nside the shabby hotel room, Lincoln Rhyme shook his head in disbelief as Sachs told him what she'd just learned: that they had known Charlotte some years ago when she'd come to New York using the pseudonym Carol Ganz. She and her daughter, whose name was Pammy, had been victims in the first case Sachs and Rhyme had worked together — the very one he'd been thinking of earlier, the kidnapper obsessed with human bones, a perp as clever and ruthless as the Watchmaker.

To pursue him, Rhyme had recruited Sachs to be his eyes and ears and legs at the crime scenes and together they'd managed to rescue both the woman and her daughter — only to learn that Carol was really Charlotte Willoughby. She was part of a right-wing militia movement, which abhorred the federal government and its involvement in world affairs. After their rescue and reunion, the woman managed to slip a bomb into the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan. The explosion killed six people.

Rhyme and Sachs had taken up the case but Charlotte and the girl disappeared into the movement's underground, probably in the Midwest or West, and eventually the trail went cold.

From time to time they would check out FBI, VICAP and local police reports with a militia or right-wing political angle but no leads to Charlotte or Pammy panned out. Sachs's concern for the little girl never diminished, though, and sometimes, lying in bed with Rhyme at night, she'd wonder out loud how the girl was doing, if it was too late to save her. Sachs, who'd always wanted children, was horrified at the kind of life her mother was presumably forcing the girl to live — hiding out, having few friends her age, never going to a regular school — all in the name of some hateful cause.

And now Charlotte — with her new husband, Bud Allerton — had returned to the city on yet another mission of terrorism, and Rhyme and Sachs had become entwined in their lives once again.

Charlotte now glared at Rhyme, her eyes filled with both tears and hatred. "You murdered Bud! You goddamn fascists! You killed him." The prisoner then gave a cold laugh. "But we won! How many did we kill tonight? Fifty people. Seventy-five? And how many senior people in the Pentagon?"

Sachs leaned close to her face. "Did you know there'd be children in that conference room? Husbands and wives of the soldiers? Their parents? Grandparents? Did you know that?"

"Of course we knew it," Charlotte said.

"They were just sacrifices too, is that right?"

"For the greater good," Charlotte replied.

Which was maybe a slogan she and her group recited at the beginning of their rallies, or whatever meetings they had.

Rhyme caught Sachs's eye. He said, "Maybe we should show her the carnage."

Sachs nodded and clicked on the TV.

An anchorwoman was on the screen. "... one minor injury. A bomb squad officer who was driving a remote-control robot in an attempt to defuse the bombs was wounded slightly by shrapnel. He's been treated and released. Property damage was estimated at five hundred thousand dollars. Despite initial reports, neither al-Qaeda nor any other Islamic terrorist group has been implicated in the bombing. According to a New York Police Department spokeswoman, a domestic terrorist organization was responsible. Again, if you're just joining us, two bombs exploded around noon today in the office of Housing and Urban Development in lower Manhattan but there were no fatalities and only one minor injury. An undersecretary of state and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were among the intended victims... "

Sachs muted the volume and turned a smug gaze toward Charlotte.

"No," the woman gasped. "Oh, no... What —?"

Rhyme said, "Obviously — we figured it out before the bomb went off and evacuated the room."

Charlotte was appalled. "But... impossible. No... The airports were shut down, the trains —"

"Oh, that," Rhyme said dismissively. "We just needed to buy some time. At first, sure, I thought he was stealing the Delphic Mechanism but then I decided it was just a feint. But that didn't mean he hadn't done something to the NIST clock. So while we were figuring out what he was really up to, we called the mayor and had him order flights and public transportation in the area suspended."!!!You know what's going to happen if we push that button...

She glanced into the bedroom where her husband had died such a pointless death. Then the ideologue within her kicked in and she said in a flat voice, "You'll never beat us. You may win a battle or two. But we'll take our country back. We'll —"

"Yo, hold that rhetoric, wouldja?" The speaker was a tall, lanky black man, stepping into the room. This was FBI Special Agent Fred Dellray. When he'd heard about the domestic terrorist angle he'd handed off the accounting fraud case that he'd been assisting on ("Was a yawner anyway") and announced that that he was going to be the federal liaison on the HUD bombing.

Dellray was wearing a powder blue suit and a shocking green shirt underneath a brown herringbone overcoat, circa 1975; the agent's taste in couture was as brash as his manner. He looked Charlotte over. "Well, well, well, lookit what we caught ou'selves." The woman gazed back defiantly. He laughed. "A shame you're going to jail for... well, forever, and you didn't even do whatcha'll had your heart set on. How's it feel t'be swimmin' laps in the loser pool?"

Dellray's approach to interviewing suspects was a lot different from Kathryn Dance's; Rhyme suspected she wouldn't approve.

