The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

Opening the attache case, he took out the Rand McNally and the heavy gun. Hiding the weapon inside the colorful map, he strolled casually toward the car. Grady's bodyguards were now standing together on the sidewalk, with their backs to him. One reached down to open the door for the prosecutor.

Twenty feet away . . .

Reverend Swensen thought to Grady, God have mercy on your--

And then the angel's millstone landed squarely on his shoulders.

"On the ground, on the ground, now, now now now!"

A half-dozen men and women, a hundred demons, grabbed Reverend Swensen's arms and flung him hard to the sidewalk. "Don't move don't move do

n't move don't move!"

One grabbed the gun, one snatched away the briefcase, one pressed the reverend's neck down into the sidewalk like the weight of the city's sin. His face scraped against the concrete and pain shot through his wrists and shoulder sockets as handcuffs were ratcheted on him and his pockets turned inside out.

Crushed to the concrete Reverend Swensen saw Grady's car door open and three policemen leap out, wearing helmets and bulletproof vests.

"Stay down, head down down down!"

Jesus our Lord in heaven. . . .

He watched a man's feet walk closer to him. In contrast to the fierceness of the other officers this man was quite polite. In a southern-accented voice he said, "Now, sir, we're going to roll you over and then I'm going to read you your rights. And you let me know if you understand 'em."

Several cops turned him over and pulled him to his feet.

The reverend started in shock.

The man speaking was the one in the dark sportscoat he'd thought was following him in Washington Square. Next to him was the blond man in glasses who'd apparently taken over the surveillance. The third, the swarthy man who'd asked about the time the concert began, stood nearby.

"Sir, my name's Detective Bell. And I'm going to read those rights now. You ready? Good. Here we go."

*

Bell looked over the contents of Swensen's attache case.

Extra ammunition for the H&K pistol. A yellow pad inscribed with what looked to be a very bad sermon scrawled on it. A guidebook, New York on Fifty Dollars a Day. There was also a beat-up Gideon Bible stamped with the name and address: THE ADELPHI HOTEL, 232 BOWERY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

Hmmm, Bell thought wryly, looks like we can add a count of Bible larceny to the charges.

He found nothing, though, that suggested a direct connection between this attempt on Grady's life and Andrew Constable. Discouraged, he handed off the evidence to be logged in and called Rhyme to tell him that the impromptu operation by the Saving Asses team had been successful.

Back at Rhyme's an hour earlier the criminalist had continued to pore over the revised crime scene report while Mel Cooper had researched the fibers the CS team had found in Grady's office. Finally Rhyme had made some troubling deductions. The analysis of the footprints in the office revealed that the intruder had stood for some minutes in one spot--the right front corner of the secretary's desk. The inventory of the office showed only one item in this portion of the desk: the woman's daily calendar. And the only entry for this weekend was Chrissy Grady's recital at the Neighborhood School.

Which meant that the person who broke in undoubtedly noted this. As for the attacker himself, Rhyme had ventured that he might be disguised as a minister or priest. With the help of an FBI database Cooper managed to trace the black fibers and dye to a cloth manufacturer in Minnesota, which--Cooper and Rhyme learned from its website--specialized in black gabardine for clerical-clothing makers. Rhyme also noted that several of the white fibers CS had found were polyester bonded with starched cotton, which suggested a white lightweight shirt with a stiff clerical collar attached.

The single red satin fiber was the sort that could've come from a ribbon bookmark in an old book, as could the gold leaf. A Bible, for instance. Rhyme had run a case years ago in which a smuggler had hidden drugs in a hollowed-out Bible; that CS search team had found similar trace in the man's office.

Bell had ordered Grady and his family not to attend their daughter's recital. In their place a team of ESU troopers would drive to the school in Grady's city car. Teams stationed themselves north of the school on Fifth Avenue, on cross streets west at Sixth Avenue and east at University Place and south in Washington Square Park.

Sure enough, Bell, who'd taken the park, had spotted a minister walking nervously toward the school. Bell had started to tail him but was spotted so he'd peeled off. Another SWAT officer picked up and tracked him to the school. A third detective from Bell's SWAT group approached and asked about the concert, checking visually for signs of weapons, but not finding any obvious ones--and hence having no probable cause to detain and search him.

But the suspect remained under close surveillance and as soon as he was seen pulling the gun from his attache case and starting for the decoys he was taken down.

Expecting a fake priest, they'd been surprised to find that they'd caught a real one, which the contents of Swensen's wallet confirmed--despite the contrary testimony of the embarrassingly bad sermon. Bell nodded at the H&K automatic. "Pretty big gun for a priest," he said.

"I'm a minister."

"Meant to say."