The Cutting Edge

Tuesday, March 16

Chapter 50

Think we’ve got everything,” Sachs said. Rhyme wheeled closer to her in his parlor.

She explained to him, Ackroyd and Sellitto what evidence they’d uncovered, and then added her and Cooper’s analysis.

“The environmental outfit — One Earth? Didn’t find anything there, other than some trace linking Shapiro to it, but he was director, so of course he’d be there every day. The New Jersey State Police crime scene analysis from the suicide site at the Palisades didn’t turn up anything about the Russian or gas bombs. Shapiro’s car, though — we’ve got traces of the kimberlite.”

Rhyme said, “Linking Shapiro to the drilling site or to Unsub Forty-Seven, or both.”

“Right,” Sellitto said, adding that the find supported what they had surmised but it offered no new information.

Sachs continued, telling those present that the search of Shapiro’s small apartment in upper Manhattan, where he’d lived alone, gave up no leads either. But it did offer explanations.

Hidden under a mattress she’d discovered a map of the geothermal site, with the shafts of Area Seven circled, five hundred thousand Russian rubles — about eighty-five hundred dollars, presumably a bonus for Unsub 47 when the job was finished — and two burner phones, presently inoperative. Their call history was cleared.

“I printed the phones — negative on that — and I sent ’em down to Rodney. We’ll see if the computer geniuses can extract any info. The guy he hired? The Russian? Sure, he’s a mercenary. But he’s also cut from the same cloth, I’m betting. Saving the earth, getting even for the damage we’ve inflicted. He just did Shapiro one better: the torture, the gas line bombs.”

Sachs added that she’d recovered a great deal of trace evidence in Shapiro’s apartment, some situating the activist at various places around the metropolitan area: samples of minerals and soil and sand and diesel fuel and plant material. Some might have been carried into Shapiro’s home on Unsub 47’s shoes but without more evidence to narrow down the locales they did the investigators no good in finding him.

Rhyme noticed Sachs looking at the chart on which she’d written the findings. Her face seemed wistful. She looked back and noticed his gaze. She said, “It was sad, you know.”

“Sad?” Sellitto muttered. “The asshole killed a half-dozen people.”

“Oh, I know. He got carried away, lost in the cause. But you should’ve seen his apartment.” She explained that it was filled with easily a thousand books, mostly about the environment. There were dozens of protest posters and photos he’d taped up on the scabby walls: of Shapiro and colleagues in jail or being arrested — once being teargassed — as a result of various protests. She imagined he’d mounted them with pride and fond memories.

“It was like a shrine to his cause. He did a lot of good. Up until now, that is.”

Murder was, of course, murder.

Rhyme noticed another picture Sachs had taken in Shapiro’s apartment: a black-and-gold ceramic urn on which was a bronze plaque. It contained his wife’s ashes. He commented on it. Sachs added, “I looked her up. She died of cancer, probably due to a toxic waste spill when she was a teenager.”

Rhyme now turned and wheeled closer to their insurance expert, Edward Ackroyd, who was the man of the moment — since it was he who’d been instrumental in cracking the case. He was trying to get in touch once more with the diamond dealer in Manhattan who had put him onto Ezekiel Shapiro. The activist had called the dealer asking about Jatin Patel’s source for diamonds. Was it true that he bought them from mines that exploited indigenous people?

Ackroyd hoped that the dealer might have additional information — maybe even a lead about the Russian that Shapiro had hired.

Rhyme focused out the window. A lethargic ice storm during the night had encased the vegetation in front of his town house. He wondered if the sharp crystals had killed the plants, or if the ice had had no effect whatsoever other than to temporarily enwrap leaves and buds in a clear cocoon, which would flash with rainbow fire, like a diamond, under the sun.

Now Ackroyd was disconnecting his phone. “Okay. I got through to him: the dealer. He’s still jittery but I think the guilt got to him — that Patel was killed after he told Shapiro about him. I’ll go have a chat with the gentleman.”

Rhyme watched the man pull on his coat with precise movements.

Ackroyd added, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

His voice hesitated as he glanced Rhyme’s way, suddenly recalling, it seemed, that Lincoln Rhyme was not a person who had the ability to cross any fingers.

Their eyes met and they shared a smile.

From a very sour-smelling vantage point in a stand of bushes in Central Park — apparently popular with urban dogs — Vladimir Rostov watched the medium-built, sandy-haired man in the beige overcoat step outside the town house he’d learned belonged to one Lincoln Rhyme. The man drew the garment tighter about him, against the chill.

Cold, cold? Ha. This is nothing, kuritsa. Come to Moscow in January.

The man walked down the disabled-accessible ramp and onto the sidewalk, avoiding a few patches of ice. He turned north and walked to the cross street, then west, away from the park.

Rostov pushed through the bushes and strode quickly after him, passing between two cabs. Closing the distance, Rostov kept his head down. You assumed CCTVs were everywhere and fitted with high-definition lenses. He also supposed some had facial recognition software, though he wasn’t, as far as he knew, in any FR databases. At least not here, in the United States.

Ah, kuritsa, slow down, slow down. You’re walking too fast for a whore of a hen.

Rostov’s mood had improved and he’d overcome his anger at the latest setback — at the house of Adeela, the raven-haired Arab girl. Making it worse, as he’d fled, the police approaching, he’d caught a glimpse of Vimal himself in the garage! He was at the house. And he’d be in protective custody now.

Angry then, better now.

Concentrating on the task ahead of him.

Yes, the Promisor has yet another backup plan, kuritsa! Don’t you know?

Rostov saw the man he was following approach a gray Ford and push the fob button. The lights flashed briefly. Rostov was only twenty feet behind him and he sped up, head still down. When the man pulled open the driver’s door and dropped into the seat, Rostov did the same on the passenger side.

“Kuritsa!”

The driver reared back in shock, blinking. Then he and Rostov locked eyes.

The Russian smiled. And stuck his hand out. The driver shook his head, with a wry laugh, gripped Rostov’s meaty palm and, with his left hand, pressed the man’s biceps, a gesture conveying a cautious warmth. It was the sort of greeting that might transpire between two soldiers who’d been enemies in the past — and might yet be in the future — but who, for the moment at least, were allies with a common cause.

Chapter 51

So, kuritsa, what I am calling you? What is name? Surely not Mr. Andrew Krueger?”

“Using my real name? Now, what do you think, Vladimir? No, I’m Edward Ackroyd.”

“Yes, yes, I like that. Distinguished fucker. Is real somebody?”

Krueger didn’t explain that the identity he’d stolen, Edward Ackroyd, was, yes, a real employee of Milbank Assurance — a company that insured hundreds of diamond and precious metal mines and wholesalers. Ackroyd, as he’d told Rhyme, was a former Scotland Yard detective and presently was a senior claims investigator with Milbank. Beyond that, Krueger knew nothing of the real Ackroyd; he’d made everything else up, like riffing on his sexuality: He played his fictional version as gay — a casting choice intended to work his way, subtly, through Rhyme’s defenses; the consultant seemed like a man who valued tolerance. (Krueger had told his business partner in his company, Terrance DeVoer, the most hetero man you’d ever meet, that Terry and Krueger were now married — to the South African’s great amusement.)

The cryptic crossword puzzles — which were a hobby of Krueger’s — were also intended to ingratiate himself with the criminalist. A number of Krueger’s clients were British so he could easily feign being English.

In the driver’s seat of the rental car Krueger eased back a bit from the Russian. Rostov stank of pungent cigarettes and onion and excessive drugstore aftershave. “And you? You’re not Vlad Rostov, I assume.”

“No, no.” The Russian laughed. “So many fucking names in the past week... Now I am Alexander Petrovitch. I was Josef Dobyns when I landed. Now Petrovitch. I like better. Dobyns could be Jew. You are liking Alexander? I do. It was only passport this asshole in Brighton Beach had. Charge me fortune. I like Brighton Beach. You ever go?”

Rostov was known, in the diamond security industry, to be a loose cannon and also more than a little crazy. The rambling was typical.

“You know, Vlad—”

“Alexander.”

“—I’m not here to sightsee.”

“Ha, no, we are not tourists, you and me.”

Krueger was feeling more at ease now. He was over the shock of Rostov’s sneaking up on him, though he’d known the man would appear sooner or later. He found it refreshing too not to have to use the British accent. It was getting tedious. In fact, he was South African, and his natural intonation was of an Afrikaner speaking English. He’d been on his guard every time he’d spoken with Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs and the others, struggling to get the Brit upper-crust tongue correct.

Façade upon façade... what a time this past week had been.

It was Andrew Krueger, not Vladimir Rostov, who was the real perpetrator, whom the police were calling Unsub 47: the man who had killed Jatin Patel and Saul Weintraub. And who, under the guise of Edward Ackroyd, had talked his way into the police investigation of the case.

Krueger had been stunned when the “Promisor” appeared, mimicking Krueger’s role, right down to the ski mask, gloves and box-cutting knife. It didn’t take him long to realize that it was probably Rostov. He, or his employer in Moscow, would have hacked Krueger’s computers and phones and would be sucking up real-time details of the South African’s progress here as he communicated with his own company and his employer for this mission. Rostov knew everything about Krueger’s crimes even before the police did.

Krueger had swapped phones and installed new proxies, but finally sent a message on a phone he knew had been hacked. “Rostov. Contact me.” Though he’d expected a phone call, not the man’s sudden appearance in his front seat. The Russian would have learned where he was staying and followed him here.

Krueger started the car. “Let’s go talk someplace. Out of the way. We have a problem, Vlad, and we need to address it.”

“Yes, yes. Can we go to restaurant somewhere? And remember. Nyet ‘Vladimir.’ I am Alexander. I am Alexander the Great!”

A half hour later the two men were in a restaurant in Harlem.

Andrew Krueger didn’t know New York well. He had come to the city only a week ago, to put the plan into operation. But he had believed Harlem to be mostly black and working-class, so it would be unlikely to run into somebody involved in the police investigation in a place like this. Krueger was mildly surprised to see that this modest establishment was filled with as many white people — a lot of them hipsters — as black.

Pleasant enough.

But heaven to Vladimir Rostov. He was loving Martha’s Authentic BBQ. Krueger sipped a Sprite. He’d feigned a love of single-malt scotch to ingratiate himself further into the world of Rhyme and Amelia. The fact was he drank very little alcohol, mostly only red Pinotage, a wine unique to his home country.

The Russian was on his second bourbon. He had a coughing fit. “Fucking cigarettes.” He held up his glass. “This helps. Good for you.”

Krueger knew Rostov had worked in the diamond mines of Siberia from a young age. No, his tattered lungs weren’t failing from cigarettes, not entirely.

Krueger and the Russian had crossed paths, and swords, for years and Krueger well knew that the Russian was larger than life, a big drinker (though he hated the national beverage of vodka). Also, a food lover. He was presently working away vigorously at his order: the full baby back rib meal, what looked like a kilo of meat, along with mounds of soul food accoutrements.

Krueger picked at the salad he’d ordered. He was in crisis and not the least hungry.

He noted Rostov’s eyes following the ass of the server. She was a tall, solid woman whose skin was the color of perfectly done toast. The Russian, he knew, was largely insatiable in all appetites.

“What did you call me?”

“Call you?”

“When you got in the car?”

Rostov laughed — loud. “I say, ‘kuritsa.’ My little kuritsa. It is hen. A bird. Everybody is kuritsa to me! I might even be kuritsa to someone. I love you, you know, Andrew. You are my brother, you are my father!”

Eyes slipping to and fro around the restaurant, Krueger sighed. “As they say here, take it down a notch.”

“Ha! Yes, yes.” Rostov ripped the meat from a rib with his yellow teeth and chomped it down. An eerie smile filled his face. “First!” He tapped his glass to Krueger’s. “To you, my friend. To you. You are genius. This fucking great plan you have came up with! Genius.”

Krueger’s lips tightened. “Except it didn’t work quite the way I’d hoped.”

We have a problem...

“So,” Rostov asked, lowering his voice, “you working for Nuevo Mundo — New World Mining — Guatemala City.”

He’d know this from the hacking... Goddamn Russians.

Krueger said, “Right. New client. Never worked for them before. You know them?”

“I hear of them, yes, yes.”

“And you’re here for Dobprom, of course?”

This was the Russian quasi-state-owned diamond-mining monopoly based in Moscow. Dobychy: mining. Promyshlennost: industry. It was the biggest diamond-mining and — distribution operation in the world. Rostov was a regular troubleshooter for them.

“Who the fuck else I working for? Look at my shitty clothes, look at my belly fat from eating cheap food. Tell me, kuritsa. New World pay you up-front?”

“Of course. Half.”

“Ach. Never for me. Fuck Marx, Lenin and Stalin!” He winked and washed down a mouthful of ribs with bourbon.

Krueger sighed.

The “fucking great plan” — and the circumstances of these two men’s paths crossing here in New York — had begun some weeks ago, thanks to a curious occurrence.

A contractor — that is, a hired-gun “troubleshooter” — working for New World Mining had contacted Krueger and explained that the famed Manhattan diamantaire Jatin Patel had come into possession of some kimberlite, drilled up by Northeast Geo Industries at its geothermal site in Brooklyn. The analysis showed the rocks were diamond-rich, with very high-quality rough. Now, it was likely that the kimberlite find was a freak occurrence — serpentinite, a related stone, was common in New York, but its diamond-embedded cousin was not.

But if the lode was large and the quality as good as it seemed, and the owner of the land learned of the find, he would license mineral rights to a mining operation, surely an American company. The output could depress the price of diamonds worldwide. And worse, a U.S. diamond mine would have a vast marketing advantage over foreign mines. Why would consumers buy possibly suspect third-world diamonds when U.S. mines were unquestionably ethical? This would be an utter disaster for overseas mines; the United States accounted for more than half the retail diamond purchases in the world, around forty billion dollars’ worth a year.

The contractor had then proposed that New World would pay Andrew Krueger’s company a million dollars for one of its specialties: “downwardly modulating production output.”

In other words: sabotage, threats and bribery, and occasionally worse, to make sure that finds of precious metals, uranium and other valuable ores and gems never saw the light of day. The diamond industry had a long — and violent — history of suppressing production and competition.

The specific plan that the contractor came up with was brilliant: Krueger was to kill Jatin Patel, after getting the names of anyone who knew about the kimberlite find. And kill those individuals too. He’d bribe a Northeast Geo employee to give him access to the site, where he would collect and dispose of as much kimberlite as he could. Then he’d drop explosive charges down some of the shafts and seal them with grout, and plant gas line bombs in buildings nearby. Each C4 charge was timed to detonate just before a gas line blew. This would mimic an earthquake and the resulting conflagration.

The city would close down the site, citing the risk of more quakes. That would be the end of drilling up more kimberlite.

He’d gotten the devices planted fine and then had turned to eliminating anyone who knew about the kimberlite.

Under Krueger’s knife, Jatin Patel gave up Saul Weintraub’s name. But Patel swore no one else knew about the kimberlite. After the man was dead, though, into the shop comes the young man — Vimal Lahori, it turned out — obviously an employee, since he knew the door code. Krueger shot him but he got away. And it was clear he knew about the kimberlite, too, because the bullet had struck a bag of the stuff.

Knowing that the young man would call 911 at any moment, Krueger had tried to figure out what to do. He didn’t have time to go through all of Patel’s papers and learn his identity — a fast search revealed nothing. Then, looking at the white squares of envelopes of diamonds he’d scattered on the floor, to make the police believe the crime was a simple robbery, he had an idea.

He would trick the police themselves into helping him find the boy and anyone else who might know about the kimberlite find.

In his job as a hired gun for the diamond and precious metal industry, Krueger often used identity theft as a tool (just as Rostov had done). He would do the same now.

In Patel’s shop, he’d found an empty diamond envelope and had written on it the names and specifications of four multi-million-dollar diamonds, along with the name of Grace-Cabot, a real South African mining operation. The phone number he wrote down, however, was a burner phone of Terry DeVoer, his business partner in South Africa.

Krueger left the envelope at a work station and, taking the hard drive and its telltale security video with him, fled.

He then called DeVoer in Cape Town to have him change the voicemail announcement on the number to Grace-Cabot and be ready for a call from the police about the stolen rough. He was to play the role of Llewellyn Croft — a real executive with the company. “Croft” would sound shocked about the loss and then send the police to the company’s insurance investigator, a man with experience in tracking down diamonds, a man who could assist them.

