The Twelfth Card

“Okay, we’re going in,” the man said tersely and disco

Sachs continued along the street. She found her fingernail digging into her thumb. Reflecting on the irony: Sellitto fidgeted going into a fight; Amelia Sachs was edgy when she had to stay out of harm’s way.

Chapter Thirty-One

Lon Sellitto followed the four officers up the dim stairs, to the second-floor landing of the apartment.

Breathing hard from the climb, he paused, caught his breath. The tactical cops huddled, waiting for word from Hauma

While they waited the big detective had a talk with himself: Are you ready for this?

Think about it. Now’s the time to decide. Leave or stay?

Tap, tap, tap…

It all swirled around in his mind: the blood spattering him obscenely, the needles from the bullet ripping apart flesh. The brown eyes that were filled with life one second and then glazed with death a moment later. The icy rush of absolute panic when that basement door on Elizabeth Street opened and his gun went off with a huge, kicking explosion, Amelia Sachs cringing, reaching for her weapon, as the bullet dug chunks of stone out of the wall just a few feet from her.

The bullet from my own goddamn gun!

What was happening? he wondered. Was his nerve gone? He laughed grimly to himself, comparing the kind of nerve he was thinking of to Lincoln Rhyme’s, whose physical nerve, the one in his spine, was literally destroyed. Well, Rhyme fucking well dealt with what happened to him. Why can’t I?

It was a question that had to be answered, because if he stepped up now and he caved or flubbed the takedown again, people might die. Probably would, given the stone-cold perp they were after.

If he stayed back, took himself off the detail, his career would be over, but at least he wouldn’t’ve jeopardized anyone else.

Can you do it? he asked himself.

The leader of the team said, “Detective, we’re going in in about thirty seconds. We’ll batter the door, spread out and clear the apartment. You can come in and secure the crime scene after. That all right with you?”

Leave or stay? the lieutenant asked himself. You can just walk downstairs. That’ll be it. Give up your shield, hire on as a security consultant with some corporation. Double your salary.

Never get shot at again.

Tap, tap, tap…

Never see eyes wincing and going lifeless inches from yours.

Tap…

“Is that okay?” the leader repeated.

Sellitto glanced at the cop “No,” he whispered. “No.”

The ESU officer frowned.

The detective said, “Take the door out with the ram, then I’ll go in. First.”

“But -”

Sellitto muttered, “You heard Detective Sachs. This perp isn’t working alone. We need anything we can find that’ll lead us to the prick who hired him. I’ll know what to look for and I can save the scene if he tries to fuck it up.”

“Let me call in,” the ESU man said doubtfully.

“Officer,” the detective said calmly, “that’s the way it is. I’m senior here.”

The team leader looked at his second in command. They shrugged.

“It’s your…decision.”

Sellitto supposed the third word of that sentence was originally going to be “funeral.”

“As soon as they pull the juice we go in,” the ESU officer said. He put on his gas mask. The team pulled on theirs, Sellitto too. He gripped Sachs’s Glock – kept his finger outside the trigger guard – and stepped to the side of the door.

In his earpiece he heard: “We’re cutting the electricity in three…two…one.”

The leader tapped the shoulder of the officer with the battering ram. The big man swung it hard and the door crashed open.

Flying on adrenaline, forgetting everything but the perp and the evidence, Sellitto charged inside, the tactical officers behind, covering him, kicking doors open and searching the rooms. The second team came in from the kitchen.

No immediate sign of Boyd. On a small TV a sitcom played – the source of the voices and most likely the source of heat and noise that S and S had found.

Most likely.

But maybe not.

Glancing left and right as he entered the small living room, seeing no one, Sellitto headed straight for Boyd’s desk, piled high with evidence: sheets of paper, ammunition, several envelopes, bits of plastic wire, a digital timer, jars of liquid and of white powder, a transistor radio, rope. Using a tissue, Sellitto carefully checked a metal cabinet near the desk for traps. He found none and opened it, noting more jars and boxes. Two more guns. Several stacks of new bills – nearly $100,000, the detective estimated.

“Room’s clear,” one of the ESU officers called. Then another, from a different room.

Finally a voice: “Team Leader A to CP, we’ve cleared the scene, K.”

Sellitto laughed out loud. He’d done it. Confronted whatever the fuck it was that’d been torturing him.

But don’t get too cocky, he told himself, pocketing Sachs’s Glock. You came along on this sleigh ride for a reason, remember? You got work to do. So secure the fucking evidence.

As he looked over the place, though, he realized something was nagging.

What?

Looking over the kitchen, the hallway, the desk. What was odd? Something was wrong.

Then it occurred to him:

Transistor radio?

Did they even make those anymore? Well, if they did, you hardly ever saw ’em, with all the fancier players available for cheap: boom boxes, CD players, MP3s.

Shit. It’s a booby trap, an explosive device! And it’s sitting right next to a big jar of clear liquid, with a glass stopper in the top, which Sellitto knew from science class was what you used to store acid in.

“Christ!”

How long did he have before it detonated? A minute, two?

Sellitto lunged forward and grabbed the radio, stepped to the bathroom, setting it in the sink.

One of the tactical officers asked, “What’s -?”

“We’ve got an IED! Clear the apartment!” the detective shouted, ripping off his gas mask.

“Get the fuck out!” the officer cried.

Sellitto ignored him. When people make improvised explosive devices they never worry about obscuring fingerprints or other clues because once the devices blow up, most evidence is destroyed. They knew Boyd’s identity, of course, but there could be some trace or other prints on the device that might lead to the person hiring him or his accomplice.

“Call the Bomb Squad,” somebody transmitted.

“Shut up. I’m busy.”

There was an on/off switch on the radio but he didn’t trust that to deactivate the explosive charge. Cringing, the detective worked the black plastic back off the radio.

How long, how long?

What’s a reasonable time for Boyd to get into his apartment and disarm the trap?

As he popped the back off and bent down, Sellitto found himself staring at a half stick of dynamite – not a plastic explosive but plenty powerful enough to blow off his hand and blind him. There was no display. It’s only in the movies that bombs have easy-to-read digital timers that count down to zero. Real bombs are detonated by tiny microprocessor timing chips without displays. Sellitto held the dynamite itself in place with a fingernail – to keep from obliterating any prints. He started to work the blasting cap out of the explosive.

Wondering how sophisticated the unsub had been (serious bomb makers use secondary detonators to take out people like Sellitto who were fucking around with their handiwork), he pulled the blasting cap out of the dynamite.

No secondary detonators, or any -

The explosion, a huge ringing bang, echoed through the bathroom, reverberating off the tile.

“What was that?” Bo Hauma