The Vanished Man

first not to be pumping properly and he was put on a machine, a hose implanted in his chest. Rhyme hated the device, with its mechanical gasping and the odd sensation of not feeling the need to breathe even though he knew he himself wasn’t. (The machine also had the nasty habit of occasionally stopping cold.)
    But then his lungs began working spontaneously and he was freed from the bionic device. The doctors said the improvement was due to his body’s natural post-trauma stabilizing. But Rhyme knew the real answer. He’d done it himself. With willpower. Sucking air into his lungs—meager breaths at first, yes, but his own breaths all the same—was one of the greatest accomplishments of his life. He was now working hard at those exercises that might lead to increased sensation throughout his body and even movement of his limbs; but however successful he was with these he didn’t think his sense of pride would match what he’d felt when he was taken off the ventilator for the first time.
    Tonight, lying in his small guest room, he recalled seeing the clouds of smoke flowing from the cloth and paper and plastic burning all around him in his room. In his panic he thought less about burning to death and more about the terrible smoke working into his lungs like metal splinters and taking away the sole victory he’d won in the war against his disability. It was as if the Conjurer had picked his single most vulnerable spot to attack.
    When Thom, Sellitto and Cooper burst into the room his first thought was not about the fire extinguishersthe two cops held but the green oxygen tank the aide wielded. He’d thought, Save my lungs!
    Before the flames were out Thom had the oxygen mask over his face and he hungrily inhaled the sweet gas. They got him downstairs and both EMS and Rhyme’s own SCI doctor had examined him, cleaning and dressing a few small burns and looking carefully for razor cuts (there were none; nor were any blades found in his pajamas). The spinal cord specialist declared that his lungs were all right, though Thom should rotate him more frequently than normal to keep them clear.
    It was only then that Rhyme began to calm. But he was still very anxious. The killer had done something far more cruel than causing him physical injury. The attack had reminded Rhyme how precarious his life was and how uncertain his future.
    He hated this feeling, this terrible helplessness and vulnerability.
    “Lincoln!” Sachs walked fast into the room, sat on the old Clinitron bed and dropped to his chest, hugged him hard. He lowered his head against her hair. She was crying. He’d seen tears in her eyes perhaps twice since he’d known her.
    “No first names,” he whispered. “Bad luck, remember. And we’ve had enough of that today.”
    “You’re okay?”
    “Yes, I’m fine,” he said in a whisper, stung by the illogical fear that if he spoke louder the particles of smoke would somehow puncture and deflate his lungs. “The birds?” he asked, praying that nothing had happened to the peregrine falcons. He wouldn’t haveminded if they moved to a different building. But it would have devastated him if they’d been injured or killed.
    “Thom said they’re fine. They’re on the other sill.”
    She held him for a moment then Thom appeared in the doorway. “I need to rotate you.”
    The policewoman hugged him once more then stood back as Thom stepped close to the bed.
    “Search the scene,” Rhyme told her. “There’s got to be something that he’s left behind. There was that handkerchief he put around my neck. And he had some razor blades.”
    Sachs said she would and left the room. Thom took over and began expertly to clear his lungs.
    Twenty minutes later Sachs returned. She stripped off the Tyvek suit and carefully folded and replaced it in the crime scene suitcase.
    “Didn’t find much,” she reported. “Got that handkerchief and a couple of footprints. He’s wearing a new pair of Eccos. But I didn’t find any blades. And anything else he might’ve dropped got vaporized. Oh, and there was a bottle of scotch too. But I assume it’s yours.”
    “Yes, it is,” Rhyme whispered. Normally he would’ve made a joke—something about the severity of the punishment for using eighteen-year-old single malt as an arson accelerant. But he couldn’t bring himself to be humorous.
    He knew there wouldn’t be much evidence. Because of the extensive destruction in a fire the clues in most suspicious-origin