Krueger assumed that identity himself: Edward Ackroyd, with the real insurance company of Milbank Assurance, whose identity he’d “borrowed” in the past. Ackroyd, who was about Krueger’s age, was British, former Scotland Yard. And there was no picture of him on the Milbank website. Krueger had had Milbank cards printed up with Ackroyd’s name and that of the insurance company but with one of his own burner phone numbers on it.

Absurd, indeed. The plan could fall apart at any moment. There was a knife-edge chance it might work. Krueger had to take the risk.

His luck had held... for a time. The police believed his fake identity, the C4 charges went off as planned, the fires roasted a few people, the city halted the drilling, he found and killed Saul Weintraub and he was making some headway in finding Patel’s protégé.

But then he’d run smack into a brick wall: Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, who managed to link the two parts of the plan that absolutely should not have been linked: That the man who’d killed Patel had also been present at the geothermal site. And, even worse, that he was behind faking the earthquakes. He could still recall with dismay how Rhyme had called him into the parlor to describe in perfect detail, thanks to the CCTV videos, what their suspect was really up to, faking the earthquakes and fires.

It’s Forty-Seven’s plan. It’s why he’s here: planting gas line bombs and C4 charges to mimic earthquakes...

It had taken all Krueger’s willpower to stay calm. He was sure Rhyme would turn to him and say, “I know you’re the one! Arrest him, Amelia!”

But, no. The Ackroyd fiction held. And, thank God, Rhyme and Sachs hadn’t made the leap that the reason for the scheme was sabotaging the diamond lode at the geothermal site. They identified the kimberlite, too, but fortunately it had no particular significance to them.

Of course, then, on top of it all, the unstable, meddling Russian, Vladimir Rostov, blusters his way onto the action.

“All right. So you decide to become my doppleganger and—”

“The fuck is that?”

“A double, you know. You imitated me. You hear me on the phone, talking about the witnesses I have to find, and you decide to help me out.”

“Yeah, yeah. I find this Iranian asshole — Nashim — and he gets me to Vimal’s friend, Kirtan. And he gives up Vimal’s name and girlfriend, Adeela. I am fucking good detective, huh? Columbo!” A shrug. “I got close. But didn’t work. Fuck me.”

Krueger now asked, point-blank, why he’d done it. Dobprom’s goal was the same as New World’s: to keep the diamond lode secret. Why not just let Krueger handle the matter?

Rostov tossed back his bourbon and poked a toothpick Krueger’s way. “Look, my friend. You are not offensed by my saying it, I hope: But this is big fucking deal. What happen, if you fucked up? That kimberlite, oh, is sweet. I am reading assay report. You see carats per ton?” He nodded his head out the window, presumably indicating the geothermal site in Brooklyn. He whispered reverently, “That is Botswana yield.”

Although it varied considerably, the rule in the industry was that on average a mine had to process one hundred to two hundred tons of rock to produce one carat of quality diamond. In the African nation of Botswana, the diamond concentration in ore was ten times higher. The best in the world.

The New York lode was the same.

“I am so very prosti, so very sorry, kuritsa, if you are sad. But we could not take chance. So, cheer up! Here I am come to help you. You are the Batman and I am the Robin! Pat me on back!”

Chapter 52

I’m not making this call. You never heard it. And you’re not reactin’ to it. Anyway, anyhow. Got that?”

Amelia Sachs, standing in the corner of Rhyme’s lab, was listening to the caller. Fred Dellray, special agent with the FBI’s New York office.

“Okay.”

“Is Lincoln nearby?”

The hell was this all about? she wondered.

“Yes.”

Rhyme was across the parlor, speaking with Ron Pulaski.

“Can he hear you?”

“No. Explain.”

“Okay, here’s the deal, and it ain’t so nice, Amelia. I heard through the vine, Lincoln’s under investigation. Ron too. Us. FBI, Eastern District.”

She didn’t move, felt the warmth of shock wash over her. “I see. And why would that be?”

Dellray was the bureau’s expert in undercover ops. The lanky African American was the epitome of subdued, as one would have to be when playing the role of an arms dealer offering to sell munitions to a twitchy neo-Nazi, pointing a Glock his way to aid in the negotiation process. But now, she heard dismay in his voice — a tone she’d never heard before.

“They’ve been helping the defense in the El Halcón case.”

She struggled not to utter any words of shock or disappointment. “And that’s confirmed?”

“Oh, yeah. Pretty boy Hank Bishop, prosecutor going after El Halcón, he’s got all the evidence he needs for an arrest. Both of ’em. Ron and Lincoln.”

She was stunned. “I see.”

Sachs recalled that Ron had been acting secretive lately. He’d gone off on several missions that seemed unrelated to the Unsub 47 case. And there was that visitor the other day, a man who was Hispanic in appearance. Maybe he was one of El Halcón’s aides or lawyers.

“I’m thinking he signed on because there was some funny business with the evidence. Maybe an agent or evidence tech played fast and loose, just to make sure El Halcón got put away good and long. I mean, he is a triple-A-rated shit. I can see Lincoln getting in a knot about that. But...” His voice dipped. “He didn’t go to Bishop or anyone else. He just took on the defense’s case on his own and... fuck, he’s getting paid for it. Bunch o’ money. In the K’s. Makes it look bad.”

Jesus, Rhyme. What the hell have you done?

“It’s going down soon, Amelia. They’ll be in federal detention for a time. Bail’s gonna be a problem because El Halcón’s trial’s goin’ on hot and heavy now, and Bishop doesn’t want anything to fuck up the case until after closing arguments.”

“Even...” She paused, thinking of a word. “Even given his condition?”

“Yep. Medical wing in the detention center. Thom won’t be allowed. Nurses’ll take care of him.”

She glanced toward Rhyme. She could imagine how they’d treat him.

No, this couldn’t be happening... A nightmare.

“So,” Dellray continued, “I’m telling you this but I’m not telling you this. Get a lawyer fast. It might help some. And you and Lon’ll have to take over on Unsub Forty-Seven. I gotta hang up. Good luck, Amelia.”

The line went dead.

Sachs intentionally looked away from Rhyme. Her eyes would clearly reveal how troubled she was.

“Lon?” she called.

Sellitto looked her way. She nodded to the front hall, and he followed her out there.

“What’s up?”

She sighed, took a breath and in a low voice told him about Dellray’s call — that is, the non-call.

The rumpled detective rarely displayed emotion. Now his eyes grew wide and he was momentarily speechless.

“He couldn’t. It’s a mistake.”

“With Bishop?” Sachs asked cynically. “He doesn’t make mistakes.”

“No,” Sellitto muttered. “And taking money? Jesus. I know he charges a fee for his work, but from an asshole like El Halcón? This’s gonna be bad. Even if he beats the case, that’s it for consulting for us. Probably everybody.”

Then Sellitto said, “Okay. Well. Innocent until proven guilty.”

Though one crime he was guilty of, no debate on that: Rhyme hadn’t told her about taking on the assignment for El Halcón’s defense team. This cut her deeply.

Welcome to married life, she thought — even more cynical now.

But Sellitto was right in one sense: Rhyme — and Ron Pulaski too — would need to find an attorney. And, from the urgent tone of Dellray’s call, they needed one immediately.

He said, “I’ve got some names. Ballbusters who’ve represented some high-profile perps I’ve collared. I don’t like ’em, but they’re top-notch. I’ll start calling now.”

Sachs heard some noise in the back of the town house. Pots and pans. Water running.

She sighed. “And I’ll tell Thom.”

Andrew Krueger sipped his soft drink.

He scowled at Rostov. “All right. Granted Dobprom wanted to make sure nobody learned about the lode. But what the hell was that ‘Promisor’ crap? What, you heard that I used a razor knife and wore a ski mask at Patel’s, and you went out and bought the same things?”

Rostov said proudly, “Of course! I am clever fucker! No?”

“Then going on and on, nobody treats diamonds right? They’re the soul of the earth? You made that girl swallow her ring? Cutting fingers off? What kind of bullshit was that?”

Rostov’s eyes turned savvy. “What kind bullshit? Hm. Bullshit whole world believe! After Promisor arrive, nobody thinking Patel got killed because kimberlite or diamonds is in Brooklyn. CNN says crazy man attacking pretty little fiancées, so has to be true.”

Krueger could hardly argue.

Then the Russian leaned forward, and he spoke in a low, steady voice. “But, kuritsa, tell me the true word. You know what most diamond companies do: Cut up beautiful stone into pieces of shit for shopping malls. Ruin lovely rough to make little bastard diamonds for girls’ fat fingers.” His eyes grew dark and angry. “A fucking crime.” He waved for another drink and was silent until it arrived. A fast sip. “Yes, yes, Dobprom, my wonderful employer, they sell to dealers like that. They pay my fucking salary. But I bitch about it anyways. And you, my friend? I know you thinking, in that heart of yours, yes, yes, Promisor is right. Make those kur who don’t know diamond from a piece of glass hurt, make them cry.”

Another shot of liquor. “Okay, okay. I am fucked up. Gone to stone. But maybe little part of you crazy like me?”

Andrew Krueger wanted to argue. But he had to admit that Rostov was right on this point too. Diamonds were the most perfect thing on earth. How could you not feel some contempt for those who treated them shabbily?

But he too was on a salary. There was work to be done. He pushed his soda aside and said in a low voice, “Now our problem.”

A scowl from Rostov now. “Yes, yes, they are knowing your earthquakes was fake. But you made it that Greenpeace asshole did everything.”

Krueger said, “Not Greenpeace. One Earth.”

“Ach. They all assholes.”

Once Rhyme and Amelia learned that the earthquakes were sabotage, Krueger needed a fall guy. He had seen the ranting Shapiro at the site and decided to pick him. He’d broken into the man’s house, planted some incriminating material there and, when Shapiro returned, cracked his skull. He’d then called Lincoln Rhyme and said he’d learned that Shapiro was targeting Jatin Patel for cutting compromised diamonds.

Then he’d driven to Palisades Park in Shapiro’s car. After flinging him over the edge, Krueger had taken a bus to the George Washington Bridge transit hub, for a subway trip back to his place.

“So, genius plan guy? What we are going to do?”

Krueger said, “It’s not as bad as it seems. The man at the site who helped me rig the explosions?”

“Yes, I saw in your emails.”

Krueger gave him a sour look.

“So this guy, where he is?”

“Dead. He told me most of the shafts are drilled. There won’t be that much kimberlite dug up anymore. I can find it and get rid of it. The big problem is the boy, Vimal. On Saturday, those samples he was carrying with him? He didn’t get them at the drilling site — I’d cleared it by then. Either somebody else gave them to him — maybe another assayer, like Weintraub — or he got them at another location. We have to find him. Get him to tell us where the samples came from and if anybody else knows.”

The last of Krueger’s appetite vanished at the sight of Rostov’s enthusiastically digging between his teeth with a fingernail to excavate bits of food. “So?”

Krueger leaned forward. “Here’s my thought. This Amelia? She knows where Vimal is. We’ll get her to tell us. We can’t kill her — she’s police. That’s too much.”

Rostov asked, “But hurt, okay?”

“Hurting is fine.”

Rostov’s face brightened. “Yes, yes, I will say. I am not so happy with her. I had little kuritsa Vimal very close. And she fucked me up. How we get to her?”

“I told her and the other cops there’s a dealer in Manhattan who’s got good information. I’ll tell Amelia he’ll agree to meet her, only her, in private. We’ll find a quiet shop somewhere — not one in the Diamond District. We go there first, you and me, kill the dealer. You take his place, and when she comes in, you do what you want to find out where Vimal is and how we can get to him. We take care of the problem and you and I go home, get our bonuses.”

Rostov gave an exaggerated frown. “Bonus? You fucker, Guatemalan bastards pay bonus?”

“Doesn’t Dobprom?”

Rostov laughed sourly. Then he leaned forward and rested a creepy hand on Krueger’s forearm. “This Amelia, this kuritsa... You have seen ring she wears? Is diamond, no?” His eyes were narrow and his voice suggested this was a very important question. “Not fucking sapphire?”

He said, “Yes. Diamond.”

Rostov asked, “What is grade?”

The Gemological Institute of America graded diamonds according to the four C’s: carat weight, color, cut and clarity. Krueger told Rostov, “I haven’t seen it up close but I’d say two carats, a blue, brilliant, and I’m guessing a VV1 or -2.”

Which meant it wasn’t flawless but only had very slight inclusions, invisible to the naked eye. A respectable stone.

“Why are you asking?” Krueger wondered, though he supposed he had an idea of what the madman had in mind.

“We need to hurt her and I need a souvenir.” He eyed Krueger narrowly. “You are not minding that?”

“All I care about is you finding Vimal. Whatever you want to do short of killing her, that’s up to you.”

Chapter 53

Rhyme was looking around the town house, aware that Sellitto and Sachs were elsewhere. That was curious. They hadn’t left — their coats were hung on a nearby rack.

He wanted them here, to keep examining the evidence charts, to see if the notations might reveal any more clues about the whereabouts of their Russian unsub or the next bomb. The whiteboards, decorated with careful jottings, remained silent and far more cryptic, and coy, than usual.

As he was about to summon his wife and the detective back to the parlor, there came a pounding on the door.

Rhyme and Ron Pulaski looked at the security camera monitor: four men, in suits. One was holding something up to the video camera. It seemed to be an ID card.

Rhyme squinted.

FBI.

Ah, got it.

Sachs, Sellitto and Thom all appeared quickly from the back of the town house. Rhyme noted their expressions. And he thought: They knew about El Halcón.

“The hell’s going on, Lincoln?” Mel Cooper asked.

“I’m not completely sure but I think the Rookie and I’re about to be arrested.”

“What?” Pulaski barked.

“Well, open the door, Thom. We hardly want them to kick it in, now, do we?”

The four people stepped quickly into the lobby and then the parlor. Three were FBI agents and were properly diverse, like the actors in an ad for a consulting company: white woman and a black and Asian man. They were humorless but that was a plus quality in a lot of professions, law enforcement ranking high among those. They would know that there was likely no threat from the occupants but their quick eyes took in everyone, assessing risks.

The fourth of the foursome was Henry Bishop, the lean federal prosecutor from the Eastern District. He towered over everyone in the room.

“Lincoln Rhyme.” The special agent speaking to him was an athletic-looking young man named Eric Fallow.

To him, Rhyme said, “Can’t raise my hands. Sorry.”

Neither the agent, nor anyone else in the room, gave a reaction to the joke.

Bishop said to Fallow, “I’ll speak to Mr. Rhyme. You secure Officer Pulaski.”

Fallow stepped to the younger man. “Officer, just keep your hands where we can see them. I’m going to take control of your weapon.”

Pulaski faced him. “Hell you are. What’s this about?”

Though his perplexed expression rang false. He knew exactly what it was about.

“Linc,” Sellitto said, then fell silent. He and Sachs had probably been briefed by Dellray — if he was indeed the one who’d delivered the news about Rhyme’s assignment for El Halcón — to play dumb. Rhyme looked to Sachs, but she was avoiding his eyes.

Understandably.

The other two agents stepped forward. One took Pulaski’s Glock.

Fallow said, “Hands behind your back please.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Rhyme said in a voice that was perhaps a bit too singsongy. The patina was mockery. Which was a tad unfair.

Fallow cuffed Pulaski anyway.

“Answer me, Bishop. What’s going on?” Sellitto had recovered and was offering a credible performance of surprise.

“Really,” Rhyme said. “Unnecessary.”

Bishop said, “Mr. Rhyme, you and Officer Pulaski are in a great deal of trouble. We’re placing you both under arrest for felony obstruction of justice and conspiracy, unauthorized use of evidentiary information.”

The Rookie’s eyes turned slowly to Rhyme.

How much trouble can you get into when your mission is a higher cause...?

The prosecutor continued, “You’ve been helpful in the past, Lincoln. I admit it.”

Only helpful? Rhyme reflected sourly.

“And that will be taken into account in the future, when we come to plea discussions. But now, Agent Fallow, read Officer Pulaski and Mr. Rhyme their rights.”

Sellitto gave up. “Is it true, Linc?” A sheen of dismay on his face.

Rhyme noted too Sachs’s tight lips. The look in her eyes.

And he decided it was time.

“All right, everyone. All right. Henry — can I call you Henry?” Rhyme asked this.

Bishop was taken aback. “Uhm. Hank, generally.”

“Okay, Hank. The fact is, I was just about to send you a memo on our situation. It’s nearly finished.”

The prosecutor’s eyes wavered not a bit but Rhyme believed some surprise shone through. He nodded at the computer screen, on which there was, in fact, a lengthy email addressed to Bishop’s office. Bishop didn’t follow the lead but remained fixed on Rhyme, who said, “The Nassau County supervising detective who was shot at the El Halcón takedown on Long Island?”

