‘Odd, Captain.’ Using Rhyme’s old title. It never failed to be both jarring and familiar.

‘How? Exactly.’

‘The victim was killed by amatoxin alpha amanitin.’

‘Death cap mushroom,’ Cooper said. ‘Amanita phalloides .’

‘That’s it,’ the medical examiner said.

Rhyme knew them well. Amanitas are known for three things: a smell like honey, a very pleasant taste and the ability to kill more efficiently than any other fungus on earth.

‘And the odd part?’

‘The dosage. I’ve never seen a concentration this high. Usually it takes days to die, but he lasted about an hour I’d guess.’

‘And a pretty bad hour,’ Sachs said.

‘Well, that’s right,’ said the medical examiner, as if this had never occurred to him.

‘Any other substances?’

‘More propofol. Just like the others.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nope.’

Rhyme grimaced and began to hit disconnect. Sachs called, ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re–’

Click.

‘Keep going, Mel,’ Rhyme said.

Cooper ran another sample of trace through the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer. ‘This is–’

‘Don’t say “odd”,’ Rhyme snapped. ‘I’ve had enough odd.’

‘Troubling. That was the word.’

‘Go on.’

‘Nitrocellulose, di ethylene glycol dinitrate, dibutyl phthalate, diphenylamine, potassium chloride, graphite.’

Rhyme frowned. ‘How much?’

‘A lot.’

‘What is it, Lincoln?’ Pulaski asked.

‘Explosives. Gunpowder, specifically. Smokeless – modern formulation.’

Sachs asked the tech, ‘From a discharged weapon?’

‘No. Some actual grains. Pre burn.’

Pulaski asked, ‘He reloads his own ammunition?’

It was a reasonable suggestion. But Rhyme considered this for a moment and then said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Usually it’s only snipers and hunters who reload. And our unsub hasn’t left any evidence that he’s either. Not much interest in firearms at all.’ Rhyme stared at the computer printout of the GC/MS. ‘No, I think he’s using the raw powder for an improvised explosive device.’ He sighed. ‘Poison’s not enough. Now he wants to blow something up.’

537 St. Marks Street

Victim: Eddie Beaufort, 38

– Employee at TT Gordon’s tattoo parlor

– Probably not intended victim

Perpetrator: Presumably Unsub 11 5

COD: Poisoning with amatoxin alpha amanitin (from Amanita phalloides, death cap mushroom), introduced via tattooing

Tattoo reads: ‘the six hundredth’

Sedated with propofol

– How obtained? Access to medical supplies? (No local thefts)

Handcuffs

– Generic, unable to source

Trace

– Nitrocellulose, di ethylene glycol dinitrate, dibutyl phthalate, diphenylamine, potassium chloride, graphite: smokeless gunpowder

• Planning to use improvised explosive device?

‘You know how skeptical I am of motives.’

Sachs said nothing, but a cresting smile told her reaction.

Easing his wheelchair up to the evidence boards, Rhyme continued, ‘But there’s a time when it’s appropriate to ask about them – particularly when we’ve built up a solid evidentiary base. Which we have. The possibility of a bomb – possibility, mind you – may take this out of psychotic perp world. There’s a rational motive at work possibly. Our unsub’s not necessarily satisfying deep seated yearnings to do the Bone Collector one better. I think he may have something more calculated in mind. Yes, yes, this could be good,’ he added enthusiastically. ‘I want to look at the victims again.’

The team perused the charts. Rhyme said, ‘We can take Eddie Beaufort out of the equation. He was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lon and Seth and I were attacked to slow us down. There were four intended attacks as part of his plan: We ruined two of them – Harriet Stanton at the hospital and Braden Alexander at the Belvedere Apartments. And two were successful. Chloe and Samantha. Why those four?’ Rhyme whispered, ‘What about them beckoned?’

Sachs said, ‘I don’t know, Rhyme. They seemed purely random … happenstance victims.’

Rhyme stared up at the board in front of him. ‘Yes, the victims themselves  are random. But what if–’

Pulaski blurted, ‘The places  aren’t? Did he pretend to be psycho to take attention away from the fact that there’s something at the scenes he wants to blow up?’

‘Ex actly, rookie!’ Rhyme scanned the boards. ‘Location, location, location.’

Cooper said, ‘But blow up what? And how?’

Rhyme scanned the crime scene photos again. Then: ‘Sachs!’

She lifted an eyebrow.

‘When we weren’t sure where the hypochlorous acid came from we sent patrolmen to the scenes, remember? To see if there were chlorine distribution systems there.’

‘Right. The boutique in SoHo and the restaurant. They didn’t find any.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, but it’s not the acid I’m thinking of.’ Rhyme wheeled closer to the monitor, studying the images. ‘Look at those pictures you took, Sachs. The spotlights and batteries. Did you  set them up?’

‘No, the first responders did.’ She was frowning. ‘I assumed  they did. They were there when I arrived. Both scenes.’

‘And the officer who searched the tunnel for chlorine later said he was standing by the spotlights. They were still there. Why?’ He frowned and said to Sachs, ‘Find out who set them up.’

Sachs grabbed her phone and called the Crime Scene Unit in Queens. ‘Joey, it’s Amelia. When your people were running the Unsub Eleven Five scenes, did you bring halogens to any of them? … No.’ She was nodding. ‘Thanks.’ Disconnected.

‘They never set them up, Rhyme. They weren’t our lights.’ She then called a friend at the fire department and asked the same question. After a brief conversation she disconnected and reported, ‘Uh uh. They weren’t the FD’s either. And patrol doesn’t carry around spots in their RMPs. Only Emergency Service does and they didn’t respond until later.’

‘And, hell,’ Rhyme snapped, ‘I’ll bet there’re lights in the tunnel under the Belvedere.’

Sachs: ‘That’s what the bombs’re in, right? The batteries.’

Rhyme looked over the images. ‘The batteries look like twelve volt. You can run halogens on batteries that’re a lot smaller. The rest of the casing’s filled with gunpowder, I’m sure. It’s brilliant. Nobody’d question spotlights and batteries sitting in a crime scene perimeter. Any other mysterious packages’d be reported and examined by the Bomb Squad.’

‘But what’s the target?’ Cooper asked.

The brief silence was broken by Amelia Sachs. ‘My God.’

‘What, Sachs?’

‘IFON.’ She dug what seemed to be a business card out of her purse. And walked fast to the crime scene photos. ‘Hell, I missed it, Rhyme. Missed it completely.’

‘Go on.’

She tapped the screen. ‘Those yellow boxes with IFON  printed on the side? They’re Internet cables, owned by International Fiber Optic Networks.’ She held up the card. ‘And the building directly over the Samantha Levine crime scene was IFON’s headquarters. She worked for them. I interviewed the CEO just after she died.’ Sachs then called up the photos of the Chloe Moore scene. ‘There. The same boxes.’

And there was another box visible in the tunnel beneath the parking garage in the Belvedere Apartments.

Sachs said, ‘In the hospital, in Marble Hill, where Harriet Stanton was attacked, I didn’t go underground to look for any tunnels. But I’ll bet there’re IFON routers or whatever they are somewhere.’

Pulaski said, ‘Somebody wants to blow up the boxes.’ His face finally grew inscrutable. ‘Hey – think about it – the Internet outages? The rumors of the traditional cable companies sabotaging the new fiber optic systems? I’ll bet that’s it.’

Sachs said, ‘Our Skin Collector may feel like he’s the Bone Collector’s heir but, bottom line? That’s just a cover. He was hired to smuggle bombs underground to take out International Fiber Optic’s routers.’