Chapter 61

To ensure his conversation with Mr. Jim would not be interrupted, Andrie Romano had turned off his cellular phone. Unfortunately, it was an expensive model equipped with a two-way radio feature, which, contrary to his orders, was now being used by one of his agents to page him.

"Capitaine?" The phone crackled like a walkie.

Romano felt his teeth clench in rage. He could imagine nothing important enough that Suslowicz would interrupt this surveillance cachée - especially at this critical juncture.

He gave Jimmy a calm look of apology. "One moment please." He pulled the phone from his belt and pressed the radio transmission button. "Oui?" Romano's anger stalled momentarily. A cryptographer? Despite the lousy timing, this was probably good news. Romano, after finding Esquibel's cryptic text on the floor, had uploaded photographs of the entire crime scene to the cryptography department in hopes someone there could tell him what the hell Esquibel was trying to say. If a code breaker had no