Bishop said, “Sure. Barry Sales. He’ll be a witness for us in a few days.”

“Barry was my colleague years ago. One of the best crime scene cops I ever worked with.” Rhyme paused. “When I heard about the shooting, I wanted to volunteer to consult for the prosecution, handle the evidence. I wanted to make sure that whoever was behind it, we’d marshal an ironclad case against him. And I wanted to handle the evidence in the case.”

“Yes, I remember,” Bishop said. “You were number one on the list for expert forensic witnesses.”

“But I had to be in DC on other business. A regret, but there was nothing to do about it. Then, a few days ago, El Halcón’s lawyer calls me. He wants to hire me to prove that someone on the arrest team planted evidence incriminating El Halcón.”

Bishop blurted, “Well, that’s just bull—”

“Hank. Please?”

With a grimacing expression on his face, the man lifted a go-ahead palm toward Rhyme.

Rhyme continued, “You’re aware of the weaknesses in your case?”

The tall man shifted uneasily. “It’s not clear-cut, no.”

“First, they’re claiming that El Halcón was in the bathroom the whole time, hiding. Second, that the gunshot residue was planted. He never fired Cody’s gun.” Rhyme nodded at the computer. “I’ve just proved that those are both wrong. I refute their theories entirely. The bathroom? There’s a distinctive cleanser residue on the floor that El Halcón claims he was lying on. Officer Pulaski walked the grid there and took samples. I know the adhesive property of the chlorine ingredient of that particular cleanser. If El Halcón was in the bathroom, matching molecules would have shown up on his clothing or shoes. There were none.”

Bishop’s eyes slipped toward Fallow, who, as lead investigator, should have made this discovery himself. The agent’s face remained utterly expressionless.

“As for proving he fired the gun at the officers, true, El Halcón’s fingerprints weren’t on the weapon. But your contention is that El Halcón unbuttoned his shirt cuff and pulled the sleeve down and held the gun that way? That explains the absence of prints on the gun but the presence of gunshot residue.”

Bishop nodded. “Theory, yes. But I’m hoping the jury will infer that that’s how he held the gun when he was shooting.”

Rhyme stifled a scowl. “They don’t need to infer it. I proved he was holding the gun in his sleeve.”

Bishop blinked. “How?”

“The gun was a Glock twenty-two, firing Luger nine-millimeter rounds. The impulse recoil velocity would be seventeen point five five feet per second and the recoil energy would be six point eight four foot-pounds. That’s plenty of power to compress the fibers in the loose-knit cotton shirt El Halcón was wearing. The lab took microscopic pictures to show visual traces of the gunshot residue. I just looked over them and saw what the recoil had done to the fibers. Only shooting a firearm would create that compression pattern. It’s all in the memo I wrote. The jury will have to infer that it was the bullet El Halcón fired that hit Barry, but that’s a logical conclusion, since the timing strongly suggests that Cody was dead by the time Barry was shot.”

Bishop was momentarily speechless.

“I, well, good, Lincoln. Thank you.” Then he frowned. “But why didn’t you tell me ahead of time?”

“What if there was a grain of truth to their claim?” Rhyme shot back. “What if somebody had tainted the evidence? If so, I was going to find out who and how bad it was and let you know. Or, frankly, if you’d been the one who’d done the tainting, I would have called the attorney general in Washington.”

Drawing a smile from Sellitto.

“So you pretended to sign on to help El Halcón to shore up our case?”

“Not really. That was just serendipitous. Obviously there was another reason.”

“Which was?”

“To find Mr. X, of course.” Rhyme scowled. “At which I wasn’t very successful.”

“Mr. X?” Bishop squinted. His lips tightened for a moment. “Oh. You mean El Halcón’s U.S. partner?”

Obviously...

“He might not have been at the shoot-out but he’s behind the whole operation.”

Fallow nodded. “We’re sure his company owns the warehouse complex, but we couldn’t trace it.”

“And he’s as responsible for Barry Sales’s injury as El Halcón. But I couldn’t find any connection.”

Bishop sighed. The frustration was evident in his face as he said, “We’ve done everything. We’ve looked everywhere. Every document, followed every lead. Nothing.”

Fallow added, “CIs, surveillance. I even called the CIA and NSA about overseas communications. Whoever this guy is, he’s a ghost.”

Rhyme said, “I hoped there’d be some bit of evidence, some reference in the notes that led me to the U.S. partner.” A shrug. “But nothing.”

“Well, you nailed down the case against El Halcón, Lincoln. Thank you for that.”

Bishop gave what Rhyme supposed was an uncharacteristic smile. He said, “So how’re you going to handle the money, fee he paid you?”

Rhyme said, “Oh, I put it in an irrevocable trust for Barry. Anonymous. He won’t know who it came from.”

Sellitto laughed. “Don’t you think Carreras-López ain’t gonna be too happy about that? Whatta you think he’s going to do?”

Rhyme shrugged. “He’s a lawyer. Let him sue me.”

Bishop nodded to Fallow and glanced at Pulaski’s wrists. The agent uncuffed him and, without saying anything further, the foursome left.

Rhyme watched them leave. Pulaski or Cooper said something. He didn’t hear. He was preoccupied with a single thought. An image, actually. Of Barry Sales, his friend.

He thought once more about the word he’d uttered when Carreras-López had first come to him, a word that the defense lawyer undoubtedly took in a very different context from that which Rhyme had had in mind when he uttered it: Justice.

Rhyme glanced toward Sachs, who was still avoiding his eyes. Then he heard her phone hum.

She glanced at it. “Edward Ackroyd.” She answered and had a brief conversation. He could tell from the way her eyes narrowed — just slightly — that the news was important.

When she disconnected, she said, “That dealer? The one who put Edward onto Shapiro? He’s agreed to talk to us. But only plainclothes, no uniforms. He’s worried about customers seeing cops. Edward suggested me and he agreed.”

Then she walked to Rhyme and bent close. Only he could hear her say, “Not completely forthcoming, hm?”

She’d be referring to the clandestine operation involving El Halcón’s lawyer. Reflecting on it, he wasn’t in fact sure why he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he wanted to keep her at arms’ length in case something went south. Condescending of him, he now understood.

His lips grew taut. He held her eye. “No. I wasn’t. I should’ve been.”

She smiled. “I mean both of us. I didn’t tell you about what happened at the drilling site. You didn’t tell me about your little investigation.”

He said, “After all these years, we’re still kind of new to it, Sachs. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I won’t either.” She kissed him hard and then headed for the door. “I’ll call in from downtown.”

Chapter 54

Amelia Sachs felt every cobblestone in her back as the old Ford rocked over the worn streets of the Lower East Side. The fall at the construction site — the initial tumble onto the plank, not the cushioning, though horrifying, mud — had twisted her spine in some elaborate way.

Another thud.

Ah, that one hurt bad.

There was some asphalt but a lot of stone, brick and road repair steel plates.

The Torino Cobra is a car made for smooth.

Sachs had always had a soft spot in her heart for the neighborhood — abbreviated by some as the LES, which she could never accept. Far too precious and hipster a moniker, the antithesis of the place. It had a more colorful and varied history than any other part of Manhattan: In the late nineteenth century, the place became the home of Germans, Russians, Poles, Ukrainians and other European immigrants. The teeming neighborhood, filled with dark and claustrophobic tenements and chaotic pushcart-cluttered streets, gave birth to entertainers like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and the Gershwins. Film companies like Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox could trace their ancestry to the Lower East Side.

The neighborhood became the first truly integrated enclave in New York City after the Second World War, when black and Puerto Rican families joined the white longtimers and everyone lived in relative harmony.

The Lower East Side was also the site of the city’s worst tragedy until September 11. The General Slocum, a ship chartered to take thirteen hundred German Americans to a church event, caught fire in the East River. More than a thousand passengers perished, and the sorrow that spread like plague through the community spawned a migration. Virtually every resident of Little Germany on the Lower East Side moved several miles north and resettled in Yorkville.

Discovery Channel stuff aside, Amelia Sachs had a special connection with the area. It was here, many years ago, that she had made her first felony bust — stopping an armed robbery in progress while off duty. She’d been on a Sunday brunch date, and she and — what was his name? Fred. No, Frank. She and Frank were walking back from a numbingly massive meal at Katz’s Deli when her companion had stopped abruptly. He’d pointed with an uneasy finger. “Hey. Does that guy, see him? Does he have a gun?”

Then Sachs’s doggy bag was tumbling to the sidewalk, her Glock was in her hand and Frank was being shoved unceremoniously to safety behind a Dumpster. She charged forward, crying to passersby, “Get down, get down, police!” Then things turned ugly. She traded a few rounds with the crackhead, who’d had the doubly bad judgment to stick up a wholesale lamp store (a window sign read, Credit Cards Only) and to point his weapon her way. NYPD procedure dictated that if an officer shoots, he or she should shoot to kill, but Sachs hadn’t been prepared to make an existential decision under those circumstances. She’d sent a slug into his hand, removing the weapon and any future threat. An easy shot for her and, far better, less paperwork than with a fatality. Chatting manically the entire time, Frank had walked her to the subway and never asked her out again.

She now turned off this very same High Noon street — the Bowery — and made her way through the labyrinth until she came to a shadowy canyon. Those same tenements that had survived for 150 years still rose five stories toward the rectangle of, today, gray sky. The tall buildings bristled with fire escapes. One featured a real, old-fashioned laundry line, on which ghosts of shirts and jeans and skirts fluttered. Maybe to lessen, in a small, small way, a carbon footprint.

The street was mostly residential, but there were some ground-floor retail stores. A dry cleaner. A “vintage” (that is, used) clothing shop. A secondhand bookstore, specializing largely in the occult.

And Blaustein’s Jewelry.

She parked half on the sidewalk, tossed the NYPD placard on the dash and climbed out. The cool day kept people home and the absence of much to do on this street kept the sightseers elsewhere. The sidewalk was deserted.

She walked to the front of the store. There was a Closed sign on the door, but Edward Ackroyd had told her that Abe Blaustein was expecting her. She peered inside. The showroom, filled with display cases, was empty and dark but there was a light in the back and she saw some motion there. A man in a dusty black suit and wearing a yarmulke glanced up and waved her in.

The door wasn’t locked and she pushed inside.

Sachs got no more than three feet. She tripped over something she hadn’t seen and fell forward, landing hard on the old, oak floor with a grunt of pain.

Just as she was noting with shock the thick wire strung at ankle level, the man charged forward and dropped onto her back, his knee knocking the air from her lungs, filling her with nausea. Pain consumed her and she cried out. The yarmulke was gone and he’d donned the familiar ski mask.

As she reached for her weapon, he fished it from her holster and pocketed it, along with her phone. His hands were encased in cloth gloves. Then he snapped her own cuffs around her wrists, behind her. And, unnecessarily, slammed a fist into her lower back. She cried out as a new agony radiated through her body, next door to the pain from the fall against the plank at the jobsite.

The man paused, as he had a coughing fit. She felt his breath and spittle on her neck. The smell was of liquor and garlic and copious, sweet aftershave.

She was aware of the assailant leaning close. She tensed, waiting for his fist again. But, no, this was weird. He was only rubbing the third finger of her left hand, as if he was studying her wedding or engagement ring.

She began, “People know I’m here. This is a bad idea—”

“Shhh, little kuritsa,” came the Russian-accented voice. “Shhh.”

She then was half carried, half dragged into the back of the shop. He deposited her hard on the carpeted floor of the office, right next to the still, pale body of a man, surely Abraham Blaustein, the owner. From his pocket, the Russian extracted a utility knife and worked the thumb button, to slide out a shiny razor blade.

And she recalled what Lincoln Rhyme had said.

I won’t make that mistake again...

The last words he would ever speak to her.

Chapter 55

Poor Abe,” the Russian was muttering.

He was looking through her wallet, her shoulder bag, clumsily because of the gloves. None of the contents seemed to interest him. He tossed everything aside.

“Poor kuritsa. Abe-ra-ham. Poor Jew. Did stupid things, talking about Ezekiel Shapiro and me.” He clicked his tongue. “I saw him talking to asshole insurance man. Was stupid, don’t you think he was stupid?”

He crouched beside her. “Now, now. I am needing some things. I need to know where to find boy, Vimal? You know him, yes, you do. And insurance man. Abraham told me — after we play a few games.” A nod at the knife. “He told me he was talking to this Edward. You tell me where Vimal and this Edward’s last name and where to find them... and all good. All good for you.”

A trap, of course. The unsub had forced Blaustein to call Ackroyd and arrange a meeting with the police. But not just anyone. The unsub wanted her. She knew where Vimal Lahori was.

The pain assaulted from all directions, her ribs, her head — and her wrists. She realized she’d never been cuffed before and the steel was tight against bone and skin. Sachs was helpless. Still stunned and in searing pain from the crippling drop of his knee into her back. It had emptied her lungs. She still was struggling for breath.

Fainting...

No, can’t faint.

Not acceptable.

He had, it seemed, realized just then that he was still in disguise. He brusquely pulled Blaustein’s jacket off and tossed it aside.

“Jew jacket.” He coughed briefly. Wiped his mouth and looked at the napkin. “Good, good. All good.”

She looked past the disgust and tried to analyze her situation. She could smell liquor but he didn’t seem drunk. Not drunk enough to be careless. How much time did she need to buy? Long enough for Rhyme to call her phone to ask what she had found? Without an answer, he’d get uniforms here in three or four minutes. The precinct wasn’t that far away.

But that would be a very long three or four minutes.

He leaned close. “Now, you...”

He looked again at her ID.

“You, Policewoman A-melia. You are helpful girl. You can help me. Good for you. You help me and you go free.”

“What’s your name?” she ventured.

“Shhh, kuritsa.”

“There’s another gas bomb, we know. Maybe more. Tell me where they are.”

This gave him pause. His blue eyes kept slipping in and out of focus. Not from drugs, though. His mind was manic. Yes, he was a mercenary and a hired killer. But the Promisor and his crazy mission were not complete fictions. Her initial diagnosis held.

He’s just plain crazy...

She continued, “We’ll work with the DA. And the State Department. We’ll cut you some kind of deal.”

“State Department. Why, look at you! A little trussed-up kuritsa, ready for the pot, and still scratching at chickenfeed, looking for helpful things. Am I a national? Am I a Russki? What does Homeland Security know about me? Clever. Now, I like you, kuritsa. Things won’t go painful, you help me.”

With her breath coming more consistently now, she was aware that the pain from the fall and his blows was dissolving.

Thinking: Steady. A plan. Have to buy time.

Time...

“We have information about you. You’re from Moscow. The Dobyns passport. The others, from Barcelona and Dubai.”

He froze. It was as if he’d been slapped.

She said evenly, “It’s only a question of time till they find you. Your description, it’s gone to a watchlist. You’ll never get out of the country.”

He recovered, nodding broadly. “Yes, yes, but maybe I have own way of getting out. Or maybe I stay in nice country here and drive for Uber! Now my question. There is boy I need to find. And insurance asshole. Edward. You will tell me.”

“We can work with—”

He rose suddenly, his eyes completely mad. He drew his foot back and swung an oxford shoe hard into her side. The kick didn’t break a rib but it reignited the pain on all fronts. She cried out once more and tears flowed. He once again crouched near and lowered his lips to her ear. When he spoke his voice was raw with anger. “No talk but to answer question.”

She fell silent.

“Okay?”

She nodded.

Nothing more to do. Sachs closed her eyes. Her thought was: At least he’s leaving a trove of evidence.

Amelia Sachs knew she was going to die.

She thought first of her father, Herman Sachs, a decorated NYPD officer.

Then of Rhyme, naturally. Their lives had coursed parallel for so many years.

I won’t make that mistake again...

Then of her mother, of Pam — the young woman whose life she’d saved and who had become something of a daughter to her. Presently studying in San Francisco.

The Russian now rolled her completely facedown, kicked her feet apart. Her cheek rubbed against the gritty floor. He gripped her cuffed left hand, pulled it up, agonizingly, and again caressed her ring finger. He was apparently examining the blue diamond in the engagement ring Rhyme had bought her.

Could she bargain his interest into some time? She began to speak. “Listen to—”

“Shh, shh. What I tell you?” He rubbed the blade against her ring finger. “Okay, kuritsa. Now. What I am saying is question. That boy. That Vimal boy. Stupid little kuritsa. I need to talk to him. Have little talk. You need tell me where he is. And insurance man.”

“That won’t happen.”

