Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"But you haven't been diving for years, Sachs," he pointed out.

"Like riding a bike."

"Miss…"

"That'd be Officer Sachs, Captain," she said.

"Officer, there's a big difference between recreational dives and what it's like down there today. My people've been diving for years and I wouldn't feel real comfortable sending them into an unstable wreck under these conditions."

"Sachs," Rhyme said, "you can't. You're not trained for that."

"There're a million things they'd miss. You know that. They'd be the same as civilians. All respect, Captain."

"Understood, Officer. But my vote is it's too risky."

Sachs paused and then said, "Captain, you have children?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You have a family?"

"Well," he said, "yes, I do."

"This perp we're after is the man who sank that ship and killed most of the people inside. And right now he's trying to kill some immigrants who escaped – a family with two children and a baby. I'm not going to let that happen. There may be some evidence inside that ship that could tell us where he is. My expertise is finding clues – under all conditions."

Sellitto said, "Use our divers." Both the NYPD and the city's fire department had experienced scuba divers.

"They're not Crime Scene," Sachs argued. "They're just S and R too." She looked at Rhyme, who hesitated for a long moment. But then nodded, indicating that, yes, he'd back her up.

"Will you help us out here, Captain?" Rhyme asked. "She needs to be the one who goes down."

Through the wind the captain said, "Okay, Officer. But tell you what, we'll set the chopper down at the Hudson River helipad. That'll save some time. It's closer than Battery Park. You know it?"

"Sure," she said. Then added, "One thing, though, Captain?"

"Yes'm?"

"On a lot of those dives I did in the Caribbean?"

"Right."

"Afterward, when we were sailing home, the crew made rum punch for everybody – it was included in the cost of the dive. You have anything like that on Coast Guard cutters?"

"You know, Officer, I think we may be able to rustle something up for you."

"I'll be at the pad in fifteen minutes."

They hung up and Sachs glanced at Rhyme. "I'll call you with what I find."

There was so much he wanted to say to her and yet so little he was able to. He settled for "Search well -"

"- but watch my back."

She stroked his right hand – the one whose fingers couldn't feel any sensation whatsoever. Not yet, at any rate. Maybe after the surgery.

He glanced at the ceiling, toward his bedroom, where the god of detectives, Guan Di, presently sat with his evaporating cup of sweet wine. But Lincoln Rhyme, of course, restrained himself from sending a prayer to a folk deity wishing Sachs a safe journey and sent that message directly – though tacitly – to her.

L earning three things from one example…

Confucius, hm? I like that, thought Lincoln Rhyme. He said to his aide, "I need something from the basement."

"What?"

"A copy of my book."

"I'm not sure where they are," Thom replied.

"Then you better start looking, don't you think?"

With a loud sigh, the aide vanished.

Rhyme was referring to a hardcover book that he'd written several years ago, The Scenes of the Crime. In it, he'd examined fifty-one old crime scenes in New York City, some solved, some not. The book included a cross section of the more notorious crimes in the city, ranging from mayhem in the Five Points section of town, considered in the mid-1800s one of the most dangerous places on earth, to architect Stanford White's love triangle murder in the original Madison Square Garden, to Joey Gallo's unfortunate last meal at a Little Italy clam house, to John Lennon's death. The illustrated book had been popular – though not popular enough to keep it from being remaindered; the surplus copies had been sloughed off to "bargain books" shelves in bookstores around the country for discounted sales.

Still, Rhyme was secretly proud of the book; it was his first tentative venture back into the real world after his accident, an emblem that, despite what had happened to him, he was capable of doing something beyond lying on his ass and bitching about his state.

Thom returned ten minutes later, his shirt streaked with dirt and his handsome face dotted with sweat and dust. "They were in the farthest corner. Under a dozen cartons. I'm a mess."

"Well, I'd think if things were better organized down there, it might've taken less work," Rhyme muttered, eyes on the book.

"Maybe if you hadn't said to pack them away, you never wanted to see them again, you hated the quote fucking things, it might not have taken so much work either."

"Say, is the cover torn?"

"No, the cover's fine."

"Let me see," Rhyme ordered. "Hold it up."

The weary aide brushed some dirt off his slacks and then offered the book for inspection.

"It'll do," the criminalist said. He looked around the room uneasily. His temples were pounding, which meant his heart, which he couldn't feel, was pumping blood hard.

"What, Lincoln?"

"That touchpad. Do we still have it?"

A few months ago, Rhyme had ordered a touchpad attachment for the computer, like a mouse, thinking that he could use his extant finger – his left ring finger – to control the computer. He hadn't shared with Thom or Sachs how important it had been for him to make the pad work. But he hadn't been able to. The range of motion for the digit was too limited to move the cursor in any helpful way, unlike the touchpad controller that operated his Storm Arrow, which was specifically made for people in his condition.

The failure had, for some reason, devastated him.

Thom left the room for a moment and returned with the small gray unit. He hooked up the system and placed it under Rhyme's ring finger. "What are you going to do with it?" Thom asked.

Rhyme grumbled, "Just hold it still."

"All right."

"Command, cursor down. Command, cursor stop. Command, double click." A drawing program popped up on the screen. "Command, line draw."

Surprised, Thom asked, "When did you learn that?"

"Quiet. I need to concentrate." Rhyme took a deep breath and then he started to move his finger on the pad. A shaky line appeared on the screen. Sweat popped out on his forehead from the tension.

Breathing hard, riddled with anxiety, as if he were dismantling a bomb, Rhyme said through clenched teeth, "Move the pad to the left, Thom. Carefully."

The aide did and Rhyme continued giving him directions.

Ten minutes of agony, ten minutes of exhausting effort… He gazed at the screen, finally satisfied with the result. He rested his head on the back of the chair. "Command, print."

Thom walked to the printer. "You want to see your handiwork?"

"Of course I want to see it," Rhyme barked.

Thom picked up the sheet and held it in front of Rhyme.

To my friend, Sonny Li -

From Lincoln

"I think that's the first thing you've written since the accident. In your actual handwriting."

"It's a goddamn schoolchild's scrawl," Rhyme muttered, feeling exhilarated at the accomplishment. "Hardly legible."

"You want me to paste that in the book?" Thom asked.

"If you would, yes. Thank you," Rhyme said. "Then set it aside and we'll give it to Li when he gets back."

"I'll wrap it up," the aide said.

"I don't think we need to go that far," Rhyme snapped. "Now, let's get back to the evidence."

Okay, I can do this.

Amelia Sachs stood on the rippled metal floor of the Coast Guard's Sikorsky HH-60J helicopter fifty feet above the whipping antenna of the cutter Evan Brigant and let the crewman fit the harness around her.