The Skin Collector

He glanced at the water main grid chart, which the DEP had just sent them via secure server, then back to the evidence. Water Tu

Ron Pulaski called, ‘We’ve got our Bomb Squad at the boutique and the restaurant. The army has their people at the third site – the Belvedere.’

‘Are they making a big scene?’ Rhyme asked, half attentive. ‘Are all the lights and sirens going?’

‘I–’

Rhyme cut him off. ‘Is there any evacuation from downtown? I wanted the mayor to order an evacuation.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, put on the news and find out. Thom! Where the hell–?’

‘I’m here, Lincoln.’

‘The news. I need the news on! I asked you.’

‘You didn’t ask. You thought  you asked.’ The aide lifted a chastising eyebrow.

‘Maybe I didn’t ask,’ Rhyme grumbled. The best ‘sorry’ the man was going to get. ‘But turn the fucking thing on now.’

In the corner the Samsung clicked to life.

Rhyme stabbed a finger at the screen. ‘Breaking News, News Alert, This Just In, We Interrupt This Program. Why aren’t I seeing those ? … I’m looking at a fucking commercial for car insurance!’

‘Don’t use your arm for useless gestures.’ Thom changed the cha

‘… press conference ten minutes ago the mayor told citizens of Manhattan and Queens that an evacuation would not be necessary at this time. He urged people–’

‘No evacuation?’ Rhyme sighed. ‘He could at least have cleared Queens. They can go east. Plenty of room on Long Island. Orderly evacuation. He could’ve arranged for that.’

Mel Cooper said, ‘It wouldn’t be orderly, Lincoln. It’d be chaos.’

‘I recommended a

‘DEP’s calling,’ Pulaski said, nodding at the caller ID box on the main monitor over a worktable.

Rhyme’s mobile rang too. The area code was 404. Atlanta, Georgia.

‘It’s about goddamn time,’ he muttered. ‘You take the water people, rookie, and coordinate with Sachs. I’ll talk to our friends in Dixie. Let’s move, everyone! We’ve only got minutes!’

And he hit the answer button on his keypad hard, drawing another admonishing look from Thom.

CHAPTER 63

In his Department of Environmental Protection coveralls and hard hat, Billy Haven stepped into a cross street in Midtown, the East Side, and lifted a manhole cover with a hook, then descended partway and muscled the disk back in place.

He climbed down to a metal floor and began walking through the tu

He switched the heavy gear bag from one hand to the other as he walked. It weighed 48 pounds. The contents were what he’d removed from the workshop on Canal Street: the drill, portable welding kit, electric cord and other tools, along with the bulky steel thermos. He didn’t have his American Eagle with him now. That part of the Modification was over with. No more inking with poison.

Though the Rule of Skin was still very much at work, of course.

He checked his GPS, made an adjustment and kept walking.

The plan for the Modification was complex, as befit a scheme delivered through an intermediary whom God Himself had picked.

The Commandments …

At the last scene, at TT Gordon’s tattoo parlor, the police would have found trace of explosives he’d intentionally planted and Lincoln Rhyme would immediately wonder about this anomaly. Explosives and poison? What was the relationship?

The Commandments speculated that Rhyme would then think: What if the poisoned tattoos were about something other than random killings by a psychotic?

They’d analyze the numbers in the tattoos and would come up with the flood in Genesis. He’d intentionally inked the tattoo artist in the Village with “the six hundredth” last, because it would have been too easy to find the flood passages in the Bible if he’d given them in proper order.

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights …

So domestic terrorists had returned to plant bombs to re create the flood and wash away the sin of this Sodom.

Rhyme and Sachs would brainstorm about where the bombs might be and realize that, yes, of course, they were in the batteries for the crime scene lights. Since they might go off at any time and it would take awhile for the Bomb Squad to break through the sealed cases and render safe, or extract the IEDs, the Department of Environmental Protection would take the drastic but necessary step of shutting the massive gates of Water Tu

As soon as that happened the pressure in the pipe would drop to nearly nothing.

Which would allow him to drill a one thirty second inch hole through the iron – a feat impossible when the line was active because the pressure would force the water out of the hole at the speed and with the cutting force of an industrial laser.

With the pressure off he could then inject into the water supply pipe what he’d brought with him here, in the metal thermos. The last poison of the Modification.

Botulinum, a neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum , is the most poisonous substance on earth. A half teaspoon could easily kill the entire population of the United States.

While it is generally very difficult to come by the more toxic substances in the world – say, radioactive poisons such as polonium and plutonium – botulinum is surprisingly available.

And we have vanity to thank for that.

The bacteria are the basis for Botox, a muscle relaxant to relieve spasticity. It’s mostly known, though, for cosmetic treatments to smooth skin (its toxic qualities inhibit a neurotransmitter that creates wrinkles).

The stockpiles of the spores are carefully guarded but Billy had located a source and broken into a cosmetic surgical supply company in the Midwest. In addition to a good selection of drugs and medical gear, he’d managed to steal enough spores to create a botulinum factory, which had been silently – and airlessly – producing a stockpile of the bacteria and the toxin and more spores.

The idea of weaponizing such a delightfully deadly substance was hardly original, of course. But no one had ever done so before – for a very simple reason. Delivery was nearly impossible. The toxin must be ingested or inhaled or enter the body through mucous membranes or open wounds. Contact with skin alone is not enough. Since it is very difficult to deliver a large amount of aerosol toxin, that meant an attack would have to be via food or water.

But salt, heat, alkaline substances and oxygen can kill the bacteria. So will chlorine, which is added to New York City’s water supply, along with the anti tooth cavity additive fluoride, orthophosphate to counterbalance lead contamination and hydroxide to increase the alkalinity of the supply.

Billy, however, had learned to grow a concentrated form of botulinum that was resistant to chlorine. Yes, some of the toxin he injected into the water supply would be destroyed, or its deadly effects dimmed, but the estimate was that enough would survive and be carried to households throughout Midtown and lower Manhattan and much of Queens. The death toll would probably be four thousand or so; the sick and severely injured would be many times that.