Ron Pulaski was nearby, his hand resting on the grip of his Glock. He too rocked nervously on his feet as he gazed at the imposing, sooty structure.

Haumann explained that the teams would do a simple dynamic entry through all doors, after taking them out with explosive charges. There was no choice—the doors were too thick for a battering ram—but charges would clearly announce their presence and give Duncan a chance to prepare at least some defense within the building. What would he do when he heard the explosions and the footsteps of the cops charging inside?

Give up?

A lot of perps do.

But some don’t. They either panic or cling to some crazy idea that they can fight their way though a dozen armed officers. Rhyme had told her about Duncan’s mission of revenge; she didn’t figure somebody that obsessed would be the surrendering type.

Sachs took her position with a side-door entry team while Baker and Pulaski remained at the command post with Haumann.

Through her headset she heard the ESU commander say, “Entry devices are armed. . . . Teams, report, K.”

The A, B and C teams called in that they were ready.

In his raspy voice, Haumann called, “On my count . . . Five, four, three, two, one.”

Three sharp cracks resounded as the doors blew open simultaneously, setting off car alarms and shaking nearby windows. Officers poured inside.

It turned out that their concern about fortified positions and booby traps had been unfounded. The bad news, though, was that a search of the place made it clear that the Watchmaker was either one of the luckiest men on earth or had anticipated them yet again. He wasn’t here.

“Check this out, Ron.”

Amelia Sachs stood in a doorway of a small, upstairs storeroom in the church.

“Freaky,” the young officer offered.

That worked.

They were looking at a number of moon-faced clocks stacked against a stone wall. The faces stared out with their cryptic look, not quite a smile, not quite a leer, as if they knew exactly how much time was allotted for your life and were pleased to be counting down to the final second.

All of them were ticking, a sound that Sachs found unnerving.

She counted five of them. Which meant he had one with him.

Burn her to death . . .

Pulaski was zipping up his Tyvek crime scene suit and strapping his Glock outside the overalls. Sachs told him that she’d walk the grid up here, where Vincent had said the men had been staying. The rookie would take the ground floor of the church.

He nodded, looking uneasily at the dark corridors, the shadows. The blow to his skull the previous year had been severe and a supervisor had wanted to sideline him, put him behind a desk. He’d struggled to come back from the head injury and simply would not let the brass take him off the street. She knew he got spooked sometimes. She could see in his eyes that he was constantly making the decision whether or not to step up to the task in front of him. Even though he always chose to do so, there were some cops, she knew, who wouldn’t want to work with him because of this. Sachs, though, would far rather work with somebody who confronted his ghosts every time he went out on the street. That was guts.