Shouts, cries for help around him.
Blood, blood everywhere.
Sun setting, sky going darker and darker. But isn't it morning? Moreno had images of his wife, his teenage son and daughter. His thoughts dissolved until he was aware of only one thing: the tree.
Poison and strength, poison and strength.
The fire within him was easing, vanishing. Tearful relief.
Darkness becoming darker.
The poisonwood tree.
Poisonwood...
Poison...
Monday, May 15
II
The Queue
Chapter 2
"Is he on his way or not?" Lincoln Rhyme asked, not trying to curb the irritation.
"Something at the hospital," came Thom's voice from the hallway or kitchen or wherever he was. "He'll be delayed. He'll call when he's free."
" 'Something.' Well, that's specific. 'Something at the hospital.' "
"That's what he told me."
"He's a doctor. He should be precise. And he should be on time."
"He's a doctor," Thom replied, "which means he has emergencies to deal with."
"But he didn't say 'emergency.' He said, 'something.' The operation is scheduled for May twenty-six. I don't want it delayed. That's too far in the future anyway. I don't see why he couldn't do it sooner."
Rhyme motored his red Storm Arrow wheelchair to a computer monitor. He parked next to the rattan chair in which sat Amelia Sachs, in black jeans and sleeveless black shell. A gold pendant of one diamond and one pearl dangled from a thin chain around her neck. The day was early and spring sunlight fired through the east-facing windows, glancing alluringly off her red hair tied in a bun, tucked carefully up with pewter pins. Rhyme turned his attention back to the screen, scanning a crime scene report for a homicide he'd just helped the NYPD close.
"About done," she said.
They sat in the parlor of his town house on Central Park West in Manhattan. What presumably had once been a subdued, quiet chamber for visitors and suitors in Boss Tweed's day was now a functioning crime scene lab. It was filled with evidence examination gear and instrumentation, computers and wires, everywhere wires, which made the transit of Rhyme's wheelchair forever bumpy, a sensation that he experienced only from his shoulders up.
"The doctor's late," Rhyme muttered to Sachs. Unnecessarily since she'd been ten feet away from his exchange with Thom. But he was still irritated and felt better laying on a bit more censure. He carefully moved his right arm forward to the touchpad and scrolled through the last paragraphs of the report. "Good."
"I'll send it?"
He nodded and she hit a key. The encrypted sixty-five pages headed off into the ether to arrive ultimately six miles away at the NYPD's crime scene facility in Queens, where they would become the backbone of the case of People v. Williams.
"Done."
Done... except for testifying at the trial of the drug lord, who had sent twelve-and thirteen-year-olds out into the streets of East New York and Harlem to do his killing for him. Rhyme and Sachs had managed to locate and analyze minute bits of trace and impression evidence that led from one of the youngster's shoes to the floor of a storefront in Manhattan to the carpet of a Lexus sedan to a restaurant in Brooklyn and finally to the house of Tye Williams himself.
The gang leader hadn't been present at the murder of the witness, he hadn't touched the gun, there was no record of him ordering the hit and the young shooter was too terrified to testify against him. But those hurdles for the prosecution didn't matter; Rhyme and Sachs had spun a filament of evidence that stretched from the crime scene directly to Williams's crib.
He'd be in jail for the rest of his life.
Sachs now closed her hand on Rhyme's left arm, strapped to the wheelchair, immobile. He could see from the tendons faintly visible beneath her pale skin that she squeezed. The tall woman rose and stretched. They'd been working to finish the report since early morning. She'd awakened at five. He, a bit later.
Rhyme noticed that she winced as she walked to the table where her coffee cup sat. The arthritis in her hip and knee had been bad lately. Rhyme's spinal cord injury, which rendered him a quadriplegic, was described as devastating. Yet it never gave him a moment's pain.
All of our bodies, whoever we are, fail us to some degree, he reflected. Even those who at present were more or less content were troubled by clouds on the horizon. He pitied the athletes, the beautiful people, the young who were already anticipating decline with dread.
And yet, ironically, the opposite was true for Lincoln Rhyme. From the ninth circle of injury, he had been improving, thanks to new spinal cord surgical techniques and his own take-no-prisoners attitude about exercise and risky experimental procedures.
