The apparent murder of the fictional Teddy Adams had served a purpose, as well. It was in the alley behind this very building that Hale had placed the body of the Westchester car wreck victim. When Charlotte Allerton—playing the man’s distraught sister—had arrived, the guards had let the hysterical woman through the back door of HUD and allowed her to use the restroom downstairs without searching her. Once inside, she’d planted what Hale was now retrieving from the bottom of the in-wall trash bin: a silenced .22-caliber pistol and two metal disks. There’d been no other way to get these items into a building protected by a series of metal detectors and pat-downs. He now hid these in his pockets and headed to the sixth-floor conference room.
Once there, Hale spotted what he thought of as the mainspring of his plan: the two large flower arrangements that Joanne Harper had created for the ceremony, one in the front of the room and one in the back. Hale had learned from the Government Service Administration vendor liaison office that she had the contract to supply flower arrangements and plants to the HUD facility. He’d broken into her Spring Street workshop to hide something in the vases, which would pass through security with, he hoped, only a brief look, since Joanne had been a trusted vendor for several years. When Hale had broken into her workshop he’d taken with him, in his shoulder bag, something in addition to the moon-faced clock and his tools: two jars of an explosive known as Astrolite. More powerful than TNT or nitroglycerin, Astrolite was a clear liquid that remained explosive even when absorbed into another substance. Hale found which arrangements were going to HUD and poured the Astrolite into the bottoms of the vases.
Hale, of course, might have simply broken into the four locations without the fiction of the Watchmaker, but if anyone had seen a burglar or noticed anything missing or out of order, the question would have arisen: What was he really up to? So he’d created layers of motives for the break-ins. His original plan was simply to pretend to be a serial killer to get access to the four locations he needed to, sacrificing his unfortunate assistant, Vincent Reynolds, in order to convince the police that the Watchmaker was just who he seemed to be. But then in mid November, an organized crime contact in the area called and told him that an NYPD cop named Dennis Baker was looking for a hit man to kill an NYPD detective. The mob wouldn’t touch killing a cop, but was Hale interested? He wasn’t but he immediately realized that he could use Baker as a second complication to the plan: a citizen getting revenge against a crooked cop. Finally, he added the wonderful flourish of the Delphic Mechanism theft.
Motive is the one sure way to get yourself caught. Eliminate the motive, you eliminate suspicion. . . .
Hale now stepped to the front flower arrangement in the conference room and adjusted it the way any diligent soldier would do—a soldier proud to be part of this important occasion. When no one was looking he pushed one of the metal disks he’d just retrieved from downstairs—computerized detonators—into the explosive, pushed the button to arm it and fluffed up the moss, obscuring the device. He did the same to the arrangement in the back, which would detonate via a radio signal from the first detonator.
These two lovely arrangements were now lethal bombs, containing enough explosive to obliterate the entire room.
The tone in Rhyme’s lab was electric.
Everyone, except Pulaski, on a mission at Rhyme’s request, was staring at the criminalist, who was in turn gazing at the evidence charts that surrounded him like battalions of soldiers awaiting his orders.
“There’re still too many questions,” Sellitto said. “You know what’s going to happen if we push that button.”
Rhyme glanced at Amelia Sachs. “What do you think?” he asked.
Her ample lips tightened. “I don’t think we have any choice. I say yes.”
“Oh, man,” Sellitto said.
Rhyme said to the rumpled lieutenant, “Make the call.”
Lon Sellitto dialed a little-known number that connected him immediately to the scrambled phone sitting on the desk of the mayor of New York City.
Standing in the conference room in HUD, which was filling up with soldiers and their guests, Charles Hale felt his phone vibrate. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced down at the text message, another one from Charlotte Allerton. FAA grounding all flights. Trains stopped. Special team at NIST office checking U.S. clock. It’s a go. God bless.
Perfect, Charles thought. The police believed the complication about the Delphic Mechanism and his apparent plan to hack into the computer controlling the nation’s cesium clock.
Hale stepped back, looked over the room and plastered a satisfied look on his face. He left and took the elevator down to the main lobby. He walked outside, where limos were arriving, under heavy security. He eased into the crowd that was gathered on the other side of the concrete barriers, some waving flags, some applauding.
He noted the protesters too, scruffy young people, aging hippies and activist professors and their spouses, he assessed. They carried placards and were chanting things that Hale couldn’t hear. The gist, though, was displeasure at U.S. foreign policy.
Hang around, he told them silently.
Sometimes you get what you ask for.
Chapter 38
Entering the sixth-floor conference room with seventeen other soldiers from all branches of the armed services, United States Army Sergeant Lucy Richter gave a brief smile to her husband. A wink too to her family—her parents and her aunt—who were sitting across the room.
The acknowledgment was perhaps a little abrupt, a little distant. But she was not here as Bob’s wife or as a daughter or niece. She was here as a decorated soldier, in the company of her superior officers and her fellow men and women at arms.
