E HAD THE BEST BEDSIDE MANNER Rhyme had ever encountered. And if anyone had had experience with bedside manners it was Lincoln Rhyme. He'd once calculated he'd seen seventy-eight degreed, card-carrying doctors in the past three and a half years.

"Nice view," Berger said, gazing out the window.

"Isn't it? Beautiful."

Though because of the height of the bed Rhyme could see nothing except a hazy sky sizzling over Central Park. That — and the birds — had been the essence of his view since he'd moved here from his last rehab hospital two and half years ago. He kept the shades drawn most of the time.

Thom was busy rolling his boss — the maneuver helped keep his lungs clear — and then catheterizing Rhyme's bladder, which had to be done every five or six hours. After spinal cord trauma, sphincters can be stuck open or they can be stuck closed. Rhyme was fortunate that his got jammed closed — fortunate, that is, provided someone was around to open up the uncooperative little tube with a catheter and K-Y jelly four times a day.

Dr. Berger observed this procedure clinically and Rhyme paid no heed to the lack of privacy. One of the first things crips get over is modesty. While there's sometimes a halfhearted effort at draping — shrouding the body when cleaning, evacuating and examining — serious crips, real crips, macho crips don't care. At Rhyme's first rehab center, after a patient had gone to a party or been on a date the night before, all the wardmates would wheel over to his bed to check the patient's urine output, which was the barometer of how successful the outing had been. One time Rhyme earned his fellow crips' undying admiration by registering a staggering 1430 cc's.

He said to Berger, "Check out the ledge, doctor. I have my own guardian angels."

"Well. Hawks?"

"Peregrine falcons. Usually they nest higher. I don't know why they picked me to live with."

Berger glanced at the birds then turned away from the window, let the curtain fall back. The aviary didn't interest him. He wasn't a large man but he looked fit, a runner, Rhyme guessed. He seemed to be in his late forties but the black hair didn't have a trace of gray in it and he was as good-looking as any news anchor. "That's quite a bed."

"You like it?"

The bed was a Clinitron, a huge rectangular slab. It was an air-fluidized support bed and contained nearly a ton of silicone-coated glass beads. Pressurized air flowed through the beads, which supported Rhyme's body. If he had been able to feel, it would have felt as if he was floating.

Berger was sipping the coffee that Rhyme had ordered Thom to fetch and that the young man had brought, rolling his eyes, whispering, "Aren't we suddenly social?" before retreating.

The doctor asked Rhyme, "You were a policeman, you were telling me."

"Yes. I was head of forensics for the NYPD."

"Were you shot?"

"Nope. Searching a crime scene. Some workmen'd found a body at a subway-stop construction site. It was a young patrolman who'd disappeared six months before — we had a serial killer shooting cops. I got a request to work the case personally and when I was searching it a beam collapsed. I was buried for about four hours."

"Someone was actually going around murdering policemen?"

"Killed three and wounded another one. The perp was a cop himself. Dan Shepherd. A sergeant working Patrol."

Berger glanced at the pink scar on Rhyme's neck. The telltale insignia of quadriplegia — the entrance wound for the ventilator tube that remains embedded in the throat for months after the accident. Sometimes for years, sometimes forever. But Rhyme had — thanks to his own mulish nature and his therapists' herculean efforts — weaned himself off the ventilator. He now had a pair of lungs on him that he bet could keep him underwater for five minutes.

"So, a cervical trauma."

"C4."

"Ah, yes."

C4 is the demilitarized zone of spinal cord injuries. An SCI above the fourth cervical vertebra might very well have killed him. Below C4 he would have regained some use of his arms and hands, if not his legs. But trauma to the infamous fourth kept him alive though virtually a total quadriplegic. He'd lost the use of his legs and arms. His abdominal and intercostal muscles were mostly gone and he was breathing primarily from his diaphragm. He could move his head and neck, his shoulders slightly. The only fluke was that the crushing oak beam had spared a single, minuscule strand of motor neuron. Which allowed him to move his left ring finger.

Rhyme spared the doctor the soap opera of the year following the accident. The month of skull traction: tongs gripping holes drilled into his head and pulling his spine straight. Twelve weeks of the halo device — the plastic bib and steel scaffolding around his head to keep the neck immobile. To keep his lungs pumping, a large ventilator for a year then a phrenic nerve stimulator. The catheters. The surgery. The paralytic ileus, the stress ulcers, hypotension and bradycardia, bedsores turning into decubitus ulcers, contractures as the muscle tissue began to shrink and threatened to steal away the precious mobility of his finger, the infuriating phantom pain — burns and aches in extremities that could feel no sensation.

He did, however, tell Berger about the latest wrinkle. "Autonomic dysreflexia."

