• Anderson Foods
• Greenwich & Bank,
•ShopRite 2nd Ave., 72nd-73rd,
Vehicle
•Yellow Cab
•Recent model sedan
Other
•knows CS proc.
•possibly has record
•knows FR prints
•gun =.32 Colt
•Ties vics w/ unusual knots
•“Old” appeals to him
UNSUB 823 (page 2 of 3)
Appearance
•Ski mask? Navy blue?
•Gloves are dark
•Aftershave = Brut
Residence
• Grocery World Battery Park City
•J &G’s Emporium 1709 2nd Ave.,
• Anderson Foods 34th & Lex.,
•Food Warehouse8th Ave. & 24th,
Vehicle
•Lt. gray, silver, beige
Other
•Called one vic “Hanna”
•Knows basic German
•Underground appeals to him
•Dual personalities
•Maybe priest, soc. worker, counselor
UNSUB 823 (page 3 of 3)
Appearance
•Hair color not brown
•Deep scar, index finger
•Casual clothes
Residence
•ShopRite Houston & Lafayette,
•ShopRite 6th Ave. & Houston,
•J &G’s Emporium Greenwich & Franklin,
•Grocery World
•Old building, pink marble
Vehicle
•Rental car: prob. stolen
Other
•Unusual wear on shoes, reads a lot?
•Listened as he broke vic’s finger
Sachs, angry, offered the agent a cold smile. “How was your trip to Morningside Heights?”
“He still killed that cabbie. Our PERT boys’re crawling over that house now like beetles on dung.”
“And that’s all they’re going to find,” Sachs said. “This unsub knows crime scenes better than you and I do.”
“Downtown,” Dellray announced, nodding at Sachs, who winced as the cuffs ratcheted tight around her wrists.
“We can save the next one too. If you -”
“You know what you got, Officer Sachs? Take a guess. You gotchaself the right to remain silent. You got -”
“All right,” the voice called from behind them. Sachs looked around and saw Jim Polling striding along the sidewalk. His slacks and dark sports shirt were rumpled. It looked as if he’d napped in them, though his bleary face suggested he hadn’t slept in days. You could see a day’s growth of beard and his sandy hair was an unruly mess.
Dellray blinked uneasily though it wasn’t the cop he was troubled by but the tall physique of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District behind Polling. And bringing up the rear, SAC Perkins.
“Okay, Fred. Let ’ em go.” From the U.S. attorney.
In the modulated baritone of an FM disk jockey the Chameleon said, “She stole evidence, sir. She -”
“I just expedited some forensic analysis,” Sachs said.
“Listen-” Dellray began.
“Nope,” Polling said, completely in control now. No temper tantrums. “No, we’re not listening.” He turned to Sachs and barked, “But don’t you try to be funny.”
“Nosir. Sorry, sir.”
The U.S. attorney said to Dellray. “Fred, you made a judgment call and it went south. Facts of life.”
“It was a good lead,” Dellray said.
“Well, we’re changing the direction of the investigation,” the U.S. attorney continued.
SAC Perkins said, “We’ve been conferencing with the director and with Behavioral. We’ve decided that Detectives Rhyme and Sellitto’s positioning is the approach to pursue.”
“But my snitch was clear that something was going down at the airport. That’s not the sorta thing he’d be wishy about.”
“It comes down to this, Fred,” the U.S. attorney said bluntly. “Whatever the fucker’s up to, it was Rhyme’s team that saved the vics.”
Dellray’s lengthy fingers folded into an uncertain fist, opened again. “I appreciate that fact, sir. But -”
“Agent Dellray, this’s a decision that has already been made.”
The glossy black face – so energized at the federal building when he was marshaling his troops – was now somber, reserved. For the moment, the hipster was gone. “Yessir.”
“This most recent hostage would’ve died if Detective Sachs here hadn’t intervened,” the U.S. attorney said.
“That’d be Officer Sachs,” she corrected. “And it was mostly Lincoln Rhyme. I was his legman. So to speak.”
“The case is going back to the city,” the U.S. attorney announced. “The Bureau’s A-T is to continue to handle terrorist-informant liaison but with reduced manpower. Anything they learn should be conveyed to Detectives Sellitto and Rhyme. Dellray, you’re gonna put bodies at their disposal for any search-and-surveillance or hostage-rescue effort. Or anything else they might need. Got that?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. You want to remove those handcuffs from these officers now?”
Dellray placidly unlocked the cuffs and slipped them into his pocket. He walked to a large van parked nearby. As Sachs picked up the evidence bag she saw him standing by himself at the edge of a pool of streetlight, his index finger lifted, stroking the cigarette behind his ear. She wasted a moment’s sympathy on the feebie then turned and ran up the stairs, two at a time, after Jerry Banks and his rattlesnake.
“I have it figured out. Well, almost.”
Sachs had just walked into Rhyme’s room when he made this pronouncement. He was quite pleased with himself.
“Everything except the rattler and the glop.”
She delivered the new evidence to Mel Cooper. The room had been transformed yet again and the tables were covered with new vials and beakers and pillboxes and lab equipment and boxes. It wasn’t much compared to the feds’ headquarters but, to Amelia Sachs, it felt oddly like home.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday… pardon me – today’s Sunday. He’s going to burn down a church.”
“How do you figure?”
“The date.”
“On the scrap of paper? What’s it mean?”
“You ever hear of the anarchists?”
“Little Russians in trench coats carrying around those bombs that look like bowling balls?” Banks said.
“From the man who reads picture books,” Rhyme commented dryly. “Your Saturday-morning-cartoon roots are showing, Banks. Anarchism was an old social movement calling for the abolition of government. One anarchist, Enrico Malatesta – his shtick was ‘propaganda by deed.’ Translated that means murder and mayhem. One of his followers, an American named Eugene Lockworthy, lived in New York. One Sunday morning he bolted the doors of a church on the Upper East Side just after the service began and set the place on fire. Killed eighteen parishioners.”
“And that happened on May 20, 1906?” Sachs asked.
“Yep.”
“I’m not going to ask how you figured that out.”
Rhyme shrugged. “Obvious. Our unsub likes history, right? He gave us some matches so he’s telling us he’s planning arson. I just thought back to the city’s famous fires – the Triangle Shirtwaist, Crystal Palace, the General Slocum excursion boat… I checked the dates – May twentieth was the First Methodist Church fire.”
Sachs asked, “But where? Same location as that church?”
“Doubt it,” Sellitto said. “There’s a commercial high-rise there now. Eight twenty-three doesn’t like new places. I’ve got a couple men on it just in case but we’re sure he’s going for a church.”
“And we think,” Rhyme added, “that he’s going to wait till a service starts.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, that’s what Lockworthy did,” Sellitto continued. “Also, we were thinking ’bout what Terry Dobyns was telling us – upping the ante. Going for multiple vics.”
“So we’ve got a little more time. Until the service starts.”
Rhyme looked up at the ceiling. “Now, how many churches are there in Manhattan?”
“Hundreds.”
“That was rhetorical, Banks. I mean – let’s keep looking over the clues. He’ll have to narrow it down some.”