The soldiers had assembled downstairs in the building, while their families and friends had come to the conference room. Waiting for their grand entrance, Lucy had chatted with a young man, an air force corpsman from Texas who’d come back to the States for medical treatment (one of those fucking rocket-propelled grenades had ricocheted off his chest pack before exploding several yards away). He was eager to get back home, he’d said.
“Home?” she’d asked. “I thought we were reenlisting.”
He’d blinked. “I am. I mean my unit. That is home.”
Standing uneasily in front of her chair, she glanced at the reporters. The way they looked around them, searching hungrily for story opportunities like snipers seeking targets, made her nervous. Then she put them out of her mind and gazed at the pictures that had been mounted for the ceremony. Patriotic images. She was moved by the sight of the American flag, the photo of the Trade Center towers, the military banners and emblems, the officers with their decorations and rows of breast bars, revealing how long and where they’d served.
And all the while the debate raged. Thinking back to what Kathryn Dance had said, she asked herself: And what’s the truth for me?
Go back to the land of bitter fog?
Or stay here?
Yes, no?
The side doors opened and in walked two quick-eyed men—Secret Service—followed by a half dozen men and women in suits or uniforms with senior staff insignias and ribbons and medals covering their chests. Lucy recognized a few of the bigwigs from Washington and New York City, though she was more stirred by the presence of the brass from the Pentagon, since they’d come up through the world that she’d made a part of her life.
The wearisome debate continued within her.
Yes, no . . .
The truth . . . What’s the truth?
When the officials were seated, a general from New Jersey made a few comments and introduced a poised, handsome man in a dark blue uniform. General Roger Poulin, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rose and walked to the microphone.
Poulin nodded to his presenter and then to those in the room. In a deep voice he said, “Generals, distinguished officials from the Departments of Defense and State and the City of New York, fellow servicemen and -women and guests . . . I’m delighted to w
elcome you here today to this celebration honoring eighteen brave individuals, people who have risked their lives and displayed their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the freedom of our country and carry the cause of democracy throughout the globe.”
Applause erupted and the guests rose to their feet.
The noise died down and General Poulin began his speech. Lucy Richter listened at first but her attention soon faded. She was looking at the civilians in the room—the family members and guests of the soldiers. People like her father and mother and husband and aunt, the spouses, the children, the parents and grandparents, the friends.
These people would leave after the ceremony, go to their jobs or their homes. They’d get back to the simple business of making their way in the world one day, one hour, one minute at a time.
Her military demeanor would not, of course, let her smile but Lucy Richter could feel her face relaxing and the tension in her shoulders vanish like the bitter fog carried away on a hot wind. The anger, the depression, the denial—everything that Kathryn Dance had told her to look for—suddenly were gone.
She closed her eyes momentarily and then turned her attention back to the man who was, after the president of the United States, her senior commander, understanding clearly now that, whatever else happened in her life, her decision had been made and she was content.
Charles Hale was in the men’s room of a small coffee shop not far from the HUD building. In a filthy stall he extracted a trash bag from beneath his undershirt. He stripped off the military uniform and put on jeans, sweats, gloves and a jacket, which he’d just bought. He stuffed the uniform, coat and hat inside, keeping the gun. He took the battery and chip out of his phone and added them to the bag. Then, waiting until the restroom was empty, he stuffed it into the trash, left the coffee shop and walked outside.
On the street again, he bought a prepaid mobile phone with cash and wandered along the shadowy sidewalk until he was three blocks from HUD. From this vantage point he had a narrow view of the back of the building and the alley where the first “victim” of the Watchmaker had been found. He could just make out a sliver of the sixth-floor window of the conference room where the ceremonies were going on.
The jacket was thin and he supposed he should be cold, but in the excitement of the moment he felt no discomfort. He looked at his digital wristwatch, which was synchronized to the timers in the bomb detonators.
The time was 12:14:19. The ceremony had been under way since noon. With bombs, he’d learned in his exhaustive research, you always gave people the chance to settle in, for stragglers to arrive, for guards to grow lax.
12:14:29.
One nice aspect of these particular bombs, he reflected, something fortuitous, was that Joanne the florist had filled the vases with hundreds of tiny glass marbles. Anybody not killed or badly injured by the explosives themselves would be riddled with these pellets of glass.
12:14:44.
Hale found himself leaning forward, his weight on the balls of his feet. There was always the possibility that something would go wrong—that security would make a last-minute sweep for explosives or that somebody had seen him on the video camera entering the building then leaving suspiciously after a short period of time.
12:14:52.
Still, the risk of failure made the victory against boredom that much sweeter. His eyes were riveted on the alleyway behind the HUD building.
12:14:55.
12:14:56.
12:14:57.
12:14:58.
12:14:59.
12:15:00—
Silently a huge fist of flame and debris shot out of the conference room window. A half second later came the stunning sound of the explosion itself.
Voices around him. “Oh, my God. What—?”
Screams.
“Look, there! What’s that?”
“God, no!”
“Call nine-one-one! Somebody . . .”
Pedestrians were clustering on the sidewalk, staring.
