The Broken Window

happily with my two-dimensional family and my treasures here in the Closet.
    My soldiers, the data, are about to march into battle. I’m like Hitler in his Berlin bunker, ordering his Waffen-SS troops to meet the invaders. Data are invincible.
    I see now that it’s nearly 11:00 P.M. Time for the news. I need to see what They know about the death at the cemetery and what They don’t. On goes the TV.
    The station has “gone live” to City Hall. Now the deputy mayor, Ron Scott, a distinguished-looking man, is explaining that the police have put together a task force to investigate a recent murder and rape, and a murder this evening in a Queens cemetery, which seems related to the earlier crime.
    Scott introduces an NYPD inspector, Joseph Malloy, who “will discuss the case more specifically.”
    Though he doesn’t, not really. He shows a composite of the perpetrator that resembles me only in the way it resembles about 200,000 other men in the city.
    White or light-skinned? Oh, please.
    He tells people to be cautious. “We think the perpetrator has used techniques of identity theft to get close to his victims. Lower their defenses.”
    Be wary, he goes on to say, of anyone you don’t know but who has knowledge of your purchases, bank accounts, vacation plans, traffic violations. “Even little things you wouldn’t normally pay attention to.”
    In fact, the city has just flown in an expert in information management and security from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Carlton Soames will spend the next few days assisting the investigators and advising them on the issue of identity theft, which they believe is the best way to find the perpetrator.
    Soames looks like a typical ruffled-haired small-town Midwest boy gone smart. An awkward grin. Suit a little off center, glasses a bit smudged, the asymmetrical glare tells me. And how much wear would that wedding ring show? Plenty, I’ll bet. He looks like the sort who married early.
    He doesn’t say anything but gazes out like a nervous animal at the press and the camera. Captain Malloy continues, “In an age when identity theft is increasing, and the consequences are increasingly grave—”
    The pun, obviously unintentional, is unfortunate.
    “—we take seriously our responsibility to protect the citizens of this city.”
    The reporters jump into the fray, pelting the deputy mayor, captain and unsettled professor with questions a third-grader could have come up with. Malloy generally demurs. The word “ongoing” is his shield.
    Deputy Mayor Ron Scott reassures the public that the city is safe and everything is being done to protect them. The press conference ends abruptly.
    We go back to the regular news, if you can call it that. Tainted veggies in Texas, a woman on a hood of a truck caught in a Missouri flood. The President has a cold.
    I shut off the set and sit in my dim Closet, wondering how best to process this new transaction.
    An idea occurs to me. It’s so obvious, though, that I’m skeptical. But, surprise, it takes only three phone calls—to hotels close to One Police Plaza—to find the one where Dr. Carlton Soames is registered.

IV
    AMELIA 7303

    TUESDAY, MAY 24
    There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
    —G EORGE O RWELL , 1984

Chapter Thirty-three
    Amelia Sachs arrived early.
    But Lincoln Rhyme had been awake earlier, unable to sleep soundly because of the plans unfolding presently, both here and in England. He’d had dreams about his cousin Arthur and his uncle Henry.
    Sachs joined him in the exercise room, where Thom was getting Rhyme back into the TDX wheelchair after he’d done five miles on the Electrologic stationary bicycle, part of his regular exercise scheme to improve his condition and to keep his muscles toned for the day when they might once again begin to replace the mechanical systems that now ran his life. Sachs took over, while the aide went downstairs to fix breakfast. It was a hallmark of their relationship that Rhyme had long ago lost any qualms about her helping him with his morning routine, which many people would find unpleasant.
    Sachs had spent the night at her place in Brooklyn, so now he updated her on the 522 situation. But she was distracted, he could see. When he asked why, she exhaled slowly and