The Kill Room

by Jeffery Deaver

  She forced herself to calm.

  Jacob Swann eased the Kai Shun forward--admiring the blade and handle. Cooking implements are often among the most stylishly designed of any object. The sunlight reflected off the upper half of the blade, pounded into indentations, as if flickering on waves. He carefully stroked the tip of her tongue with the point, drawing a streak in deeper pink but no blood.

  Some sound. "Please" maybe.

  Little butcher man...

  He recalled scoring a duck breast just a few weeks ago, with this same knife, slicing three shallow slits to help render the fat under the broiler. He leaned forward. "Now, listen carefully," he whispered. Swann's mouth was close to her ear and he felt her hot skin against his cheek.

  Just like last week.

  Well, somewhat like last week.

  CHAPTER 7

  CAPTAIN BILL MYERS HAD TAKEN his grating verbiage and left, now that he'd handed off the baton of the case to Rhyme and crew.

  While the Moreno conspiracy investigation was in some ways monumental, it was ultimately just another of the thousands of felony cases active in New York, and other matters surely beckoned the captain and his mysterious Special Services Division.

  Rhyme supposed too that he'd want to distance himself. Myers had backed up the DA--a captain had to do that, of course; police and prosecutors were Siamese twins--but now was the moment for Myers to head to an undisclosed location. Rhyme was thinking of the political ambition he'd smelled earlier, and if that was true the brass would step back and see how the case unfolded. He'd then return to the podium in glory, in time for the perp walk. Or vanish completely if the case exploded into a public relations nightmare.

  A very likely possibility.

  Rhyme didn't mind. In fact, he was pleased Myers was gone. He didn't do well with any other cooks in the kitchen.

  Lon Sellitto, of course, remained. Technically the lead investigator, he was now sitting in a creaky rattan chair, debating a muffin on the breakfast tray, even though he'd pecked half the Danish away. But he then squeezed his gut twice, as if hoping the message would be that he'd lost enough weight on his latest fad diet to deserve the pastry. Apparently not.

  "What do you know about this guy running NIOS?" Sellitto asked Laurel. "Metzger?"

  She again recited without the benefit of notes: "Forty-three. Divorced. Ex-wife's a lawyer in private practice, Wall Street. He's Harvard, ROTC. After, went into the army, Iraq. In as a lieutenant, out as a captain. There was talk of him going further but that got derailed. Had some issues I'll tell you about later. Discharged, then Yale, master's in public policy along with a law degree. Went to the State Department, then joined NIOS five years ago as operations director. When the existing NIOS head retired last year, Metzger got his job, even though he was one of the youngest on the management panel. The word is nothing was going to stop him from taking the helm."

  "Children?" Sachs asked.

  "What?" Laurel replied.

  "Does Metzger have children?"

  "Oh, you're thinking someone was pressuring him, using the children to force him to take on improper missions?"

  "No," Sachs said. "I just wondered if he had children."

  A blink from Laurel. Now she consulted notes. "Son and daughter. Middle school. He was disallowed any custody for a year. Now he's got some visitation rights but mostly they're with the mother.

  "Now, Metzger's beyond hawkish. He's on record as saying he would've nuked Afghanistan on September twelve, two thousand one. He's very outspoken about our right to preemptively eliminate enemies. His nemesis is American citizens who've gone overseas and are engaged in what he considers un-American activities, like joining insurgencies or vocally supporting terrorist groups. But those're his politics and're irrelevant to me." A pause. "His more significant quality is that he's mentally unstable."

  "How so?" Sellitto asked.

  Rhyme was beginning to lose patience. He wanted to consider the forensics of the case.

  But since both Sachs and Sellitto approached cases "globally," as Captain Myers might have said, he let Laurel continue and he tried to appear attentive.

  She said, "He's had emotional issues. Anger primarily. That's largely what's driving him, I think. He left the army with an honorable discharge but he had a half dozen episodes that hurt his career there. Fits of rage, tantrums, whatever you want to call them. Totally lost control. He was actually hospitalized at one point. I've managed to datamine some records and he still sees a psychiatrist and buys meds. He's been detained by the police a few times for violent episodes. Never charged. Frankly, I think he's borderline with a paranoid personality. Not psychotic but has definite issues of delusion and addiction--addicted to anger itself. Well, to be precise, the response to anger. From what I've studied up on the subject, the relief you feel in acting out during an episode of anger is addicting. Like a drug. I think ordering a sniper to kill somebody he's come to detest gives him a high."

