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Not enough facts.
Pulaski noted there was no bottled water, no food, no toilet. The stay was going to be short.
Released soon.
Or they had more permanent plans in mind.
No windows or other doors, much less secret panels.
In the center of the chamber was a cage housing the HVAC system. But it was secured to the floor with thick padlocks. Still, he made his way to it, and feeling dizzy once more, he sat on the mesh, lowering his head.
Then he studied the cage.
No way to open it.
But wait. It wasn’t HVAC at all. It was some kind of improvised device. He noted a sealed quart jar made of some kind of thick plastic. Inside was a liquid, reaching nearly to the top.
Pulaski sighed and scanned the label on the jar.
HF
Hydrofluoric acid.
Pulaski squinted and studied the assembly. Attached to the jar was a metal box about two by two by three inches. A short antenna protruded. Upon receiving a signal, the explosive charge in the box would detonate and shatter or melt the plastic, sending the corrosive liquid flowing into the room.
He recalled Lincoln Rhyme describing what the acid and the gas it created did to the human body.
He thought it wise to find a better place to sit and returned to the mattress.
Though he supposed the distance made no difference. Nowhere in the cell would be safe when the jar blew open.
Ron Pulaski lay back on the mattress and turned his thoughts to his family: Jenny and his children: Brad, Martine and, of course, Claire.
65.
LINCOLN RHYME WASnow alone.
Sellitto had left.
Sachs was downtown. And Thom was out as well.
Just before he’d left, the aide had poured a healthy dose of twelve-year-old single malt into a crystal glass. Rhyme’s right hand now gripped the Waterford. While it wasn’t a social sin to drink scotch out of a plastic tumbler through a straw, as he’d had to do for years, the beverage seemed to taste better in a glass. No double-blind study for this, but Rhyme was convinced.
He sipped and turned his attention back to the letter that had been in the package. Sellitto had taken a picture through the Plexiglas of the biotox container and the image now sat on Rhyme’s tablet.
My dear Lincoln.
As you can tell, I have your associate Ron Pulaski. It will be impossible to find him, even with someone like you analyzing the evidence.
You must have figured out by now what my plan is. I could not get an IED into your apartment, nor shoot you with a sniper’s rifle. I wouldn’t want to anyway. That would be an inelegant solution to the situation. And, if you know anything about me, you know that I count the concept of grace as a fundamental one.
So I have arranged for an assistant to finish our work. And who? None other but you yourself. You’ll die by your own hand, or young Pulaski will by mine.
And his death will be anything but pleasant. HF acid, as we’ve learned over the past few days, is the great white shark of substances. I can time-release it into the room where I’ve kept him. A death painful and prolonged.
Send everyone out of the apartment. Come up with excuses, though a good one would be to try to find poor Ron. Send them to, say, Jersey.
When you’re alone, log on to the website below. It’s proxied—a bastardized verb you would not accept, I’m sure—and untraceable.
