The Kill Room

CHAPTER 56

You’ve got a tan,” Sellitto said.

“I don’t have a tan.”

“You do. You oughta wear sunscreen, Linc.”

“I don’t have a goddamn tan,” he muttered.

“I think you do,” Thom added.

It was nearly 8 a.m. Thom, Pulaski and Rhyme had arrived from LaGuardia airport late, nearly eleven last night, and the aide had insisted that Rhyme get some sleep immediately. The case could wait till this morning.

There’d been no argument; the criminalist had been exhausted. The dunk in the water had taken its toll. The whole trip had, for that matter. But that didn’t stop Rhyme from summoning Thom the moment he’d awakened at six thirty with the push-button call switch beside the bed. (The aide had called the device very Downton Abbey, a reference Rhyme did not get.)

The parlor was humming now, with Sellitto, Cooper and Sachs present. And Ron Pulaski — who did seem to have a tan — was just walking through the door. Nance Laurel had a court appearance on one of her other cases and would arrive later.

Rhyme was in a new wheelchair, a Merits Vision Select. Gray with red fenders. It had been delivered and assembled yesterday, before Rhyme’s return from the Bahamas. Thom had called their insurance company from Nassau and negotiated a speedy purchase. (“They didn’t know what to say,” the aide reported, “when I gave the reason for the loss as ‘immersion in ten feet of water.’”)

Rhyme had picked this particular model because it was known for off-road navigation. His old reticence to be in public had disappeared — largely because of his trip to the Bahamas. He wanted more travel and he wanted to work scenes himself again. That required a chair that would get him to as many places as possible.

The Merits had been pimped out a bit to make allowances for Rhyme’s particular condition — such as the strap for his immobile left arm, a touchpad under his working left ring finger and, of course, a cup holder, big enough for both whiskey tumbler and coffee mug. He was now enjoying the latter beverage through a thick straw. He looked over Sellitto, Sachs and Pulaski, then studied the whiteboard, which contained Sachs’s notations of the investigation in his absence.

“Time’s a-wasting.” He nodded at the STO order. “Mr. Rashid is going to meet his maker in a day or two if we don’t do something about it. Let’s see what we have.” He now wheeled back and forth in front of the whiteboards containing the analysis of the evidence Sachs had collected at the IED scene at Java Hut and Lydia Foster’s apartment.

“A blue airplane?” he asked, regarding that notation.

Sachs explained about what Henry Cross had told her. The private jet that seemed to be dogging Moreno around the United States and Central and South America.

“I’ve got one of Captain Myers’s Special Services officers searching but they aren’t having much luck. There’s no database of aircraft by color. If it was sold recently, though, brokers might have sales literature with pictures. He’s still checking.”

“All right. Now, let’s look at what we found in the Bahamas. Number one, the Kill Room.”

Rhyme explained to Sachs and Cooper how unsub 516 or Barry Shales had ruined the scene at the inn, but he had some things, including the preliminary report that the local police had done, along with the photos, which Sachs now taped up on a separate whiteboard, along with the paltry crime scene report that the RBPF had originally prepared.

For the next half hour, Sachs and Cooper carefully unpacked and analyzed the shoes and clothing of the three victims who’d been in suite 1200 on the morning of May 9. Each plastic bag was opened over a large sheet of sterile newsprint, and each item of clothing and the shoes were picked over and scraped for trace.

The shoes of Moreno, his guard and de la Rua produced fibers identical to those in the hotel carpet and dirt that matched samples taken from the sidewalk and grounds in front of the inn. Their clothing contained similar trace as well as elements of recent meals, presumably breakfast; they died before lunch. Cooper found pastry flakes, jam and bits of bacon in the case of Moreno and his guard, and allspice and some indeterminate type of pepper sauce on the reporter’s jacket. Moreno and his guard also had traces of crude oil on their shoes, cuffs and sleeves, probably from their meeting on Monday out of the hotel; there weren’t many refineries in New Providence so maybe they had eaten dinner by the docks. The guard had some trace of cigarette ash on his shirt.

This information went up on the board and Rhyme noted but didn’t dwell on any of it; after all, their killer had been a mile away when he’d fired the bullet. Unsub 516 had been in the hotel but even if he’d snuck into the Kill Room itself, none of that trace remained.

He said, “Now. The autopsy report.”

No surprises here either. Moreno had been killed by a massive gunshot trauma to the chest, and the others by blood loss due to multiple lacerations from the flying glass, of varying sizes, mostly three or four millimeters wide, two to three centimeters long.

Cooper looked over the cigarette butts and the candy wrapper that Poitier’s original crime scene searchers had found in the Kill Room but these yielded nothing helpful. The butts were the same brand as the pack of Marlboros found on the guard’s body, the candy had come from a gift basket for Moreno when he arrived. The fingerprints that Pulaski had lifted, not surprisingly, were negative for hits in any database.

“Let’s move on to the prostitute’s apartment. Annette Bodel.”

Pulaski’d done a good job, collecting plenty of trace from near where the killer had searched, along with samplars to eliminate any that was probably not from him. Cooper examined the items and, occasionally, ran samples through the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer. He finally announced, “First, we’ve got two-stroke fuel.”

These were smaller engines, two-strokes, like those in snowmobiles and chain saws, in which the lubricating oil is mixed directly with gasoline.

“Jet Ski maybe,” Rhyme said. “She worked in a dive shop part-time. Might not be from our perp but we’ll keep it in mind.”

“And sand,” the tech announced. “Along with seawater residue.” He compared the chemical breakdown of these items with what was on the board for two of the prior scenes. “Yep, it’s virtually the same as what Amelia found at Java Hut.”

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow at this. “Ah, a definitive link between Unsub Five Sixteen and the Bahamas. We know he was in Annette’s apartment and I’m ninety-nine percent sure he was the one in the South Cove on May eighth. Now, anything linking him to Lydia Foster?”

Pulaski pointed out, “The brown hair, which is what Corporal Poitier said the man in the South Cove Inn had, the one who was there just before Moreno was killed.”

“It suggests; it doesn’t prove. Keep going, Mel.”

The tech was staring into the eyepiece of a microscope. “Something odd here. Some membrane, orange. I’ll run part of it through the GC/MS.”

Some minutes later he had the results from the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer.

Cooper read, “DHA, C22:6n-3—docosahexaenoic acid.”

“Fish oil,” Rhyme said, looking at the screen on which the microscopic image was being projected. “And with that membrane, see in the upper right corner? I’d say fish eggs: Roe. Or caviar.”

“Also some C₈H₈O₃,” Cooper said.

“You’ve got me,” Rhyme muttered.

The lookup took thirty seconds. “Vanillin.”

“As in vanilla extract?”

“That’s right.”

“Thom! Thom, get in here. Where the hell are you?”

The aide’s voice drifted into the room. “What do you need?”

“You. Present. Here. In the room.”

Rolling down his sleeves, the aide joined them. “How could I resist such a polite summons?”

Sachs laughed.

Rhyme frowned. “Look over those charts, Thom. Put your culinary skills to work. Tell me what you think about those entries, knowing that the docosahexaenoic acid and the C₈H₈O₃ are, respectively, caviar and vanilla.”

The aide stood for a moment, looking over the charts. His face shifted into a smile. “Familiar…Hold on a minute.” He went to a nearby computer and pulled up the New York Times. He did some browsing. Rhyme couldn’t see exactly what he was looking at. “Well, that’s interesting.”

“Ah, could you share the interesting part?”

“The other two scenes — Lydia Foster and the Java Hut — have traces of artichoke and licorice, right?”

“Right,” Cooper confirmed.

He spun the computer for them to look at. “Well, combine those ingredients with caviar and vanilla and you have a real expensive dish that’s served at the Patchwork Goose. There was just an article about it in the Food section recently.”

“Patchwork…the fuck is that?” Sellitto muttered.

Sachs said, “It’s one of the fanciest restaurants in town. They serve seven or eight courses over four hours and pair the wine. They do weird things like cook with liquid nitrogen and butane torches. Not that I’ve ever been, of course.”

“That’s right,” Thom said, nodding at the screen. It appeared to be a recipe. “And that’s one of the dishes: trout served with artichoke cooked in licorice broth and garnished with roe and vanilla mayonnaise. Your perp left traces of those ingredients?”

“That’s right,” Sachs said.

Sellitto asked, “So he works in the restaurant?”

Thom shook his head. “Oh, I doubt it. You’re committed to working six days a week, twelve-hour days at a place like that. He wouldn’t have time to be a professional hit man. And I doubt it’s a customer. I don’t think the ingredients would transfer or last more than a few hours on his clothes. More likely he made the dish at home. From the recipe here.”

“Good, good,” Rhyme whispered. “Now we know Unsub Five Sixteen went to the Bahamas on May fifteenth to kill Annette Bodel, set the IED at Java Hut and killed Lydia Foster. He was probably the one at the South Cove Inn just before Moreno was shot. He was helping Barry Shales prep for the killing.”

Sachs said, “And we know he likes to cook. Maybe he’s a former pro. That could be helpful.”

Cooper lifted his phone and took a call; Rhyme hadn’t heard it ring and wondered if the tech had the unit on vibrate or if he himself was suffering from water on the ear from his swim. Lord knew his eyes still stung.

The crime scene tech thanked the caller and announced, “We ran the bulb of the brown hair that Amelia recovered from Lydia Foster’s. That was the results of the CODIS analysis. Nothing. Whoever the unsub is, he’s not in any criminal DNA databases.”

As Sachs wrote their latest findings on the whiteboard Rhyme said, “Now we’re making some progress. But the key to nailing Metzger is the sniper rifle and the key to the rifle is the bullet. Let’s take a look at it.”

CHAPTER 57

Although people have been eliminating each other with firearms for more than a thousand years, the forensic analysis of guns and bullets is a relatively new science.

In probably the first instance of applying the discipline, investigators in England in the middle of the nineteenth century got a confession from a killer based on matching a bullet with the mold that made it. In 1902 an expert witness (Oliver Wendell Holmes, no less) helped prosecutors convict a suspect by matching a bullet test-fired by the suspect’s gun to the murder slug.

However, it wasn’t until Calvin Goddard, a medical doctor and forensic scientist, published “Forensic Ballistics” in 1925 that the discipline truly took off. Goddard is still known as the father of ballistic science.

Rhyme had three goals in applying the rules Goddard had laid down ninety years ago. First, to identify the bullet. Second, from that information to identify the types of guns that could have fired it. Third, to link this particular bullet to a specific gun of that sort, which could be traced to the shooter, in this case Barry Shales.

The team now turned to the first of these questions. The bullet itself.

Gloved and masked, Sachs opened the plastic bag containing the bullet, a misshapen oblong of copper and lead. She looked it over. “It’s a curious round. Unusual. First, it’s big — three-hundred grain.”

The weight of the projectile fired from the gun — called a slug — is measured in grains. A three-hundred-grain bullet is about three-quarters of an ounce. Most hunting, combat and even sniper rifles fire a bullet that’s much smaller, around 180 grains.

She measured it with a caliber gauge, a flat metal disk with holes of various sizes punched into it. “And a rare caliber. A big one. Four twenty.”

Rhyme frowned. “Not four sixteen?” His first thought upon seeing it in the Kill Room. The.416 was a recent innovation in rifle bullets, designed by the famous Barrett Arms. The cartridge was a variation on the.50 round used by snipers around the world. While some countries and states in the U.S. banned the.50 for civilian use, the.416 was still legal most places.

“No, definitely bigger.” Sachs then examined the round with a microscope, low power. “And it’s a sophisticated design. It’s a hollow-point with a plastic tip — a modified spitzer.”

Arms manufacturers began to incorporate aerodynamics into the design of their projectiles around the time, not surprisingly, that airplanes were developed. The spitzer round — from the German word for “pointed bullet”—was developed for long-distance rifle shooting. Being so streamlined, it was very accurate; the downside was that it remained intact on striking the target and caused much less damage than a blunt-tipped, hollow-point round, which would mushroom inside the flesh.

Some bullet manufacturers came up with the idea of grafting a sharp plastic tip onto a hollow-point slug. The tip produced the streamlined quality of a spitzer round but broke away upon hitting the target, allowing the projectile to expand.

This was the type of bullet that Barry Shales had used to kill Robert Moreno.

Completing the streamlined design, she added, the slug was a boattail — it narrowed in the rear, just like a racing yacht, to further cut drag as it sped through the air.

She summarized, “It’s big, heavy, accurate as hell.” Nodded at the crime scene photo of Moreno sprawled on the couch in the Kill Room, blood and tissue radiating out behind him. “And devastating.”

She scraped the slug and analyzed some of the ejecta residue — the gas and particles that result when the powder ignites. “The best of the best,” she said. “The primers were Federal 210 match quality, the powder was Hodgdon Extreme Extruded — made to the highest tolerances. This’s your Ferrari of bullets.”

“Who makes it?” This was the important question.

But an Internet search returned very few hits. None of the big manufacturers like Winchester, Remington or Federal offered it and none of the retail ammo sellers stocked the bullet. Sachs, however, found some references to the mysterious round’s existence in some obscure shooting forums and learned that an arms company in New Jersey, Walker Defense Systems, might be the maker. Its website revealed that, though Walker didn’t make rifles, it manufactured a plastic-tipped spitzer.420 boattail.

Sachs looked at Rhyme. “They only sell to the army, police…and the federal government.”

The first goal was satisfied, the ID of the bullet. Now the team turned to finding the type of weapon that had fired it.

“First of all,” Rhyme asked, “what kind of action was it? Bolt, semiauto, three-shot burst, full auto? Sachs, what do you think?”

“Snipers never use full auto or bursts — too hard to compensate for repeated recoil over distance. If it was bolt-action, he wouldn’t have fired three rounds. If the first one missed, he’d’ve alerted the target, who’d go to cover. Semiauto, I’d vote.”

Sellitto said, “Can’t be that hard to find. There’s gotta be only one or two kinds of guns in the world that’ll fire a slug like that. It’s pretty unique.”

“Pretty unique,” Rhyme blurted, with a frosting of sarcasm. “Just like being sort of pregnant.”

“Linc,” Sellitto replied cheerfully, “you ever think about teaching grade school? I’m sure the kids’d love ya.”

Sellitto was right substantively, though, Rhyme knew. The rarer the bullet, the fewer the types of guns that will fire it. This would make it easier to identify the rifle and therefore easier to trace it to Barry Shales.

The two characteristics of a bullet that link it to the weapon that fired it are caliber, which they now knew, and rifling marks.

All modern firearms barrels have spiral troughs cut into them to make the bullet rotate and thus move more accurately to the target. This is known as rifling (even though it applies to pistols too). Gun manufacturers make these troughs — called lands (the raised part) and grooves — in various configurations, depending on the type of gun, the bullet it’s intended to shoot and its purpose. The twist, as it’s called, might spin the bullet clockwise or counter, and will spin it faster or slower depending on how many times the slug revolves in the barrel.

A look at the slug revealed that Barry Shales’s gun spun the slug counterclockwise, once every ten inches.

This was unusual, Rhyme knew; spirals are generally tighter, with the ratio of 1:7 or 1:8.

“Means it’s a long barrel, right?” Rhyme asked Cooper.

“Yep. Very long. Odd.”

Given the rare caliber and rifling, it would normally be easy to isolate brands of semiautomatic rifles that produced characteristics like that. Ballistics databases correlate all this information and a simple computer search returns the results in seconds.

But nothing was normal about this case.

Sachs looked up from her computer and reported, “Not a single hit. No record of any commercial arms manufacturer making a rifle like that.”