  Studied up indeed. She sounded like a psychiatrist lecturing students.

  "How'd he get the job, then?" Sachs asked.

  A question that had presented itself to Rhyme.

  "Because he's very, very good at killing people. At least, that's what his service record indicates." Laurel continued, "It'll be hard to get his personality workup to a jury but I'm going to do it somehow. And I can only pray he takes the stand. I'd have a field day. I'd love for a jury to see a tantrum." She glanced from Rhyme to Sachs. "As you pursue the investigation I want you to look for anything that suggests Metzger's instability, anger and violent tendencies."

  Now a pause preceded Sachs's response. "That's a little fishy, don't you think?"

  The battle of the silences. "I'm not sure what you mean."

  "I don't know what kind of forensic evidence we could find showing that this guy has temper tantrums."

  "I wasn't thinking forensics. I was thinking general investigation." The ADA was looking up at Sachs--the detective was eight or nine inches taller. "You have good write-ups in your file for psych profiling and witness interrogation. I'm sure you'll be able to find something if you look for it."

  Sachs cocked her head slightly, eyes narrowed. Rhyme too was surprised that the ADA had profiled her--and presumably the criminalist himself too.

  Studied up...

  "So." The word was delivered by Laurel abruptly. The matter was settled; they'd look for instability. Got it.

  Rhyme's caregiver rounded the corner. He was carrying a pot of fresh coffee. The criminalist introduced the man. He noted that Nance Laurel's made-up facade stirred briefly as she looked at Thom. An unmistakable focus was in her eyes, though as good looking and charming as he was, Thom Reston was not a romantic option for the woman--who wore no heart-finger rings. But a moment later Rhyme concluded her reaction arose not from attraction to the aide himself but because he resembled somebody she knew or had known closely.

  Finally looking away from the young man, Laurel declined coffee, as if it were some ethics breach to indulge on the job. She was digging in her litigation bag, whose contents were perfectly organized. Folder tabs were color-coded and he noted two computers, whose eyes pulsed orange in their state of hibernation. She extracted a document.

  "Now," she said, looking up, "do you want to see the kill order?"

  Who could say no to that?

  CHAPTER 8

  OF COURSE THEY DON'T CALL IT THAT, a kill order," Nance Laurel assured. "That's shorthand. The term is 'STO,' a Special Task Order."

  "Almost sounds worse," Lon Sellitto said. "Kind of sanitized, you know. Creepy."

  Rhyme agreed.

  Laurel handed Sachs three sheets of paper. "If you could tape them up, so we could all see them?"

  Sachs hesitated and then did as the prosecutor requested.

  Laurel tapped the first. "Here's the email that came to our office last Thursday, the eleventh."

  Check the news about Robert Moreno. This is the order behind it. Level Two is the present head of
NIOS. His idea to pursue. Moreno was a U.S. citizen. The CD means Collateral Damage. Don Bruns is a code name for the officer who killed him.

  --A person with a conscience.

  "We'll see about tracing the email," Rhyme said. "Rodney." A glance toward Sachs, who nodded.

  She explained to Laurel that they worked with the cybercrimes unit in the NYPD frequently. "I'll send them a request. Do you have the email in digital form?"

  Laurel dug a Baggie containing a flash drive from her briefcase. Rhyme was impressed to see that a chain-of-custody evidence card was attached. She handed it to Sachs, saying, "If you could--"

  Just as the detective jotted her name on the card.

  Sachs plugged the drive into the side of her computer and began to type.

  "You're going to let them know that security's a priority."

  Without looking up, Sachs said, "It's in my first paragraph." A moment later she sent the request to the CCU.

  "Code name sounds familiar," Sellitto pointed out. "Bruns, Bruns..."

  "Maybe the sniper likes country-western music," Sachs pointed out. "There's a Don Bruns who's a songwriter and performer, folk, country-western. Pretty good."