“I won’t hurt him. No, no! Don’t want to hurt him. Just talk. Chat.”

“Surrender now. It’ll be a lot better for you.”

He laughed. “You are some other thing else! Now Vimal. Tell me how I pay visit.”

With one hand he pulled her ring finger taut, moved the razor knife closer yet, she could feel.

She struggled, with all her strength, to keep her fingers curled but he was far too strong. He straddled her, pressed all his weight down on her hips. She was frozen in place.

A sting on her finger.

Jesus, he’s cutting it off! He’s going to cut it off!

She seated her teeth, thinking, How’s this for irony? He’s about to remove my left ring finger — the same one that, after Lincoln’s accident, had been the only digit of his that continued to function.

“Vimal?”

“No.”

She felt him tense as he was about to start cutting.

Sachs inhaled. Squeezed her eyes shut. How bad would the pain be?

Then the Russian stiffened. His grip relaxed. He seemed to be looking up. He began to stand, the knife rising from her finger. He gasped.

The air pressure from the gunshot, painfully close, slapped her body. The Russian dropped immediately, falling backward onto her legs.

Then the man was being hauled off her and she was rolling onto her back, looking up into the horrified face of Edward Ackroyd. He stared at his own hand, holding a Glock. Not hers. He dropped the gun on the desk as if it were red-hot and lifted her away from the Russian’s body.

His lips were moving. She wondered for a moment why he’d lost his voice. Then realized that she had been temporarily deafened by the shot.

He was, she guessed, asking if she was all right.

So this was the question she answered, with “Yes, yes, okay.”

Though his hearing too was useless and he responded, manically, with words that seemed to be, “What, what, what?”

Chapter 56

Outside the jewelry store, in the shadows of buildings erected two centuries past, Sachs sat on the ledge of the ambulance. She’d refused a gurney.

The medical tech announced that there was no serious harm; she had suffered no broken ribs — from the Russian’s knee or his shoe — but there would be contusions. A slight cut from the knife resided at the base of the fourth metacarpal of her left hand — the ring finger — where the amputation had been about to commence. A bit of Betadine and a bandage were the only fixes needed.

Edward Ackroyd stood beside her, subdued. His faint smile was back but was understandably hollow. Which also described his hazel eyes. He explained that he’d decided to come to the dealer’s to meet with her and Abraham Blaustein to see if he could help. He peered in and couldn’t see anyone so he’d entered. Then to his shock he’d seen a man straddling her and bending forward with a razor knife. He had noted too a pistol in the pocket of a black jacket on the counter — the Russian’s; he’d taken it off to dress in Blaustein’s garment.

When the man saw him and rose, lifting the knife, he pulled the trigger.

“I didn’t think. I just shot. That’s all. I just... All those years on the Metropolitan Police. Never fired a gun. Never carried a gun.” His shoulders were slumped. Manically, he flicked a forefinger against a thumb.

“It’s okay,” she said.

Though she knew it wasn’t. The first one stayed with you. Forever. However necessary, however instinctive, that first fatal shot was etched indelibly into your mind and heart and soul.

Several times Ackroyd had asked the medical crew and the responding officers if the Russian was in fact dead, clearly hoping he’d just wounded the man. One look at the result of the hollow-point slug, though, left no doubt.

Sachs said, “Edward, thank you.” An inadequate expression, of course. But what possibly would suffice?

Sachs was, however, of mixed feelings about the incident. Her digits were intact, her life was spared. But not only had Unsub 47 died but so had the easiest — and perhaps only — chance to find out where the last gas bomb devices had been planted. As the medical examiner tour doctor was finishing the preliminary examination, Sachs dressed in CSU overalls and bent to the corpse to see what, in death, it might tell her.

“Know this is a hassle, sir. But, between you and I, I wouldn’t worry about it overly.”

Andrew Krueger nodded and tried to bring a bit of uncertain concern to the equation. “I... just don’t know what to say.”

The detective was a large African American, driving his unmarked police car to a precinct house that he had assured Krueger was not too far away. Krueger was in the front seat of the Chrysler. He wasn’t under arrest. The detective himself had made the determination that the shooting was justified and he would “go to bat for you, Mr. Ackroyd.”

Still, there were formalities. He would have to make a statement, there’d be an investigation, and all the findings would go to an assistant district attorney, who would make the final determination about his fate.

“One chance in a million it’ll become a case. I’d bet my pension not. No ADA’s going to screw up his reputation by bringing a charge on this one. Besides, you’ve got a ringer.”

“A what?”

“Oh, means like a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Krueger still didn’t get it. “Sorry?”

“Don’t you have Monopoly in England?”

“Unfair business arrangements?”

The detective seemed amused. “Never mind. Just that Amelia — Detective Sachs — you saving her hide? She’s a big deal in the department. That’ll count for more than beans.”

They drove in silence for a time.

He continued, “Happened to me. I’ve done it. Once. Twenty-four years on the force I never fired my weapon. Then, just eighteen months ago...” His voice faded away. “Domestic call. The guy was nuts, you know, off his meds. He was going to shoot his mother, and my partner and me were talking him down. But then he swung the weapon on Jerry. No choice.” A pause for the length of one block. “It wasn’t loaded. His weapon. But... well, you’ll get over it. I did.”

Or not.

“Thanks for that,” Krueger said with as much sincerity as he could dredge up. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be the same.”

This, from a man who had murdered at least thirteen people — though only three with firearms.

He was recalling Rostov’s expression when he’d seen the gun pointed at his head. Shock, then an instant of understanding, knowing that he’d been set up. Krueger had fired fast, before the Russian could call out his name and tip Sachs off that they knew each other. Aiming right at the temple.

Vladimir Rostov’s death had been inevitable.

And planned out for some time. Krueger had decided to kill him as soon as he’d figured out that the Russian had hacked his phone and was in New York, playing the role of the “Promisor.” He’d known by then that Rhyme and Amelia were brilliant and he needed to give them both a mastermind — the fanatical Ezekiel Shapiro — and his hired-gun eco-terrorist, Vladimir Rostov.

Krueger’s strategy was to walk into Blaustein’s and kill Rostov with Krueger’s own unregistered Glock — the one that he’d used to shoot at Vimal and to kill Saul Weintraub. In the confusion after the shooting at Blaustein’s, he’d planted 9mm rounds in Rostov’s jacket to better link the man to the shootings at Patel’s and Weintraub’s. Krueger had also pocketed Rostov’s mobile and the keys to his motel and the Toyota.

The minute Krueger’s interview with the police was done, which he didn’t think would take very long, he would hurry to Rostov’s room, scrub it of evidence, then ditch the Russian’s burner phones, computer and car.

The police car now arrived at the precinct house and Krueger climbed out. The detective directed him toward the front door.

“This way, Mr. Ackroyd. Now, just to let you know. You’re not being arrested. No fingerprinting or pictures. Any of that. It’ll just be an interview is all.”

“Thanks, Officer. I truly appreciate your words of reassurance. What happened, well, it was pretty upsetting.” He thought about wiping faux tears from his eyes but decided that would be out of character.

Chapter 57

Amelia Sachs returned to Rhyme’s town house with several things.

The first was a collection of evidence from Vladimir Rostov’s hotel in Brighton Beach and the dealer’s store where she’d nearly lost a finger to the crazy Russian’s knife.

The second was a New York state mining inspector.

Rhyme glanced toward the man they’d spoken to before, Don McEllis, without much interest and reseated his gaze on the evidence cartons that Sachs was carting in. She noticed the direction of his eyes and said, “Not going to be easy, Rhyme.”

Referring to their urgent mission: finding out where the next gas bombs had been set.

“I’m hoping McEllis can help.”

He was a slim, earnest-looking man — okay, “dowdy” came to mind — who was here, Sachs explained, to look over the maps and the details of the prior fires and see if he could help them narrow down the search for the devices.

Sachs said, “I’m thinking that he’d plant them close to fault lines in the area, if he wanted the quakes to look authentic. If so, maybe Don can point them out.”

The detective shrugged. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. His phone hummed. “City Hall. Jesus.” He took the call and stepped aside.

McEllis asked to use one of the computers to load some geological maps of the area. Cooper directed him to one. He wanted to see too where the previous gas bombs had been set, and Sachs pushed toward him the whiteboard on which was taped a map of the city. The fires were marked in red and they made a rough ellipse around what was the epicenter: the geothermal drilling site near Cadman Plaza. McEllis called up the geological diagrams of the area and began poring over them.

Cooper and Sachs both dressed in gowns and face masks and began to look over the evidence that had been collected at Blaustein’s jewelry store and Rostov’s motel in Brighton Beach.

Rhyme had some information too. After Sachs had sent him the unsub’s identity, he had contacted Daryl Mulbry at AIS once more, requesting details on the killer. The man had sent a report summarizing what he could find on short notice. Vladimir Ivanovich Rostov. The forty-four-year-old’s history was Russian military and then FSB — one of the successors to the KGB — and then for the past ten years a “consultant,” whose clients included some of the big Russian quasigovernmental organizations, like Gazprom, the oil and gas company, Nizhny Novgorod Shipping, which made oil rigs and tankers and — significantly — Dobprom, the biggest diamond-mining company in Russia.

Mulbry had learned that Rostov had worked in the Mir mine, in Siberia, from ages twelve through twenty. “Fellow’s a bit off, from what we could learn. Rumors that he killed his uncle, who was in a mine shaft with him. Head crushed with a rock, but there wasn’t any rockslide. The police tended to look the other way when it came to the biggest employer in the region. His aunt died too, not long after that. Apparently one night, she got trapped on the roof of the building, locked out of the access door. No one could figure what she was doing there. She was wearing a flimsy nightgown and no shoes. It was December. The temperature was minus twenty. The authorities looked the other way on that one too. There were complaints that she’d been ne podkhodit, not appropriate, with some youngsters in the building.”

Quite a background, Rhyme reflected.

Mines. Well, that explained the obsession with diamonds... and Rostov’s interest in the fake earthquakes at the geothermal site.

The spy had added that Rostov was non grata in Germany, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Taiwan, suspected of assault, extortion and illegal business practices, as well as a number of financial crimes. Witnesses would not come forward with statements, so he’d never been brought to trial; he was simply told to leave and not come back. In Kraków, Polish authorities detained him after a report that he sexually assaulted a woman and beat her boyfriend. He was quietly released after some intervention by Moscow.

At the jewelry store, she’d found the man’s real Russian passport — in the name of Rostov — plus a forged passport in the name of Alexander Petrovitch, the .38 Smith & Wesson, loose .38 and 9mm Finocchi rounds — the latter for the Glock — ski mask, cloth gloves, the bloodstained utility box-cutting knife, cigarettes and lighter, cash (dollars, rubles and euros). No keys to the Toyota, though there was no guarantee that the red car outside Adeela’s house had been Rostov’s. He didn’t have a mobile on him, either.

He had no room keys on him but a fast canvass of motels and hotels in the area revealed that one Alexander Petrovitch was staying at the Beach View Residence Inn in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which Sachs had searched carefully. But she didn’t find much. More .38 ammunition, junk food, bottles of Jack Daniels, the actual passports of the other identities that Mulbry had learned of. No computers or telephones, car keys or trace of or references to lehabahs, the gas line IEDs, or to where they might have been planted.

And no rough diamonds worth five million dollars.

Where were the stones? And Rostov’s electronics? She supposed he kept everything, hotel key included, in the Toyota, in case he needed to make a fast getaway. The car key was likely hidden in the wheel well. After Breaking Bad, the TV series, a surprising number of perps had been doing this.

The lack of leads, she’d explained to Rhyme, had inspired her to conscript the geologist — a bit of a desperate move, she admitted. Though a reasonable one, in Rhyme’s opinion.

Sachs transcribed the sparse evidentiary finds on a whiteboard and stepped back, hands on hips, worrying a thumbnail with an index finger. Staring, staring, staring.

Rhyme was doing the same. “Anything more?” he called to Cooper.

“Just checking the last of the trace from the hotel room. Should be a minute.”

But what would that show? Possibly some substance from a shoe print unique to where he’d planted a bomb. But what a long shot that would be.

He grimaced in frustration. A glance toward McEllis. “Anything, Don?”

The engineer was hunched forward, studying both the online geological maps and the hard-copy one that depicted the previous fires. He said, “I think so. He seems to have set the bombs along the Canarsie fault. See? It goes through downtown Brooklyn, near Cadman Plaza, then into the harbor. It’s two miles long, but most of that’s underwater. About a half mile is on land.” McEllis indicated a line through the densely populated borough.

Hell, Rhyme thought, too many basements to search. “We’ve got to narrow it down more.”

Mel Cooper called, “Got the last of the trace. Nothing pins Rostov to a particular place. Tobacco ash, ketchup, beef fat, soil associated with Brighton Beach geography. More kimberlite.”

Without looking up from the map, McEllis asked, “Kimberlite?”

Rhyme said, “That’s right. Our unsub picked some trace up at the first shooting. It’s on his clothes and shoes. He’s left it at a couple of the scenes.”

“Then you mean serpentinite. Not kimberlite. They’re in the same family.”

“No, it’s kimberlite. There’re diamond crystals embedded,” Cooper said, looking up. “I thought that made serpentinite into kimberlite.”

“It does,” McEllis whispered. “But... well, can I see a sample?”

Cooper looked toward Rhyme, who nodded.

The tech prepared a sample and set it on the stage of the compound microscope.

McEllis sat on the stool, bent forward and began adjusting the light above the stage. He focused. Sat back, looked away. Then back to the eyepiece. He used a needle probe to poke through the dust and fragments. His eyes remained against the soft rubber eyepieces but his shoulders rose, as did his heels, slightly. His body language suggested he was looking at something significant. He sat back and gave a soft laugh.

“What is it?” Sellitto asked.

“Well, if you found these rocks in New York City, then you’ve just rewritten geological history.”

Chapter 58

Kimberlite,” Don McEllis was telling those in the parlor. “You could call it the elevator that carries diamonds to the surface of the earth from the mantle — the part that’s just below the crust. Where diamonds are formed.”

The inspector returned to the microscope, as if he couldn’t resist, and studied the minerals on the instrument’s stage again. He continued sifting through the samples. “Hm. Well.” McEllis sat back once more and turned the stool to face the others. “Diamond-rich kimberlite — like this — has never been seen anywhere in New York State. The geology of the area doesn’t lend itself to diamond formation. New York is a ‘passive margin’ area. We have stable tectonic plates.”

“Impossible for kimberlite with diamonds to be found here?” Rhyme asked.

The man shrugged. “Better to say very unlikely. There’re about six thousand kimberlite pipes in the world but only about nine hundred contain diamonds... and only a couple of dozen have enough rough to make mining profitable. And none in the U.S. Oh, there was a bit of production years ago — in the South. Now they’re all tourist mines. You pay twenty bucks, or whatever, and pan for diamonds with the kids. But then again in Canada miners didn’t find kimberlite or diamonds until recently and now it’s a major producer. So, I suppose it could happen here.”

The inspector peered briefly into the microscope once more. “Where did you find this again?”

Rhyme responded, “Several places. At the shop where Patel, the diamond cutter, was killed. Vimal — his apprentice — had a bag with him. We didn’t think anything of it. We thought he was going to make it into jewelry. Or sculpt it. That’s his hobby.”

“You couldn’t carve kimberlite like this. The diamonds would make that impossible. Too hard.”

Rhyme scowled. “Assumption.”

“And the other sources?” McEllis asked.

Sachs said, “There was some trace at Saul Weintraub’s house — a witness who was murdered. It came from either the killer’s shoes or clothing.” She shrugged. “That’s what we thought. I suppose it might have come from Weintraub himself.”

Assumption...

Rhyme asked, “Say there were some larger pieces of this stuff. Would they be worth a lot? Worth killing for?”

“The odds of finding any worthwhile diamonds in small samples of kimberlite are like winning the lottery.” Then he was frowning. “But...”

“What?” Sachs asked.

“Nobody would kill for a rock like this. But they might for what it represented.”

“How do you mean?”

“If this sample came from a large lode? Well, I could see people killing either to get the mining rights or to destroy the source, make sure no one found out about it.”

“Destroy?” Sachs asked.

McEllis said, “Historically there’re two industries where companies will do whatever it takes to sabotage potential finds, to keep prices high. Oil and diamonds. And when I say whatever, I mean that. Murder, sabotage, threats. It doesn’t happen with industrial-grade diamonds — the cheap ones for grinding, filing, machinery. But for gem-quality, like these.” Another nod toward the microscope. “Oh, yes. Definitely.”

