Page 154 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“Jesus, Lord,” Harrison said, shaking his head. Then he was gazing at Rhyme. “My apologies, Captain—the consulting situation. It was politics, of course. How I hate it.”

Sometimesyou hate it, Rhyme qualified silently.

“I’ll cancel that goddamn ban right away. I’ll call the commissioner and the chief of department.” The mayor then sat back and tugged the loose tie from the left side of his collar to the right. He said to Rhyme, “And is there anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?”

After a long moment, Rhyme replied, “As a matter of fact, there might just be.”

84

He’d had the lab to himself for the past hour, which was how he liked it.

Thom was in the kitchen, getting something ready for dinner, and Sachs was out buying wine and appetizers.

Tonight would be a celebration, he hoped.

He was finishing the report on the murder charge of Viktor Buryak. After Sachs and Pulaski had found evidence linking him to the same rock that contained the DNA of the contractor he’d killed, the local authorities executed a search warrant of the vacation home in Garner. The motive for the murder was what Rhyme had guessed. They found a room where Buryak was storing cash and thumb drives related to his business. It was a logical deduction that the contractor had stumbled upon the stash and was seen by Buryak. The mobster would have taken a hammer or blunt object to him and dragged him to the car then driven it to a deserted part of the state road and, with the dead man’s foot on the gas, flicked the transmission into gear. After the crash, he’d then pulled the body out andstruck it in the head with the telltale rock to make it seem that was the cause of death.

A small town, winding roads and more than a few accidents? The local authorities wouldn’t think it anything untoward.

Rhyme put his digital signature on the report and sent it to Lon Sellitto, Amelia Sachs, the head of the NYPD’s Organized Crime squad and prosecutor John Sellars, as well as the district attorney in Garner County.

On the TV high on the wall in the nonsterile section of the parlor, Rhyme noted the words:

NEWS ALERT …

You saw this frequently, but these words were in bright red, all caps.

The typography suggested it was not hype, but a significant event.

The chyron scrolled:

Riots and arson in three cities … one dead, dozens injured. Followers of Verum take to the streets.

He shut the TV off, hearing the bubbling of Sachs’s Ford approaching. He’d have to tell her about these odd developments.

Glancing out the window, he saw the car skid to a stop—it seemed to be the only way she was capable of bringing vehicles to rest—directly in front of the building.

She shut the engine off but didn’t climb out. She would be texting or reading a message. Maybe the report on the Buryak murder investigation he’d just sent.

It was then that he looked past her, across Central Park West, andnoticed a man who seemed to be watching Sachs from behind a food truck selling Jamaican fare. He was eating a sandwich, wrapped in paper and foil.

He tossed out what remained of his sandwich and after wiping his mouth and fingers with a napkin pulled on sunglasses and a black beret.

No!

It was Aaron Douglass, Buryak’s hit man.

Rhyme’s temple was pulsing with blood from his accelerating heart and he struggled to remain calm as he ordered, “Call Sachs.”

The phone’s electronic voice replied, “Calling Sachs.”

No ring; it went right to voice mail.

Christ!

Through the window, Rhyme saw that Douglass drew a gun from his belt and started across the street.

“Thom! Call nine one one. Gunman outside the town house!”

---