“Is there anything else we can tell about the gun?” Rhyme asked. “Look over the crime scene photos, Moreno’s body. See if that tells us anything.”

The crime scene specialist shoved his glasses up high and rocked back and forth as he regarded the grim pictures. If anybody had insights it would be Mel Cooper. The detective was active in the International Association for Identification, which was nearly a hundred years old, and he had the highest levels of certification you could attain from the IAI, in all areas of specialty: Forensic Art, Footwear and Tire Track Analysis, Forensic Photography/Imaging, Tenprint Fingerprint, and Latent Print — as well as Bloodstain Pattern Analysis, a personal interest of both Cooper and Rhyme.

He could read crime scene photos the way a doctor could an X-ray. He now said, “Ah, take a look at that, the spread.” He touched a photo, indicating the blood and bits of flesh and bone on the couch and floor behind it. “He fired from two thousand yards, right?”

“About that,” Rhyme said.

“Amelia, what would the typical velocity of a round that big be?”

She shrugged. “Out of the muzzle at twenty-seven hundred feet per second, tops. Speed at impact? I’d say eighteen hundred.”

Cooper shook his head. “That slug was traveling at over three thousand feet a second when it hit Moreno.”

Sachs said, “Really?”

“Positive.”

“Fast. Real fast. Confirms the rifle had a particularly long barrel and means the shell’d be loaded with a lot of powder. Normally a slug that size would have forty or forty-two grains of propellant. For that speed, I’d guess twice as much, and that means a reinforced receiver.”

This was the part of the rifle that held the cartridge for firing. The receiver was thicker than the barrel to withstand the initial pressure of the expanding gases, so that the gun didn’t blow up when the shooter pulled the trigger.

“Any conclusions?”

“Yeah,” Sachs said. “That Barry Shales, or somebody at NIOS, made the gun himself.”

Rhyme grimaced. “So there’s no way to trace a sale of a serial-numbered rifle to NIOS or Shales. Hell.”

His third goal, linking the bullet to Shales through his weapon, had just grown considerably more difficult.

Sachs said, “We’re still waiting on Information Services to get back to us on the datamining. Maybe they’ll find a record of Shales buying gun parts or tools.”

Rhyme shrugged. “Well, let’s see what else the slug tells us. Mel, friction ridge?”

Fingerprints actually can survive a bullet’s transit through the air, through a body and sometimes even through a wall.

Provided Barry Shales had touched the bullets with his bare fingers. Which wasn’t the case. Sachs, goggled, was blasting the slug with an alternative light source wand. “None.”

“What about trace?”

Cooper was going over the slug now. “Bits of glass dust from the window.” He then used tweezers to remove some minuscule bits of material. He examined the specimens closely under the microscope. “Vegetation,” Rhyme postulated, looking at the monitor.

“Yes, that’s right,” the tech said. He ran a chemical analysis. “It’s urushiol. A skin-irritating allergen.” He looked up. “Poison ivy, sumac?”

“Ah, the poisonwood tree. Outside the window of the Kill Room. The bullet must’ve passed through a leaf before it hit Moreno.”

The tech also found a fiber, identical to those making up Moreno’s shirt, and traces of blood, which matched the activist’s blood in type.

Cooper said, “Aside from that and the ejecta, there’s nothing else on the bullet.”

Rhyme turned his new chair to face the evidence boards. “Ron, if you could update our opus with your fine Catholic school handwriting? I need to optic the big picture,” he added, unable to resist a bit of jargon worthy of their leader in absentia, Captain Bill Myers.

CHAPTER 58

“Some mysteries here,” Rhyme said, musing, as he stared at the whiteboards, losing himself in the facts. Half whispering: “Do we like mysteries, rookie?”

“I’d say we do, Lincoln.”

“Ah, right you are. And why?”

“Because they keep us from being, you know, complacent. They make us wonder and when we wonder we discover.”

A smile.

“Now, what do we have, what do we have? First, Unsub Five Sixteen. We’ve got plenty of evidence against him — for the murder of Annette in the Bahamas, the bomb in Java Hut and the murder of Lydia Foster. If — excuse me when—we get his ID we can make a solid case against him for explosives and murder.

“Now, the conspiracy case against Shales and Metzger. We can link them — they both work together at NIOS — and we’ve got Shales’s code name, Don Bruns, on the kill order. All we need now is the last piece of the puzzle: proof that Barry Shales was in the Bahamas on May 9. Once we do we’ve got both of them for conspiracy.”

Whispering to himself as he stared at the boards. “Nothing in the physical evidence placing him there. We can prove the unsub was in the South Cove the day before the shooting but not Shales.” He looked toward Sachs. “How’s the datamining coming — is there anything about Shales’s travel history?”

“I’ll call Information Services.” She picked up her mobile.

We don’t need much, Rhyme reflected. A connection could be inferred by the jury — that’s what circumstantial evidence was all about. But there had to be some basis for a valid inference. A jury can find a man guilty of DUI hit-and-run, even if he’s found sober and denying the next morning, if a bartender testifies that he downed a dozen beers an hour before the accident and the jury takes that testimony as credible.

Vehicle E-ZPass transponders, credit cards, RFID chips in employee badges, subway MetroCards, TSA records, Customs documents, traffic cameras and security cameras in stores…dozens of sources of information could be used to place suspects at scenes.

He noted that Sachs was jotting quick notes. Good. They’d struck gold, he had a feeling.

Something would pin Barry Shales to the Bahamas on May 9.

Sellitto was looking at the chart and he echoed Rhyme’s thought. “There’s gotta be something. We know Shales’s the shooter.”

Amelia Sachs disconnected the call and with an uncharacteristically bewildered expression said, “Actually, Lon, no, he’s not.”

CHAPTER 59

A half hour later Nance Laurel was in Rhyme’s town house.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

Sachs said, “He’s not the sniper. Look for yourself.”

And she tossed a number of documents on the table in front of Laurel with a bit more force than Rhyme supposed was necessary under the circumstances. On the other hand, clearly these two women were never destined to be friends. He’d been expecting a knock-down-drag-out between them the way a storm chaser eyes a pea-green overcast and thinks: Tornado’s brewing.

What the Information Services operation of the NYPD had discovered was that Barry Shales had not been in the Bahamas on the day Moreno was shot. He was in New York City all day — in fact, he hadn’t been out of the country in months.

“They ran a dozen searches, cross-referenced everything. I asked them to double-check. They triple-checked. Radio frequency ID chip scans of him going into the NIOS office at nine and leaving for lunch, I’d guess — about two. During that time he went to Bennigan’s, paid with a credit card. Handwriting scan is his, and then went to an ATM — the scan by the cash machine camera is positive. Sixty-point facial recognition. Returned to the office at three. Left at six thirty.”

“May nine. You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

An odd sound, a snake’s hiss. The breath easing from Nance Laurel’s mouth.

“Where’s that leave us?” Sachs asked.

“With Unsub Five Sixteen,” Pulaski said.

Sellitto added, “We have nothing to suggest he’s the sniper — he seems more like backup, or clean-up. But we have charges against him.”

Rhyme said, “Here’s an alternative case. We forget the Moreno homicide altogether. We prove Metzger had Unsub Five Sixteen kill Lydia Foster and set the IED. At the least there’s your conspiracy charge. It’s probably likely to get Metzger murder two.”

But Laurel looked doubtful. “That’s not the case I want.”

“You want?” Sachs asked, as if she’d decided the ADA sounded like a spoiled little girl.

“Right. My case is against Metzger and his sniper for conspiring to commit an illegal targeted assassination.” Her voice rose, the first edge Rhyme had heard in it. “The kill order was the whole basis for that.” She stared at the copy on the whiteboard as if it had betrayed her.

“We can still nail Metzger,” Sachs countered petulantly. “Does it matter how?”

Ignoring her, the ADA turned and walked to the window in the front of the parlor. She was staring out at Central Park.

Amelia Sachs gazed after her. Rhyme knew exactly what she was thinking.

I want…

My case…

Rhyme’s eyes swiveled to Laurel. The tree she was looking at was a swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor, a thick and not particularly tall tree that did well in Manhattan. Rhyme knew about it not because of a personal interest in arboriculture but because he’d discovered a minuscule fragment of a swamp white oak leaf in the car of one Reggie “Sump” Kelleher, a particularly unpleasant Hell’s Kitchen thug. The sliver, along with a bit of limy soil, had placed Kelleher at a clearing in Prospect Park, where the body of a Jamaican drug kingpin had been found, though the head had not.

Rhyme was focusing on the tree when the idea occurred to him.

He turned quickly to the evidence charts and stared for a long moment. He was vaguely aware that people were saying things to him. He paid no attention, muttering to himself.

Then he called over his shoulder, “Sachs, Sachs! Fast! I need you to take a drive.”

CHAPTER 60

The business of war was winding down around the world and some of the buildings in the New Jersey headquarters of Walker Defense Systems were shuttered.

But Sachs observed that there must be some market left for weapons of mass — and personal — destruction; dozens of high-end Mercedeses and Audis and BMWs dotted the parking lot.

And an Aston Martin.

Man, Sachs thought. I would love to take that Vanquish for a spin — and she fantasized about letting the horses loose on the company’s private drive.

Inside the fifties-style building, she checked with reception and was led to a waiting area.

“Sterile” was the word that came to mind and that was true in two senses: The decor was minimal and austere, a few gray and black paintings, some ads for products whose purpose she couldn’t quite figure out. And sterile in another sense: She felt she was a virus that researchers didn’t quite trust and were keeping isolated until they knew more.

Rather than a People or a Wall Street Journal with last week’s news, for waiting-room reading she chose a glossy company brochure, detailing its divisions, including missile guidance, gyroscopic navigation, armor, ammunition…all sorts of items.

Yes, maybe the company was downsizing but the literature showed impressive facilities in Florida, Texas and California, in addition to the headquarters. Overseas, they had operations in Abu Dhabi, São Paulo, Singapore, Munich and Mumbai. She walked to the window and studied the expansive grounds.

Soon a thirtyish man in a suit stepped into the lobby and greeted her. He was clearly surprised to see that an NYPD detective came in such a package and couldn’t quite restrain the flirt as he led her through the labyrinthine and equally sterile halls to the CEO’s office. He charmingly asked her about her job — what it was like to be a cop in New York, what were her most interesting cases, did she watch CSI or The Mentalist, what kind of gun did she have?

Which reminded her of the inked manager of Java Hut.

Men…

When it was clear that this theme of conversation wasn’t working, he took to telling her about the company’s achievements. She nodded politely and immediately forgot all of the factoids. With a frown he glanced at her leg; she realized she’d been limping and instantly forced herself into a normal gait.

After a trek they came to a corner office in the one-story building, Mr. Walker’s. A spray-haired brunette at an impressive desk looked up, defensive, probably because her boss was being visited by the NYPD. Sachs noticed that many of the shelves here were occupied by a collection of plastic and lead soldiers. Whole armies. Sachs’s first thought: Dusting would be a bitch.

The flirter who’d escorted her seemed to try to think of some way to ask her out on a date but nothing occurred to him. He turned and left.

“He’ll see you now,” the PA said.

As Sachs stepped into Harry Walker’s office, she couldn’t help but smile.

A weapons manufacturer had to be narrow of face, unsmiling and suspicious, if not sadistic, right? Plotting ways to sell ammunition to Russia while simultaneously shipping to Chechnyan separatists. The head of Walker Defense, however, was a pudgy and cherubic sixty-five-year-old, who happened to be sitting cross-legged on the floor, putting together a pink tricycle.

Walker wore a white shirt, which bulged at the belly over tan dress slacks. His tie was striped, red and blue. He offered a casual smile and rose — with some difficulty; a screwdriver was clutched in one hand and a set of assembly instructions in the other. “Detective Sachs. Amanda?”

“Amelia.”

“I’m Harry.”

She nodded.

“My granddaughter.” He glanced at the bike. “I have a degree from MIT. I have two hundred patents for advanced weapons systems. But can I put together a Hello Kitty trike? Apparently only with great difficulty.”

Every part was carefully laid out on the floor, labeled by Post-it Notes.

Sachs said, “I work on cars. I always end up with an extra bolt or nut or strut. But things seem to run fine without them.”

He set the tool and instructions on his desk and sat behind it. Sachs took the chair he gestured at.

“So, now, what can I do for you?” He was smiling still — just like the middle manager who’d escorted her from the lobby but in Walker’s case the expression wasn’t a flirt. His grin hid both curiosity and caution.

“You’re one of the oldest manufacturers of bullets and weapons systems in the country.”

“Well, thanks to Wikipedia, why deny it?”

Sachs settled back into the comfortable chair, also leather, beige. She glanced at the pictures on the wall, some men at a rifle range, probably around the time of the First World War.

He told her, “We were founded by my great-granddad. Quite an amazing man. I say that like I knew him. But he died before I was born. He invented the recoil system of automatic weapons loading. Of course, there were a half dozen other inventors who did the same and he didn’t get to the patent office first. But he made the best, the most efficient models.”

Sachs hadn’t known about Walker Senior’s contribution but was impressed. There were several ways to get a weapon to fire repeatedly but the recoil system had won out as the most popular. A talented shooter can get off a bullet every few seconds with a bolt-action rifle. A modern automatic weapon can spit nine hundred rounds a minute, some esoteric types even more.

“You’re familiar with firearms?” he asked.

“I shoot as a hobby.”

He eyed her carefully. “How do you feel about the Second Amendment?” A provocative question wearing a gown of mere curiosity.

She didn’t hesitate. “Open to interpretation — the militia versus personal rights.”

The brief Second Amendment of the Constitution guaranteed the right of militias to keep and bear arms. It didn’t specifically say that all citizens had that right.

Sachs continued, “I’ve read George Mason’s notes, and personally I think his intent was that he was referring exclusively to militias.” She held up a hand as Walker was about to interrupt. “But then he added, ‘Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.’ That means the right applies to everybody — back then every citizen was potentially militia.”

“I’m with you!” Walker beamed. “That’s nearly a direct quote, by the way. So, don’t trammel our rights.” He nodded.

“Not quite so fast,” Sachs added coyly. “It’s not the end of the argument.”

“No?”

“The Constitution gives us a lot of rights but it also lets Congress regulate us in a thousand different ways. You need a license to drive a car or fly a plane or sell liquor. You can’t vote until you’re eighteen. Why shouldn’t you have a license to own or shoot a gun? I have no problem with that. And it doesn’t conflict with the Second Amendment at all.”

Walker responded happily, enjoying their argument, “Ah, but of course if we get licenses, then Washington knows where the guns are and they’ll come in the middle of the night and take them away. Don’t we need our weapons to stop them from doing that?”

Sachs riposted, “Washington has nukes. If they want our guns they’ll take our guns.”

Walker nodded. “True, there is that. Now, we’ve been digressing. How can I help you?”

“We recovered a bullet at a crime scene.”

“One of ours, I assume.”

“You’re the only company making a four twenty spitzer boattail, aren’t you?”

“Oh, our new sniper round. And a very fine cartridge it is. Better than the four sixteen, if you ask me. Fast. Oh, fast as a demon.” Then he frowned in apparent confusion. “And the round was involved in a crime?”

“That’s right.”

“We don’t sell to the public. Only government, the army and police SWAT teams. I don’t know how a criminal could have gotten his hands on one — unless he, or she, fell into those categories. Where exactly was the scene?”

“I can’t say at this point.”

“I see. And what do you want to know?”