Charlotte had been arrested by Sachs on state charges and it was now Dellray's turn to arrest her for the federal crimes — both for this incident and for the UN bombing years ago, her involvement in a federal courthouse shooting in San Francisco and some miscellaneous charges.

Charlotte said she understood her rights and then started another lecture.

Dellray wagged a finger at her. "Gimme a minute, sweetheart." The lean man turned to Rhyme. "So how'd you figure this one out, Lincoln? We heard X, we heard Y, all 'bout some boys in blue taking money they shouldn'ta been doin' and then some bizarre fella leavin' clocks as callin' cards — then next thing we know the airports're closed and there's a priority-one security alert at HUD innerupting my nap."

Rhyme detailed the frantic process of kinesic and forensic work that led them to figure out the Watchmaker's real plan. Kathryn Dance had suggested that he was lying about his mission in New York. So they'd looked into the evidence again. Some of it pointed to the possible theft of a rare artifact in the Metropolitan Museum.

But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Rhyme figured Duncan had made up the story about the undelivered package to the Met just to get them focused on the museum. Somebody as careful as the Watchmaker wouldn't leave the trail he did. He turned in Vincent, knowing the rapist would give up the church, where he'd left other museum brochures referring to the Mechanism. He mentioned it to Hallerstein and to Vincent as well. No, he was up to something else. But what? Kathryn Dance reviewed the interview tape again, several times, and decided that he might have been lying when he said he picked the supposed victims simply because their locations meant easy getaways.

"Which meant," Rhyme told Dellray, "that he picked them for some other purpose. So, did they have anything in common?"

Rhyme had remembered something Dance learned about the first crime scene. Ari Cobb had said that the SUV was originally parked in the back of the alley but then the Watchmaker returned to the front to leave the body. "Why? One reason was that he needed to put the victim in a particular place. What was it near? The back door to the Housing and Urban Development building."

Rhyme had then gotten the client list from the flooring company where he'd planted the fake fire extinguisher bomb and learned that they'd provided carpeting and tile for the HUD offices.

"I sent our rookie downtown to look around. He found a building across Cedar Street that was being renovated. The crews had tarred the roof a week ago, just before the cold spell. Flakes of tar matched those found on our perp's shoes. The roof was a perfect place to check out HUD."

This also explained why he'd poured sand on the ground at the crime scene and swept it up — to make absolutely certain they didn't find trace that'd help anyone identify him later when he came back to assemble and arm the bombs.

Rhyme also found that the other victims had a connection to the building. Lucy Richter was being recognized there today, and she'd had the specially issued passes and IDs to get into all parts of the building. She also had a classified memo on security and evacuation procedures.

As for Joanne Harper, it turned out that she'd done the flower arrangements for the ceremony — a good way to smuggle something into the building.

"A bomb, I guessed. We got the mayor involved and he called the press, had them hold off on the story that we were evacuating HUD so the perps wouldn't rabbit. But the device blew before the bomb squad could disarm it." Rhyme shook his head. "Just hate it when good evidence blows up. You know how hard it is to lift prints off pieces of metal that've been flying through the air at thirty thousand feet a second?"

"How'dja get Miss Congeniality here?" Dellray asked, nodding at Charlotte.

Rhyme said dismissively, "That was easy. She was careless. If Duncan was fake, then the woman helping him at the first scene in the alley had to be fake too. Our rookie got all the tag numbers of cars in the vicinity of the alley off Cedar. The car the supposed sister was driving was an Avis, rented to Charlotte Allerton. We checked all the hotels in the city until we found her."

Dellray shook his head. "An' what about yo' perp? Mr. Clockmaker?"

"It's 'Watchmaker,'" the criminalist grumbled. "And that's a different story." He explained that Charlotte's daughter, Pam, had heard that he had a place in Brooklyn but she didn't know where it was. "No other leads."

Dellray bent down. "Where in Brooklyn? Need to know. And now."

Charlotte replied defiantly, "You're pathetic! All of you! You're just lackeys for the bureaucracy in Washington. You're selling out the heart of our country and —"

Dellray leaned forward, right into her face. He clicked his tongue. "Uhuh. No politics, no philosophy... All we want're answers to the questions. We all together on that?"

"Fuck you" was Charlotte's response.

Dellray blew air through his cheeks like a trumpet player. He moaned, "I am no match for this intellect."

Rhyme wished Kathryn Dance was here to interrogate the woman, though he guessed it would take a long time to pry information from her. He eased forward in the wheelchair and said in a whisper, so Pam couldn't hear, "If you help us out I can make sure you see your daughter from time to time when you're in prison. If you don't cooperate, I will guarantee that you never see her again as long as you live."

Charlotte glanced into the hallway, where Pam sat on a chair, defiantly clutching her Harry Potter. The dark-haired girl was pretty, with fragile features, but very slim. She wore faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. The skin around her eyes was dark. She clicked her fingernails together compulsively. The girl seemed needy in a hundred different ways.

