The Cold Moon (55 page)

Sachs muted the volume and turned a smug gaze toward Charlotte.

"No," the woman gasped. "Oh, no... What — ?"

Rhyme said, "Obviously — we figured it out
before
the bomb went off and evacuated the room."

Charlotte was appalled. "But... impossible. No... The airports were shut down, the trains —"

"Oh,
that,
" Rhyme said dismissively. "We just needed to buy some time. At first, sure, I thought he was stealing the Delphic Mechanism but then I decided it was just a feint. But that didn't mean he
hadn't
done something to the NIST clock. So while we were figuring out what he was really up to, we called the mayor and had him order flights and public transportation in the area suspended."

You know what's going to happen if we push
that
button...

She glanced into the bedroom where her husband had died such a pointless death. Then the ideologue within her kicked in and she said in a flat voice, "You'll never beat us. You may win a battle or two. But we'll take our country back. We'll —"

"Yo, hold that rhetoric, wouldja?" The speaker was a tall, lanky black man, stepping into the room. This was FBI Special Agent Fred Dellray. When he'd heard about the domestic terrorist angle he'd handed off the accounting fraud case that he'd been assisting on ("Was a yawner anyway") and announced that that he was going to be the federal liaison on the HUD bombing.

Dellray was wearing a powder blue suit and a shocking green shirt underneath a brown herringbone overcoat, circa 1975; the agent's taste in couture was as brash as his manner. He looked Charlotte over. "Well, well, well, lookit what we caught ou'selves." The woman gazed back defiantly. He laughed. "A shame you're going to jail for... well,
forever,
and you didn't even do whatcha'll had your heart set on. How's it feel t'be swimmin' laps in the loser pool?"

Dellray's approach to interviewing suspects was a lot different from Kathryn Dance's; Rhyme suspected she wouldn't approve.

Charlotte had been arrested by Sachs on state charges and it was now Dellray's turn to arrest her for the federal crimes — both for this incident and for the UN bombing years ago, her involvement in a federal courthouse shooting in San Francisco and some miscellaneous charges.

Charlotte said she understood her rights and then started another lecture.

Dellray wagged a finger at her. "Gimme a minute, sweetheart." The lean man turned to Rhyme. "So how'd you figure this one out, Lincoln? We heard
X,
we heard
Y,
all 'bout some boys in blue taking money they shouldn'ta been doin' and then some bizarre fella leavin' clocks as callin' cards — then next thing we know the airports're closed and there's a priority-one security alert at HUD innerupting my nap."

Rhyme detailed the frantic process of kinesic and forensic work that led them to figure out the Watchmaker's real plan. Kathryn Dance had suggested that he was lying about his mission in New York. So they'd looked into the evidence again. Some of it pointed to the possible theft of a rare artifact in the Metropolitan Museum.

But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Rhyme figured Duncan had made up the story about the undelivered package to the Met just to get them focused on the museum. Somebody as careful as the Watchmaker wouldn't leave the trail he did. He turned in Vincent, knowing the rapist would give up the church, where he'd left other museum brochures referring to the Mechanism. He mentioned it to Hallerstein and to Vincent as well. No, he was up to something else. But what? Kathryn Dance reviewed the interview tape again, several times, and decided that he might have been lying when he said he picked the supposed victims simply because their locations meant easy getaways.

"Which meant," Rhyme told Dellray, "that he picked them for some other purpose. So, did they have anything in common?"

Rhyme had remembered something Dance learned about the first crime scene. Ari Cobb had said that the SUV was originally parked in the back of the alley but then the Watchmaker returned to the front to leave the body. "Why? One reason was that he needed to put the victim in a particular place. What was it near? The back door to the Housing and Urban Development building."

Rhyme had then gotten the client list from the flooring company where he'd planted the fake fire extinguisher bomb and learned that they'd provided carpeting and tile for the HUD offices.

"I sent our rookie downtown to look around. He found a building across Cedar Street that was being renovated. The crews had tarred the roof a week ago, just before the cold spell. Flakes of tar matched those found on our perp's shoes. The roof was a perfect place to check out HUD."

