"You're awfully quiet," Mac put his coffee down and took the seat next to Sarndra.

"It's taking too long." She sighed heavily. "They're not going to get anything from the Lexus."

Mac put his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't underestimate the girls."

"I'm not. But we're talking about a guy who wears his victim's clothes to avoid leaving trace evidence. He wouldn't put Danny in any vehicle that could trace back to him."

Mac shifted his hand to the small of her back.

"Come on. What you need is a good night's sleep. Things'll look better in the morning."

"The results won't."

"So we go back and start again."

"Back to the bridge … again."

Mac sat down again and pulled out his notebook and pen.

"The first time you analysed the case you ran the possible ways Danny could have fallen from the bridge. Then you backtracked to the accident and found out about the laptop. Maybe we need to go back further … The Verrazano is a six lane per level bridge with a concrete divider through the middle and the accident blocked three lanes on one side. How could they have known the embassy car would be involved?"

Sarndra shrugged.

"They couldn't … unless they were ahead of it." She frowned. "But they'd have had to have known the accident was going to happen …"

"Or caused it." Mac finished the thought. "We need to know how many embassy cars were on that bridge."

------------------------------------------------

"We got a total of five embassy cars on the bridge that morning Mac. Four, including the Lexus, made it off before the accident and then the Lexus u-turned to pick up Jorgenia."

"Flack!"

He held Lindsay off as he listened to Mac's instructions.

"I'll run them all and get back to you." He then gave Lindsay his attention. "Couldn't you have waited?"

"The Lexus got to Staten Island via the Ferry. It didn't cross the bridge west-bound."

"That's impossible! We've got it on the bridge security tape traveling west-bound at 6.35am."

"And we've got it on the ferry security tape on the Manhattan-Staten Island run at 6.30am. That's a twenty-five minute ride."

They looked at each other.

"Can't be in two places at the same time."

"What can't be in two places at once?" Stella joined the hall-way conference.

"The Lexus. We've found two security tapes that place the car in separate places at the same time."

"Are either of the tapes doctored?"

"No and we've got witness statements from both places too."

"Identical cars."

"With identical plates?"

-------------------------------

"How do you get one car in two places at once?" Danny looked confused.

"You don't." Sarndra didn't look up. "You get two look-alike cars and switch plates back and forth."

"So how would they both read the same plate at the same time?"

"One plate on one car and the other on the other car." She snagged Mac's cell phone off the table and hit re-dial. "Stella, its Sarndra. Your tapes … do they both show the same view of the cars..? One front view and one back view. I thought so. Look for a tape showing the opposite view of either vehicle. Legally they need two plates each to be on the road so if they're sharing one set they still need another set to divide up between the cars. Find that plate and you find the other Lexus."

-----------------------------------

"Two digits … one number and one letter different from each other." Flack shook his head and reached for his ringing phone. "Flack … you have … I'll be right over." He hung up. "Riverdale police just picked up Jochaim Doku. They're holding him for us."

"Maybe he can tell us who drove the second Lexus?"

"And where it is!" !" Stella sighed at Lindsay's frown. "What?"

"How do we know which Lexus is which? We've linked Peyton to Danny and Danny to the East River Park. But we haven't linked Danny to the Lexus Peyton drove. And Flack said Peyton was dispatched BY the embassy. He didn't say FROM the embassy. Which fits the timeline. If Peyton was in the vicinity of the bridge he could have picked up Jorgenia by 6.45 am. But if he left Manhattan on the 6.30 am ferry he wouldn't have reached the Verrazano until 7 am at the earliest."

"So why send the second Lexus and why change the plates?"

"So we'd confuse the two cars and search the wrong one."

"Which would mean …"

"It was sent to get rid of the evidence."

There was a couple of minutes of silence.

"Umm …" Stella detected a note of concern in Lindsay's voice. "You don't think they'd try again do you? … Now they know Danny's alive I mean."

-------------------------------------

"Where's Danny?" Mac frowned as Sarndra handed his a pair of binoculars.

"Behind you."

He turned to look out the full wall glass window. Four boats bobbed in the bay as a fifth wove around them towing a waterskier. Mac raised the binoculars in time to see the grin on Danny's face as he released the rope.

"You said you wanted to keep an eye on him without having to listen to him whinge and whine about being bored."

"Does he know we can see him?"

"I don't think he's thinking about that right now."

"And when he gets bored waterskiing?"

She reached under the desk and dumped handfuls of pamphlets in his arms.

"We've got kite surfing, surfing, paragliding, game fishing, laser strike, jet skiing, scuba diving, go-cart racing, skiing and snow boarding at Snowplanet, bumper cars, vertical bunji, white-water rafting, spear fishing, drag-racing, parachuting, hang-gliding, bunji-jumping, harbour-bridge walk, rock climbing, trail biking, horse-riding, glow-worm caves …" She paused as he began to laugh. "I'm glad you approve 'cause I told the boys you'd make up the war-game numbers."