  Laurel cocked her head as if she had never listened to any music, much less something as lively as CW.

  "Check with Information Services," Rhyme said. "Datamine 'Bruns.' If it's a NOC, he'll still have a presence in the real world."

  Agents operating under non-official covers nonetheless have credit cards and passports that can--possibly--allow their movements to be traced and yield clues to their true identity. Information Services was a new division at the NYPD, a massive datamining operation, one of the best in the country.

  As Sachs put the request in, Laurel turned back to the board and tapped a second sheet she'd taped up there. "And here's the order itself."

  RET - TOP SECRET - TOP SECRET - TOP SE

  Special Task Orders

  Queue

  8/27 Task: Robert A. Moreno (NIOS ID: ram278e4w5)

  Born: 4/75, New Jersey

  Complete by: 5/8-5/9

  Approvals:

  Level Two: Yes

  Level One: Yes

  Supporting Documentation:

  See "A"

  Confirmation required: Yes

  PIN required: Yes

  CD: Approved, but minimize

  Details:

  Specialist assigned: Don Bruns, Kill Room. South Cove Inn, Bahamas, Suite 1200

  Status: Closed

  9/27 Task: Al-Barani Rashid (NIOS ID: abr942pd5t)

  Born: 2/73, Michigan

  Complete by: 5/19

  Approvals:

  Level Two: Yes

  Level One: Yes

  Supporting Documentation:

  N/R

  Confirmation required: No

  PIN required: Yes

  CD: Approved, but minimize

  Details: To come

  Status: Pending

  The other document on the board was headed "A." This gave the information that Nance Laurel had mentioned earlier, supporting data about the shipments of fertilizer and diesel fuel and chemicals to the Bahamas. The shipments were from Corinto, Nicaragua and Caracas.

  Laurel nodded toward the flash drive, still inserted into the computer nearby. "The whistleblower also sent a .wav file, a sound file of a phone call or radio transmission to the sniper, apparently from his commander. This was just before the shooting." She looked expectantly at Sachs, who paused then sat down at the computer again. She typed. A moment later, a brief exchange came from the tinny speakers:

  "There seem to be two, no three people in the room."

  "Can you positively identify Moreno?"

  "It's...there's some glare. Okay, that's better. Yes. I can identify the task. I can see him."

  Then the transmission ended. Rhyme was about to ask Sachs to run a voiceprint but she'd already done so. He said, "It doesn't prove he actually pulled the trigger but it gets him on the scene. Now all we need is a body to go with the voice."

  "'Specialists,'" Laurel pointed out. "That's the official job title of assassins, apparently."

  "What's with the NIOS ID code?" Sellitto asked.

  "Presumably to make sure they get the right R. A. Moreno. Embarrassing to make that mistake." Rhyme read. "Interesting that the whistleblower didn't give us the name of the shooter."

  "Maybe he doesn't know," Sellitto said.

  Sachs: "Looks like he knows everything else. His conscience extends up to a certain point. He'll dime out the head of the organization but he's sympathetic toward the guy who got the assignment to shoot."

  Laurel said, "I agree. The whistleblower has to know. I want him too. Not to prosecute, just for information. He's our best lead to the sniper--and without the sniper there's no conspiracy and no case."

  Sachs said, "Even if we find him he's not going to tell us willingly. Otherwise he already would have."

  Laurel said absently, "You get me the whistleblower...and he'll talk. He'll talk."

  Sachs asked, "Any consideration about going after Metzger for the other deaths, the guard and that reporter, de la Rua?"

  "No, since only Moreno was named in the kill order and they were collateral damage we didn't want to muddy the waters."

  Sachs's sour expression seemed to say: even though they were just as dead as the target. Can't confuse the precious jury, can we?

  Rhyme said, "Give me the details of the killing itself."

  "We have very little. The Bahamian police gave us a preliminary report, then everything shut down from them. They're not returning calls. What we know is that Moreno was in his suite when he was shot." She indicated the STO. "Suite twelve hundred. The Kill Room, they're calling it. The sniper was shooting from an outcrop of land about two thousand yards from the hotel."

