Page 105 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“The Hidden will not win!

“Say your prayers and stay prepared!

“My name is Verum, Latin for ‘true.’ That is what my message is. What you do with it is up to you.”

55

One take.

That’s all they had time for.

As Sachs, Rhyme and now a curious Thom waited across the street, Douglass called his stunt driver, Arnie, who had apparently fallen madly in love with the leading lady in the space of a mere ten minutes.

While the cop manned the phone’s camera, Arnie got the van up to about thirty-five or so and careened into the construction waste bins, scattering wood, cardboard, metal scraps and coffee cups and fast-food wrappers everywhere. He parked. Sachs and Douglass walked to the mess and she lay down on the sidewalk. Douglass got some footage of her, apparently unconscious.

A woman’s voice from a window, “Are you all right? You need some help?”

Sachs rose and called up, “No we’re all good, thanks. We’re shooting an independent film.”

The elderly woman said, “You have a permit?”

Douglass said, “It’s on file.”

“I don’t see any crew.”

“That’s why it’s anindependent,” he replied.

“The mayor has a film office. I know. I read about it.”

“That’s who we have the permit from.”

She continued watching for a moment. “You’re going to clean that up, aren’t you?”

“Sure, we will.” Douglass then said to Arnie, “Take care of that.”

The slight man grimaced but got to work.

The woman turned back into her apartment and shut the window.

Douglass looked at the video. “Good job. Maybe you could be a stuntwoman.”

Sachs grunted. Rhyme could tell she felt faintly ridiculous, but he couldn’t fault the undercover cop’s plan. An alternative might have Buryak actually ordering a hit on Sachs or himself.

Rhyme said, “The Murphy case was the best chance we had to get him, and we saw how that turned out. Do you have anything at all on him?”

“Zip. He’s the most careful OC boss I’ve ever investigated. Nothing’s committed to paper or computer or phone. He doesn’t even give direct orders when he’s alone with his crew. He hints, he suggests. He has layers of people insulating him. He assumes everybody’s bugged, even me, and I’ve gotten about as close as anybody can. Metal detectors outside his office. Scramblers, encryption.”

Rhyme said, “Well, his business is selling information and data. If he knows how to mine it, he knows how to keep it from being mined.”

Sachs waved to the trash. “But here—Buryak ordered assault with a deadly weapon. Conspiracy. Even ifyoudidn’t intend it to happen, Buryak did. And you know conspiracy. It’s a wide net.”

It was Rhyme who spoke. “Ah, Sachs, but I’ll bet Buryak didn’t actuallytellDetective Douglass to attack you, did he?”

“Exactly. Didn’t say a single word that can be traced. The worse he said was he wanted a ‘masseur.’”

“Euphemism,” Sachs said, shaking her head.

Rhyme thought for a moment then said to Douglass, “You’re after Buryak … You following the Red Hook drops?”