He stopped laughing abruptly.

"You what!"

"Well you keep saying if Danny doesn't behave you'll shoot him. Now I'm giving you the opportunity to do just that … with paintballs." She smiled at his dubious expression. "Loosed up Mac, you'll enjoy it I promise."

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"We've got you for conspiracy to conceal a crime."

Jochaim twisted his handkerchief in his hands.

"I drive car. That all. I drive Miss Jorgenia. I know nothing about accident." The panic in his voice was evident.

"You returned her laptop to her."

"She ask me. First she ask policeman. He no come back. Then she ask me so I take computer to her."

"We have your prints off the railing at the East River Park right above the spot the professor's body was found."

All the colour drained from his face.

"The professor dead? I know nothing! I drive Miss Jorgenia. She want to go to park. I drive to park. She say 'Jochaim walk with me'. I lock car and walk. She say 'wait at car'. I go back to car and wait."

"Why did she want to go to the park?"

"She go to meet professor. She say he help her study."

"Can you describe him?"

"I no see. She come back to car. Say he no show. We leave. Go back to embassy."

---------------------------------

"You missed a bit." Sarndra licked her thumb and rubbed the yellow smear off Mac's cheek. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. She sucked her breath in sharply. "What was that for?"

"You were right I did enjoy the game. Shooting Danny was very satisfying even if it was with paintballs."

"And you are wrong. He didn't miss … not once." The blue eyed, be-spectacled head-to-toe rainbow eased past her and headed for the showers.

----------------------------------

Flack closed the door of the interrogation room.

"What do you think?"

Stella shrugged.

"He drive car full stop. But he puts Jorgenia on her own at the accident site and the East River Park. And we still haven't matched the other prints on the card."

"The embassy won't release her prints. She has diplomatic immunity."

"But she attends NYU where all the students have lockers, the inside of which is covered by the immunity …"

Flack smiled.

"But not the outside. I'll get the warrant."

--------------------------------------------

Detective Lewis pinned three photos to the board.

"Andrew Willis, Steven Daley and Mark Bryant. All 18 years old. All students at Auckland University and all in custody for failure to report a crime. We can charge them with evidence tampering too if you want."

"You don't think it would do any good?"

"I think they're already plenty scared. The guy paid them $500 a piece to dump the suitcase. It was Mark's idea to dump the contents and keep the case …"

"Until they saw what was inside."

Lewis nodded.

"They panicked."

"You get a description of the guy who paid them?"

"Older guy maybe mid fifties and white. Short dark hair graying at the temples, bushy eyebrows, blue eyes with crow's feet wrinkles around them, high cheekbones, narrow straight nose, ear lobes connected to the sides of his face, thin upper lip and a full lower lip, they didn't see his teeth, square chin with a cleft, saggy jowls, small diagonal scar just below adam's apple, clean shaven with no sideburns, …"

Sarndra frowned.

"Photographic memory?"

"Fine Arts students. Our perp is 6 foot tall, medium build with a slight paunch, wearing a Jacob Innes white silk shirt, Romaldi tie in dark grey, double-breasted mid grey Armani suit, lapel pin was a globe with a peace sign over it, black leather belt with an infinity sign on the buckle, hands were smooth with no obvious scars of calluses, no rings, watch was a gold Rolex, shoes were Italian leather patent formals. And his left foot turns inwards slightly. Where's your offsider?"

Mac looked across at Sarndra who checked her diary.

"1pm … Lion feeding at the zoo. We told him if he's a good boy they'll let him ride the elephant."

---------------------------------------------

Stella flicked open the folder.

"Scott Delgato. NYU pre-law student. 4.0 grade point average and you live in Staten Island. You've also got a part-time job tutoring 9th grade math to a UN embassy ambassador's daughter. I'm guessing that's how you hooked up with Jorgenia. You met her at the embassy and got talking. You found out she attended NYU and you got together from there. How am I doing so far?"

"What is this Romeo and Juliet?"

"Romeo and Juliet didn't try to kill a cop."

He sat back in the seat and folded his arms across his chest.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You should, you see we got your prints from the NYU student union. They match the prints we got off Jorgenia's locker. They also match prints taken from a memory expansion card used to commit international espionage. The card was found in Jorgenia's laptop. Your prints also match the prints we took from the steering wheel and boot of a charcoal grey Lexus. We found the cop's blood in the boot and on your t-shirt along with a rather nasty algae only found in the lower New York Bay. The evidence tells us that he was thrown off the Verrazano into the bay. Now we know you didn't throw him off the bridge because you were on the Staten Island Ferry with the Lexus. But I'm pretty sure you know who did. I want that name!"

"And I want a lawyer!"

"You need one!"