Which reminded him again that he was irritated the doctor was late for today's assessment appointment, in anticipation of the upcoming surgery.
The two-tone doorbell chime sounded.
"I'll get that," Thom called.
The town house was disability-modified, of course, and Rhyme could have used a computer to view and converse with whoever was at the door and let them in. Or not. (He didn't like folks to come-a-callin' and tended to send them away--sometimes rudely--if Thom didn't act fast.)
"Who is it? Check first."
This couldn't be Dr. Barrington, since he was going to call once he'd disposed of the "something" that had delayed him. Rhyme wasn't in the mood for other visitors.
But whether his caregiver checked first or not didn't matter apparently. Lon Sellitto appeared in the parlor.
"Linc, you're home."
Safe bet.
The squat detective beelined to a tray with coffee and pastry.
"You want fresh?" Thom asked. The slim aide was dressed in a crisp white shirt, floral blue tie and dark slacks. Cuff links today, ebony or onyx.
"Naw, thanks, Thom. Hey, Amelia."
"Hi, Lon. How's Rachel?"
"Good. She's taken up Pilates. That's a weird word. It's exercise or something." Sellitto was decked out in a typically rumpled suit, brown, and a typically rumpled powder-blue shirt. He sported a striped crimson tie that was atypically smooth as a piece of planed wood. A recent present, Rhyme deduced. From girlfriend Rachel? The month was May--no holidays. Maybe it was a birthday present. Rhyme didn't know the date of Sellitto's. Or, for that matter, most other people's.
Sellitto sipped coffee and pestered a Danish, two bites only. He was perpetually dieting.
Rhyme and the detective had worked together years ago, as partners, and it had largely been Lon Sellitto who'd pushed Rhyme back to work after the accident, not by coddling or cajoling but by forcing him to get off his ass and start solving crimes again. (More accurately, in Rhyme's case, to stay on his ass and get back to work.) But despite their history Sellitto never came by just to hang out. The detective first-class was assigned to Major Cases, working out of the Big Building--One Police Plaza--and he was usually the lead detective on the cases for which Rhyme was hired to consult. His presence now was a harbinger.
"So." Rhyme looked him over. "Do you have something good for me, Lon? An engaging crime? Intriguing?"
Sellitto sipped and nibbled. "All I know is I got a call from on top asking if you were free. I told 'em you were finishing up Williams. Then I was told to get here ASAP, meet somebody. They're on their way."
" 'Somebody'? 'They'?" Rhyme asked acidly. "That's as specific as the 'something' detaining my doctor. Seems infectious. Like the flu."
"Hey, Linc. All I know."
Rhyme cast a wry look toward Sachs. "I notice that no one called me about this. Did anybody call you, Sachs?"
"Not a jingle."
Sellitto said, "Oh, that's 'causa the other thing."
"What other thing?"
"Whatever's going on, it's a secret. And it's gotta stay that way."
Which was, Rhyme decided, at least a step toward intriguing.
Chapter 3
Rhyme was looking
up at the two visitors, as different as could be, now stepping into his parlor.
One was a man in his fifties, with a military bearing, wearing an untailored suit--the shoulders were the giveaway--in navy blue, bordering on black. He had a jowly, clean-shaven face, tanned skin and trim hair, marine-style. Has to be brass, Rhyme thought.
The other was a woman hovering around the early thirties. She was approaching stocky, though not overweight, not yet. Her blond, lusterless hair was in an anachronistic flip, stiffly sprayed, and Rhyme noted that her pale complexion derived from a mask of liberally applied flesh-toned makeup. He didn't see any acne or other pocks and assumed the pancake was a fashion choice. There was no shadow or liner around her gun-muzzle black eyes, all the more stark given the cream shade of the face in which they were set. Her thin lips were colorless too and dry. Rhyme assessed that this was not a mouth that broke into a smile very often.
She would pick something to look at--equipment, the window, Rhyme--and turn a sandblast gaze on it until she had stripped it down to understanding or rendered it irrelevant. Her suit was dark gray, also not expensive, and all three plastic buttons were snugly fixed. The dark disks seemed slightly uneven and he wondered if she'd found a perfect-fitting suit with unfortunate brass accents and replaced them herself. The low black shoes were worn unevenly and had been doctored recently with liquid scuff cover-up.
