Bull’s-eye.
Shales was now turning the drone in a different direction and began following the small boat that contained the crew, who had abandoned the vessel twenty minutes earlier. Into view on the monitor came the black, long-nosed speedboat, crashing over the waves away from the rig and the explosion.
Rhyme heard Barry Shales’s voice over a ceiling-mounted speaker. “UAV Four Eight One to Florida Center. I’ve got secondary target in range and acquiring lock. Distance from target eighteen hundred yards.”
“Copy, Four Eight One. Close DFT to one thousand yards.”
“Roger, Florida Center. Four Eight One.”
On the monitor, Rhyme could see Henry Cross and the sailors who’d abandoned the vessel and were speeding away to safety. You couldn’t quite catch the facial expressions but their body language suggested confusion and concern. They wouldn’t have heard the drone or seen the missile, most likely, and would think that some malfunction in the bomb had caused it to detonate prematurely. Perhaps they were thinking, Lord, that could’ve happened while we were on board.
“Four Eight One to Florida Center. I’m DFT one thousand. Locked on secondary vessel. At their speed they’ll be under cover of Harrogate Cay in ten minutes. Please advise.”
“Roger. We’re hailing now on general frequencies. No response yet.”
Shales replied evenly, “Copy. Four Eight One.”
Rhyme now glanced at Sachs, whose face revealed the concern he himself felt. Were they about to witness the summary execution of six people?
They’d been caught in an act of terrorism. But that risk had been neutralized. Besides, Rhyme now thought, were they all terrorists? What if one or two were innocent sailors that had no idea what the cargo and mission were?
Suddenly the conflict between Shreve Metzger and Nance Laurel came into stark, wrenching focus.
“Four Eight One, this is Florida Center. No response to the hail. Payload launch is authorized.”
Rhyme could see Barry Shales stiffen.
He sat absolutely still for a moment and reached forward, flipped up the cover of a button on a panel in front of him.
Shreve Metzger said into a stalk mike on the desk in front of him, “Barry. Fire the rifle across their bow.”
Over the speaker Shales said, “UAV Four Eight One to Florida Center. Negative on payload launch. Switching to LRR mode.”
“Copy, Four Eight One.”
In the Kill Room, Barry Shales juggled a joystick and squinted at the video image of the speeding ship. He touched a black panel in front of him. A brief delay and, in eerie silence, three sequential plumes of water shot into the air a few feet in front of the speeding boat.
The slim vessel kept going, though everyone on board was looking around. Several of the sailors seemed very young, no more than teenagers.
“Florida Center to Four Eight One. We copy no change in target velocity. Payload launch is still authorized.”
“Copy. Four Eight One.”
Nothing happened for a moment. But then, with a lurch, the speedboat slowed and stopped in the water. Two of the sailors were pointing to the sky, nowhere near the camera, though. They couldn’t see the drone but they all now understood where their enemy was.
Almost in unison they raised their hands.
What followed was comical. The water was choppy and the boat small. They were trying to maintain balance but afraid if they lowered their arms, death from on high would find them. Two fell over and scrabbled quickly to their feet, shooting their hands into the air. They seemed like drunks trying to dance.
“Florida Center to UAV Four Eight One. Copy surrender. Navy advises Cyclone-class patrol ship, the Firebrand, one mile away, making thirty knots. Keep secondary target dead in the water until it arrives.”
“Copy. Four Eight One.”
CHAPTER 97
BARRY SHALES CLOSED THE DOOR to the Kill Room and, ignoring Shreve Metzger, walked to Rhyme and Sachs. He nodded.
The policewoman told him what a good job he’d done at the commands of the drone. “Sorry, I mean UAV.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said unemotionally, his bright blue eyes averted. Some of this reserve was perhaps because he was facing two people who’d intended to hang a murder charge on him. On reflection, though, Rhyme thought not. He simply seemed to be a very private person.
Maybe when you have his particular skill you’re mentally and emotionally in a different place much of the time.
Shales then turned to Rhyme. “We had to move pretty fast, sir. I never got the chance to ask how you figured it out—that there was going to be an attack on the rig, I mean.”
The criminalist said, “There was some evidence unaccounted for.”
“Oh, that’s right, sir. You’re the evidence tsar, someone was saying.”
Rhyme decided he liked that pithy phrase quite a bit. He’d remember it. “Specifically paraffin with a branched-chain molecule, an aromatic, a cycloalkane…oh, and some alkenes.”
Shales blinked twice.
“Or to put it in more common parlance: crude oil.”
“Crude oil?”
