The Ultimatum: A Jeremy Fisk Novel by Dick Wolf Page B

the NYPD along with misses—seldom were New York’s Finest accurate with more than a third of their shots.
    “Are you a shooter?” he asked.
    “Only to be better acquainted with my subject matter, and my subjects.”
    Wow, he thought. The reporters he knew liked to go to Upper East Side cocktail parties to get better acquainted with their subjects. She was the first he’d heard of to opt for a loud, poorly ventilated pistol range.
    “How about updating me on the investigation?” she asked.
    Oddly, he felt inclined to respond with the truth, which was that he had nothing new to report, and that he would happily sacrifice a year of his life if the computer would ping right now with an incoming e-mail bringing news of any development whatsoever in the case. He also wanted to say that if that didn’t happen soon, the suspense would cost him five years of his life.
    “Nothing to report,” he said.
    “You and this ‘Yodeler’ haven’t become pen pals yet?”
    “Silence sometimes is a tactic.”
    “In which case—you feel you’ve learned something about him?”
    Charitable of her, he thought. “Could be.”
    “What about the surveillance-camera footage?”
    What he wouldn’t give for a call bringing news of a cold hit from the tech room, four members of which were currently scouring thevideo database for so much as a frame of drone footage in either Central Park or Battery Park at or around the estimated times of the killings.
    “We’re following a number of leads at this time,” Fisk said. A law enforcement brush-off line as old as the profession.
    “That’s not going to fly this time. What leads specifically?” Chay asked.
    “Nothing worth wasting your time on. But how about this? Since your office is so close, how about I just text you if anything happens?”
    She looked him over. “If there’s so little going on, why were you here all night?”
    Damn. Did she have a source within Intel? He’d had no choice but to stay here overnight. Because being on cases like this one was like being at a crucial hockey game that’s gone into sudden death. The big cases usually did feel that way. The next call or e-mail or seemingly innocuous document that dropped into his mailbox could provide a crucial puzzle piece. Or the crucial piece. So it was hard to leave the office. He hadn’t, not even to grab a slice of pizza last night or breakfast this morning. Afraid of missing another call, he hadn’t wanted to get on the phone to the diner a block away. And so that Chay wouldn’t suspect that he’d been here all night, he’d changed into a fresh white oxford shirt—he always had one or two spares in his lower desk drawer, still in the plastic packaging they came in from the dry cleaners.
    “How did you know that?” he asked her.
    “I didn’t.” She curbed a smile.
    He started to roll his eyes when his computer pinged with the arrival of an e-mail. He spun his chair toward the monitor, clicking open the mailbox.
    He found one new item in his in-box, headed TO THE SO-CALLED AUTHORITIES .

CHAPTER 14
    T aking in the subject line of Yodeler’s e-mail, Fisk experienced the same jolt he did when he was fishing and felt a big one strike his line. He tried to hide it.
    “What is it?” asked Chay.
    “An e-mail,” he said. Technically, it was a Hushmail, a message from an e-mail service that encrypted all traffic and routed it in such a way that it couldn’t be traced, thus making Hushmail the Hotmail of spooks. This message, “TO THE SO-CALLED AUTHORITIES,” was from USER435982768.
    “I know it’s an e-mail,” she said. “Let’s see it.” She waved at the monitor.
    Why not? He thought. He double-clicked to open the message. In order for the text to be decrypted, he cued a prompt that informed him that he needed to supply the correct response: A PATRIOT WHO USED MARKAROV 9MMS? Grudgingly he entered YODELER, which worked, allowing him to read:
    One way or the other, I shall bring to light your