Sellitto said, “Linc, you’re thinking some diamond company heard about a lode and sent the unsub here to kill anybody who knew about it.”

Rhyme nodded. “Northeast Geo — they dug up the stuff, so Rostov staged the quakes to have the city shut down the drilling.”

McEllis said, “It’s not as outlandish as you’d think. There’re even quote ‘security’ companies that you can hire to make sure potential mines never open or existing ones’re closed. Dams get blown up, government officials are bribed to nationalize mines and then destroy them. Russians are particularly active.”

“And Rostov,” Rhyme said, “had worked for Dobprom in the past, the Russian diamond monopoly.”

“Oh, they’re definitely players in sabotage. A lot of other producers too but the Russians are number one in the dirty-tricks department.”

Sachs said, “Weintraub. He was an assayer. Maybe he wasn’t killed because he was a witness. Maybe he was killed because he’d analyzed the kimberlite and found out about the diamonds.”

Sellitto muttered, “We weren’t thinking. At Patel’s: Weintraub left before the unsub got there. How much help would he’ve been as a wit? Not much. Our unsub wanted him dead because he knew about the kimberlite.”

Sachs said, “The crimes at Patel’s weren’t about stealing the rough. They were about killing him and anyone who knew about the find. That’s why he tortured Patel — and pistol-whipped Weintraub. He wanted to know if they had any more kimberlite or if anyone else knew about it.”

Rhyme eased the back of his skull against the headrest of his chair, eyes now closed. Then they opened. “Somebody finds a sample at the drilling site. Takes it to Jatin Patel, who has it analyzed by Weintraub. Word gets back to Dobprom. They send Rostov to stop the drilling and kill anyone who’s learned about it.”

McEllis said, “Dobprom wouldn’t want a major U.S. diamond operation to get started. Hell, no foreign mine would. It would cut their revenues in half.”

Mel Cooper asked, “But is there really a risk to the companies? I mean, how realistic is it to mine diamonds in Brooklyn?”

McEllis replied, “Oh, it wouldn’t be hard at all. A lot easier, actually, than digging subway and water supply tunnels, which the city does all the time. Some legal hurdles but they’re not insurmountable. My department would need to approve the plans and there’d be other licensing red tape. We won’t allow open-cut mining, for instance. But you could easily set up a narrow-shaft automated system. From an engineering standpoint, piece of cake.”

But, Rhyme thought, if the goal was to stop the drilling, that means—

Giving voice to what he had been about to say, Sellitto offered, “So Ezekiel Shapiro, he wasn’t a suicide. Rostov murdered him and made it look that way. Kidnapped him, tortured him to get his Facebook passcode, left the suicide note.”

Rhyme was grim as he said, “He needed a fall guy because we’d found that the earthquakes were fake and the fires were from the gas line devices.”

Then it struck him. Like an electric jolt.

“Rubles,” he whispered.

“Hell.” Sachs apparently was with him. “Rostov wouldn’t plant rubles at Shapiro’s. They were evidence that pointed to him. It was somebody else who broke into Shapiro’s apartment, who killed him — somebody who wanted to make it seem like Rostov was behind the plot. Sure, the Russian was involved: He attacked the couple in Gravesend and that girl from the wedding dress store. And Kirtan — Vimal’s friend. Attacked me, too. But he wasn’t the mastermind.”

And the conclusion was inevitable.

In a quiet voice, eyes on Rhyme, she said, “And that was the person who shot him.”

Rhyme knew this was right. “Edward Ackroyd.”

“But,” Sellitto said, “we vetted him. And he knew all about Patel. About the diamond rough that had been stolen.”

“What diamond rough?” Rhyme asked cynically. “Did we ever find it? Did we ever see any trace of it?”

Of course not.

“Because it never existed,” Sachs said,

Rhyme nodded. “He faked the diamond envelope at Patel’s. It never occurred to me! Why leave it? He could have just taken the stones in the envelope. He did that to work his way into the investigation... to find out who VL was. And we let him into the chicken coop. Goddamn.”

“How’d that work, Linc?” Sellitto asked. “Amelia called Grace-Cabot Mining in South Africa.”

Sachs exhaled. Her face was taut and her words angry. “No, I didn’t. I called the number on the envelope for the rough. I didn’t look the company up online. Is it even a real company?”

“Well...” Rhyme cut an impatient glance to Pulaski. He nodded and found the Grace-Cabot receipt, then went to Google.

He was nodding. “It is a real diamond mine. But the office number isn’t the one on the receipt.” He tried that one. “It just says leave a message.”

“Llewellyn Croft?” Rhyme asked.

Pulaski scrolled through the site. “He is the managing director of Grace-Cabot.”

“If you found him, then Ackroyd — I mean our real unsub — could’ve found him too.”

Sachs continued, in a soft, disgusted tone, “The man we talked to, pretending to be Croft, was an associate of Ackroyd’s. Probably in one of those security companies Don was telling us about. He sent us to Milbank Assurance. Same thing, a real company but he faked his connection to it.”

Rhyme snapped, “Now. I want to find out now.”

The ensuing series of phone calls to Grace-Cabot and Milbank Assurance confirmed that the scam was just as they believed. Llewellyn Croft was managing director of the former but he assured them now that he’d never sent any rough to Patel for cutting. He himself hadn’t been in the United States for several years. Nor was Milbank their insurance carrier.

At Rhyme’s request, the FBI special agent Fred Dellray contacted someone in the State Department. They confirmed, from Customs and Border Protection, that Croft had not been in the country recently. Calls to Milbank bore out the fact that the insurance company had no connection to Grace-Cabot. Yes, the company had a senior investigator by the name of Edward Ackroyd and, yes, he was a former Scotland Yard inspector. But he had also been in London for the past week, at the company’s home office.

His face a sardonic mask, Lon Sellitto said, “Okay, for the slow guy: I’m lost. The fuck’s going on, Linc?”

“Some diamond-mining company learns about the kimberlite find and is worried a competitor’s going to start production. Ackroyd’s hired to set up the earthquakes and stop the geothermal drilling. And to find out who knows about the kimberlite and kill them too: Patel and Weintraub and Vimal. He murders the first two but the boy gets away. So Ackroyd claims that his client’s rough was stolen, to work his way into our investigation so he can find out where Vimal is.”

Sellitto asked, “How does Rostov fit in? Were they working together, for the Russians?”

Rhyme said sourly, “You don’t usually shoot your partner in the head.”

Sachs said, “No. Two different companies both heard about the kimberlite. One sent Ackroyd here and Dobprom sent Rostov. Ackroyd set up Rostov to take the fall, if everything went south.”

Rhyme muttered, “I should have seen it! Black polyester fibers at the Patel and Weintraub scenes. Only black cotton at the other. That meant maybe two different types of ski masks. Two different weapons. Glock and Smittie. Look.” He pointed to the recent evidence chart. “Rostov had some nine-millimeter rounds on him at Blaustein’s store but Ackroyd could have slipped those into his pocket.”

“Rhyme!” Sachs sounded alarmed.

He suddenly understood. “Hell. There’s another reason to kill Rostov.”

“Why?” Sellitto asked.

Sachs said, “To make it look like Unsub Forty-Seven’s dead — and Vimal is safe. So we’d release him from protective custody.”

“Is he out?” the lieutenant asked.

Sachs grimaced. “Hell, yes. I called the security detail on Staten Island and they were driving him to the ferry. And Vimal doesn’t have a phone anymore. There’s no way to get in touch with him. I’ll call his family.” She swept out her mobile.

Rhyme said to Sellitto, “And call the precinct in Brooklyn where they took Ackroyd. Tell them to detain him.”

“I’m on it.” The detective placed the call. He had a brief conversation, then, with a grimace, disconnected. “Ackroyd, or whoever he is, he’s been released without charges. His phone’s dead. And the address he gave the shield’s fake. Nobody knows where he is.”

Chapter 59

And now?

Vimal Lahori climbed to the street, out of the oppressive, salt-scented atmosphere of the subway. The tunnel had featured a hint — just a hint — of urine too.

He inhaled deeply. The air was chill and damp, the sky was gray. He was walking past single-family homes, modest homes with trim yards. Populated by husbands and wives and young children, he knew — though there was no visible evidence of the kids. In the suburbs, yards like these were repositories of tricycles and toys. Not in the city.

There weren’t many people on the street here — a woman in a yellow raincoat and carting a grocery bag. A businessman. Both had heads down and shoulders lifted against the chill breeze. What kind of homes were they returning to? Vimal wondered. Pleasant, comforting, he bet. That this was pure speculation didn’t matter; he envied them because he wanted to envy them.

Pausing, he watched a sheet of newspaper float past on the wind. It settled near him on the sidewalk.

Laughing softly, he thought: Paper covers rock.

He crouched and studied the stone at his feet. On this block the walk was bluestone — laid a hundred years ago, maybe more. The name came not from the original color at the quarry — it was gray — but from aging. Over time the rock had transformed to reveal azure shades and sometimes green and red tones. He pressed a hand against one, wondering what it would be like to carve. In this particular piece he saw a bas-relief — a shallow three-dimensional figure of a fish. It would be a good complement to his sculpture The Wave. It would be an easy thing to sculpt. He would simply, like Michelangelo, remove the portions of the slab that were not the koi.

Rising to his feet again, he continued toward his house.

The pleasant thoughts of the fish and of his carving tools awaiting him at home were suddenly, and inevitably, dislocated by another image: Mr. Patel’s feet motionless on the floor of his studio, angling toward the ceiling. This memory kept recurring. Hour after hour. Then that image was in turn displaced by the memories of his own father locking him into the studio, Mr. Nouri’s son’s betrayal, Mr. Weintraub’s death, the police.

Diamonds. Diamonds were to blame.

He shivered briefly in anger.

Then the question rose once again: What now?

In a few minutes Vimal would see his father. What would the man say? Vimal’s desire to leave town was undiminished. But now he didn’t have the excuse to escape — the excuse that a killer was after him... and the excuse that he would be arrested for “stealing” Mr. Patel’s kimberlite, which apparently had no value, after all. The horror was over. And his father would put on the pressure to stay. Would Vimal have the courage to say no?

Safe from the killer. And yet no comfort. How cruel was this?

Well, he would say no. His stomach tightened at the thought. But he’d do it. He would.

He found himself walking more and more slowly. This subconscious braking almost amused him.

About two blocks from his house, he passed a driveway that ran to the back of a brick bungalow. He heard a man’s voice calling out. “Somebody, can you help me? I fell!”

Vimal glanced up the alley. It was the businessman he’d seen a moment ago. He was lying on the ground beside his car.

Yesterday he would’ve been suspicious. But now, with that Russian man dead, he wasn’t worried for his own safety. Not here. In Manhattan, in the Diamond District, he was always on guard. But in this part of Queens, no.

Muggers rarely looked like accountants and wore nice overcoats.

The man had slipped. His leg was bent and he was gripping the limb and moaning. He glanced toward Vimal and said, “Oh, thank God. Please, can you reach my phone? I dropped it under the car.” He winced.

“Sure. Don’t worry. Is it broken? Your leg?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But it hurts to move it.”

Vimal was nearly to the man when he saw something in the bushes. It was a square of white.

A metal sign. He paused and leaned in. He read:

The name of the brokerage firm was underneath it.

He glanced at the windows of the house. They were dark.

In a second, he understood that the man didn’t live here at all! It was a trap! He’d pulled the sign out of the front yard and hidden it so he could lure Vimal here.

Shit. Vimal turned fast but by then the man was on his feet and snagging him, spinning him around. He wasn’t a large man, and his eyes, the color of yellow agate, were placid. Still, when he slammed Vimal into the side of the car, the blow stunned him. The assailant easily dodged Vimal’s sloppy, swinging fist and dropped him to his knees with a fierce blow to the gut. Vimal held up a wait-a-minute hand and vomited.

The man looked around to make sure they were alone. He said, “You going to be sick again?” An oddly accented voice.

Vimal shook his head.

“You’re sure?”

Who was this? A friend of the Russian?

“What do you—”

“Are you sure you’re not going to be sick?”

“No.”

The man bound his hands with silver duct tape and pulled him to the trunk. He seemed to be debating taping his mouth too but was probably worried that he might in fact puke once more and choke to death. He chose not to gag him.

Apparently the assailant was determined to keep him alive.

At least for the time being.

Chapter 60

Driving through a rugged part of industrial Queens, looking for a suitable place for what was next on the schedule.

Andrew Krueger knew, since he’d been released by the police, that they didn’t suspect him. And while he supposed Rhyme and Amelia were quite capable of figuring out the entire scheme given enough time, he knew that didn’t enter into their thoughts much at all, since they were frantically trying to find the next gas bomb. He had placed that one in an old wooden residential building — a literal tinderbox. The fake earthquake would rattle windows soon and not long after, the gas line would start to leach its delightful vapor. Then the explosion.

But Krueger no longer cared about scorched flesh; his only concern was the final question: Where had Vimal found the kimberlite he’d been carrying on Saturday?

Krueger pulled his rented Ford into an industrial park area and found a deserted parking lot of cracked asphalt and weeds. He looked about. No one nearby. No cars, no trucks. No CCTV, though he hardly expected any; the warehouse’s roof had collapsed years ago.

The boy had stopped pounding on the trunk and Krueger had the troubling thought that he might be dead. Could you suffocate in a trunk in this day and age? It seemed unlikely. Had one of the jostling bumps on the roadway or here broken his neck, some freak accident?

Damn well better not have.

He lifted the lid and looked down at Vimal Patel. He was doing fine — if that word could be used to describe somebody who was utterly terrified.

Unlike the late and unlamented Vladimir Rostov, Krueger wasn’t a sadist. He took no pleasure in the boy’s dread. Oh, he would kill anybody he needed to — setting the gas line fires in the apartments, for instance, or murdering Patel and Weintraub — not to mention Rostov himself. But he didn’t torture, at least not for pleasure. Death and pain were simply tools like a dop stick, a scaife turntable and diamond-infused olive oil for brillianteering.

But if he took no pleasure in the boy’s misery, neither did he feel an ounce of sympathy. His mission. That was all that mattered. Keeping the price of diamonds floating high, just shy of heaven.

He pulled the boy from the trunk.

“Please, what do you—?”

“Quiet. Listen to me carefully. Saturday, you walked into Patel’s shop with a bag of kimberlite.”

Vimal frowned. “You were there? You killed Mr. Patel?” Anger replaced the fear in his eyes.

Krueger brandished the razor knife and the boy grew quiet. “I asked you a question. Tell me about the kimberlite. How did Patel get it? Look, I can hurt you a lot. Just tell me.”

“All I know is somebody found a piece in Brooklyn where they were doing that drilling. In a scrap pile.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. A scavenger or somebody, I guess. I’m a sculptor. I do the same thing at construction sites. I pick around for rocks. He probably saw the crystals and thought it might be valuable. He just picked Mr. Patel at random to sell it to.”

“And how did you end up with that bag?”

“Mr. Patel wanted more. I went to look for them but the company? The one doing the drilling? They’d had everything hauled off to a scrapyard.”

Vimal was continuing. “Mr. Patel had me go to the yard to look. I went four times, or five. I finally found a pile of it. That was on Saturday. I was bringing some back to show him.”

Krueger asked, “How much kimberlite was there?”

“Not much.”

“What do you mean by not much?”

“A dozen bigger pieces — about the size of your fist. Mostly fragments and dust.”

“Where is this yard?”

“Near Cobble Hill. C and D Waste Transfer Station Number Four.”

Construction and demolition, Krueger supposed.

“What’s Cobble Hill?”

“A neighborhood. In Brooklyn.”

Krueger said, “Where?” He called up a map on his phone and the boy glanced down but then gazed off.

Krueger said, “Look. Don’t worry. Killing you wouldn’t fit my plans. The one taking the blame for this whole thing, a fellow from Russia, he’s already dead. For you to die now, that means the police would start looking for another suspect. You’re safe.”

A nod. He was miserable and angry but he saw the logic.

Faulty logic, though it was: Of course, the boy would be dead soon... and the killer identified as a partner of Rostov’s, another — a fictional — Russian. After killing Vimal, Krueger would rip his clothing, as if he’d fought with his assailant. He’d then plant a bit of evidence here, near the body, things he’d taken from Rostov’s motel — tobacco from a Russian cigarette, a few ruble coins — that would appear to have been scattered in the struggle. And he’d leave a prepaid phone somewhere nearby, too. The phone, free of fingerprints, had a dozen or more calls to Dobprom and various random numbers in Russia embedded in memory. Krueger had placed the calls himself after he’d shot Rostov.

