You have to be smart to earn a few million bucks illegally.
One or two had skipped town but it was only a matter of time until they were tracked down. Not a good idea to use your real credit card when you’re on the lam. Natural selection applies to criminal activity, as well as to newts and simians.
Rhyme was handling part of the investigation too, though not the evidentiary part, curiously. The criminalist had made some meticulous plans of his own.
Probably nothing would come of them but he couldn’t afford to pass up any opportunity.
He now gazed out the window, examining the clime – overcast again, white and gray – and he wondered, Where are you? And what are you up to? Why did you break into the Met? And what part of that plot do you need me alive for?
Thom appeared in the doorway. ‘I talked to Rachel. Leave in an hour?’
‘That’ll do,’ Rhyme replied.
The journey he was referring to would take them to the medical center. Lon Sellitto had regained consciousness. Even in his frail state, the detective remained true to his nature. Rachel reported that his reaction upon swimming into a waking state had been to look down at his belly and mutter, smiling, ‘Fuck, I musta lost thirty pounds.’
Only then had he inquired about the Unsub 11 5 case.
But there were still many questions about his recovery. He had been, and would continue to be, treated with chelation drugs, which bind and deactivate toxins. Recovery is better with patients who’ve had chronic exposure, such as industrial workers (or victims of patiently homicidal spouses), but problematic with acute attacks, as in Sellitto’s case. The jury was still out on the detective’s long term improvement. Nerve damage, liver and renal issues were possibilities.
Maybe even permanent paralysis.
Time would tell.
Amelia Sachs walked into the parlor. ‘Lon?’ she asked.
‘Leave here in about an hour.’
‘Should we get flowers?’ she asked.
Rhyme muttered, ‘I’ve arranged for flowers once this week. I’m not doing it again.’
Just at that moment the lab phone rang. Sachs, in a position to view caller ID on a monitor, said quickly, ‘Rhyme. I think it’s going down.’
He wheeled closer.
‘Ah.’
Then punched accept call.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Rhyme, it’s Jason? Jason Heatherly?’ The unnecessarily interrogative words were fast, the voice flummoxed. ‘I’m–’
‘I remember you, Mr Heatherly.’
How could Rhyme not? They’d spoken at length only a week ago.
‘Well, it’s – I don’t know how to explain this – but what you said might happen happened.’
Rhyme and Sachs shared a smile.
‘It’s gone. Impossible but it’s gone. The alarms were set when I left last night. They were set when I got here this morning. Nothing was disturbed. Not a thing out of place. Not. A. Thing. But it’s gone.’
‘Really.’
The ‘it’ the worked up jeweler was referring to was a watch. The Mikhail Semyonovitch Bronnikov timepiece made entirely of bone.
Contrary to what he’d told the Watchmaker, Rhyme had not believed the man had any connection with the Bone Collector whatsoever. He’d told the Watchmaker that simply to dangle bait.
And how better to snare a man whose strength – and weakness – was time and timepieces than by using a rare watch?
Rhyme had found out that a Bronnikov, one of the few in existence, was in London, though not for sale. But he’d charmed the owner into changing his mind (charm plus twenty thousand dollars, that is) and spent another ten thousand to fly the watch to New York. Ron Pulaski had been the courier.
Rhyme had called Fred Dellray and learned that there was an art dealer under indictment for tax evasion, Jason Heatherly. Dellray got the US attorney to drop a few of the charges if Heatherly cooperated; the feds wanted the Watchmaker back in the slammer as much as Rhyme and the NYPD did.
Heatherly agreed and the watch was delivered to him and put on display in a case in his Upper East Side antiques store/art gallery.
In his conversation with the Watchmaker a week ago Rhyme had brought up the Bone Collector and then casually segued to the Bronnikov watch, mentioning that it was in a gallery in Manhattan. He’d tried to be nonchalant and hoped his delivery was more fluid than Ron Pulaski’s.
Apparently it was.
Several days after the conversation, Heatherly reported that a man had called, inquiring about any watches the gallery might have for sale – though asking nothing specific about the Bronnikov. Heatherly had told him the inventory, including a mention of the bone watch, and the man had thanked him and hung up. Caller ID was Unknown .
Rhyme and a task force had debated how to handle it. The bureau wanted surveillance and a take down team near the gallery, ready to move in as soon as somebody came in to buy or steal the watch. Rhyme said no. The Watchmaker would spot them instantly. They should take a different approach, more subtle.
So FBI and NYPD surveillance experts had installed a miniature tracker in the metal fob of the watch. The device would remain powered down, undetectable by any radio wave sensors, most of the time. Every two days, it would – for a millisecond – beam its location to the ICGSN, the International Consolidated Geopositioning Satellite Network, which blanketed nearly every populated area on earth. Then go quiescent.
The positioning data would be sent directly to the task force’s mainframe. If the Watchmaker was on the move, they could narrow down the country and region he was traveling through and alert border authorities. Or, if luck was with them, they might find him stationary, enjoying a cool wine on a beach and admiring his stolen bone watch.
Or maybe he’d immediately separate the watch from its duplicitous fob, which he’d mail to Sri Lanka and go on with his plans for whatever heist or murder he was plotting.
So my knowing about this is a gear or a spring or a flywheel in the timepiece of your plan …
The gallery owner continued to be exercised about the break in. He said breathlessly, ‘It’s impossible. The alarms. The locks. The video cameras.’
Rhyme had insisted that there be no lapses in security to make it easier for the Watchmaker to steal the bait; the man would have grown suspicious in an instant and balked.
Heatherly continued, ‘There’s simply no way anybody could have gotten inside.’
But we aren’t dealing with just anybody , Rhyme reflected, and without comment he muttered goodbye to the gallery owner and disconnected the call.
Now, we wait.
A day, a month, a year …
He wheeled away from the examination tables, glancing at another watch – the Breguet that the Watchmaker had given to Rhyme some years ago.
Rhyme now said to Sachs, ‘Call Pulaski. I want him on the grid at the art gallery.’
She spoke with the officer and sent him to run the scene at Heatherly’s. Rhyme didn’t hold out many hopes of getting any evidence from the theft. Still, the j’s needed to be dotted.
‘Thom,’ Rhyme said, ‘before we go to visit Lon, I’ll have one for the road – a double, if you please.’
He braced for defense. But, for some reason, the aide didn’t object to the consumption of fine, aged – and poison free – single malt whisky. Perhaps he was sympathetic to the fact that, while the criminalist had prevented a terrorist attack, the Watchmaker had slipped away. And Rhyme would probably lose a slick thirty grand in the process.
A glass appeared in the cup holder.
Rhyme sipped the smoky liquor. Good, good.