“Eight twenty-three’s obsessed with what’s old. If he’s after an old black church then he might not mean uptown. Philip Payton started the Afro-American Realty Company in Harlem in 1900. There were two other black settlements in the city. Downtown where the courthouses are now and San Juan Hill. They’re mostly white now but… Oh, what the hell was I thinking of?”

“Where’s San Juan Hill?”

“Just north of Hell’s Kitchen. On the West Side. It was named in honor of all the black soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War.”

She read through the paper.

“Downtown churches,” she said. “Well, in Battery Park there’s the Seamen’s Institute. A chapel there. They have services. Trinity. Saint Paul’s.”

“That wasn’t the black area. Farther north and east.”

“A Presbyterian church in Chinatown.”

“Any Baptist. Evangelical?”

“No, nothing in that area at all. There’s – Oh, hell.” With resignation in her eyes she sighed. “Oh, no.”

Rhyme understood. “Sunrise service!”

She was nodding. “Holy Tabernacle Baptist… Oh, Rhyme, there’s a gospel service starting at six. Fifty-ninth and Eleventh Avenue.”

“That’s San Juan Hill! Call them!”

She grabbed the phone and dialed the number. She stood, head down, fiercely plucking an eyebrow and shaking her head. “Answer, answer… Hell. It’s a recording. The minister must be out of his office.” She said into the receiver, “This is the New York Police Department. We have reason to believe there’s a firebomb in your church. Evacuate as fast as possible.” She hung up, pulled her shoes on.

“Go, Sachs. You’ve got to get there. Now!”

“Me?”

“We’re closer than the nearest precinct. You can be there in ten minutes.”

She jogged toward the door, slinging her utility belt around her waist.

“I’ll call the precinct,” he yelled as she leapt down the stairs, hair a red cloud around her head. “And Sachs, if you ever wanted to drive fast, do it now.”

The RRV wagon skidded into 81st Street, speeding west.

Sachs burst into the intersection at Broadway, skidded hard and whacked a New York Post vending machine, sending it through Zabar’s window before she brought the wagon under control. She remembered all the crime scene equipment in the back. Rear-heavy vehicle, she thought; don’t corner at fifty.

Then down Broadway. Brake at the intersections. Check left. Check right. Clear. Punch it!

She peeled off on Ninth Avenue at Lincoln Center and headed south. I’m only -

Oh, hell!

A mad stop on screaming tires.

The street was closed.

A row of blue sawhorses blocked Ninth for a street fair later that morning. A banner proclaimed, Crafts and Delicacies of all Nations. Hand in hand, we are all one.

Gaw… damn UN! She backed up a half block and got the wagon up to fifty before she slammed into the first sawhorse. Spreading portable aluminum tables and wooden display racks in her wake, she tore a swath through the deserted fair. Two blocks later the wagon broke through the southern barricade and she skidded west on Fifty-ninth, using far more of the sidewalk than she meant to.

There was the church, a hundred yards away.

Parishioners on the steps – parents, little girls in frilly white and pink dresses, young boys in dark suits and white shirts, their hair in gangsta knobs or fades.

And from a basement window, a small puff of gray smoke.

Sachs slammed the accelerator to the floor, the engine roaring.

Grabbing the radio. “RRV Two to Central, K?”

And in the instant it took her to glance down at the Motorola to make sure the volume was up, a big Mercedes slipped out of the alley directly into her path.

A fast glimpse of the family inside, eyes wide in horror, as the father slammed on the brakes.

Sachs instinctively spun the wheel hard to the left, putting the wagon into controlled skid. Come on, she was begging the tires, grip, grip, grip! But the oily asphalt was loose from the heat of the past few days and covered with dew. The wagon danced over the road like a hydrofoil.

The rear end met the Merc’s front flat-on at fifty miles an hour. With an explosive boom the 560 sheared off the rear right side of the wagon. The black CS suitcases flew into the air, breaking open and strewing their contents along the street. Church-goers dove for cover from the splinters of glass and plastic and sheet metal.

The air bag popped and deflated, stunning Sachs. She covered her face as the wagon tumbled over a row of cars and through a newsstand then skidded to a stop upside down. Newspapers and plastic evidence bags floated to the ground like tiny paratroopers.

Held upside down by the harness, blinded by her hair, Sachs wiped blood from her torn forehead and lip and tried to pop the belt release. It held tight. Hot gasoline flowed into the car and trickled along her arm. She pulled a switchblade from her back pocket, flicked the knife open and cut the seat belt. Falling, she nearly skewered herself on the knife and lay, gasping, choking on the gas fumes.

Come on, girl, get out. Out!

The doors were jammed closed and there was no escape through the crushed rear end of the wagon. Sachs began kicking the windows. The glass wouldn’t break. She drew her foot back and slammed it hard into the cracked windshield. No effect, except that she nearly sprained her ankle.

Her gun!

She slapped her hip; the gun had been torn from the holster and tossed somewhere inside the car. Feeling the hot drizzle of gasoline on her arm and shoulder, she searched frantically through the papers and CS equipment littering the ceiling of the station wagon.

Then she saw the clunky Glock near the dome light. She swept it up and aimed at the side window.

Go ahead. Backdrop’s clear, no spectators yet.

Then she hesitated. Would the muzzle flash ignite the gas?

She held the gun as far away from her soaked uniform blouse as she could, debating. Then squeezed the trigger.

FIVE SHOTS, A STAR PATTERN, and even then the honest General Motors glass held firm.

Three more blasts, deafening her in the confines of the wagon. But at least the gas didn’t explode.

She began to kick again. Finally the window burst outward in a cascade of blue-green ice. Just as she rolled out the interior of the wagon exploded with a breathless woosh.

Stripping down to her T-shirt, she flung away her gas-soaked uniform blouse and bulletproof vest and tossed aside the headset mike. Felt her ankle wobble but sprinted to the front door of the church, past the fleeing churchgoers and choir. The ground floor was filled with bubbling smoke. Nearby, a section of the floor rippled and steamed and then burst into flames.

The minister appeared suddenly, choking, tears streaming down his face. He was dragging an unconscious woman behind him. Sachs helped him get her to the door.

“Where’s the basement?” she asked.

He coughed hard, shook his head.

“Where?” she cried, thinking of Carole Ganz and her little daughter. “The basement?”

“There. But…”

On the other side of the patch of burning floor.

Sachs could barely see it, the smoke was so thick. A wall collapsed in front of them, the old joists and posts behind it snapping and firing sparks and jets of hot gas, which hissed into the cloudy room. She hesitated, then started for the basement door.

The minister took her arm. “Wait.” He opened a closet and grabbed a fire extinguisher, yanked the arming pin. “Let’s go.”

Sachs shook her head. “Not you. Keep checking up here. Tell the fire department there’s a police officer and another victim in the basement.”

Sachs was sprinting now.

When you move…

She jumped over the fiery patch of floor. But because of the smoke she misjudged the distance to the wall; it was closer than she’d thought and she slammed into the wood paneling then fell backwards, rolling as her hair brushed the fire, some strands igniting. Gagging on the stink, she crushed the flames out and started to push herself to her feet. The floor, weakened by the flames beneath, broke under her weight and her face crashed into the oak. She felt the blaze in the basement lick her hands and arms as she yanked her hands back.