“Just some information. We’re trying to find the rifle this slug was fired from but not having any luck. We’re assuming they’re custom-made.”

“That’s right. The loads are too big to fire in retooled commercial rifles. Most of the shooters find somebody to make their weapons for them. A few do it themselves.”

“Do you know anyone who does that work?”

He smiled coyly. “I can’t say at this point.”

She laughed. “And that goes for information about customers you’ve sold these bullets to?”

Walker grew serious now. “If somebody had broken into one of our own warehouses—” A nod out the window toward nearby buildings. “—and the rounds were used in a crime, then I’d be happy to help you out. But I can’t give you customer information. We have gag clauses in all our contracts, and in most cases there’re additional national security requirements. To give you information like that would be a crime.” His face grew troubled. “Can you tell me anything about what happened, though? Was it a homicide?”

Sachs debated. “Yes.”

Walker’s face was still. “I’m sorry about that. I truly am. It doesn’t do us any good when somebody misuses our products and something tragic happens.”

But that didn’t mean he was going to help. Walker rose and extended his hand.

She stood too. “Thanks for your time.”

Walker picked up the instructions and screwdriver and walked back to the trike.

Then he smiled and picked up a bolt. “You buy a Harley-Davidson, you know, it comes already assembled.”

“Good luck with that, Mr. Walker. Call me if you can think of anything, please.” She handed him one of her cards — which, she suspected, he’d pitch out before she was halfway to the lobby.

Didn’t matter.

Sachs had everything she needed.

CHAPTER 61

In Rhyme’s dark parlor, redolent of trace materials burned into incriminating evidence by the gas chromatograph, Sachs pulled her jacket off and held up the brochure from Walker Defense.

Ron Pulaski taped it up on a whiteboard. The glitzy piece sat next to the kill order.

“So,” Rhyme said, “what did it look like?”

“Pretty short and hidden between two buildings but I caught a glimpse from Walker’s office. There was a windsock at one end and what looked like a small hangar at the other.”

Sachs’s mission had nothing to do with getting customer information or the names of people fabricating long-range rifles, which Rhyme knew Walker wouldn’t divulge anyway. Her job was to find out as much about the company’s products as she could — more than its preening and ambiguous website offered. And — most important — to find out if it had a length of asphalt or concrete that could be used as an airstrip; Google Earth had not been helpful in that regard.

“Excellent,” Rhyme said.

As for the other products, they too were just what he’d hoped: instruments and devices for guidance, navigation and control systems, in addition to ammunition. “Gyroscopes, GPS sighting systems, synthetic aperture radar, things like that,” Sachs explained.

The criminalist read through the brochure.

He said slowly, “Okay, we have our answer. The case is back on. Barry Shales did kill Robert Moreno. He was just a little farther away from the target than two thousand feet. In fact, he was here in New York when he pulled the trigger.”

Sellitto shook his head. “We should’ve thought better. Shales wasn’t infantry or special forces. He was air force.”

Rhyme’s theory, now supported by Sachs’s legwork, was that Barry Shales was a drone pilot.

“We know his code name is Don Bruns and Bruns was the one who killed Moreno. The data show he was in the NIOS office downtown on the day the man died. He’d have been piloting a drone from some control facility there.” He paused, frowned. “Oh, hell, that’s the ‘Kill Room’ the STO refers to. It’s not the hotel suite where Moreno was shot; it’s the drone cockpit or whatever you call it, where the pilot sits.”

Sachs nodded at the brochure. “Walker makes those bullets, they make gun sights and stabilization and radar and navigation systems. They’ve built or armed a specialized drone that uses a rifle as a weapon.”

Rhyme spat out, “Look at the STO — there’s a period after ‘Kill Room,’ not a comma! ‘Suite twelve hundred’ doesn’t modify it. They’re separate places.” He continued, “Okay, this is all making sense now. What’s the one problem with drone strikes?”

“Collateral damage,” Sachs said.

“Exactly. A missile takes out terrorists but it also kills innocent people. Very bad for America’s image. NIOS contracted with Walker Defense to come up with a drone that minimizes collateral. Using a precision rifle with a very big bullet.”

Sellitto said, “But they fucked up. There was collateral.”

“The Moreno assassination was a fluke,” Rhyme said. “Who could’ve anticipated broken glass would be lethal?”

Sellitto gave a laugh. “You know, Amelia, you were right. This was a million-dollar bullet. Literally. Hell, given what drones cost, it’s probably a ten-million-dollar bullet.”

“How’d you guess?” Nance Laurel asked.

“Guess?” Sachs offered acerbically.

But Rhyme didn’t need any defense. He was delighted with his deduction and was happy to explain:

“Trees. I was thinking of trees. There was poisonwood leaf trace on the bullet. I saw the tree outside the window of the suite. All the branches up to about twenty-five feet or so were cut back — because the hotel didn’t want anyone touching the leaves. That meant the bullet struck Moreno at a very steep downward angle — probably forty-five degrees. That was too acute even for a shooter on the spit to aim high to correct for gravity. It meant the bullet came from the air.

“If Shales fired through the trees, that means he was using some kind of infrared or radar sighting system to quote see Moreno through the leaves. I was also curious why there was no pollution on the slug — from the fumes and crap in the air over the spit. A hot bullet would have picked up plenty of trace. But it didn’t.”

Pulaski said, “By the way, Lincoln, they’re UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles. Not drones.”

“Thank you for the correction. Accuracy is everything. You’re a wealth of knowledge.”

“Discovery Channel.”

Rhyme laughed and continued, “It also reconciles why Mychal Poitier’s divers didn’t find any spent brass. It’s out to sea. Or maybe the drone retains the spent shells. Good, good. We’re moving ahead.”

Cooper said, “And he was a lot closer than two thousand yards. That’s why the high velocity of the bullet.”

Rhyme said, “I’d guess the UAV couldn’t’ve been any more than two or three hundred yards out, to make an accurate shot like that. It’d be easy for people on the ground to miss it. There would have been camouflage — just like with our chameleons. And the engine would’ve been small — two-stroke, remember. With a muffler you’d never hear it.”

“It launched from Walker’s airstrip in New Jersey?” Pulaski asked.

Rhyme shook his head. “The airstrip’s just for testing the drones, I’m sure. NIOS would launch from a military base and as close to the Bahamas as possible.”

Laurel dug through her notes. “There’s a NIOS office near Miami.” She looked up. “Next to Homestead Air Reserve Base.”

Sachs tapped the brochure. “Walker has an office near there. Probably for service and support.”

Laurel’s crisp voice then added, “And you recall what Lincoln said earlier?” She was speaking to them all.

“Yep,” Sellitto said, compulsively stirring his coffee, as if that would make it sweeter; he’d added only half a packet of sugar. “We don’t need conspiracy anymore. Barry Shales was in New York City when he pulled the trigger. That means the crime’s now murder two. And Metzger’s an accessory.”

“Very good, Detective, that’s correct,” Laurel said as if she were a fifth-grade teacher praising a student in class.

CHAPTER 62

Shreve Metzger tilted his head back so the lower lens of his glasses brought the words on his magic phone better into focus.

Budgetary meetings proceeding apace. Much back-and-forth. Resolution tomorrow. Can’t tell which way the wind is blowing.

He thought to the Wizard, And what the hell am I supposed to do with this bit of fucking non-information? Get my résumé in order or not? Tell everybody here that they’re about to be punished for being patriots and saying no to the evil that wants to destroy the greatest country on earth? Or not?

Sometimes the Smoke could be light, irritating. Sometimes it could be that inky mass of cloud, the sort you see rising from plane crashes and chemical plant explosions.

He digitally shredded the message and stalked downstairs to the coffee shop, bought a latte for himself and a soy-laced mochaccino for Ruth. He returned and set hers on her desk, between pictures of soldier husband one and soldier husband two.

“Thank you,” the woman said and turned her stunning blue eyes on him. The corners crinkled with a smile. Even in her advanced decade Ruth was attractive in the broadest sense of the word. Metzger did not believe in souls or spirits but, if he did, that would be the part of Ruth that so appealed.

Maybe you could just say she had a good heart.

And here she is working for someone like me…

He brushed aside the Smokey cynicism.

“The appointment went okay,” she told him.

Metzger replied, “I was confident. I knew it would. Could you have Spencer come in, please?”

Stepping into his office, he dropped into his chair, sipped the coffee, angry at what he felt was the excessive heat radiating through the cardboard. This reminded him of another incident: A street vendor selling him coffee had been rude. He still fantasized about finding the man’s stand and ramming it with his car. The incident was three years ago.

Can’t tell which way the wind is blowing.

He blew on the coffee — Smoke exhaling, he imagined.

Let it go.

He began checking emails, extracted from the rabbit hole of encryption. One was troubling: Some disturbing news about the Moreno investigation, a setback. Curiously this just exhausted him, didn’t infuriate.

A knock on the jamb. Spencer Boston entered and sat.

“What’ve you got on our whistleblower?” Metzger asked without a greeting.

“Looks like the first round of polygraphs is negative. That was people actually signing off on or reviewing the STO. There are still hundreds who might’ve slipped into an office somewhere and gotten their hands on a copy.”

“So all the senior people in the command are clear?”

“Right. Here and at the centers.”

NIOS had three UAV command centers: Pendleton in California, Fort Hood in Texas and Homestead in Florida. They all would have received a copy of the Moreno STO, even though the UAV launched from Homestead.

“Oh,” Boston said. “I passed too, by the way.”

Metzger gave a smile. “Didn’t occur to me.” It truthfully hadn’t.

“What’s good for the asset is good for the agent.”

Metzger asked, “And Washington?”

At least a dozen people down in the nation’s capital knew about the STO. Including, of course, key members of the White House staff.

“That’s harder. They’re resisting.” Boston asked, “Where are they now in the investigation, the cops?”

Metzger felt the Smoke arising. “Apparently that Rhyme managed to get down to the Bahamas after all.” He nodded at his phone where certain emails used to reside. “The fucking sand didn’t deter him as much as we’d hoped.”

“What?” Boston’s eyes, normally shaded by sagging lids, grew wide.

Metzger said judiciously, “There was an accident, it seems. But it didn’t stop him.”

“An accident?” Boston asked, looking at him closely.

“That’s right, Spencer, an accident. And he’s back here, going gangbusters. That woman too.”

“The prosecutor?”

“Well, yes, her. But I meant that Detective Sachs. She’s unstoppable.”

“Jesus.”

Though his present plans would, in fact, stop her quite efficiently.

Laurel too.

Well, yes, her…

Boston’s concern was evident and the display angered Metzger. He said dismissingly, “I can’t imagine Rhyme found anything. The crime scene was a week old, and how competent could the police down there be?”

The memory of the coffee vendor came back, immediate and stark. Instead of ramming the stand, Metzger had thought about pouring hot coffee on himself and calling the police, saying the vendor did it and having him arrested.

The Smoke made you unreasonable.

Boston intruded on the memory. “Do you think you ought to give anybody else a heads-up?”

Heads-up. Metzger hated that expression. When you analyze it, the phrase could only mean that you should glance up in time to say a prayer before something large crushed you to death. A better expression would be “eyes-forward.”

“Not at this time.”

He looked up and he noted Ruth standing in the doorway.

Why the hell hadn’t he closed the door? “Yes?”

“Shreve. It’s Operations.”

A flashing red LED light on Metzger’s phone console.

He hadn’t noticed it.

What now?

He held up an index finger to Spencer Boston and answered. “Metzger here.”

“Sir, we have Rashid.” The OD was younger even than Metzger and his voice revealed that.

Suddenly the Smoke vanished. And so did Nance Laurel, Lincoln Rhyme and virtually every other blot on his life. Rashid was the next man in the Special Task Order queue, after Moreno. Metzger had been after him for a very long time. “Where?”

“He’s in Mexico.”

“So that’s his plan. The prick got closer than we thought.”

“Slippery, sir. Yes. He’s in a temporary location, a safe house the Matamoros Cartel has in Reynosa. We have a short window. Should I forward details to the GCS and Texas Center?”

“Yes.”

The operations director asked, “Sir, are you aware that the STO has been modified in Washington?”

“In what regard?” he asked, troubled.

“The original order provided for minimizing collateral damage but it didn’t prohibit CD. This one does. Approval is rescinded if anyone else present is a casualty, even wounded.”

Rescinded…

Which means that if anybody is killed with Rashid, even al-Qaeda’s second-in-command about to push a nuclear launch button, I’ve acted outside the scope of my authority.

And I’m fucked.

It didn’t matter that a pure asshole died and a thousand innocent people were saved.

Maybe this was part of the “budgetary” meetings.

“Sir?”

“Understood.”

He disconnected and told Boston the news. “Rashid? I thought that son of a bitch was going to hide out in San Salvador till the attack. He paid off members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang — aka the MS-13s — for protection. Had some place in District Six, near Soyapango. If you want to get lost to the world, that’s the place to do it.”

Nobody knew Central America like Spencer Boston.

A flag arose on his computer. Metzger opened his encrypted emails and read the new STO there, the death warrant for al-Barani Rashid, suitably modified. He read it again and added his electronic signature and PIN number, approving the kill.

The man was, like Moreno, a U.S.-born expatriate, who’d been living in northern Africa and the Gulf states until a few months ago.

He’d been on a watch list for several years but only under informal surveillance, not in any of the active-risk books. He’d never done anything overt that could be proven. But he was as vehemently anti-American as Moreno. And he too had been seen in the company of groups that were actively engaged in terrorist actions.

Metzger scrolled through the intelligence analysis accompanying the revised STO, explaining to Boston the details. Rashid was in the undistinguished town of Reynosa, Mexico, on the Texas border. The U.S. intelligence assets NIOS was using down there believed Rashid was in town to meet with a senior man in northeastern Mexico’s biggest cartel. Terrorists had taken to working closely with the cartels for two reasons: to encourage drug flow into America, which supported their ideology of eroding Western society and institutions, and because the cartels were incredibly well equipped.

“We’ll have him handle it?”

“Of course.” Him. Bruns, that is, Barry Shales. He was the best in the stable. Metzger texted him now and ordered him to report to the Kill Room.

Metzger spun the computer and together he and Boston studied the images, both on-the-ground surveillance and satellite. The safe house in Reynosa was a dusty one-story ranch structure, good-sized, with weathered tan paint and bright green trim. It squatted in the middle of a sandy one-acre lot. All the windows were shaded and barred. The car, if there was one, would be tucked away in the garage.

Metzger assessed the situation. “We’ll have to go with a missile. No visuals to use LRR.”

The Long-Range Rifle program, in which a specially built sniper gun was mounted into a drone, had been Metzger’s brainchild. LRR was the centerpiece of NIOS. The arrangement served two purposes. It drastically minimized the risk of innocent deaths, which nearly always happened with missiles. And it gave Metzger the chance to kill a lot more enemies; you had to be judicious about launching missiles and there was never much doubt after the fact where the Hellfire had come from: the U.S. military, CIA or other intelligence service. But a single rifle shot? The shooter could be anybody. Plant a few references to a gunman working for an opposing political party, a terrorist group, or — say — a South American cartel, and the local authorities and the press would tend not to look elsewhere. The victim could even have been shot by a jealous spouse.

But he’d known from the beginning that LRR drones wouldn’t always work. For Rashid, with no visible target the only option was a missile, with its twenty-pound high-explosive warhead.

Boston’s long face was aimed out the window. He brushed his white hair absently with his fingers and played with a stray thread escaping from a cuff button. Metzger wondered why he always wore a jacket in the office.

“What, Spencer?”

“Is this a good time for another STO? With the Moreno fallout?”

