Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

A tiny, gray-haired woman looked up at them. "You're the police," she said. "You're here about those firecrackers I complained about." She stared at the large machine guns the ESU officers carried. "Oh. Well. Look at this."

"That's right, ma'am," Sachs said, noticing that the clunking sound had been a stool, which the woman had apparently set on the floor to be able to look out through the security peephole.

She grew wary. "But you wouldn't have those guns if they were just firecrackers, right?"

"We're not sure what they were, ma'am. We're trying to find out where the sounds came from."

"I think it's 18K, up the hall. That's why I thought they were firecrackers – because an Oriental man lives there. Or Asian, or whatever you're supposed to say nowadays. They use firecrackers in their religion. They're supposed to scare away dragons. Or maybe it's ghosts. I don't know."

"Are there any other Asians on this floor?"

"No, I don't believe so."

"Okay, ma'am, thank you. Could you go back inside and lock your door. Whatever you hear, don't open it."

"Oh, dear." She looked at the men with the guns again and nodded uncertainly. "Could you tell me -"

"Now, please," Sachs said, smiling, but in a firm voice. She pulled the woman's door shut herself. She called in a whisper to Haumann, "Think it's 18K."

Haumann gave hand signals to his team, directing them to the apartment.

He knocked hard on the door. "Police, open the door!"

No response.

Again.

Nothing.

Haumann nodded to the officer who'd lugged the team's large battering ram with him. He and another cop took hold of the handles on the sides of the thick metal tube and looked at Haumann, who nodded.

The officers eased the ram back and then swung it forward hard into the door near the knob. The lock gave way immediately and the door slammed inward. They dropped the ram, chipping the marble floor. A half-dozen officers, guns to their shoulders, raced into the room.

Amelia Sachs moved in fast too, though behind the others, who sported full body armor, Nomex hoods, helmets and visors. Weapon in hand, she paused in the entryway and looked over the luxurious apartment, painted in subtle grays and pinks.

The ESU entry team fanned out and checked every room and any possible hiding places a human being might fit into. Their gruff voices began reverberating through the place. "Clear here… clear… Clear in the kitchen. No back entrance. Clear…"

The Ghost was gone.

But, just like at Easton Beach yesterday, he'd left death in his stead.

In the living room was the body of a man who bore a resemblance to the one she'd shot outside the Wus' apartment last night. Another Uighur, she assumed. He'd been shot at close range. He lay near a leather couch that had been riddled with bullets. A street gun – a cheap chrome automatic with the serial number etched out – lay on the floor in front of the couch.

The other body was in the bedroom.

He was an elderly Chinese man, lying on his back, his eyes glazed. There was a bullet wound in his leg but the slug had missed the major arteries and veins; it hadn't bled much. Sachs could see no other wounds, even though a long kitchen knife lay near his side. She pulled on rubber gloves and felt his jugular. No pulse.

Emergency Medical Services technicians arrived and checked the man over, verifying that he was dead.

"What's the COD?" one of the techs mused.

Sachs studied him. Then leaned forward. "Ah, got it," she said, nodding at the man's hand, in which was clutched a brown bottle. Sachs worked it out of his fingers. The characters on the label were in both Chinese and English. "Morphine," she said. "Suicide."

This might have been one of the immigrants on the Fuzhou Dragon – perhaps Sam Chang's father, who'd come here to kill the Ghost. She speculated about what had happened: The father had shot the Uighur but the Ghost had jumped for cover behind the couch and the old man had run out of ammunition. The Ghost took the knife and was going to torture him to learn where the rest of the family was but the immigrant had killed himself.

Haumann listened into his headset and reported that the rest of the building was clear; the Ghost had escaped.

"Oh, no," she muttered.

Crime Scene arrived – two techs carrying large metal suitcases into the hallway outside the apartment. Sachs knew them and nodded a greeting. She opened the cases, donned the Tyvek suit and then announced to the ESU team, "I need to process the room. Could I have everybody out of here please?"

For a half hour she worked the scene and though she collected some evidence none of it gave an obvious indication of where the Ghost might have gone to.

As she finished the search Sachs was aware of cigarette smoke. She looked up to see Sonny Li standing in the doorway, surveying the room. "I know him from boat," Li said, shaking his head with a sadness in his eyes. "That Sam Changs father."

"I figured. Why'd he try it? One old man against the Ghost and the others?"

"For family," Li said quietly. "For family."

"I suppose you want to run the scene too?" she asked without any irony. Li's correct prediction about Jerry Tang and his surprise appearance at the Wus' apartment yesterday had bolstered his credibility as a detective.

"What you think I doing now, Hongse? I walking grid."

She laughed.

"Loaban and me talk last night. He tell me about walking grid. Only I walk grid in my mind now."

Sort of like Rhyme does, Sachs reflected. "You finding anything good?"

"Oh, plenty, I'm saying."

She turned back to the more tangible evidence and wrote out the chain of custody cards and packaged the evidence for transport.

In the corner of the room she noticed a small altar and several statues of Chinese gods. The words from the woman up the hall echoed in her mind.

They use firecrackers in their religion. They're supposed to scare away dragons.

Or maybe it's ghosts.

Dozens of flashing lights surrounded the high-rise. The Ghost turned and looked back at them. Yusuf, the silent Turk, drove along Church Street away from the place. He was grim and badly shaken from the loss of yet another comrade but he drove calmly and was careful not to draw attention to the stolen Windstar van.

After the old man had killed himself, without revealing anything (he had nothing in his pockets either), the Ghost had fled down the stairs and sprinted into the parking lot just as he'd heard sirens in front of the building. He was now still struggling to catch his breath and to calm his heart.

The police had arrived too quickly to be responding to the sound of the gunshots; they'd known that he was there. How? Gazing absently at the people on the morning streets, he considered this. The safehouse had absolutely no connection to him. Finally he decided that they had probably tracked the place down through phone calls to and from the Uighur center in Queens. That had given the police his cell phone number and they'd traced the location of the safehouse. Probably there was other evidence too; his intelligence about this Lincoln Rhyme suggested that he was fully capable of making a deduction like that – but he was troubled that he'd gotten no advance warning that the police were on their way there. He'd thought his guanxi was better than this.

Yusuf said something in his native Turkic and the Ghost said in English, "Repeat."

"Where you go?"

The Ghost had several other safehouses in the city but only one nearby. He gave him directions. Then the Ghost handed the man another five thousand in one-color. "Go find somebody else to help us. You'll do that?"

Yusuf hesitated.