Sachs gazed at where he was pointing, through a greasy window. It was dim and hard to make out anything inside clearly, but after a moment she could see the faint movement of a flashlight, she believed, slowly scanning. Possibly-the shadows were deceptive-she was looking at a man poring over a document. A map? A diagram of an electrical system he was going to turn into a deadly trap?

"He is here," Pulaski whispered excitedly.

She pulled the headset on and called Bo Haumann, the ESU head.

"What do you have, Detective? K."

"There's somebody here. I can't tell if it's Galt or not. He's in the middle part of the main building. Ron and I are going to flank him. What's your ETA? K."

"Eight, nine minutes. Silent roll-up, K."

"Good. We'll be in the back. Call me when you're ready for the takedown. We'll come in from behind."

"Roger, out."

She then called Rhyme and told him that they might have the perp. They'd go in as soon as ESU was on site.

"Look out for traps," Rhyme urged.

"There's no power. It's safe."

She disconnected the transmission and glanced at Pulaski. "Ready?"

He nodded.

Crouching, she moved quickly toward the back of the school, gripping her weapon tightly and thinking: Okay, Galt. Haven't got your juice to protect you here. You've got a gun, I've got a gun. Now, we're on my turf.

AS HE DISCONNECTED from Sachs, Rhyme felt another tickle of sweat. He finally had to resort to calling Thom and asking him to wipe it off. This was perhaps the hardest for Rhyme. Relying on somebody for the big tasks wasn't so bad: the range-of-motion exercises, bowel and bladder, the sitting-transfer maneuver to get him into the wheelchair or bed. The feeding.

It was the tiny needs that were the most infuriating… and embarrassing. Flicking away an insect, picking fuzz off your slacks.

Wiping away a rivulet of sweat.

The aide appeared and easily took care of the problem without a thought.

"Thank you," the criminalist said. Thom hesitated at the unexpected show of gratitude.

Rhyme turned back to the evidence boards, but in fact he wasn't thinking much of Galt. It was possible that Sachs and the ESU team were about to collar the crazed employee at the school in Chinatown.

No, what was occupying his overheated mind exclusively was the Watchmaker in Mexico City. Goddamn it, why wasn't Luna or Kathryn Dance or somebody calling to give him a blow-by-blow description of the takedown?

Maybe the Watchmaker had already planted the bomb in the office building and was using his own presence as a diversion. The satchel he carried might be filled with bricks. Why exactly was he hanging out in the office park like some goddamn tourist trying to figure out where to get a margarita? And could it be a different office altogether he was targeting?

Then Rhyme said, "Mel, I want to see where the takedown's happening. Google Earth… or whatever it's called. Pull it up for me. Mexico City."

"Sure."

"Avenue Bosque de Reforma… How often do they update the images?"

"I don't know. Probably every few months. It's not real time, though, I don't imagine."

"I don't care about that."

A few minutes later they were looking at a satellite image of the area: a curving road, Avenue Bosque de Reforma, with the office buildings separated by the park where the Watchmaker was sitting at that moment. Across the street was the Jamaican consulate, protected by a series of concrete barriers-the bomb blast shields-and a gate. Rodolfo Luna and his team would be on the other side of those. Behind them were official vehicles parked in front of the embassy itself.

He gasped as he stared at the barriers. To the left was a blast shield running perpendicular to the road. To the right were six others, parallel to it.

This was the letter I and the blank spaces from the package delivered to the Watchmaker at Mexico City airport.

Gold letters…

Little blue booklet…

The mysterious numbers…

"Mel," he said sharply. The tech's head snapped up at the urgency. "Is there any passport that has the letters CC on the cover? Issued in blue?"

A moment later Cooper looked up from the State Department archive. "Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Navy blue with interlocking C's at the top. It's the Caribbean Community passport. There're about fifteen countries in-"

"Is Jamaica one?"

"Yes."

He realized too they'd been thinking of the numbers as five hundred seventy and three hundred seventy-nine. In fact, there was another way to refer to them. "Quick. Look up Lexus SUVs. Is there a model with a five seventy or a three seventy-nine in the designation?"

This was even faster than the passport. "Let's see… Yep, the LX five-seventy. It's a luxury-"

"Get me Luna on the phone. Now!" He didn't want to risk his own dialing, which would have taken some time and might have been inaccurate.

He felt the sweat again but ignored it.

"Si?"

"Rodolfo! It's Lincoln Rhyme."

"Ah, Captain-"

"Listen to me! You are the target. The office building's a diversion! The package delivered to Logan? The rectangular images on the drawing? It was a diagram of the grounds of the Jamaican embassy, where you are right now. The rectangles are the blast barriers. And you drive a Lexus LX five-seventy?"

"Yes… You mean, that was the five hundred seventy?"

"I think so. And the Watchmaker was given a Jamaican passport to get into the compound. Is there a car parked nearby with three seven nine in the license plate?"

"I don't… Why, yes. It's a Mercedes with diplomatic plates."

"Clear the area! Now. That's where the bomb is! The Mercedes."

He heard shouting in Spanish, the sound of footfalls, hard breathing.

Then, a stunning explosion.

Rhyme blinked at the startling noise that rattled the speakers of the phone.

"Commander! Are you there?… Rodolfo?"

More shouting, static, screams.

"Rodolfo!"

After a long moment: "Captain Rhyme? Hello?" The man was shouting-probably because he'd been partially deafened by the blast.

"Commander, are you all right?"

"Hello!"

A hissing noise, moans, gasping. Shouts.

Sirens and more shouting.

Cooper asked, "Should we call-"

And then "Que?… Are you there, Captain?"

"Yes. Are you hurt, Rodolfo?"

"No, no. No bad injuries. Some cuts, stunned, you know." The voice was gasping. "We climbed over barriers and got down on the other side. I see people cut, bleeding. But no one is dead, I think. It would have killed me and the officers standing beside me. How did you know?"

"I'll go into that later, Commander. Where is the Watchmaker?"

"Wait a moment… wait… All right. At the explosion he fled. Arturo's men were distracted by the blast-as he planned, of course. Arturo said a car drove into the park and he got inside. They're moving south now. We have officers following him… Thank you, Captain Rhyme. I cannot thank you enough. But now I must go. I will call as soon as we learn something."

Inhaling deeply, ignoring the headache and the sweat. Okay, Logan, Rhyme was thinking, we've stopped you. We've ruined your plan. But we still don't have you. Not yet.

Please, Rodolfo. Keep after him.

As he was thinking this, his eyes strayed over the evidence charts in the Galt case. Maybe this would be the conclusion of both of the operations. The Watchmaker would be apprehended in Mexico, and Ray Galt, in an abandoned school near Chinatown.

Then his eyes settled on one bit of evidence in particular: Chinese herbs, ginseng and wolfberry.

And another listing, a substance that had been found in proximity to the herbs: Diesel fuel.

Rhyme originally had though that the fuel was from a possible site of an attack, a refinery perhaps. But it occurred to him now that diesel fuel would also run motors.