“This intel’s solid. Rashid is guilty as sin. We have assessments from Langley and the Mossad and the SIS.”

“I just meant we don’t know how much of the queue got leaked. Maybe it was just Moreno’s order; maybe it was more, Rashid’s included. His was next on the list, remember? His death’ll make the news. Maybe that damn prosecutor’ll come after us for this one too. We’re on thin ice here.”

These were all obvious considerations but Metzger had the need inside his gut and, accordingly, was free of the Smoke.

He absolutely didn’t want this relief, this sense of comfort, of freedom, to go away.

“And if we don’t take him out, you know what Rashid’s got planned for Texas or Oklahoma.”

“We could call Langley and arrange a rendition.”

“Kidnap him? And do what? We don’t need information from him, Spencer. All we need from Rashid is no more Rashid.”

Boston yielded. “All right. But what about the collateral damage risk? Firing a Hellfire into a residence with no visual reference?”

Metzger scrolled down the intel assessment until he found the surveillance report. Current as of ten minutes ago. “Safe house is empty, except for Rashid. The place’s been under DEA and Mexican Federales surveillance for a week for suspected mules. Nobody’s gone inside until Rashid this morning. According to the intel, he’ll be meeting the cartel man anytime now. Once that guy leaves, we’ll blow the place to hell.”

CHAPTER 63

Al-Barani Rashid looked over his shoulder a great deal.

Figuratively and literally.

The tall, balding forty-year-old, with a precise goatee, knew he was in danger — from the Mossad, the CIA and that New York — based security outfit, NIOS. Probably some people in China too.

Not to mention more than a few fellow Muslims. He was on record as condemning the fundamentalists of his religion for their intellectual failings by blindly adhering to a medieval philosophy unsustainable in the twenty-first century. (He had also publicly excoriated moderates of the faith for their cowardice in protesting that they were misunderstood, that Islam was basically Presbyterianism with a different holy book. But they simply blogged insults; they weren’t going to fatwa him.)

Rashid wanted a new order, a complete reimagining of faith and society. If he had any model, it wasn’t Zawahiri or Bin Laden. It would be a hybrid of Karl Marx and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who happened to have attended his own school — the University of Michigan.

But as unpopular as he was, Rashid believed in his heart he was right. Remove the cancer and the world will right itself.

The metastasizing cells were, of course, the United States of America. From the subprime crisis, to Iraq, to the insulting carrot of foreign aid, to the racist diatribes of Christian preachers and politicians, to the deification of consumer goods, the country was a sea anchor on the progress of civilization. He’d left the country after a graduate degree in political science, never to return.

Yes, enemies were eager as wolves to get to him because of his views. Even those countries that didn’t like America needed America.

But he felt more or less safe at the moment, presently in a sprawling ranch-style house in Reynosa, Mexico, as he awaited the arrival of an ally.

He couldn’t say “friend,” of course. His relationship with the slick individuals of the Matamoros Cartel was symbiotic but their motives diverged considerably. Rashid’s was ideological, the war against American capitalism and society (and support for Israel, but that went without saying). The cartel’s purpose was, in a way, the opposite, making vast sums of money from that very society. But its goals were basically the same. Get as many drugs as you can into the country. And kill those who want to stop you from doing that.

Sipping strong tea, he looked at his watch. One of the cartel bosses was sending his chief bomb maker to see Rashid within the hour. He would provide what Rashid needed to build a particularly smart device, which would, in two days, kill a DEA regional director in Brownsville, Texas, together with her family and however many others happened to be nearby at the picnic.

Rashid was presently sitting at a coffee table, bent over a pad of yellow paper, and clutching a mechanical pencil as he drew engineering diagrams for the IED.

Although Reynosa was a thoroughly unpleasant town, dusty, dun-colored and filled with small, sagging factories, this house was large and quite pleasant. The cartel had put some good money into maintaining it. It had decent air-conditioning, plenty of food and tea and bottled water, comfortable furniture and thick shades on all the windows. Yes, not a bad house at all.

Though occasionally noisy.

He walked to the back bedroom door and knocked, then opened it. One of the enforcers with the cartel, a heavyset unsmiling man named Norzagaray, nodded a greeting.

Rashid looked over the cartel’s hostages: The husband and wife, both native Mexican and stocky, their teenage son and little girl sat on the floor, in front of a TV. The father’s and wife’s hands were bound with bell wire, loose enough so they could drink water and eat. Not so loose they could attack their kidnappers.

In Rashid’s opinion, they should have bound the wife’s more tightly. She was the danger; she had the rage. It was obvious as she comforted her daughter, a slim child whose head was crowned with dark, curly hair. The husband and boy were more frightened.

Rashid had been told by his contacts here that he could use the house but he would have to share it with these hostages, who’d been here for eight or nine days. The man’s small business had been spending that time struggling to raise the two million dollars in ransom the drug lords had demanded — because of the man’s defiance of the cartel.

Rashid said to Norzagaray, “Could you turn the volume down please?” A nod at the TV, on which a cartoon was playing.

Their guard did so.

“Thank you.” He looked the family over carefully now, taking no pleasure in their terror. This was crime for profit; he didn’t approve. He regarded the teenager and then a soccer ball in the corner. The colors were those of Club América, the pro team in Mexico City.

“You like football?”

“Yes.”

“What do you play?”

“Midfield.”

“I did too when I was your age.” Rashid didn’t smile. He never did but his voice was soft. He looked at them a moment more. Though they did not know it yet, Rashid had been told the negotiations were nearly complete and the family would be released tomorrow. Rashid was pleased at this. These people were not the enemy. The father wasn’t working for an American company that was exploitative and amoral. He was just a small businessman who’d fallen on the wrong side of the cartel. Rashid wanted to reassure them that they would survive the ordeal. But this wasn’t his concern.

He closed the door and returned to the diagrams he was working on. He reviewed them for long moments. And finally concluded: First, no one could possibly survive being in the proximity of the device they described. And second — he allowed himself the immodest thought — the drawings were as elegant as the finest zellige terra-cotta tiles, a cornerstone of Moroccan art.

CHAPTER 64

Lincoln Rhyme was saying, “And the same evidence we thought exculpated Shales by placing him in New York at the time of the shooting now helps implicate him: the phone calls from his mobile to the South Cove Inn to verify when Moreno was checking in, the metadata that placed him at NIOS headquarters in New York at the time of the death. We’ll need more, though. We need to place him at the joystick of the drone. UAV, excuse me, rookie. How can we do that?”

“Air traffic control in Florida and the Bahamas,” Sachs said.

“Good.”

Sachs called their federal liaison, Fred Dellray, with the request and had a lengthy conversation with him. Finally Sachs disconnected. “Fred’s calling the FAA here and the Civil Aviation Department in Nassau. But he gave me another idea.” She was typing on her computer.

Rhyme couldn’t see clearly. It appeared that she was examining a map. “Well,” she whispered.

“What?” Rhyme wondered.

“Fred suggested we ought to try to get a look at the Kill Room itself.”

“What?” Sellitto barked. “How?”

Google apparently.

Sachs smiled. She’d called up a satellite image of the block in which NIOS headquarters was located in downtown Manhattan. Behind the building itself was a parking lot, separated from the street with an impressive-looking security fence and overseen by a guard station. In the corner was a large rectangular structure, like a shipping container — the sort you see bolted to decks and cruising down highways behind tractor-trailer semis. Next to it a ten-foot antenna pointed skyward.

“That’s the Ground Control Station, Fred told me. GCS. He said most of the UAVs are controlled from portable facilities like that.”

“The Kill Room,” Mel Cooper said.

“Perfect,” Laurel said briskly to Sachs. “Print that out, if you would.”

Rhyme could see Sachs bristle, hesitate and then with a thumb and finger — with a dot of dried blood behind the nail — tap hard on the keyboard. A printer began to exhale.

When the document was disgorged, Laurel slipped it from the tray and added it to her files.

Sachs’s phone buzzed. “It’s Fred again,” she announced. She hit speaker.

Rhyme called, “Fred. Don’t insult anybody.”

“I can hear. Well, well, you all have yourself quite a case here. Good luck on this one. Hey, see any funny-lookin’ airplanes hovering outside your windows? Might wanta think about closing the blinds.”

This was not as funny as Dellray intended, Rhyme decided, given Barry Shales’s skill at firing million-dollar bullets.

“Hokay, the radar situation. Sentcha screenshots. What we put together is the morning of May nine a small aircraft, no transponder, was tracked heading east over the Atlantic, south of Miami.”

“Where Homestead air base is,” Sellitto pointed out.

“Right you are. Now, the craft was on visual flight rules, no flight plan. Speed was very slow — about a hundred ten miles an hour. Which is typical drone speed. We all together on that?”

“With you, Fred. Keep going.”

“Well, it’s about a hundred eighty miles to Nassau from Miami. Exactly one hour and fifty-two minutes later, ATC in Nassau tracked a small aircraft, no transponder, ascend into radar range, about six hundred feet.” Dellray paused. “And then it stopped.”

“Stopped?”

“They thought it stalled. But it didn’t drop off the screen.”

“It was hovering,” Rhyme said.

“My guess. They figured that with no transponder the plane was an ultralight — one of those homemade gizmos that sometimes just sit like birds in headwinds? It wasn’t in controlled airspace so they didn’t pay any more mind. The time was eleven oh four a.m.”

“Moreno was shot at eleven sixteen,” Sachs said.

“And at eleven eighteen it turned around and descended outta radar. Two hours and five minutes later, a small aircraft, no transponder, crossed into U.S. airspace and headed toward South Miami.”

“That’s our boy,” Rhyme said. “Thanks, Fred.”

“Gooood luck. And forget you ever knew me.”

Click.

Wasn’t conclusive but like all elements in a case it was a solid brick in the wall of establishing a suspect’s guilt.

Nance Laurel got a call. While someone else might have nodded or offered some facial clues as to the content she listened without expression; her powdered face was a mask. She disconnected. “There’s an issue with another case of mine. I have to go interview a prisoner in detention. It shouldn’t be long. I’d like to stay but I have to take care of this.”

The prosecutor gathered up her purse and headed out the door.

Sachs too received a call. She listened and jotted a few notes.

Rhyme turned from her and was regarding the charts once again. “But I want more,” he griped. “Something to prove that Shales was at the controls of the drone.”

“Ask and ye shall receive.” This, from Amelia Sachs.

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow.

She said, “We have a lead to the whistleblower. If anybody can place Barry Shales in the Kill Room on May ninth, it’s him.”

Sachs was pleased to report that Captain Myers’s officers who’d been canvassing the patrons of Java Hut when the whistleblower uploaded the STO had found some witnesses.

Her computer gave a bleat and she looked toward the screen. “Incoming,” she said.

Sellitto gave a harsh laugh. “Not a good choice of words in this case, you don’t mind.”

She opened the attachment. “People buy a lot more with credit or debit cards nowadays. Even if the bill’s only three, four dollars. Sure helps us, though. The canvassers talked to everybody who charged something around one p.m. on the eleventh. Mostly a bust but one of them got a picture.” She printed out the photo attachments. Not terrible, she decided, but hardly high-def mug shots. “Has to be our man.”

She read the officer’s memo. “‘The photographer was a tourist from Ohio. Shooting pictures of his wife sitting across from him. You can see in the background a man, blurred — because he’s turning away fast and raising his hand to cover his face. Asked the tourists if they got a better look at him. They didn’t and other patrons and the baristas didn’t pay any attention to him.’”

Rhyme looked at the picture. Two tables behind the smiling woman was the presumed whistleblower. White. Solidly built, in a blue suit, an odd color, just shy of navy. He wore a baseball cap — suspicious, given the business attire — but seemed to have light-colored hair. A big laptop sat open before him.

“That’s him,” Sachs said. “He’s got an iBook.” She’d downloaded a picture of every model.

The criminalist observed, “Suit doesn’t fit well. It’s cheap. And see the Splenda packets on the table, along with the stirrer? Confirms he’s our man.”

“Why?” Sellitto asked. “I use Splenda.”

“Not the substance — the fact it’s on the table. Most people add sugar or sweetener at the milk station and throw the empty packets out, and the stirrers too. So there’s less mess at the table. He’s taking his detritus with him. Didn’t want to leave friction ridge evidence.”

Most objects, even paper, retain very good fingerprints where food is served because of grease from the meals.

“Anything else about him?” Pulaski asked.

“You tell me, rookie.”

The young officer said, “Look how he’s holding his right hand, palm cupped upward? Maybe he was about to take a pill. Could be a headache, backache. Wait, look, there’s a box. Is it? A box at the side of the table?”

It seemed that there was. Blue and gold.

Rhyme said, “Good. I think you’re right. And notice he’s drinking tea — see the bag in the napkin? — in a coffeehouse? Looks pale. Maybe it’s herbal. Not that unusual but a reasonable deduction could be stomach issues. Check antacid, reflux, indigestion medicine boxes that come in two colors.”

A moment later Cooper said, “Could be Zantac, maximum strength. Hard to say.”

“We don’t need definitive answers on everything,” Rhyme said softly. “We need direction. So he’s probably got a bum gut.”

“Stress from leaking classified government documents’ll do that,” Mel Cooper offered.

“Age?” Rhyme wondered.

“Can’t tell,” the young officer replied. “How could you tell?”

“Well, I’m not asking you to play a carnival game, rookie. We see he’s stocky, we see he’s got stomach issues. Hair could be blond but could be gray. Conservative dress. It’s reasonable to speculate he’s middle-aged or older.”

“Sure. I see.”

“And his posture. It’s perfect, even though he’s not young. Suggests a military background. Or could still be in the service, dressing civie.”

They stared at the picture and Sachs found herself wondering, Why did you leak the kill order? What was in it for you?

A person with a conscience…

But are you a patriot or a traitor?

Wondering too: And where the hell are you?

Sellitto took a call. Sachs noticed that his face went from curious to dark. He glanced at the others in the room, then turned away.

Whispering now: “What?…That’s fucked up. You can’t just tell me that. I need details.”

Everyone was staring at him.

“Who? I want to know who. All right, find out and let me know.”

He disconnected and the glance in Sachs’s direction, but not directly at her, explained that she was the subject of the call.

“What, Lon?”

“You want to step outside.” He nodded toward the hallway.

Sachs glanced at Rhyme and said, “No. Here. What is it? Who called?”

He hesitated.

“Lon,” she said firmly. “Tell me.”

“Okay, Amelia, I’m sorry. Look, you’re off the case.”

“What?”

“Actually, gotta say, you’re on mandatory leave altogether. You’ve gotta report down to—”

“What happened?” Rhyme snapped.

“I don’t know for sure. That was my PA. She told me the word came from the chief of detectives’ office. The formal report’s on its way. I don’t know who’s behind this.”

“Oh, I do,” Sachs snapped. She ripped open her purse and looked inside to make sure she had the copy of the document she’d found on Nance Laurel’s desk the other night. At that time, she’d been reluctant to brandish it as a weapon.

Now she no longer was.

CHAPTER 65

Shreve Metzger ran a hand through his trim hair, remembered his first day out of the service.

Somebody, a civilian, on the streets of Buffalo had called him a skinhead. Baby-killer too. The guy was drunk. Anti-military. An asshole. All of the above.

The Smoke had filled Metzger fast, though he didn’t call it Smoke then, didn’t call it anything. He proceeded to break at least four bones in the man’s body before the relief shot through him. More than relief — almost sexual.

