Jeffery Deaver - The burning wire

Eyes sweeping across the evidence boards, Rhyme was in agreement about the rudderless nature of the case. Galt was smart but he wasn't brilliant, and he was leaving ample trace behind. It just wasn't leading them anywhere, other than offering general ideas of his targets.

An airport?

An oil depot?

Though Lincoln Rhyme was also thinking something else: Are the paths there and am I just missing them?

And felt again the tickle of sweat, the faint recurring headache that had plagued him recently. He'd successfully ignored it for a time but the throbbing had returned. Yes, he was feeling worse, there was no doubt about it. Was that affecting his mental skills? He would admit to no one, not even Sachs, that this was perhaps the most terrifying thing in the world to him. As he'd told Susan Stringer last night, his mind was all he had.

He found his eyes drawn to the den across the hall. The table where Dr. Arlen Kopeski's Die with Dignity brochure rested.

Choices…

He then tipped the thought away.

Just then Sellitto took a call, sitting up as he listened and setting down his coffee quickly. "Yeah? Where?" He jotted in his limp notebook.

Everyone in the room was watching him intently. Rhyme was thinking: a new demand?

The phone clicked closed. He looked up from his notes. "Okay, may have something. A portable downtown, near Chinatown, calls in. Woman'd come up to him and says she thinks she saw our boy."

"Galt?" Pulaski asked.

Sourly: "What other boy we interested in, Officer?"

"Sorry."

"She thinks she recognized the picture."

"Where?" Rhyme snapped.

"There's an abandoned school, near Chinatown." Sellitto gave them the address. Sachs was writing.

"The portable checked it out. Nobody there now."

"But if he was there, he'd've left something behind," Rhyme said.

At his nod, Sachs stood. "Okay, Ron, let's go."

"You better take a team." Sellitto added wryly, "We've probably got a few cops left who aren't guarding fuse boxes or wires around town."

"Let's get ESU in the area," she said. "Stage nearby but keep 'em out of sight. Ron and I'll go in first. If he's there after all and we need a takedown, I'll call. But we don't want a team running through the place, screwing up the evidence, if it's empty."

The two of them headed out the door.

Sellitto called Bo Haumann of Emergency Service and briefed him. The ESU head would get officers into the area and coordinate with Sachs. The detective disconnected and looked around the room, presumably for something to accompany the coffee. He found a plate of pastry, courtesy of Thom, and grabbed a bear claw pastry. Dunked it and ate. Then he frowned.

Rhyme asked, "What?"

"Just realized I forgot to call McDaniel and the feds and tell 'em about the operation in Chinatown-at the school." Then he grimaced and held up his phone theatrically. "Aw, shit. I can't. I didn't pay for a cloud zone SIM chip. Guess I'll have to tell him later."

Rhyme laughed and ignored the searing ache that spiked momentarily in his head. Just then his phone rang and both humor and headaches vanished.

Kathryn Dance was calling.

His finger struggled to hit the keypad. "Yes, Kathryn? What's going on?"

She said, "I'm on the phone with Rodolfo. They've found the Watchmaker's target."

Excellent, he reflected, though part of him was also thinking: Why now? But then he decided: The Watchmaker's the priority, at least for the moment. You've got Sachs and Pulaski and a dozen ESU troops after Galt. And the last time you had a chance at the Watchmaker, you turned away from the search to focus on something else, and he killed his victim and got away.

Not this time. Richard Logan isn't escaping this time.

"Go ahead," he told the CBI agent, forcing himself to turn away from the evidence boards.

There was a click.

"Rodolfo," Dance said. "Lincoln's on the line. I'll leave you two to talk. I've got to see TJ."

They said good-bye to her.

"Hello, Captain."

"Commander. What do you have?"

"Arturo Diaz has four undercover officers in the office complex I was telling you about. About ten minutes ago Mr. Watchmaker, dressed as a businessman, entered the building. From the lobby he used a pay phone to call a company on the sixth floor-on the opposite side of where the fire alarm was yesterday. Just like you thought. He spent about ten minutes inside and then left."

"He vanished?" Rhyme asked, alarmed.

"No. He's now outside in a small park between the two main buildings in the complex."

"Just sitting there?"

"So it seems. He's made several mobile calls. But the frequency is unusual or they're scrambled, Arturo tells me. So we can't intercept."

Rhyme supposed rules about eavesdropping in Mexico might be somewhat less strict than in the U.S.

"They're sure it's the Watchmaker?"

"Yes. Arturo's men said they had a clear view. He has a satchel with him. He still is carrying it."

"He is?"

"Yes. We still can't be sure what it is. A bomb, perhaps. With the circuit board detonator. Our teams are surrounding the facility. All plainclothed but we have a full complement of soldiers nearby. And the bomb squad."

"Where are you, Commander?"

A laugh. "It was very considerate of your Watchmaker to pick this place. The Jamaican consulate is here. They have bomb barriers up and we're behind those. Logan can't see us."

Rhyme hoped that was true.

"When will you move in?"

"As soon as Arturo's men say it's clear. The park is crowded with innocents. A number of children. But he won't get away. We have most of the roads sealed off."

A trickle of sweat slipped down Rhyme's temple. He grimaced and twisted his head to the side to wipe it on the headrest.

The Watchmaker…

So close.

Please. Let this work out. Please…

And again squelched the frustration that he felt from working on such an important case at a distance.

"We'll let you know soon, Captain."

They disconnected the call and Rhyme forced himself to focus on Raymond Galt once again. Was the lead to his whereabouts solid? He looked like an everyman, approaching middle age, not too heavy, not too slim. Average height. And in the paranoid climate he'd created, people were undoubtedly primed to see things that weren't there. Electrical traps, arc flash risks… and the killer himself.

Then he started, as Sachs's voice snapped through the radio. "Rhyme, you there, K?"

She'd ended her transmission with the traditional conclusion of a comment or question in the police radio parlance, K, to let the recipient know it was okay to transmit. He and she usually disposed of this formality, and for some reason Rhyme found it troubling that she'd used the shorthand.

"Sachs, go ahead. What do you have?"

"We just got here. We're about to go in. I'll let you know."

A MAROON TORINO Cobra made for a bad undercover car, so Sachs had glided it to a stop about two blocks away from the school where Galt had been sighted.

The school had closed years ago and, according to the signage, was soon to be demolished and condominiums built on the grounds.

"Good hidey-hole," she said to Pulaski as they jogged close, noting the seven-foot-high wooden fence around the grounds, covered with graffiti and posters of alternative theater, performance pieces and music groups plummeting to obscurity. The Seventh Seal. The Right Hands. Bolo.

Pulaski, who seemed to be forcing himself to concentrate, nodded. She'd have to keep an eye on him. He'd done well at the elevator crime scene in Midtown but it seemed that the accident at Galt's apartment-hitting that man-was bothering him again.

They paused in front of the fence. The demolition hadn't started yet; the gate-two hinged pieces of plywood chained together and padlocked-had enough play so they could have squeezed through, which is probably how Galt had gotten in, if in fact he had. Sachs stood to the side of the gap and peered in. The school was largely intact, though it seemed that a portion of the roof had fallen in. Most of the glass had been stoned out of the windows but you could see virtually nothing inside.