dage on his hip and removed a universal handcuff key from a tiny slit in his skin. Once out of the cuffs he hit the woman guard in the face, the other in the throat and pulled her gun from her holster. A struggle... and finally he'd aimed the gun behind his head and pulled the trigger. At the same time he tapped the firing circuit of the tiny squib taped to a shaved portion of his scalp under his long hair, blowing up a small bladder of fake blood, bits of
gray rubber and fragments of beef bone. To add to the credibility of the act he'd used a razor knife blade-hidden in his hip with the key-to cut his scalp, an area of the body that bleeds profusely but with little pain.
Then he'd lain like a discarded rag doll, breathing as shallowly as he could. His eyes remained open because he'd filled them with viscous eyedrops that produced a milky appearance and allowed him not to blink.
Fuck rrw, look what I did! Oh,fuck! Help him, sorrwbody! Ah, but Officer Welles, it was too late to help me.
I was dead as a roadside deer.
He headed now through winding corridors in the interconnected base
ments of the government buildings here until he came to the supply closet where he'd stashed his new disguise several days ago. Inside the small room he stripped and then hid the wound appliance, his old clothes and shoes behind some boxes. Donning his new outfit and applying some makeup, he was in role in less than ten seconds.
A glance out the door. The corridor was empty. He stepped outside and hurried for the stairway. It was nearly time for the finale.
"It was an out," Kara said. The young woman had been whisked back to Rhyme's town house from
Stuyvesant Manor a few moments ago.
"An out?" the criminalist asked. "What's that?"
"It means an alternative plan. All good illusionists have one or two backups for every routine. If you screw up or the audience catches your moves, you have an escape plan to save the trick. He must've figured there was a chance he'd get caught so he rigged an out to let him get away."
"How'd he do it?"
"Explosive squib behind a blood bladder hidden in his hair. The shot? It
might've been a fake gun," she suggested. "Most catch-the-bullet tricks use fekes, phony guns. They have a second barrel. Or they're real guns, loaded with blanks. He might've switched guns with the officer taking him to his cell."
"I doubt it," Rhyme said, looking at Sellitto.
The rumpled cop agreed. "Yeah, I don't see how he could've switched a service piece. Or unloaded it and reloaded it with funny slugs." Kara said, 'Well, he could've just pretended to shoot himself. Played
with the angle of sight."
"What about the eyes?" Rhyme asked. "The wits said his eyes were open. He never blinked. And they looked glazed."
"There're dozens of dead-man fekes and gimmicks. He might've used eye drops that lubricate the surface. You can keep them open for ten or fifteen minutes. And there're self-lubricating contact lenses too. They have a glazed look, like you're a zombie."
Zombies and fake blood... Christ, what a mess. "How'd he get through
the goddamn metal detector?" "They weren't in the lockdown area yet," Sellitto explained. "That's what
they were on their way to." Rhyme sighed. Then he snapped, "Where the hell's the evidence?" Looking from the door to Mel Cooper, as if the slim technician could make the delivery from the detention center materialize on command. It turned out that there were two crime scenes downtown: one was the corridor where the phony shooting had occurred. The other scene was in the basement of the courthouse-a janitor's closet. One of the search teams had found the fake wound appliance, clothes and some other things hidden in a bag there.
Thom answered the ringing door chime and a moment later Roland Bell hurried into the laboratory. "Can't believe it," he said breathlessly, his hair a sweaty mop on his forehead. "It's confirmed? He's rabbited?"
"Sure has," Rhyme muttered darkly. "ESU's scouring the place. Amelia's
down there too. But they haven't found any leads." Bell drawled, "He might be heading for the hills but I'm thinking it's time
to get Charles and his family into a safehouse until we find out what's what." Sellitto said, "Absolutely."
The detective pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. "Luis? It's Roland. Listen here, Weir's escaped.... No, no, he wasn't dead at all. Faked it. I want Grady and his family in a safehouse till that boy's caught. I'm sending a... What?"
At the sound of this single, shocked word, everyone's attention swiveled to Bell. 'Who's with him?... By himself? What're you telling me?" Rhyme was looking at Bell's face, the dark, cryptic frown in the otherwise comfortingly lackadaisical visage. Once again, as had happened so often on this case, Rhyme had a sense that events that seemed unforeseeable but had in fact been planned a long time ago were beginning to unfold.
Bell turned to Sellitto. "Luis said you called and had the baby-sitting team stand down."
"Called who?"
"Called Crady's house. You told Luis to send everybody but him home." 'Why would I do that?" Sellitto asked. "Fuck, he did it again. Just like sending the guards at the circus home."
Bell said to the team, "It gets worse-Crady's on his way downtown by himself to meet with Constable about some plea bargain deal." Into the phone he said, "Keep the family together, Luis. And call the others on the team. Get 'em back right now. Don't let anybody into the apartment 'less you know 'em. I'll try and find Charles." He hung up and dialed another number. He listened into the receiver for a long moment. "No answer." He left a message: "Charles, this is Roland. Weir's escaped and we don't where he'd be or what he's getting up to. As soon as you hear this, get next to an armed officer you know personally and then call me."
He gave his number and then made another call, to Bo Haumann, head of Emergency Services. He alerted him that Crady was on his way to the detention center, unprotected.
The man with two guns hung up and shook his head. "Missed this one
by a mile." He stared at the evidence charts. "So, what is this boy up to?" "One thing I know," Rhyme said. "He's not leaving town. He's enjoying
this." The only thing in my life, the only thing that's ever meant anything to me is performing. Illusion, magic....
"Thank you, sir. Thank you." The guard hesitated slightly at these gentle words as he ushered the man who'd spoken them-Andrew Constable-into the interview room atop the Tombs in lower Manhattan. The prisoner smiled like a preacher thanking his parishioners for tithes.
