The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

Chang, his wife and father all froze.

Footsteps.

"Shut the lights out. Quickly," Chang ordered. Mei-Mei scurried through the apartment, dowsing them.

Chang walked quickly to the closet, pulled William's pistol out from its hiding place and walked to the curtained front window. Hands trembling, he looked outside.

Across the street was a delivery truck--with a large sign for pizza hanging from the window. The driver was carrying a cardboard carton up to an apartment.

"It's all right," he said. "A delivery across the street."

But then he looked through the dim apartment, detecting the vague forms of his father, his wife and the infant, illuminated only by the blue light of the television screen. His smile of relief faded and, like the black cloud from an ink stick in a calligraphy well, he was consumed with intense regret for what his decisions had done to these people he loved so much. In America, Chang had learned, guilt for transgressions tortures one's psyche; in China, though, shame at letting down family and friends is the essential torment. And that is what he now felt: searing shame.

So this is to be the life I've brought to my father and my family: fear and darkness. Nothing but fear and darkness . . .

The madness cannot be sustained.

Perhaps not, Chang thought. But that doesn't mean that it's not any less deadly while it persists.

*

Sitting on a bench in Battery Park City, the Ghost was watching the lights of the ships on the Hudson River, far more peaceful but less picturesque than the waterfront in Hong Kong. There was a break in the rain but the wind was still rowdy, pushing low purple clouds quickly overhead, their bellies lit by the vast spectrum of city lights.

How had the police found the Wus? the Ghost wondered.

He considered this question but could come to no answer. Probably through the broker they'd killed and through Mah--the investigators hadn't believed that the Italians had killed the tong leader, despite the message he'd written in Mah's blood. The news had reported that the one Uighur they'd left behind was dead and that would mean a big reparation payment to the head of the cultural center.

How had they found the family?

Maybe it was magic . . .

No, not magic at all. He had yet more proof that his adversary and those working with him were relentless and talented. There was something very different about the people who were after him this time. Better than the Taiwanese, better than the French, better than your typical INS agent. If not for the first gunshot on Canal Street he would now be in custody or dead.

And who exactly was this Lincoln Rhyme that his intelligence source had reported to him about?

Well, he believed he was safe now. He and the Turks had taken great care to hide the Lexus, which they'd car-jacked to escape in, hidden it better than the Honda he'd stolen at the beach, in fact. They'd split up immediately. He'd worn the mask at the Wus, no one had followed them from the shooting and Kashgari had had no identification on him to link him to either the Ghost or the cultural center in Queens.

Tomorrow, he would find the Changs.

Two young American women slowly walked past, enjoying the view and chatting in a way he found irritating, but the Ghost tuned out their words and stared at their bodies.

Resist? he wondered.

No, the Ghost thought decisively. He pulled out his phone and, before his will stopped him, called Yindao and they arranged to meet later. She was, he noted, pleased to hear from him. Who was she with at the moment? he wondered. What was she doing and saying? He wouldn't have much time tonight to see her--he was exhausted from this endless day and needed sleep. But how badly he wanted to be close to her, to feel her firm body beneath his hands, watch her lying underneath him . . . Touching her, eradicating the shock and anger of the near-disaster from earlier on Canal Street.

After he hung up he held the memory of the woman's sultry voice in his

mind, as he continued to watch the fast clouds, the choppy waves . . .

Disappointed, you can be fulfilled.

Hungry, you can be satiated.

Defeated, you can be victorious.

*

At 9:30 P.M. Fred Dellray stood and stretched, then plucked four empty coffee containers off his desk in the FBI's Manhattan office. He pitched them into his brimming trash can.