The problem had been occurring more often recently. Pounding heartbeat, off-the-charts blood pressure, raging headaches. It could be brought on by something as simple as constipation. He explained that nothing could be done to prevent it except avoiding stress and physical constriction.

Rhyme's SCI specialist, Dr. Peter Taylor, had become concerned with the frequency of the attacks. The last one — a month ago — was so severe that Taylor'd given Thom instructions in how to treat the condition without waiting for medical help and insisted that the aide program the doctor's number into the phone's speed dialer. Taylor had warned that a severe enough bout could lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Berger took in the facts with some sympathy then said, "Before I got into my present line I specialized in geriatric orthopedics. Mostly hip and joint replacements. I don't know much neurology. What about chances for recovery?"

"None, the condition's permanent," Rhyme said, perhaps a little too quickly. He added, "You understand my problem, don't you, doctor?"

"I think so. But I'd like to hear it in your words."

Shaking his head to clear a renegade strand of hair, Rhyme said, "Everyone has the right to kill himself."

Berger said, "I think I'd disagree with that. In most societies you may have the power but not the right. There's a difference."

Rhyme exhaled a bitter laugh. "I'm not much of a philosopher. But I don't even have the power. That's why I need you."

Lincoln Rhyme had asked four doctors to kill him. They'd all refused. He'd said, okay, he'd do it himself and simply stopped eating. But the process of wasting himself to death became pure torture. It left him violently stomach-sick and racked with unbearable headaches. He couldn't sleep. So he'd given up on that and, during the course of a hugely awkward conversation, asked Thom to kill him. The young man had grown tearful — the only time he'd shown that much emotion — and said he wished he could. He'd sit by and watch Rhyme die, he'd refuse to revive him. But he wouldn't actually kill him.

Then, a miracle. If you could call it that.

After The Scenes of the Crime had come out, reporters had appeared to interview him. One article — in The New York Times — contained this stark quotation from author Rhyme:

"No, I'm not planning any more books. The fact is, my next big project is killing myself. It's quite a challenge. I've been looking for someone to help me for the past six months."

That screeching-stop line got the attention of the NYPD counseling service and several people from Rhyme's past, most notably Blaine (who told him he was nuts to consider it, he had to quit thinking only about himself — just like when they'd been together — and, now that she was here, she thought she should mention that she was remarrying).

The quotation also caught the attention of William Berger, who'd called unexpectedly one night from Seattle. After a few moments of pleasant conversation Berger explained that he'd read the article about Rhyme. Then a hollow pause and he'd asked, "Ever hear of the Lethe Society?"

Rhyme had. It was a pro-euthanasia group he'd been trying to track down for months. It was far more aggressive than Safe Passage or the Hemlock Society. "Our volunteers are wanted for questioning in dozens of assisted suicides throughout the country," Berger explained. "We have to keep a low profile."

He said he wanted to follow up on Rhyme's request. Berger refused to act quickly and they'd had several conversations over the past seven or eight months. Today was their first meeting.

"There's no way you can pass, by yourself?"

Pass...

"Short of Gene Harrod's approach, no. And even that's a little iffy."

Harrod was young man in Boston, a quad, who decided he wanted to kill himself. Unable to find anyone to help him he finally committed suicide the only way he was able to. With the little control he had he set a fire in his apartment and when it was blazing drove his wheelchair into it, setting himself aflame. He died of third-degree burns.

The case was often raised by right-to-deathers as an example of the tragedy that anti-euthanasia laws can cause.

Berger was familiar with the case and shook his head sympathetically. "No, that's no way for anyone to die." He assayed Rhyme's body, the wires, the control panels. "What are your mechanical skills?"

Rhyme explained about the ECUs — the E&J controller that his ring finger operated, the sip-and-puff control for his mouth, the chin joysticks, and the computer dictation unit that could type out words on the screen as he spoke them.

"But everything has to be set up by someone else?" Berger asked. "For instance, someone would have to go to the store, buy a gun, mount it, rig the trigger and hook it up to your controller?"

"Yes."

Making that person guilty of a conspiracy to commit murder, as well as manslaughter.

"What about your equipment?" Rhyme asked. "It's effective?"

"Equipment?"

"What you use? To, uhm, do the deed?"

"It's very effective. I've never had a patient complain."

Rhyme blinked and Berger laughed. Rhyme joined him. If you can't laugh about death what can you laugh about?

"Take a look."

"You have it with you?" Hope blossomed in Rhyme's heart. It was the first time he'd felt that warm sensation in years.

The doctor opened his attaché case and — rather ceremonially, Rhyme thought — set out a bottle of brandy. A small bottle of pills. A plastic bag and a rubber band.

"What's the drug?"

"Seconal. Nobody prescribes it anymore. In the old days suicide was a lot easier. These babies'd do the trick, no question. Now, it's almost impossible to kill yourself with modern tranquilizers. Halcion, Librium, Dalmane, Xanax... You may sleep for a long time but you're going to wake up eventually."

