The Watchmaker’s Hand

The NYPD’s Computer Crimes operation had called. They’d been notified that a computer found at a crime scene needed to be cracked. The division itself didn’t have supercomputers to break passwords, but used an outside service that could. Sachs — who appeared better this morning — agreed to meet the Computer Crimes detective there with Gilligan’s laptop.

With some luck, Rhyme thought acerbically, they might find information on it that could lead them to the Watchmaker’s safe house or reveal the next target.

After she’d left, the computer in one hand, the green tank in another, Rhyme happened to be looking at a nearby monitor. The news was on, a local station. Thom had, irritatingly, left the unit running when he’d brought breakfast into the lab. Rhyme rolled forward for the remote to shut it off. But then he happened to focus on the present story.

Eyes sweeping from the TV to the map of the city, defaced with the red marks indicating the cranes.

“Thom! Thom!”

The aide appeared, eyebrow raised. “You sound... I don’t know. Alarmed.”

“Hardly. I should sound urgent. There’s a difference.”

“Well, what’s so urgent, then?”

“Your new mission.” Eyes still on the map, he said, “You get to help solve the case — and, even better, you get to do it just like I do. Sitting on your ass.”

“Investors this morning are moving out of the mortgage market and into equities and corporate bonds following the attack yesterday by domestic terrorists on a crane on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, with threats of more to come unless demands for affordable housing are met.

“The jobsite where the first attack occurred is where Evans Development is constructing a luxury high-rise that will ultimately soar eighty-five stories into the air. With the three lower floors devoted to retail and commercial, the rest of the building, designed by Japanese architect Niso Hamashura will contain 984 co-op units ranging in size from eighteen hundred square feet to thirteen thousand.

“Developers in the city have suspended construction while the police and federal authorities hunt for the terrorists. Reggie Novak, president of the Tri-State Developers’ Association, has warned that member companies might face bankruptcy if the stoppage continues for more than a few days. Stocks are trading lower this morning.”

34

Not the nerd Sachs had expected.

Walking toward her in front of Emery Digital Solutions’ downtown headquarters, on cobblestoned Marquis Street, Arnold Levine nodded. He wore polished shoes, a pale blue shirt, a navy tie and a navy-blue suit. The only clash in his couture was that the gold badge holder was brown and the belt it was hung on was black. Hardly a sin.

Didn’t computer guys wear hoodies and sweats?

Levine was a supervisor in the NYPD Computer Crimes Unit, one of the country’s premier agencies battling cyberterrorism, child exploitation and fraud.

No, nothing nerdish about him at all.

Until he started to talk.

Shaking her hand enthusiastically, he rambled, “I lobbied One PP for a supercomputer. I could find a reasonable one: an HPE Cray SC 250kW NA with a liquid-cooled cabinet. A bargain — two hundred and thirty-five K. They said no. So we have to farm out the work.” A nod at the building. “If anybody can do it, it’s them.”

She inhaled, smelling the exhausty, damp-pavement scent of mornings in Manhattan. The breath controlled the impending coughing spell, but the sting was still there. She thought about the green tank in the car, but decided to leave it there. It somehow represented a sign of weakness.

They walked past security vehicles — a police unit and an unmarked sedan with U.S. government plates, both parked with a good view of the building. Then, inside, they were met by two more guards, large men, armed, who looked at their IDs closely and then regarded a computer for their names. They were nodded through a magnetometer and then emerged, collecting their metal on the other side.

“Wait here,” said one of the guards. “Mr. Emery’ll be right out.”