Charlotte turned back to Rhyme. "Then I'll never see her again," she said calmly.

Dellray blinked at this, his usually unrevealing face tightening in revulsion.

Rhyme himself could think of nothing more to say to the woman.

It was then that Ron Pulaski came running into the room. He paused to catch his breath.

"What?" Rhyme asked.

It took a moment for him to be able to answer. Finally, he said, "The phones... The Watchmaker..."

"Out with it, Ron."

"Sorry..." A deep breath. "We couldn't trace his mobile but a hotel clerk saw her, Charlotte, making calls around midnight every night over the past four or five days. I called the phone company. I got the number she called. They traced it. It's to a pay phone in Brooklyn. At this intersection." He handed the slip of paper to Sellitto, who relayed it to Bo Haumann and ESU.

"Good job," Sellitto said to Pulaski. He called the deputy inspector of the precinct where the phone was located. Officers would start a canvass of the neighborhood as soon as Mel Cooper emailed pictures of the composite to the DI.

Rhyme supposed that the Watchmaker might not live near the phone — it wouldn't have surprised the criminalist — but a mere thirty minutes later they had a positive identification from a patrol officer, who found several neighbors who recognized the man.

Sellitto took the number and alerted Bo Haumann.

Sachs announced, "I'll call in from the scene."

"Hold on," Rhyme said, glancing at her. "Why don't you sit this one out. Let Bo handle it."

"What?"

"They'll have a full tactical force."

Rhyme was thinking of the superstition that cops on short time were more likely to get killed or injured than others. Rhyme didn't believe in superstitions. That didn't matter. He didn't want her to go.

Amelia Sachs would be thinking the same thing, perhaps; she was debating, it seemed. Then he saw her looking into the hallway at Pam Willoughby. She turned back to the criminalist. Their eyes met. He gave a faint smile and nodded.

She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door.

In a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn a dozen tactical officers moved slowly along the sidewalk, another six creeping through an alley behind a shabby detached house.

This was a neighborhood of modest houses in small yards, presently filled with Christmas decorations. The minuscule size of the lots had no effect on the owners' ability to populate the land with as many Santas, reindeer and elves as possible.

Sachs was walking down the sidewalk slowly at the head of the takedown team. She was on the radio with Rhyme. "We're here," she said softly.

"What's the story?"

"We've cleared the houses on either side and behind. There's nobody opposite." A community vegetable garden was across the street. A ragged scarecrow sat in the middle of the tiny lot. Across his chest was a swirl of graffiti.

"Pretty good site for a takedown. We're — hold on, Rhyme." A light had gone on in one of the front rooms. The cops around her stopped and crouched. She whispered, "He's still here... I'm signing off."

"Go get him, Sachs." She heard an unusual determination in his voice. She knew he was upset that the man had escaped. Saving the people at the HUD building and capturing Charlotte were fine. But Rhyme wasn't happy unless all the perps ended up in cuffs.

But he wasn't as determined as Amelia Sachs. She wanted to give Rhyme the Watchmaker — as a present to mark their last case together.

She changed radio frequencies and said into her stalk mike, "Detective Five Eight Eight Five to ESU One."

Bo Haumann, at a staging area a block away, came on the radio. "Go ahead, K."

"He's here. Just saw a light go on in the front room."

"Roger, B Team, you copy?"

These were the officers behind the bungalow. "B Team leader to ESU One. Roger that. We're — hold on. Okay, he's upstairs now. Just saw the light go on up there. Looks like the back bedroom."

"Don't assume he's alone," Sachs said. "There could be somebody else from Charlotte's outfit with him. Or he might've picked up another partner."

"Roger that, Detective," Haumann said in his gravelly voice. "S and S, what can you tell us?"

The Search and Surveillance teams were just getting into position on the roof of the apartment building behind and in the garden across the street from the Watchmaker's safe house, on which they were training their instruments.

"S and S One to ESU One. All the shades're drawn. Can't get a look at all. We've got heat in the back of the house. But he's not walking around. There's a light on in the attic but we can't see in — no windows, just louvers, K."

"Same here — S and S Two. No visual. Heat upstairs, nothing on the ground floor. Heard a click or two a second ago, K."

"Weapon?"

"Could be. Or maybe just appliances or the furnace, K."

The ESU officer next to Sachs deployed his officers with hand signals. He, Sachs and two others clustered at the front door, another team of four right behind them. One held the battering ram. The other three covered the windows on the ground and the second floors.

"B Team to One. We're in position. Got a ladder next to the lit room in the back, K."

"A Team, in position," another ESU officer radioed in a whisper.

