Yet he remained calm. Caregivers learn this early. Hard and fast decisions can't be made in panic.

Then the color of Rhyme's face stabilized and they got him into the wheelchair again. They couldn't have kept him up much longer anyway.

"Lincoln! Can you hear me?"

No response.

Then a moment later, the man's head lolled. And he whispered something.

"Lincoln. You're going to be all right. Dr. Metz is sending a team."

Another whisper.

"It's all right, Lincoln. You'll be all right."

In a faint voice Rhyme said, "You have to tell her…"

"Lincoln, stay still."

"Sachs."

Cooper said, "She's at the scene. The school where you sent her. She's not back yet."

"You have to tell Sachs…" The voice faded.

"I will, Lincoln. I'll tell her. As soon as she calls in," Thom said.

Cooper added, "You don't want to disturb her now. She's moving in on Galt."

"Tell her…"

Rhyme's eyes rolled back in his head and he went out again. Thom angrily looked out the window, as if that would speed the arrival of the ambulance. But all he saw were people strolling by on healthy legs, people jogging, people bicycling through the park, none of them with an apparent care in the world.

RON PULASKI GLANCED at Sachs, who was peeking through a window at the back of the school.

She held up a finger, squinting and jockeying for position to try to get a better look at where Galt was. The whimpering was hard to hear from this vantage point since that diesel truck or engine was close, just on the other side of a fence.

Then came a louder moan.

Sachs turned back and nodded at the door, whispering, "We're going to get her. I want crossfire coverage. Somebody up, somebody down. You want to go through here or up the fire escape?"

Pulaski glanced to their right, where a rusty metal ladder led up to a platform and an open window. He knew there was no chance they were electrified. Amelia had checked. But he really didn't want to go that way. Then he thought about his mistake at Galt's apartment. About Stanley Palmer, the man who might die. Who, even if he lived, might never be the same again.

He said, "I'll go up."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Remember, we want him alive if at all possible. If he's set another trap, it might have a timer on it and we'll need him to tell us where it is and when it's going to activate."

Pulaski nodded. Crouching, he made his way over the filthy asphalt strewn with all sorts of garbage.

Concentrate, he told himself. You've got a job to do. You're not going to get spooked again. You're not going to make a mistake.

As he moved silently, he found he was, in fact, a lot less spooked than before. And then he wasn't spooked at all.

Ron Pulaski was angry.

Galt had gotten sick. Well, sorry. Well, too goddamn bad. Hell, Pulaski had had his head trauma, and he didn't blame anybody for it. Just like Lincoln Rhyme didn't sit around and mope. And Galt might very well be fine, all the new cancer treatments and techniques and everything. But here this whiny little shit was taking out his unhappiness on the innocent. And, Jesus Lord, what was he doing to that woman inside? She must've had information Galt needed. Or maybe she was a doctor who'd missed a diagnosis or something and he was getting revenge on her too.

At this thought he moved a little more quickly. He glanced back and saw Sachs waiting beside a half-open door, Glock drawn and pointed down, extended in a combat grip.

The anger growing, Pulaski came to a solid brick wall, where he couldn't be seen. He sped up further, heading toward the fire escape ladder. It was old and most of the paint had worn off, replaced by rust. He paused at the puddle of standing water surrounding the concrete around the base of the ladder. Water… electricity. But there was no electricity. And, anyway, there was no way to avoid the water. He sloshed through it.

Ten feet away.

Looking up, picking the best window to go through. Hoping the stairs and platform wouldn't clank. Galt couldn't be more than forty feet from them.

Still, the sound of the diesel engine would cover up most squeaks.

Five feet.

Pulaski examined his heart and found its beat steady. He was going to make Lincoln Rhyme proud of him again.

Hell, he was going to collar this sick bastard himself.

He reached for the ladder.

And the next thing he knew he heard a snap and every muscle in his body contracted at once. In his mind he was looking at all the light of heaven, before his vision dissolved to yellow then black.

STANDING TOGETHER BEHIND the school, Amelia Sachs and Lon Sellitto watched the place being swept by ESU.

"A trap," the lieutenant said.

"Right," she replied grimly. "Galt hooked up a big generator in a shed behind the school. He started it and then left. It was connected to the metal doors and the fire escape."

"The fire escape. That's the way Pulaski was going."

She nodded. "Poor kid. He-"

An ESU officer, a tall African American, interrupted them. "We've finished the sweep, Detective, Lieutenant. It's clean. The whole place. We didn't touch anything inside, like you asked."

"A digital recorder?" she asked. "That's what I'm betting he used."

"That's right, Detective. Sounded like a scene from a TV show or something. And a flashlight hanging by a cord. So it looked like somebody was holding it."

No hostage. No Galt. Nobody at all.

"I'll run the scenes in a minute."

The officer asked, "There was no portable called it in?"

"Right," Sellitto muttered. "Was Galt. Probably on a prepaid mobile, I'd bet. I'll check it."

"And he just did this"-a wave at the school-"to kill some of us."

"That's right," Sachs said somberly.

The ESU officer grimaced and headed off to gather his team. Sachs had immediately called Rhyme to give him the news about the school. And about Ron Pulaski.

But, curiously, the phone went right to voice mail.

Maybe something had heated up in the case, or in the Watchmaker situation in Mexico.

A medic was walking toward her, head down, picking his way through the trash; the yard behind the school looked like a beach after a garbage spill. Sachs walked forward to meet him.

"You free now, Detective?" he asked her.

"Sure."

She followed him around to the side of the building, where the ambulances waited.

There, sitting on a concrete stoop, was Ron Pulaski, head in his hands. She paused. Took a deep breath and walked up to him.

"I'm sorry, Ron."

He was massaging his arm, flexing his fingers. "No, ma'am." He blinked at his own formality. Grinned. "I should say, thank you."

"If there'd been any other way, I would've done it. But I couldn't shout. I assumed Galt was still inside. And had his weapon."

"I figured."

Fifteen minutes earlier, as Sachs had waited at the door, she'd decided to use Sommers's current detector once more to double check that there was no electricity in the school.

To her horror she saw the metal door she was inches away from contained 220 volts. And the concrete she was standing on was soaking wet. She realized that whether or not Galt was inside, he'd rigged wires to the metal infrastructure of the school. Probably from a diesel-powered generator; that was the racket they'd heard.

If Galt had rigged the door he would have rigged the fire escape as well. She'd leapt to her feet then and charged after Pulaski as he approached the ladder. She didn't dare call his name, even in a whisper, because if Galt was in the school, he'd hear and start shooting.

So she'd used Taser on Pulaski.