The Kill Room

by Jeffery Deaver

  Immobile, yet predatory.

  Another feather floated away as the avian couple bent to their main course. The entree was what had until recently been a fat, and careless, pigeon. Falcons are generally diurnal and hunt until dusk but in the city they are often nocturnal.

  "Yum," said Sachs.

  Rhyme laughed.

  She moved closer to him and he smelled her hair, the rich scent. A bit of shampoo, floral. Amelia Sachs was not a perfume girl. His right arm rose and he cradled her head closer.

  "Are you going to follow up?" she asked. "With Poitier?"

  "I'll try. He seemed pretty adamant that he wouldn't help us anymore. But I know he's frustrated he hasn't been allowed to go further."

  "What a case this is," she said.

  He whispered, "So how does it feel to be repurposed into a granular-level player, Sachs? Are you pivoting to it or not?"

  She laughed hard. "And what exactly is that outfit he's working for, Captain Myers: Special Services?"

  "You're the cop. I thought you'd know."

  "Never heard of it."

  They fell silent and then, in his shoulder, normal as anyone's, he could feel her stiffen.

  "Tell me," he said.

  "You know, Rhyme, I'm not feeling any better about this case."

  "You're talking about what you said before, to Nance? That you're not sure if Metzger and our sniper are the kinds of perps we want to go after?"

  "Exactly."

  Rhyme nodded. "I can't disagree, Sachs. I've never questioned an investigation before, in all these years. They haven't been gray. This one's real gray.

  "There's one thing, though, to keep in mind, Sachs. About us."

  "We're volunteers."

  "Yep. We can walk away if we want. Let Myers and Laurel find somebody else."

  She was silent and she was motionless, at least according to those places where Rhyme could sense motion.

  He continued, "You weren't happy with the case in the first place."

  "No, I wasn't. And part of me does want to bail, yeah. There's too much we don't know about the players and what they have in mind, what their motives are."

  "My motive queen."

  "And when I say players, I mean Nance Laurel and Bill Myers, as much as Metzger and Bruns--or whatever the hell his name is." After a moment: "I have a bad feeling about this one, Rhyme. I know, you don't believe in that. But you were crime scene most of your career. I was street. There are hunches."

  This sat between them for a minute or two as they both watched the male falcon rise and lift his wings in a minor flourish. They're not large animals but, seen from so close, the preening was regally impressive, as was the bird's momentary but intense gaze into the room. Their eyesight is astonishing; they can spot prey miles away.

  Emblems...

  "You want to keep at it, don't you?" she asked.

  He said, "I get what you're saying, Sachs. But for me it's a knot that needs unraveling. I can't let it go. You don't need to, though."

  There was no delay as she whispered, "No, I'm with you, Rhyme. You and me. It's you and me."

  "Good, now I was--"

  And his words stopped abruptly because Sachs's mouth covered his and she was kissing him hungrily, almost desperately, flinging blankets back. She rolled on top of him, gripping his head. He felt her fingers on the back of his head, his ears, his cheek, fingers firm one moment, soft the next. Strong again. Stroking his neck, stroking his temple. Rhyme's lips moved from hers to her hair and then a spot behind her ear, then down to her chin and seated on her mouth again. Lingering.

  Rhyme had used his newly working arm on the controls of a Bausch + Lomb comparison microscope, with phones, with the computer and with a density gradient device. He had not used it yet for this: drawing Sachs closer, closer, gripping the top of her silk pajama top and smoothly drawing it over her head.

  He supposed he could have finessed the buttons, if he'd tried, but urgency dictated otherwise.

  TUESDAY, MAY 16

  III

  CHAMELEONS

  CHAPTER 24

  RHYME WHEELED FROM THE front sitting room of his town house into the marble entryway near the front door.

  Dr. Vic Barrington, Rhyme's spinal cord injury specialist, followed him out, and Thom closed the doors to the room and joined them. The idea of physicians' making house calls was from another era, if not a different dimension, but when the essence of the injury makes it far easier to come to the mountain, that's what many of the better doctors did.

