Birthing, she laughed to herself, a pallid sound, and blinked sweat from her eyes.

Then she rolled quickly into the larger tunnel; it seemed like a concert hall by comparison. Rising to a crouch, drawing her Glock.

But no intruders were aiming weapons her way, not in the immediate area at least. The spotlights over the body were blinding and there might have been a threat in the blackness beyond but she immediately shone her Maglite in that direction. No threat.

Rising, Sachs tugged the gear bag out of the tunnel. She gazed around and saw that the diagram from Rhyme’s database was accurate. This tunnel resembled a mine shaft, about twenty feet square. It disappeared west into the darkness. She knew it had been used, a century ago, for transporting wheeled carts of goods to and from factories and warehouses. Now the damp, moldy passageway served only as New York City infrastructure. There were large iron pipes overhead and smaller aluminum and PVC ones, perhaps for electrical cables, running through old battered junction boxes. Newer conduits sprouted from bright-yellow boxes secured with thick padlocks. These were embossed with the letters IFON. She didn’t know what that meant. The iron pipes were stamped NYC DS and NYC DEP – Sanitation and Environmental Protection, the agencies that handled the city’s sewage and water supply, respectively.

She realized it was utterly quiet and turned up the volume of the radio.

‘—the hell is going on?’

‘Sorry, Rhyme,’ Sachs said. ‘Had to concentrate.’

He was silent for a moment. Then he seemed to get it – her wrestling with the breadbasket. ‘All right. Well. The scene secure, as far as you can tell?’

‘The immediate scene.’ The tunnel was bricked off to the east but she glanced again at the darkness to the west.

‘Turn one of the spotlights that way. It’ll blind anybody trying to target you. And you’ll be able to see him coming before he sees you.’

The first responders had brought two halogen lamps on tripods, connected to large batteries. She turned one in the direction Rhyme had suggested and squinted as she examined the receding tunnel.

No indication of threats.

Sachs hoped there’d be no firefight. The big pipe overhead, newly installed, it seemed – the one stamped DEP – appeared to be thick iron; her rounds in the Glock, hollow-points, wouldn’t break through the metal. But if the unsub returned with guns a-blazing he might be loaded with armor-piercing slugs, which could pierce the pipe. Because of the huge water pressure inside, she imagined, a rupture might create an explosion like a massive load of C-4.

And even if he had regular bullets, the ricochet off metal and the stone and brick walls could kill or wound as easily as a direct shot.

She peered up the tunnel again and saw no movement.

‘Clear, Rhyme.’

‘Good. So. Let’s get going.’ He’d turned impatient.

Sachs already was. Wanted to get out of here.