Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

Sachs herself would be in particular danger. Her job was to "walk the grid," to sweep the ship for crime scene evidence that would bolster the various cases against the Ghost and to find leads to his confederates. If the searcher is running a scene where, say, a body is found or a robbery has occurred long after the perp has fled, there is relatively little danger to the CS officer. But if the scene is the actual takedown site, involving an unknown number of perps whose appearance isn't well known, the risks can be great, particularly in the case of human smugglers, who have ready access to good weaponry.

Her cell phone rang and she dropped into the tight seat of the Chevy to answer it.

The caller was Rhyme.

"We're all in place," she told him.

"We think they're on to us, Sachs," he said. "The Dragon turned toward land. The cutter'll get there before they make it to shore but we're thinking now that the Ghost is gearing up for a fight."

She thought of the poor people on board.

When Rhyme paused, Sachs asked him, "Did she call?"

A hesitation. Then he said, "Yes. About ten minutes ago. They have a slot open at Manhattan Hospital next week. She's going to call back with the details."

"Ah," Sachs said.

The "she" was Dr. Cheryl Weaver, a renowned neurosurgeon who'd come up to the New York area from North Carolina to teach for a semester at Manhattan Hospital. And the "slot" referred to an opening for some experimental surgery that Rhyme was having – an operation that might improve his quadriplegic condition.

An operation Sachs was not in favor of.

"I'd get some extra ambulances in the area," Rhyme said. His tone was now curt – he didn't like personal subjects intruding in the midst of business.

"I'll take care of it."

"I'll call you back, Sachs."

The phone went silent.

She ran through the downpour to one of the Suffolk County troopers and arranged for more med techs. She then returned to her Chevy and sat down in the front bucket seat, listening to the rattle of the powerful rain on the windshield and cloth roof. The dampness made the interior smell of plastic, motor oil and old carpeting.

Thinking about Rhyme's operation put her in mind of a recent conversation with another doctor, one who had nothing to do with his spinal cord surgery. She didn't want her thoughts to go back to that meeting – but go there they did.

Two weeks ago Amelia Sachs had been standing by the coffee machine in a hospital waiting room, up the hall from Lincoln Rhyme's examining room. She remembered the July sun falling brutally on the green tile floor. The white-jacketed man had approached and then addressed her with a chilling solemnity. "Ah, Ms. Sachs. Here you are."

"Hello, Doctor."

"I've just been meeting with Lincoln Rhyme's physician."

"Yes?"

"I've got to talk to you about something."

Her heart pounding, she'd said, "You're looking like it's bad news, Doctor."

"Why don't we sit down over there in the corner?" he'd asked, sounding more like a funeral home director than an M.D.

"Here's fine," she'd said firmly. "Tell me. Let me have it straight."

A gust of wind now rocked her and she looked out over the harbor again, at the long pier, where the Fuzhou Dragon would dock.

Bad news …

Tell me. Let me have it straight…

Sachs flicked her Motorola to the Coast Guards secure frequency not only to learn what was happening with the Dragon but to keep her thoughts from returning to that scaldingly bright waiting room.

• • •

"How far from land?" the Ghost asked the two remaining crewmen on the bridge.

"A mile, maybe less." The slim man at the helm glanced quickly at the Ghost. "We'll turn just before the shallows and try for the harbor."

The Ghost gazed forward. From the vantage point of the crest of a wave he could just see the line of light gray land. He said, "Steer straight on course. I'll be back in a moment."

Bracing himself, he stepped outside. The wind and rain lashed his face as the Ghost made his way down to the container deck and then to the one below it. He came to the metal door that opened into the hold. He stepped inside and looked down at the piglets. Their faces turned toward him with fear and distress. The pathetic men, the frumpy women, the filthy children – even some pointless girls. Why had their foolish families bothered to bring them?

"What is it?" Captain Sen asked. "Is the cutter in sight?"

The Ghost didn't answer. He was scanning the piglets for his bangshou. But there was no sign of him. Angry, he turned away.

"Wait," the captain called.

The snakehead stepped outside and closed the door. "Bangshou!" he shouted.

There was no response. The Ghost didn't bother to call a second time. He screwed down the latches so that the door to the hold couldn't be opened from the inside. He hurried back toward his cabin, which was on the bridge deck. As he struggled up the stairs he took from his pocket a battered black plastic box, just like the door opener for the garage of his luxurious house in Xiamen.

He opened the box and pushed one button and then a second. The radio signal zipped through two decks down to the duffel bag he'd placed in the aft hold below the waterline. The signal closed the circuit and sent an electrical charge from a nine-volt battery into a blasting cap embedded in two kilos of Composition 4 explosive.

The detonation was huge, much larger than he'd expected, and it sent a tall spume of water shooting into the air, higher than the highest waves.

The Ghost was thrown off the stairs onto the main deck. He lay on his side, stunned.

Too much! he realized. There'd been too much explosive. Already the ship was starting to list as she took on seawater. He'd thought it would take half an hour for the ship to sink. Instead, she would go down in minutes. He looked toward the bridge deck, where his money and guns sat in the small cabin, then once again scanned the other decks for his bangshou. No sign of him. But there was no time to look further. The Ghost rose and scrabbled across the listing deck to the nearest rubber life raft and began undoing the tie-down ropes.

The Dragon lurched again, rolling farther onto her side.

The sound had been deafening. A hundred sledgehammers on a piece of iron.

Nearly all of the immigrants had been thrown to the cold, wet floor. Sam Chang climbed to his feet and picked up his youngest boy, who'd fallen into a puddle of greasy water. He then helped up his wife and his elderly father.

"What happened?" he shouted to Captain Sen, who was struggling through the panicked crowd to the door that led up to the deck. "Did we hit the rocks?"

The captain called back, "No, no rocks. The water's a hundred feet deep here. Either the Ghost has blown up the ship or the Coast Guard is firing on us. I don't know."

"What is happening?" asked a panic-stricken man sitting near Chang. He was the father of the family that had camped out in the hold next to the Changs. Wu Qichen was his name. His wife lay listlessly on the cot nearby. She'd been feverish and lethargic throughout the entire voyage and even now seemed hardly aware of the explosion and chaos. "What's going on?" Wu repeated in a high voice.

"We're sinking!" the captain called, and together he and several of his crewmen grabbed the latches of the door and struggled to open them. But they didn't move. "He's jammed them!"

Some of the immigrants, both men and women, began wailing and rocking back and forth; children stood frozen with fear, tears running down their dirty cheeks. Sam Chang and several of the crew joined the captain and tugged on the latches. But the thick metal bars wouldn't give a millimeter.