  But Barrington was untraditional in many ways. His black bag was a Nike backpack and he'd bicycled here from the hospital.

  "Appreciate your coming in this early," Rhyme said to the doctor.

  The time was six thirty in the morning.

  Rhyme liked the man and had decided to give him a pass and resist asking how the "emergency" or the "something" had gone yesterday when he'd had to postpone their appointment. With any other doc he would have grilled.

  Barrington had just completed a final set of tests in anticipation of the surgery scheduled for May 26.

  "I'll get the blood work in and look over the results but I don't have any indication that anything's changed over the past week. Blood pressure is very good."

  This was the nemesis of severely disabled spinal cord patients; an attack of autonomic dysreflexia could spike the pressure in minutes and lead to a stroke and death if a doctor or caregiver didn't react instantly.

  "Lung capacity gets better every time I see you and I swear you're stronger than I am."

  Barrington was no-bullshit all the way and when Rhyme asked the next question, he knew he'd get an honest response. "What're my odds?"

  "Of getting your left arm and hand working again? Close to one hundred percent. Tendon grafts and electrodes're pretty surefire--"

  "No, that's not what I mean. I'm talking about surviving the operation or not having some kind of cataclysmic setback."

  "Ah, that's a little different. I'll give you ninety percent on that one."

  Rhyme considered this. Surgery couldn't do anything about his legs; nothing ever would fix that, at least not for the next five or ten years. But he'd come to believe that with disabilities hands and arms were the key to normal. Nobody pays much attention to people in wheelchairs if they can pick up a knife and fork or shake your hand. When someone has to feed you and wipe your chin, your very presence spreads discomfort like spattered mud.

  And those who don't look away give you those fucking sympathetic glances. Poor you, poor you.

  Ninety percent...reasonable for getting a major portion of your life back.

  "Let's do it," Rhyme said.

  "If there's anything that bothers me about the blood work I'll let you know but I don't anticipate that. We'll keep May twenty-sixth on the calendar. You can start rehab a week after that."

  Rhyme shook the doctor's hand and then, as he turned toward the front door, the criminalist said, "Oh, one thing. Can I have a drink or two the night before?"

  "Lincoln," Thom said. "You want to be in the best shape you can for the surgery."

  "I want to be in a good mood too," he muttered.

  The doctor appeared thoughtful. "Alcohol isn't recommended forty-eight hours before a procedure like this...But the hard-and-fast rule is nothing in the stomach after midnight the day of the operation. What goes in before that, I'm not too concerned about."

  "Thank you, Doctor."

  After the man had left, Rhyme wheeled into the lab, where he regarded the whiteboards. Sachs was just finishing writing what Mychal Poitier had told him last night. She was editing, using a thicker marker to present the most recent information.

  Rhyme stared at the boards for some time. Then he shouted, "Thom!"

  "I'm right here."

  "I thought you were in the kitchen."

  "Well, I'm not. I'm here. What do you want?"

  "I need you to make some phone calls for me."

  "I'm happy to," the aide r
eplied. "But I thought you liked making them on your own." He glanced at Rhyme's working arm.

  "I like making the calls. I dislike being on hold. And I have a feeling that's what I'd be doing."

  Thom added, "And so I'm going to be your surrogate hold-ee."

  Rhyme thought for a moment. "That's a good way to put it, though hardly very articulate."

  Robert Moreno Homicide

  Boldface indicates updated information

  Crime Scene 1. Suite 1200, South Cove Inn, New Providence Island, Bahamas (the "Kill Room").

  May 9.

  Victim 1: Robert Moreno. COD: Single gunshot wound to chest.

  Supplemental information: Moreno, 38, U.S. citizen, expatriate, living in Venezuela. Vehemently anti-American. Nickname: "the Messenger of Truth." Planned to "disappear into thin air," May 24. Possibly connected to terrorist incident in Mexico on May 13, reportedly had been searching for someone to "blow them up" on that day.

