Sachs inhaled. Squeezed her eyes shut. How bad would the pain be?
Then the Russian stiffened. His grip relaxed. He seemed to be looking up. He began to stand, the knife rising from her finger. He gasped.
The air pressure from the gunshot, painfully close, slapped her body. The Russian dropped immediately, falling backward onto her legs.
Then the man was being hauled off her and she was rolling onto her back, looking up into the horrified face of Edward Ackroyd. He stared at his own hand, holding a Glock. Not hers. He dropped the gun on the desk as if it were red-hot and lifted her away from the Russian’s body.
His lips were moving. She wondered for a moment why he’d lost his voice. Then realized that she had been temporarily deafened by the shot.
He was, she guessed, asking if she was all right.
So this was the question she answered, with “Yes, yes, okay.”
Though his hearing too was useless and he responded, manically, with words that seemed to be, “What, what, what?”
Chapter 56
Outside the jewelry store, in the shadows of buildings erected two centuries past, Sachs sat on the ledge of the ambulance. She’d refused a gurney.
The medical tech announced that there was no serious harm; she had suffered no broken ribs—from the Russian’s knee or his shoe—but there would be contusions. A slight cut from the knife resided at the base of the fourth metacarpal of her left hand—the ring finger—where the amputation had been about to commence. A bit of Betadine and a bandage were the only fixes needed.
Edward Ackroyd stood beside her, subdued. His faint smile was back but was understandably hollow. Which also described his hazel eyes. He explained that he’d decided to come to the dealer’s to meet with her and Abraham Blaustein to see if he could help. He peered in and couldn’t see anyone so he’d entered. Then to his shock he’d seen a man straddling her and bending forward with a razor knife. He had noted too a pistol in the pocket of a black jacket on the counter—the Russian’s; he’d taken it off to dress in Blaustein’s garment.
When the man saw him and rose, lifting the knife, he pulled the trigger.
“I didn’t think. I just shot. That’s all. I just…All those years on the Metropolitan Police. Never fired a gun. Never carried a gun.” His shoulders were slumped. Manically, he flicked a forefinger against a thumb.
“It’s okay,” she said.
Though she knew it wasn’t. The first one stayed with you. Forever. However necessary, however instinctive, that first fatal shot was etched indelibly into your mind and heart and soul.
Several times Ackroyd had asked the medical crew and the responding officers if the Russian was in fact dead, clearly hoping he’d just wounded the man. One look at the result of the hollow-point slug, though, left no doubt.
Sachs said, “Edward, thank you.” An inadequate expression, of course. But what possibly would suffice?
Sachs was, however, of mixed feelings about the incident. Her digits were intact, her life was spared. But not only had Unsub 47 died but so had the easiest—and perhaps only—chance to find out where the last gas bomb devices had been planted. As the medical examiner tour doctor was finishing the preliminary examination, Sachs dressed in CSU overalls and bent to the corpse to see what, in death, it might tell her.
*
“Know this is a hassle, sir. But, between you and I, I wouldn’t worry about it overly.”
Andrew Krueger nodded and tried to bring a bit of uncertain concern to the equation. “I…just don’t know what to say.”
The detective was a large African American, driving his unmarked police car to a precinct house that he had assured Krueger was not too far away. Krueger was in the front seat of the Chrysler. He wasn’t under arrest. The detective himself had made the determination that the shooting was justified and he would “go to bat for you, Mr. Ackroyd.”
Still, there were formalities. He would have to make a statement, there’d be an investigation, and all the findings would go to an assistant district attorney, who would make the final determination about his fate.
“One chance in a million it’ll become a case. I’d bet my pension not. No ADA’s going to screw up his reputation by bringing a charge on this one. Besides, you’ve got a ringer.”
“A what?”
“Oh, means like a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Krueger still didn’t get it. “Sorry?”
“Don’t you have Monopoly in England?”
“Unfair business arrangements?”
The detective seemed amused. “Never mind. Just that Amelia—Detective Sachs—you saving her hide? She’s a big deal in the department. That’ll count for more than beans.”
They drove in silence for a time.
He continued, “Happened to me. I’ve done it. Once. Twenty-four years on the force I never fired my weapon. Then, just eighteen months ago…” His voice faded away. “Domestic call. The guy was nuts, you know, off his meds. He was going to shoot his mother, and my partner and me were talking him down. But then he swung the weapon on Jerry. No choice.” A pause for the length of one block. “It wasn’t loaded. His weapon. But…well, you’ll get over it. I did.”
Or not.
“Thanks for that,” Krueger said with as much sincerity as he could dredge up. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be the same.”
This, from a man who had murdered at least thirteen people—though only three with firearms.
He was recalling Rostov’s expression when he’d seen the gun pointed at his head. Shock, then an instant of understanding, knowing that he’d been set up. Krueger had fired fast, before the Russian could call out his name and tip Sachs off that they knew each other. Aiming right at the temple.
Vladimir Rostov’s death had been inevitable.
And planned out for some time. Krueger had decided to kill him as soon as he’d figured out that the Russian had hacked his phone and was in New York, playing the role of the “Promisor.” He’d known by then that Rhyme and Amelia were brilliant and he needed to give them both a mastermind—the fanatical Ezekiel Shapiro—and his hired-gun eco-terrorist, Vladimir Rostov.
Krueger’s strategy was to walk into Blaustein’s and kill Rostov with Krueger’s own unregistered Glock—the one that he’d used to shoot at Vimal and to kill Saul Weintraub. In the confusion after the shooting at Blaustein’s, he’d planted 9mm rounds in Rostov’s jacket to better link the man to the shootings at Patel’s and Weintraub’s. Krueger had also pocketed Rostov’s mobile and the keys to his motel and the Toyota.
The minute Krueger’s interview with the police was done, which he didn’t think would take very long, he would hurry to Rostov’s room, scrub it of evidence, then ditch the Russian’s burner phones, computer and car.
The police car now arrived at the precinct house and Krueger climbed out. The detective directed him toward the front door.
“This way, Mr. Ackroyd. Now, just to let you know. You’re not being arrested. No fingerprinting or pictures. Any of that. It’ll just be an interview is all.”
“Thanks, Officer. I truly appreciate your words of reassurance. What happened, well, it was pretty upsetting.” He thought about wiping faux tears from his eyes but decided that would be out of character.
Chapter 57
Amelia Sachs returned to Rhyme’s town house with several things.
The first was a collection of evidence from Vladimir Rostov’s hotel in Brighton Beach and the dealer’s store where she’d nearly lost a finger to the crazy Russian’s knife.
The second was a New York state mining inspector.
Rhyme glanced toward the man they’d spoken to before, Don McEllis, without much interest and reseated his gaze on the evidence cartons that Sachs was carting in. She noticed the direction of his eyes and said, “Not going to be easy, Rhyme.”
Referring to their urgent mission: finding out where the next gas bombs had been set.