HE NEXT MORNING LINCOLN RHYME was alone again.

Thom had gone shopping and Mel Cooper was at the IRD lab downtown. Vince Peretti had completed the CS work at the mansion on East Van Brevoort and at Sachs's. They'd found woefully few clues though Rhyme put the lack of PE down to the unsub's ingenuity, not Peretti's derivative talents.

Rhyme was awaiting the crime scene report. But both Dobyns and Sellitto believed that 823 had gone to ground — temporarily at least. There'd been no more attacks on the police and no other victims had been kidnapped in the past twelve hours.

Sachs's minder — a large Patrol officer from MTS — had accompanied her to an appointment with an ear, nose and throat man at a hospital in Brooklyn; the dirt had done quite a number on her throat. Rhyme himself had a bodyguard too — a uniform from the Twentieth Precinct, stationed in front of his townhouse — a friendly cop he'd known for years and with whom Rhyme enjoyed a running argument on the merits of Irish peat versus Scottish in the production of whisky.

Rhyme was in a great mood. He called downstairs on the intercom. "I'm expecting a doctor in a couple of hours. You can let him up."

The cop said he would.

Dr. William Berger had assured Rhyme that today he'd be on time.

Rhyme leaned back in the pillow and realized he wasn't completely alone. On the windowsill, the falcons paced. Rarely skittish, they seemed uneasy. Another low front was approaching. Rhyme's window revealed a calm sky but he trusted the birds; they were infallible barometers.

UNSUB 823 (page 1 of 5)

Appearance: •Caucasian male, slight build

•Dark clothing

•Old gloves, reddish kidskin

Residence: •Prob. has safe house

•Located near: B'way &82nd,

•ShopRite Greenwich & Bank,

Vehicle: •Yellow Cab

•Recent model sedan

Other: •knows CS proc.

•possibly has record

•knows FR prints

•gun =.32 Colt

•Ties vics w/ unusual knots

UNSUB 823 (page 2 of 5)

Appearance: •Aftershave; to cover up other scent?

•Ski mask? Navy blue?

•Gloves are dark

•Aftershave = Brut

Residence: •ShopRite 8th Ave. & 24th,

•ShopRite Houston & Lafayette,

Vehicle: •Lt. gray, silver, beige

•Rental car: prob. stolen

Other: •"Old" appeals to him

•Called one vic "Hanna"

•Knows basic German

•Underground appeals to him

•Dual personalities

UNSUB 823 (page 3 of 5)

Appearance: •Hair color not brown

•Deep scar, index finger

Residence: •Old building, pink marble

•At least 100 years old, prob. mansion or institutional

Vehicle: •Hertz, silver Taurus, this year's model

Other: •Maybe priest, soc. worker, counselor

•Unusual wear on shoes, reads a lot?

•Listened as he broke vic's finger

UNSUB 823 (page 4 of 5)

Appearance: •Casual clothes

Residence: •Federal-style building, Lower East Side

Vehicle: Other

•Left snake as slap at investigators

•Wanted to flay vic's foot

•Called one vic "Maggie"

•Mother & child, special meaning to him?

UNSUB 823 (page 5 of 5)

Appearance: •Gloves are black

Residence: •Located near archaeologic dig

Vehicle

Other: •Book "Crime in Old NY," his model?

•Bases crimes on James Schneider, the" Bone Collector"

•Has hatred of police

He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 11:00 a.m. Here he was, just like two days ago, awaiting Berger's arrival. That's life, he thought: postponement upon postponement but ultimately, with some luck, we get to where we're meant to be.

He watched television for twenty minutes, trolling for stories about the kidnappings. But all the stations were doing specials on the opening day of the UN conference. Rhyme found it boring and turned to a rerun of Matlock, flipped back to a gorgeous CNN reporter standing outside UN headquarters and then shut the damn set off.

The telephone rang and he went through the complicated gestures of answering it. "Hello."

There was a pause before a man's voice said, "Lincoln?"

"Yes?"

"Jim Polling. How you doin'?"

Rhyme realized that he hadn't seen much of the captain since early yesterday, except for the news conference last night, where he'd whispered prompts to the mayor and Chief Wilson.

"Okay. Any word on our unsub?" Rhyme asked.

"Nothing yet. But we'll get him." Another pause. "Hey, you alone?"

