o most people the sound would be a simple metallic click, lost in the dozen other ambient noises of a big-city office building.

To Amelia Sachs, though, it was clearly the spring-activated firing pin of an automatic weapon striking the primer cap of a malfunctioning bullet, or someone dry-firing a gun. She'd heard the distinctive sound a hundred times — from her own pistols and her fellow officers'.

This click was followed with what usually came next — the shooter working the slide to eject the bad round and chamber the next one in the clip. In many cases — like now — the maneuver was particularly frantic, the shooter needed to clear the weapon instantly and get a new bullet ready fast. It could be a matter of life and death.

This all registered in a fraction of a second. Sachs dropped the roller she was using to collect trace. Her right hand slammed to her hip — she always knew the exact place where her holster rested — and an instant later she spun around, hunched in a combat shooting position, her Glock in her hand, facing where the sound had come from.

She saw in her periphery, to her right, Ron Pulaski, standing up in the next office, looking at her weapon, alarmed, wondering what she was doing.

Twenty feet away was Dennis Baker, his eyes wide. In his gloved hand was a tiny pistol, a.32, she thought, pointed her way, as he worked the slide. She noted that it was an Autauga MKII, the type of gun that Rhyme speculated the Watchmaker might have.

Baker blinked. Couldn't speak for a moment. "I heard something," he said quickly. "I thought he'd come back, the Watchmaker."

"You pulled the trigger."

"No, I was just chambering a round."

She glanced at the floor, where the bum shell lay. The only reason for it to be there was if he'd tried to shoot, then ejected the defective bullet.

Taking the tiny.32 in his left hand, Baker lowered his right. It strayed to his side. "We have to be careful. I think he's back."

Sachs centered the sights directly on Baker's chest.

"Don't do it, Dennis," she said, nodding toward his hip, where his regulation pistol rested. "I will fire. I'm assuming you've got armor under your suit. My first slug'll be on your chest but two and three'll go higher. It won't be nice."

"I... You don't understand." His eyes were wide, panicked. "You have to believe me."

Wasn't that one of the key phrases that signaled deception, according to Kathryn Dance?

"What's going on?" Pulaski asked.

"Stay there, Ron," Sachs ordered. "Don't pay attention to a thing he says. Draw your weapon."

"Pulaski," Baker said, "she's going nuts. Something's wrong."

But from the corner of her eye she saw the rookie pull his weapon and aim it in Baker's direction.

"Dennis, set the thirty-two on the table. Then with your left hand take your service piece by the grip — thumb and index finger only. Set it down too then move back five steps. Lie facedown. Okay. You clear on that?"

"You don't understand."

She said calmly, "I don't need to understand. I need you to do what I'm telling you."

"But —"

"And I need you to do it now."

"You're crazy," Baker snapped. "You've had it in for me ever since you found out I was checking into you and your old boyfriend. You're trying to discredit me... Pulaski, she's going to kill me. She's gone rogue. Don't lether bring you down too."

Pulaski said, "You've been apprised of Detective Sachs's instructions. I'll disarm you if it's necessary. Now, sir, what's it going to be?"

Several seconds passed. It seemed like hours. Nobody moved.

"Fuck." Baker set the pistols where he'd been told and lowered himself to the floor. "You're both in deep shit."

"Cuff him," Sachs told Pulaski.

She covered Baker while the bewildered rookie got the man's hands behind him and ratcheted on the cuffs.

"Search him."

Sachs grabbed her Motorola. "Detective Five Eight Eight Five to Haumann. Respond, K."

"Go ahead, K."

"We've got a new development here. I've got somebody in cuffs I need escorted downstairs."

"What's going on?" the ESU head asked. "Is it the perp?"

"That's a good question," she replied, holstering her pistol.

With this latest twist in the case, a new person was present in front of the Midtown office building where Detective Dennis Baker had apparently just attempted to kill Amelia Sachs and Ron Pulaski.

Using the touch-pad controller, Lincoln Rhyme maneuvered the red Storm Arrow wheelchair along the sidewalk to the building's entrance. Baker sat in the back of a nearby squad car, cuffed and shackled. His face was white. He stared straight ahead.

At first he'd claimed that Sachs was targeting him because of the Nick Carelli situation. Then Rhyme decided to check with the brass. He asked the senior NYPD official who'd sent the email about it. It turned out that it was Baker who'd brought up a concern about Sachs's possible connection with a crooked cop and the brass had never sent the email at all; Baker'd written it himself. He'd created the whole thing as cover in case Sachs caught him following or checking up on her.

Using the touch pad, Rhyme eased closer to the building, where Sellitto and Haumann had set up their command post. He parked and Sellitto explained what had happened upstairs. But added, "I don't get it. Just don't get it." The heavy detective rubbed his bare hands together. He glanced up at the clear, windy sky as if he'd just realized it was one of the chilliest months on record. When he was on a case, hot and cold didn't really register.

"You find anything on him?" Rhyme asked.

"Just the thirty-two and latex gloves," Pulaski said. "And some personal effects."

A moment later Amelia Sachs joined them, holding a carton containing a dozen plastic evidence bags. She'd been searching Baker's car. "It's getting better by the minute, Rhyme. Check this out." She showed Rhyme and Sellitto the bags one by one. They contained cocaine, fifty thousand in cash, some old clothing, receipts from clubs and bars in Manhattan, including the St. James. She lifted one bag that seemed to contain nothing. On closer examination, though, he could see fine fibers.

