Jeffery Deaver
The Twelfth Card
The sixth book in the Lincoln Rhyme series, 2005
To the memory of Christopher Reeve, a lesson in courage, a symbol of hope.
“Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.”
I . The Three-Fifths Man
Tuesday, October 9
Chapter One
His face wet with sweat and with tears, the man runs for freedom, he runs for his life.
“There! There he goes!”
The former slave does not know exactly where the voice comes from. Behind him? To the right or left? From atop one of the decrepit tenements lining the filthy cobblestoned streets here?
Amid July air hot and thick as liquid paraffin, the lean man leaps over a pile of horse dung. The street sweepers don’t come here, to this part of the city. Charles Singleton pauses beside a pallet stacked high with barrels, trying to catch his breath.
A crack of a pistol. The bullet goes wide. The sharp report of the gun takes him back instantly to the war: the impossible, mad hours as he stood his ground in a dusty blue uniform, steadying a heavy musket, facing men wearing dusty gray, aiming their own weapons his way.
Running faster now. The men fire again. These bullets also miss.
“Somebody stop him! Five dollars’ gold if you catch him.”
But the few people out on the streets this early – mostly Irish ragpickers and laborers trooping to work with hods or picks on their shoulders – have no inclination to stop the Negro, who has fierce eyes and large muscles and such frightening determination. As for the reward, the shouted offer came from a city constable, which means there’s no coin behind the promise.