“Can you buy time?” Sachs asked.
“They set up that chat room on 13Chan. It’s closed to the public, but we can post. I wrote that we need more time.”
“They responded?”
“Two words. ‘See above.’ I’ll show you.” He recited a complicated URL and Sachs typed it into a nearby computer. A header for the site popped up, and in a private messaging window appeared a line drawing:
The mayor said, “No other response.”
Sachs asked, “This the first time there’s been affordable housing extortion in the city?”
“Protests, peaceful shit. Chaining themselves to jobsites, throwing eggs. Never violence.”
Rhyme’s eyes were on the wreckage. From a distance, the machines looked fragile. But the close-up images in the videos showed sturdy steel rods and support brackets.
Then again, had the Kommunalka Project actually been behind it?
“Timing?” he asked.
A pause. “How’s that, Captain?”
“Did the demand come in before the crane fell or after?”
“Oh, you’re thinking it was an accident and this group jumped on the bandwagon. It was ten minutes before the collapse.”
Answering that question.
Sachs asked, “We’re looking at the news. Nothing about the demand.”
“No. We’re not announcing. That’ll mean panic. I’ve ordered all high-rise construction suspended for the time being and we’re getting officers to every site where there’s a tower crane.”
“That’s going to raise questions,” Sachs pointed out.
In an off-hand tone, Harrison said, “Ah, I’ll blame the feds or something. Hold on.”
Voices, urgent, sounded in the background of the mayor’s call.
“I have to go, Captain, Detectives. Please, do whatever you can. The city’s resources? They’re at your disposal. Liaise with the Bureau and DHS.”
The call was disconnected.
Staring at the wreckage again. The blue of the tower was brilliant. Was it painted that way for safety? Or to advertise? Or simply cosmetics?
Sellitto poured some coffee from the carafe that had materialized. He walked to the computer monitor on the wall and squinted as he read the terrorists’ note.
“So, they’re not the brightest bulbs,” he said. “Maybe we can use that.”
“How’s that?” Rhyme queried.
“Misspellings — ‘obsene.’ And ‘its’ without an apostrophe.”
Rhyme clicked his tongue. “Those were intentional, to make us think they’re stupid. They’re not.”
“Yeah?”
“Other rules of grammar and punctuation’re right. They use ‘that’ and ‘which’ correctly. ‘That’ restricts the meaning of the preceding word: ‘the properties that are on the list below.’ ‘Which’ is nonrestrictive — providing optional information. For instance: where they happened to have learned about the city’s lack of redevelopment plans.”
“Linc—”
“And they use ‘since’ correctly too, meaning ‘from a point in time.’ It can be used to mean ‘because,’ but that’s not preferred. And see, they use ‘because’ in the proper sense a few sentences later. And the apostrophe before the gerund. ‘Developers’ building...’ That’s correct.”
“Gerund?”
Rhyme: “It’s a verb used as a noun. ‘Running is good for you.’ Or so I’m told. A gerund takes the possessive. Is no one else aware of these rules? Astonishing.”
“Jesus, Linc, when your students make a little screwup on their papers, you give them shit like this?”
He frowned. “An F. Of course.” A nod toward the post on the screen. “The chat room’s anonymous. But the original email. Who sent it and how?”
Lon said, “Public IP address. A coffee shop in Brooklyn with no security camera. The Computer Crimes people think the perp wasn’t even in the place. He must’ve been outside and hijacked their router.”
“Well, one fact to note: they know computers. Or’re working with someone who does.” He added, “I think the mayor should announce. He’ll have to before tomorrow morning. Give people a chance to stay clear of jobsites.”
Sellitto repeated, “Harrison’s right — there’d be panic. And he’s gotta be worried about copycatting. Is that a goddamn gerund?”
“It would be if ‘copycat’ were a verb. Which I consider nonstandard. Even if some people don’t.”
Rhyme continued to study the footage of the twisted tower and the wreckage of everything in its path. It had fallen forward, not to its side, and the long tower and arm atop it extended from the concrete base in the middle of the jobsite between two tall buildings, which it had narrowly missed, to a park across the uptown-downtown avenue. Had it veered just a dozen feet right or left, it would have collided with glass high-rises. The death toll would have been far higher.
“How many cranes are there in the city?”
Sachs pulled out her phone and asked the question. She squinted as she read. “New York, all boroughs, twenty-six. We’re low on the list. Toronto has over a hundred. L.A. about fifty.”
That was all? Twenty-six? Rhyme thought there would be more. He didn’t get outside much, of course, but when he did, it seemed the soaring towers were everywhere, the crossbeams balancing precariously atop the stalks.
Rhyme said, “I’ll call Mel and get him up here. What’s Pulaski doing?”
Sachs said, “Homicide’s been using him. He’s running a scene in Midtown.”
Rhyme said, “When he’s done, I want him here.”
“I’ll call,” Sellitto said.
“And let’s get a chart going.”
Sachs moved aside the Unsub 212 board, but kept it near the front. They were expecting an update from the lead detective, who was on his way here presently.
In the cleared space, she tugged an easel and blank pad forward and started a new board. “How about naming the guy after the street. Unsub 89?”
“A perfect christening,” Rhyme said.
She wrote this at the top of the chart in her fine handwriting.
Sellitto said, “Think it’s a Russian thing? A cell. Given the name. Kommunwhatever?”
Rhyme shook his head. He was thinking back to a history course he’d tolerated years ago. He recalled that left-leaning movements in mid-twentieth-century America enjoyed co-opting Soviet terms: agitprop, kompromat, intelligentsia.
“Doubt it. The Russians may have a perennial interest in destabilizing democracy, but I doubt the Motherland’d pressure the city to find housing for the proletariat. That’s a Roman word, by the way. Marx stole it.
“But I agree with the mayor. We’ve got to coordinate with the feds. Maybe have Lyle handle that.”
A recent addition to the ranks of NYPD detectives, Lyle Spencer was a former head of corporate security for a media empire. He was quiet, but interviewees tended to cooperate when he asked them questions. The man was massive, a bodybuilder, and his eyes were fierce. Rhyme believed he had seen Spencer smile once, but he wasn’t sure.
Sachs left a message for the detective, detailing the situation and what they needed him to do.
Sellitto opened his briefcase and extracted a thick wad of documents. “This’s from the foreman at the jobsite on Eighty-Ninth: blueprints, maps, SD cards from some security cams, a few other things he thought might be helpful.”
Sachs tugged a worktable into the center of the non-sterile portion of the parlor, and Sellitto spread out the materials. From this sea of paper, she selected a diagram of the site and taped it to a whiteboard. The overhead view depicted the crane and the building whose construction it was part of. Surrounding structures were depicted in rudimentary sketches.