Perfectly tidy? No. But a reasonable explanation for the boy’s death.

“Well?”

Vimal hesitated and then pointed to a spot on the map. It was not far away.

Krueger helped him back into the trunk, closed the lid and then drove out of the desolate parking lot. In twenty minutes they were at the dump site.

He drove through the wide gate, ignored by the few workers here, and the vehicle rocked slowly along a wide path, marred with deep tire treads. The yard was easily the size of a half-dozen soccer pitches. Hundreds of twenty- and thirty-foot-high piles of refuse rose like miniature mountains, composed of stone, plasterboard, metal, wood, concrete... every building material you could imagine. He supposed that salvage companies, for a fee, were allowed to prowl through the refuse and pick what might be valuable. He smiled to himself thinking that these companies would be delighted to find copper pipe and wiring, and ignore the diamond-rich kimberlite, which was the clue that somewhere in the ground not far away lurked material worth a million times more.

He parked behind one of these mounds, out of view of the highway, the entrance and the workers.

He climbed out of the Ford and pulled Vimal from the trunk.

Krueger lifted the knife. Vimal shied. “Just the tape,” the man told him. He sliced through it, freeing his hands. He put the knife away and displayed the gun in his waistband. “Run and I’ll use it.”

“No. I won’t.”

“Go on.”

They started through the dun and gray valleys, moving parallel to the water, where the barges were being filled with debris by bulldozers and dump trucks. The sound was overwhelming.

“Where?”

The young man looked around, orienting himself. “That way.” He nodded his head toward the waterfront. The two of them wove through the yard, Vimal pausing occasionally and gazing about, then continuing on, turning left and right. He muttered, “There’s been more dumping. A lot of it. It doesn’t look the same.”

Krueger’s impression was that the kid wasn’t stalling. He seemed truly confused.

Then he squinted. “That way. I’m sure.” Another nod.

They searched for ten minutes. Then Krueger paused. He glanced down and saw a bit of kimberlite in the rut left by a large truck tire. He pocketed it.

They were headed the right way.

What a grim place this was. The March weather had cast a gray pall over the earth, turning it to the shade of a corpse at a postmortem. Humid and cold, crawling up your spine, along your legs and thighs to your groin. It reminded Krueger of a huge open-cut diamond mine he’d been to years ago in Russia. A thought occurred to him: His job, of course, was to make sure that the pipe containing the kimberlite was never discovered, and no diamond-mining operation opened here. But what, he thought, might workers have found if a mine had opened? His evaluation was that the lode contained very high-quality gems.

Could it be that beneath the earth at the Northeast Geo Industries site there rested a diamond for all time? Krueger thought of two stones from his own country: The Cullinan, which when mined weighed over thirty-one hundred carats, making it the largest gem-quality diamond ever found. The stone was cut into more than one hundred smaller diamonds, including the Great Star of Africa, more than five hundred carats, and the Lesser Star of Africa, more than three hundred. Those two finished gems are part of the British Crown Jewels. Krueger’s favorite South African stone was the Centenary Diamond. The weight as rough was 599 carats. It was cut to more than 270. A modified heart-shaped brilliant, it was the largest colorless flawless diamond in the world.

Krueger’s role in keeping such a diamond buried would sting.

But this was his job, and he would see it through.

“Keep going,” he muttered to Vimal. “The sooner we finish, the sooner you can get home to your family.”

Chapter 61

Amelia Sachs was just off the Brooklyn Bridge, a few minutes from the Northeast Geo operation, her destination. The Torino’s engine sang at a high pitch.

Rhyme’s thinking had been that Ackroyd — or whatever his name might be — didn’t want simply to kill Vimal Lahori. Not yet. He needed to find out where the boy had picked up the kimberlite on Saturday morning before he’d walked into the carnage at Patel’s. Ackroyd’s assignment would be to destroy or dump every bit of kimberlite he could find, before fleeing, and the one logical place for that would be the drilling site.

The operation was still closed, and Ackroyd and Vimal could wander it with impunity, as the boy pointed out where the kimberlite samples had been found.

She was about to exit the highway when her phone hummed. She tapped the Answer button, then Speaker, and set the phone on the passenger seat to downshift from fourth to third. The car skidded around a slow-moving van.

“I’m here.”

Lon Sellito said, “Amelia. I’ve got somebody who wants to talk to you. I’m patching her through.”

Her?

“Sure.” She eased off the gas.

A click and another. Then a woman’s voice. “Detective Sachs?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“I’m Adeela Badour.”

“Vimal’s friend.”

“Yes, that’s right.” The woman’s voice was concerned but steady. “Detective Sellitto called and told me Vimal has disappeared. You’re trying to find him.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“I don’t know for certain. But Detective Sellitto told me about the diamonds and the drilling. And that the man who might have kidnapped him was interested in some rocks Vimal had. Well, on Saturday, the morning he was shot, he called me from the subway. He was angry. Mr. Patel had given him a job — to go to a junkyard somewhere and prowl around to find something. Some particular kind of rocks.”

The kimberlite, Sachs understood.

“And when I saw him later that night, he had a piece of rock lodged under the skin.”

“Yes, the bullet hit a bag of stones he had. Lon, are you there?”

“Yeah, Amelia.”

Sachs said, “That’s where they’re going. He’s taken Vimal to the junkyard. To find the kimberlite. Not to the drilling site.”

“Got it. I’ll find out where Northeast Geo dumps their waste.”

“Get in touch with the site manager. A guy named Schoal. Or if you can’t get through to him, call the CEO. What was his name? He was on the news. Dwyer, I think.”

“I’ll get right back to you.”

Sachs asked, “Adeela, did Vimal say anything more about where he was on Saturday?”

“No.”

“Well, thanks. This’s important.”

“I gave Detective Sellitto my number. If you hear anything...” Now Adeela’s voice cracked. She controlled it instantly. “If you hear about him, please call.”

“I will. Yes.”

The young woman disconnected.

Sachs veered onto the shoulder to wait, earning two horns and a middle finger. Ignored them all.

“Come on, come on,” she whispered, a plea to Lon Sellitto. Her leg bobbed impatiently and she resolved not to stare at her phone.

She stared at her phone.

Then put it facedown on the bucket seat beside her.

Three excruciating minutes later Sellitto called back. Schoal had told him that all the stone scrap and drilling residue from the Northeast Geo operation in Brooklyn was hauled to C&D Transfer Station #4. On the water, east of Cobble Hill. He explained, “Hundreds of companies use it, from all over the city.”

“Got it,” she said. She slammed the shifter forward into first and popped the clutch, hitting the flow of traffic in three seconds and exceeding it in five.

She knew the scrapyard and barge dock. They were south of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Piers, about five minutes away — at least in the Torino — if traffic cooperated. Which it decidedly was not doing. She set the blue flasher on her dash, downshifted and returned to the shoulder. She accelerated again, hoping fervently that nobody would have a flat and swerve in front of her.

“Lon, my ETA’s five minutes, I hope. Get uniforms and ESU to the scrapyard. Silent roll-up.”

“Will do, Amelia.”

She didn’t bother to shut off the phone, letting Sellitto disconnect. Sachs didn’t dare remove her hands from the wheel as she sped along the rough shoulder, with side-view mirrors inches from the concrete abutment on the right and traffic on the left.

Thinking: Am I too late?

She traded sixty miles an hour for eighty.

Chapter 62

Sachs beat the blue-and-whites and ESU to the debris transfer station.

She skidded into the site — a sprawling yard, which she remembered as a dusty, shimmering sprawl in the summer but was now forbidding and gray. The large gate was open and she saw no security. There was no parking lot, per se, but as she cruised around, the Torino bounding over the rough ground, she came upon a level area, free of scrap, between two large mounds of shattered concrete and rotting wood and plaster. A Ford was parked here, by itself; all the other vehicles were dump trucks and bulldozers. The few personal vehicles were pickup trucks and SUVs.

She skidded to a stop and climbed out. Drawing her weapon, she made her way cautiously to the Ford. Nobody inside.

She reached inside, pulled the trunk release.

A huge relief seeing the empty space.

Vimal Lahori was, possibly, still alive.

A flash of motion caught her eye. Two squad cars from the local precinct sped up and stopped nearby. Four officers, all in uniform, climbed out.

“Detective,” one said, his voice soft. She knew the slim, sandy-haired officer. Jerry Jones, a ten-year, or so, veteran.

“Jones, call in the tag.”

He fitted an earbud — to keep his Motorola quiet — and put in the request. Adding, “Need it now. We’re in a tactical situation. K.”

She nodded to him and the others — two white men and an African American woman. “You got the description of our perp?”

They all had.

Sachs said, “We’ve got one of his weapons but assume he’s armed again. Glock Nines may be his weapon of choice. No evidence of long guns. He’ll have a knife too. Box cutter. Remember that the younger man with him is a hostage. Indian, dark hair, twenty-two. I don’t know what he’s wearing. The suspect was last seen in a tan overcoat but he’s worn dark outer clothes, too. We want this perp alive, if there’s any way. He’s got information we need.”

Jones said, “He’s planted those gas bombs, right?”

“Yeah. It’s him.”

“What’s he want here?” the woman officer asked.

“A pile of rock.”

The uniforms glanced toward one another.

No time to explain further.

“Jones, you and I go west, to the docks. You three, south. You’re going to stand out in your uniforms, against the landscape—” It was beige and light gray. “—So keep your eye out for sniping positions. He’ll kill to take out witnesses. No reason to think he won’t target us.”

“Sure, Detective,” one of the uniforms called and the trio started off.

She and Jones moved perpendicular to them, toward the water.

Jones’s radio gave a quiet clatter. He listened. She couldn’t hear the transmission. A moment later he told her, “ESU, ten minutes away.”

The two of them moved quickly through the valleys between the piles of rock and refuse. Jones cocked his head — he’d be receiving a transmission through his earbud. And whispered, “K.” He then turned to Sachs. “Vehicle on monthlong lease from a dealer in Queens. Lessee is Andrew Krueger. South African driver’s license. Address in Cape Town. Gave an address in New York but it’s a vacant lot.”

The uniform lifted his phone and showed an image of the driver’s license photo. “That him?”

Confirming that Krueger had been acting the role of Ackroyd all along. She nodded.

Like Rostov, Krueger would be one of those security operatives in the diamond business, working for a competitor to Dobprom.

You don’t usually shoot your partner in the head...

Now Sachs brought all her senses to the game. In a recent case a suspect — a bit psychotic, more than a bit fascinating — had decided that Sachs was an incarnation of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt.

One of her finest compliments, even if it had come from a crazy man.

They moved as fast as they dared. Sachs and Jones kept low, scanning constantly, left right, the ridges of the trash mounds, which were indeed perfect sniper nests. Breathing hard, muscles knotted.

Oh, how Amelia Sachs loved this.

She ignored the pain in her left side from the fall at the muddy grave at the construction site, ignored the pain from her run-in with the Russian. There was nothing in her mind except her prey.

She used hand signals to tell Jones where to look, when to hurry, when to slow. He did the same from time to time. She suspected he’d never been in a firefight. Uneasy, tense but willing... and able: He held his Glock with confidence and skill.

They proceeded slowly. She didn’t want to stumble on Krueger and force a gunfight; she needed to find him, unawares, for a bloodless takedown.

Alive...

She also didn’t want him circling around on her and Jones. Two hundred feet away a huge backhoe was filling a barge with scrap. The roaring engine and the clatter and boom of the rock tumbling into the vessel obscured all sounds. Krueger could easily get close to them without their hearing.

So she scanned forward, to the sides and behind. Constantly.

Another fifty feet. Where, where, where?

She and Jones were nearly to the water when she spotted them.

Between two large piles of rocks and timber and twisted metal, Krueger was pulling Vimal along behind him. In a gloved left hand he gripped the kid’s collar; his right was under his short, dark jacket. He’d be holding his weapon.

Jones pointed to himself, then to the crest of the scrap pile near Krueger and Vimal. It was on the officer’s right, about twenty feet high. He then pointed to Sachs and made a semicircular gesture, indicating the pile on the left.

Good tactical plan. Jones would cover Krueger from above and Sachs would flank him. She pointed back to their staging area, held up three fingers — meaning the other officers — and pointed a palm his way. Meaning to have them hold position. Sachs didn’t want the others stumbling onto the scene and she had no way of explaining to them exactly where the target was.

Jones stepped aside and made a quiet call to the others. He holstered his weapon and began climbing the debris pile. Sachs trotted to the left, around the base of the mound to the right and began to close on where she’d last seen Krueger and Vimal.

As she eased around the pile, she noted that, yes, it was going to work, if she could just get closer. Jones was atop the debris heap to the right and had his weapon trained on Krueger. Sachs just needed to close the distance a bit more so she could demand his surrender — over the sound of the chugging backhoes and bulldozers.

Jones looked her way and nodded.

She reciprocated and then moved closer yet toward the suspect and Vimal, who had stopped. Krueger’s cold face — so different from the man he’d pretended to be — bent close and whispered something into his ear. The kid, who was crying and wiping tears, nodded and looked around. Then he pointed and the two of them turned abruptly and hurried down another valley, away from Sachs and Jones. Apparently Vimal had spotted the piles of kimberlite.

She glanced at Jones, who shook his head and pointed to his eyes. He’d lost sight. Sachs rounded the base of the mound closest to Krueger and began to follow. Then she looked beyond them.

Oh, no...

Not far away one of the male NYPD officers was crouching, with his back to Krueger, no more than twenty feet away. Without hesitating, Krueger whipped his pistol from beneath his jacket and fired a round into the officer’s back. The uniform plunged forward, dropping his own weapon. Sachs had noted that they wore body armor but at that range, even a slug stopped by armor would incapacitate him. He struggled to rise.

Krueger flung his left arm around Vimal’s throat, so he wouldn’t run, pulling him close. Together they moved toward the injured officer.

Sachs, behind them, stepped closer to the downed cop, drawing a target. “Krueger!” she shouted. “Drop the weapon.”

He didn’t hear and took one step closer, aiming, about to fire a fatal round.

Any incapacitating shot she might try would possibly hit Vimal too.

So, with the thought in her mind that only Krueger knew where the deadly gas bombs were planted, Amelia Sachs lowered her center of gravity, settled the white dot of the front sight on the back of Krueger’s head and gently added pressure to the trigger until her weapon fired.

Chapter 63

Now that they knew the name Andrew Krueger, they could assemble an accurate dossier on him.

While Sachs was searching the deceased’s residence motel in Brooklyn Heights, Rhyme, Fred Dellray from the FBI, the South African Police and ever-helpful Alternative Intelligence Service began filling in details.

The killer’s residence was a flat in Cape Town, not far from the water, in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront area. According to the South African Police, it was quite the posh neighborhood. The man had no criminal record but following his discharge from the army he’d been associated with some “dodgy” businessmen in the diamond trade. Though his father had been a vocal advocate of apartheid, Krueger himself rejected those prejudices, either because they were repugnant to him or, more likely, because they were not economically beneficial. He would work for anyone in the trade who would pay him, including some of the more dangerous “black diamond” businessmen, whose roots had been the impoverished squatter townships but who were now wealthy. When in the army, Krueger worked demolition. In civilian life, in his younger days, he’d been in mining and had studied engineering, which explained how he could rig the explosives to mimic earthquakes. It was his military connections, of course, that gave him access to both the C4 and gas line bombs.

Krueger’s company was AK Associates. He was managing director; his partner was a former mine labor enforcer, Terrance DeVoer. The company specialized in “security work” for the gem and precious metals and materials industries.

That vague description translated, one SAP detective told them, as “corporate mercenary.” Attempts to interview DeVoer were unsuccessful; he and his wife had disappeared.

When he’d been among Rhyme, Sachs and the others, Krueger, as Ackroyd, had professed a knowledge of the diamond world and this wasn’t fiction. A raid on his Cape Town digs by the SAP revealed a genuine obsession with the stones: Hundreds of books on the subject, photographs, and documents about diamonds, from the scientific to the cultural to the artistic. He himself, one inspector said, had even written poetry about the gems.

“Very bad verse, I will tell you.”

They found actual diamonds too. Rough and finished. Close to two million dollars’ worth, another investigator said. An odd display sat on Krueger’s bedside table, the officer added. A low-power spotlight was aimed upward from underneath a lens of clear glass, on which Krueger had placed a dozen diamonds. The light beamed the translucent forms of the stones onto the ceiling, like constellations, the edges of each one radiating with the colors of rainbows.

Rhyme recalled that the name for this refraction was “fire.”

