The Twelfth Card

onto East 123rd Street, going against traffic, missing a delivery truckby inches. Ahead of her she could see the flashing lights of the ambulances and three squad cars from the local house. Also: a dozen uniforms and a handful of ESU troops, working their way along the sidewalks. They moved cautiously, as if they were soldiers under fire.
    Watch your backs . . . .
    She brought the Chevy to a tire-smoking stop and jumped out, glancing at the nearby alleyways and vacant windows for any sign of the killer and his needle gun. Jogging into the alley, flashing her shield, she could see medics working on Pulaski. He was on his back and they’d cleared an airway—at least he was alive. But there was a lot of blood and his face was hugely swollen. She’d hoped he’d be able to tell them something but he was unconscious.
    It looked like the kid had been surprised by his attacker, who’d lain in wait as he’d walked down the alley. The rookie had been too close to the side of the building. There would’ve been no warning when the man attacked. You always walked down the center of sidewalks and alleys so nobody could jump out and surprise you.
    You didn’t know . . . .
    She wondered if he’d live to learn this lesson.
    “How’s he doing?”
    The medic didn’t look up. “No guess. We’re lucky he’s still with us.” Then to his partner: “Okay, let’s move him out. Now.”
    As they got Pulaski onto a backboard and hustled him toward the ambulance, Sachs cleared everybody away from the scene to preserve whatever evidence might be there. Then she returned to the mouth of the alley and dressed in the white Tyvek suit.
    Just as she zipped it up a sergeant from the local house walked up to her. “You’re Sachs, right?”
    She nodded. “Any sign of the perp?”
    “Nothing. You going to run the scenes?”
    “Yep.”
    “You want to see Detective Bell’s car?”
    “Sure.”
    She started forward.
    “Wait,” the man said. He handed her a face mask.
    “That bad?”
    He pulled his own on. Through the thick rubber she heard his troubled voice say, “Follow me.”

Chapter Twenty-One
    With ESU backing them up, two Bomb Squad Unit cops from the Sixth Precinct were crouched in the backseat of Roland Bell’s Crown Victoria. They weren’t wearing bomb suits but were in full biohazard outfits.
    Wearing the thinner, white suit, Amelia Sachs stood back ten yards.
    “What’ve you got, Sachs?” Rhyme called into the microphone. She jumped. Then turned the volume down. The line from her radio was plugged into the gas mask.
    “I haven’t gotten close yet; they’re still removing the device. It’s cyanide and acid.”
    “Probably the sulfuric we found traces of on the desk,” he said.
    Slowly, the team removed the glass-and-foil device. They sealed up the pieces in special hazardous materials containers.
    Another transmission—from one of the Bomb Squad officers: “Detective Sachs, we’ve rendered it safe. You can run the car, you want. But keep the mask on inside. There’s no gas but the acid fumes could be dangerous.”
    “Right. Thanks.” She started forward.
    Rhyme’s voice crackled again. “Hold on a minute . . . . ” He came back on. “They’re safe, Sachs. They’re at the precinct.”
    “Good.”
    The “they” were the intended victims of the poisonleft in the Crown Victoria, Roland Bell and Geneva Settle. They’d come very close to dying. But, as they’d prepared to rush out of the great-aunt’s apartment to the car, Bell had realized that something about the crime scene of Pulaski’s assault seemed odd. Barbe Lynch had found the rookie holding his weapon. But this unsub was too smart to leave a gun in the hand of a downed cop, even if he was unconscious. No, he’d at least pitch it away, if he didn’t want to take it with him. Bell had concluded that somehow the unsub himself had fired the shot and left the gun behind to make them think that the rookie had fired. The purpose? To draw the officers away from the front of the apartment.
    And why? The answer was obvious: so that they’d leave the cars unguarded.
    The Crown Vic had been unlocked, which meant the unsub might have slipped an explosive device inside. So he’d taken the keys to the locked Chevy that Martinez and Lynch had driven here and used that vehicle to speed Geneva out of danger, warning everyone to stay clear of the unmarked Ford until the Bomb Squad had a chance to go over it. Using fiberoptic cameras they