Jeffery Deaver - The Cold Moon

"Good touch."

Duncan smiled. "I thought so." The killer's voice was soft, his words precise, but the tone was filled with the modest pleasure of an artisan showing off a finished piece of furniture or a musical instrument…or a watch, Baker reflected.

Duncan explained that he'd dressed like a workman, waited until Sarah went out then planted a fire extinguisher, filled with flammable alcohol. In a few minutes Baker was to call Rhyme or Sellitto and report that he'd found evidence of where the extinguisher bomb was planted. The ESU and bomb squad would then speed to the office, Amelia Sachs too.

"I set the device up so that if she moves the extinguisher a certain way, it'll spray her with alcohol and ignite. Alcohol burns really fast. It'll kill or injure her but won't set fire to the whole office." The police, he continued, might even disarm the device and save the woman. It wouldn't matter; all that Duncan cared about was getting Amelia Sachs into the office to search the scene.

Sarah's cubicle was at the end of a narrow corridor. Sachs would be searching it alone, as she always did. When she turned her back, Baker, waiting nearby, would shoot her and anybody else present. The weapon he'd use was Duncan's.32 automatic, loaded with bullets from the same box he'd intentionally left in the SUV for the police to find. After shooting Sachs, Baker would break a nearby window, which was fifteen feet above an alleyway. He'd throw the gun out, making it seem as if the Watchmaker had leapt out the window and escaped, dropping the gun. The unusual murder weapon, linked to the rounds found in the Explorer, would leave no doubt that the Watchmaker was the killer.

Sachs would be dead and the investigation into the corruption at the 118th Precinct would grind to a halt.

Duncan said, "Let some other officers get to her body first but it'd be a nice touch if you pushed them aside and tried to resuscitate her."

Baker said, "You think of everything, don't you?"

"What's so miraculous about timepieces," Duncan said, gazing at the moon-faced clock, "is that none of them ever has more or fewer parts than is needed to do what the watchmaker intends. Nothing missing, but nothing superfluous." He added in a soft voice, "It's pure perfection, wouldn't you say?"

Amelia Sachs and Ron Pulaski were slogging through the cold streets of lower Manhattan, and she was reflecting that sometimes the biggest hurdles in a case weren't from the perps but from bystanders, witnesses and victims.

They were following up on one of the clues that had been uncovered in the church, receipts from a parking garage not far from the pier where the first victim had died. But the attendant was unhelpful. Lady, no, he no familiar. Nobody look like him I remember. Ahmed-maybe he saw him… Oh, but he not here today. No, I don't know his phone number…

And so it went.

Frustrated, Sachs nodded toward a restaurant adjacent to the parking garage. She said, "Maybe he stopped in there. Let's give it a try."

Just then her radio crackled. She recognized Sellitto's voice. "Amelia, you copy?"

She grabbed Pulaski's arm and turned up the volume, so they both could hear. "Go ahead, K."

"Where are you?"

"Downtown. The parking garage didn't pan out. We're going to canvass a couple of restaurants."

"Forget it. Get up to Three Two Street and Seven Avenue. Fast. Dennis Baker's found a lead. Looks like the next vic's in an office building there."

"Who is she?"

"We're not sure exactly. We'll probably have to sweep the whole place. We've got Arson and the bomb squad on the way-she's the one he's going to burn to death. Man, I hope we're in time. Anyway, get up there now."

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

The fire department was sending two dozen men and women into the twenty-seven-story midtown building. And Bo Haumann was assembling five ESU entry teams-expanded ones, six cops each, rather than the typical four-to do a floor-by-floor search.

Sachs's drive here had taken closer to a half hour, thanks to holiday traffic. Not a huge delay but the extra fifteen minutes made a big difference: She'd missed a spot on an entry team. Amelia Sachs was officially a crime scene detective but her heart was also with tactical teams, the ones who went through the perps' doors first.

If they found the Watchmaker here, it would've been her last chance for a take-down before she quit the force. She supposed she'd see some excitement in her new job as security specialist at Argyle, but the local law enforcers would surely get most of the tactical fun.

Sachs and Pulaski now ran from the car to the command post at the back door of the office building.

"Any sign of him?" she asked Haumann.

The grizzled man shook his head. "Not yet. We had a sequence on a video camera in the lobby of somebody kind of looked like the composite, carrying a bag. But we don't know if he left or not. There're two back and two side door exits that aren't alarmed and aren't scanned by cameras."

"You evacuating?" a man's voice asked.

Sachs turned around. It was Detective Dennis Baker.

"Just started," Haumann explained.

"How'd you find him?" Sachs asked.

Baker said, "That warehouse with the green paint-he used it as a staging area. I found some notes and a map of this building."

The policewoman was still angry about Baker's spying on her but solid police work deserves credit and she nodded to him and said, "Good job."

"Nothing inspired," he replied with a smile. "Just pounding the pavement. And a little bit of luck." Baker's eyes rose to the building as he pulled his gloves on.

Sitting in her cubicle, Sarah Stanton heard another squawk over the building's public address system above her head.

It was a running joke in the office that the company put some kind of filter on the speakers that made the transmissions completely unintelligible. She turned back to her computer, calling, "What're they saying? I can't make heads or tails of it."

"Some announcement," one of her coworkers called.

Duh.

"They keep doing that. Pisses me off. Is it a fire drill?"

"No idea."

A moment later she heard the whoop of the fire alarm.

Guess it is.

After 9/11 the alarm had gone off every month or so. The first couple times she'd played along and trooped downstairs like everybody else. But today the temperature was in the low twenties and she had way too much work to do. Besides, if it really was a fire and the exits were blocked she could just jump out the window. Her office was only on the second floor.

She returned to her screen.

But then Sarah heard voices at the far end of the corridor that led to her cubicle. There was an urgency about the sound. And something else-the jangling of metal. Firemen's equipment? she wondered.

Maybe something really was happening.

Heavy footsteps behind her, approaching. She turned around and saw policemen in dark outfits, with guns. Police? Oh, God, was it a terrorist attack? All she thought about was getting to her son's school, picking him up.

"We're evacuating the building," the cop announced.

"Is it terrorists?" somebody called. "Has there been another attack?"

"No." He didn't explain further. "Everybody move out in an orderly fashion. Take your coats, leave everything else."

Sarah relaxed. She wouldn't have to worry about her son.

Another of the officers called, "We're looking for fire extinguishers. Are there any in this area? Don't touch them. Just let us know. I repeat, do not touch them!"

So there is a fire, she thought, pulling on her coat.

Then she reflected that it was curious that the fire department would use the company's extinguishers on a fire. Didn't they have their own? And why should they be so concerned that we'd use one? Not like you need special training.