The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

Rhyme noted that, unlike the streets of New York, not a soul paid him more than a millisecond of uninterested attention. He was in a wheelchair; this was a hospital. Here, he was normal.

Thom asked, "You've told Dr. Barrington you've canceled your surgery?"

"I've told him."

The aide was quiet for a moment. The Times in his hands dipped ever so slightly. For two people joined by circumstance and profession so inextricably and, in a way, intimately, these two had never been comfortable with discussions personal in nature. Lincoln Rhyme least of all. Yet he was surprised to find himself at ease as he confessed to Thom, "Something happened when I was down in the Bahamas."

His eyes were on a middle-aged couple insincerely reassuring each other. Over the fate of whom? Rhyme wondered. An elderly father? Or a young child?

A world of difference there.

Rhyme continued, "On the spit of land where we thought the sniper nest was."

"When you went for a swim."

The criminalist was silent for a moment, reliving not the horrors of the water but the moments leading up to it. "It was an easy deduction for me to make--that the gold Mercury would show up."

"How?"

"The man in the pickup? Tossing trash into the ditch nearby?"

"The one who turned out to be the ringleader."

"Right. Why did he drive down to the end of the spit to dump the bags? There was a public trash yard a half mile away, just off SW Road. And who talks on their cell while unloading heavy bags? He was telling the other two in the Mercury where we were. Oh, and he was in a gray T-shirt--which you'd told me one of the men in the Mercury was wearing earlier. But I missed them, all the clues. I saw them but I missed them. And you know why?"

The aide shook his head.

"Because I had the gun. The gun Mychal'd given me. I didn't need to think through the situation. I didn't need to use my mind--because I could shoot my way out."

"Except you couldn't."

"Except I couldn't."

A doctor in weary, flecked scrubs emerged and sets of eager eyes dropped onto him like Rhyme's falcon on a pigeon. The man found the family he sought, joined them and delivered what was apparently good news. Rhyme continued to his aide, "I've often wondered if the accident enhanced me somehow. Forced me to think better, more clearly, make sharper deductions. Because I had to. I didn't have any other options."

"And now you think the answer is yes."

A nod. "In the Bahamas, I nearly got you, Mychal and me killed because of that lapse. It's not going to happen again."

The aide said, "So I think you're telling me that you've had the last surgery you're going to have."

"That's right. What was that line from a movie, something you made me watch? I liked it. Though I probably didn't admit it at the time.

"

"Which one?"

"Some cop film. A long time ago. The hero said something like 'A man's got to know his limitations.'"

"Clint Eastwood." Thom considered this. "It's true but you could also say, 'A man's got to know his strengths.'"

"You're such a goddamn optimist." Rhyme lifted his right hand and gazed at his fingers. Lowered the limb. "This is enough."

"It's the only choice you could've made, Lincoln."

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow, querying.

"Otherwise I'd be out of a job. And I'd never find anybody equally difficult to work for."