The Burning Wire

roll-up, K.”
    “Good. We’ll be in the back. Call me when you’re ready for the takedown. We’ll come in from behind.”
    “Roger, out.”
    She then called Rhyme and told him that they might have the perp. They’d go in as soon as ESU was on site.
    “Look out for traps,” Rhyme urged.
    “There’s no power. It’s safe.”
    She disconnected the transmission and glanced at Pulaski. “Ready?”
    He nodded.
    Crouching, she moved quickly toward the back of the school, gripping her weapon tightly and thinking: Okay, Galt. Haven’t got your juice to protect you here. You’ve got a gun, I’ve got a gun. Now, we’re on my turf.

Chapter 59
    AS HE DISCONNECTED from Sachs, Rhyme felt another tickle of sweat. He finally had to resort to calling Thom and asking him to wipe it off. This was perhaps the hardest for Rhyme. Relying on somebody for the big tasks wasn’t so bad: the range-of-motion exercises, bowel and bladder, the sitting-transfer maneuver to get him into the wheelchair or bed. The feeding.
    It was the tiny needs that were the most infuriating . . . and embarrassing. Flicking away an insect, picking fuzz off your slacks.
    Wiping away a rivulet of sweat.
    The aide appeared and easily took care of the problem without a thought.
    “Thank you,” the criminalist said. Thom hesitated at the unexpected show of gratitude.
    Rhyme turned back to the evidence boards, but in fact he wasn’t thinking much of Galt. It was possible that Sachs and the ESU team were about to collar the crazed employee at the school in Chinatown.
    No, what was occupying his overheated mind exclusively was the Watchmaker in Mexico City. Goddamn it, why wasn’t Luna or Kathryn Dance or somebody calling to give him a blow-by-blow description of the takedown?
    Maybe the Watchmaker had already planted the bomb in the office building and was using his own presence as a diversion. The satchel he carried might be filled with bricks. Why exactly was he hanging out in the office park like some goddamn tourist trying tofigure out where to get a margarita? And could it be a different office altogether he was targeting?
    Then Rhyme said, “Mel, I want to see where the takedown’s happening. Google Earth . . . or whatever it’s called. Pull it up for me. Mexico City.”
    “Sure.”
    “Avenue Bosque de Reforma . . . How often do they update the images?”
    “I don’t know. Probably every few months. It’s not real time, though, I don’t imagine.”
    “I don’t care about that.”
    A few minutes later they were looking at a satellite image of the area: a curving road, Avenue Bosque de Reforma, with the office buildings separated by the park where the Watchmaker was sitting at that moment. Across the street was the Jamaican consulate, protected by a series of concrete barriers—the bomb blast shields—and a gate. Rodolfo Luna and his team would be on the other side of those. Behind them were official vehicles parked in front of the embassy itself.
    He gasped as he stared at the barriers. To the left was a blast shield running perpendicular to the road. To the right were six others, parallel to it.
    JAMAICAN
CONSULATE
    | _ _ _ _ _ _

    Avenue Bosque de Reforma

    This was the letter I and the blank spaces from the package delivered to the Watchmaker at Mexico City airport.
    Gold letters . . .
    Little blue booklet . . .
    The mysterious numbers . . .
    “Mel,” he said sharply. The tech’s head snapped up at the urgency. “Is there any passport that has the letters CC on the cover? Issued in blue?”
    A moment later Cooper looked up from the State Department archive. “Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Navy blue with interlocking C ’s at the top. It’s the Caribbean Community passport. There’re about fifteen countries in—”
    “Is Jamaica one?”
    “Yes.”
    He realized too they’d been thinking of the numbers as five hundred seventy and three hundred seventy-nine. In fact, there was another way to refer to them. “Quick. Look up Lexus SUVs. Is there a model with a five seventy or a three seventy-nine in the designation?”
    This was even faster than the passport. “Let’s see . . . Yep, the LX five-seventy. It’s a luxury—”
    “Get me Luna on the phone. Now!” He didn’t want to risk his own dialing, which would have taken some time and might have been inaccurate.
    He felt the sweat again but ignored it.
    “Sí?”
    “Rodolfo! It’s Lincoln Rhyme.”
    “Ah, Captain—”
    “Listen