"Yep."

A longer pause.

"Okay if I stop by?"

"Sure."

"A half hour?"

"I'll be here," Rhyme said jovially.

He rested his head in the thick pillow and his eyes slipped to the knotted clothesline hanging beside the profile poster. Still no answer about the knot. It was — he laughed aloud at the joke — a loose end. He hated the idea of leaving the case without finding out what kind of knot it was. Then he remembered that Polling was a fisherman. Maybe he'd recognize —

Polling, Rhyme reflected.

James Polling...

Funny how the captain had insisted Rhyme handle the case. How he'd fought to keep him on it, rather than Peretti — who was the better choice, politically, for Polling. Remembering too how he'd lost his temper at Dellray when the feebie tried to strong-arm the investigation away from the NYPD.

Now that he thought about it, Polling's whole involvement in the case was a mystery. Eight twenty-three wasn't the kind of perp you took on voluntarily — even if you were looking for juicy cases to hang on your collar record. Too many chances to lose vics, too many opportunities for the press — and the brass — to snipe at you for fucking up.

Polling... Recalling how he'd breeze into Rhyme's bedroom, check out their progress and leave.

Sure, he was reporting to the mayor and the chief. But — the thought slipped unexpectedly into Rhyme's mind — was there someone else Polling was reporting back to?

Someone who wanted to keep tabs on the investigation? The unsub himself?

But how on earth could Polling have any connection with 823? It seemed —

And then it struck him.

Could Polling be the unsub?

Of course not. It was ridiculous. Laughable. Even apart from motive and means, there was the question of opportunity. The captain had been here, in Rhyme's room, when some of the kidnappings had occurred...

Or had he?

Rhyme looked up at the profile chart.

Dark clothing and wrinkled cotton slacks. Polling'd been wearing dark sports clothes over the past several days. But so what? So did a lot of —

Downstairs a door opened and closed.

"Thom?"

No answer. The aide wasn't due back for hours.

"Lincoln?"

Oh, no. Hell. He started to dial on the ECU.

9— 1—

With his chin he bumped the cursor to 2.

Footsteps on the stairs.

He tried to redial but he knocked the joystick out of reach in his desperation.

And Jim Polling walked into the room. Rhyme had counted on the babysitter's calling upstairs first. But of course a beat cop would let a police captain inside without thinking twice.

Polling's dark jacket was unbuttoned and Rhyme got a look at the automatic on his hip. He couldn't see if it was his issue weapon. But he knew that.32 Colts were on the NYPD list of approved personal weapons.

"Lincoln," Polling said. He was clearly uneasy, cautious. His eyes fell to the bleached bit of spinal cord.

"How you doing, Jim?"

"Not bad."

Polling the outdoorsman. Had the scar on the fingerprint been left by years of casting a fishing line? Or an accident with a hunting knife? Rhyme tried to look but Polling kept his hands jammed into his pockets. Was he holding something in there? A knife?

Polling certainly knew forensics and crime scenes — he knew how not to leave evidence.

The ski mask? If Polling was the unsub he'd have to wear the mask of course — because one of the vics might see him later. And the aftershave... what if the unsub hadn't worn the scent at all but had just carried a bottle with him and sprayed some at the scenes to make them believe he wore Brut? So when Polling showed up here, not wearing any, no one would suspect him.

"You're alone?" Polling asked.

"My assistant —"

"The cop downstairs said he wouldn't be back for a while."

Rhyme hesitated. "That's right."

Polling was slight but strong, sandy-haired. Terry Dobyns's words came back: Someone helpful, upstanding. A social worker, counselor, politician. Somebody helping other people.

Like a cop.

Rhyme wondered now if he was about to die. And to his shock he realized that he didn't want to. Not this way, not on somebody else's terms.

Polling walked to the bed.

Yet there was nothing he could do. He was at this man's complete mercy.

"Lincoln," Polling repeated gravely.

Their eyes met and the feeling of electrical connection went through them. Dry sparks. The captain looked quickly out the window. "You've been wondering, haven't you?"

"Wondering?"

"Why I wanted you on the case."

"I figured it was my personality."

This drew no smile from the captain.

"Why did you want me, Jim?"

The captain's fingers knitted together. Thin but strong. The hands of a fisherman, a sport that, yes, may be genteel but whose purpose is nonetheless to wrench a poor beast from his home and slice through its smooth belly with a thin knife.

