Whatever clues as to who the kidnapper was and what he had in mind were either in the report or gone forever, trampled under the feet of cops and spectators and railroad workers. Spadework – canvassing the neighborhood around the scene, interviewing witnesses, cultivating leads, traditional detective work – was done leisurely. But crime scenes themselves had to be worked “like mad lightning,” Rhyme would command his officers in IRD. And he’d fired more than a few CSU techs who hadn’t moved fast enough for his taste.

“Peretti ran the scene himself?” he asked.

“Peretti and a full complement.”

“Full complement?” Rhyme asked wryly. “What’s a full complement?”

Sellitto looked at Banks, who said, “Four techs from Photo, four from Latents. Eight searchers. ME tour doctor.”

“Eight crime scene searchers?”

There’s a bell curve in processing a crime scene. Two officers are considered the most efficient for a single homicide. By yourself you can miss things; three and up you tend to miss more things. Lincoln Rhyme had always searched scenes alone. He let the Latents people do the print work and Photo do the snap-shooting and videoing. But he always walked the grid by himself.

Peretti. Rhyme had hired the young man, son of a wealthy politico, six, seven years ago and he’d proved a good, by-the-book CS detective. Crime Scene is considered a plum and there’s always a long waiting list to get into the unit. Rhyme took perverse pleasure in thinning the ranks of applicants by offering them a look at the family album – a collection of particularly gruesome crime-scene photos. Some officers would blanch, some would snicker. Some handed the book back, eyebrows raised, as if asking, So what? And those were the ones that Lincoln Rhyme would hire. Peretti’d been one of them.

Sellitto had asked a question. Rhyme found the detective looking at him. He repeated, “You’ll work with us on this, won’t you, Lincoln?”

“Work with you?” He coughed a laugh. “I can’t, Lon. No. I’m just spitting out a few ideas for you. You’ve got it. Run with it. Thom, get me Berger.” He was now regretting the decision to postpone his tête-à-tête with the death doctor. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He couldn’t bear the thought of waiting another day or two for his passing. And Monday… He didn’t want to die on Monday. It seemed common.

“Say please.”

“Thom!”

“All right,” the young aide said, hands raised in surrender.

Rhyme glanced at the spot on his bedside table where the bottle, the pills and the plastic bag had sat – so very close, but like everything else in this life wholly out of Lincoln Rhyme’s reach.

Sellitto made a phone call, cocked his head as the call was answered. He identified himself. The clock on the wall clicked to twelve-thirty.

“Yessir.” The detective’s voice sank into a respectful whisper. The mayor, Rhyme guessed. “About the kidnapping at Kennedy. I’ve been talking to Lincoln Rhyme… Yessir, he has some thoughts on it.” The detective wandered to the window, staring blankly at the falcon and trying to explain the inexplicable to the man running the most mysterious city on earth. He hung up and turned to Rhyme.

“He and the chief both want you, Linc. They asked specifically. Wilson himself.”

Rhyme laughed. “Lon, look around the room. Look at me! Does it seem like I could run a case?”

“Not a normal case, no. But this isn’t a very normal one now, is it?”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t have time. That doctor. The treatment. Thom, did you call him?”

“Haven’t yet. Will in just a minute.”

“Now! Do it now!”

Thom looked at Sellitto. Walked to the door, stepped outside. Rhyme knew he wasn’t going to call. Bugger the world.

Banks touched a dot of razor scar and blurted, “Just give us some thoughts. Please. This unsub, you said he -”

Sellitto waved him silent. He kept his eyes on Rhyme.

Oh, you prick, Rhyme thought. The old silence. How we hate it and hurry to fill it. How many witnesses and suspects had caved under hot, thick silences just like this. Well, he and Sellitto had been a good team. Rhyme knew evidence and Lon Sellitto knew people.

The two musketeers. And if there was a third it was the purity of unsmiling science.

The detective’s eyes dipped to the crime scene report. “ Lincoln. What do you think’s going to happen today at three?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Rhyme pronounced.

“Don’tcha?”

Cheap, Lon. I’ll get you for that.

Finally, Rhyme said. “He’s going to kill her – the woman in the taxi. And in some real bad way, I guarantee you. Something that’ll rival getting buried alive.”

“Jesus,” Thom whispered from the doorway.

Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? Would it do any good to tell them about the agony he felt in his neck and shoulders? Or about the phantom pain – far weaker and far eerier – roaming through his alien body? About the exhaustion he felt from the daily struggle to do, well, everything? About the most overwhelming fatigue of all – from having to rely on someone else?

Maybe he could tell them about the mosquito that’d gotten into the room last night and strafed his head for an hour; Rhyme grew dizzy with fatigue nodding it away until the insect finally landed on his ear, where Rhyme let it stab him – since that was a place he could rub against the pillow for relief from the itch.

Sellitto lifted an eyebrow.

“Today,” Rhyme sighed. “One day. That’s it.”

“Thanks, Linc. We owe you.” Sellitto pulled up a chair next to the bed. Nodded Banks to do the same, “Now. Gimme your thoughts. What’s this asshole’s game?”

Rhyme said, “Not so fast. I don’t work alone.”

“Fair enough. Who d’you want on board?”

“A tech from IRD. Whoever’s the best in the lab. I want him here with the basic equipment. And we better get some tactical boys. Emergency Services. Oh, and I want some phones,” Rhyme instructed, glancing at the Scotch on his dresser. He remembered the brandy Berger had in his kit. No way was he going out on cheap crap like that. His Final Exit number would be courtesy of either sixteen-year-old Lagavulin or opulent Macallan aged for decades. Or – why not? – both.

Banks pulled out his own cellular phone. “What kind of lines? Just -”

“Landlines.”

“In here?”

“Of course not,” Rhyme barked.

Sellitto said, “He means he wants people to make calls. From the Big Building.”

“Oh.”

“Call downtown,” Sellitto ordered. “Have ’em give us three or four dispatchers.”

“Lon,” Rhyme asked, “who’s doing the spadework on the death this morning?”

Banks stifled a laugh. “The Hardy Boys.”

A glare from Rhyme took the smile off his face. “Detectives Bedding and Saul, sir,” the boy added quickly.

But then Sellitto grinned too. “The Hardy Boys. Everybody calls ’ em that. You don’t know ’em, Linc. They’re from the Homicide Task Force downtown.”

“They look kind of alike is the thing,” Banks explained. “And, well, their delivery is a little funny.”

“I don’t want comedians.”

“No, they’re good,” Sellitto said. “The best canvassers we got. You know that beast ’napped that eight-year-old girl in Queens last year? Bedding and Saul did the canvass. Interviewed the entire ’hood – took twenty-two hundred statements. It was ’causa them we saved her. When we heard the vic this morning was the passenger from JFK, Chief Wilson himself put ’em on board.”

“What’re they doing now?”

“Witnesses mostly. Around the train tracks. And sniffing around about the driver and the cab.”

Rhyme yelled to Thom in the hallway, “Did you call Berger? No, of course you didn’t. The word ‘insubordination’ mean anything to you? At least make yourself useful. Bring that crime scene report closer and start turning the pages.” He nodded toward the turning frame. “That damn thing’s an Edsel.”