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So Li had scraped some of the soft stone under his nails intentionally to tell them the Ghost was actually Sung.
Once Cooper's report on magnesium silicate told them that the substance might be soapstone Rhyme remembered the contamination on Sachs's hands yesterday. He realized that it might've come from Sung's amulet. He'd called the officers who'd guarded Sung's apartment and they'd confirmed that there was a back entrance to the place, which meant that the Ghost had been able to come and go without their seeing him. He'd also asked if there was a gardening shop near the place--the likely source for the mulch that they'd found--and was told about the florist on the ground floor of the apartment building. Then he checked calls to Sachs's cell phone; the number of the cell that'd been used to call the Uighur center showed up in her records.
The real John Sung had been a doctor and the Ghost was not. But, as Sonny Li had told Rhyme, everyone in China knew something about Eastern medicine. What the Ghost had diagnosed about Sachs and the herbs he'd given her were common knowledge among anyone who'd been treated regularly by a Chinese doctor.
"And your friend from the INS?" the Ghost asked.
"Coe?" Sachs replied. "We knew he didn't have any connection with you. But I had to pretend Coe was the spy--we needed to make sure you didn't think we were on to you. And we needed him out of the way. If he'd found out who you were he might've gone after you again--like he did on Canal Street. We wanted a clean takedown. And we didn't want him to go to jail for killing someone." Sachs couldn't resist adding, "Even you."
The Ghost merely smiled calmly.
When she'd handed Coe over to the three cops from the precinct house, she'd explained to him what was going on. The agent, of course, had been shocked to have been sitting inches from the man who'd killed his informant in China and had begun to complain angrily that he wanted to be part of the takedown. But the order to keep him in protective custody had been issued by One Police Plaza and he wasn't going anywhere until the Ghost was in custody.
Then she looked him over. Shook her head in disgust. "You shot Sung, hid the body, then shot yourself. And swam back into the ocean. You nearly drowned."
"I didn't have much choice, did I? Jerry Tang abandoned me. There was no way I was going to escape from the beach without masquerading as Sung."
"What about your gun?"
"Stuffed it into my sock in the ambulance. Then I hid it in the hospital and picked it up after the INS officer released me."
"INS officer?" she mused, nodding. "You did get released awfully fast." The Ghost said nothing and she added, "Well, that's something else we'll look into." Then she asked, "Everything you told me about John Sung . . . you made it up?"
The Ghost shrugged. "No, what I told you about him was true. Before I killed him I made him tell me about himself, about everyone who was on the raft, about Chang and Wu. Enough so I could make my performance believable. I threw out his picture ID and kept the wallet and the amulet."
"Where's his body?"
Another placid smile was his response.
His serenity infuriated her. He was caught--and was going to jail for the rest of his life and might possibly be executed but he looked as if he were only being inconvenienced by a late train. Fury seized her and she drew back her hand to strike him in the face. But when he gave no reaction--no cringe, no squint--she lowered her arm, refusing to give him the satisfaction of stoically withstanding the blow.
Sachs's ringing phone intruded. She stepped away and answered. "Yes?"
"Everyone having fun?" Rhyme's voice demanded sarcastically.
"I--"
"Having a picnic maybe? Taking in a movie? Forgetting about the rest of us?"
"Rhyme, we were in the middle of a takedown."
"I suppose somebody was going to call me eventually and let me know what happened. At some point . . .No, I won't, Thom. I'm pissed off."
"We've been a little busy here, Rhyme," she answered.
"Just wondering what was going on. I'm not psychic, you know."
She knew he'd already heard that none of their team was injured--otherwise he wouldn't be riddling her with sarcasm.
She responded, "You can stow the attitude--"
"'Stow'? Spoken like a true sailor, Sachs."
"--because we caught him." She added, "I tried to get him to tell me where John Sung's body is but he--"
"Well, we can figure that out, Sachs, can't we? It is obvious, after all."
To some people maybe, she reflected, though she was delighted to hear his characteristic barbs, rather than the flat-line voice of earlier.