  Spent three days in NYC, April 30-May 2. Purpose? May 1, used Elite Limousine.

  Driver Tash Farada (regular driver Vlad Nikolov was sick. Trying to locate).

  Closed accounts at American Independent Bank and Trust, prob. other banks too.

  Collected woman Lydia, at Lexington and 52nd, accompanied him all day. Prostitute? Paid her money? Canvassing to learn identity.

  Reason for anti-U.S. feelings: best friend killed by U.S. troops in Panama invasion, 1989.

  Moreno's last trip to U.S. Never would return.

  Meeting in Wall Street. Purpose? Location?

  Victim 2: Eduardo de la Rua. COD: Loss of blood. Lacerations from flying glass from gunshot.

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

  Victim 3: Simon Flores. COD: Loss of blood. Lacerations from flying glass from gunshot.

  Supplemental information: Moreno's bodyguard. Brazilian national, living in Venezuela.

  Suspect 1: Shreve Metzger. Director, National Intelligence and Operations Service.

  Mentally unstable? Anger issues.

  Manipulated evidence to illegally authorize Special Task Order?

  Divorced. Law degree, Yale.

  Suspect 2: Sniper. Code name: Don Bruns. Information Services datamining Bruns. Results negative.

  Possibly individual at South Cove Inn, May 8. Caucasian, male, mid 30s, short cut light brown hair, American accent, thin but athletic. Appears "military." Inquiring re: Moreno.

  Possibly individual with American accent who called South Cove Inn on May 7 to confirm arrival of Moreno. Call was from American area code.

  Voiceprint obtained.

  Crime scene report, autopsy report, other details to come.

  Rumors of drug cartels behind the killings. Considered unlikely.

  Crime Scene 2. Sniper nest of Don Bruns, 2000 yards from Kill Room, New Providence Island, Bahamas.

  May 9.

  Crime scene report to come.

  Supplemental Investigation. Determine identity of Whistleblower. Unknown subject who leaked the Special Task Order.

  Sent via anonymous email.

  Traced through Taiwan to Romania to Sweden. Sent from New York area on public Wi-Fi, no government servers used.

  Used an old computer, probably from ten years ago, iBook, either clamshell model, two tone with other bright colors (like green or tangerine). Or could be traditional model, graphite color, but much thicker than today's laptops.

  Individual in light-colored sedan following Det. A. Sachs. Make and model not determined.

  CHAPTER 25

  SHREVE METZGER RETURNED TO the top floor of the NIOS building from the organization's technical department--the snoops--in the basement.

  As he strode through the halls, noting some employees avoid his eyes and make sudden turns into restrooms they undoubtedly didn't need to use, he reflected on what he'd just learned about the investigation from his people, who'd been using some very sophisticated techniques for intelligence gathering--particularly impressive since they were, officially, nonexistent. (NIOS had no jurisdiction within the United States and couldn't tap calls or prowl through email or hack computers. But Metzger had two words for that: back door.)

  Observing employees dodge out of harm's way, Metzger found his thoughts wandering. He was hearing voices in his head, no, not that kind of voices, more memories or fragments of them.

  Come up with an image of your anger. A symbol. A metaphor.

  Sure, Doctor. What do you recommend?

  It's not for me to say, Shreve. You pick. Some people pick animals, or bad guys from TV shows or hot coals.

  Coals? he'd thought. That did it. He'd hit upon an image for the anger beast within him. He'd recalled an incident when he was an adolescent in upstate New York, before losing the weight. He was standing before an autumn bonfire at his middle school, shyly attentive to the girl beside him. Smoke wafted around them. A beautiful night. He'd moved closer to her on the pretense of avoiding the sting of the smoke. He'd smiled and said hello. She'd said don't get close to the flames; you're so fat you'd catch fire. And she walked away.

  A story just made for a shrink. Dr. Fischer had loved it, much more than the tale about the anger going away when he ordered somebody's death.

  So "Smoke" it is, uppercase S...Good choice, Shreve.

