p; "Very good." Another chuckle. "Perhaps in a few years, if I am lucky, I can add those magic letters to my name too."
"Magic letters?"
"RET."
"You? Retire, Commander?"
"I am making a joke, Captain. Retirement is not for people like us. We will die on the job. Let's pray that it's a long time from now. Now, my friend, good-bye."
They disconnected. Rhyme then ordered his phone to call Kathryn Dance in California. He gave her the news about the apprehension of Richard Logan. The conversation was brief. Not because he was feeling antisocial--just the contrary: He was thrilled at his victory.
But the aftermath of the dysreflexia attack was settling on him like cold dew. He let Sachs take over the phone call, girl talk, and Rhyme asked Thom to bring him some Glenmorangie.
"The eighteen year, if you would be so kind. Please and thank you."
Thom poured a generous slug into the tumbler and propped it in the cup holder near his boss's mouth. Rhyme sipped through the straw. He savored the smoky scotch and then swallowed it. He felt the warmth, the comfort, though it also accentuated that damn fatigue plaguing him the past week or so. He forced himself not to think about it.
When Sachs disconnected her call, he asked, "You'll join me, Sachs?"
"You bet I will."
"I feel like music," he said.
"Jazz?"
"Sure."
He picked Dave Brubeck, a recording from a live concert in the sixties. The signature tune, "Take Five," came on and, with its distinctive five-four beat, the music cantered from speakers, scratchy and infectious.
As Sachs poured the liquor and sat beside him, her eyes strayed to the evidence boards. "There's one thing we forgot about, Rhyme."
"What?"
"That supposed terrorist group? Justice For the Earth."
"That's McDaniel's case now. If we'd found any evidence I'd be more concerned. But . . . nothing." Rhyme sipped more liquor and felt another wave of the persistent fatigue nestle around him. Still he managed a small joke: "Personally I think it was just a wrong number from the cloud zone."
Chapter 82
THE EARTH DAY festivities in Central Park were in full swing.
At six-twenty on this pleasant though cool and overcast evening, an FBI agent was on the edge of the Sheep Meadow, scanning the crowd, most of which were protesting something or another. Some picnickers and some tourists. But the crowd of fifty thousand mostly just seemed pissed off about one thing or another: global warming, oil, big business, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases.
And methane.
Special Agent Timothy Conradt blinked as he looked at a group of people protesting bovine flatulence. Methane from livestock apparently burned holes in the ozone layer too.
Cow farts.
What a crazy world.
Conradt was sporting an undercover mustache and wore jeans and a baggy shirt, concealing his radio and weapon. His wife had ironed the wrinkles into his garments that morning, vetoing his idea that he sleep in his clothes to get that "lived-in" look.
He was no fan of knee-jerk liberals and people who'd sell the country out in the name of . . . well, who knew what? Complacency, Europe, globalism, socialism, cowardice.
But one thing he had in common with these people was the environment. Conradt lived for the outdoors. Hunting, fishing, hiking. So he sympathized.
He was scanning the crowds carefully because even though the perp known as the Watchmaker had been collared, ASAC Tucker McDaniel still was sure that that group Justice For the Earth was going to try something. The SIGINT hits were compelling, even nontech Conradt had to admit. Justice For the Earth. Or, as the agents were referring to it now, per McDaniel's instruction, JFTE, pronounced "Juf-tee."