“The Pike - La Guardia truck. We don't use it much anymore. It was built in the forties. Got its name because it was built when a guy named Pike was C.O. of the Bomb Squad and La Guardia was mayor. See that mesh there? That's cable left over from the Triborough Bridge. They used to put IEDs in there and take them to the disposal grounds. If it went off the mesh stopped the shrapnel. Still a lot of flame escaped, though. Now we use a total-containment vehicle.”

Rune said, “A TCV, right?”

Healy nodded.

Rune picked up a thick plastic tube about a foot long filled with a blue gelatin printed with the words DuPont. She squeezed it. Grinned. “This is kinda kinky, Sam.”

He glanced at it. “You're holding enough Tovex to turn a pretty good-size boulder into gravel.”

She set it down carefully.

“If it were live... That's just for training. So's everything else in here.”

“That too?” She pointed to an artillery shell about two and a half feet long.

“Well, it's not live. But we picked that up a year or so ago. What happened was a woman calls 911 and says she got hit by a bullet. So Emergency Services shows up and they go into the apartment. They find her on the floor. They ask, 'Where's the shooter, where's the gun?' She says, There's no gun — just the bullet.' She points to the shell. Then says, 'I opened the closet door and it fell out.' It broke her toe. Her husband collected artillery shells and —”

A voice shouted, “Sam.”

He stepped into the main room. A heavy, square-jawed man with trim blond hair was leaning out of the commander's office. He glanced at Rune briefly, then looked at Healy. “Sam, ESU just got a Ten-thirty-three at a porn theater in Times Square. Somebody found a box, looked inside. Saw a timer in there and maybe a wad of something might be plastic. Seventh Avenue, near Forty-ninth. Rubin, you go with him.”

No more bombings, he'd said? But before she could comment to him Healy and another cop, a thin man of about forty-five who looked like he belonged more in an insurance office circa 1950 than in the Bomb Squad, were racing to the locker room. They opened their lockers and pulled out battered canvas bags, then ran for the door. Healy snagged his attaché case as he disappeared into the corridor.

“Hey... ,” Rune was saying. Healy didn't even glance back.

Where does he get off? Rune thought, speeding into the dark green corridor. Downstairs, the men disappeared into the station house. An officer in a blue turtleneck stopped her, wouldn't let her follow. By the time she went outside, their blue-and-white van was disappearing down Eleventh Street, the roof lights playing crack the whip.

The vehicle gave a bubble of electronic siren, then sailed north on Hudson Street.