  "Well, that's one hell of a shot," Sachs said, eyebrows rising. She was quite a marksman, competed in shooting matches often and held records in the NYPD and in private competitions, though she favored handguns over rifles. "We call that a million-dollar bullet. The record for a sniper's about twenty-five hundred yards. Whoever it was, that shooter's got some skill."

  "Well, that's good news for us," Laurel continued. "Narrows down the field of suspects."

  True, Rhyme reflected. "What else do we have?"

  "Nothing."

  That's all? Some emails, a leaked government document, the name of one conspirator.

  And notably absent was the one thing Rhyme needed the most: evidence.

  Which was sitting somewhere hundreds of miles away, in a different jurisdiction--hell, in a different country.

  Here he was, a crime scene expert without a crime scene.

  CHAPTER 9

  SHREVE METZGER SAT AT HIS DESK in lower Manhattan, motionless, as a band of morning light, reflected off a high-rise nearby, fell across his arm and chest.

  Staring at the Hudson River, he was recalling the horror yesterday as he'd read the encrypted text from NIOS's surveillance department. The outfit was no more skillful than the CIA's or NSA's, but wasn't quite so visible, which meant it wasn't quite so hobbled by the inconvenience of FISA warrants and the like. And that in turn meant the quality of its information was golden.

  Yesterday, early Sunday evening, Metzger had been at his daughter's soccer game, an important one--against the Wolverines, a formidable opponent. He wouldn't have left his seat in the stands, dead center on the field, for anything.

  He trod lightly when it came to the children, he'd learned all too well.

  But as he pulled on his light-framed glasses--after cleaning the lenses--and read the perplexing then troubling then shattering words, the Smoke formed, fast and unyielding, more a gel than vapor, and it closed around him. Suffocating. He found himself quivering, jaw clenched, hands clenched, heart clenched.

  Metzger had recited: I can handle this. This is part of the job. I knew there was a risk of getting found out. He'd reminded himself: The Smoke doesn't define you; it's n
ot part of you. You can make it float away if you want. But you have to want. Just let it go.

  He'd calmed a bit, unclenched fingers tapping his bony leg in dress slacks (other soccer dads were in jeans but he hadn't been able to change between office and field). Metzger was five ten and three-quarters and clocked in about 150 pounds. Formerly fat, as a boy, he'd melted the weight away and never let it return. His thinning brown hair was a bit long for government service but that's the way he liked it and he wasn't going to change.

  Yesterday, as he put the phone away, the twelve-year-old midfielder had turned toward his section in the stands and smiled. Metzger had grinned back. It was fake and maybe Katie knew it. Wished they sold scotch but this was middle school in Bronxville, New York, so caffeine was the strongest offering on the menu, though the Woodrow Wilson PTO's kick-ass cookies and blondies gave you a high of sorts.

  Anyway, liquor was not the way to defeat the Smoke.

  Dr. Fischer, I believe you. I think.

  He'd returned to the office last night and tried to make sense of the news: Some crusading assistant district attorney in Manhattan was coming after him for Moreno's death. A lawyer himself, Metzger added up the possible counts and knew the biggest, bluntest truncheon would be conspiracy.

  And he'd been even more shocked that the DA's Office had learned of Moreno's death because the Special Task Order had been leaked.

  A fucking whistleblower!

  A traitor. To me, to NIOS, and--worst of all--to the nation. Oh, that had brought the Smoke back. He'd had an image of himself beating the prosecutor, whoever he or she was, to death with a shovel--he never knew the themes his rage would take. And this fantasy, particularly bloody and with a gruesome soundtrack, both mystified and viscerally satisfied with its vivacity and persistence.

  When he'd calmed, Metzger had set to work, making calls and sending texts wrapped in the chrysalis of sublime encryption, to do what he could to make the problem go away.

  Now, Monday morning, he turned from the river and stretched. He was more or less functioning, after a grand total of four hours' sleep (very bad; fatigue gives the Smoke strength) and a shower in the NIOS gym. In his twenty-by-twenty office, bare except for safes, cabinets, computers, a few pictures, books and maps, Metzger sipped his latte. He'd bought his personal assistant the same--Ruth's had been assembled with soy milk. He wondered if he should try that. She claimed the substance was a relaxer.