Page 37 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“No.”

“That was it. He left the room. After that, we powered down the bugs. They sweep occasionally and we couldn’t afford for them to be found.”

“Thank you, Willem.”

“You need anything more, sir, let me know.”

They disconnected.

He rose and walked into the huge Mediterranean-style kitchen, the cats following like dolphins beside a cruise ship. His wife was not home to make him tea, so he boiled water and made a fresh pot himself. He took it and a porcelain cup back to his office.

So. The Chemist would continue to be a problem. This wasn’t a surprise to Viktor Buryak. He’d seen in the man’s eyes humiliation and the pain of defeat when the clever lawyer, Coughlin, cut him to pieces on the stand. And the man couldn’t get him for Murphy’s death again; double jeopardy guaranteed that. So he would come after him some other way.

Would he go so far as toplantevidence against him, set him up for another crime, even another homicide he didn’t commit?

This didn’t seem far-fetched.

He now took a sip of the delightfully hot tea and sent an encrypted message to Aaron Douglass. If anyone could make a problem like Lincoln Rhyme, aka the Chemist, go away, he was the man to do it.

MASTER KEY

[MAY 27, 4 A.M.]

20

Intent.

That’s the main thing—the “key,” you might say—that defines the crime of possessing lock-picking tools. In New York, the law is clear:

Possession of burglar’s tools. A person is guilty of possession of burglar’s tools when he possesses any tool, instrument or other article adapted, designed or commonly used for committing or facilitating offenses involving forcible entry into premises, or offenses involving larceny by a physical taking, or offenses involving theft of services … under circumstances evincing an intent to use … the same in the commission of an offense of such character.

Nearly all states have laws like New York’s. You can buy whatever you need to pick locks, provided you do not plan to use them in furtherance of a crime. It’s the prosecutor’s job to prove that and it’s a task that can be difficult.

If for some reason an officer of the law were to have stopped me as I was walking down the street toward Carrie Noelle’s apartment and poked through my backpack, noting the tools, I would simply hand him the business card that readsDay & Night Locksmith Services, which is a complete fake, by the way. He might be suspicious and call the number. An answering service would pick up, taking the sting out of the suspicion. And he’d be thinking: Hard to prove intent, so the DA won’t be interested.

He’d let me go. He might be curious about—and troubled by—my locking-blade brass knife but, then again, I follow the law and keep it concealed, a must in New York. And its length of inches is permissible in the city (it’s also a length that’s not a problem for me, as I know full well what kind of damage that much razor-sharp metal can do).

You don’t need a Los Zetas serrated hunting knife to get blood to spray.

On the other hand, if, at the moment, a cop were to find me as I am now, in stocking cap and clear latex gloves, with those selfsame tools, and a page from theDaily Herald, he would deduce intent to forcibly enter into premises to commit a felony.

Which is why I’m crouching once again in the abandoned, unstable Bechtel Building, across from Carrie Noelle’s apartment and not making a move until the street is deserted, until there is no one to note my presence.

I scan the surroundings. Present are some cars, some late-night revelers, a homeless man pushing a cart.

I grow impatient until finally, an opportunity. I’m across the street and, in a matter of seconds, through the service door. Some locks don’t even deserve the name.

Soon I’ve climbed to Carrie’s floor and am waiting in the fire stairwell, listening carefully.

I hear some clicks, some thuds. I’ll wait for silence.

I unzip my backpack and open my tool case. I feel the brass knife in my pocket.

I’m breathing slowly. Concentrating, all too aware of the greatest challenge I—and all trespassing lockpickers—face: time.

Historians can’t say for certain when and where the first lock was made, but they can say when the earliest lock was discovered. It was in the palace of Dur-Sharrukin, now called Khorsabad in Iraq—the site destroyed by ISIL a few years back. The lock dates to about 4000B.C. It secured a massive door, which probably weighed hundreds of pounds.

The key was equally imposing and had to be carried on a guard’s shoulder. It wasn’t particularly sophisticated. In fact, it was so easy to duplicate by thieves and intruders that the royals took to installing multiple keyways in the door—only one of which worked. The purpose of this was to keep the intruder on the premises trying keyway after keyway for so long that the guards would find and then gut him after the briefest of trials, or no trial at all.