The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Freeze!" she screamed--to an empty room.

  Crouching, skin humming with the tension, she swung her weapon from side to side as she scanned every inch of the space.

  No sign of the killer, no sign of a hostage.

  A glance to her left, the other doorway, where Nancy Ausonio stood, doing the same frantic scan of the room. "Where?" the woman whispered.

  Franciscovich shook her head. She noticed about fifty wooden folding chairs arranged in neat rows. Four or five of them were lying on their backs or sides. But they didn't seem to be a barricade; they were randomly kicked over. To her right was a low stage. On it sat an amplifier and two speakers. A battered grand piano.

  The young officers could see virtually everything in the room.

  Except the perp.

  "What happened, Nancy? Tell me what happened."

  Ausonio didn't answer; like her partner she was looking around frantically, three-sixty, checking out every shadow, every piece of furniture, even though it was clear the man wasn't here.

  Spooky . . .

  The room was essentially a sealed cube. No windows. The air-conditioning and heating vents were only six inches across. A wooden ceiling, not acoustic tile. No trapdoors that she could see. No doors other than the main one Ausonio had used and the fire door that Franciscovich had entered through.

  Where? Franciscovich mouthed.

  Her partner mouthed something back. The policewoman couldn't decipher it but the message could be read in her face: I don't have a clue.

  "Yo," a loud voice called from the doorway. They spun toward it, drawing targets on the empty lobby. "Ambulance and some other officers just got here." It was the security guard, hiding out of sight.

  Heart slamming from the fright, Franciscovich called him inside.

  He asked, "Is it, uhm . . . I mean, you get him?"

  "He's not here," Ausonio said in a shaky voice.

  "What?" The man peeked cautiously into the hall.

  Franciscovich heard the voices of the officers and EMS techs arriving. The jangle of equipment. Still, the women couldn't bring themselves to join their fellow cops just yet. They stood transfixed in the middle of the recital space, both uneasy and bewildered, trying vainly to figure out how the killer had escaped from a room from which there was no escape.

  Chapter Two

  "He's listening to music."

  "I'm not listening to music. The music happens to be on. That's all."

  "Music, huh?" Lon Sellitto muttered as he walked into Lincoln Rhyme's bedroom. "That's a coincidence."

  "He's developed a taste for jazz," Thom explained to the paunchy detective. "Surprised me, I have to tell you."

  "As I said," Lincoln Rhyme continued petulantly, "I'm working and the music happens to be playing in the background. What do you mean, coincidence?"

  Nodding at the flat-screen monitor in front of Rhyme's Flexicair bed, the slim, young aide, dressed in a white shirt, tan slacks and solid purple tie, said, "No, he's not working. Unless staring at the same page for an hour is work. He wouldn't let me get away with work like that."

  "Command, turn page." The computer recognized Rhyme's voice and obeyed his order, slapping a new page of Forensic Science Review onto the monitor. He asked Thom acerbically, "Say, you want to quiz me on what I've been staring at? The composition of the top five exotic toxins found in recent terrorist laboratories in Europe? And how 'bout we put some money on the answers?"

  "No, we have other things to do," the aide replied, referring to the various bodily functions that caregivers must attend to several times a day when their patients are quadriplegics like Lincoln Rhyme.

  "We'll get to that in a few minutes," the criminalist said, enjoying a particularly energetic trumpet riff.

  "We'll get to that now. If you'll excuse us for a moment, Lon."

  "Yeah, sure." Large, rumpled Sellitto stepped into the corridor outside the second-floor bedroom of Rhyme's Central Park West town house. He closed the door.

  As Thom expertly performed his duties Lincoln Rhyme listened to the music and wondered: Coincidence?

  Five minutes later Thom let Sellitto back into the bedroom. "Coffee?"

  "Yeah. Could use some. Too fucking early to work on a Saturday."

  The aide left.

  "So, how do I look, Linc?" asked the pirouetting middle-aged detective, whose gray suit was typical of his wardrobe--made apparently from permanently wrinkled cloth.

  "A fashion show?" Rhyme asked.

  Coincidence?

  Then his mind slipped back to the CD. How the hell does somebody play the trumpet so smoothly? How can you get that kind of sound from a metal instrument?