Got it, Rhyme thought. He believed he knew her employer. And was all the more curious.
Sellitto said of the man, "Linc, this is Bill Myers."
The visitor nodded. "Captain, an honor to meet you." He used Rhyme's last title with the NYPD, from when he'd retired on disability some years ago. This confirmed Myers's job; Rhyme had been right, brass. And pretty senior.
Rhyme motored the electric wheelchair forward and thrust his hand out. The brass noted the jerky motion, hesitated then gripped it. Rhyme noticed something too: Sachs stiffen slightly. She didn't like it when he used the limb and digits like this, unnecessarily, for social niceties. But Lincoln Rhyme couldn't help himself. The past decade had been an effort to rectify what fate had done to him. He was proud of his few victories and exploited them.
Besides, what was the point of a toy if you never played with it?
Myers introduced the other mysterious "somebody." Her name was Nance Laurel.
"Lincoln," he said. Another handshake, seemingly firmer than Myers's, though Rhyme, of course, couldn't tell. Sensation did not accompany movement.
Laurel's sharp gaze took in Rhyme's thick brown hair, his fleshy nose, his keen dark eyes. She said nothing other than "Hello."
"So," he said. "You're an ADA."
Assistant district attorney.
She gave no physical reaction to his deduction, which was partly a guess. A hesitation, then: "Yes, I am." Her voice was crisp, sibilant emphasized.
Sellitto then introduced Myers and Laurel to Sachs. The brass took in the policewoman as if he was very aware of her rep too. Rhyme noticed that Sachs winced a bit as she walked forward to shake hands. She corrected her gait as she returned to the chair. He alone, he believed, saw her subtly pop a couple of Advil into her mouth and swallow dry. However much the pain she never took anything stronger.
Myers too, it turned out, was a captain by rank and ran a branch of the department that Rhyme had not heard of, new apparently. The Special Services Division. His confident demeanor and cagey eyes suggested to Rhyme that he and his outfit were quite powerful within the NYPD. Possibly he was a player with an eye on a future in city government.
Rhyme himself had never had an interest in the gamesmanship of institutions like the NYPD, much less what lay beyond, Albany or Washington. All that interested him at the moment was the man's presence. The appearance of a senior cop with mysterious departmental lineage alongside the focused terrier of an ADA suggested an assignment that would keep at bay the dreaded boredom that, since the accident, had become his worst enemy.
He felt the throbbing of anticipation, his heart, but via his temples, not his insensate chest.
Bill Myers deferred to Nance Laurel, saying, "I'll let her unpack the situation."
Rhyme tried to catch Sellitto's eye with a wry glance but the man deflected it. "Unpack." Rhyme disliked such stilted, coined terms, which bureaucrats and journalists seeded into their dialogue. "Game-changer" was another recent one. "Kabuki" too. They were like bright red streaks in the hair of middle-aged women or tattoos on cheeks.
Another pause and Laurel said, "Captain--"
"Lincoln. I'm decommissioned."
Pause. "Lincoln, yes. I'm prosecuting a case and because of certain unusual issues it was suggested that you might be in a position to run the investigation. You and Detective Sachs. I understand you work together frequently."
"That's right." He wondered if ADA Laurel ever loosened up. Doubted it.
"I'll explain," she continued. "Last Tuesday, May ninth, a U.S. citizen was murdered in a luxury hotel in the Bahamas. The local police there are investigating the crime but I have reason to believe that the shooter's American and is back in this country. Probably the New York area."
She paused before nearly every sentence. Was she picking thoroughbred words? Or assessing liabilities if the wrong one left the gate?
"Now, I'm not going with a murder charge against the perps. It's difficult to make a case in state court for a crime that occurs in a different country. That could be done but it would take too long." Now a denser hesitation. "And it's important to move quickly."
Why? Rhyme wondered.
Intriguing...
Laurel continued, "I'm seeking other, independent charges in New York."
"Conspiracy," Rhyme said, his instantaneous deduction. "Good, good. I like that. On the basis that the murder was planned here."
"Exactly," Laurel offered. "The killing was ordered by a New York resident in the city. That's why I have jurisdiction."