The raid revealed the likely employer. Bank records showed that two wire transfers of $250K each had been deposited at Krueger’s company. They originated from a numbered account in Guatemala City. These had been received within the past two weeks. The memos on the wires reported the payments were for “Installment 1” and Installment 2.”

The police also found printouts about a company called Nuevo Mundo Minería — New World Mining — a diamond producer located in Guatemala City.

But nothing in the raid or an examination of police records, including Interpol and Europol, had revealed what they needed so desperately: information about where the final gas IEDs had been planted.

Maybe the evidence from Krueger’s motel would have that answer. He was about to find out. He could tell this from the roar of a sports car engine and the squeal of brakes in the street outside his town house.

Sachs had walked the grid — twice — at Krueger’s extended-stay motel in Brooklyn Heights.

Lincoln Rhyme and she were now looking over the results of her efforts. Mel Cooper was processing some of the finds, as well. McEllis was still present, waiting to help them narrow down the possible locations that the bombs might be, based on his knowledge of the half-mile-long geologic fault.

In Krueger’s motel were diagrams of the geothermal site, photos of the drilling operation, maps of the area around the site, articles about explosions whose seismic profile had been mistaken for earthquakes, emails from untraceable accounts with attachments on the diamond content of kimberlite samples, echoing what Don McEllis had told them. Krueger had researched Ezekiel Shapiro and the One Earth movement as well. The dead environmentalist’s address was on a Post-it note.

Sachs had found an attaché case that matched the one Krueger’d had with him at Patel’s. It contained a small but powerful portable microscope, some tools and pieces of kimberlite. He’d taken it with him to Patel’s shop to analyze the rock, Rhyme supposed. If the kimberlite proved diamond-rich, he’d steal it and torture Patel to find more information. Here too was a carton that contained traces of RDX, the main component of C4, and another with the label on the side:. Which was Hebrew for “thermostats” — which the gas line IEDs were meant to impersonate.

Sachs taped up pictures of the rooms. She said, “One thing real? His love of crossword puzzles. He had dozens of puzzle books.”

This reminded Rhyme.

He glanced at the present — the electronic cryptic crossword device the killer had given Rhyme.

Edward Ackroyd — the man he thought he could become friends with.

Five-letter word beginning with J meaning “betrayer.” Then he shot that moment of melodrama dead.

He told Mel Cooper, “See if there’s a transmitter inside.”

“A—”

“See if he fucking bugged us.”

“Ah.” Using a set of miniature computer tools, Cooper removed the backing. He looked it over and scanned it with a transmission-detecting wand.

“Nothing. It’s safe.”

He started to reassemble it. But Rhyme said softly, “No, throw it out.”

“You don’t want—”

“Throw it out.”

Cooper did, and Rhyme and Sachs returned to the evidence.

Where the hell were the gas line bombs?

No maps or notes suggested an answer. Krueger’s computer was locked and had gone to Rodney Szarnek downtown, along with two burner phones, and the one he’d had with him at the waste site in Brooklyn — which was not locked and showed calls to a number in Moscow. The numbers had been dialed after Rostov had died, and Rhyme believed that Krueger himself had done so to make it seem that Vimal’s killer was an unknown associate of Rostov. This was exceedingly unlikely — especially since Sachs also found a Russian cigarette and rubles in Krueger’s pocket, meant, obviously, to be strewn around Vimal’s body. A feint.

Unlikely, yes, but until Rodney confirmed the calls were made at the same place that Krueger’s phones had been located, Vimal would stay safely in a local precinct house.

Sachs had also found the keys to the now-infamous Toyota — though its whereabouts weren’t known — and Rostov’s residence.

Mel Cooper said, “I’ve got some things on the mining company in Guatemala. New World. Big outfit with diamond mines throughout Latin America, producing mostly industrial-grade. Not the nicest crew on earth. They’ve been accused by environmentalists and the government of destroying rain forests with strip mining, clear-cutting, things like that. They pay small miners, garimpeiros, to raid indigenous lands. There’re battles — real battles. Dozens of miners and Indians have been killed.”

Rhyme called Fred Dellray at the FBI once again, and asked if he could tap some of his State Department contacts to have security and the U.S. embassy or consulate in Guatemala City talk to executives at the mining company.

As if they’d cooperate, he thought sardonically.

“Let’s look over the trace,” Rhyme said.

Among the items found by Sachs were raw honey, rotting felt, clay soil, shreds of old electrical wire insulation, bits of insect wings, probably from genus Apis (bees — the honey helped in this speculation, though they might be unrelated). Also, on a pair of boots in the motel she’d found traces of unusual agricultural soil — lightweight, absorbent shale and clay and compost containing flecks of straw and hay — and organic fertilizer.

“Ah.”

“What, Lincoln?”

He didn’t respond to Cooper but went online and gave the Google microphone a command. “Composition of Rooflite.” Sometimes you needed esoteric databases, sometimes you didn’t.

The answer came back in milliseconds.

“Yes!”

Sachs, Cooper and McEllis turned his way.

Rhyme said, “It’s sketchy but we don’t have much else to go with. I think he planted one device, at least, north of the government buildings in Cadman Plaza. In Vinegar Hill.”

This was an old area of Brooklyn, adjacent to the old Navy Yard. Named after the battle in Ireland in 1798 between Irish rebels and British troops, the neighborhood was a curious mix: quaint residences from Victorian times encircled by grim, imposing industrial structures.

“How do you know?” Cooper asked.

He knew because, though he couldn’t prowl the streets as he used to when he was mobile, Lincoln Rhyme still studied every borough, every neighborhood, every block of his city. “A criminalist is only as good as his or her knowledge of the locale where the crime occurs,” he wrote in his forensics textbook.

The specific answer to the question was the combination of bee wings, honey, that Rooflite soil, fertilizer and felt. He believed those materials had come from the Brooklyn Grange at the old Navy Yard. It was the largest rooftop farm in the world, two and a half acres devoted to raising organic fruits and vegetables. Rooflite was a soil substance in which vegetables could grow quite well but that weighed far less than regular soil, which would be too heavy for rooftop gardening. The Grange also was a major producer of honey.

The closest residential area to it was Vinegar Hill, filled with old wooden structures. Perfect targets for Krueger, whose goal had been to rouse the city and state into banning the drilling. The more deadly fires the “earthquakes” caused, the better.

Don McEllis hunched over the map of the city and with a red marker drew exactly where the fault line ran under Vinegar Hill. It headed northwest then jogged north into the harbor.

“Here. I’d look about three blocks on either side of that.”

It would be a much more concise search than the entire fault, but there were still scores of buildings whose basements might contain the gas line devices.

“Scan the map, Mel, and get a copy to the supervisors — fire and police — in the area. Do it now.”

“Sure.”

“Sachs, you and Pulaski get down there.”

As they hurried out the door, Rhyme said, “Mel, call Fire... and the local precinct. Get as many bodies as they can spare, checking basements. Oh, and call the Detective Bureau, too. Larceny. Have somebody pull recent break-ins where nothing was taken.”

Cooper nodded and picked up his phone.

Rhyme called: “And not just Patrol. I want anybody with a badge. Anybody!”

Chapter 64

Almost impossible.

That was Sachs’s impression as she sped her Torino, a deep-red blur, along the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn. She was glancing to her left — at Vinegar Hill. Ron Pulaski was probably feeling the same.

How could anyone possibly find the devices? Dominated by a single, towering smokestack from Algonquin Power’s electrical substation, the neighborhood was bigger than she’d expected. Six square blocks, the precinct commander had told her. But small blocks they were not.

She downshifted and tore off the exit ramp, skidding onto Jay Street, drawing a faint gasp from Ron Pulaski, though after all these years he was pretty immune to her Danica Patrick approach to driving. The blue flasher cut silently but urgently through the shadowy street, lined with industrial buildings, houses, apartments and residential lofts. The brick and stucco and stone walls were scuffed and scraped but largely graffiti-free. The trash cans were battered and cracked but the garbage remained inside.

The muscle car had bad-girl suspension and she felt the road in her back and knee, still sore from the abuse of the past few days. And the streets of Vinegar Hill were not all fully paved. The original Belgian block, sometimes erroneously called cobblestones, had worn through in many stretches. In others the granite rectangles, smoothed by centuries of horse, foot and wheel traffic, had never been asphalted over and were the only roadway.

Sachs swung the car toward John Street, the agreed-upon staging area. It was across from the substation, the sprawling yard like a science-fiction film set. Gray metal boxes, wires, transformers. She skidded to a stop in front of a red brick industrial building. Probably a factory in a former life, it was now home to a half-dozen advertising agencies, design firms and boutique manufacturers. “Monti’s Gourmet Chocolates” occupied the ground floor, and her nose told her the company made their enticing products on-site. She wondered when she’d last eaten. Couldn’t remember. Then forgot the question altogether.

In addition to four fire trucks and an FDNY battalion chief’s car, a half-dozen blue-and-whites and an unmarked sat clustered on the substation side of John Street. There were eight uniformed officers, two plainclothes detectives and a captain from the precinct, wearing a suit. He was a tall African American, lean, with skin very dark and a perfectly bald head. Archie Williams. She’d worked with him before. Liked his humor. He’d once put a very shaken assault victim at ease by saying, No, no, it would be easy to remember his name: Archibald. And he pointed to his shiny skull.

Williams said, “Detective.” He then glanced at Pulaski, who identified himself. A nod.

Beside the captain was the FDNY battalion chief, in uniform. The pale, stocky man was in his mid-fifties. Vincent Stanello. When he shook hands, Sachs was aware of an extensive scar, from a burn years ago.

He explained that firefighters were spreading out throughout the neighborhood with gas keys — long rods used to shut off gas mains underground, whose valves were accessed through small square doors on streets and sidewalks and in yards. “We’ve got a half-dozen shutoff teams working. Captain Rhyme said to stick to a swath through the center of Vinegar Hill. His office sent us this.” He held up his phone, which showed Don McEllis’s map.

“It’s the fault line. We need to search about two blocks on either side.”

Stanello sighed. “You know, we’ve got miles of pipes here. And you have to remember, we can only shut off utility-supplied natural gas. A lot of customers use propane from private companies. There’s no way to shut that off except at the tank in the home or office.”

Williams said, “I’ve told our Central Robbery people to drop everything else and start checking the paperwork. And we’ve got a bot running the nine-one-one tapes from Vinegar Hill.” He shrugged. “But unless somebody saw him in the act, I’d bet it wasn’t even called in.”

Williams asked, “When did he plant the device?”

Pulaski said, “Sometime in the past week, we think. Ten days. We aren’t sure.”

“So CCTVs won’t do much good,” Sachs said. Looking around at the hundreds of structures — all old and largely built of wood.

Sachs said, “Evacuate.”

“Evacuate what?” Stanello asked.

“Everything. Every building for two blocks on either side of that fault.”

“That’d be chaos,” Stanello said uncertainly. “There could be injuries. Elderly residents, children.”

Williams said, “And the press’ll have a field day if there is no bomb.”

“And what’ll they say if there is one and we don’t get people out?” Amelia Sachs hated to have to state the obvious.

The supervisors, Williams and Stanello, regarded each other.

The battalion chief asked, “You sure there’s a device in Vinegar Hill?”

Sachs thought: Sure? What exactly is sure?

She said, “Absolutely.” Then added a truthful component: “And he’s set one every day for the past two days. No reason to think he’ll change his pattern now. And if the prior devices’re any indication, we’re late in the day at this point. I’m thinking it’ll detonate at any time.”

A moment of silence. Then Williams said, “All right, we’ll do it. Evacuate as many as we can, check the gas lines in the basements, mark them safe and the residents can go back in.”

Stanello nodded. He lifted his radio to his lips and gave the command to his officer to start evacuating residents.

“And there’s a school here, right?” Pulaski asked.

“PS Three Oh Seven. A few blocks away.”

“Empty it,” the young officer said.

“It’s not along the center line,” Stanello said, nodding at the map on his phone.

Sachs was about to intervene but Pulaski said firmly, “It’s a school day. Evacuate it.”

Stanello paused a moment. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Williams walked to his officers. “Everybody, into cars. Loudspeakers. Just say there’s a possible gas leak, and everybody should leave the buildings immediately. Don’t take any belongings, just leave.”

“Come on,” Sachs said to Pulaski. “We’ll start knocking on doors too.” She called to Williams and Stanello, “We’ll start south, work our way east then north.”

They piled into the Torino and sped down to York. Pulaski was looking around, his face troubled. “How many people you think live here? Where his target zone is?”

She guessed the population of Vinegar Hill was fifty thousand or so. Much less in the area around the fault but she supposed a good number. “This time of day, eight thousand.”

“How many you realistically think we can evacuate?”

Sachs’s answer was a grim laugh.

Chapter 65

Carmella Romero often said, gravely, that she was a spy.

The fifty-eight-year-old had shared that comment with her four children and eleven grandchildren. The basis for her claim was that she worked for the government as an agent.

Though in her case, the employer wasn’t the CIA or James Bond’s Secret Service. It was the New York City Traffic Enforcement.

The stocky, gray-haired woman, a lifetime resident of Brooklyn, had decided two years ago after her last daughter had flown the nest that she was going to get a job. A fan of TV shows about police, like Blue Bloods, she thought a career in law enforcement might be nice (and Tom Selleck could be her commissioner any day!).

Being a gun-toting cop wasn’t in her future, given her age (the cutoff at NYPD is thirty-five), but there was no age limit for TEAs. Also, she was regularly furious when Mr. Prill, a neighbor, parked wherever the hell he wanted to — in front of the hydrant, on the sidewalk, in the crosswalk. And he was rude when you called him on it! Imagine. And she decided she’d had it. He and people like him weren’t going to get away with anything anymore. Carmella Romero had a sense of humor, as well, and appreciated that quality in others. She’d loved it when Traffic Enforcement put up signs: Don’t Even Think of Parking Here. How could she not want to go to work for an outfit like that?

No, she wasn’t in the Blue Bloods world of law enforcement but now she had a chance to do something a little closer to what real cops did. She and all the other TEAs (never “brownies,” don’t ever say that), as well as every city worker in this part of Brooklyn, had been enlisted to evacuate buildings and get into basements in Vinegar Hill to see if there was a little white device that looked like a thermostat attached to the gas line.

An IED!

Improvised explosive device. (She knew the phrase thanks to, ta-da, a case that Tom Selleck’s son had run; it didn’t come up much in Traffic Enforcement briefings.)

Carmella Rosina Romero was Bomb Squad Girl for a day.

The block she had been given contained three-, four- and five-story walk-ups. Like many in Brooklyn, with easy access to Manhattan, they would be packed with tenants. And the construction was old. Oh, there should have been recent renovations to bring them up to code — maybe, if the landlords were honest — but the buildings still would be tinderboxes, compared with new construction.

She was walking to the first one on her “beat,” on the corner, when she froze.

Beneath her there was a trembling.

Was that it? The fake earthquake she and the other city folks had been briefed about?

Her radio clattered, “Be advised. All those on evac duty. That was confirmed as a detonation of an IED near Cadman Plaza. Evacuation is now critical. You’ve got about ten minutes until secondary explosion and fire.”

Romero sped forward on stocky legs, feet pointed outward, to the corner building, intent on hitting the intercom and ordering the evacuation.

Flaw: No intercoms. Not even a doorbell. You apparently had to let somebody know ahead of time you were coming to call. Or maybe you just shouted your arrival.

She shouted.

No response.

Think, woman. Think, Agent! What the hell? Pulling a loose paver from the street, she smashed the glass of the door and leapt back from the falling shards. She opened the door from inside and burst into the building, calling, “Police. Gas emergency, evacuate the building!” Pounding on doors and repeating the warning.

A door in the back opened and a Latino man in T-shirt and jeans stepped out, frowning. He was, it turned out, the superintendent. She told him about the danger and, wide-eyed, he nodded, promising he’d tell the tenants.

Her radio clattered, “TEA Romero, come in. K.”

With a thumping heart — she’d never been summoned by dispatch before — she called in. “Romero here. K.”

“You’re on Front Street?”

“Affirmative. K.”

“Further to the evac, Central Robbery in Brooklyn reported a break-in a week ago. Eight Oh Four Front. Somebody in hard hat and safety vest was seen using a bolt cutter to get through the basement window. Nothing was missing. That’s the profile of the suspect. We think he might’ve put the device in there.”

“It’s three doors down from me!” Then she reminded herself of protocol and said, “K.”

She said this coolly. But was thinking, Dios mío! Crap!

