The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

"Negative, negative. Everybody take it easy." Sellitto was running his burned fingers under cold water. "I just need a Band-Aid."

"That you, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah. It was the blasting cap went off. Boyd had a booby trap rigged to take out the evidence. I saved most of it . . . . " He pressed his hand into his armpit and squeezed. "Fuck, that stings."

"How big a device?" Haumann asked.

Sellitto glanced at the desk in the other room. "Big enough to blow the shit out of what looks like a gallon jar of sulfuric acid, I'd guess. And I see some jars of powder, probably cyanide. It would've taken out most of the evidence--and anybody who was nearby."

Several of the ESU officers glanced with gratitude toward Sellitto. One said, "Man, this's one perp I wanna take down personally."

Haumann, ever the voice of a detached cop, asked matter-of-factly, "Status of unsub?"

"No sign. Heat on the infrared was a fridge, TV and sunlight on furniture, looks like," one cop transmitted.

Sellitto looked over the room and then radioed, "Got an idea, Bo."

"Go ahead."

"Let's fix the door fast. Leave me and a couple other guys inside, clear everybody else off the streets. He might be back soon. We'll get him then."

"Roger, Lon. I like it. Let's get moving. Who knows carpentry?"

"I'll do it," Sellitto said. "One of my hobbies. Just get me some tools. And what kind of fucking entry team is this? Doesn't anybody have a goddamn Band-Aid?"

*

Down the street from Boyd's apartment, Amelia Sachs was listening to the transmitted exchanges about the kick-in. It seemed that her plan for Sellitto might've worked--even better than she'd hoped. She wasn't exactly sure what had happened but it was clear that he'd done something ballsy and she heard some newfound confidence in his voice.

She acknowledged the message about the plan to pull everybody off the street and wait for Boyd to return, then she added that she was going to warn the last residents across the street from the safe house and, after that, she'd join the others on the stake-out. She knocked on the front door and told the woman who answered to stay away from the front of the house until she heard it was safe to come out. There was a police action going on across the street.

The woman's eyes were wide. "Is it dangerous?"

Sachs gave her the standard line: We're just being cautious, nothing to be alarmed about and so on. Noncommittal, reassuring. Half of being a cop is public relations. Sometimes it's most of being a cop. Sachs added that she'd seen some children's toys in the woman's yard. Were they home now?

It was then that Sachs saw a man emerge from an alleyway up the street. He was walking slowly in the direction of the apartment, head down, wearing a hat and a long overcoat. She couldn't see his face.

The woman was saying in a concerned voice, "It's just my boyfriend and me here now. The children are at school. They usually walk home but should we go pick them up?"

"Ma'am, that man there, across the street?"

She stepped forward and glanced. "Him?"

"Do you know him?"

"Sure. He lives in that building right there."

"What's his name?"

"Larry Tang."

"Oh, he's Chinese?"

"I guess. Or Japanese or something."

Sachs relaxed.

"He's not involved in anything, is he?" the woman asked.