The Watchmaker’s Hand

She retrieved her crime scene gear from the trunk and started into the site, passing onlookers and a homeless man in a filthy brown three-quarter-length overcoat. On his head was perched a fuzzy hat, dark brown and orange, in the shape of those worn by Taliban warlords. Oblivious to the loss of life, he was nosing along the yellow tape, pointing his blue-and-white coffee cup toward the growing crowd and begging for change. But only half-heartedly. He spent more time looking over the debris. A scavenger, probably happy to pocket the dead operator’s wallet or cash that had fallen from his pocket. Pathetic.

He glanced her way briefly, noting the badge and her cold glare, and moved on.

Sachs ducked under the tape and oriented herself, finding the base of the crane. Before she started toward it, a large woman in a yellow vest that read Safety Supervisor approached and handed her a white hard hat. She shook her head, thinking that the hat would, even if in a small way, contaminate the scene. “I don’t—”

“Required.” The woman steamed away to deliver another hat to someone who might be an executive or a government inspector. They were armed with a clipboard and briefcase.

Sachs asked a uniform, awkwardly trying to adjust a too-large hard hat, “Where’s the IC?”

The uniform pointed to another officer, middle-aged, also in a hat, his yellow. She walked up to the incident commander.

“Captain.”

“You’re Sachs. Detective out of Major Cases, right? You work with Lincoln Rhyme.”

A nod.

“These’re weird.” He tapped the plastic on his skull.

“Any more news on the injured?”

“Nothing new. One fatality, five in the hospital. Two critical. Oh, and one heart attack. He’ll live.”

Her phone purred with a text.

Lon Sellitto had written:

The Project sent a post to 13Chan. Said they think the city is trying to keep this quiet. Bad faith. So they posted publicly that the crane was sabotaged and more R coming down until the properties R transferred. The shits. F’ing panic.

Well, so much for blaming the feds for the shutdown.

Of course, panic would happen sooner or later anyway, so it was just as well word went out. The news might prompt witnesses to come forward.

Her eyes were on the tangled metal and mounds of debris. The tower of the crane was about fifteen feet square, with the bottom segment set in that concrete slab. All four feet were still mounted there; the tower had bent or snapped about thirty feet up.

She said to the IC, “Lon said he sabotaged the counterweights.” A glance at the huge concrete slabs, lying sideways like discarded children’s building blocks. “Have any idea how?” She scanned the trolley mechanism they were attached to. “No sign of IED residue.”

“First thing I thought of, but I couldn’t find any either. And nobody heard a bang. Waiting to talk to the foreman. He’s been, you know, on the phone with the families. And corporate.”

“Where is he?”

He nodded to a heavyset man of about fifty, in light blue slacks and blue shirt, whose pocket bristled with pens. His yellow hard hat was tilted forward at a jaunty angle and was covered with stickers from equipment manufacturers and unions.

She sympathized with him having to make the difficult calls to the family members, but she needed to start on the scene.

She approached. “Sorry, sir. I need to talk to you. Now, please.” She held up her ID. He looked at her weapon first, then the fine print.

“I’ll call you back.” He disconnected and turned his red eyes toward her. From the smoke? From crying? Probably both.

“You know this was intentional.”

S. Nowak — the name stitched on his blue shirt — was taut with anger, his teeth locked firmly together as he stared at the disaster. He nodded. “That officer over there told me, yeah. I can’t believe somebody’d do something like this.”

“Did you or anybody on your crews see anyone who might’ve been involved?”

He shook his head. “I’ve asked everybody. Nobody saw a thing.”

She continued, “The detective you talked to earlier, Detective Sellitto?”

“Yeah, big guy. Brown suit.”

“That’s him. He said they sabotaged the counterweights. It threw the balance off.”

“That’s right.”

“You have any idea how they did it?”

A shake of his head. “Somehow unhooked a couple of them. None of us can figure out how. They’re made to stay on their tracks whatever happens. Impossible to fall. Except... I guess not.” His eyes were staring at the slabs. “You know physics?”

“If it applies to car engines, yeah. Other than that...” A shrug.

“So you’re aware of torque.”

“Sure. Force that turns the drive shaft.”

“And moment?”

“Moment?” she asked. “Like in time?”