Like all cops, or former cops, Rhyme knew the law as well as most lawyers did. He recalled the relevant New York Penal Code provision: Somebody is guilty of conspiracy when--with intent that conduct constituting a crime be performed--he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct. He added, "And you can bring the case here even if the killing took place outside the state because the underlying conduct--murder--is a crime in New York."
"Correct," Laurel confirmed. She might have been pleased he got the analysis right. It was hard to tell.
Sachs said, "Ordered the killing, you said. What was it, an OC hit?"
Many of the worst organized crime bosses were never arrested and convicted for the extortion, murders and kidnappings they perpetrated; they could never be tied to the crime scene. But they often were sent to prison for conspiring to cause those events to happen.
Laurel, however, said, "No. This is something else."
Rhyme's mind danced. "But if we identify and collar the conspirators the Bahamians'll want to extradite them. The shooter, at least."
Laurel regarded him silently for a second. Her pauses were beginning to border on the unnerving. She finally said, "I'll resist extradition. And my chances of success I put at over ninety percent." For a woman in her thirties Laurel seemed young. There was a schoolgirl innocence about her. No, "innocence" was the wrong word, Rhyme decided. Single-mindedness.
Pigheaded was another cliche that fit.
Sellitto asked both Laurel and Myers, "You have any suspects?"
"Yes. I don't have the identity of the shooter yet but I know the two people who ordered the killing."
Rhyme gave a smile. Within him curiosity stirred, along with the sensation a wolf must feel catching a single molecule of a prey's scent. He could tell Nance Laurel felt the same, even if the eagerness wasn't quite visible through the L'Oreal facade. He believed he knew where this was going.
And the destination was far beyond intriguing.
Laurel said, "The murder was a targeted killing, an assassination, if you will, ord
ered by a U.S. government official--the head of NIOS, the National Intelligence and Operations Service, based here in Manhattan."
This was, more or less, what Rhyme had deduced. He'd thought the CIA or Pentagon, though.
"Jesus," Sellitto whispered. "You wanna bust a fed?" He looked at Myers, who gave no reaction whatsoever, then back to Laurel. "Can you do that?"
Her pause was two breaths' duration. "How do you mean, Detective?" Perplexed.
Sellitto probably hadn't meant anything other than what he'd said. "Just, isn't he immune from prosecution?"
"The NIOS lawyers will try for immunity but it's an area I'm familiar with. I wrote my law review article on immunity of government officials. I've assessed my chance of success at about ninety percent in the state courts, and eighty in the Second Circuit on Appeal. We get to the Supreme Court, we're home free."
"What's the law on immunity?" Sachs asked.
"It's a Supremacy Clause issue," Laurel explained. "That's the constitutional provision that says, in effect, when it comes down to a conflict, federal law trumps state. New York can't prosecute a federal employee for state crimes if the employee was acting within the scope of his authority. In our situation, I believe the head of NIOS has gone rogue--acting outside what he was authorized to do."
Laurel glanced at Myers, who said, "We pivoted on the issue but there're solid metrics leading us to believe that this man is manipulating the intelligence that formed the basis for the assassination, for his own agenda."
Pivoted... metrics...
"And what is that agenda?" Rhyme asked.
"We're not sure," the captain continued. "He seems obsessed with protecting the country, eliminating anybody who's a threat--even those who maybe aren't threats, if he considers them unpatriotic. The man he ordered shot in Nassau wasn't a terrorist. He was just--"
"Outspoken," Laurel said.
Sachs asked, "One question: The attorney general's okayed the case?"
Laurel's hesitation this time might have covered up bristling at the reference to her boss and his permission to pursue the case. Hard to tell. She answered evenly, "The information about the killing came to our office in Manhattan, the jurisdiction where NIOS is located. The district attorney and I discussed it. I wanted the case because of my experience with immunity issues and because this type of crime bothers me a great deal--I personally feel that any targeted killings are unconstitutional because of due process issues. The DA asked me if I knew it was a land mine. I said yes. He went to the attorney general in Albany, who said I could go forward. So, yes, I have his blessing." A steady gaze at Sachs, who looked back with eyes that were equally unwavering.