“What do you mean?” Rhyme asked.

“It’s in one of our special display cases.”

“But why won’t it open until Tuesday?”

“Because the case has a computerized time lock, with a satellite link to some government clock. They tell me nobody can break into it. We put the most valuable exhibits in there.”

The man continued speaking but Rhyme looked away. Something was nagging him. Then he recalled, “That arson earlier, the one that Fred Dellray wanted us to help out on. Where was it again?”

Sachs frowned. “A government office. The Institute of Standards and Technology or something like that. Why?”

“Look it up, Mel.”

The tech went online. Reading from the website, he said, “NIST is the new name for the National Bureau of Standards and—”

“Bureau of Standards?” Rhyme interrupted. “They maintain the country’s atomic clock. . . . Is that what he’s up to? The time lock at the Met has an uplink to the NIST. Somehow he’s going to change the time, convince the lock that it’s next Tuesday. The vault’ll open automatically.”

“Can he do that?” Dance asked.

“I don’t know. But if it’s possible, he’ll find a way. The fire at NIST was to cover up the break-in, I’ll bet. . . .” Then Rhyme stopped talking, as the full implications of the Watchmaker’s plan became clear. “Oh, no . . .”

“What?”

Rhyme was thinking about Kathryn Dance’s observation: That to the Watchmaker, human life was negligible. He said, “Time everywhere in the country is governed by the U.S. atomic clock. Airlines, trains, national defense, power grids, computers . . . everything. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen if he resets it?”

In a cheap Midtown hotel, a middle-aged man and woman sat on a small couch that smelled of mildew and old food. They were staring at a television set.

Charlotte Allerton was the stocky woman who’d pretended to be the sister of Theodore Adams, the first “victim” in the alley on Tuesday. The man beside her, Bud Allerton, her husband, was the man masquerading as the lawyer who’d secured Gerald Duncan’s release from jail by promising that his client would be a spectacular witness in the crooked cop scandal.

Bud really was a lawyer, though he hadn’t practiced for some years. He’d resurrected some of his old skills for the sake of Duncan’s plan, which called for Bud’s pretending to be a criminal attorney from the big, prestigious law firm of Reed, Prince. The assistant district attorney had bought the entire charade, not even bothering to call the firm to check up on the man. Gerald Duncan had believed, correctly, that the prosecutor would be so eager to make a name for himself on a police corruption case that he’d believe what he wanted to. Besides, who ever asks for a lawyer’s ID?

The Allertons’ attention was almost exclusively on the TV screen, showing local news. A program about Christmas tree safety. Yadda, yadda, yadda . . . For a moment Charlotte’s gaze slipped to the master bedroom in the suite, where her pretty, thin daughter sat reading a book. The girl looked through the doorway at her mother and stepfather with the same dark, sullen eyes that had typified her expression in recent months.