Sometimes this memory came back, like now, when he happened to touch his hair. Nothing more than that. He remembered the man, his unfocused, slightly crossed eyes. The blood, the remarkably swollen jaw.

And the coffee vendor. No, just ram the stand, scald him, kill him, forget the consequences. The satisfaction would be sublime.

Help me, Dr. Fischer.

But there was no Smoke now. He was in an ecstatic high. Intelligence and surveillance experts were feeding him information about the Rashid operation.

The terrorist — the next task in the queue — was presently meeting with the Matamoros Cartel bomb supplier. Metzger would have given anything to modify the STO to include him as well but the man was a Mexican citizen and getting permission to vaporize him would have meant elaborate discussions with higher-ups in Mexico City and Washington. And heaven knew he had to be careful with them.

Budgetary meetings proceeding apace. Much back-and-forth. Resolution tomorrow. Can’t tell which way the wind is blowing…

He received another call about the progress of the UAV, under the command of Barry Shales in the GCS, the trailer outside Metzger’s window. The craft had launched not from Homestead, as in the Moreno operation, but from the NIOS facility near Fort Hood, Texas. It had crossed into Mexican airspace, with the Federales’ blessing, unlike with Moreno in the Bahamas, and was heading through clear weather toward the target.

His phone rang again. Seeing the caller ID he stiffened and glanced at his open door. He could see Ruth’s hands through the sliver of view into the ante office. She was typing. She had a small window too and sunlight glinted off her modest engagement and impressive wedding rings.

He rose and slid the door closed, then answered. “Yes.”

“Found her,” the man’s voice reported.

No names or code names…

Her.

Nance Laurel.

“Where?”

“Detention center, interviewing a suspect. Not on this case, something else. I’ve confirmed it’s her. She’s there now, pretty much alone. Should I?”

No ending verb to that sentence.

Metzger debated, added pluses and negatives. “Yes.”

He disconnected.

Maybe, just maybe this would all go away.

And he turned his attention back to Mexico, where an enemy of the country was about to die. Shreve Metzger felt swollen with joy.

CHAPTER 66

“Where’s Nance Laurel?” Sachs asked the rotund African American woman on the fifth floor of the New York detention center.

The Department of Corrections officer stiffened and glanced at Sachs’s badge with disdain. Sachs supposed her voice was a bit strident, the greeting rude. It hadn’t been intentional; Nance Laurel simply did this to her.

“Room Five. Box yo weapon.” Back to a People magazine. A scandal was breaking among some quasi-celebrities. Or maybe they were honest-to-God celebs. Sachs had never heard of them.

She wanted to apologize to the woman for her bluntness but couldn’t figure out how. Then her anger at Laurel returned and she slipped the Glock into a locker and slammed the door, drawing a criticizing breath from the lockup mistress. With a buzz the door opened and she stepped through into the grim corridor. It was deserted at the moment. This was the area where high-level prisoners — accused of serious felonies — discussed their cases with their lawyers and cut deals with the prosecutors.

The perfume here was disinfectant and paint and pee.

Sachs strode past the first several rooms, all of which were empty. At Interview #5, she looked through smeared glass and saw a shackled man in an orange jumpsuit sitting across from Laurel at a table bolted to the floor. In the corner was another D of C guard, a huge man whose nearly white shaved head glistened with sweat. His arms were crossed and he looked at the prisoner like a biologist examining yet another specimen of toxic but dead bug.

The doors were self-locking; you needed a key to open them from either side so Sachs banged on the door with her palm.

This must have been strident too, since everybody in the room jumped and swiveled. The guard had no gun but his hand dipped toward the pepper spray on his belt. He saw Sachs, apparently recognized her as a cop and relaxed. The prisoner gazed narrowly at Sachs and the look morphed from startled to hungry.

Sex crime, Sachs deduced.

Laurel’s lips tightened slightly.

She rose. The guard unlocked the door and let the ADA out, then he locked it again and returned to his watchful state.

The women walked to the end of the corridor, away from the door. Laurel asked, “Have you got something on Metzger or Shales?”

“Why ask me?” Sachs countered. “Since I’m not really in the equation.”

“Detective,” Laurel said evenly, “what are you talking about?”

She didn’t start with the news Sellitto had just informed her of, the suspension. She went chronologically. “You took my name off all the memos, all the emails. You replaced my name with yours.”

“I’m not—”

“Anything to help you get elected, right, Assemblywoman Laurel?”

Sachs withdrew the copy she’d made from Laurel’s secret files and thrust the sheet forward. It was a petition to put Laurel on the ballot to run for the office of assemblywoman in her district. The assembly was the lower house of the legislature in New York.

The woman’s eyes dipped. “Ah.”

Busted.

But an instant later she was gazing coolly back into Sachs’s face.

Sachs snapped, “You took me off the documents to take credit for yourself. Is that what this case is all about, Nance? ‘Your’ case, by the way. Not ‘our case’ or ‘the case.’ Because you wanted big media defendants to make a big splash. Forget Unsub Five Sixteen’s torturing innocent women. You don’t want him. You want the highest government official you can bag.

“And to make sure that happens you had me running around town digging up all the good things about Moreno I could find. Anything substantive on the case, you co-opted, put your name on it and took credit.”

The assistant DA, though, didn’t seem the least fazed. “Did you happen to look up my application to go on the ballot?”

“No, I didn’t need to. I had this, the petition with the signatures.” She lifted the photocopy.

Laurel said, “Those support the ballot application. You still need to submit one.”

Sachs was pinged by that feeling she sometimes got, a nagging concern, that she might have missed something at a crime scene. Something fundamental. She was silent.

“I’m not running for office.”

“The petition…”

“The petition was filed, yes. But I changed my mind. I never filed the application to run.”

More silence.

Laurel continued, “Yes, I’d wanted to run in the Democratic primary but the party felt I was a little too opinionated for them. I filed a petition to run as an independent. But as time went by I decided not to.”

Ping…

Now, curiously, Laurel’s eyes were averted. She, not Sachs, seemed the more uneasy. And her shoulders, usually completely upright, sagged. “Last winter I went through a very hard breakup. He was…Well, I thought we’d get married. I understand that those things don’t always work out. Fine. But it just wouldn’t go away, the pain.” Her jaw was set, her thin lips trembling. “It was exhausting.”

Sachs recalled her observation from earlier, when Laurel had gotten the phone call in the town house.

She’s vulnerable, even defenseless…

“I thought I needed to try something different. I’d run for office, devote myself to politics. I’d always wanted to. I have very strong ideas about this country and government’s role. I was class president in high school and college. That was a happy time for me and I guess I wanted to re-create it. But I decided I was a better DA than I would be a politician. This is where I belong.”

A nod toward the interview room. “The perp in there? History of sexual assault. He’s in here because he groped three high school students. The original prosecutor didn’t have time for the case and was going to charge him with forcible touching. Misdemeanor. He couldn’t be bothered. I know about people like this suspect, though. Next it’ll be raping an eleven-year-old and the time after that he’ll kill the girl once he’s finished. I took over and I’m going for first-degree sexual act.”

“Class B felony,” Sachs said.

“Exactly. And I’m going to get it. Running cases like this’s my talent, not politics. Stopping rapists and people like Shreve Metzger, who’re hiding behind the government and doing whatever the fuck they want, to hell with the Constitution.”

An obscenity. She was angry. Sachs suspected this was the real Nance Laurel, rarely visible beneath the buttoned-up suits, the spray-painted makeup, the if-you-don’t-mind verbiage.

“Amelia, yes, I took your name off the memos and emails. But that was purely for your sake and the sake of your career. It never occurred to me that you’d want credit. Who would?” She gave a shrug. “You know how dangerous this prosecution is? It’s a career-ender, if the slightest thing goes wrong. Washington might cut Metzger and Barry Shales loose and let them swing in the wind. But they might also make this their Gettysburg, take a stand against me. And if they do and I lose on the immunity issue, then I’m history. The feds’ll pressure Albany to get rid of me, and the attorney general will. In a heartbeat. That’ll happen to everybody involved in the case, Amelia.”

My case…

“I wanted to shelter you and the others as much as I could. Lon Sellitto’s not mentioned in any of the memos. Ron Pulaski, the same.”

Sachs pointed out, “But one of us’ll have to testify in court as experts — to the evidence.” Then she understood. “Lincoln.”

Laurel said, “He’s a consultant. He can’t be fired.”

“I didn’t understand any of this,” Sachs said. She apologized for her outburst.

“No, no. I should’ve shared the strategy with you.”

Sachs felt her phone vibrate and she glanced at the screen. A text from Lon Sellitto.

So that was it. Laurel had had nothing to do with getting her sidelined. Thank God she hadn’t blurted what she’d been thinking earlier. But then: How the hell had Myers gotten her private records? She never made insurance claims through the department. She herself paid for the appointments with her orthopedist — for this very reason: so no one in the Big Building would find out.

“Everything okay?” Laurel asked, nodding at the phone.

“Sure, fine.”

At that moment a buzz sounded from the end of the corridor. The door swung open and a man stepped inside, in his thirties, athletic, wearing a dark suit. He blinked in surprise, seeing the women at the end of the hall. Then he started forward, eyes taking in the rest of the hallway and the empty rooms.

Sachs spent a lot of time here. She knew many of the officers and guards. The detectives, of course. But she’d never seen this man before.

Maybe he was the sex pervert’s lawyer. But the expression on Laurel’s face said that she didn’t recognize him either.

Sachs turned back to Laurel. “I do have some news. Before I left we got a lead to the whistleblower.”

“Really?” Laurel lifted an eyebrow.

Sachs explained about the tourist’s photos of the tea-drinker who liked Splenda and had a bum stomach. His inexpensive, odd-colored suit. His possible connection to the military.

Laurel asked a question but by then Sachs’s instinct had kicked in and she wasn’t paying attention.

The man who’d been buzzed in was ignoring the interrogation rooms. He seemed purposefully, but warily, making his way toward the women.

“You know that guy?” Sachs whispered.

“No.” Laurel seemed troubled by the detective’s concern.

A scenario played itself out in Sachs’s imagination, honed by instinct: This wasn’t Barry Shales — they’d seen his picture — but could it be Unsub 516? Sachs had been careful with the cell phones but who knew what NIOS was capable of. The man could have tracked her here — or followed Laurel. Maybe he’d just killed the guard out front and buzzed himself in.

Sachs looked for options. She had her switchblade but if this was the unsub he’d be armed. She recalled the terrible knife wounds on Lydia Foster’s body. And he could easily have a gun. She’d have to get him in close before she could use the blade.

But as he approached he slowed and stopped, well out of knife range. She couldn’t possibly draw the knife and attack before he opened fire. His smooth face, and cautious eyes, looked from one to the other. “Nance Laurel?”

“That’s me. Who are you?”

The man had no interest in answering her question.

With a fast, assessing look at Sachs, he reached into his jacket.

Sachs prepared to launch herself into him, muscles tensing, fingers folding into fists.

Can I get to him in time to grab his hand when it appears, pull my knife out, flick it open?

She crouched and felt a stab of pain. Then got ready to surge forward.

Wondering too if, as before in the alley, her knee would give out again and send her sprawling to the floor, in helpless agony, giving the man all the time he needed to shoot or slash them both to death.

CHAPTER 67

The moment before she leapt, though, Sachs saw that an envelope, not a Glock or a blade, was emerging.

The man noted Sachs’s curious pose with a frown then stepped closer and handed the envelope to Laurel.

“Who are you?” Laurel persisted.

Still no response to her query. Instead he said, “I’ve been asked to give this to you. Before you go any further, you should know.”

“‘Go any further’?”

He didn’t elaborate but simply nodded at the envelope.

The prosecutor extracted a single sheet of paper. She read methodically, word by word, to judge from her slow eye movements. Her teeth seemed to clench.

She looked up at the man. “You work for the State Department?”

Sachs’s impression was that, though he said nothing, the answer was yes. What was this all about?

A glance at the document. “Is it authentic?” Laurel asked, eyeing the State Department minion closely.

The man answered, “I was asked to deliver a document to Assistant District Attorney Laurel. I have no interest in or knowledge of the contents.”

Good use of prepositions, Sachs reflected cynically. Lincoln Rhyme would have approved.

“Shreve Metzger had you do this, didn’t he?” Laurel said. “Did he fake it? Answer the question. Is it real?”

No knowledge of, no interest in…

The man said nothing more. He turned away, as if the women no longer existed, and left them. He paused at the end of the corridor and was buzzed out.

“What is it?” Sachs asked.

“Didn’t some of the intelligence we got from Fred Dellray report that Moreno was seen in or around U.S. embassies or consulates just before he was shot?”

“Right,” she confirmed. “Mexico City and Costa Rica. After he left New York on May second.”

Sachs’s concerns were further allayed when she glanced back and saw the round, dark face of the guard at the door peering in, unharmed and unconcerned about the visitor. She returned to her station and her celebrities.

With a sigh Laurel said to Sachs, “If anybody was thinking that Moreno was going to attack an embassy they were wrong.” She nodded toward the letter in her hand. “He was looking for an embassy, but one where he could fast-track his renunciation of U.S. citizenship. He did it on May fourth in San José, Costa Rica. The renunciation was effective immediately but the paperwork didn’t make it into the State Department database until this morning.” She sighed. “When he died Robert Moreno was a Venezuelan citizen, not U.S.”

Sachs said, “That’s why he told the limo driver in New York he couldn’t come back to America. Wasn’t because of any terrorist plot but because he’d be non grata and wouldn’t be allowed in on a foreign passport.”

A phone appeared in Laurel’s hand. She looked down at it. Her face had never seemed so wan. Why all the makeup? Sachs wondered yet again. Laurel hit a speed-dial button. Sachs couldn’t see which priority but of course it didn’t much matter. A 9 is as easy to hit as a 1.

Laurel stepped to the side and had a conversation. Finally she put the phone away and remained for a full minute with her back to Sachs. Her phone rang. Another conversation, briefer.

When she’d ended that call she returned to Sachs. “My boss just talked to the attorney general in Albany. However much Shreve Metzger and his shooter overstepped their authority, there’s no interest in pursuing a charge against him when the victim’s not a U.S. citizen. I’ve been ordered to drop the case.” She looked at the floor. “So. That’s it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sachs offered. She meant it.

CHAPTER 68

In the cool, dim safe house in Reynosa, Mexico, al-Barani Rashid completed the list of bomb components and pushed it toward the Fat Man.

That was how he’d thought of the cartel’s chief IED expert when the man had first waddled inside a half hour ago, dusty and with unwashed hair. Rashid had given him the name contemptuously, though accurately — he really was quite heavy. Then he regretted the unkind thought about his physique and personal grooming habits; the cartel’s man proved to be not only very cooperative but extremely talented. It turned out he was responsible for some of the more sophisticated explosive devices deployed in the Western Hemisphere over the past few years.

The man pocketed the shopping list he and Rashid had come up with and in Spanish said he’d be back by evening with all the parts and tools.

Rashid was satisfied that this weapon would do the job very efficiently, killing DEA regional director Barbara Summers and anyone at the church picnic within a thirty-foot circle, possibly wider, depending on how many people were waiting in line at the ice cream station, where the device would be planted.

Rashid nodded toward the room where the Mexican hostages were being kept. He asked the Fat Man, “His company has come up with the ransom?”

“Yes, yes, it’s confirmed. The family’s been told. They can leave tonight, as soon as the last of the money is transferred.” He regarded Rashid closely. “It’s only business, you know.”

“Only business,” Rashid said, thinking, No, it’s really not.

