And who was they?
Hale was behind it, but he probably wasn’t the ski-masked tranq shooter.
And there would be another player too. Lincoln had told him on several occasions that Charles Hale never worked for himself only. He always had a client.
And that person or entity?
High up, pulling strings. But no point in guessing their identity.
Not enough facts.
Pulaski noted there was no bottled water, no food, no toilet. The stay was going to be short.
Released soon.
Or they had more permanent plans in mind.
No windows or other doors, much less secret panels.
In the center of the chamber was a cage housing the HVAC system. But it was secured to the floor with thick padlocks. Still, he made his way to it, and feeling dizzy once more, he sat on the mesh, lowering his head.
Then he studied the cage.
No way to open it.
But wait. It wasn’t HVAC at all. It was some kind of improvised device. He noted a sealed quart jar made of some kind of thick plastic. Inside was a liquid, reaching nearly to the top.
Pulaski sighed and scanned the label on the jar.
Pulaski squinted and studied the assembly. Attached to the jar was a metal box about two by two by three inches. A short antenna protruded. Upon receiving a signal, the explosive charge in the box would detonate and shatter or melt the plastic, sending the corrosive liquid flowing into the room.
He recalled Lincoln Rhyme describing what the acid and the gas it created did to the human body.
He thought it wise to find a better place to sit and returned to the mattress.
Though he supposed the distance made no difference. Nowhere in the cell would be safe when the jar blew open.
Ron Pulaski lay back on the mattress and turned his thoughts to his family: Jenny and his children: Brad, Martine and, of course, Claire.
65
Lincoln Rhyme was now alone.
Sellitto had left.
Sachs was downtown. And Thom was out as well.
Just before he’d left, the aide had poured a healthy dose of twelve-year-old single malt into a crystal glass. Rhyme’s right hand now gripped the Waterford. While it wasn’t a social sin to drink scotch out of a plastic tumbler through a straw, as he’d had to do for years, the beverage seemed to taste better in a glass. No double-blind study for this, but Rhyme was convinced.
He sipped and turned his attention back to the letter that had been in the package. Sellitto had taken a picture through the Plexiglas of the biotox container and the image now sat on Rhyme’s tablet.
My dear Lincoln.
As you can tell, I have your associate Ron Pulaski. It will be impossible to find him, even with someone like you analyzing the evidence.
You must have figured out by now what my plan is. I could not get an IED into your apartment, nor shoot you with a sniper’s rifle. I wouldn’t want to anyway. That would be an inelegant solution to the situation. And, if you know anything about me, you know that I count the concept of grace as a fundamental one.
So I have arranged for an assistant to finish our work. And who? None other but you yourself. You’ll die by your own hand, or young Pulaski will by mine.
And his death will be anything but pleasant. HF acid, as we’ve learned over the past few days, is the great white shark of substances. I can time-release it into the room where I’ve kept him. A death painful and prolonged.
Send everyone out of the apartment. Come up with excuses, though a good one would be to try to find poor Ron. Send them to, say, Jersey.
When you’re alone, log on to the website below. It’s proxied — a bastardized verb you would not accept, I’m sure — and untraceable.
Log on from the tablet attached to your chair.
And don’t waste time.
The clock, if you will, is running.
Rhyme typed in the URL and almost instantly he heard the man’s voice, in real time.
“Lincoln.”
The screen was black.
Rhyme said, “It’s not working. I can’t see you.”
“No. You won’t. My camera’s off. But you’re visible to me. Now, go to the second bookcase from the back of the parlor. With the old books in it. The antiques about criminal investigation.”
Rhyme frowned. “How did you... Ah, Andy Gilligan told you about it. My Judas.” He motored to the oak stand. Three or four dozen volumes. One was not as ancient as the others. Crime in Old New York. It had been central to the first case he and Sachs had worked, tracking down a serial kidnapper nicknamed the Bone Collector.
“And?” Rhyme asked.
“There’s a reproduction of a book dating to the mid-sixteen hundreds.”
Even the facsimile was two hundred years old.
“Quite a title,” Hale said. “Andy told me.”
Looking at it, Rhyme recited, “The Triumphs of Gods Revenge against the crying and execrable sinne of (willfull and premeditated) murther.”
A subhead added another ten lines or so to the jacket.
Rhyme said, “It’s the first known true crime book.”
The killer mused, “Crime... Always an obsession — the inequity, the cruelty we humans visit on one another. Look at the popularity of the TV shows and podcasts.”
“I don’t watch, I don’t listen.”
“I know you don’t. I picked that book because it wasn’t likely you’d be flipping through it to answer a thorny present-day forensics question.”
“Ah, but never dismiss the old techniques out of hand. They can occasionally be helpful. We never want technology to substitute for sense, as I think you’d appreciate. The past should serve the present.”
“Let’s move along, Lincoln. There’s something behind the book.”
Rhyme lifted the volume off the shelf and clumsily set it aside. He reached in and extracted what had been hidden behind it, a roll of dark blue cloth. He set it on the chair’s tray and unfurled it. He looked down at the two hypodermics.
“What’s the drug?”
“Fentanyl. Now, that EKG in the corner? Hook yourself up to it.”
Rhyme stared at the needles for a long moment. “No.”
A pause.
The criminalist continued. “There’s something I have to do first.”
“The longer you wait—”
Firmly: “There’s something I’m going to do first... The birds.”
“The...?”
“Peregrine falcons. They nest on my window ledge. Upstairs.”
“I never figured you for someone who had pets, Lincoln.”
A hollow laugh. “Pets? Hardly. They choose to live here. I don’t know why. Fatter pigeons in this part of the park maybe? More stupid squirrels? But here they’ve settled and I’ve enjoyed watching them nest, propagate and hunt. I’m going upstairs.”
Hale was apparently debating. “All right... Here’s what you’ll do. You have a pulse oximeter on the chair. Put it on one of your fingers and turn it so I can see its screen.”
Rhyme did. “Clear enough?”
“Your oxygen levels are good, Lincoln. And your pulse lower than most people’s under these circumstances.”
“Pulse rates increase when adrenaline spills into the bloodstream because of the fight-or-flight response. I can’t do either. So why get riled up?”
“All right, go upstairs, but keep the signal active. One phone call from me and Pulaski is dead.”