The Watchmaker’s Hand

He was in the front seat of his SUV, which was parked in the shadow of a gloomy tenement that was only five stories high, but with its dark façade seemed much taller.

In front of him, the blue-and-white police car, which had been parked curbside, hit the light bar and strobed out of view silently. An unmarked black sedan too, U.S. government plates.

When they were gone, and he was sure there were no others in the vicinity, he eased the SUV forward and parked just past a manhole in the middle of the street. He hit the yellow flashing light on the dash and climbed out. He was in a Department of Public Works jumper, an orange safety vest and a hard hat, this one off-white.

With a hook he pulled the manhole cover off and muscled Simone’s phony bread maker out through the back of the vehicle and onto the ground. He removed it from the carton. He tugged a length of cable from the winch mounted in the back of the SUV, hooked on the device and eased it into the passage below the street. Next, he lowered a hand truck and finally his backpack.

Down the rungs permanently cemented into the concrete wall. They were slick so he moved carefully. On the floor he slung the backpack over his shoulder and, with some effort, scooped up the device with the lip of the cart and began a short journey into the dim tunnel, the way illuminated by an LED lamp mounted on his hard hat. He moved surely along the route, which he’d memorized from the charts that Andy Gilligan had stolen. When he was near his destination, he needed more precise guidance and so he examined the geo-positioning locator on his phone and continued another ten feet until he was precisely where he needed to be.

From the backpack Hale took a pulley and affixed it to an overhead water pipe. He then hooked a length of nylon rope to the “bread-making” device and pulled it upward as high as it would go. He locked the pulley and tied the end of the rope to a pipe at floor level. He reached up and opened the small door on the bottom and pressed the Armed button and a small dot of light went from green to red.

He paused.

He believed he sensed a very unmechanical scent coming from the base of the device. Was it floral? Yes.

And with that understanding, he realized why it was familiar.

He’d smelled it last night. In bed.

Then he climbed to the street and looked around. No one. Echoes of sirens glanced off the half-dozen buildings here and elsewhere, coming from a hundred directions at once in this architecturally complex city.

The traffic cones went into the back of the SUV, and moments later, the yellow light extinguished, he was cruising along the cobblestoned streets.

One stop to make, and then: his final mission.

62

“It’s clear.”

Lon Sellitto was looking over the screen of the computer attached to the security device, which he’d announced was just like those “newfangled TSA ones” at the airport.

Rhyme took his word for it, not having flown in years.

No, no explosives, no radiation.

They were looking at a wrapped brown paper package, addressed to Rhyme, no return label. It had been dropped off moments ago. The courier had left it, rung the bell and continued down the street.

Rhyme asked, “X-ray?”

Sellitto examined the device’s screen. “Some rectangular thing. And an envelope.” His phone whirred and he glanced at the screen. “It’s the uniform I sent after the delivery guy.” He answered and spoke into the unit: “What’d you find? You’re on speaker.”

“Sure, Detective. He works for Same-Day, a commercial delivery service. Local. It’s legit. I know it. My brother-in-law—”

“Yeah, okay. What’s the story?”

“He was at Starbucks, Fifty-Seventh Street. This guy comes up with a package, that package you got, and he says he’s in a bind. He was on his way to drop it off, but he just got a call, some injury in the family, and he’s got to get to Jersey like now.”

Rhyme called, “Okay, he spun a story, offered the kid money and he took it — more cash than he told you, of course.”

“Two hundred.”

“More likely five. What’d the guy look like?”

“White, fifties, medium build. Jogging outfit. Cap. Sunglasses. Clean-shaven.”

“He have anything else with him?”

“Backpack. Also black. He gave the messenger the box and the money and left. The kid took the train uptown and dropped it off at Captain Rhyme’s. Oh, the guy said something else. Just leave it and ring the bell. The person who lives there doesn’t like strangers.”

Rhyme gave a laugh.

After Sellitto disconnected the call, Rhyme said to him, “The box. Open it, but in there.” He indicated the biotox examination chamber. “No poison darts, from the X-ray, but that doesn’t mean there’s no poison. Remember our botulinum theory — Watchmaker’s wanting to sneak some inside. Highly unlikely, but let’s be safe.”

Sellitto was looking over the unit, about two feet tall. Plexiglas, triple seals and negative pressure, feeding into a closed filtration system. There were thick neoprene gloves built into the side. “I don’t know how the damn thing works.”