"Me?" the cripple responded. "I'm one of the ten judges of hell."
The Ghost laughed. "So you inscribe names in The Register of the Living and the Dead?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I do."
"And you've come to see me off?"
"No," he answered.
Peabody said cautiously, "And what do you want?"
The State Department bureaucrat said impatiently, "All of you, now--just clear on out of here."
"He's not getting on that airplane," Rhyme said.
"Oh, yes, he is," said the dour official. He stepped forward, plucking the Ghost's ticket from his pocket and striding toward the gate agent.
"You take one more step toward that airplane," the fat policeman said to him, "and these officers're authorized to arrest you."
"Me?" Webley muttered angrily.
Peabody gave a sharp laugh and looked at the black agent. "Dellray, what is this crap?"
"Probably oughta listen to my friend here, Harold. In your best innerest, believe you me."
Peabody said, "Five minutes."
A regretful frown crossed Lincoln Rhyme's face. "Oh, I'm afraid it may take a little longer than that."
Chapter Forty-nine
The snakehead was far smaller and more compact than Lincoln Rhyme had expected. This was a phenomenon he recalled from his days running the NYPD forensics unit; the perpetrators he pursued took on disproportionate stature in his mind and when he saw them in person for the first time--usually at trial--he was often surprised at how diminutive they were.
The Ghost stood shackled and surrounded by law enforcers. Concerned, yes, but still in control, serene, shoulders and arms relaxed. The criminalist understood immediately how Sachs could have been suckered by him: the Ghost's eyes were those of a healer, a doctor, a spiritual man. They would dole out apparent comfort and invite sharing confidences. But, knowing the man now, Rhyme could see in the placid gaze evidence of a relentless ego and ruthlessness.
"Okay, sir, what's this all about?" asked Peabody's fr
iend--Webley from State, as Rhyme now thought of him, echoing the man's own pompous identification of himself in Rhyme's living room the other day.
Rhyme said to the two men, "You know what happens sometimes in our line of work, gentlemen? I mean, forensic science."
Webley from State started to speak but Peabody waved him silent. Rhyme wouldn't have let anyone rush him anyway. Nobody hurried Lincoln Rhyme when he didn't wish to be hurried.
"We sometimes lose sight of the big picture. All right, I admit I'm the one who loses sight more than, say, my Sachs here. She looks at motive, she looks at why people do what they do. But that's not my nature. My nature is to study each piece of evidence and put it where it belongs." He glanced at the Ghost with a smile. "Like placing a stone on a wei-chi board."
The snakehead who had brought so much sorrow to so many lives said nothing, gave no acknowledgment. The gate agent announced preboarding of the Northwest Airlines flight to Los Angeles.
"We figured out the clues just fine." A nod toward the Ghost. "After all, here he is, caught, right? Thanks to us. And we've got enough evidence to convict him and sentence him to death. But what happens? He's going free."
"He's not going free," Peabody rejoined. "He's going back to stand trial in China."
"Free from the jurisdiction where he's committed a number of serious felonies in the past few days," Rhyme corrected sharply. "Do we have to squabble?"
This was too much for Webley from State. "Get to the point or I'm putting him on that plane."
Rhyme continued to ignore the man. He had the stage and wasn't relinquishing it. "The big picture . . . big picture . . . I was thinking how bad I felt. Here, I'd found out where the Fuzhou Dragon was and sent the Coast Guard after her but--what happens?--he scuttles it, killing all those people."
Peabody shook his head. "Of course you'd feel bad," he said with some sympathy. "We all felt bad. But--"