The Fat Man walked to the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator and, surprising Rashid, took out not a beer but two cartons of Greek yogurt. Eyeing the Arab, he peeled back both tops and ate one then the other with a plastic spoon, standing in the middle of the room. Then he wiped his mouth with a paper towel, tossed the empties into the trash and sipped from a bottle of water.

“Señor, I will see you soon.” They shook hands and he stepped outside, waddling on shoes with heels worn angular.

After the door closed Rashid stepped to the window and looked out. The man climbed into a Mercedes, which sagged port side. The diesel purred to life and the black vehicle bounded down the drive, leaving a dust cloud.

Rashid remained at the window for ten minutes. No sign of surveillance, no neighbors glancing uneasily as they passed by. No curtains dropping back over windows. Dogs stood about unsuspicious and no disembodied barks suggested intruders in unseen places nearby.

From the bedroom suite he heard voices. And then a soft noise he couldn’t place at first, uneven, rising, falling in volume and tone. It grew regular and he knew the sound was a child’s crying. The little girl. She’d been told she was going home but she wouldn’t appreciate that. She wanted to be there now, with her stuffed toy, her bed, her blanket.

Rashid thought of his sister, who, with two schoolmates, was killed in Gaza. His sister…not much older than this girl. She hadn’t had a chance to cry.

Rashid sipped more tea and examined the diagrams, listening to the mournful sound of the girl, which seemed all the more heart wrenching for being muted by the walls, as if she were a ghost trapped forever in this dusty tomb.

CHAPTER 69

The phrase “Kill Room” suggested something out of a science-fiction movie or the operations center in the TV show 24.

But the National Intelligence and Operations Service’s Ground Control Station was a dingy space that looked like a storage area in a medium-sized insurance business or ad agency. It was housed in a fifteen-by-forty-foot trailer and was divided into two rooms. The office area was where you entered from the NIOS parking lot. Lining the wall were cardboard cartons of varying ages, cryptic writing on them, some empty, some containing documents or paper cups or cleaning supplies. A communications center, unoccupied at the moment. Computers. A battered gray desk and brown chair were in one corner and old, unclassified files littered it, as if a secretary had grown tired of finding the right drawer for them and had just given up. A broom, a box of empty Vitaminwater bottles, a broken lamp sat on the floor. Newspapers. Light bulbs. Computer circuit boards. Wires. A Runner’s World magazine.

For decorations, maps of the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada and Central America, as well as of Iraq, and several OSHA posters warning about the dangers of lifting heavy loads with a bent back and not drinking enough water on hot days.

The place was dim; the overheads were rarely on. As if secrets kept better in hinted light.

You tended not to notice the shabbiness of the office, however, because of the other half of the trailer: The UAV operations station, visible through a thick glass wall.

Men and women like Barry Shales, the pilots and sensor operators, tended to refer to the operations station as a cockpit, which nobody seemed to mind, though the word “drone” was discouraged. Maybe “unmanned aerial vehicle” sounded more sophisticated or sanitized. This term was certainly better — from a public relations view — than what UAVs were called among those who flew them: FFAs, or Fuckers From Above.

Wearing dress slacks and a tie-less short-sleeved blue plaid shirt, slim Barry Shales was sitting in a comfortable overstuffed tan leather chair, which was more like Captain Kirk’s in Star Trek than a seat in a jet’s cockpit. Before him was a three-foot-by-eighteen-inch tabletop metal control board, bristling with dozens of knobs and buttons, switches and readouts, as well as two joysticks. He was not touching them at the moment. The autopilot was flying UAV N-397.

The computer’s being in charge was standard procedure at this point in a Special Task Order operation, which involved just getting the bird in the general area of the target. Shales didn’t mind being copilot for the moment. He was having trouble concentrating today. He kept thinking about his prior assignment.

The one NIOS had gotten so wrong.

He recalled the intel about the chemicals for Moreno’s IED — the nitromethane, the diesel fuel, the fertilizer — that were going to reduce the oil company’s headquarters in Miami to a smoking crater. The intel about Moreno’s vicious attacks on America, calling for violent assaults on citizens. The intel about the activist’s reconnaissance of the embassies in Mexico and Costa Rica, planning to blow them to kingdom come too.

They’d been so sure…

And they’d been so wrong.

Wrong about avoiding collateral damage too. De la Rua and the guard.

The primary point of the Long-Range Rifle program at NIOS was to minimize, ideally eliminate, collateral, which was impossible to do when you fired missiles.

And the first time it had been tried in an actual mission, what had happened?

Innocents dead.

Shales had hovered the UAV craft perfectly over the waters of Clifton Bay in the Bahamas, sighted through the leaves of a tree outside with a clear infrared and radar vision of Moreno, double-confirmed it was he, compensated for wind and elevation and fired shots only when the task was standing alone in front of the window.

Shales knew in his heart that only Moreno would die.

But there was that one little matter that had never occurred to him, to anyone: the window.

Who could have thought that the glass would be so lethal?

Wasn’t his fault…But if he believed that, if he believed he was innocent of any wrongdoing, then why had he been in the john last night puking?

Just a bit of the flu, honey…No, no, I’m okay.

And why was he having more and more trouble sleeping?

Why was he more and more preoccupied, agitated, heartsick?

Curiously, while drone operators are perhaps the safest of all combat troops physically, they have among the highest rates of depression and post-traumatic stress in the military and national security services. Sitting at a video console in Colorado or New York City, killing someone six thousand miles away and then collecting the kids at gymnastics or football practice, having dinner and sitting down to watch Dancing with the Stars in your suburban den was disorienting beyond belief.

Especially when your fellow soldiers were hunkered down in the desert or getting blown to pieces by IEDs.

All right, Airman, he told himself, as he’d been doing lately, concentrate. You’re on a mission. An STO mission.

He scanned the five computer monitors before him. The one in front, black background filled with green lines, boxes and type, was a composite of typical aircraft controls: artificial horizon, airspeed, ground speed, heading, nav-com, GPS, fuel and engine status. Above that was a traditional terrain map, like a Rand McNally. An information monitor — weather, messages and other communications reports — was to the upper left.

Below that was a screen that he could switch from regular to synthetic aperture radar. To the right, at eye level, was a high-definition video view of whatever the camera in the drone was seeing, presently daylight, though night vision was, of course, an option.

The view now was dun-colored desert passing underneath.

Though slowly. Drones are not F-16s.

A separate metal panel, below the monitors, was weapons control. It did not have any fancy screens but was black and functional and scuffed.

In many drone missions around the world, especially combat zones, the crew consists of a pilot and a sensor operator. But at NIOS the UAVs were flown solo. This was Metzger’s idea; no one knew exactly what was behind it. Some thought it was to limit the number of people who knew about the STO program and therefore minimize the risk of security leaks.

Shales believed, however, the reason was this: The NIOS director appreciated the emotional toll that these missions took and wanted to subject as few people as possible to the stress of STO killings. Employees had been known to snap. And that could have far-ranging consequences, for them, their families…and for the program too, of course.

Barry Shales scanned the readouts. He hit a button and noted several other lights pop on.

He spoke into the stalk mike, “UAV Three Nine Seven to Texas Center.”

Instantly: “Go ahead, Three Nine Seven.”

“Weapons systems green.”

“Roger.”

He sat back and was stung by another thought. Metzger had told him that somebody was “looking into” the Moreno task. He’d asked for details but his boss had smiled dismissively and said it was just a technicality. Everything was being taken care of. He had people taking precautions. He didn’t need to worry. Shales wasn’t satisfied. Any smile from Metzger aroused suspicion.

Shales himself had felt a burst of the same searing rage that he, that everybody, knew was the NIOS director’s nemesis. Who was looking into the matter? The police, Congress, the FBI?

And then, the kicker, Metzger told him that he too should take some precautions.

“Like what?”

“Just remember that it’d be better if there was less…well, ‘evidence’ is such a stark word. But you get my meaning.”

And Shales decided at that moment not to wipe the phone issued to him as Don Bruns. The data — and the emails and texts to and from Metzger — were encrypted, but Shales decided it would be a prudent idea for the evidence not to disappear. He also printed out dozens of documents and smuggled them out of NIOS.

Insurance.

And the fact he’d felt compelled to take those precautions made him think: Hell, maybe it was time to quit this crazy business. Shales was thirty-nine, he had a degree from the Air Force Academy and a postgrad in engineering and poli-sci. He could go anywhere.

Or could he?

With a résumé like his?

Besides, the idea of no longer helping defend his country was almost unbearable.

But how do I help my country by accidentally killing a famous journalist and hardworking guard while I’m on a mission to assassinate an unpleasant but innocent loudmouth? What about—

“Texas Center to Three Nine Seven.”

Like flipping a switch. Barry Shales was all go. “Three Nine Seven.”

“You are ten minutes to target.”

The operation command center near Fort Hood knew exactly where his drone was.

“Copy.”

“Visual conditions?”

A glance to the monitor at the right. “A little haze but pretty good.”

“Be advised, Three Nine Seven, eyes on the ground report that the task is alone in target structure. Individual who arrived an hour ago has left.”

The task…

“Roger, Texas Center. I’m taking the aircraft,” Shales said, disconnecting the autopilot. “Approaching Lucio Blanco International airspace.”

Reynosa’s airport.

“Friendly nation ATC has been advised of your flight route.”

“Roger. Descending to two thousand feet. EAD on.”

The engine audio deflectors would reduce the decibel level of the drone’s engine to about one-tenth of the regular sound. These could only be used for a short period of time, though, because they tended to make the engines overheat and there was a power loss, which could be dangerous in rough weather. Now, though, the sky was clear and virtually no wind would trouble the craft.

Five minutes later he guided 397 to about fifteen hundred feet above and a half mile from the safe house where al-Barani Rashid was presently planning or perhaps even constructing his bomb.

“In hover mode.”

Teasing the joystick.

Shales painted the target safe house with a laser. “Confirm coordinates.”

The longitude and latitude of what he’d reported would be matched to those of the stats known to be the target in NIOS’s mainframe — just to make sure.

“Texas Center to Three Nine Seven, we have geo match. Target is confirmed. What is your PIN?”

Shales recited the ten digits of his personal identification number, verifying he was who he was supposed to be and that he was authorized to fire this missile at this target.

“Positive ID, Three Nine Seven. Payload launch is authorized.”

“Copy. Three Nine Seven.”

He slipped up the cover over the arming toggle for the Hellfire missile and pressed the button.

Shales stared at the image of the safe house. Still, he didn’t push the launch button just yet.

His eyes took in the windows, the doors, the chimney, the streaks of dust on the sidewalk, a cactus. Looking for a sign. Looking for some indication that he should not launch the deadly package.

“Three Nine Seven, did you copy? Payload launch is authorized.”

“Confirmed, Texas Center. Three Nine Seven.”

He inhaled deeply.

Thought: Moreno…

And lifted the second cover, over the launch button itself, and pressed down.

There was no sound, only a faint rocking of the screen as the 110-pound missile dropped from the UAV. A green light confirmed release. Another, ignition.

“Payload away, Texas Center. Three Nine Seven.”

“Roger.” In the most bland of tones.

There was nothing more for Shales to do now, except watch the safe house disappear in a flash of flame and wash of smoke. He turned to the video.

And he saw the back door to the house open and two people exit into the courtyard between the house and garage. Rashid was one of them. A teenage boy was the other. They spoke briefly and began to kick around a soccer ball.

CHAPTER 70

Barry Shales felt the shock like a physical blow.

He cracked a thumbnail jamming the digit into the red button in the middle of the weapons control panel labeled simply STOP.

This sent a signal disarming the warhead in the Hellfire. But the missile was still a deadly mass of metal and propellant, streaking at nine hundred miles an hour toward a building with less-than-perfect accuracy. It could easily kill everyone inside even if the explosives didn’t detonate.

Shales pressed the autopilot button for the drone itself and overrode the automatic guidance for the missile, taking control of the Hellfire with a small trackball on the weapons panel.

A camera rested in the nose of the missile, not far from the high-explosive payload, but at this speed and with the marginal resolution of the lens you couldn’t fly the projectile very accurately. Shales had to rely on the radar in the drone and a feed from Mexican air traffic control to steer the deadly cylinder away from the safe house.

He glanced at the monitor to the right — the drone’s camera, which was still pointed toward the soccer players. He noted Rashid pause and look up to the sky. Squint. He would have heard something, seen a glint perhaps.

The teenage boy, about to kick the dusty ball, paused too, regarding the Arab cautiously.

Behind them, Barry Shales could see, a small girl appeared and stood in the doorway of the safe house. She was smiling.

“Texas Center to Three Nine Seven, we read payload path deviation. Please advise.”

Shales ignored the transmission and concentrated on trying to steer the Hellfire, twice as fast as any jetliner, away from populated areas in the target zone. It wasn’t easy. This part of Reynosa wasn’t as dense as to the east but there were still plenty of homes and businesses and traffic. The radar gave a clear image of airliners nearby, which Shales could steer clear of, but the system didn’t reveal what was on the ground — and that was where he needed to crash the missile. And pretty damn fast; soon the propellant would be expended and he’d lose control.

“Three Nine Seven? Do you copy?”

Then on the small screen revealing what the nose camera in the missile was viewing, the image faded as it headed into overcast. He was flying blind.

“Jesus Lord…”

Words that Barry Shales, who attended church every Sunday with his wife and young sons, did not use lightly.

“Three Nine Seven, this is Texas Center. Please advise.”

He thought angrily: I’m advising you to go fuck yourself.

The haze broke for a moment and he saw that the missile was heading right for a residential development.

No, no…

A tweak of the trackball changing the course farther west.

The haze closed in again.

A glance at the radar. The terrain was mapped out but it wasn’t a satellite image, merely a traditional map, and gave no clue as to what was on the ground ahead of the Hellfire.

Only seconds remained until the propellant was gone and the deadly tube would come to earth. But where? In a child’s bedroom, in a hospital, in a packed office building?

Then an idea occurred to Shales. Releasing the missile trackball for a moment, he typed fast on the computer keyboard in front of him.

In the information monitor in the upper left-hand corner, Firefox popped up. This was completely against procedure. You couldn’t go online with a commercial browser in a GCS while a drone was operational. But Shales could think of no other option. In an instant he’d called up Google Maps and clicked on satellite view. A photo image of the ground around Reynosa popped up, houses, foliage, roads, stores.

Looking back and forth from the radar panel to the map, lining up roads and other landmarks, he estimated the Hellfire’s location.

Christ! The missile was right over another residential subdivision northwest of Reynosa. But according to Google, to the west was a large empty area of beige-and-yellow desert.

“UAV Three—”

Shales ripped off his headset and flung it away.

Right hand back to the trackball.

Gently, gently — man, it was easy to oversteer.

Looking from radar to Google, he saw the Hellfire’s path veering away from the houses. Soon the direction was due west, toward what the satellite map promised was nothingness. The nose camera in the missile still showed only haze.

Then the altitude and speed began to drop fast. The propellant was gone. There was nothing more Shales could do; he’d lost control of the missile. He sat back, wiped his hands on his slacks. Staring at the monitor of the view from the Hellfire’s nose camera. He could see only overcast.

The altitude indicator showed: 1500 feet.

670.

590…

What would he see as the Hellfire crashed to earth? Empty desert? Or a school bus on a field trip? Farmworkers staring in horror at what was falling toward them?

Then the haze broke and Shales had a clear view of the missile’s destination directly ahead.

However loud and spectacular the impact eighteen hundred miles away was, it registered in the NIOS Kill Room as a simple, silent change of image: from a barren plain of dirt and brush to a screen filled with flickering black and white, like a TV when a storm takes out the cable.

