Rhyme asked Dance, "You're convinced he's willing to take lives."

"Yes."

He was considering the man's astonishing plot-making skills. Was there some other deadly plan he'd put into play if he realized he was about to be arrested at the museum? Rhyme made a decision. "Evacuate."

Sellitto asked, "The entire museum?"

"I think we have to. First priority-save lives. Clear the coatroom and front lobby and then move everybody else out. Have Haumann's men check out everybody who leaves. Make sure the teams have his picture."

The museum director had heard. "You think that's necessary?"

"Yes. Do it now."

"Okay, but I just don't see how anyone could steal it," the director said. "The Mechanism's behind inch-thick bullet-proof glass. And the case can't be opened until the day the exhibit closes, next Tuesday."

"What do you mean?" Rhyme asked.

"It's in one of our special display cases."

"But why won't it open until Tuesday?"

"Because the case has a computerized time lock, with a satellite link to some government clock. They tell me nobody can break into it. We put the most valuable exhibits in there."

The man continued speaking but Rhyme looked away. Something was nagging him. Then he recalled, "That arson earlier, the one that Fred Dellray wanted us to help out on. Where was it again?"

Sachs frowned. "A government office. The Institute of Standards and Technology or something like that. Why?"

"Look it up, Mel."

The tech went online. Reading from the website, he said, "NIST is the new name for the National Bureau of Standards and-"

"Bureau of Standards?" Rhyme interrupted. "They maintain the country's atomic clock… Is thatwhat he's up to? The time lock at the Met has an uplink to the NIST. Somehow he's going to change the time, convince the lock that it's next Tuesday. The vault'll open automatically."

"Can he do that?" Dance asked.

"I don't know. But if it's possible, he'll find a way. The fire at NIST was to cover up the break-in, I'll bet… " Then Rhyme stopped talking, as the full implications of the Watchmaker's plan became clear. "Oh, no…"

"What?"

Rhyme was thinking about Kathryn Dance's observation: That to the Watchmaker, human life was negligible. He said, "Time everywhere in the country is governed by the U.S. atomic clock. Airlines, trains, national defense, power grids, computers…everything. Do you have any idea what's going to happen if he resets it?"

In a cheap Midtown hotel, a middle-aged man and woman sat on a small couch that smelled of mildew and old food. They were staring at a television set.

Charlotte Allerton was the stocky woman who'd pretended to be the sister of Theodore Adams, the first "victim" in the alley on Tuesday. The man beside her, Bud Allerton, her husband, was the man masquerading as the lawyer who'd secured Gerald Duncan's release from jail by promising that his client would be a spectacular witness in the crooked cop scandal.

Bud really was a lawyer, though he hadn't practiced for some years. He'd resurrected some of his old skills for the sake of Duncan's plan, which called for Bud's pretending to be a criminal attorney from the big, prestigious law firm of Reed, Prince. The assistant district attorney had bought the entire charade, not even bothering to call the firm to check up on the man. Gerald Duncan had believed, correctly, that the prosecutor would be so eager to make a name for himself on a police corruption case that he'd believe what he wanted to. Besides, who ever asks for a lawyer's ID?

The Allertons' attention was almost exclusively on the TV screen, showing local news. A program about Christmas tree safety. Yadda, yadda, yadda…For a moment Charlotte's gaze slipped to the master bedroom in the suite, where her pretty, thin daughter sat reading a book. The girl looked through the doorway at her mother and stepfather with the same dark, sullen eyes that had typified her expression in recent months.

That girl…

Frowning, Charlotte looked back to the TV screen. "Isn't it taking too long?"

Bud said nothing. His thick fingers were intertwined and he sat forward, hunched, elbows on knees. She wondered if he was praying.

A moment later the reporter whose mission was to save families from the scourge of burning Christmas trees disappeared and on the screen came the words Special News Bulletin.

In doing his research into watchmaking, so that he could be a credible revenge killer, Charles Hale had learned of the concept of "complications."

A complication is a function in a watch or clock other than telling the time of day. For instance, those small dials that dot the front of expensive timepieces, giving information like day of the week and date and time in different locations, and repeater functions (chimes sounding at certain intervals). Watchmakers have always enjoyed the challenge of getting as many complications into their watches as possible. A typical one is the Patek Philippe Star Calibre 2000, a watch featuring more than one thousand parts. Its complications offer the owner such information as the times of sunrise and sunset, a perpetual calendar, the day, date and month, the season, moon phases, lunar orbit and power reserve indicators for both the watch's movement and the several chimes inside.

The trouble with complications, though, is that they're just that. They tend to distract from the ultimate purpose of a watch: telling time. Breitling makes superb timepieces but some of the Professional and Navitimer models have so many dials, hands and side functions, like chronographs (the technical term for stopwatches) and logarithmic slide rules, that it's easy to miss the big hand and the little hand.

But complications were exactly what Charles Hale needed for his plan here in New York City, distractions to lead the police away from what he was really about. Because there was a good chance that Lincoln Rhyme and his team would find out that he was no longer in custody and that he wasn't really Gerald Duncan, they'd realize he had something else in mind other than getting even with a crooked cop.

So he needed yet another complication to keep the police focused elsewhere.

Hale's cell phone vibrated. He glanced at the text message, which was from Charlotte Allerton. Special Report on TV: Museum closed. Police searching for you there.

He put the phone back in his pocket.

And enjoyed a moment of keen, almost sexual, satisfaction.

The message told him that while Rhyme hadtipped to the fact that he wasn't who he seemed to be, the police were still missing the time of day and focusing on the complication of the Metropolitan Museum. He was pointing the police toward what appeared to be a plan to steal the famous Delphic Mechanism. At the church he'd planted brochures on the horologic exhibits in Boston and Tampa. He'd rhapsodized on the device to Vincent Reynolds. He'd hinted to the antiques dealer about his obsession with old timepieces, mentioning the Mechanism specifically, and that he was aware of the exhibit at the Met. The small fire he'd set at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Brooklyn would make them think he was going to somehow reset the country's cesium clock, disabling the Met's time-security system, and steal the Mechanism.

A plot to steal the device seemed to be just the clever, subtle deduction for the cops to seize as Hale's real motive. Officers would spend hours scouring the museum and nearby Central Park looking for him and examining the canvas bag he'd left. It contained four hollowed-out books, inside of which were two bags of baking soda, a small scanner and, of course, a clock-a cheap digital alarm. None of them meant anything but each was sure to keep the police busy for hours.