"And the bag?"

"Ah, the bag." Berger picked it up. "That's the emblem of the Lethe Society. Unofficially, of course — it's not like we have a logo. If the pills and the brandy aren't enough then we use the bag. Over the head, with a rubber band around the neck. We add a little ice inside because it gets pretty hot after a few minutes."

Rhyme couldn't take his eyes off the trio of implements. The bag, thick plastic, like a painter's drop cloth. The brandy was cheap, he observed, and the drugs generic.

"This's a nice house," Berger said, looking around. "Central Park West... Do you live on disability?"

"Some. I've also done consulting for the police and the FBI. After the accident... the construction company that was doing the excavating settled for three million. They swore there was no liability but there's apparently a rule of law that a quadriplegic automatically wins any lawsuits against construction companies, no matter who was at fault. At least if the plaintiff comes to court and drools."

"And you wrote that book, right?"

"I get some money from that. Not a lot. It was a 'better-seller.' Not a best-seller."

Berger picked up a copy of The Scenes of the Crime, flipped through it. "Famous crime scenes. Look at all this." He laughed. "There are, what, forty, fifty scenes?"

"Fifty-one."

Rhyme had revisited — in his mind and imagination, since he'd written it after the accident — as many old crime scenes in New York City as he could recall. Some solved, some not. He'd written about the Old Brewery, the notorious tenement in Five Points, where thirteen unrelated murders were recorded on a single night in 1839. About Charles Aubridge Deacon, who murdered his mother on July 13, 1863, during the Civil War draft riots, claiming former slaves had killed her and fueling the rampage against blacks. About architect Stanford White's love-triangle murder atop the original Madison Square Garden and about Judge Crater's disappearance. About George Metesky, the mad bomber of the '50s, and Murph the Surf, who boosted the Star of India diamond.

"Nineteenth-century building supplies, underground streams, butler's schools," Berger recited, flipping through the book, "gay baths, Chinatown whorehouses, Russian Orthodox churches... How d'you learn all this about the city?"

Rhyme shrugged. In his years as head of IRD he'd studied as much about the city as he had about forensics. Its history, politics, geology, sociology, infrastructure. He said, "Criminalistics doesn't exist in a vacuum. The more you know about your environment, the better you can apply —"

Just as he heard the enthusiasm creep into his voice he stopped abruptly.

Furious with himself that he'd been foxed so easily.

"Nice try, Dr. Berger," Rhyme said stiffly.

"Ah, come on. Call me Bill. Please."

Rhyme wasn't going to be derailed. "I've heard it before. Take a big, clean, smooth piece of paper and write down all the reasons why I should kill myself. And then take another big, clean smooth piece of paper and write all the reasons why I shouldn't. Words like productive, useful, interesting, challenging come to mind. Big words. Ten-dollar words. They don't mean shit to me. Besides, I couldn't pick up a fucking pencil to save my soul."

"Lincoln," Berger continued kindly, "I have to make sure you're the appropriate candidate for the program."

"'Candidate'? 'Program'? Ah, the tyranny of euphemism," Rhyme said bitterly. "Doctor, I've made up my mind. I'd like to do it today. Now, as a matter of fact."

"Why today?"

Rhyme's eyes had returned to the bottles and the bag. He whispered, "Why not? What's today? August twenty-third? That's as good a day to die as any."

The doctor tapped his narrow lips. "I have to spend some time talking to you, Lincoln. If I'm convinced that you really want to go ahead —"

"I do," Rhyme said, noting as he often did how weak our words sound without the body gestures to accompany them. He wanted desperately to lay his hand on Berger's arm or lift his palms beseechingly.

Without asking if he could, Berger pulled out a packet of Marlboros and lit a cigarette. He took a folding metal ashtray from his pocket and opened it up. Crossed his thin legs. He looked like a foppish frat boy at an Ivy League smoker. "Lincoln, you understand the problem here, don't you?"

Sure, he understood. It was the very reason why Berger was here and why one of Rhyme's own doctors hadn't "done the deed." Hastening an inevitable death was one thing; nearly one-third of practicing doctors who treated terminal patients had prescribed or administered fatal doses of drugs. Most prosecutors turned a blind eye toward them unless a doctor flaunted it — like Kevorkian.

But a quad? A hemi? A para? A crip? Oh, that was different. Lincoln Rhyme was forty years old. He'd been weaned off the ventilator. Barring some insidious gene in the Rhyme stock, there was no medical reason why he couldn't live to eighty.

Berger added, "Let me be blunt, Lincoln. I also have to be sure this isn't a setup."

"Setup?"

"Prosecutors. I've been entrapped before."

Rhyme laughed. "The New York attorney general's a busy man. He's not going to wire a crip to bag himself a euthanasist."

