The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

He headed now through winding corridors in the interconnected basements of the government buildings here until he came to the supply closet where he'd stashed his new disguise several days ago. Inside the small room he stripped and then hid the wound appliance, his old clothes and shoes behind some boxes. Donning his new outfit and applying some makeup, he was in role in less than ten seconds.

A glance out the door. The corridor was empty. He stepped outside and hurried for the stairway. It was nearly time for the finale.

*

"It was an out," Kara said.

The young woman had been whisked back to Rhyme's town house from Stuyvesant Manor a few moments ago.

"An out?" the criminalist asked. "What's that?"

"It means an alternative plan. All good illusionists have one or two backups for every routine. If you screw up or the audience catches your moves, you have an escape plan to save the trick. He must've figured there was a chance he'd get caught so he rigged an out to let him get away."

"How'd he do it?"

"Explosive squib behind a blood bladder hidden in his hair. The shot? It might've been a fake gun," she suggested. "Most catch-the-bullet tricks use fekes, phony guns. They have a second barrel. Or they're real guns, loaded with blanks. He might've switched guns with the officer taking him to his cell."

"I doubt it," Rhyme said, looking at Sellitto.

The rumpled cop agreed. "Yeah, I don't see how he could've switched a service piece. Or unloaded it and reloaded it with funny slugs."

Kara said, "Well, he could've just pretended to shoot himself. Played with the angle of sight."

"What about the eyes?" Rhyme asked. "The wits said his eyes were open. He never blinked. And they looked glazed."

"There're dozens of dead-man fekes and gimmicks. He might've used eyedrops that lubricate the surface. You can keep them open for ten or fifteen minutes. And there're self-lubricating contact lenses too. They have a glazed look, like you're a zombie."

Zombies and fake blood . . . Christ, what a mess. "How'd he get through the goddamn metal detector?"

"They weren't in the lockdown area yet," Sellitto explained. "That's what they were on their way to."

Rhyme sighed. Then he snapped, "Where the hell's the evidence?" Looking from the door to Mel Cooper, as if the slim technician could make the delivery from the detention center materialize on command. It turned out that there were two crime scenes downtown: one was the corridor where the phony shooting had occurred. The other scene was in the basement of the courthouse--a janitor's closet. One of the search teams had found the fake wound appliance, clothes and some other things hidden in a bag there.

Thom answered the ringing door chime and a moment later Roland Bell hurried into the laboratory. "Can't believe it," he said breathlessly, his hair a sweaty mop on his forehead. "It's confirmed? He's rabbited?"

"Sure has," Rhyme muttered darkly. "ESU's scouring the place. Amelia's down there too. But they haven't found any leads."

Bell drawled, "He might be heading for the hills but I'm thinking it's time to get Charles and his family into a safehouse until we find out what's what."

Sellitto said, "Absolutely."

The detective pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. "Luis? It's Roland. Listen here, Weir's escaped. . . . No, no, he wasn't dead at all. Faked it. I want Grady and his family in a safehouse till that boy's caught. I'm sending a . . . What?"

At the sound of this single, shocked word, everyone's attention swiveled to Bell. "Who's with him? . . . By himself? What're you telling me?"

Rhyme was looking at Bell's face, the dark, cryptic frown in the otherwise comfortingly lackadaisical visage. Once again, as had happened so often on this case, Rhyme had a sense that events that seemed unforeseeable but had in fact been planned a long time ago were beginning to unfold.

Bell turned to Sellitto. "Luis said you called and had the baby-sitting team stand down."

"Called who?"

"Called Grady's house. You told Luis to send everybody but him home."

"Why would I do that?" Sellitto asked. "Fuck, he did it again. Just like sending the guards at the circus home."

Bell said to the team, "It gets worse--Grady's on his way downtown by himself to meet with Constable about some plea bargain deal." Into the phone he said, "Keep the family together, Luis. And call the others on the team. Get 'em back right now. Don't let anybody into the apartment 'less you know 'em. I'll try and find Charles." He hung up and dialed another number. He listened into the receiver for a long moment. "No answer." He left a message: "Charles, this is Roland. Weir's escaped and we don't where he'd be or what he's getting up to. As soon as you hear this, get next to an armed officer you know personally and then call me."

He gave his number and then made another call, to Bo Haumann, head of Emergency Services. He alerted him that Grady was on his way to the detention center, unprotected.