The guard uncuffed Constable's hands from behind his back and then recuffed them in front.
"Is Mr. Roth here yet, sir?"
"Siddown, shutup."
"Sure thing." Constable sat.
"Shutup."
Did that too.
The guard left and, alone in the room, the prisoner gazed out the greasy window at the city. He was a country boy through and through but he still appreciated New York. He'd felt stunned and angry beyond words at September ll. If he and the Patriot Assembly had had their way, the incident never would have happened because the people who wished to do harm to the American way of life would have been rooted out and exposed.
Hard questions...
A moment later the heavy metal door opened and the guard let Joseph Roth into the room.
"Hi, Joe. Grady's agreed to negotiate?"
"Yeah. Should be here in about ten minutes, I'd guess. He's going to need something substantive from you, though, Andrew."
"Oh, he'll get it." The man sighed. "And I've found out more since I talked to you last. I'll tell you, Joseph, I'm heartsick about what's happening up in Canton Falls. And it's been going on, right under my nose, for a year or so. That story Grady kept harping on-about killing those troopers? I thought it was nonsense. But, nope, there were some folk actually planning that. "
"You have names?"
Constable said, "You bet I have names. Friends of mine. Good friends.
Used to be, at least. That lunch at the Riverside Inn? Some of them did hire that man Weir to kill Grady. I've got names, dates, places, phone numbers. And there's more coming. There're a lot of Patriots're going to cooperate to the hilt. Don't worry."
"Good," Roth said, looking relieved. "Grady'll be tough to deal with at first. That's his style. But I think things're going to work out."
"Thanks, Joe." Constable sized up his attorney. 'Tm glad I hired you."
"I have to tell you, Andrew, I was little surprised at first, you hiring a lawyer that was Jewish. You know, with what I heard about you."
"But then you got to know me."
"Then I got to know you."
"That reminds me, Joe, I've been meaning to ask. When's Passover?" 'What?"
"That holiday of yours. When is it?"
"About a month ago. Remember that night I left early?"
"Right." He nodded. "What's it mean, 'Passover'?"
'When the firstborn of the Egyptians were killed, God 'passed over' the Jews' houses. He spared their sons." "Oh. I thought it meant like you passed over a border to safety or something. Like the Red Sea."
Roth laughed. "Yeah, that makes sense."
"Anyway. Sony I didn't wish you a happy holiday."
"I appreciate that, Andrew." Then he looked into the man's eyes. "If things work out the way I'm hoping they will, maybe you and your wife could come to our Seder next year. That's a dinner, a celebration. We have about fifteen people. They're not all Jewish. It's a good time."
"You can consider that invitation accepted." The men shook hands. "All the more incentive to get me out of here. So let's get to work. Tell me about the charges again and what you think we can get Grady to agree to. Constable stretched. Felt good to have his hands in front of him and the shackles off his ankles. He felt so good, in fact, that he actually found it amusing to hear his lawyer recite the laundry list of reasons why the people of the state of New York found him unfit for social relations. This monologue was interrupted, though, a moment later when the guard came to the door. He motioned Roth outside.
When he returned the lawyer looked troubled and said, 'We're supposed to sit tight here for a bit. Weir's escaped.
"No! Is Grady safe?"
"I don't know. I assume he's got guards looking out for him.
The prisoner sighed in disgust. "You know who's going to come off the heavy? Me, that's who. I've had it. I'm just sick and tired of this crap. I'm going to find out where Weir is and what he's up to."
"You? How?"
"I'll have everybody I can muster up in Canton Falls track down Jeddy Barnes. Maybe they can convince him to let us know where Weir is and what he's doing."
"Hold on, Andrew," Roth said uneasily. "Nothing illegal up there:' "No. I'll make sure of that.
'Tm sure Grady'll appreciate it.
"Between you and me, Joe, I don't give a rat's ass about Grady. This's for me. Giving 'em Weir and Jeddy's head on a platter-I do that and maybe at last everybody'll believe I'm on the up-and-up. Now let's make some phone calls and get to the bottom of this mess.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Hobbs Wentworth didn't get away from Canton Falls very often.
Dressed like a janitor, wheeling a cart containing push brooms, mops and his "fishing gear" (that is, his Colt AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle), Hobbs Wentworth realized that life in the big city had changed quite a bit in the past twenty years, the last time he'd been here.
And he noted that everything he'd heard about the slow cancer eating away the white race was true.
Lord above our green pastures, look at this: there were more Japanese people or Chinese or something-who could tell?-than in Tokyo. And Hispanics everywhere in this part of New York City, like mosquitoes. And ragheads too, who he didn't see why they weren't simply rounded up and shot because of the Trade Towers. A woman in one of those Moslem outfits, all covered up, was crossing the street. He had a fast urge to kill her because she might know somebody who knew somebody who'd attacked his country.
And Indians and Pakistanis too, who should be sent back home because he couldn't understand what the fuck they were saying, not to mention they weren't Christians.
Hobbs was furious at what the government had done, opening up the borders and letting these animals inside, to gobble up the country and force decent people into little islands of safety-places like Canton Falls-which were getting smaller and smaller every day.
But God had winked at sharp-operator Hobbs Wentworth and given
him the blessed role of freedom fighter. Because Jeddy Barnes and his friends knew that Hobbs had one other talent aside from teaching Bible stories to children. He killed people. And he did it very, very well. Sometimes his fishing gear was a Ka- Bar knife, sometimes a garrote, sometimes the sweet Colt, sometimes the compound bow. His dozen or so missions over the past few years had gone perfectly. A spic in Massachusetts, a leftist politician in Albany, a nigger in Burlington, a baby-killing doc in Pennsylvania.