"Carpeting?" he asked.

"Yep. Brown."

"Bet they match the Explorer's."

"That's what I'm thinking."

Another link to the Watchmaker.

Rhyme nodded, staring at the plastic bag, which rippled in the chill wind. He felt that burst of satisfaction that occurred when the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. He turned to the squad car where Baker sat and called through the half-open window. "When were you assigned to the One One Eight?"

The man stared back at the criminalist. "Fuck you. You think I'm saying anything to you pricks? This is bullshit. Somebody planted all that on me."

Rhyme said to Sellitto, "Call Personnel. I want to know his prior assignments."

Sellitto did and, after a brief conversation, looked up and said, "Bingo. He was at the One One Eight for two years. Narcotics and Homicide. Promoted out to the Big Building three years ago."

"How did you meet Duncan?"

Baker hunkered down in the backseat and returned to his job of staring straight ahead.

"Well, isn't this a tidy little confluence of our cases," Rhyme said, in good humor.

"A what?" Sellitto barked.

"Confluence. A coming together, Lon. A merger. Don't you do crosswords?"

Sellitto grunted. "What cases?"

"Obviously, Sachs's case at the One One Eight and the Watchmaker situation. They weren't separate at all. Opposite sides of the same knife blade, you could say." He was pleased with the metaphor.

His Case and the Other Case...

"You want to explain?"

Did he really need to?

Amelia Sachs said, "Baker was a player in the corruption at the One One Eight. He hired the Watchmaker — well, Duncan — to take me out 'cause I was getting close to him."

"Which pretty much proves there is indeed something rotten in Denmark."

Now it was Pulaski's chance not to get it. "Denmark? The one in Europe?"

"The one in Shakespeare, Ron," the criminalist said impatiently. And when the young officer grinned blankly Rhyme gave up.

Sachs took over again. "He means it's proof there was major corruption at the One One Eight. Obviously they're doing more than just sitting on investigations for some crew out of Baltimore or Bay Ridge."

Looking up absently at the office building, Rhyme nodded, oblivious to the cold and the wind. There were some unanswered questions, of course. For instance, Rhyme wasn't sure if Vincent Reynolds really was a partner or was just being set up.

Then there was the matter of where the extortion money was, and Rhyme now asked, "Who's the one in Maryland? Who're you working with? Was it OC or something else?"

"Are you deaf?" Baker snapped. "Not a fucking word."

"Take him to CB," Sellitto said to the patrol officers standing beside the car. "Book him on assault with intent for the time being. We'll add some other ornaments later." As they watched the RMP drive away, Sellitto shook his head. "Jesus," the detective muttered. "Were we lucky."

"Lucky?" Rhyme grumbled, recalling that he'd said something similar earlier.

"Yeah, that Duncan didn't kill any more vics. And here too — Amelia was a sitting duck. If that piece hadn't misfired..." His voice faded before he described the tragedy that had nearly occurred.

Lincoln Rhyme believed in luck about as much as he believed in ghosts and flying saucers. He started to ask what the hell did luck have to do with anything, but the words never came out of his mouth.

Luck...

Suddenly a dozen thoughts, like bees escaping from a jostled hive, zipped around him. He was frowning. "That's odd... " His voice faded. Finally he whispered, "Duncan."

"Something wrong, Linc? You okay?"

"Rhyme?" Sachs asked.

"Shhhhh."

Using the touch-pad controller he turned slowly in a circle, glanced in a nearby alleyway, then at the bags and boxes of evidence Sachs had collected. He gave a faint laugh. He ordered, "I want Baker's gun."

"His service piece?" Pulaski asked.

"Of course not. The other one. The thirty-two. Where is it? Now, hurry!"

Pulaski found the weapon in a plastic bag. He returned with it.

"Field-strip it."

"Me?" the rookie asked.

"Her." Rhyme nodded at Sachs.

Sachs spread out a piece of plastic on the sidewalk, replaced her leather gloves with latex ones and in a few seconds had the gun dismantled, the parts laid out on the ground.

"Hold up the pieces one by one."

Sachs did this. Their eyes met. She said, "Interesting."

"Okay. Rookie?"

"Yessir?"

"I've got to talk to the medical examiner. Track him down for me."

"Well, sure. I should call?"

Rhyme's sigh was accompanied by a stream of breath flowing from his mouth. "You could try a telegram, you could go knock, knock, knockin' on his door. But I'll bet the best approach is to use... your...phone. And don't take no for an answer. I need him."

The young man gripped his cell phone and started punching numbers into the keypad.

"Linc," Sellitto said, "what's this —"

"And I need you to do something too, Lon."

"Yeah, what?"

"There's a man across the street watching us. In the mouth of the alley."

Sellitto turned. "Got him." The guy was lean, wearing sunglasses despite the dusk, a hat and jeans and a leather jacket. "Looks familiar."

"Invite him to come over here. I'd like to ask him a few questions."

Sellitto laughed. "Kathryn Dance's really having an effect on you, Linc. I thought you didn't trust witnesses."

"Oh, I think in this case it'd be good to make an exception."

Shrugging, the big detective asked, "Who is he?"

"I could be wrong," Rhyme said with the tone of a man who believed he rarely was, "but I have a feeling he's the Watchmaker."