  The detective continued: "I lost sixteen pounds. Rachel has me on a diet. Fat's the problem. You cut out fat, you'd be amazed how much weight you can lose."

  "Fat, yes. I think we knew that, Lon. So . . . ?" Meaning, get to the point.

  "Gotta bizarre case. Found a body a half hour ago at a music school up the street from here. I'm case officer and we could use some help."

  Music school. And I'm listening to music. That's a piss-poor coincidence.

  Sellitto ran through some of the facts: student killed, the perp was nearly collared but he got away through some kind of trapdoor that nobody could find.

  Music was mathematical. That much Rhyme, a scientist, could understand. It was logical, it was perfectly structured. It was also, he reflected, infinite. An unlimited number of tunes could be written. You could never be bored writing music. He wondered how one went about it. Rhyme believed he had no creativity. He'd taken piano lessons when he was eleven or twelve but, even though he'd developed an enduring crush on Miss Osborne, the lessons themselves were a write-off. His fondest memories of the instrument were taking stroboscopic pictures of the resonating strings for a science-fair project.

  "You with me, Linc?"

  "A case, you were saying. Bizarre."

  Sellitto gave more of the details, slowly corralling Rhyme's attention. "There's got to be some way outta the hall. But nobody from the school or our team can find it."

  "How's the scene?"

  "Still pretty virgin. Can we get Amelia to run it?"

  Rhyme glanced at the clock. "She's tied up for another twenty minutes or so."

  "That's not a problem," Sellitto said, patting his stomach as if he were searching for the lost weight. "I'll page her."

  "Let's not distract her just yet."

  "Why, what's she doing?"

  "Oh, something dangerous," Rhyme said, concentrating once more on the silken voice of the trumpet. "What else?"

  *

  She smelled the wet brick of the tenement wall against her face.

  Her palms sweated and, beneath the fiery red hair shoved up under her dusty issue hat, her scalp itched fiercely. Still, she remained completely motionless as a uniformed officer slipped up close beside her and planted his face against the brick too.

  "Okay, here's the situation," the man said, nodding toward their right. He explained that just around the corner of the tenement was a vacant lot, in the middle of which was a getaway car that'd crashed a few minutes ago after a high-speed pursuit.

  "Drivable?" Amelia Sachs asked.

  "No. Hit a Dumpster and's out of commission. Three perps. They bailed but we got one in custody. One's in the car with some kind of Jesus-long hunting rifle. He wounded a patrolman."

  "Condition?"

  "Superficial."

  "Pinned down?"

  "No. Out of the perimeter. One building west of here."

  She asked, "The third perp?"

  The officer sighed. "Hell, he made it to the first floor of this building here." Nodding toward the tenement they were hugging. "It's a barricade. He's got a hostage. Pregnant woman."

  Sachs digested the flood of information as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, to ease the pain of the arthritis in her joints. Damn, that hurt. She noticed her companion's name on his chest. "The hostage-taker's
weapon, Wilkins?"

  "Handgun. Unknown type."

  "Where's our side?"

  The young man pointed out two officers behind a wall at the back of the lot. "Then two more in front of the building, containing the H-T."

  "Anybody call ESU?"

  "I don't know. I lost my handy-talkie when we started taking fire."

  "You in armor?"

  "Negative. I was doing traffic stops. . . . What the hell're we going to do?"

  She clicked her Motorola to a particular frequency and said, "Crime Scene Five Eight Eight Five to Supervisor."

  A moment later: "This is Captain Seven Four. Go ahead."

  "Ten-thirteen at a lot east of six-oh-five Delancey. Officer down. Need backup, EMS bus and ESU immediately. Two subjects, both armed. One with hostage; we'll need a negotiator."

  "Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. Helicopter for observation?"

  "Negative, Seven Four. One suspect has a high-powered rifle. And they're willing to target blues."

  "We'll get backup there as soon as we can. But the Secret Service's closed up half of downtown 'cause the vice president's coming in from JFK. There'll be a delay. Handle the situation at your discretion. Out."

  "Roger. Out."

  Vice president, she thought. Just lost my vote.

  Wilkins shook his head. "But we can't get a negotiator near the apartment. Not with the shooter still in the car."

  "I'm working on that," Sachs replied.