Glancing absently at the crime scene report.... ten feet southwest of victim, found in a cluster on a small pile of white sand: a ball of fiber, approximately six centimeters in diameter, off-white in color. The fiber was sampled in the energy-dispersive X-ray unit and found to consist of A2B5(Si, Al)8O22(OH)2. No source was indicated and the fibers could not be individuated. Sample sent to FBI PERT office for analysis.

"I just have to be careful," Berger continued. "This is my whole professional" life now. I gave up orthopedics completely. Anyway, it's more than a job. I've decided to devote my life to helping others end theirs."

Adjacent to this fiber, approximately three inches away were found two scraps of paper. One was common newsprint, with the words "three p.m." printed in Times Roman type, in ink consistent with that used in commercial newspapers. The other scrap appeared to be the corner of a page from a book with the page number "823" printed on it. The typeface was Garamond and the paper was calendared. ALS and subsequent ninhydrin analysis reveal no latent friction-ridge prints on either... Individuation was not possible.

Several things nagged Rhyme. The fiber, for one. Why hadn't Peretti caught on as to what it was? It was so obvious. And why was this PE — the newspaper scraps and the fiber — all clustered together? Something was wrong here.

"Lincoln?"

"Sorry."

"I was saying... You're not a burn victim in unbearable pain. You're not homeless. You've got money, you've got talent. Your police consulting... that helps a lot of people. If you want one, you could have a, yes, productive life ahead of you. A long life."

"Long, yes. That's the problem. A long life." He was tired of being on good behavior. He snapped, "But I don't want a long life. It's as simple as that."

Berger said slowly, "If there's the slightest chance you might've regretted your decision, well, see, I'm the one who'd have to live with it. Not you."

"Who's ever certain about something like this?"

Eyes slipping back to the report.

An iron bolt was found on top of the scraps of paper. It was a hex bolt, head-stamped with the letters "CE." Two inches long, clockwise twist, 15/16" in diameter.

"I've got a busy schedule for the next few days," Berger said, looking at his watch. It was a Rolex; well, death has always been lucrative. "Let's take an hour or so now. Talk for a while, then have a cooling-off day and I'll come back."

Something was nagging at Rhyme. An infuriating itch — the curse of all quads — though in this case it was an intellectual itch. The kind that had plagued Rhyme all his life.

"Say, doctor, I wonder if you could do me a favor. That report there. Could you flip through it? See if you could find a picture of a bolt."

Berger hesitated. "A picture?"

"A Polaroid. It'll be glued in somewhere toward the back. The turning frame takes too long."

Berger lifted the report out of the frame and turned the pages for Rhyme.

"There. Stop."

As he gazed at the photo a twinge of urgency pricked at him. Oh, not here, not now. Please, no.

"I'm sorry, could you flip back to the page where we were?"

Berger did.

Rhyme said nothing and read carefully.

The paper scraps...

Three p.m... page 823.

Rhyme's heart was pounding, sweat popped out on his head. He heard a frantic buzzing in his ears.

Here's a headline for the tabloids. MAN DIES DURING TALK WITH DEATH DOC...

Berger blinked. "Lincoln? Are you all right?" The man's canny eyes examined Rhyme carefully.

As casually as he could, Rhyme said, "You know, doctor, I'm sorry. But there's something I've got to take care of."

Berger nodded slowly, uncertainly. "Affairs aren't in order after all?"

Smiling. Nonchalant. "I'm just wondering if I could ask you to come back in a few hours."

Careful here. If he senses purpose he'll mark you down non-suicidal, take his bottles and his plastic bag and fly back to Starbucks land.

Opening a date book, Berger said, "The rest of the day isn't good. Then tomorrow... No. I'm afraid Monday's the earliest. Day after tomorrow."

Rhyme hesitated. Lord... His soul's desire was finally within his grasp, what he'd dreamed of every day for the past year. Yes or no?

Decide.

Finally, Rhyme heard himself say, "All right. Monday." Plastering a hopeless smile on his face.

"What exactly's the problem?"

"A man I used to work with. He asked for some advice. I wasn't paying as much attention to it as I should have. I have to call him."

No, it wasn't dysreflexia at all — or an anxiety attack.

Lincoln Rhyme was feeling something he hadn't felt in years. He was in one big fucking hurry.

"Could I ask you to send Thom up here? I think he's downstairs in the kitchen."

"Yes, of course. I'd be happy to."

Rhyme could see something odd in Berger's eyes. What was it? Caution? Maybe. It almost seemed like disappointment. But there was no time to think about it now. As the doctor's footsteps receded down the stairs Rhyme shouted in a booming baritone, "Thom? Thom!"

"What?" the young man's voice called.

"Call Lon. Get him back here. Now!"

Rhyme glanced at the clock. It was after noon. They had less than three hours.