“I know the terrorist task force is still working an aspect of the explosion, Paul, and I realize those two Saudi guys are in custody in Westchester, but Mike and I are certain the event on Thirtieth has something to do with the sandhogs,” I said.

McKinney leaned over in an aside to Battaglia. “‘Mike and I think.’ If Mike Chapman told her to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, she’d probably-”

“I’d check the homicide roster first before I went up on the bridge, just to make sure neither you nor your idiot girlfriend were on call,” I said to McKinney. He had annoyed Battaglia-a devoted family man-by recently leaving his wife for a woman in the office with whom he’d been having an affair for years. “Nothing personal, Pat. I’d just prefer a careful investigation from a sensitive prosecutor if I were to meet an untimely end.”

Battaglia ignored the quibbling. “I understand there’s no court today because of the Quillian funeral. Have you got half an hour to bring Pat up to speed on what you’ve learned about the tunnel system vulnerability?”

“Sure.”

“Sit down.” Battaglia motioned to the chair on his other side. He didn’t need to waste the time going to City Hall himself, but he clearly wanted to be in on any important developments. The cigar was back in his teeth, and he was already shuffling through the mounds of correspondence that Rose had stacked in front of him, more able to do four things at once than anyone else I’d ever met. “You do any homework on this, Pat?”

“I got the basics from the Office of Emergency Management. It’s entirely different for a Category Four hurricane than a catastrophic event.”

“Is that what you hear?” Battaglia asked, angling his head to me.

“Nobody’s talked about this much in my quarters, boss. These guys are just trying to solve a crime.”

McKinney’s expression of disgust wasn’t lost on Battaglia. “Apparently, the perfect storm could hit the financial district-and Kennedy Airport and half of Staten Island-with twenty-five-foot surges of water. The city’s been divided into more than a hundred zones-trying to move people out of harm’s way will make what happened in the Gulf Coast area seem like a picnic. We’re talking more than two million evacuees.”

Battaglia’s crooked nose was hovering above a memo from someone in the office, his eyeglasses raised on his forehead. “I’m not asking about a flood, Pat. I want to know what happens if there’s no damn water to be had. You’re going to have federal and state hotshots at this meeting today. Look smart, will you?”

Objection, I thought to myself. Beyond the scope of the possible.

McKinney fidgeted in his chair. “We’ve obviously got the advantage over New Orleans and southern Mississippi of mass transit opportunities to move people out of the metropolitan area.”

“Get some specifics about how those systems operate before you open your mouth. What about moving patients in hospitals on ventilators, people in nursing homes? What do the police and fire departments plan to do about looting and all the things that we’ll be responsible for dealing with? Who’s going to ride shotgun on water and gas deliveries so desperadoes don’t hijack them? It’s a strategic-planning meeting.”

McKinney started making a list of Battaglia’s concerns.

“Alex,” the district attorney said, putting down the memo and eyeballing me. “What’s got you and Mike thinking the way you do about the tunnel?”

I made my case presentation with the facts as I knew them, including my Sunday-afternoon excursion with Mike Chapman. McKinney was restless, too out of the loop to enjoy listening about an investigation in which he played no role.

Battaglia devoured detail as if it were essential to his diet, but then usually left his top aides alone to get the work done themselves, occasionally offering direction from his long prosecutorial experience. He listened intently to my description of the tunnel interior and dismissed the story of the tire iron that had narrowly missed my head-which he’d heard from the commissioner-with barely a question about my own fears.

“So Jerry Genco just told you about the exhumation order?” he asked. “I had to push you on that, didn’t I, Pat?”

“Good idea, boss. It really was.”

“Take Alex through it,” Battaglia said, ready to get us out of his hair now, and hoping, as he always did, that we would work through our personal differences. “You ought to think about asking Fred Gertz to do the same thing in this Hassett murder.”

I fingered the edge of the volume of criminal procedure law that sat on the table next to the phone. “I know it rarely stops you, but there’s a little concept known as jurisdiction. Bex Hassett was killed in another county.”

“Be creative, Alex. Maybe Quillian made the cell call from Manhattan. Get your toe in the door and make some noise here. I can always kick it over to the Bronx DA.”

McKinney could barely suppress his smile as he watched me struggle to handle the boss diplomatically. He knew as well as I did that Battaglia hated to be told no when he came up with an idea he thought was a winner.

“It’s a bit premature, Paul. Let’s see what condition the evidence is in when Mercer gets back from the property clerk. I’d have to have some basis in fact to even raise the issue.”

Battaglia’s lips pulled back around the cigar in the mischievous grin that characterized his relentless prosecutorial drive. “Rattle your boy Brendan’s cage, Alex. Use your imagination. Get under Lem Howell’s skin if you can. Even if Gertz can’t entertain the motion for an exhumation, the press hounds will love you for bringing it up.”

“With all due respect, Paul, I don’t think-”

“McKinney, go up to court with Alex this afternoon. Help her float this one past the judge.”

“Will do,” he said, sporting his smug attitude like a new suit. “Gertz practically eats out of my hand when I feed him enough law. I play him like a violin.”

I followed Pat McKinney down the corridor, which was lined with the stern-faced black-and-white portraits of Manhattan’s district attorneys going back more than a century. Dewey, Hogan, Banton, and the others seemed to gaze down at me, investing me with a sense of mission and duty.

Pat held open the door. As I stepped out past the security guard, I could hear a woman’s screams coming from halfway down the wide eighth-floor hallway.

I broke into a trot as I saw Joe Roman, the squad detective, pushing open the door of the ladies’ bathroom. I ran in behind him.

He reached the figure, collapsed on the floor, before I dropped to my knees at her side.

It was Carol Goodwin, the stalking victim I’d assigned him to watch. The razor she had used to cut her wrist was beside her hand, blood pooling next to her on the cold gray tile.

The EMTs responded within minutes from nearby Beekman Downtown Hospital. They had stemmed the bleeding and bandaged the hysterical young woman, who had attracted the attention of dozens of staff members within earshot, before taking her out to the ambulance.

I had stood by the elevator doors as they closed, having tried for half an hour in the restroom to calm Carol Goodwin, to talk her down from her frenzied ranting while the EMTs worked on her. She took that last opportunity to yell out her accusation.

“This is your fault, Miss Cooper! You’re supposed to help people like me. You’re supposed to believe in me. If I die, it’s going to be all your fault.”

I rested my head against the wall, eyes closed and arms crossed, waiting for the gathering of lawyers, secretaries, witnesses, cops, and student interns to disperse.

Joe ordered everybody to get back to work.

“I’m not moving until they all go away,” I whispered to him. “Whatever fumes I was running on to start this week, I’m out of emotional gas. I don’t want to talk to any of them, I don’t want to explain things to anyone. I’ve got a murder trial that I’ve got to focus on, but life-such as it is-seems to be going on for everyone else in all the old familiar ways.”