Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

• Two shell casings – match Model 51. Tang shot twice in head.

• Extensive vandalism.

• Some fingerprints.

• No matches except Tang's.

• Three accomplices have smaller shoe size than Ghost, presumably smaller stature.

• Trace suggests Ghost's safehouse is probably downtown, Battery Park City area.

• Suspected accomplices from Chinese ethnic minority. Presently pursuing whereabouts.

• Uighurs from Turkestan Community and Islamic Center of Queens.

• Cell phone calls lead to 805 Patrick Henry Street, downtown.

Canal Street Shooting

Crime Scene

• Additional trace suggesting safehouse is in Battery Park City area.

• Stolen Chevrolet Blazer, untraceable.

• No match on prints.

• Safehouse carpet: Arnold company's Lustre-Rite, installed in past six months; calling contractors to get list of installations.

• Location of installations determined: 32 near Battery Park City.

• Fresh gardening mulch found.

• Body of Ghost's accomplice: ethnic minority from west or northwest China. Negative on prints. Weapon was Walther PPK.

• Details on immigrants:

• The Changs: Sam, Mei-Mei, William and Ronald; Sam's father, Chang Jiechi, and infant, Po-Yee. Sam has job arranged but employer and location unknown. Driving blue van, no make, no tag number. Changs" apartment is in Queens.

• The Wus: Qichen, Yong-Ping, Chin-Mei and Lang.

Safehouse Shooting

Crime Scene

• Fingerprints and photos of Chang Jiechi's hands reveal father – and son Sam – are calligraphers. Sam Chang might be doing printing or sign painting. Calling stores and companies in Queens.

• Biosolids on deceased's shoes suggest they live in neighborhood near sewage treatment plant.

• Ghost uses feng shui practitioner to arrange his living space.

Fuzhou Dragon

Crime Scene

• Ghost used new C4 to blow up ship. Checking origin of explosive through chemical markers.

• Large quantity of new U.S. bills found in Ghost's cabin.

• Approx. $20,000 in used Chinese yuan found in cabin.

• List of victims, air charter details and bank deposit information. Checking name of sender in China.

• Captain alive but unconscious.

• Beretta 9mm, Uzi. Unable to trace.

"Fred," Rhyme said as Dellray – now wearing the orangest shirt that the criminalist had ever seen – walked into his living room laboratory.

"Hey," Sachs said to the agent. "They let you wear shirts like that? Say, is that a real color?"

"You gave us a hell of a scare," Rhyme said.

" 'Magine what I myself was feelin', settin' my ass down on a few sticks of Mr. Noble's creation." He looked around the room. "Where Dan?"

"Dan?" Rhyme asked.

"The SSA?"

Noting the blank stares, Dellray continued, "The supervisin' agent, the guy who took over for me. Dan Wong. From our San Francisco office. Wanna thank him for takin' over."

Rhyme and Sachs looked at each other. The criminalist said, "Nobody took over for you. We're still waiting."

"Still waitin'?" Dellray whispered in disbelief. "I talked to Dan myself last night. He's the man you need. Run dozens of human smuggling cases. He's some kinda expert in snakeheads and Chinese culture. He was gonna call you an' be out here on a army jet this morning."

"No word."

Dellray's expression of astonishment turned to anger. "What about SPEC-TAC?" he asked suspiciously. "They are here, ain't they?"

"Nope," Sachs said.

With a snarl he pulled his phone off his belt as if he were quick-drawing his weapon. One speed-dial button later he was connected. "This's Dellray… Put him on… Don't care. Want him now… Like I said, which mebbe you din't hear. I. Want. Him. Now…" A disgusted sigh. "Well, have him call me. An' you tell me – what happened to Dan Wong?" He listened for a long moment then snapped the phone off without a farewell.

"Dan got some emergency assignment in Hawaii. Word came from Washington, so it got priority over our li'l pissy insignificant case here. Somebody was s'posed to call me – and you – but it fell through the cracks."

"And SPEC-TAC?"

"The SAC's calling me back. But if they ain't here by now something's fucked up in a big way."

Rhyme said, "They told us it was on the 'scroll' for a meeting today."

"Hate that crappy way they talk," Dellray snapped. "I'ma get it taken care of when I get back to the office. No excuse for this."

"Thanks, Fred. We need the help. We've got half the Fifth Precinct trying to find the print shop or painting company where Sam Chang works and we're coming up with zilch."

"This ain't good."

Sellitto asked, "Where're you with the bomb investigation?"

"That's th' other reason I came by. Simon says zip… Can't make a baby step of headway. My CIs, they're scouring Brighton Beach but they ain't turning up anything. Not. A. Peep. And I run dozens of skels there."

"You're sure the device's Russian?"

"When're we sure 'bout anyfuckin'thing?"

That much was true. Rhyme nodded at a paper bag he carried. "What've you got?"

He dug out a plastic bag containing the bright yellow stick of explosive and tossed it across the room to Sachs.

She caught it one-handed. "Holy Mother, Fred," she called.

"S'only dynamite. And if it din't go off with a detonator it sure ain't gonna go bang with a little lob to left field. Hey, Aye-melia, you wanna play softball on the bureau team? That was a good catch."

She examined the stick of dynamite.

"Friction ridges?" Sellitto asked.

"Wiped clean. No prints."

She held it up for Rhyme, who noticed numbers printed on the side.

"What'd the lot numbers turn up?" he asked Dellray.

"Nothin'. Our boys said it was too old to trace. 'Nother dead end."

"One man's dead end is another man's door," Rhyme said, reminding himself to share this saying, which he'd just made up, with Sonny Li when the Chinese cop returned. "Did they test it for markers?"

"Nup. Said it was too old for marker additives too."

"Probably is. But I want to test it anyway." He shouted to Mel Cooper, "Get it over to the lab ASAP. I want it analyzed. The works."

Chromatography – the analytical process of choice to test the dynamite – usually required that the samples be burned. But Rhyme wasn't about to set fire to a piece of explosive in his town house. The NYPD lab downtown had special equipment for doing so.

Mel Cooper called one of his technicians downtown and made arrangements for the test then handed the stick back to Dellray, giving him instructions on where to drop it off.

"We'll do what we can, Fred."

Then Cooper looked over a second bag Dellray handed him. It contained a Duracell battery, wires and a switch. "All generic, nothing helpful. It's your tract housing of bombs," the tech announced. "Detonator?"

A third bag appeared. Cooper and Rhyme examined what was left of the scorched piece of metal. "Russian, military grade," Rhyme said.

A detonator was basically a blasting cap, which contained a core of fulminate of mercury or a similar explosive and wires, which heated up when an electrical charge was sent through them and set off the primer explosive, which in turn set off the main charge.

There wasn't much of this one left; it was the only part of the bomb that had actually gone off when Dellray sat on the device. Cooper put it under the compound microscope. "Not much. A Russian letter A and R. Then the numbers one and three."

"And nobody's database has a record of that?"