This also explained why he'd poured sand on the ground at the crime scene and swept it up — to make absolutely certain they didn't find trace that'd help anyone identify him later when he came back to assemble and arm the bombs.

Rhyme also found that the other victims had a connection to the building. Lucy Richter was being recognized there today, and she'd had the specially issued passes and IDs to get into all parts of the building. She also had a classified memo on security and evacuation procedures.

As for Joanne Harper, it turned out that she'd done the flower arrangements for the ceremony — a good way to smuggle something into the building.

"A bomb, I guessed. We got the mayor involved and he called the press, had them hold off on the story that we were evacuating HUD so the perps wouldn't rabbit. But the device blew before the bomb squad could disarm it." Rhyme shook his head. "Just
hate
it when good evidence blows up. You know how hard it is to lift prints off pieces of metal that've been flying through the air at thirty thousand feet a second?"

"How'dja get Miss Congeniality here?" Dellray asked, nodding at Charlotte.

Rhyme said dismissively, "That was easy. She was careless. If Duncan was fake, then the woman helping him at the first scene in the alley had to be fake too. Our rookie got all the tag numbers of cars in the vicinity of the alley off Cedar. The car the supposed sister was driving was an Avis, rented to Charlotte Allerton. We checked all the hotels in the city until we found her."

Dellray shook his head. "An' what about yo' perp? Mr. Clockmaker?"

"It's 'Watchmaker,'" the criminalist grumbled. "And that's a different story." He explained that Charlotte's daughter, Pam, had heard that he had a place in Brooklyn but she didn't know where it was. "No other leads."

Dellray bent down. "Where in Brooklyn? Need to know. And now."

Charlotte replied defiantly, "You're pathetic! All of you! You're just lackeys for the bureaucracy in Washington. You're selling out the heart of our country and —"

Dellray leaned forward, right into her face. He clicked his tongue. "Uhuh. No politics, no philosophy... All we want're answers to the questions. We all together on that?"

"Fuck you" was Charlotte's response.

Dellray blew air through his cheeks like a trumpet player. He moaned, "I am
no
match for this intellect."

Rhyme wished Kathryn Dance was here to interrogate the woman, though he guessed it would take a long time to pry information from her. He eased forward in the wheelchair and said in a whisper, so Pam couldn't hear, "If you help us out I can make sure you see your daughter from time to time when you're in prison. If you don't cooperate, I will guarantee that you never see her again as long as you live."

Charlotte glanced into the hallway, where Pam sat on a chair, defiantly clutching her Harry Potter. The dark-haired girl was pretty, with fragile features, but very slim. She wore faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. The skin around her eyes was dark. She clicked her fingernails together compulsively. The girl seemed needy in a hundred different ways.

Charlotte turned back to Rhyme. "Then I'll never see her again," she said calmly.

Dellray blinked at this, his usually unrevealing face tightening in revulsion.

Rhyme himself could think of nothing more to say to the woman.

It was then that Ron Pulaski came running into the room. He paused to catch his breath.

"What?" Rhyme asked.

It took a moment for him to be able to answer. Finally, he said, "The phones... The Watchmaker..."

"Out with it, Ron."

"Sorry..." A deep breath. "We couldn't trace his mobile but a hotel clerk saw her, Charlotte, making calls around midnight every night over the past four or five days. I called the phone company. I got the number she called. They traced it. It's to a pay phone in Brooklyn. At this intersection." He handed the slip of paper to Sellitto, who relayed it to Bo Haumann and ESU.

"Good job," Sellitto said to Pulaski. He called the deputy inspector of the precinct where the phone was located. Officers would start a canvass of the neighborhood as soon as Mel Cooper emailed pictures of the composite to the DI.

Rhyme supposed that the Watchmaker might not live near the phone — it wouldn't have surprised the criminalist — but a mere thirty minutes later they had a positive identification from a patrol officer, who found several neighbors who recognized the man.

Sellitto took the number and alerted Bo Haumann.

Sachs announced, "I'll call in from the scene."

