“Grocery stores?”

“Not every store. Just one of every chain. J &G’s, ShopRite, Food Warehouse…”

“What exactly are we going to do?”

“Buy veal shanks.”

“What?”

“One package at each store. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to pay from your own pocket, gentlemen. But the city’ll reimburse you. Oh, and we need them ASAP.”

She lay on her side, immobile.

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness of the old tunnel and she could see the little fuckers moving closer. One in particular she kept her eye on.

Monelle’s leg stung like a bitch but most of the pain was in her arm, from where he’d cut deep into her skin. Because it was cuffed behind her she couldn’t see the wound, didn’t know how much she’d bled. But it must have been a lot; she was very faint and could feel the sticky ooze all over her arms and side.

The sound of scratching – needlish claws on concrete. The gray-brown lumps rustling in the shadows. The rats continued to twitch their way toward her. There must have been a hundred of them.

She forced herself to stay completely still and kept her eyes on the big black one. Schwarzie, she called him. He was in the front, moving back and forth, studying her.

Monelle Gerger had been around the world twice by the time she was nineteen. She’d hitched through Sri Lanka and Cambodia and Pakistan. Through Nebraska, where women stared at her eyebrow rings and braless boobs with contempt. Through Iran, where men stared at her bare arms like dogs in heat. She’d slept in city parks in Guatemala City and spent three days with rebel forces in Nicaragua after getting lost on the way to a wildlife refuge.

But she’d never been so scared as now.

Mein Gott.

And what scared her the most was what she was about to do to herself.

One rat ran close, a small one, its brown body zipping forward, backing up, moving forward again a few inches. Rats were scary, she decided, because they were more like reptiles than rodents. “A snaky nose and snaky tail. And those fucking red eyes.

Behind him was Schwarzie, the size of a small cat. He rose up on his haunches and stared at what fascinated him. Watching. Waiting.

Then the little one attacked. Scurrying on his four needlish feet, ignoring her muffled scream, he darted fast and straight. Quick as a roach he tore a bite from her cut leg. The wound stung like fire. Monelle squealed – in pain, yes, but from anger too. I don’t fucking want you! She slammed her heel into his back with a dull crunch. He quivered once and lay still.

Another one raced up to her neck, ripped away a bite then leapt back, staring at her, twitching his nose as if he were running his tongue around his little rat mouth, savoring her flavor.

Dieser Schmerz…

She shivered as the searing burn radiated from the bite. Dieser Schmerz! The pain! Monelle forced herself to lie still again.

The tiny attacker poised for another run but suddenly he twitched and turned away. Monelle saw why. Schwarzie was finally easing to the front of the pack. He was coming after what he wanted.

Good, good.

He was the one she’d been waiting for. Because he hadn’t seemed interested in the blood or her flesh; he’d padded up close twenty minutes before, fascinated by the silver tape across her mouth.

The smaller rat scurried back into the swarming bodies as Schwarzie eased forward, on his obscenely tiny feet. Paused. Then advanced again. Six feet, five.

Then three.

She remained completely still. Breathing as shallowly as she dared, afraid the inhalation would scare him off.

Schwarzie paused. Padded forward again. Then stopped. Two feet away from her head.

Don’t move a muscle.

His back was humped high and his lips kept retracting over his brown and yellow teeth. He moved another foot closer and stopped, eyes darting. Sat up, rubbed his clawed paws together, eased forward again.

Monelle Gerger played dead.

Another six inches. Vorwärts!

Come on!

Then he was at her face. She smelled garbage and oil on his body, feces, rotten meat. He sniffed and she felt the unbearable tickle of whiskers on her nose as his tiny teeth emerged from his mouth and began to chew the tape.

For five minutes he gnawed around her mouth. Once another rat scooted in, sank his teeth into her ankle. She closed her eyes to the pain and tried to ignore it. Schwarzie chased him away then stood in the shadows studying her.

Vorwärts, Schwarzie! Come on!

Slowly he padded back to her. Tears running down her cheek, Monelle reluctantly lowered her mouth to him.

Chewing, chewing…

Come on!

She felt his vile, hot breath in her mouth as he broke through the tape and began to rip off larger chunks of the shiny plastic. He pulled the pieces from his mouth and squeezed them greedily in his front claws.

Big enough now? she wondered.

It would have to be. She couldn’t take any more.

Slowly she lifted her head up, one millimeter at a time. Schwarzie blinked and leaned forward, curiously.

Monelle spread her jaws and heard the wonderful sound of the ripping tape. She sucked air deep into her lungs. She could breathe again!

And she could shout for help.

“Bitte, helfen Sie mir! Please help me!”

Schwarzie backed away, startled by her ragged howl, dropping his precious silver tape. But he didn’t go very far. He stopped and turned back, rose on his pudgy haunches.

Ignoring his black, humped body she kicked the post she was tied to. Dust and dirt floated down like gray snow but the wood didn’t give a bit. She screamed until her throat burned.

“Bitte. Help me!”

The sticky rush of traffic swallowed the sound.

Stillness for a moment. Then Schwarzie started toward her again. He wasn’t alone this time. The slimy pack followed his lead. Twitching, nervous. But drawn steadily by the tempting smell of her blood.

Bone and wood, wood and bone.

“Mel, what do you have there?” Rhyme was nodding toward the computer attached to the chromatograph- spectrometer. Cooper had once more retested the dirt they’d found in the splinter of wood.

“It’s still nitrogen-rich. Off the charts.”

Three separate tests, the results all the same. A diagnostic check of the unit showed it was working fine. Cooper reflected and said, “That much nitrogen – maybe a firearms or ammunition manufacturer.”

“That’d be Connecticut, not Manhattan.” Rhyme looked at the clock. 6:30. How fast time had raced past today. How slowly it had moved for the past three and a half years. He felt as if he’d been awake for days and days.

The young detective pored over the map of Manhattan, moving aside the pale vertebra that had fallen to the floor earlier.

The disk had been left here by Rhyme’s SCI specialist, Peter Taylor. An early appointment with the man. The doctor had examined him expertly then sat back in the rustling rattan chair and pulled something out of his pocket.

“Show-and-tell time,” the doctor had said.

Rhyme had glanced at Taylor ’s open hand.

“This’s a fourth cervical vertebra. Just like the one in your neck. The one that broke. See the little tails on the end?” The doctor turned it over and over for a moment then asked, “What do you think of when you see it?”

Rhyme respected Taylor – who didn’t treat him like a child or a moron or a major inconvenience – but that day he hadn’t been in the mood to play the inspiration game. He hadn’t answered.

Taylor continued anyway, “Some of my patients think it looks like a stingray. Some say it’s a spaceship. Or an airplane. Or a truck. Whenever I ask that question people usually compare it to something big. Nobody ever says, ‘Oh, a hunk of calcium and magnesium.’ See, they don’t like the idea that something so insignificant has made their lives pure hell.”