Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

"Clara wrote a nice letter, which I happen to have. D'I mention I asked her to do that last year? Anyway, she went and described your private parts in more detail than I personally wanna read about but I'm sure a jury'd appreciate it."

"You can't do this. No, no, no…"

"Don't wanta argue the matter with you, Ralph. Here's the situation. If you don't agree then come next month you'll be doin' the same thing to niggers in prison that you had Clara Sampson doin' to you. Now, what's it gonna be?"

"Shit."

"I'll take that as a yes. Now, lemme walk you through what we have planned."

And Barnes had given him a gun, the address of a hotel and the location of Grady's office then shipped him off to New York City.

When he'd first arrived, a few days ago, Reverend Swensen had spent several days doing recon work. He'd gone into the state government building late Thursday afternoon and, with his slightly baffled demeanor and wearing his minister's garb, had wandered the halls unchallenged until he found a broom closet in a deserted corridor, where he hid until midnight. Then he'd broken into Grady's secretary's office and found out that the prosecutor and his family would be attending the recital at the Neighborhood School tonight; his daughter was one of the young performers.

Now, armed and edgy with cat nerves, the reverend stood fidgeting in front of the school and watching Grady's bodyguards talking with the prosecutor in the backseat. The plan was to kill Grady and his guards with the silenced pistol then drop to the ground himself, screaming in panic that a man had just driven by and was shooting from a car. The minister should be able to escape in the confusion.

Should be…

He now tried to say a prayer but, even though Charles Grady was a tool of the devil, asking help from the Lord our God to kill an unarmed white Christian bothered Reverend Swensen considerably. So he settled for a silent Bible recitation.

I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lit up by his glory…

Reverend Swensen rocked on his feet, thinking that he couldn't bear to wait any longer. Cat-nerves, cat-nerves… He wanted to get back to his sheep, his farmland, his church, his ever-popular sermons.

Clara Sampson too, who was nearly fifteen now and for all intents and purposes fair game.

And the angel cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit…

He considered the matter of Grady's family. The prosecutor's wife hadn't done anything wrong. Being married to a sinner wasn't the same as being a sinner yourself or choosing to work for one. No, he'd spare Mrs. Grady.

Unless she noticed that he was the one shooting.

As for the daughter Barnes had told him about, Chrissy… He wondered how old she was and what she looked like.

And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all…

Now , he thought. Do it. Go, go, go.

And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all…

Thinking, the stone of retribution I've got, Grady, is a well-built Swiss gun and the messenger isn't an angel from Heaven but a representative of all right-thinking people in America.

He started forward.

The bodyguards were still looking away.

Opening the attaché case, he took out the Rand McNally and the heavy gun. Hiding the weapon inside the colorful map, he strolled casually toward the car. Grady's bodyguards were now standing together on the sidewalk, with their backs to him.

One reached down to open the door for the prosecutor.

Twenty feet away…

Reverend Swensen thought to Grady, God have mercy on your -

And then the angel's millstone landed squarely on his shoulders.

"On the ground, on the ground, now, now now now!"

A half-dozen men and women, a hundred demons, grabbed Reverend Swensen's arms and flung him hard to the sidewalk. "Don't move don't move don't move don't move!"

One grabbed the gun, one snatched away the briefcase, one pressed the reverend's neck down into the sidewalk like the weight of the city's sin. His face scraped against the concrete and pain shot through his wrists and shoulder sockets as handcuffs were ratcheted on him and his pockets turned inside-out.

Crushed to the concrete Reverend Swensen saw Grady's car door open and three policemen leap out, wearing helmets and bulletproof vests.

"Stay down, head down down down!"

Jesus our Lord in Heaven…

He watched a man's feet walk closer to him. In contrast to the fierceness of the other officers this man was quite polite. In a southern-accented voice he said, "Now, sir, we're going to roll you over and then I'm going to read you your rights. And you let me know if you understand 'em."

Several cops turned him over and pulled him to his feet.

The reverend started in shock.

The man speaking was the one in the dark sports coat he'd thought was following him in Washington Square. Next to him was the blond man in glasses who'd apparently taken over the surveillance. The third, the swarthy man who'd asked about the time the concert began, stood nearby.

"Sir, my name's Detective Bell. And I'm going to read those rights now. You ready? Good. Here we go."

• • •

Bell looked over the contents of Swensen's attaché case.

Extra ammunition for the H &K pistol. A yellow pad inscribed with what looked to be a very bad sermon scrawled on it. A guidebook, New York on Fifty Dollars a Day . There was also a beat-up Gideon Bible stamped with the name and address: THE ADELPHI HOTEL, 232 BOWERY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

Hmmm , Bell thought wryly, looks like we can add a count of Bible larceny to the charges.

He found nothing, though, that suggested a direct connection between this attempt on Grady's life and Andrew Constable. Discouraged, he handed off the evidence to be logged in and called Rhyme to tell him that the impromptu operation by the Saving Asses team had been successful.

Back at Rhyme's an hour earlier the criminalist had continued to pore over the revised crime scene report while Mel Cooper had researched the fibers the CS team had found in Grady's office. Finally Rhyme had made some troubling deductions. The analysis of the footprints in the office revealed that the intruder had stood for some minutes in one spot – the right front corner of the secretary's desk. The inventory of the office showed only one item in this portion of the desk: the woman's daily calendar. And the only entry for this weekend was Chrissy Grady's recital at the Neighborhood School.

Which meant that the person who broke in undoubtedly noted this. As for the attacker himself, Rhyme had ventured that he might be disguised as a minister or priest. With the help of an FBI database Cooper managed to trace the black fibers and dye to a cloth manufacturer in Minnesota, which – Cooper and Rhyme learned from its website – specialized in black gabardine for clerical-clothing makers. Rhyme also noted that several of the white fibers CS had found were polyester bonded with starched cotton, which suggested a white lightweight shirt with a stiff clerical collar attached.

The single red satin fiber was the sort that could've come from a ribbon bookmark in an old book, as could the gold leaf. A Bible, for instance. Rhyme had run a case years ago in which a smuggler had hidden drugs in a hollowed-out Bible; that CS search team had found similar trace in the man's office.