"What's going on, Sachs?"
"I'm nearly there," she whispered, as if too loud a voice would create more turbulence in the water.
She was halfway to the steps when the water rose in tiny eddies and swirled around first one terminal, then the next.
No arc flash.
Nothing.
Her shoulders sagged, heart thumping.
"It's a dud, Rhyme. We didn't have to worr--"
A burst of white light filled her vision, accompanied by a huge cracking roar, and Amelia Sachs was flung backward, under the surface of the grim ocean.
Chapter 9
"THOM!"
The aide hurried into the room, looking Rhyme over carefully. "What's wrong? How're you feeling?"
"It's not me," his boss snapped, eyes wide, nodding his head at the blank screen. "Amelia. She was at a scene. A battery . . . another arc flash. The audio and video are out. Call Pulaski! Call somebody!"
Thom Reston's eyes narrowed with concern but he had practiced the art of caregiving for a long time; no matter what the crisis, he would coolly go about his necessary tasks. He calmly picked up a landline phone, regarded the number pad nearby and hit a speed-dial button.
Panic isn't centered in the gut, and it doesn't trickle down the spine like, well, electricity in an energized wire. Panic rattles the body and soul everywhere, even if you're numb otherwise. Rhyme was furious with himself. He should have ordered Sachs out the instant they saw the battery, the rising tide. He always did this, got so focused on the case, the goal, finding the tiny fiber, the fragment of friction ridge print, anything that moved him closer to the perp . . . that he forgot the implications: He was playing with human lives.
Why, look at his own injury. He'd been a captain in the NYPD, the head of Investigation Resources,
and was searching a crime scene himself, crouching to pick up a fiber from a body when the beam tumbled from above and changed his life forever.
And now that same attitude--which he'd instilled in Amelia Sachs--might have done even worse: She could now be dead.
Thom had gotten through on the line.
"Who?" Rhyme demanded, glaring at the aide. "Who're you talking to? Is she all right?"
Thom held up a hand.
"What does that mean? What could that possibly mean?" Rhyme felt a trickle of sweat down his forehead. He was aware his breath was coming faster. His heart was pounding, though he sensed this in his jaw and neck, not his chest, of course.
Thom said, "It's Ron. He's at the substation."
"I know where the fuck he is. What's going on?"
"There's been . . . an incident. That's what they're saying."
Incident . . .
"Where's Amelia?"
"They're checking. There're some people inside. They heard an explosion."
"I know there was an explosion. I fucking saw it!"
The aide's eyes swiveled toward Rhyme. "Are you . . . how are you feeling?"
"Quit asking that. What's going on at the scene?"