Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

Sellitto said, "We can call the toll takers at the tunnel and the bridges."

Dellray shrugged. "That's somethin', but it's not enough. Hell, Chinatown 's that boy's turf. Once he's there it'll be hell to find him. We gotta get him on the beach if there's anyway."

"And when," Rhyme asked, "are the life rafts going to land?"

"They're guessin' twenty, twenty-five minutes. And our folk're fifty miles away from Easton."

Peabody asked, "Isn't there any way to get somebody out there sooner?"

Rhyme debated for a moment then said into the microphone attached to his wheelchair, "Command, telephone."

The 1969 Indianapolis 500 pace car was a General Motors Camaro Super Sport convertible.

For this honor, GM picked the strongest of their muscle car line – the SS fitted with a 396-cubic-inch Turbojet V-8 engine, which could churn 375 horsepower. And if you were inclined to tinker with the vehicle – by removing sound deadeners, undercoating, sway bars and interior wheel wells and playing around with the pulleys and cylinder heads, for instance – you could goose the effective hp up to 450.

Which made it a boss machine for drag racing.

But a bitch to drive at 130 miles per hour through a gale.

Squeezing the leather-clad wheel, feeling the pain in her arthritic fingers, Amelia Sachs piloted the car eastbound on the Long Island Expressway. She had a blue flasher on the dash – a suction cup doesn't stick well to convertible roofs – and wove perilously in and out of the commuter traffic.

As she and Rhyme had decided when he'd called five minutes before and told her to get the hell out to Easton, Sachs was one-half of the advance team, which, if they were lucky, might get to the beach at the same time the Ghost and any surviving immigrants did. The other half of the impromptu team was the young officer from the NYPD Emergency Services Unit sitting next to her. The ESU was the tactical branch of the police department, the SWAT team, and Sachs – well, Rhyme actually – had decided that she should have some backup with firepower of the sort that now sat in the man's lap: a Heckler Koch MP5 machine gun.

Miles behind them now were the ESU, the crime scene bus, a half-dozen Suffolk County troopers, ambulances and assorted INS and FBI vehicles, making their way through the vicious storm as best they could.

"Okay," said the ESU officer. "Well. Now."

He offered this in response to a brief bit of hydroplaning.

Sachs calmly brought the Camaro back under control, recalling that she'd also removed the steel plates behind the backseat, put in a fuel cell in lieu of the heavy gas tank and replaced the spare with Fix-A-Flat and a plug kit. The SS was about 500 pounds lighter than when her father had bought it in the seventies. Could use a little of that ballast now, she thought, and snipped another skid short.

"Okay, we're okay now," the ESU cop said, apparently far more comfortable in a shoot-out than driving down the wide expanse of the Long Island Expressway.

Her phone rang. She juggled the unit and answered it.

"Say, miss," the ESU cop asked, "you gonna use one of those hands-free things? I'm just thinking it might be better." And this from a man dressed like Robocop.

She laughed, plugged the earpiece in and upshifted.

"How's the progress, Sachs?" Rhyme asked.

"Doing the best I can. But we turn off onto surface roads in a few miles. I may have to slow up for some of the red lights."

"'May'?" the ESU cop muttered.

"Any survivors, Rhyme?" Sachs asked.

"Nothing further," he answered. "The Coast Guard can only confirm two rafts. Looks like most people didn't get off."

Sachs said to the criminalist, "I hear that tone, Rhyme. It's not your fault."

"Appreciate the sentiment, Sachs. That's not an issue. Now, you driving carefully?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, calmly steering into the spin that took the car forty degrees off center, her heart rate rising not a single digit. The Camaro straightened as if it were on guy wires and continued down the expressway, its speed goosed up to 140. The ESU cop closed his eyes.

"It's going to be close, Sachs. Keep your weapon handy."

"It always is." Another brief skid.

"We're getting calls from the Coast Guard cutter, Sachs. I've got to go." He paused for a moment. Then said, "Search well but watch your back."

She laughed. "I like that. We need to print it up on T-shirts for the Crime Scene Unit."

They hung up.

The expressway ended and she skidded off onto a smaller highway. Twenty-five miles to Easton, where the lifeboats would land. She'd never been there; city-girl Sachs wondered what the topography was like. Would it be a beach? Rocky cliffs? Would she have to climb? Her arthritis had been bad lately and this thick humidity doubled the pain and stiffness.

Wondering too: If the Ghost was still at the beach, were there plenty of hiding places for him to snipe from?

She glanced down at the speedometer.

Ease back?

But the treads on her wheels were true and the only moisture on her palms was from the rain that had drenched her back at Port Jefferson. She kept her foot near the floor.

As the launch smashed through the water, closer to the shore, the rocks grew more distinct.

And more jagged.

Sam Chang squinted through the rain and spray. There were some short stretches of beach ahead, covered with pebbles and dirty sand, but much of the shoreline was dark rock and bluffs well over their heads. And to reach a portion of beach where they could land he'd have to maneuver through an obstacle course of jutting stone.

"He's still there, behind us," Wu shouted.

Chang looked back and could see the tiny orange dot of the Ghost's raft. It was heading directly for them but was making slower progress than theirs. The Ghost was hampered by the way he handled the raft. He aimed right toward the shore and fought the waves, which slowed his progress. But Chang, true to his Taoist leanings, piloted his craft differently; he sought the natural flow of the water, not fighting it but steering around the stronger crests in a serpentine pattern and using the shore-bound waves to speed them forward more quickly. The distance between them and the snakehead was increasing.

Before the Ghost landed, there should be enough time to find the trucks that were waiting to take them to Chinatown, Chang estimated. The truck drivers wouldn't know about the sinking but Chang would tell them that the Coast Guard was after them and order the men to leave immediately. If they insisted on waiting, Chang and Wu and the others would overpower them and drive the trucks themselves.

He studied the shoreline and beyond – past the beach were trees and grass. It was hard to see in the windblown rain and mist but he detected what looked like a road. Some lights too, not far away. A cluster of them: a small village, it seemed.

Wiping the stinging seawater from his eyes, Chang watched the people at his feet, falling silent as they gazed at the shore ahead of them, the turbulent currents here, riptides and whirlpools, the approaching rocks, sharp as knives, dark as dried blood.

Then, just ahead of them, under the surface of the water, appeared a bank of rock. Chang throttled back fast and turned hard to the side, just missing the stone shelf. The raft was now sideways, buffeted by the ragged waves, which flooded the vessel. They nearly capsized once, then again. Chang tried to steer through a gap in the bank but the motor suddenly cut out. He grabbed the lanyard and tugged hard. A chug, then silence. Again, a dozen times. But nothing happened. The motor didn't even turn over. His older son scrabbled forward and tipped the gasoline can. "Empty!" William shouted.

Desperate, weak with fear for his family's safety, he looked behind them. The fog was thicker now and obscured them – but it also hid the Ghost. How close was he?