The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

Madino would be from the 84th Precinct and would have nothing to do with the Unsub 40 case, which was on the Major Cases roster. He was here because of the accident, though the police would probably step out pretty soon, unless there was a finding that there had been criminal negligence in the maintenance of the escalator, which rarely happened. But it still would be Madino's boys and girls who ran the scene.

"What happened?" he asked her.

"Fire department could tell you better than I could. I was moving on a homicide suspect. All I know is the escalator malfunctioned somehow and a male, middle-aged, fell into the gears. I got to him, tried to stop the bleeding but there wasn't much to do. He hung in there for a while. But ended up DCDS."

Deceased, confirmed dead at scene.

"Emergency switch?"

"Somebody hit it but that only shuts the stairs off, not the main motor. The gears keep going. Got him around the groin and belly."

"Man." The captain's lips tightened. He stepped forward to look down into the pit. Madino gave no reaction. He gripped his white tie to make sure it didn't swing forward and get soiled on the railing. Blood had made its way up there too. Unemotional, he turned back to Sachs. "You were down there?"

"I was."

"Must have been tough." The sympathy in his eyes seemed genuine. "Tell me about the weapons discharge."

"The motor," Sachs explained. "There was no cutoff switch that I could find. No wires to cut. I couldn't leave him to find it or climb to the top to tell somebody to kill the juice; I was putting pressure on the wounds. So I parked a round in the coil of the motor itself. Stopped it from cutting him in half. But he was pretty much gone by then. Lost eighty percent of his blood, the EMT said."

Madino was nodding. "That was a good try, Detective."

"Didn't work."

"Not much else you could do." He looked back to the open access panel. "We'll have to convene a Shooting Team but, on this scenario, it'll be a formality. Nothing to worry about."

"Appreciate that, Captain."

Despite what one sees on screens large and small, a police officer's firing a weapon is a rare and consequential occurrence. A gun can be discharged only in the event the officer believes his or her life or that of a bystander is endangered or when an armed felon flees. And force can be used only to kill, not wound. A Glock may not be used like a wrench to shut off renegade machinery.

In the event of a shooting by a cop, on or off duty, a supervisor from the precinct where it happened comes to the scene to secure and inspect the officer's weapon. He then convenes the Patrol Borough Shooting Team--which has to be run by a captain. Since there was no death or injury resulting from the shot, Sachs didn't need to submit to an Intoxilizer test or go on administrative leave for the mandatory three days. And, in the absence of malfeasance, she wasn't required to surrender her weapon. Just offer it to the supervisor to inspect and note the serial number.

She did this now: deftly dropped the magazine and ejected the chambered round, then collected it from the floor. She offered the weapon to him. He wrote down the serial. Handed the pistol back.

She added, "I'll do the Firearms Discharge/Assault Report."

"No hurry, Detective. It takes a while to convene the team, and it looks like you've got some other tasks on your plate." Madino was looking down into the pit once more. "God bless you, Detective. Not a lot of people would've gone down there."

Sachs rechambered the ejected round. Officers from the 84 had cordoned off both of these escalators, so she turned and hurried toward the elevators on her way to the basement, where she'd help search for Unsub 40. But she paused when Buddy Everett approached.

"He's gone, Amelia. Out of the building." His dark-red frames both enhanced and jarred.

"How?"

"Loading dock."

"We had people there, I thought. Rent-a-cops if not ours."

"He called, the unsub, he shouted from around the corner near the dock, said the perp was in a storage area. Bring their cuffs, Mace or whatever. You know rentals? They love a chance to play real cop. Everybody went running to the storeroom. He strolled right out. Video shows him--new jacket, dark sport coat, fedora--climbing down the dock ladder and running through the truck parking zone."

"Going where?"

"Narrow-focus camera. No idea."

She shrugged. "Subways? Buses?"

"Nothing on CCTV. Probably walked or took a cab."

To one of the eighty-five million places he might go.