I have a lot more messages like this one planned…
“Barry,” Metzger said. “I’m going to see our visitors out. Then, could I talk to you in my office? Please.”
A pause worthy of Nance Laurel. Finally the airman nodded.
Metzger escorted them to the exit, across the parking lot, thanked them warmly.
Outside the security gate, Rhyme took the accessible cutaway in the sidewalk to cross the street to where the van waited, Thom at the wheel. Sachs stepped off the curb. As she did, Rhyme saw her wince, gasp slightly in pain.
She offered a furtive glance his way, as if to see if he’d caught her frown, and then looked ahead quickly.
This cut him. It was as if she’d just lied to him.
And he lied right back; he pretended he hadn’t noticed.
Across the street they continued to the van for a moment. Then Rhyme braked the Merits chair to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
She turned.
“What is it, Rhyme?”
“Sachs, there’s something we need to talk about.”
CHAPTER 98
The phone rang on schedule.
Whatever else you could say about him, the Wizard was prompt.
Shreve Metzger, at his desk in a somewhat deserted NIOS this Saturday afternoon, looked at the blinking light of his magic red phone and listened attentively to the trill of the ringer, like a bird, he’d decided. He debated about not picking up.
And never taking a call from the man ever again.
“Metzger here.”
“Shreve! How are you doing? Heard about those interesting developments up there, I understand. Long Island. I used to belong to Meadowbrook, did you know that? You don’t golf, do you?”
“No.”
And squashed a “sir” dead.
The voice grew wizardly once again, low, raspy: “We’ve been talking about charges against Spencer.”
Metzger replied, “We could make a case work…if we wanted to.” He removed his bland glasses, polished the lenses and replaced them. Unlike in the United Kingdom, it was not necessarily a crime to release classified material in this country, unless you were spying for another nation.
“Yes, well, we’ll have to consider our priorities, of course.”
The Wizard was referring undoubtedly to the public relations issues. It might make more sense not to pursue the matter, lest the press get their hands on the story.
Yes, well…
Metzger took out the nail clippers. But there was nothing left to clip. He spun them absently on his desktop. Put them back.
“And good job with that incident in Florida. Interesting that that bad intel turned good. Like magic. David Copperfield, Houdini.”
“They’re in custody, all of them.”
“Delighted to hear it.” As if he were sharing Hollywood gossip, the Wizard said, “Now I have to tell you something, Shreve. You there?”
How cheerfully he delivers my death sentence.
“Yes. Go on.”
“Got a call from a friend in Langley. A certain individual who was recently in Mexico.”
May hi co.
“A certain party,” the Wizard repeated. “You remember him?”
“In Reynosa,” Metzger said.
“That’s the place. Well, guess what? He’s vacationing outside Santa Rosa, near Tijuana.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes indeed. And apparently he still plans on making some deliveries of his specialty products in the near future. The very near future.”
So al Barani Rashid had moved to the West Coast to hide out.
“He was just spotted with some associates but his friends’ll be leaving in the morning. And our friend will be all alone in a pleasant little cottage all day tomorrow. And the good news is that the local tourist board is absolutely fine about a visit from us. So, wondering if you could draw up some revised travel plans for our approval. Details are on their way.”
A new STO?
But aren’t I being fired? he wondered.
“Of course. I’ll get right on it. But…?”
“Yes?” the Wizard asked.
Metzger asked, “Those meetings? The budgetary issues?”
A pause. “Oh, the committee moved on to other matters.” After a beat the Wizard said sternly, “If there had been issues, I would’ve mentioned them to you, don’t you think?”
“Sure, you would have. Of course.”
“Of course.”
Click.
VIII
WHEN YOU MOVE…
FRIDAY, MAY 26
CHAPTER 99
The morning of the surgery.
Rhyme, trailed by Sachs and Thom, wheeled fast down the hospital corridor to the Surgical Procedures waiting room where the patients could visit with their friends and family until they were whisked off for the knife.
“I hate hospitals,” Sachs said.
“Really? Why?” Rhyme found himself in quite a good mood. “The staff can be sooo charming, the food sooo good. The latest magazines. And all the miracles of modern medicine,” Rhyme proclaimed. “If you’ll forgive the alliteration.”
Sachs gave a brief laugh.
They’d waited only five minutes when the doctor strode into the room and shook all their hands, carefully noting Rhyme’s articulating right arm and digits. “Good,” he said. “That is very good.”
“I do my best.”
The doctor explained what they all knew at this point: that the surgery should take three hours, possibly a little longer. The stay in the recovery room could be expected to last an hour or so. The surgeon would come find them here, though, right after the operation was completed to tell them how it had gone.
Exuding confidence, the man smiled and headed off to gown and scrub.
The pre op nurse, a pretty African American woman in puppy decorated scrubs, arrived and introduced herself, smiling broadly. It’s a scary thing, to be knocked out and cut open then put back together. Some medicos didn’t appreciate the trauma but this woman did and kept everyone at ease. Finally she asked, “Ready?”
Amelia Sachs leaned over and kissed Rhyme on the mouth. She rose and, limping, accompanied the nurse down the hall.
He called, “We’ll be in the recovery room when you wake up.”
She turned back. “Don’t be crazy, Rhyme. Go back home. Solve a case or something.”
“We’ll be in the recovery room,” he repeated, as the door swung shut and she disappeared.
After a moment of silence Rhyme said to Thom, “You don’t happen to have one of those miniatures of whiskey, do you? From the flight to Nassau.”
He’d insisted the aide smuggle some scotch on board, though he’d learned that in first class you get as much liquor as you like – or, more accurately, as much as your caregiver is willing to let you have.
“No, and I wouldn’t give you any if I did have some. It’s nine in the morning.”
Rhyme scowled.
He looked once more at the doors through which Sachs had vanished.
We don’t want to lose her; she’s too good. But the department can’t keep her if she insists on being in the field…
Yes, he’d had a conversation with Sachs, as Bill Myers had insisted.
Though the message was a bit different from what the captain had wanted.
Neither a desk job at the NYPD and early retirement and security consulting were options for Amelia Sachs. There was only one solution to avoid those nightmares. Rhyme had contacted Dr. Vic Barrington and gotten the name of the best surgeon in the city specializing in treating severe arthritis.
The man had said he might be able to help; Rhyme’s conversation with Sachs on Saturday outside NIOS headquarters was about the possibility of her undergoing a procedure to improve the situation…and keeping her in the field. Not desking her, to use one of Myers’s more pernicious verbs.
Because she wasn’t afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis – an immune system malady that affects all the joints – but more common osteoarthritis, she was young enough so that a procedure in her hip and knee could give her a dozen years or more of normal life before a joint replacement would be required.