“We’ve got Bomb Squad on the way, Romero. Try to get out as many as you can. You’ve got about nine minutes left. Keep that in mind.”

In the distance, sirens began to wail.

“Roger. K.”

She sprinted to the building, an old one, four stories high. It wasn’t the biggest on the street but it was the most vulnerable, given its all-wood frame. It would go up like a gasoline-soaked rag. The windows were closed against the March chill but she could see lights inside some of the front-facing ones.

No intercom again.

And this building didn’t have a door containing a window; it was solid wood.

Hell.

Eight minutes left, she reckoned.

She looked at the basement windows, protected by metal grates, which were secured by heavy-duty padlocks.

“Get out!” Romero began shouting. “Gas leak. Get out!”

Nobody responded. She picked up a stone and flung it at a second-floor window — the first-story windows were, like the basement, protected by gratings. The projectile shattered a pane. If anybody was inside, they didn’t notice or chose not to respond.

Yes, this was the target. She could smell the gas now.

“Evacuate!”

No response.

Looking around, she noted a line of cars parallel-parked across from the building. She noted a Lexus and other nice vehicles too, in addition to some more modest wheels. If Agent Carmella Romero knew anything, it was cars. She walked up to the Lexus and kneed it hard in the front fender, denting the metal. The alarm began braying.

She passed by the Taurus and a Subaru. But slugged a Mercedes and an Infiniti. Horns sounding fiercely.

Windows began opening. On the top floor of the building, Romero noted a woman and two small children looking out.

“Get out! There’s a gas leak!”

Her uniform apparently added authority to the command. The woman disappeared fast. Several others appeared in windows too and she repeated the command in English and Spanish.

Romero looked up and down the street. No Bomb Squad yet. No other police.

Six minutes now.

The front door was opening and people were running out. The smell of gas was very strong. She held the door and encouraged them to run, as she shouted loudly into the dim hall, “Gas leak, gas leak! Evacuation. The building’s going to blow!”

If even just three-quarters of the apartments were occupied, there had to be at least twenty or thirty people remaining inside. Some asleep maybe, some disabled.

No way to get them all out.

A deep breath. Carmella Romero, flashing on Commissioner Selleck, ran to the basement door. She descended the rickety stairs on her thick, sure legs. Her nose tightened at the rotten-egg smell of the gas odorant. A wave of nausea hit her.

The basement was damp and dim, the only light from the grated windows in the front, small ones, above eye level. It was hard to see anything at all, let alone a tiny device on a gas line, which was probably intentionally hidden from sight. But there was no way she was going to click a light on.

Thinking: We’re looking for bombs in basements; they damn well could’ve issued us flashlights.

Four or five minutes left, she guessed.

There seemed to be three rooms down here, large rooms. The one in the front, where she stood, was mostly for storage. A fast examination revealed wires overhead and sewage pipes but nothing that seemed to carry gas. The second room contained the furnace and water heater, dozens of pipes and tubing and wires. The smell of gas was stronger here. Romero was growing light-headed and felt about to faint. She jogged to a window, shattered a pane with her elbow, took a deep breath and returned to the second room, searching among the labyrinth of pipes and tubing for the device.

She glanced toward the water heater but noted that it was electric. She found the furnace. The unit was hot but wasn’t running at the moment. Of course there’d be a pilot light or some kind of ignition device. Apart from the bomb that man had planted, the heating unit itself might turn on at any moment, igniting the gas. She found and pressed the emergency cutoff switch.

Dizzy once more, she dropped to her knees. Apparently natural gas was lighter than air and was rising to the ceiling; there was more breathable air down here. She filled her lungs again, fought the urge to gag, and then rose. She located the furnace gas feeder hose and followed it to the incoming pipe. It was about one inch in diameter. In one direction it disappeared into the concrete wall. In the other, it continued into the third room. She hurried there and, after debating, flicked on the flashlight of her phone.

No explosion.

She played the beam along the pipe, to where it disappeared behind a dozen boxes and other items stored by tenants: rolled carpets, battered chairs and a desk.

One minute remaining, she guessed.

She heard voices calling from the open window, behind her. Ignored them.

No backing out now.

Blue Bloods...

She swung the light from right to left and, yes! There it was! A small white plastic box taped to the gas line. Beneath it a half-inch hole gaped and gas hissed out.

She lunged forward, scrabbling over the mountain of furniture and boxes. She had no real plan, other than to rip the box from the line. Maybe then spit on the leads. Pull the battery out, if there was a battery. She’d sprint for the window, throw it out.

Now with the images of different faces in her head — her late husband and the most recent addition: twin grandsons — Carmella Romero ripped the device from the line and sprinted toward the stairway.

Only seconds later, as she was looking down at the device, noting it had no switch, it uttered a snap, almost silent, and a flash of blue flame filled her vision.

Chapter 66

Amelia Sachs sped the Torino Cobra around the corner to Front Street.

She braked to a stop quickly, as the entire avenue was packed with fire and other emergency vehicles.

Climbing out, she hurried to the ambulance where a solid woman, Latina, in a uniform, sat on a gurney.

“Agent Romero?” Sachs asked.

The woman, being tended by a male NYC medical technician, squinted.

“Yes?”

Sachs identified herself and asked, “How are you?”

Traffic Enforcement Agent Carmella Romero, in turn, asked the medical tech, “How am I?”

The wiry man, name of Spiros, said, “Oh, fundamentally fine. The eyebrows? Well, you’re gonna need makeup. And a bit of heat rash, you could call it. Bactine. But that’s all you need. Hands? Well, that’s another matter. Nothing serious and you won’t feel it yet — I’ve got it numbed. You were a man, you’d lose some or all of the hair and the smell’d be with you for a bit. Look at me. Ape hair. What my wife says.”

Romero turned to Sachs. “I guess that’s how I am.”

Spiros said, “But consider yourself lucky.”

“I do, sir.”

Though, Sachs had learned, there hadn’t been much luck involved. When the lehabah detonated, the building, along with the dozen people still inside, had been saved by Romero. She’d gotten the device away from the basement, which was filled with gas, and into the stairway before it blew. The fiery blast that injured her was from the initiator, a mechanical sparking device, igniting the remaining chemical that was meant to melt the gas line. It was highly flammable. She was far enough away so that the gas in the basement had not blown.

“I’ve told your supervisor, Agent Romero. There’ll be a citation.”

She blinked, apparently dismayed.

A double-take. Then Sachs smiled. “Oh, no, not your kind of citation. Parking. I mean, you’ll be decorated. It’ll come from the commissioner himself.”

Her eyes lit up at this and it seemed that here was some kind of an inside joke about the NYPD commissioner of police that Sachs wasn’t getting.

The crime scene bus pulled up and Sachs rose — a bit stiffly.

She waved to the van and the driver, an Asian American evidence collection tech Sachs had worked with before, nodded to her and drove close.

“Oh, Detective?”

She turned to Romero.

“Had a little problem,” the traffic enforcement agent said.

“What’s that?”

“Only way to get the people’s attention? I had to knee a few cars. Get the alarms going.”

“That was smart.”

“I suppose. But I kicked this Lexus. And the owner, he’s not too happy about it. He’s going to sue me. He said personally. Should I get myself a lawyer? Can he do that?”

“Where is he?”

Romero pointed to a man in his thirties, in a business suit, cropped Wall Street hair and round glasses. His long face had a smirky, put-upon smile and he seemed to be delivering a condescending lecture to a patrol officer, stabbing a finger toward the uniform’s chest.

Amelia Sachs smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll go have a talk with him.”

“Are you sure, Detective?”

“Oh, it’ll be my pleasure.”

Vimal Lahori was thinking that the old-time car he was riding in gave off a much more powerful scent of gasoline and exhaust and oil than modern vehicles. Of course, these aromas might have been due to the fact that it was being driven flat-out by a wild woman.

“You all right?” Detective Sachs asked him.

“I’m. Well. Yes.” He gripped the seat belt of the old-time car in one hand and the armrest in the other.

She smiled and slowed a bit.

“Force of habit,” she muttered.

After she had saved his life and shot that terrible man, the one who had killed Mr. Patel, Detective Sachs had told him that they’d found a phone on the body. It was suspicious. It had been used to call Russia after the Russian killer had died. Was there another person involved? She and Mr. Rhyme had not thought so, but better to be smart, so Vimal had stayed at the precinct house in Brooklyn until some computer expert at the NYPD found that the phone was a trick, to divert suspicion away from Andrew Krueger. Vimal was free to go and he had asked if Detective Sachs could drive him home.

She’d said she’d be delighted to.

She now made the turn and pulled up in front of the young man’s house in Queens. Even before he climbed out, the front door of the house flew open and his mother and Sunny were hurrying through the misty day toward him.

He said to the detective, “Can you wait here for a minute?”

“Sure.”

He met the family halfway up the walk and they embraced. The brothers awkwardly at first, then Vimal ruffled Sunny’s hair and they started pushing and wrestling, laughing hard.

“You aren’t hurt?” his mother asked, looking him over with the eye of a diagnostician.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Dude, another gunfight? You’re like dangerous to be around. It was on the news.”

No more than ten minutes after Detective Sachs had shot the killer, a dozen news vans had appeared, magically, at the dumping site.

Sunny said, “Kakima called — all the way from the NCR! You were on the news over there!”

The National Capital Region — New Delhi. Which meant tens of millions of people might’ve seen him.

Auntie was seventy-eight years old and spent more time online than any teenager Vimal knew.

His mother hugged him once more and walked to the maroon Ford. She bent down and spoke with Detective Sachs, undoubtedly thanking her for saving her son’s life.

Sunny was asking if he’d seen the man get shot. Then “Was it right in front of you?”

“Later, man. I’ve got to get something in the house.”

Vimal noticed the family car was gone. His father would be elsewhere. Thank goodness. He had no interest in seeing the man. Now. Or ever.

He walked inside and down to the studio. He noted that the bars had been replaced, which made sense, since this was New York City, and one could never have too much security. But the locks and hasps had been removed from the door, as had the fixture for the iron bar. The food and cartons of beverages were gone.

The studio was no longer Alcatraz.

Vimal walked to the closet and found what he sought, wrapped it in a sheet of newspaper. And returned to the front yard.

He told his mother and brother that he’d be inside in a moment and walked to the passenger side of the detective’s car and sat back in the passenger seat. “I’ve got something for you. And that man you work with, Mr. Rhyme.”

“Vimal. You don’t need to do that.”

“No. I want to. One of my sculptures.”

He unwrapped the object and set it on the dashboard. It was the four-sided pyramid he’d carved last year and been thinking of in the moments before he’d believed he was going to die. The piece was seven inches high and the base seven inches, as well. Sachs leaned forward and looked at it, then stroked the dark-green granite sides. “Smooth.”

“Yes. Smooth. And straight.”

“They are.”

Michelangelo believed you needed to master the basic inanimate shapes before you could render a living form in stone.

Vimal said, “It’s inspired by diamonds. Most diamonds are found in nature as octahedrons. Two pyramids joined at the base.”

She said, “Then they’re cleaved into two pieces for cutting. Usually for round brilliants.”

He laughed. “Ah, you’ve had quite the education about our business.” He too leaned forward and touched it with a finger. “It won first prize at a juried arts competition at Brooklyn last year, first at a competition in Manhattan and second in the New England Sculpting Show.”

Which, he reflected, his father had not allowed him to enter. A friend had entered it for him.

“First prize,” she said, clearly trying to sound impressed — while studying the mundane geometric shape.

Vimal said playfully, “Not bad for a paperweight, hm?”

Looking at him with a wry smile, Sachs said, “There’s more to it, I’ve got a feeling. Do I push a secret button and it opens up?”

“Not quite but you’re close. Look at the underside.”

She lifted the sculpture and turned it over. She gasped. Inside was a carved-out impression of a human heart — not a Hallmark card version but an anatomically correct heart, with exact reproductions of veins and arteries and chambers.

It had taken eighteen months to craft the piece, working with the smallest of tools. It was, you might say, a negative sculpture: the empty space, not the stone, was the organ.

How did I do, Signore Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni?

“It’s called Hidden.

“Vimal, I don’t know what to say. It’s astonishing. Your talent...” She set it back on the dash then leaned forward and hugged him. His face burned with a blush and he awkwardly pressed his palms into her back.

Then he climbed out of the car and walked back to the house, where some, though not all, of his family waited.

Chapter 67

At 9 p.m. Lincoln Rhyme decided: Time for a drink.

With an unsteady but determined hand, he poured several fingers of Glenmorangie scotch, the bourbon cask variety, into a Waterford glass, which contained a few drops of water. This, he believed, opened up the whisky.

The Waterford represented a victory for him. Though he’d never in his life been inclined to luxurious items like this, he’d been determined to graduate from unbreakable plastic tumblers — which he, as a quad, had used for years — to something elegant. Had his grip failed, $137 would have shattered on the floor.

But he’d mastered the vessel. And was convinced, without objective proof, that the whisky tasted better from crystal.

Sachs was upstairs, showering. Thom was in the kitchen, whipping up something for dinner. Rhyme deduced it involved garlic and some licorice-oriented herb or spice. Perhaps fennel. No gourmand, nor even much of a diner, Rhyme nonetheless found it helpful to know foods. A few years ago he’d run up against a hired killer whose hobby was cooking, and ingredients for various dishes provided important clues in his capture. (The killer’s avocation was not only a source of great pleasure for him but also gave him the chance to put his extremely expensive — and sharp — knives to work on the job. Witnesses tended to tell everything he wanted to know in the face of a razor-sharp Japanese filleting knife.)

Heavy glass in one hand, Rhyme used a finger of his other to maneuver to the front of the Unsub 47 evidence charts.

He was certainly grateful that both Rostov and Krueger were out of the picture and that none of the officers running the case had been injured seriously. The mayor had called to express his thanks. Dwyer, the head of the geothermal operation, had too. But the case wasn’t completely over, from his perspective. There were some loose ends. For instance: the disappearance of the Northeast Geo worker who’d helped Krueger plant the C4 charges in the drilling shafts. He was surely dead but Rhyme would devote whatever time and effort were necessary to locating the body, for the sake of his family.

Justice...

The South African Police were apparently more than eager to pursue the employees in Krueger’s “security” company. They rounded up some lower-level administrative people and located Terrance DeVoer and his wife, in Lesotho, the landlocked country surrounded by South Africa. Not a wise choice of escape route for a fugitive, considering he’d be on airline watchlists and, if he wished to drive, he would have to return to the very country that had warrants out for his arrest.

DeVoer would be handed over to the SAP in a day or so.

As to the diamond mines behind the plot, the NYPD foreign liaison division and the FBI, working with State, had contacted them both. Dobprom hadn’t replied and Rhyme had been told not to expect a response. The Guatemalan mine that had hired Krueger, New World Mining, had at least returned phone calls but vehemently denied any involvement in the incident.

This portion — the Russian and Central American legs — of the investigation had stalled.

Rhyme was, however, determined to unstall it.

Another, more pressing, issue was whether there was in fact another device. Just because three kilos of C4 had been delivered didn’t mean there were only three bombs in the Northeast Geo shafts. Maybe Krueger had divided the plastic into four or five lumps and planted other gas line bombs. The police were still canvassing possible targets along the fault line in the vicinity of Northeast Geo, and FDNY was still staged in the area, awaiting another tremor, which would signal possible fires. The Bomb Squad and ESU, working with Northeast Geo, were finally beginning their careful excavation of the shafts.

Loose ends.

Now, as he looked up at the charts, yet one more question arose in his thoughts, and he instructed the phone to make a call.

“Hey, Linc. What’s up?” Lon Sellitto sounded impatient.

“Just some follow-up on the case. When you came to see me the other day about that gas device that didn’t go off, the one in that woman’s basement? Claire Porter?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Had you been to the scene before you came over here? Think carefully. It’s important.”

“What’s to think? The answer is no. I was downtown and somebody called me. I never was at the scene. Why?”

“Loose ends.”

“Whatever. Anything else? We’re watching Walking Dead.”

“What?”

“Night, Linc.”

Other questions floated to the surface.

But then he turned to the entryway to the parlor and the idea of trying to answer them was put on hold momentarily, while he focused on the immediate item on the agenda for this evening.

Dinner with his bride.

Amelia Sachs was walking into the room now. She was wearing a long, green dress, low-cut and sleeveless.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

She smiled. Then, it seemed, she couldn’t help but reply with “And you look thoughtful.”

“Nothing that can’t wait for a bit. Thom! Time for dinner! Could we get the wine open, please and thank you?”

His eyes drifted back to Sachs. He really did like that dress.