Shales spun back to the drone controls, disengaged the autopilot. He looked at the camera’s monitor, still focused on the courtyard of the safe house. The children were still there, the boy, presumably the brother, gently kicking the ball to the girl, who chased after it like a driven terrier. A woman stood in the doorway watching them both, unsmiling.

Jesus Lord, he repeated, not wondering or caring who they were or how they came to be in a safe house that the “impeccable” intelligence had assured was occupied only by a terrorist.

He zoomed out with the camera.

The garage door was open. Rashid was gone. Of course, he would be. The wary eyes earlier had told Shales that the terrorist suspected what was happening.

He scooped up the headsets and placed them on his head. Replugged the jack.

“—opy, Three Nine Seven?”

“Three Nine Seven to Texas Center,” he snapped. “Mission aborted at operator’s discretion. Returning to base.”

CHAPTER 71

“Do you want some Scotch?” Rhyme asked, from the center of his parlor, near a comparison microscope. “I think you need some.”

Looking up from her desk in the corner of the room, where she was packing up files, Nance Laurel swiveled toward Rhyme with furrowed brow, wrinkling a crease into her makeup. He suspected a lecture on the unprofessionalism of drinking on the job would be forthcoming.

Laurel asked, “What distillery?”

Rhyme replied, “Glenmorangie. Twelve or eighteen years.”

“Anything peatier?” she wondered aloud, to his additional surprise. Sachs’s too, and amusement, to tell from the faint smile on his partner’s face.

“No. Try it, you’ll like it.”

“Okay. The eighteen. Naturally. Drop of water.”

Rhyme gripped the bottle and clumsily poured. She did the water herself. His bionic arm lacked sufficient subtlety. He asked, “Sachs?”

“No, thanks. I’ll get something else.” She was organizing evidence bags and boxes, which — even in cases that were falling apart — had to be meticulously cataloged and stored.

“Thom and Mel?”

The tech said he was fine with coffee. Thom too declined. He’d grown fond of bourbon Manhattans lately but had explained to Rhyme that drinks that involved a recipe should only be enjoyed on weekends, when no business was likely to intrude.

Thom pulled a bottle of French Chardonnay from the refrigerator in which blood and tissue samples were often stored. He lifted it toward Sachs. She said, “You read my mind.”

He opened and poured.

Rhyme sipped some of the fragrant whiskey. “Good, no?”

“It is,” Laurel agreed.

Rhyme reread the letter about Moreno’s renunciation of his U.S. citizenship. He was as angry as Laurel that this technicality had derailed the case.

“He hated the country that much,” Pulaski asked, “that he’d give up his citizenship?”

“Apparently so,” Laurel said.

“Come on, boys and girls,” Rhyme chided, then sipped some more whiskey. “They won round one. Or the first inning. Whatever clichéd figure of speech and mixed metaphor you like. But we still have a perp, you know. Unsub Five Sixteen, responsible for an IED in a coffee shop and the Lydia Foster homicide. Those are Major Cases. Lon Sellitto’ll assign us to work them.”

“It won’t be my case, though,” Nance Laurel said. “I’ve been told to get back to my regular caseload.”

“This’s bullshit,” Ron Pulaski spat out, surprising Rhyme with his vehemence. “Moreno’s the same person he was when he got shot — an innocent victim. So what if he wasn’t a citizen?”

“Bullshit it is, Ron,” Laurel said, her voice more resigned than angry. “That’s exactly right.”

She finished her whiskey and walked over to Rhyme. She shook his hand. “It’s been a privilege working with you.”

“I’m sure we will again.”

A faint smile. But something about the exquisite sadness in the expression told him that she believed her life as a prosecutor was over.

Sachs said to her, “Hey, you want to have dinner sometime? We can dish on the government.” She added in a whisper that Rhyme could hear, “And dish on men too?”

“I’d like that. Yes.”

They exchanged phone numbers, Sachs having to check to find out what her new one was. She’d bought a half dozen prepaids in the past few days.

Then the ADA carefully assembled her files, using paper clips and Post-it Notes to mark relevant categories. “I’ll have copies sent to you for the unsub case.”

The short woman hefted the briefcase in one hand, the litigation bag in the other and with one last look around the room — and no other words — walked out, her solid heels thudding on the wood, then the marble of the hallway. And she was gone.

CHAPTER 72

Jacob Swann decided, with some regret, that he couldn’t rape Nance Laurel before he killed her.

Well, he could. And part of him wanted to. But it wouldn’t be wise — that was what he meant. A sexual assault left far too much evidence. Minimizing the clues in any murder was hard enough — trying to make sure sweat, tears, saliva, hairs and those hundred thousand skin cells we slough off daily weren’t available to be picked up by some diligent crime scene tech.

Not to mention fingerprints inside the latex gloves or on skin.

He’d need another option.

Swann was presently in a restaurant on Henry Street across from the prosecutor’s apartment in Brooklyn, a four-floor walk-up. He was nursing a very bittersweet Cuban coffee.

Scanning Laurel’s abode. Not a doorman building, he noticed. Good.

Swann had decided that now he could use a cover crime for the murder: In addition to prosecuting patriotic Americans for taking out vile traitors, Laurel had sent plenty of rapists to jail. He’d looked up her conviction record — extremely impressive — and learned that among those she’d put away were dozens of serial rapists and molesters. One of these suspects could easily decide to get his revenge following his release. Or a relative of a prisoner might do just that.

Her own past would come back to get her.

Yes, he’d gotten word from headquarters that the investigation into Moreno’s death was over. But that didn’t mean it might not surface again. Laurel was the sort who might leave government service and start writing letters or articles in the papers or online about what had happened, about NIOS, about the STO assassination program.

Better if she just went away. And anyway, Swann had set off a bomb in Little Italy and stabbed an interpreter and limo driver to death. If nothing else, Laurel might be called on to help in the investigation of those crimes. He needed her dead and all her files destroyed.

He fantasized. Not about the sex but about faking the attack, which he was looking at like a recipe. Planning, preparation, execution. He’d break into her apartment, stun her with a blow to the head (not the throat; there couldn’t be a connection to Ms. Lydia Foster, of course), rip her clothes off, make sure her breasts and groin displayed severe striking hematoma (no biting, though he was tempted; that bothersome DNA). Then he’d beat her to death and penetrate her with a foreign object.

He didn’t have time to go to an adult bookstore with video booths or a porn theater and scoop up a bit of somebody’s DNA to swab on her. But he had stolen some stained and torn underwear, teenager’s size, from the trash behind a tenement not far away. Fibers from this garment he’d work under her fingernails and hope the teen had been masturbating at some point in the past few days. Likely.

This would be enough evidence.

He dipped his tongue into the coffee. Enjoyed the intense sensation throughout his mouth; it’s a myth that different tastes are experienced in different parts of the tongue: salt, sour, sweet, bitter. Another sip. Swann cooked with coffee sometimes — he’d made a Mexican mole-type sauce for pork with 80 percent cacao and espresso. He’d been tempted to submit it for a contest then decided it wasn’t a good idea for him to be too public.

He was running through the plan for Nance Laurel again when he spotted her.

Across the street the ADA had appeared from around the corner. She was in a navy-blue suit and white blouse. In her small pudgy hands were an old-fashioned attaché case, brown and battered, and a large litigation bag. He wondered if either was a present from her father or mother, both of whom were attorneys too, Swann had learned. They were in the low-rent district of the profession. Her mother, public defender. Her father, poverty law.

Doin’ good deeds, helping society, Swann reflected. Just like their stocky little girl.

Laurel was walking with eyes cast downward and laboring under the weight of the litigation bag. Though her face was a cryptic mask, she now gave off a slight hint of depression, the way Italian parsley in soup suggests but doesn’t state. Unlike bold cilantro.

The source of the somber mood was no doubt the foundering Moreno case. Swann nearly felt bad for her. The prosecution would have been the jewel in her crown but now she was back to a life of sending José, Shariq, Billy and Roy into the system for crack and rapes and guns.

Wasn’t me. No way. I don’t know, man, I don’t know where it came from, really…

Except, of course, she wouldn’t be handling any such cases.

Wouldn’t be doing anything at all after tonight. Would be cold and still as a slab of loin.

Nance Laurel found her keys and unlocked the front door, stepped inside.

Swann would give it ten, fifteen minutes. Time for her to let her guard down.

He lifted the small, thick cup to his nose, inhaled and slipped his tongue into the warm liquid once more.

CHAPTER 73

“What do we know about the last of our ten little Indians?” Lincoln Rhyme asked absently.

The setback about Moreno’s citizenship had defeated Nance Laurel but it had only stoked his hunt lust. “I don’t care what Albany wants, Sachs, I want our unsub. Five Sixteen’s too dangerous to stay free. What do we know?” He looked over the evidence whiteboards. “All right, we know Five Sixteen was in the Bahamas around the time of the shooting. We know that he killed the student-prostitute Annette Bodel. We know that he set the bomb to eliminate leads to the whistleblower. We know he killed Lydia Foster. We know he was following our Sachs around town. What can we make of that?…Sachs!”

“What?”

“The other driver, the one that Moreno usually used? Did you ever get in touch with him?”

“No. Never called back.”

This happened frequently when the police phoned, asking for a return call.

Usually this was out of reluctance to get involved.

Sometimes there were other reasons.

She tried the driver once more and shook her head. She placed another call — to Elite Limos, Rhyme deduced. She asked if they had heard from their employee. A brief conversation and she hung up.

“Never called in after he went to see a sick relative.”

“Don’t trust it. We may have a third victim of our unsub. Find out where he lives, Pulaski. Get a team from the closest precinct to his house and see what’s there.”

The young officer pulled out his mobile and called Dispatch.

Rhyme wheeled back and forth in front of the charts. He didn’t believe he’d ever had a case like this, where the evidence was so fragmentary and sparse.

Bits, scraps, observations, 180-degree changes in direction.

Nothing else…

Hell.

Rhyme steered toward the shelf with the whiskey bottles. He lifted the Glenmorangie and awkwardly poured another hit, then seated the cap on his tumbler and sipped.

“What’re you doing?” Thom asked from the doorway.

“What am I doing, what am I doing? Now, that’s an odd question. Usually the interrogatory ‘what’ introduces a sentence in which the inquirer is unable to make any deductions about a situation.” A substantial sip. “I think you’ve wasted a perfectly good sentence, Thom. It’s pretty clear what I’m doing.”

“You’ve already had too much.”

“That’s a declarative sentence and it makes much more sense. It’s valid. I disagree with it but it’s logically valid.”

“Lincoln!” Thom strode forward.

Rhyme glared. “Don’t even think—”

“Wait,” Sachs said.

Rhyme assumed she was taking Thom’s side in the alcohol dispute but when he wheeled around he found her eyes were not on him or the aide but on the whiteboards. She walked forward and Rhyme noticed that she wasn’t wincing or limping. She was spry and balanced. Her eyes narrowed. This was her predatory gaze. It made the tall woman frightening and, to Rhyme, appealing.

He set the whiskey down. His eyes rose to the boards and scanned like radar. Were there some facts he’d missed? Had she made a deduction that had eluded him? “Do you see something about Five Sixteen?”

“No, Rhyme,” she whispered. “It’s something else. Something else entirely.”

CHAPTER 74

Nancyann Olivia Laurel was sitting on a couch in her Brooklyn Heights apartment, a brown JCPenney slipcover over blue upholstery that had been worn smooth by her family and their friends years and years ago.

Hand-me-downs. A lot of those here. Laurel was tapped by a memory: Her father surreptitiously fishing in the sofa’s crevices for coins that had fallen from the pockets of visitors. She’d been eight or so and he’d made a joke of it, a game, when she’d walked into the room unexpectedly.

Except it wasn’t a game, and she knew it. Even children can be ashamed of their parents.

Still tasting the smoky scotch, she looked around this home. Her home. Hers alone. In a reflective mood. Despite, or maybe because of, the threadbare, recycled accoutrements, the sense of the place was comfort, even on a pitiful day like this one. She’d worked hard to make it that way. The walls, coated with dozens of layers of paint, going back to Teddy Roosevelt’s era, were a cream shade. For decorations: a silk flower arrangement from a Chelsea crafts fair, an autumn wreath from the Union Square farmers’ market, art too. She had paintings and sketches, some original and some prints, all of scenes that had resonated with her personally, horses, farms, rocky streams, still lifes. No idea why they appealed. But she’d known instantly that they did and she’d bought them if there was any way she could spare the cash. Some alpaca yarn hangings, colorful rectangles. Laurel had taken up knitting a few years ago but couldn’t find the time or the inclination to complete the scarves for friends’ nieces.

What now? she thought.

What now…

The teakettle’s whistle was blowing. Had been blowing. Shrill. She was suddenly aware of it. She went into the small space and put a rose hip bag in the mug — navy blue on the outside, white in, matching her outfit, she realized. She should change.

Later.

Laurel stared at the kettle for a full minute. Shut off the heat but did not pour the boiling liquid. She returned to the couch.

What now?

This was the worst of all possible outcomes. If she’d won the convictions of Metzger and Barry Shales, well, that would have made her world. It would have made her life. There was no way to describe the importance that this case had taken on for her. She remembered in law school being mesmerized by the stories of the greats of the legal system in America — the lawyers, prosecutors and judges. Clarence Darrow, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Benjamin Cardozo, Earl Warren…so many, many others. Louis D. Brandeis she thought of often.

The federal Constitution is perhaps the greatest of human experiments…

There was nothing as marvelous as the machine of justice and she wanted so badly to be a part of it, to make her own imprint on American law.

Her proudest day was law school graduation. She remembered looking out over the audience. Her father had been alone. This was because her mother was arguing a case before the Court of Appeals in Albany — the highest state appellate court — trying to get a homeless man’s murder conviction reversed.

Laurel couldn’t describe how honored she was that the woman wasn’t present that day.

The Moreno case was to be her way of validating sacrifices like those. Okay, and of making a name for herself too. Amelia had nailed it right when she’d sussed out the political career track. The ambition remained even if her name ultimately decorated no ballot.

Yet even a loss at the Metzger trial would have succeeded in a way. NIOS’s Kill Room would have been exposed. That might have been enough to sink the assassination program forever. The hungry media and more-starved congressmen would have been all over NIOS like flies.

She’d have been sacrificed — her career would have ended — but at least she would have made sure the truth of Metzger’s crimes came out.

But now, this? Her boss pulling the case? No, there was nothing good to come of that.

She supposed the whistleblower had vanished and there would be no more identification of other victims in the queue. Sorry, Mr. Rashid.

What was in her future? Laurel laughed at the question. Returned to the kitchen and this time actually brewed a cup of tea. Adding two sugars on the grounds that rose hips were tart. The future, right: an unemployment period she’d spend with Seinfeld reruns and dining on one then what the hell a second Lean Cuisine. One glass of Kendall-Jackson too many. Computer chess. Then interviews. Then a job at a big Wall Street firm.

Her heart sank.

She now thought of David, as she often did. Always did. “The thing is, look, you’re pushing me for an answer, Nance. Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s you’re kind of a schoolmarm. You know what I mean? I can’t live up to that. You want everything perfect, everything right. You correct, you find fault. There, sorry. I didn’t want to say it. You made me.”

Forget him.

You’ve got your career.

Except you don’t.

On her bookshelf — half law books, half novels, one cookbook — was a picture of her and David. Both smiling.

Below that was a boxed chess set, wood, not plastic.

Throw it out, she told herself.

I will.

