The Twelfth Card

they’re too weak to pinpoint the source, K.”
    “Sounds, K?”
    “Creaks and moans. Could be the structure settling, utilities, HVAC. Or could be him walking around or shifting in a chair. Assume he’s there but I can’t tell you where. He’s really got the place blacked out, K.”
    “Okay, S and S, keep monitoring. Out.”
    Sachs said into her mike, “Rhyme, you get any of that?”
    “And how could I get it?” came his irritated voice.
    “They think there’s activity in his apartment.”
    “Last thing we need is a firefight,” he muttered. A tactical confrontation was one of the most effective ways to destroy trace and other clues at a crime scene. “We’ve got to secure as much evidence as we can—it could be our only chance to find out who hired him and who his partner is.”
    Haumann looked over the apartment once again. He didn’t seem pleased. And Sachs—who was half tactical officer at heart—could understand why. It would be a difficult take-down, requiring many officers. The unsub had two front, three back and six side windows. Boyd could easily leap through any one of them and try to escape. There was also a building next door, only four feet away—an easyjump from the roof if he made his way to the top. He could also have cover from behind the facade on the crown of the building and could target anyone below. Across the street, facing the killer’s apartment, were other houses. If it came to a fight, a stray bullet could easily injure or kill a bystander. Boyd could also intentionally pepper those buildings with gunfire, hoping to inflict random injuries. Sachs was recalling his practice of targeting innocents solely for diversion. There was no reason to think he’d handle this situation any differently. They’d have to clear all these residences before the assault.
    Haumann radioed, “We just got somebody into the hallway. There’re no cameras like Boyd had on Elizabeth Street. He won’t know we’re coming.” The tactical cop added darkly, though, “Unless he’s got some other way of telling. Which he very well may, knowing this prick.”
    Sachs heard a hiss of breath next to her and turned. Decked out in body armor and absently touching the grip of his service pistol, snug in its holster, Lon Sellitto was examining the apartment. He too looked troubled. But Sachs knew immediately that it wasn’t the difficulty of a residential takedown that was bothering him. She could see how torn he was. As a senior investigating detective, there was no reason for him to be on an entry team—in fact, given his paunchy physique and rudimentary weapons skills, there was every reason for him not to do a kick-in.
    But logic had nothing to do with the real reason for his being here. Seeing his hand rise once more compulsively to his cheek and worry the phantom bloodstain, and knowing that he was reliving the accidental discharge of his weapon yesterday, and Dr. Barry’s being shot to death right in front of him,Sachs understood: This was Lon Sellitto’s knuckle time.
    The expression had come from her father, who’d done plenty of courageous things on the force but had probably been the bravest during his last fight, against the cancer that ended his life, though hardly defeated him. His girl was a cop by then and he’d taken to giving her advice about the job. Once, he’d told her that sometimes she’d find herself in situations where there was nothing to do but stand up to a risk or challenge all by yourself. “I call it ‘knuckle time,’ Amie. Something you’ve got to muscle your way through. The fight might be against a perp, it might be against a partner. It might even be against the whole NYPD.”
    Sometimes, he’d said, the hardest battle was within your own soul.
    Sellitto knew what to do. He had to be the first man through the door.
    But after the incident at the museum yesterday he was paralyzed with fear at the thought.
    Knuckle time . . . Would he stand up or not?
    Haumann now divided his entry officers into three teams and sent several others to the street corners to halt traffic and another one into the shadows beside the building’s front door to intercept anybody who happened to be entering the building—and to be prepared to take down Boyd himself if he happened to wander outside on an errand, unsuspecting. One officer climbed up to the roof. Several more ESU cops secured the apartments next door to Boyd’s—in case he tried to escape the way he’d done