The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

Chang fell silent as Mah logged off the computer and then wrote a note, handed it to Wu. "This is the broker. He's only a few blocks from here. You'll pay him a fee." He added, "I won't charge you for this. Am I generous? Everybody says Jimmy Mah is generous. Now, for Mr. Chang's car." Mah made a call and began to speak quickly into the phone. He made arrangements for a van to be brought around. He hung up and turned to the two men. "There. That concludes our business. Isn't it a pleasure to work with reasonable men?"

They rose in unison and shook hands.

"Do you want a cigarette to take with you?" he asked Wu, who took three.

When the immigrants were at the door Mah asked, "One thing. This Mexican snakehead? There's no reason for him to come after you, is there? You're even with him?"

"Yes, we're even."

"Good. Don't we have enough reason to look over our shoulders?" Mah asked jovially. "Aren't there enough demons after us in this life?"

Chapter Ten

In the distance, sirens pierced the early morning air.

The sound grew louder and Lincoln Rhyme hoped it would mark the arrival of Amelia Sachs. The evidence she'd gathered at the beach had already arrived, delivered by a young tech who'd sheepishly entered the den of the legendary Lincoln Rhyme without a word and scurried about to deposit the bags and stacks of pictures as the criminalist gruffly directed.

Sachs herself had been diverted on the way back from the beach, however, to run a secondary crime scene. The church van stolen at Easton had been found in Chinatown--abandoned in an alley next to an uptown subway stop forty-five minutes ago. The van had slipped past the roadblocks because not only did it sport stolen plates but one of the immigrants had painted over the name of the church and replaced it with a good facsimile of the logo for a local home improvement store.

"Smart," Rhyme had said, with some dismay; he didn't like smart perps. He'd then called Sachs--who was speeding back to the city on the Long Island Expressway--and ordered her to meet a crime scene bus downtown and process the van.

The INS's Harold Peabody was gone--summoned to juggle press conferences and calls from Washington about the fiasco.

Alan Coe, Lon Sellitto and Fred Dellray remained, as did the trim, hedgehog-haired detective Eddie Deng. An addition as well: Mel Cooper, slim, balding, reserved. He was one of the NYPD's top forensic lab workers and Rhyme often borrowed him. Walking silently on his crepe-soled Hush Puppies, which he wore during the day because they were comfortable and at night because they gave him good traction for ballroom dancing, Cooper was assembling equipment, organizing examination stations and laying out the evidence from the beach.

At Rhyme's direction Thom taped a map of New York City on the wall, next to the map of Long Island and the surrounding waters, which they'd used in following the Fuzhou Dragon's progress. Rhyme stared at the red dot that represented the ship and he once again felt the pain of guilt that his lack of foresight had resulted in the deaths of the immigrants.

The sirens grew louder then stopped outside his window, which faced Central Park. A moment later the door opened and Amelia Sachs, limping slightly, hurried into the room. Her hair was matted and flecked with bits of seaweed and dirt and her jeans and work shirt were damp and sandy.

Those in the room nodded distracted greetings. Dellray studied her clothes and lifted an eyebrow.

"Had some free time," she said. "Went for a swim. Hi, Mel."

"Amelia," Cooper said, shoving his glasses higher on his nose. He blinked at her appearance.

Rhyme noted with eager anticipation what she carried: a gray milk crate, filled with plastic and paper bags. She handed the evidence to Cooper and started for the stairs, calling, "Back in five."

A moment later Rhyme heard the shower running and, indeed, five minutes after she'd left, she was back, wearing some of the clothes she kept in his bedroom closet: blue jeans and a black T-shirt, running shoes.

Wearing rubber gloves, Cooper was laying the bags out, organizing them according to the scenes--the beach and the van in Chinatown. Rhyme gazed at the evidence and felt--in his temples, not his numb chest--a quickening of his heart, the breathtaking excitement of a hunt that was about to begin. Indifferent toward sports and athletics, Rhyme nonetheless supposed that this edgy exhilaration was what ski racers, for instance, felt when they stood at the top of a run, looking down the mountain. Would they win? Would the course defeat them? Would they make a tactical mistake and lose by a fraction of a second? Would they be injured or die?

"Okay," he said. "Let's get to it." He looked around the room. "Thom? Thom! Where is he? He was here a minute ago. Thom!"

"What, Lincoln?" The harried aide appeared in the doorway, with a pan and dish towel in hand.

"Be our scribe . . . write our pithy insights down"--a nod at the whiteboard--"in that elegant handwriting of yours."

"Yes, bwana." Thom started back to the kitchen.

"No, no, just leave it," Rhyme groused. "Write!"

Sighing, Thom set down the pan and wiped his hands on the towel. He tucked his purple tie into his shirt to protect it from the marker and walked to the whiteboard. He'd been an unofficial member of several forensic teams here and he knew the drill. He now asked Dellray, "You have a name for the case yet?"

The FBI always named major investigations with acronymlike variations of the key words describing the case--like ABSCAM. Dellray pinched the cigarette that rested behind his ear. He said, "Nup. Nothing yet. But less just do it ourselves and make Washington live with it. How 'bout t

he name of our boy? GHOSTKILL. That good enough for ever-body? That spooky enough?"

"Plenty spooky," Sellitto agreed though with the tone of someone who was rarely spooked.