“A bomb? An airplane?”
Concern on his face, Hale shook his head, lingering for a moment to savor the success. The explosion seemed bigger than he’d anticipated; the fatalities would be greater than Charlotte and Bud had hoped. It was hard to see how anybody could have survived.
He turned slowly and continued up the street, where he descended once more into the subway station and took the next train uptown. He emerged at the station and headed toward the Allertons’ hotel, where he’d pick up the rest of his payment.
Charles Hale was satisfied. He’d staved off boredom and had earned some good money.
Most important, though, was the breathtaking elegance of what he’d done. He’d created a plan that had worked perfectly—like clockwork, he thought, enjoying the self-conscious simile.
Chapter 39
“Oh, thank you,” Charlotte whispered, speaking both to Jesus and to the man who’d made their mission a success.
She was sitting forward, staring at the TV. The special news report about the evacuation of the Metropolitan Museum and the halting of public transportation in the area had been replaced by a different story—the bombing at the HUD building. Charlotte squeezed her husband’s hand. Bud leaned over and kissed her. He smiled like a young boy.
The news anchorwoman was grim—despite her restrained pleasure at being on duty when such a big story broke—as she gave what details there were: A bomb had gone off within the Housing and Urban Development building in lower Manhattan, where a number of senior government and military officials had been attending a ceremony. An undersecretary of state and the head of the Joint Chiefs were present. The cameras showed smoke pouring from the windows of a conference room. The important detail—the casualty count—had not come in yet, though at least fifty people were in the room where the bomb detonated.
A talking head popped up on the screen; his complete lack of knowledge of the event didn’t stop him from drawing the conclusion that this was the job of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists.
They’d soon know differently.
“Look, honey, we did it!” Charlotte called to her daughter, who had remained in the bedroom, lost in a book. (That satanic Harry Potter. Charlotte had thrown out two of them. Where on earth had the girl gotten another copy?)
The girl gave an exasperated sigh and returned to the book.
Charlotte was momentarily furious. She wanted to storm into the bedroom and slap the girl’s face as hard as she could. They’d just won a spectacular victory and the girl was showing nothing but disrespect. Bud had asked several times if he could take a hickory stick to the girl’s bare butt. Charlotte had demurred but she was now wondering if maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.
Still, her anger faded when she thought of their victory today. She stood up. “We better leave.” She shut the TV off and continued packing a suitcase. Bud walked into the bedroom to do the same. They were going to drive to Philadelphia, where they’d get a plane back to St. Louis—Duncan had told them to avoid the New York airports afterward. They’d then return to the backwoods of Missouri and go underground again—waiting for the next opportunity to further their cause.
Gerald Duncan would be here soon. He’d collect the rest of his money and leave town too. She wondered if she could convert him to their cause. She’d spoken to him about the idea but he wasn’t interested, though he said he’d be more than happy to help them out again if they had any particularly difficult targets and if the money was right.
A knock on the door.
Duncan was right on time.
Laughing, Charlotte strode to the door and flung it open. “You did it! I—”
But her words stopped short, the smile vanished. The policeman, in black helmet and combat outfit, pushed inside. With him was Amelia Sachs, a large black pistol in her hand, her face furious, eyes squinting as she scanned the room.
A half dozen other cops streamed in behind them. “Police! Freeze, freeze!”
“No!” Ch
arlotte wailed. She twisted away but got only one step before they tackled her hard.
In the bedroom, Bud Allerton gasped in shock as he heard his wife scream, the harsh voices and the stomping of feet. He slammed the door shut and pulled an automatic pistol from his suitcase, worked the slide to put a round in the chamber.
“No!” his stepdaughter cried, dropping her book and scrabbling for the door.
“Quiet,” he whispered viciously. He grabbed her by the arm. She screamed as he flung her onto the bed. Her head hit the wall and she lay stunned. Bud had never liked the girl, didn’t like her attitude, didn’t like her sarcasm and her rebelliousness. Children were put on earth to obey—girls especially—or suffer the consequences if they didn’t.
He listened at the door. It sounded like a dozen officers were in the living room of the suite. Bud didn’t have much time for a prayer but those through whom God speaks can be moved to communicate with Him as circumstances allow.
My dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, thank you for the glory you’ve bestowed upon us, the true believers. Please give me the strength to end my life and hasten my journey to you. And let me send to hell as many of those as I can who have come here to transgress against you.
There were fifteen bullets in the clip of his pistol. He could take plenty of the police with him, if he remained steady and if God gave him the strength to ignore the wounds he’d receive. But still they’d have a lot of firepower. He needed some advantage.
Bud turned toward his sobbing stepdaughter, who was clutching her bleeding head. He added a coda to the prayer, with a kindness that he thought was particularly generous under the circumstances.
And when you receive this child into heaven, please forgive her her sins against you. She knew not what she did.
Kathryn Dance Ebook Boxed Set : Roadside Crosses, Sleeping Doll, Cold Moon (9781451674217) Page 128
