The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

"You know why you can't quit? You'd be a hypocrite."

Pulaski blinked.

Rhyme continued, an edge to his voice. "You missed your window of opportunity."

"What's that mean?"

"Okay, you fucked up and somebody was injured badly. But then when it looked like Brent was a perp with outstanding paper, you thought you'd been given a reprieve, right?"

"Well . . . I guess."

"You suddenly didn't care that you'd hit him. Since he was, what, less than human?"

"No, I just--"

"Let me finish. The minute after you backed into that guy, you had a choice to make: Either you should've decided that the risk of collateral damage and accidents isn't acceptable to you and quit on the spot. Or you should've put the whole thing behind you and learned to live with what happened. It doesn't make any difference if that guy was a serial killer or a deacon at his church. And it's intellectually dishonest for you to whine about it now."

The rookie's eyes narrowed with anger and he was about to offer a defense of some sort, but Rhyme continued, "You made a mistake. You didn't commit a crime. . . . Well, mistakes happen in this business. The problem is that when they do it's not like accounting or making shoes. When we fuck up, there's a chance somebody's going to get killed. But if we stopped and worried about that, we'd never get anything done. We'd be looking over our shoulders all the time and that would mean more people would die because we weren't doing our jobs."

"Easy for you to say," Pulaski snapped angrily.

Good for him, Rhyme thought, but kept his face solemn.

"Have you ever been in a situation like this?" Pulaski muttered.

Of course he had. Rhyme had made mistakes. Dozens, if not hundreds, of them. It was a mistake years ago, one that indeed resulted in the deaths of innocent people, that led to the case that brought Rhyme and Sachs together for the first time. But he didn't want a band-of-brothers argument at the moment. "That's not the point, Pulaski. The point is you've already made your decision. Coming back here with the evidence from Galt's, after you'd run over Brent, you lost the right to quit. So it's a nonissue."

"This is eating me up."

"Well, it's time to tell it--whatever the hell it is--to stop eating. Part of being a cop is putting that wall up."

"Lincoln, you're not listening to me."

"I did listen. I considered your arguments and I rejected them. They're invalid."

"They're valid to me."

"No, they're not. And I'll tell you why." Rhyme hesitated. "Because they're not valid to me . . . and you and I are a lot alike, Pulaski. I myself hate to goddamn admit it, but it's true."

This brought the young man up short.

"Now, forget all this crap you've been boring me with. I'm glad you're here because I need you to do some follow-up work. At the--"

Pulaski stared at the criminalist and gave a cold laugh. "I'm not doing anything. I'm quitting. I'm not listening to you."

"Well, you're not going to quit now. You can do it in a few days. I need you. The case--your case as much as mine--isn't over with yet. We have to make absolutely sure Logan's convicted. You agree?"

A sigh. "I agree."

"Before McDaniel got removed from command and sent to the cloud zone, or wherever he went, he had his men search Bob Cavanaugh's office. He didn't call us to do it. The Bureau's Evidence Response Team is good--I helped set it up. But we should've walked the grid too. I want you to do that now. Logan was saying there's a cartel involved and I want to make sure every one of them gets nailed."

A resigned grimace. "I'll do it. But that's my last assignment." Shaking his head, the young man stormed from the room.

Lincoln Rhyme struggled to keep the smile from his face as he sought the straw sprouting from his tumbler of whisky.

Chapter 85

LINCOLN RHYME WAS now alone.