Lincoln Rhyme: The Kill Room Part 57

"Yes. Go on."

"Got a call from a friend in Langley. A certain individual who was recently in Mexico."

May-hi-co.

"A certain party," the Wizard repeated. "You remember him?"

"In Reynosa," Metzger said.

"That's the place. Well, guess what? He's vacationing outside Santa Rosa, near Tijuana."

"Is that right?"

"Yes indeed. And apparently he still plans on making some deliveries of his specialty products in the near future. The very near future."

So al-Barani Ras.h.i.+d had moved to the West Coast to hide out.

"He was just spotted with some a.s.sociates but his friends'll be leaving in the morning. And our friend will be all alone in a pleasant little cottage all day tomorrow. And the good news is that the local tourist board is absolutely fine about a visit from us. So, wondering if you could draw up some revised travel plans for our approval. Details are on their way."

A new STO?

But aren't I being fired? he wondered.

"Of course. I'll get right on it. But...?"

"Yes?" the Wizard asked.

Metzger asked, "Those meetings? The budgetary issues?"

A pause. "Oh, the committee moved on to other matters." After a beat the Wizard said sternly, "If there had been issues, I would've mentioned them to you, don't you think?"

"Sure, you would have. Of course."

"Of course."

Click.

FRIDAY, MAY 26.

VIII.

WHEN YOU MOVE...

CHAPTER 99.

THE MORNING OF THE SURGERY.

Rhyme, trailed by Sachs and Thom, wheeled fast down the hospital corridor to the Surgical Procedures waiting room where the patients could visit with their friends and family until they were whisked off for the knife.

"I hate hospitals," Sachs said.

"Really? Why?" Rhyme found himself in quite a good mood. "The staff can be sooo charming, the food sooo good. The latest magazines. And all the miracles of modern medicine," Rhyme proclaimed. "If you'll forgive the alliteration."

Sachs gave a brief laugh.

They'd waited only five minutes when the doctor strode into the room and shook all their hands, carefully noting Rhyme's articulating right arm and digits. "Good," he said. "That is very good."

"I do my best."

The doctor explained what they all knew at this point: that the surgery should take three hours, possibly a little longer. The stay in the recovery room could be expected to last an hour or so. The surgeon would come find them here, though, right after the operation was completed to tell them how it had gone.

Exuding confidence, the man smiled and headed off to gown and scrub.

The pre-op nurse, a pretty African American woman in puppy-decorated scrubs, arrived and introduced herself, smiling broadly. It's a scary thing, to be knocked out and cut open then put back together. Some medicos didn't appreciate the trauma but this woman did and kept everyone at ease. Finally she asked, "Ready?"

Amelia Sachs leaned over and kissed Rhyme on the mouth. She rose and, limping, accompanied the nurse down the hall.

He called, "We'll be in the recovery room when you wake up."

She turned back. "Don't be crazy, Rhyme. Go back home. Solve a case or something."

"We'll be in the recovery room," he repeated, as the door swung shut and she disappeared.

After a moment of silence Rhyme said to Thom, "You don't happen to have one of those miniatures of whiskey, do you? From the flight to Na.s.sau."

He'd insisted the aide smuggle some scotch on board, though he'd learned that in first cla.s.s you get as much liquor as you like-or, more accurately, as much as your caregiver is willing to let you have.

"No, and I wouldn't give you any if I did have some. It's nine in the morning."

Rhyme scowled.

He looked once more at the doors through which Sachs had vanished.

We don't want to lose her; she's too good. But the department can't keep her if she insists on being in the field...

Yes, he'd had a conversation with Sachs, as Bill Myers had insisted.

Though the message was a bit different from what the captain had wanted.

Neither a desk job at the NYPD and early retirement and security consulting were options for Amelia Sachs. There was only one solution to avoid those nightmares. Rhyme had contacted Dr. Vic Barrington and gotten the name of the best surgeon in the city specializing in treating severe arthritis.

The man had said he might be able to help; Rhyme's conversation with Sachs on Sat.u.r.day outside NIOS headquarters was about the possibility of her undergoing a procedure to improve the situation...and keeping her in the field. Not desking her, to use one of Myers's more pernicious verbs.

Because she wasn't afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis-an immune system malady that affects all the joints-but more common osteoarthritis, she was young enough so that a procedure in her hip and knee could give her a dozen years or more of normal life before a joint replacement would be required.

She'd debated and finally agreed.