  She edged to the corner of the tenement again and glanced at the car, a cheap low-rider with its nose against a Dumpster, doors open, revealing a thin man holding a rifle.

  I'm working on that. . . .

  She shouted, "You in the car, you're surrounded. We're going to open fire if you don't drop your weapon. Do it now!"

  He crouched and aimed in her direction. She ducked for cover. On her Motorola she called the two officers in the back of the lot. "Are there hostages in the car?"

  "None."

  "You're sure?"

  "Positive" was the officer's reply. "We got a good look before he started shooting."

  "Okay. You got a shot?"

  "Probably through the door."

  "No, don't shoot blind. Go for position. But only if you've got cover all the way."

  "Roger."

  She saw the men move to a flanking position. A moment later one of the officers said, "I've got a shot to kill. Should I take it?"

  "Stand by." Then she shouted, "You in the car. With the rifle. You have ten seconds or we'll open fire. Drop your weapon. You understand?" She repeated this in Spanish.

  "Fuck you."

  Which she took to be affirmative.

  "Ten seconds," she shouted. "We're counting."

  To the two officers she radioed, "Give him twenty. Then you're green-lighted."

  At close to the ten-second mark, the man dropped the rifle and stood up, hands in the air. "No shoot, no shoot!"

  "Keep those hands straight up in the air. Walk toward the corner of the building here. If you lower your hands you will be shot."

  When he got to the corner Wilkins cuffed and searched him. Sachs remained crouched down. She said to the suspect, "The guy inside. Your buddy. Who is he?"

  "I don't gotta tell you--"

  "Yeah, you do gotta. Because if we take him out, which we are going to do, you'll go down for felony murder. Now, is that man in there worth forty-five years in Ossining?"

  The man sighed.

  "Come on," she snapped. "Name, address, family, what he likes for dinner, what's his mother's first name, he have relatives in the system--you can think of all kinds of real helpful stuff about him, I'll bet."

  He sighed and started to talk; Sachs scribbled down the details.

  Her Motorola crackled. The hostage negotiator and the ESU team had just showed up in front of the building. She handed her notes to Wilkins. "Get those to the negotiator."

  She read the rifleman his rights, thinking, Had she handled the situation the best way she could? Had she endangered lives unnecessarily? Should she have checked on the wounded officer herself?

  Five minutes later, the supervising captain walked around the corner of the building. He smiled. "The H-T released the woman. No injuries. We've got three collared. The wounded officer'll be okay. Just a scratch."

  A policewoman with short blonde hair poking out from under her regulation hat joined them. "Hey, check it out. We got a bonus." She held up a large Baggie full of white powder and another containing pipes and other drug paraphernalia.

  As the captain looked it over, nodding with approval, Sachs asked, "That was in their car?"

  "Naw. I found it in a Ford across the street. I was interviewing the owner as a witness and he started sweating and looking all nervous so I searched his car."

  "Where was it parked?" Sachs asked.

  "In his garage."

  "Did you call in a warrant?"

  "No. Like I say, he was acting nervous and I could see a corner of the bag from the sidewalk. That's probable cause."

  "Nope." Sachs was shaking her head. "It's an illegal search."

  "Illegal? We pulled this guy over last week for speeding and saw a kilo of pot in the back. We busted him okay."

  "It's different on the street. There's a lesser expectation of privacy in a mobile vehicle on public roads. All you need for an arrest then is probable cause. When a car's on private property, even if you see drugs, you need a warrant."

  "That's crazy," the policewoman said defensively. "He's got ten ounces of pure coke here. He's a balls-forward dealer. Narcotics spends months trying to collar somebody like this."

  The captain said to Sachs, "You sure about this, Officer?"

  "Positive."

  "Recommendation?"

  Sachs said, "Confiscate the stuff, put the fear of God into the perp and give his tag number and stats to Narcotics." Then she glanced at the policewoman. "And you better take a refresher course in search and seizure."

  The woman officer started to argue but Sachs wasn't paying attention. She was surveying the vacant lot, where the perps' car rested against the Dumpster. She squinted at the vehicle.

  "Officer--" the captain began.

  She ignored him and said to Wilkins, "You said three perps?"

  "That's right."

  "How do you know?"

  "That was the report from the jewelry store they hit."

  She stepped into the rubble-filled lot, pulling out her Glock. "Look at the getaway car," she snapped.

