"You said-"

"Quiet!" A moment later he nodded. "Pressure's fine." A glance in the direction in which the medic had disappeared. "Not that I didn't trust him but I wanted to see for-"

"What do you mean it isn't that serious, about Mychal?"

"Well, you saw: He got kicked and hit. But nothing too bad."

"He was shot!"

"Shot? No, he wasn't."

"I heard two gunshots."

"Oh, that."

Rhyme snapped, "What do you mean, 'Oh, that'?"

Thom explained, "The guy who kicked you into the water, in the gray shirt? He was shooting at Ron."

"Pulaski? Jesus, he all right?"

"He's fine too."

"What the f.u.c.k happened?" Rhyme blurted.

Thom laughed. "Glad you're feeling better."

"What. Happened?"

"Ron finished up at the South Cove and came over here. You told him that's where we'd be. He drove up in the rental just after you went for your swim. He saw what was going on and drove right toward the one with the gun, really floored it. The guy shot at the car twice but must've figured Ron was the first of the reinforcements and since there was only one way out they jumped in the Mercury and the pickup and beat it."

"Mychal's all right?"

"That's what I said."

The relief was immeasurable. Rhyme said nothing for a moment as his eyes took in the choppy water nearby, an arc of spray in the sunlight, low to the west. "The wheelchair?"

Thom shook his head. "That's not so all right."

"p.r.i.c.ks," Rhyme muttered. He had no sentimental feelings about hardware, either professional or personal. But he'd grown quite attached to the Storm Arrow as a practical matter because it was such a fine piece of machinery and he'd worked hard to master it. Operating a wheelchair is a true skill. He was furious at the thugs.

The aide continued, "I'm borrowing one of theirs." A glance at the medical team. "Non-motorized. Well, motorized by yours truly."

Another figure appeared.

"Well, the rookie saves the day."

"You don't look too bad," Pulaski said. "Damp. I don't think I've ever seen you damp, Lincoln."

"What'd you find at the inn?"

"Not much else. The maid confirmed pretty much what Corporal Poitier told us. A tough-looking American was asking about Moreno and suite twelve hundred. He said he was a friend and was thinking of throwing a party for him. Wanted to know who was with him, what his schedule was, who was his friend-I a.s.sume that was his guard."

"Party," Rhyme grunted and looked around the ambulance. The medic returned with burly a.s.sistants, one of whom was pushing a battered wheelchair. Rhyme asked, "You have any brandy or anything?"

"Brandy?"

"Medicinal brandy."

"Medicinal brandy?" The man's large face drew into a frown. "Let me think. I suppose doctors down here do administer that some-being a third-world island, of course. I'm afraid I missed that course when I got my emergency health services degree at the University of Maryland."

Touche.

But the doctor was clearly amused, not offended, and gestured to the a.s.sistants, who got Rhyme into the battered chair. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in one that didn't have a battery and motor, and he didn't like the sensation of helplessness. It took him back to the days just after the accident.

"I want to see Mychal," he said. Instinctively he reached for the chair's controller before recalling it wasn't there. He didn't bother to go for the handgrip on the wheel to propel himself forward. If he couldn't pull the f.u.c.king trigger of a gun he wasn't going to be able to move his own deadweight over broken asphalt and sand with one hand.

Thom wheeled him the thirty feet to where Poitier sat on a creosote-soaked eight-by-eight beam, beside the two RBPF officers who'd responded to the emergency call.

Poitier rose. "Ah, Captain. I heard you were safe. Good, good. You look none the worse for wear."

"Damp," Pulaski repeated. Drawing a smile from Thom and scowl from Rhyme.

"And you?"

"Fine. Little groggy. They gave me some pain medicine. My first fight in five years on the force and I didn't do very well. Blindsided. I was blindsided."

"Did anyone see tag numbers?" Rhyme asked.

"There were none, no number plates. And it won't do any good to look up gold-and-black Mercurys or white pickup trucks. I'm sure they were stolen. I will look at mug shots back in the station but that will be useless too. Still we have to go through the motions."

Suddenly a plume of dust rose from the direction of the SW Road. A car, no, two cars were moving in fast.

The RBPF officers who were standing nearby stiffened uneasily.

Not because these cars represented a physical threat. Rhyme could see that the unmarked Ford sported red grille lights, which flashed dramatically. He wasn't surprised that the man in the backseat was a.s.sistant Commissioner McPherson. A second car, a marked RBPF cruiser, was behind.

They both skidded to a stop near the ambulance and McPherson climbed angrily from the car, slammed the door.

Storming toward Poitier, he said, "What has happened here?"

Rhyme explained, shouldering the blame.

The a.s.sistant commissioner glared at him then turned and raged in a low growl at his corporal, "I will not have this insubordination. You should have told me."

Rhyme expected the young man would roll over. But he stared into his boss's eyes.

"Sir, with all respect. I was given the Moreno homicide to handle."