  As he approached his office he noticed Ruth inside, standing over his desk. Normally he would have been upset to see somebody in his private space without permission. But she was allowed here under most circumstances. He'd never had a single temper outburst against her, which wasn't true of most other people he worked with at NIOS. He'd snapped or even screamed at them and thrown a report or address book occasionally, though most often not directly at the object of his fury. But never Ruth. Maybe that was because she worked closely with him. Then he decided that this theory didn't work; Lucinda and Katie and Seth had been close yet he'd lost it with his wife and kids plenty of times and had the divorce decree and the memories of the scared eyes and tears to prove it.

  Maybe the reason Ruth had escaped was simply that she had never done anything to make him angry.

  But, no, that test didn't work either. Metzger could grow infuriated at people simply by imagining they'd offended him, or anticipating that they might. Words still swirled through his mind--a speech he'd prepared if a cop had stopped him en route to the office after Katie's soccer game on Sunday night.

  You fucking blue-collar civil servant...Here's my federal government ID. This is a national security matter you're keeping me from. You've just lost your job, my friend...

  Ruth nodded at a file, which apparently she'd just put down on his desk. "Some documents from Washington," she reported. "Your eyes only."

  Questions about Moreno, of course, and how we fucked up. Goddamn, those pricks were fast, those fucking bureaucratic sharks. In Washington, how easy it was to sit in a cold dark office and speculate and pontificate.

  The Wizard and his cronies had no clue what life was like on the front lines.

  A breath.

  The anger slowly, slowly went away.

  "Thanks." He took the documents, decorated with a stark red stripe. Much like the unaccompanied minor envelope containing the forms he'd had to prepare when he'd put Seth on a plane to go to camp in Massachusetts. "You won't be homesick," Metzger had reassured the ten-year-old, who was looking around with uneasy eyes. But then he noticed that, contrary to this worry, the boy seemed somber because he was still in his father's presence. Once released into the company of the flight attendant the kid grew animated, happy.

  Anything to be away from his time bomb of a parent.

  Metzger ripped open the envelope, lifted his glasses from his breast pocket.

  He laughed. He'd been wrong. The information was simply intelligence assessments for some potential STO tasks in the future. That's another thing the Smoke did. You made assumptions.

  He scanned the pages, pleased that the intelligence was about the al-Ba
rani Rashid mission, next prioritized in the queue after Moreno.

  God, he wanted Rashid. Wanted him so badly.

  He set the reports down and glanced at Ruth. He asked, "You have the appointment this afternoon, right?"

  "That's right."

  "I'm sure it'll go fine."

  "I'm sure it will too."

  Ruth sat at her desk, which was decorated with pictures of her family--her two teen daughters and her second husband. Her first spouse died in the initial Gulf War. Her present one had been a soldier too, wounded and confined to a less-than-pleasant VA hospital for months.

  The sacrifice people make for this country and how little they're appreciated for it...

  The Wizard should talk to her, learn what she'd given up for this country--the life of one husband, the health of another.

  Metzger sat and read the assessment but found he wasn't able to concentrate. The Moreno matter roiled.

  I've made calls. Don Bruns knows about the case, of course. A few others. We're...handling things...

  The efforts were completely illegal, of course, but they were also proceeding well. The Smoke dissipated a bit more. He asked Ruth to summon Spencer Boston. He then read encrypted texts regarding the efforts to derail the investigation.

  Boston arrived a few minutes later. He was wearing a suit and tie, as he always did. It was as if the old-school intelligence community had a dress code. The distinguished man instinctively swung the door shut. Metzger saw Ruth's eyes gazing into the office for a moment before the heavy oak panel closed with a snap.

  "What do you have?" Metzger asked.

  Spencer Boston sat, removed a fleck of lint from his slacks that turned out to be a pill of cloth. He stopped pulling before a run appeared. Boston didn't seem to have had much sleep, which, for someone in his sixties, made him seem haggard. And what the hell do I look like? Metzger wondered, brushing his chin to see if he'd remembered to shave. He had.