Not yet.

All right. Enough of that. Self-pity was what she saw in the most depraved of sex perverts and murderers and she wasn’t going to allow it to seep into her soul. You’ve still got your caseload. Get to work. She—

A noise in the hallway.

A tap, a click, a faint thud.

Then nothing.

Mrs. Parsons dropping her shopping bag. Mr. Lefkowitz juggling toy poodle and cane.

She stared at the TV, then at the microwave, then at the bedroom.

Get out the fucking brief in State v. Gonzalez and start editing.

Laurel jumped when the doorbell rang.

She walked to the door. “Who is it?”

“Detective Flaherty, NYPD.”

Never heard of him but Manhattan boasted a cop population in the thousands. Laurel peered through the peephole. A white guy, thirties, slim, a suit. He was holding his ID open, though all she could see was a glint of badge.

“How’d you get inside?” she called.

“Somebody was leaving. I rang your buzzer but nobody answered. I was going to leave a note but thought I’d try anyway.”

So the bell was out again.

“Okay, just a minute.” She opened the chain and the dead-bolt latch, pulling open the door.

And only then did Nance Laurel think, as the man stepped forward, that she probably should have had him slip his ID under the door so she could read it.

But why worry? The case is over with. I’m no threat to anyone.

CHAPTER 75

Barry Shales wasn’t a large man.

“Compact” was how he was often described.

And his job was sedentary, sitting before flat-screen panels, hands on the joysticks of UAVs, the computer keyboard before him.

But he lifted free weights — because he enjoyed working out.

He jogged — because he enjoyed jogging.

And the former air force captain held the opinion, wholly unsupported, that the more you liked working out the better your muscles responded.

So when he pushed past an alarmed Ruth, the guard dog of a personal assistant, into Shreve Metzger’s office and drew back an arm and slugged his boss, the skinny man stumbled and went down hard.

The head of NIOS dropped to one knee, arms flailing. Files slid off the desk from trying to catch himself.

Shales strode forward, arm drawn back again, but hesitated. The one blow was enough to deflate the anger that had been growing since he’d seen the impromptu soccer match between the task he’d been ordered to blast into molecules and a teenage boy in the courtyard of the safe house in a dingy Mexican suburb.

He lowered his fist, stepped back. But he felt no inclination to help Metzger up and he crossed his arms and watched coldly as the shaken man pressed a hand to his cheek and clumsily rose, collecting the files that had fallen. Shales noted that several manila binders sported a classified stamp that he was not familiar with despite his stratospheric security clearance.

He noted too that Metzger’s first concern at the moment wasn’t the injury but securing the secret files.

“Barry…Barry.” He looked behind Shales and shook his head. Ruth, shocked, hovered, not unlike a drone herself. Metzger smiled at her and pointed to the door. She hesitated then stepped out, closing it.

The man’s smile vanished.

Shales walked to the window, breathing deeply. He glanced down to see the fake Maersk container in NIOS’s parking lot. A look at the Ground Control Station from which he’d very nearly killed at least three innocent civilians minutes ago re-ignited his anger.

He turned back to Metzger. But the director didn’t cower or beg. He gave no response, physical or verbal, except to touch his cheek again and peruse the smear of red on his finger and thumb.

“Did you know?” Shales asked.

“About the collateral in Reynosa? No.” As NIOS head, he would have followed the attack in real time. “Of course not.”

“I’d launched, Shreve. The Hellfire was in the air! What do you think about that? We were ten seconds away from murdering a young boy and girl and a woman who was probably their mother. And who the hell else was inside, as well?”

“You saw the documentation with the STO. The surveillance program we put in place for Rashid was totally robust. We had DEA and Mexican federal surveillance reports — twenty-four/seven. Nobody had gone inside or come out for a week. Who holes up for seven days, Barry? You ever hear of that? I never have.” Metzger sat down. “Hell, Barry, we’re not God. We do what we can. My ass was on the line too, you know. If anybody else’d died, it would have been the end of my career. Probably NIOS too.”

The airman had shallow jowls around his taut lips and his cold smile deepened them now. “You’re mad, aren’t you, Shreve?”

He’d meant the word in its sense of “angry” but the way Metzger reacted, eyes narrowing, apparently the NIOS head took it to mean psychotic.

“Mad?”

“That I didn’t follow Rashid’s car. That I stayed with the missile, guided it down.”

A pause. “That scenario wasn’t authorized, targeting Rashid’s vehicle.”

“Fuck authorized. You’re thinking I should’ve let the Hellfire land where it would, while I locked on and fired my second bird at the car.”

His eyes revealed that, yes, that’s exactly what Metzger had wanted.

“Barry, this is a messy business we’re in. There’s collateral, there’s friendly fire, there’re suicides and just plain fucking mistakes. People die because we program in One Hundred West Main Street and the task is actually at One Hundred East.”

“Interesting choice of word for a human being, isn’t it? ‘Task.’”

“Oh, come on. It’s easy to make fun of government-speak. But it’s the government that keeps us safe from people like Rashid.”

“That’ll be a nice line for the Congressional hearings, Shreve.” Shales then raged, “You fucked with the evidence for the Moreno STO to take out an asshole you didn’t like. Who wasn’t patriotic enough for you.”

“That’s not how it was!” Metzger nearly screamed, spittle flew.

Startled by the uncontrolled outburst, Shales stared at his boss for a moment. Then dug into his pocket and tossed his lanyard and ID card onto the desk. “Kids, Shreve. I nearly blew up two children today. I’ve had it. I’m quitting.”

“No.” Metzger leaned forward. “You can’t quit.”

“Why not?”

Shales was expecting his boss to raise issues of contracts, security.

But the man said, “Because you’re the best, Barry. Nobody can handle a bird like you. Nobody can shoot like you. I knew you were the man for the STO program when I conceived it, Barry.”

Shales recalled a grinning car salesman who’d used his first name repeatedly because, apparently, he’d been taught at grinning-car-salesman school that this wore down the potential buyer, made him less resistant.

Shales had left the lot without the car he’d very much wanted.

He now shouted, “The project was all about eliminating collateral damage!”

“We didn’t run a scenario of firing through picture windows! We should have. It didn’t occur to anyone. Did it occur to you? We got it wrong. What more do you want me to say? I apologize.”

“To me? Maybe you should apologize to Robert Moreno’s wife and children or the family of de la Rua, the reporter, or his bodyguard. They need an apology more than I do, don’t you think, Shreve?”

Metzger pushed the ID back toward Shales. “This’s been tough for you. Take some time off.”

Leaving the badge untouched, Shales turned and opened the door, walking out of the office. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Ruth.”

She only stared.

In five minutes he was outside the front gate of NIOS and walking through the alley to the main north — south street nearby.

Then he was on the sidewalk, feeling suddenly light of step and aglow with ambiguous satisfaction.

He’d call the sitter, take Margaret to dinner that night. He’d break the news to her that he was now unemployed. He could—

A dark sedan squealed to a stop beside him. Two men flung doors open and were outside in an instant, moving toward him.

For a moment Shales wondered if Shreve Metzger had called in specialists — had arranged for an STO with the name Barry Shales as the task, to eliminate him as a threat to his precious assassination program.

But the men moving toward him didn’t pull out suppressed Berettas or SIGs. The palms of their hands glinted with metal, yes — but they were gold. New York City Police Department shields.

“Barry Shales?” the older of the two asked.

“I…yes, I’m Shales.”

“I’m Detective Brickard. This is Detective Samuels.” The badges and IDs disappeared. “You’re under arrest, sir.”

Shales gave a brief, surprised laugh. A mistake. Word hadn’t filtered down to them that the investigation was over.

“No, there’s some mistake.”

“Please turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“But what’s the charge?”

“Murder.”

“No, no — the Moreno case…it’s been dropped.”

The detectives looked at each other. Brickard said, “I don’t know anything about any Moreno, sir. Please. Your hands. Now.”

CHAPTER 76

“It may be a tough sell to the jury,” Lincoln Rhyme said, speaking of the theory behind a new case against Metzger and Shales.

Amelia Sachs’s theory, not his. And one he was quite enamored of — and proud of her for formulating. Rhyme secretly loved it when people—some people — outthought him.

Sachs glanced at her humming phone. “A text.”

“Nance?”

“No.” She looked from the querying eyes of Mel Cooper to Ron Pulaski to, finally, Rhyme. “Barry Shales’s in custody. No resistance.”

So, they were proceeding now according to Sachs’s theory, which she’d come up with from a simple entry in the evidence charts.

Victim 2: Eduardo de la Rua.

COD: Loss of blood. Lacerations from flying glass from gunshot, measuring 3–4mm wide, 2–3cm long.

Supplemental information: Journalist, interviewing Moreno. Born Puerto Rico, living in Argentina.

Camera, tape recorder, gold pen, notebooks missing.

Shoes contained fibers associated with carpet in hotel corridor, dirt from hotel entryway.

Clothing contained traces of breakfast: allspice and pepper sauce.

Her thinking was all the more brilliant because of its simplicity: People born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens.

Therefore Barry Shales had killed an American in the attack on May 9 in the South Cove Inn.

Nance’s boss, the DA, had decided not to pursue the case only because Moreno wasn’t a citizen. But de la Rua was. Even an unintended death under some circumstances can subject the killer to murder charges.

Sachs continued, “But at the very least, I’d think we could get manslaughter. Shales inadvertently killed de la Rua as part of the intentional act of killing Moreno. He should have known that someone else in the room could have been fatally wounded when he fired the shot.”

A woman’s voice filled the room. “Good analysis, Amelia. Have you ever thought of going to law school?”

Rhyme turned to see Nance Laurel striding into the parlor, lugging her briefcase and litigation bag once again. Behind her was the detective they’d asked to collect her, a friend of Sachs’s. Bill Flaherty. Rhyme had thought it safer for her to have an escort. He was still uneasy that Unsub 516 was at large, especially now that there was a chance of reviving the Moreno case.

Laurel thanked the detective, who nodded and — with a smile toward Sachs and Rhyme — left the town house.

Rhyme asked the ADA, “So? Our case? What do you think? Legally?”

“Well,” she said, sitting down at her desk and extracting her files once more, organizing them, “we probably can get Barry Shales on murder two. The penal code provision covers us there.” She paraphrased, “A person is guilty of murder in the second degree when he intends to cause the death of someone and he causes the death of a third person. But Amelia’s right, manslaughter’s definitely a possibility. We’ll make it a lesser-included offense, though I’m confident I can make murder stick.”

“Thanks for coming back,” Sachs said.

“No, thanks to you all for saving our case.” She was looking around the room.

Our case…

“Amelia came up with the idea,” Lon Sellitto said.

Rhyme added, “I missed the option entirely.”

Sellitto added that he’d been in touch with Captain Myers and the man had — with some reluctance — agreed they should proceed with the new charges. The attorney general had given his tentative approval too.

“Now we have to consider how to proceed,” Laurel said, surprising Rhyme by not only unbuttoning but slipping off her jacket. She could smile, she could sip whiskey, she could relax. “First, I’d like some background. Who was he, this reporter?”

Ron Pulaski had been researching. He said, “Eduardo de la Rua, fifty-six. Married. Freelance journalist and blogger. Born in Puerto Rico, U.S. passport. But he’s been living in Buenos Aires for the past ten years. Last year he won the Premio a la Excelencia en el Periodismo. That’s ‘Award for Excellence in Journalism.’”

“You speak Spanish too, rookie?” Rhyme interrupted. “You never fail to astound. Good accent too.”

“Nada.”

“Ha,” Sellitto offered.

The young officer: “Lately de la Rua’s been writing for Diario Seminal Negocio de Argentina.”

“The Weekly Journal of Argentina,” Rhyme tried.

“Almost. Weekly Business Journal.”

“Of course.”

“He was doing a series on American businesses and banks starting up in Latin America. He’d been after Moreno for months to do an interview about that — the alternative view, why U.S. companies shouldn’t be encouraged to open operations down there. Finally he agreed and de la Rua flew to Nassau. And we know what happened next.”

Sachs told Laurel, “Shales is in custody.”

“Good,” the prosecutor said. “Now, where are we with the evidence?”

“Ah, the evidence,” Rhyme mused. “The evidence. All we need to prove is that the bullet caused the flying glass, and the glass was the cause of the reporter’s death. We’re close. We’ve got the trace of glass splinters on the bullet and on de la Rua’s clothes. I’d just really like some of the shards that actually caused the laceration and bleeding.” He looked to Laurel. “Juries love the weapons, don’t they?”

“They sure do, Lincoln.”

“The morgue in the Bahamas?” Sachs asked. “The examiner would still have the glass, wouldn’t you think?”

“Let’s hope. People may steal Rolexes and Oakleys down there but I imagine broken glass is safe from sticky fingers. I’ll call Mychal and see what he can find. He can ship some up here with an affidavit that states the shards were recovered from the body and were the cause of death. Or, hell, maybe he could come up himself to testify.”

“That’s a great idea,” Thom said. “He could stay with us for a while, hang out.”

Rhyme exhaled in exasperation. “Oh, sure. We’ve got so much time for socializing. I could take him on a tour of the Big Apple. You know, haven’t been to the Statue of Liberty in…ever. And I intend to keep it that way.”

Thom laughed, irritating Rhyme all the more.

The criminalist called up the autopsy pictures and scrolled through them. “A shard from the jugular, carotid or femoral would be best,” he mused. “Those would be the fatal ones.” But an initial review didn’t show any obvious splinters of glass jutting from the pale corpse of Eduardo de la Rua.

“I’ll give Mychal a call in the morning. It’s late now. Don’t want to interfere with his moonlighting job.”

Rhyme could have called now but he wanted to speak to the corporal in private. The fact was that he had been considering inviting Poitier to New York at some point in the near future and this would be a good excuse to do so.

And, he reflected with some irony, yes, he did intend to show Poitier around town. The Statue of Liberty, however, would not be on the tour.

CHAPTER 77

Jacob Swann wondered what had happened.

His plans for Nance Laurel had been interrupted by the arrival of an unmarked police car in front of her apartment in Brooklyn — just as Swann had been about to rise and go visit the ADA, to play out his revenge scenario.

The plainclothes detective had whisked her out quickly — so fast that it was clear something significant was going on. Did it relate to the Moreno case, which supposedly was a case no longer? Or something else?

He was now in his Nissan, headed back home. The answer to the mystery arrived in the form of a text from headquarters. Shit. Shreve Metzger had reported that the case was back on but with a curious variation: Barry Shales had been arrested for the killing not of Robert Moreno but of Eduardo de la Rua, the reporter who’d been interviewing him at the time the bullet had blown the hotel window into a million little shards of glass.

Because de la Rua was a U.S. citizen—¡Hola, Puerto Rico! — Ms. Nance Laurel had been reinstated on the case.

Metzger had not been charged but it was possible that he would be soon, accused of at least one or two felony counts; the point of Shales’s arrest, of course, was to pressure the drone pilot to give up his boss.

How easy was it to kill someone in detention? Swann wondered. Not that easy, he suspected, at least not without some inside help, which would be extremely expensive.

Swann was told additional services would be needed. He was to await instructions. Tomorrow promised to be a busy day but since the hour was late he doubted any of those directives would involve his going out again tonight.

This was good.

The little butcher man was hungry and had a taste for some wine. A glass or two of Spanish Albariño beckoned, as did some of the Veronique from last night, carefully wrapped up and tucked into the fridge. There wasn’t a chef in the world — even those whose eateries boasted three Michelin stars — who didn’t appreciate leftovers, whatever they said in public.