  "Jesus," Wilkins said.

  All the doors were open. Four men had bailed.

  Dropping into a crouch, she scanned the lot and aimed her gun toward the only possible hiding place nearby: a short cul-de-sac behind the Dumpster.

  "Weapon!" she cried, almost before she saw the motion.

  Everyone around her turned as the large, T-shirted man with a shotgun jogged out of the lot, making a run for the street.

  Sachs's Glock was centered on his chest as he broke cover. "Drop the weapon!" she ordered.

  He hesitated a moment then grinned and began to swing it toward the officers.

  She pushed her Glock forward.

  And in a cheerful voice, she said, "Bang, bang. . . . You're dead."

  The shotgunner stopped and laughed. He shook his head in admiration. "Damn good. I thought I was home free." The stubby gun over his shoulder, he strolled to the cluster of fellow cops beside the tenement. The other "suspect," the man who'd been in the car, turned his back so that the cuffs could be removed. Wilkins released him.

  The "hostage," played by a very unpregnant Latina officer Sachs had known for years, joined them too. She clapped Sachs on the back. "Nice work, Amelia, saving my ass."

  Sachs kept a solemn face, though she was pleased. She felt like a student who'd just aced an important exam.

  Which was, in effect, exactly what had happened.

  Amelia Sachs was pursuing a new goal. Her father, Herman, had been a portable, a beat cop in the
Patrol Services Division, all his life. Sachs now had the same rank and might've been content to remain there for another few years before moving up in the department but after the September 11 attacks she'd decided she wanted to do more for her city. So she'd submitted the paperwork to be promoted to detective sergeant.

  No group of law enforcers has fought crime like NYPD detectives. Their tradition went back to tough, brilliant Inspector Thomas Byrnes, named to head up the fledgling Detective Bureau in the 1880s. Byrnes's arsenal included threats, head-knocking and subtle deductions--he once broke a major theft ring by tracing a tiny fiber found at a crime scene. Under Byrnes's flamboyant guidance the detectives in the bureau became known as the Immortals and they dramatically reduced the level of crime in a city as freewheeling back then as the Wild West.

  Officer Herman Sachs was a collector of police department memorabilia, and not long before he died he gave his daughter one of his favorite artifacts: a battered notebook actually used by Byrnes to jot notes about investigations. When Sachs was young--and her mother wasn't around--her father would read aloud the more legible passages and the two of them would make up stories around them.

  October 12, 1883. The other leg has been found! Slaggardy's coal bin, Five Pts. Expect Cotton Williams's confession forthwith.

  Given its prestigious status (and lucrative pay for law enforcement), it was ironic that women found more opportunities in the Detective Bureau than in any other division of the NYPD. If Thomas Byrnes was the male detective icon, Mary Shanley was the female--and one of Sachs's personal heroines. Busting crime throughout the 1930s, Shanley was a boisterous, uncompromising cop, who once said, "You have the gun to use, and you may as well use it." Which she did with some frequency. After years of combating crime in Midtown she retired as a detective first-grade.

  Sachs, however, wanted to be more than a detective, which is just a job specialty; she wanted rank too. In the NYPD, as in most police forces, one becomes a detective on the basis of merit and experience. To become a sergeant, though, the applicant goes through an arduous triathlon of exams: written, oral and--what Sachs had just endured--an assessment exercise, a simulation to test practical skills at personnel management, community sensitivities and judgment under fire.

  The captain, a soft-spoken veteran who resembled Laurence Fishburne, was the primary assessor for the exercise and had been taking notes on her performance.

  "Okay, Officer," he said, "we'll write up our results and they'll be attached to your review. But let me just say a word unofficially." Consulting his notebook. "Your threat assessment regarding civilians and officers was perfect. Calls for backup were timely and appropriate. Your deployment of personnel negated any chance the perpetrators would escape from the containment situation and yet minimized exposure. You called the illegal drug search right. And getting the personal information from the one suspect for the hostage negotiator was a nice touch. We didn't think about making that part of the exercise. But we will now. Then, at the end, well, frankly, we never thought you'd determine there was another perp in hiding. We had it planned that he'd shoot Officer Wilkins here and then we'd see how you'd handle an officer-down situation and organize a fleeing felon apprehension."