Page 8 of The Watchmaker's Hand

We will be monitoring progress via government records.

New York City will suffer one disaster every twenty-four hours until the corporation is created and the property is transferred.

The countdown has begun.

—The Kommunalka Project

The next page featured a list of properties throughout the five boroughs. Some seemed to be vacant land, but most were built-out structures, presumably abandoned: schools, a public housing tower, a former dock and helipad in Brooklyn that had been bought from the Defense Department, a research lab that had been owned by the National Institutes of Health and transferred to the City University of New York, warehouses that had been under lease to the state for storing census records, a former National Guard armory.

“The group’s name?” Sachs asked.

No deep digging was necessary.

A brief search revealed that the word “Kommunalka” referred to a program used once upon a time in the Soviet Union—a frenzied building of communal apartments after World War II to address a housing shortage.

Sachs skimmed the articles. “Wonder if the perps did theirhomework. Most of the Soviet buildings’ve been torn down and replaced by—you guessed it—expensive bourgeois apartments.”

Rhyme was intrigued. Forensically, sabotage was no more interesting than his current stolen engineering document case. The deadline, however, and the risk of more death, now moved Unsub 212 to a lower priority.

Rhyme asked, “How did he do it? IED?”

Sellitto answered, “No explosives that anybody heard. Somehow, he got to the counterweights, tinkered with them. The foreman doesn’t know. It changed the balance and the thing went down. Oh, you’re going to be getting a—”

Rhyme’s mobile whirred and he commanded, “Answer phone.”

He then said into the unit, “Yes?”

A woman’s harried voice. “Captain Rhyme?”

“That’s right.”

“Please hold for Mayor Harrison.”

A moment later the man’s smooth voice came through the speaker. “Captain Rhyme.”

“Mayor.”

Knowing Rhyme wouldn’t bother with such protocols, Sachs said, “You’re on speaker with Detectives Sachs and Sellitto.”

“Lon. You’re there.”

“Just briefing Lincoln and Amelia now.”

“I wanted to let you know that we’re not agreeing. You know our policy.”

The city didn’t pay ransom and it didn’t give in to extortion demands.

The man continued, “We couldn’t do what they’re asking anyway. Whoever’s behind this has no idea of what’s involved. There’re a hundred documents we’d have to put together. A non-profit needs a three-person board, president, VP, secretary, treasurer,registered agent, and, Christ, a million approvals: the state revenue, IRS, EPA. Hell, a budget. Needs to be funded. We can’t deed anything over until all that’s done, which would take weeks or months …”

“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.”

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