The Watchmaker’s Hand

The choreography of the interview, carefully worked out by Rhyme and Sachs ahead of time, had had the desired effect. The trap snapped shut.

It was not public knowledge how the emails got into Cody’s account. There’d been no press report about Woman X’s induction hacking device or Emery Digital.

Their eyes met. She said, “I want my lawyer.”

Sachs rose and, tucking the notebook into the same rear pocket that contained her switchblade, said, “You’ll get that chance. Downtown.”

Leppert turned back to Rhyme. In a whisper: “How? How did you find out?”

“Oh, I had an informer.”

“Who?” Leppert asked bitterly.

But Lincoln Ryme did not answer.

Now, the day after Leppert’s arrest, it was at last time for Thom’s dinner.

The scent was arresting.

Rhyme detected mild fish, mushrooms more pungent than generic fungi, garlic, dry white wine. Vermouth, he decided. Fresh bread too.

Sachs was setting the table, and Lincoln Rhyme was once again in the hallway where Charles Hale had died.

An old Glenmorangie whisky was in hand.

He was thinking of the other day, his exchange with Thom, after he’d been in the hallway — parked on the spot where the Watchmaker had died.

“Who’s here?”

“How’s that?”

“I heard you talking to someone.”

“Hardly...”

Ah, but that was not exactly the truth.

He recalled now his comment to Marie Leppert: that it was an informer that led to her.

And it was.

Charles Vespasian Hale himself.

Though more accurately: his ghost.

That was whom Rhyme had been talking to here in the hallway.

Charles, if anyone were to ask, I will deny to the hilt that I’m speaking with a person no longer of this earth. But I have to say that something is troubling me. You dismissed my comment that I was skeptical that you did this for yourself, claiming that, no, you had no client.

You pitched a good case for your self-interest — tweaking the NTP servers and collecting enough money to give yourself an unlimited bankroll for your life in Venezuela or wherever you would make your own personal Leisure World.

But on reflection I now believe I was right. A timepiece exists for a purpose: it serves its owner. For you, the same.

You are, if you’ll forgive me, on the clock for someone.

But for whom?

Let’s run through it all: I tip to the fact that the assassination plot’s fake and your whole point is to plant the infamous device underneath Emery Digital. I confront you with it. And what do you do? Why, you improvise, of course, and spin the tale of hacking the network time protocols. But, when you look at it, wasn’t that an awful lot of work just to make some money? Don’t you have Romanian or Chinese connections happy to crack into a hedge fund or bank directly? A weekend’s work, and suddenly you’re a hundred million richer.

So take NTP out of the equation. You obviously breached Emery for a purpose. What was it?

Could Woman X’s device possibly be used to doctor someone’s email account? Maybe someone whose messages have made the news in a big way lately — because they spoke favorably about that most horrific of crimes: presidential assassination.

Representative Stephen Cody’s?

A man whom my expert interrogator, Lyle Spencer, had vetted and to whom he’d given a clean bill of health.