O’Grady and his men had had difficulty putting it out.
    She examined every scrap of metal, splinter of wood, fiber of cloth, and pile of ash. Opening her kit, she exposed parts of this detritus to myriad tests. The rest she carefully put into glass containers, sealed them with airtight lids, and placed each container in its foam padding in her kit.
    “I can tell you now that an accelerant was definitely used,” she said as she continued to stow evidence. “I won’t know what it was precisely until I get back to the lab, but I’ll say this much: It wasn’t your garden-variety accelerant. This heat, this level of destruction-”
    Detective Overton interrupted her. “But the explosion-”
    “There’s no trace of explosive residue,” she said. “Accelerants have flashpoints that often cause explosions in and of themselves. But again, I won’t be sure until I can conduct tests back at the lab.”
    By this time, she had moved on in an ever-widening circle surrounding the point of explosion.
    All at once, she sat back on her haunches and said, “Have you found out why the sprinklers didn’t come on?”
    Overton flipped through his notes. “As it happens, the sprinklers engaged on every floor of the hotel but this one. When we went down to the basement, we discovered that the system had been tampered with. I had to call in an electrician to find out, but the bottom line is that the sprinklers on this floor were disabled.”
    “So the entire episode was deliberate.”
    “Jakob and Lev Silver were Jews. The waiter who brought him the bottle of champagne-the one employee who’s missing-is Pakistani. Hence my duty to turn this sucker over to Homeland Security.”
    She looked up from her work. “You think this waiter is a terrorist?”
    Overton shrugged. “My bet’s on a business vendetta against the Silvers, but I sure as hell want to know before Homeland Security does.”
    She shook her head. “This setup is too sophisticated by half for a terrorist attack.”
    “Diamonds are forever.”
    She rose. “Let’s see the body.”
    “Body would be the wrong word for what we got left.”
    He took Kim into the bathroom, and together they stared down at the bits of charred bone scattered about the porcelain