"I--"
He continued softly. "Is there any distraction, any diversion you can try?"
Eyes open now. "The whole area's empty. Nothing to distract the pilots with."
"Where are you hiding?"
"The hangars're all boarded up. The grass is too short for cover. There're no trucks or oil drums. No alleys. No nooks."
In her gut: desperation. What'm I going to do? I've got to plant the bomb. I don't have any time. Lights . . . there're lights everywhere. What? What should I do?
She said, "I can't hide around the other side of the hangars. There're lots of workers. It's too exposed. They'll see me."
For a moment, Sachs herself floated back into her mind and she wondered, as she often did, why Lincoln Rhyme had the power to conjure her into someone else. Sometimes it angered her. Sometimes it thrilled.
Dropping into a crouch, ignoring the pain in her knees from the arthritis that had tormented her off and on for the past ten of her thirty-three years. "It's all too open here. I feel exposed."
"What're you thinking?"
There're people looking for me. I can't let them find me. I can't!
This is risky. Stay hidden. Stay down.
Nowhere to hide.
If I'm seen, everything's ruined. They'll find the bomb; they'll know I'm after all three witnesses. They'll put them in protective custody. I'll never get them then. I can't let that happen.
Feeling his panic she turned back to the only possible place to hide. The hangar beside the taxiway. In the wall facing her was a single broken window, about three by four feet. She'd ignored it because it was covered with a sheet of rotting plywood, nailed to the frame on the inside.
She approached it slowly. The ground in front was gravel; there were no footprints.
"There's a boarded-up window, Rhyme. Plywood on the inside. The glass is broken."
"Is it dirty, the glass that's still in the window?"
"Filthy."
"And the edges?"
"No, they're clean." She understood why he'd asked the question. "The glass was broken recently!"
"Right. Push the board. Hard."
It fell inward without any resistance and hit the floor with a huge bang.
"What was that?" Rhyme shouted. "Sachs, are you all right?"
"Just the plywood," she answered, once more spooked by his uneasiness.
She shone her halogen flashlight through the hangar. It was deserted.
"What do you see, Sachs?"
"It's empty. A few dusty boxes. There's gravel on the floor--"
"That was him!" Rhyme answered. "He broke in the window and threw gravel inside, so he could stand on the floor and not leave footprints. It's an old trick. Any footprints in front of the window? Bet it's more gravel," he added sourly.
"Is."