"It was your case to handle according to proper procedures. And that doesn't include bringing an interloper into the field with you."

"This was a lead. The sniper was here. I should have searched last week."

"We have to see what the-"

Poitier interjected, "Venezuelan authorities have to say."

"Do not interrupt me again, Corporal. And do not take that att.i.tude with me."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

Rhyme said, "This is an important case, Commissioner, with implications for both our countries."

"And you, Captain Rhyme, you. Do you understand you nearly got a policeman on my force killed?"

The criminalist fell silent.

His voice flinty he added, "And yourself too. We don't need any more dead Americans in the Bahamas. We've had our share." A cool glance to his side. "You're suspended, Corporal. There will be an inquiry that may result in your termination. At the very least, you'll be rea.s.signed back to Traffic."

Dismay flooded Poitier's face. "But-"

"And you, Captain Rhyme, you are leaving the Bahamas immediately. My officers here will escort you to the airport, along with your a.s.sociates. Your belongings will be collected from your motel and given to you there. We have already called the airline. You have seats on a flight that leaves in two hours. You'll be in custody until then. And you, Corporal, you will surrender your weapon and your identification at headquarters."

"Yes, sir."

But suddenly Ron Pulaski strode forward and confronted the a.s.sistant commissioner, who was easily twice his weight and several inches taller. "No," the young patrolman said.

"I beg your pardon?"

The young officer said firmly, "We're going to spend the night at our motel. Leave in the morning."

"What?" McPherson blinked.

"We are not leaving tonight."

"That's not acceptable, Officer Pulaski."

"Lincoln nearly died. He's not getting on an airplane until he's had some rest."

"You've committed crimes-"

Pulaski unholstered his phone. "Should we call the emba.s.sy and discuss the matter with them? Of course, I'd have to mention what we're doing down here, the specific crime we're investigating."

Silence, except for the clang of the mysterious machinery in the factory behind them and the lapping of the shimmering waves.

The bra.s.s glowered. "All right," McPherson muttered. "But you take the first flight in the morning. You'll be escorted to your motel and confined to your room until then."

Rhyme said, "Thank you, Commissioner. I appreciate it. I apologize for any difficulties I've caused your force. Good luck with this case. And with the murder investigation of the American student." He looked at Poitier. "And again, I'm sorry to you too, Corporal."

Five minutes later Rhyme, Thom and Pulaski were in the Ford van, leaving the spit, with a police escort behind them to make sure they arrived-and stayed put-at their motel. The two large officers in the squad car were unsmiling and wary. Rhyme in fact didn't mind their presence; after all, the trio from the gold Mercury was still at large.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n good job, rookie."

"Better than competent?"

"You exceeded competence."

The young officer laughed. "I had a hunch you needed to buy some time."

"That's exactly right. I liked the emba.s.sy part, by the way."

"Improvising. So what do we do next?"

"We let the bread bake," Rhyme said cryptically. "And see if we can't rustle up some of this Bahamian rum I've been hearing about."

CHAPTER 44.

INTO THE PARLOR OF THE TOWN HOUSE, the laboratory, Amelia Sachs carted a milk crate containing the evidence from the Lydia Foster crime scene.

"Did Lincoln call?" she asked Mel Cooper, who eyed the crate with interest.

"Nope, not a word."

Cooper, the expert lab man, was now officially on board, thanks to a call by Lon Sellitto and Captain Myers, to arrange for his rea.s.signment to the Rhyme Precinct. Cooper, an NYPD detective, was balding and diminutive and wore thick Harry Potter gla.s.ses that never seemed to remain exactly perched where they should be. You would think his off-hours life would be filled with math puzzles and Scientific American but his leisure time was largely taken with ballroom dancing compet.i.tions, with his stunningly gorgeous Scandinavian girlfriend, a mathematics professor at Columbia University.

Nance Laurel was at her desk. The woman glanced blankly at the physical evidence, then back to the policewoman, and Sachs didn't know if this was a greeting or a symptom of one of the pauses before she spoke.

Sachs offered grimly, "I got it wrong. There're two perps." She explained about her erroneous a.s.sumption. "I was following the sniper. The man who killed Lydia Foster's somebody else."

"Who do you think?" Cooper asked.

"Bruns's backup."

"Or a specialist hired by Metzger to clean up," Laurel said. It seemed to Sachs that her voice brightened at this. Good news for the case, good news for the jury-that their primary suspect would order one of his officers to do something so heartless. Not a word of sympathy for the victim, not a frown of concern.

Sachs truly hated the woman at this moment.

She continued, pointedly speaking only to Mel Cooper, "Lon's agreed to keep it a motive-unknown case for the time being-like the IED at the Java Hut's still officially a gas main explosion. I thought it was better not to let Metzger know how the investigation's going."

Laurel was nodding. "Good."

Sachs stared at the whiteboards then began to revise them in light of what they'd learned. "Let's give Lydia Foster's killer the t.i.tle Unsub Five Sixteen. After today's date."