"Hold on," Rhyme said, glancing at her. "Why don't you sit this one out. Let Bo handle it."

"What?"

"They'll have a full tactical force."

Rhyme was thinking of the superstition that cops on short time were more likely to get killed or injured than others. Rhyme didn't believe in superstitions. That didn't matter. He didn't want her to go.

Amelia Sachs would be thinking the same thing, perhaps; she was debating, it seemed. Then he saw her looking into the hallway at Pam Willoughby. She turned back to the criminalist. Their eyes met. He gave a faint smile and nodded.

She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door.

In a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn a dozen tactical officers moved slowly along the sidewalk, another six creeping through an alley behind a shabby detached house.

This was a neighborhood of modest houses in small yards, presently filled with Christmas decorations. The minuscule size of the lots had no effect on the owners' ability to populate the land with as many Santas, reindeer and elves as possible.

Sachs was walking down the sidewalk slowly at the head of the takedown team. She was on the radio with Rhyme. "We're here," she said softly.

"What's the story?"

"We've cleared the houses on either side and behind. There's nobody opposite." A community vegetable garden was across the street. A ragged scarecrow sat in the middle of the tiny lot. Across his chest was a swirl of graffiti.

"Pretty good site for a takedown. We're — hold on, Rhyme." A light had gone on in one of the front rooms. The cops around her stopped and crouched. She whispered, "He's still here... I'm signing off."

"Go get him, Sachs." She heard an unusual determination in his voice. She knew he was upset that the man had escaped. Saving the people at the HUD building and capturing Charlotte were fine. But Rhyme wasn't happy unless all the perps ended up in cuffs.

But he wasn't as determined as Amelia Sachs. She wanted to give Rhyme the Watchmaker — as a present to mark their last case together.

She changed radio frequencies and said into her stalk mike, "Detective Five Eight Eight Five to ESU One."

Bo Haumann, at a staging area a block away, came on the radio. "Go ahead, K."

"He's here. Just saw a light go on in the front room."

"Roger, B Team, you copy?"

These were the officers behind the bungalow. "B Team leader to ESU One. Roger that. We're — hold on. Okay, he's upstairs now. Just saw the light go on up there. Looks like the back bedroom."

"Don't assume he's alone," Sachs said. "There could be somebody else from Charlotte's outfit with him. Or he might've picked up another partner."

"Roger that, Detective," Haumann said in his gravelly voice. "S and S, what can you tell us?"

The Search and Surveillance teams were just getting into position on the roof of the apartment building behind and in the garden across the street from the Watchmaker's safe house, on which they were training their instruments.

"S and S One to ESU One. All the shades're drawn. Can't get a look at all. We've got heat in the back of the house. But he's not walking around. There's a light on in the attic but we can't see in — no windows, just louvers, K."

"Same here — S and S Two. No visual. Heat upstairs, nothing on the ground floor. Heard a click or two a second ago, K."

"Weapon?"

"Could be. Or maybe just appliances or the furnace, K."

The ESU officer next to Sachs deployed his officers with hand signals. He, Sachs and two others clustered at the front door, another team of four right behind them. One held the battering ram. The other three covered the windows on the ground and the second floors.

"B Team to One. We're in position. Got a ladder next to the lit room in the back, K."

"A Team, in position," another ESU officer radioed in a whisper.

"We're no-knock," Haumann told the teams. "On my count of three, flashbangs into the rooms that have the lights on. Throw 'em hard to get through the shades. On one, simultaneous dynamic entry front and back. B Team, split up, cover the ground floor and basement. A Team, go straight upstairs. Remember, this guy knows how to make IEDs. Look for devices."

"B Team, copy."

"A, copy."

Despite the freezing air Sachs's palms were sweating inside the tight Nomex gloves. She pulled the right one away and blew into it. Did the same with the left. Then she cinched up the body armor and unsnapped the cover of her spare ammo clip carrier. The other officers had machine guns but Sachs never went for that. She preferred the elegance of a single well-placed round to a spray of lead.

Sachs and the three officers on the primary entry team nodded at one another.

Haumann's raspy voice began the count. "Six... five... four... three..."