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"And the steam's going back on at three?"
"That's right. Any minute now."
"It can't!" Rhyme shouted. "Somebody's tampered with the line. You can't turn that steam back on!"
Cooper looked up uneasily from his microscope.
The supervisor said, "Well, I don't know . . ."
Rhyme barked to Thom, "Call Lon, tell him she's in a basement at Hanover and Pearl. The north side." He told him about the steam. "Get the fire department there too. Heat-protective outfits."
Rhyme shouted into the speakerphone. "Call the work crews! Now! They can't turn that steam back on. They can't!" He repeated the words absently, detesting his exquisite imagination, which showed, in an endless loop, the woman's flesh growing pink then red then splitting apart under the fierce clouds of sputtering white steam.
In the station wagon the radio crackled. It was three minutes to three by Sachs's watch. She answered the call.
"Portable 5885, K--"
"Forget the officialese, Amelia," Rhyme said. "We don't have time."
"I--"
"We think we know where she is. Hanover and Pearl."
She glanced over her shoulder and saw dozens of ESU officers running flat-out toward an old building.
"Do you want me to--"
"They'll look for her. You have to get ready to work the scene."
"But I can help--"
"No. I want you to go to the back of the station wagon. There's a suitcase in it labeled zero two. Take it with you. And in a small black case there's a PoliLight. You saw one in my room. Mel was using it. Take that too. In the suitcase marked zero three you'll find a headset and stalk mike. Plug it into your Motorola and get over to the building where the officers are. Call me back when you're rigged. Channel thirty-seven. I'll be on a landline but you'll be patched through to me."
Channel thirty-seven. The special ops citywide frequency. The priority frequency.
"What?--" she asked. But the dead radio did not respond.
She had a long black halogen flashlight on her utility belt so she left the bulky twelve-volter in the back of the wagon and grabbed the PoliLight and the heavy suitcase. It must have weighed fifty pounds. Just what my damn joints need. She adjusted her grip and, teeth clamped together against the pain, hurried toward the intersection.
Sellitto, breathless, ran to the building. Banks joined them.
"You hear?" the older detective asked. Sachs nodded.
"This is it?" she asked.
Sellitto nodded toward the alley. "He had to take her in this way. The lobby's got a guard station." They now trotted down the shadowy, cobblestoned canyon, steaming hot, smelling of piss and garbage. Battered blue Dumpsters sat nearby.
"There," Sellitto shouted. "Those doors."
The cops fanned out, running. Three of the four doors were locked tight from the inside.
The fourth had been jimmied open and was now chained shut. The chain and lock were new.
"This's it!" Sellitto reached for the door, hesitated. Thinking probably about fingerprints. Then he grabbed the handle and yanked. It opened a few inches but the chain held tight. He sent three of the uniforms around to the front to get into the basement from the inside. One cop worked a cobblestone loose from the alley floor and began pounding on the door handle. A half-dozen blows, a dozen. He winced as his hand struck the door; blood gushed from a torn finger.
A fireman ran up with a Halligan tool--a combination pickax and crowbar. He rammed the end into the chain and ripped the padlock open. Sellitto looked at Sachs expectantly. She gazed back.
"Well, go, officer!" he barked.