"Four years ago, the Shepherd case. We were on it together."

Rhyme nodded.

"The workers found the body of that cop in the subway stop."

A groan, Rhyme recalled, like the sound of the Titanic sinking in A Night to Remember. Then an explosion loud as a gunshot as the beam came down on his hapless neck, and dirt packed around his body.

"And you ran the scene. You yourself, like you always did."

"I did, yes."

"Did you know how we convicted Shepherd? We had a wit."

A witness? Rhyme hadn't heard that. After the accident he'd lost all track of the case, except for learning that Shepherd had been convicted and, three months later, stabbed to death on Riker's Island by an assailant who was never captured.

"An eyewitness," Polling continued. "He could place Shepherd at one of the victims' homes with the murder weapon." The captain stepped closer to the bed, crossed his arms. "We had the wit a day before we found the last body — the one in the subway. Before I put in the request that you run the scene."

"What're you saying, Jim?"

The captain's eyes rooted themselves to the floor. "We didn't need you. We didn't need your report."

Rhyme said nothing.

Polling nodded. "You understand what I'm saying? I wanted to nail that fuck Shepherd so bad... I wanted an airtight case. And you know what a Lincoln Rhyme crime scene report does to defense lawyers. It scares the everlovin' shit out of them."

"But Shepherd would've been convicted even without my report from the subway scene."

"That's right, Lincoln. But it's worse than that. See, I got word from MTA Engineering that the site wasn't safe."

"The subway site. And you had me work the scene before they shored it up?"

"Shepherd was a cop-killer." Polling's face twisted up in disgust. "I wanted him so bad. I woulda done anything to nail him. But..." He lowered his head to his hands.

Rhyme said nothing. He heard the groan of the beam, the explosion of the breaking wood. Then the rustle of the dirt nestling around him. A curious, warm peace in his body while his heart stuttered with terror.

"Jim —"

"That's why I wanted you on this case, Lincoln. You see?" A miserable look crossed the captain's tough face; he stared at the disk of spinal column on the table. "I kept hearing these stories that your life was crap. You were wasting away here. Talking about killing yourself. I felt so fucking guilty. I wanted to try to give you some of your life back."

Rhyme said, "And you've been living with this for the last three and a half years."

"You know about me, Lincoln. Everybody knows about me. I collar somebody, he gives me any shit, he goes down. I get a hard-on for some perp, I don't stop till the prick's bagged and tagged. I can't control it. I know I've fucked over people sometimes. But they were perps — or suspects, at least. They weren't my own, they weren't cops. What happened to you... that was a sin. It was just fucking wrong."

"I wasn't a rookie," Rhyme said. "I didn't have to work a scene I thought wasn't safe."

"But —"

"Bad time?" another voice said from the doorway.

Rhyme glanced up, expecting to see Berger. But it was Peter Taylor who'd come up the stairs. Rhyme recalled that he was coming by today to check on his patient after the dysreflexia attack. He supposed too that the doctor was planning to give him hell about Berger and the Lethe Society. He wasn't in the mood for that; he wanted time alone — to digest Polling's confession. At the moment it just sat there, numb as Rhyme's thigh. But he said, "Come on in, Peter."

"You've got a very funny security system, Lincoln. The guard asked if I was a doctor and he let me up. What? Do lawyers and accountants get booted?"

Rhyme laughed. "I'll only be a second." Rhyme turned back to Polling. "Fate, Jim. That's what happened to me. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens."

"Thanks, Lincoln." Polling put his hand on Rhyme's right shoulder and squeezed it gently.

Rhyme nodded and, to deflect the uneasy gratitude, introduced the men. "Jim, this is Pete Taylor, one of my doctors. And this is Jim Polling, we used to work together."

"Nice to meet you," Taylor said, sticking out his right hand. It was a broad gesture and Rhyme's eyes followed it, noticing for some reason the deep crescent scar on Taylor's right index finger.

"No!" Rhyme shouted.

"So you're a cop too." Taylor gripped Polling's hand tightly as he slid the knife, held firmly in his left hand, in and out of the captain's chest three times, navigating around the ribs with the delicacy of a surgeon. Undoubtedly so he wouldn't nick the precious bone.