In the waiting room now, Rhyme was looking around at the ten or so others here, the couples, the solitary men or women, the families. Some motionless, some lost in intense dialogue not quite discernible, some jittery, some engaging in rituals of distraction: stirring coffee, opening crisp wrappers of snack food, studying limp magazines, texting or playing video games on phones.

Rhyme noted that, unlike the streets of New York, not a soul paid him more than a millisecond of uninterested attention. He was in a wheelchair; this was a hospital. Here, he was normal.

Thom asked, "You've told Dr. Barrington you've canceled your surgery?"

"I've told him."

The aide was quiet for a moment. The Times in his hands dipped ever so slightly. For two people joined by circ.u.mstance and profession so inextricably and, in a way, intimately, these two had never been comfortable with discussions personal in nature. Lincoln Rhyme least of all. Yet he was surprised to find himself at ease as he confessed to Thom, "Something happened when I was down in the Bahamas."

His eyes were on a middle-aged couple insincerely rea.s.suring each other. Over the fate of whom? Rhyme wondered. An elderly father? Or a young child?

A world of difference there.

Rhyme continued, "On the spit of land where we thought the sniper nest was."

"When you went for a swim."

The criminalist was silent for a moment, reliving not the horrors of the water but the moments leading up to it. "It was an easy deduction for me to make-that the gold Mercury would show up."

"How?"

"The man in the pickup? Tossing trash into the ditch nearby?"

"The one who turned out to be the ringleader."

"Right. Why did he drive down to the end of the spit to dump the bags? There was a public trash yard a half mile away, just off SW Road. And who talks on their cell while unloading heavy bags? He was telling the other two in the Mercury where we were. Oh, and he was in a gray T-s.h.i.+rt-which you'd told me one of the men in the Mercury was wearing earlier. But I missed them, all the clues. I saw them but I missed them. And you know why?"

The aide shook his head.

"Because I had the gun. The gun Mychal'd given me. I didn't need to think through the situation. I didn't need to use my mind-because I could shoot my way out."

"Except you couldn't."

"Except I couldn't."

A doctor in weary, flecked scrubs emerged and sets of eager eyes dropped onto him like Rhyme's falcon on a pigeon. The man found the family he sought, joined them and delivered what was apparently good news. Rhyme continued to his aide, "I've often wondered if the accident enhanced me somehow. Forced me to think better, more clearly, make sharper deductions. Because I had to. I didn't have any other options."

"And now you think the answer is yes."

A nod. "In the Bahamas, I nearly got you, Mychal and me killed because of that lapse. It's not going to happen again."

The aide said, "So I think you're telling me that you've had the last surgery you're going to have."

"That's right. What was that line from a movie, something you made me watch? I liked it. Though I probably didn't admit it at the time."

"Which one?"

"Some cop film. A long time ago. The hero said something like 'A man's got to know his limitations.'"

"Clint Eastwood." Thom considered this. "It's true but you could also say, 'A man's got to know his strengths.'"

"You're such a G.o.dd.a.m.n optimist." Rhyme lifted his right hand and gazed at his fingers. Lowered the limb. "This is enough."

"It's the only choice you could've made, Lincoln."

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow, querying.

"Otherwise I'd be out of a job. And I'd never find anybody equally difficult to work for."

"I'm glad," Rhyme grumbled, "I've set such a high bar."

Then the subject, and its awkward accoutrements, vanished like snow on a hot car hood. The men fell silent.

Two hours later the door to the operating suites opened and another doctor emerged. Again, all eyes latched onto the green-scrubbed man but this one was Sachs's surgeon and he headed directly toward Rhyme and Thom.

As the others in the room returned to their vending-machine coffee and magazines and text messages, the surgeon looked from Thom to Rhyme. He said, "It went well. She's fine. She's awake. She's asking for you."

The Recipes of Jacob Swann.

Readers wis.h.i.+ng to experience Jacob Swann's skills firsthand-culinary, not homicidal-can find a link to recipes for the dishes mentioned in this book, many of them my own variations on cla.s.sics, at my website: www.jefferydeaver.com.

-J.D.

Acknowledgments.

With thanks to Mitch Hoffman, Jamie Raab, Lindsey Rose, David Young and all my friends at Grand Central Publis.h.i.+ng-and my cast of regulars: Madelyn Warcholik, Deborah Schneider, Cathy Gleason, Julie Deaver, Jane Davis, Will and Tina Anderson. I couldn't do it without you!.

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