The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 1)

"Lincoln, I need to talk to you."

"Talk. But talk fast, Lon. We're busy."

The detective sat heavily in the noisy rattan chair. "An hour ago a bomb went off at the United Nations. Right next to the banquet hall. During the welcome dinner for the peace conference delegates."

"Six dead, fifty-four hurt," Banks added. "Twenty of them serious."

"My God," Sachs whispered.

"Tell him," Sellitto muttered.

Banks continued, "For the conference, the UN hired a bunch of temps. The perp was one of them--a receptionist. A half-dozen people saw her carrying a knapsack to work and putting it in a storeroom near the banquet hall. She left just before the bang. The bomb squad estimates we're looking at about two pounds of C4 or Semtex."

Sellitto said, "Linc, the bomb, it was a yellow knapsack, the wits said."

"Yellow?" Why was that familiar?

"UN human resources ID'd the receptionist as Carole Ganz."

"The mother," Rhyme and Sachs said simultaneously.

"Yeah. The woman you saved in the church. Only Ganz's an alias. Her real name's Charlotte Willoughby. She was married to a Ron Willoughby. Ring a bell?"

Rhyme said it didn't.

"It was in the news a couple years ago. He was an Army sergeant assigned to a UN peacekeeping force in Burma."

"Keep going," the criminalist said.

"Willoughby didn't want to go--thought an American soldier shouldn't be wearing a UN uniform and taking orders from anybody except the U.S. Army. It's a big right-wing issue nowadays. But he went anyway. Wasn't there a week before he's blown away by some little punk in Rangoon. Got shot in the back. Became a conservative martyr. Anti-Terror says his widow got recruited by an extremist group out in the Chicago burbs. Some U of C grads gone underground. Edward and Katherine Stone."

Banks took over the narrative. "The explosive was in a package of kid's modeling clay, along with some other toys. We think she was going to take the little girl with her so security at the banquet-hall entrance wouldn't think anything of the clay. But with Pammy in the hospital she didn't have her cover story so she gave up on the hall and just planted it in the storeroom. Did enough damage as it was."

"Rabitted?"

"Yep. Not a trace."

"What about the little girl," Sachs asked, "Pammy?"

"Gone. The woman checked her out of the hospital around the time of the bang. No sign of either of them."

Rhyme asked, "The cell?"

"The group in Chicago? They're gone too. Had a safe house in Wisconsin but it's been hosed. We don't know where they are."

"So that was the rumor Dellray's snitch heard." Rhyme laughed. "Carole was the one coming into the airport. Had nothing to do with Unsub 823."

He found Banks and Sellitto staring at him.

Oh, the old silent trick again.

"Forget it, Lon." Rhyme said, all too aware of the glass sitting inches from him, radiating a welcoming heat. "Impossible."

The older detective plucked his sweaty shirt away from his body, cringing. "Goddamn cold in here, Lincoln. Jesus. Look, just think about it. What'sa harm?"

"I can't help you."

Sellitto said, "There was a note. Carole wrote it and sent it to the secretary-general by interoffice envelope. Harping on world government, taking away American liberties. Some shit like that. Claimed credit for the UNESCO bombing in London too and said there'd be more. We've gotta get 'em, Linc."