"We're no-knock," Haumann told the teams. "On my count of three, flashbangs into the rooms that have the lights on. Throw 'em hard to get through the shades. On one, simultaneous dynamic entry front and back. B Team, split up, cover the ground floor and basement. A Team, go straight upstairs. Remember, this guy knows how to make IEDs. Look for devices."

"B Team, copy."

"A, copy."

Despite the freezing air Sachs's palms were sweating inside the tight Nomex gloves. She pulled the right one away and blew into it. Did the same with the left. Then she cinched up the body armor and unsnapped the cover of her spare ammo clip carrier. The other officers had machine guns but Sachs never went for that. She preferred the elegance of a single well-placed round to a spray of lead.

Sachs and the three officers on the primary entry team nodded at one another.

Haumann's raspy voice began the count. "Six... five... four... three..."

The sound of breaking glass filled the crisp air as officers flung the grenades through the windows.

Haumann, continuing calmly: "Two... one."

The sharp crack of the flashbangs shook the windows and bursts of white light filled the house momentarily. The burly officer with the battering ram slammed it into the front door. It crashed open without resistance and in a few seconds the officers were spreading out in the sparsely furnished house.

Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, Sachs stayed with her team as they worked their way up the stairs.

She began hearing the voices of the other officers calling in as they cleared the basement and the rooms on the ground floor.

One upstairs bedroom was empty, the second, as well.

Then all the rooms were declared clear.

"Where the hell is he?" Sachs muttered.

"Always an adventure, huh?" somebody asked.

"Invisible fucking perp," came another voice.

Then in her earpiece she heard: "S and S One. Light in the attic just went out. He's up there."

In the small bedroom toward the back they found a trapdoor in the ceiling, a thick string hanging from it. A pull-down stair. An officer shut out the light in this room so it would be harder to target them. They stood back and pointed their guns at the door as Sachs gripped the string and pulled hard. It creaked downward, revealing a folding ladder.

The team leader shouted, "You, in the attic. Come down now... Do you hear me? This is your last chance."

Nothing.

He said, "Flashbang."

An officer pulled one off his belt and nodded.

The team leader put his hand on the ladder but Sachs shook her head. "I'll take him."

"Are you sure you want to?"

Sachs nodded. "Only, let me borrow a helmet."

She took one and strapped it on.

"We're set, Detective."

"Let's do it." Sachs climbed up near the top — then took the flashbang. She pulled the pin and closed her eyes so the flash from the grenade wouldn't blind her and also to acclimate her eyes to the darkness of the attic.

Okay, here we go.

She pitched the grenade into the attic and lowered her head.

Three seconds later it detonated and Sachs, opening her eyes, charged the rest of the way up the ladder into the small area, filled with a haze of smoke and the smell of explosive residue from the flashbang. She rolled away from the opening, clicking on her flashlight and sweeping it in a circle as she moved to a post, the only cover she could find.

Nothing to the right, nothing center, nothing —

It was then that she fell off the face of the earth.

The floor wasn't wood at all, like it seemed, but cardboard over insulating crud. Her right leg crashed through the Sheetrock of the bedroom ceiling, gripping her, immobile. She cried out in pain.

"Detective!" somebody called.

Sachs lifted the light and the gun in the only direction she could see — straight in front of her. The killer wasn't there.

Which meant he was behind her.

It was at that moment that the overhead light clicked on, almost directly above her, making her a perfect target.

She struggled to turn around, awaiting the sharp crack of a gun, the numb slam of the bullet into her head or neck or back.

Sachs thought of her father.

She thought of Lincoln Rhyme.!!!You and me, Sachs...

Then she decided no way was she going out without getting a piece of him. She took the pistol in her teeth and used both hands to wrench herself around and find a target.

She heard boots on the ladder as an ESU officer charged up to help her. Of course, that's what the Watchmaker was waiting for — a chance to kill more of the officers. He was using her as bait to draw other cops to their deaths and hoped to escape in the chaos.

"Look out!" she called, gripping her pistol in her hand. "He's —"

"Where is he?" the A Team leader asked. The man was crouching at the top of the stairs. He hadn't heard her — or hadn't listened — and had sped up the ladder, followed by two other officers. They were scanning the room — including the area behind Sachs.

Her heart pounding furiously, she struggled to look over her shoulder. She asked, "You don't see him? He's gotta be there."

"Zip."

He and another officer bent down, gripped her body armor and pulled her out of the Sheetrock. Crouching, she spun around.

The room was empty.

"How'd he get out?" the ESU officer muttered. "No doors or windows."

Sachs noticed something across the room. She gave a sour laugh. "He was never here at all. Not up here, not downstairs. He probably took off hours ago."

"But the lights. Somebody was turning them on and off."

"Nope. Take a look." She pointed to a small beige box connected to the fusebox. "He wanted to make us think he was still here. Give him a better chance to get away."

"What is it?"

"What else? It's a timer."