“Exactly. Trace amounts were found on Moreno’s and his guard’s shoes and clothes. They had to pick that up at some point before your attack on May ninth when they were out of the South Cove Inn, at meetings. Now, I didn’t think much of it—there are some refineries and oil storage facilities in the Bahamas. But then I realized something else: The morning he died Moreno met with some businesspeople about starting up transportation and agriculture operations there as part of his Local Empowerment Movement. But we’d also learned that fertilizer, diesel oil and nitromethane had been shipped weeks ago to his LEM companies. If those companies hadn’t even been formed yet, why buy the chemicals?”
“You put together crude oil and possible bomb.”
“We’d known about the rig from the initial intelligence about Moreno’s plans for May tenth. Since Moreno was so vocal against American Petroleum Drilling maybe the company was a target, after all—for a real attack, not just a protest. I think on Sunday or Monday he went to meet rig workers—maybe to get up-to-date information about security. Oh, and there was one other thing that didn’t make sense. Sachs here figured that out.”
She said, “When Moreno came to New York earlier in the month, the one meeting he had that he didn’t invite his interpreter to was with Henry Cross at the Classrooms for the Americas Foundation. Why not? Most of his meetings were innocent—Moreno wouldn’t let her interpret for him if the meeting was about something illegal. But what about the Cross meeting? If it was innocent, what was wrong with Lydia Foster being here, even if she didn’t have to interpret? Which told me maybe it wasn’t so innocent. And Cross told me about this mysterious blue jet that Moreno kept seeing. Well, we couldn’t find anything about any blue jets with travel patterns that seemed to match Moreno’s. That was the specific sort of thing somebody would tell a cop to lead them off.”
Rhyme picked up again: “Now, Classrooms for the Americas had offices in Nicaragua—which is where the diesel fuel, fertilizer and nitromethane were shipped from. There was too much to be coincidental. We looked into Cross and found out that he was really Cruz and that he and Moreno had a history together. It was Cruz’s brother who was Moreno’s best friend, killed in Panama during the invasion. That’s what turned him against the United States. We datamined Cruz’s travel records and credit cards and found he left New York for Nassau yesterday.
“My contact at the Bahamian police found that he and Moreno had chartered a cargo ship a month ago. It left port this morning. The police raided a warehouse where the ship had been docked and found traces of the explosive chemicals. That was good enough for me. I called Shreve. He called you.”
“So, Moreno wasn’t innocent after all,” Shales whispered, glancing at Metzger.
Sachs said, “No. You took out a bad guy, Airman.”
The officer looked at his boss. The expression in his blue eyes was comp
lex. And conflicted. One way to read it was: You were right, Shreve. You were right.
Rhyme added, “And this wasn’t going to be his only project.” He told both men about the intercept Nance Laurel had read to them in their first meeting on Monday.
I have a lot more messages like this one planned…
“Barry,” Metzger said. “I’m going to see our visitors out. Then, could I talk to you in my office? Please.”
A pause worthy of Nance Laurel. Finally the airman nodded.
Metzger escorted them to the exit, across the parking lot, thanked them warmly.
Outside the security gate, Rhyme took the accessible cutaway in the sidewalk to cross the street to where the van waited, Thom at the wheel. Sachs stepped off the curb. As she did, Rhyme saw her wince, gasp slightly in pain.
She offered a furtive glance his way, as if to see if he’d caught her frown, and then looked ahead quickly.
This cut him. It was as if she’d just lied to him.
And he lied right back; he pretended he hadn’t noticed.
Across the street they continued to the van for a moment. Then Rhyme braked the Merits chair to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
She turned.
“What is it, Rhyme?”
“Sachs, there’s something we need to talk about.”
CHAPTER 98
THE PHONE RANG ON SCHEDULE.
Whatever else you could say about him, the Wizard was prompt.
Shreve Metzger, at his desk in a somewhat deserted NIOS this Saturday afternoon, looked at the blinking light of his magic red phone and listened attentively to the trill of the ringer, like a bird, he’d decided. He debated about not picking up.
And never taking a call from the man ever again.
“Metzger here.”
“Shreve! How are you doing? Heard about those interesting developments up there, I understand. Long Island. I used to belong to Meadowbrook, did you know that? You don’t golf, do you?”
“No.”
And squashed a “sir” dead.
The voice grew wizardly once again, low, raspy: “We’ve been talking about charges against Spencer.”
Metzger replied, “We could make a case work…if we wanted to.” He removed his bland glasses, polished the lenses and replaced them. Unlike in the United Kingdom, it was not necessarily a crime to release classified material in this country, unless you were spying for another nation.
“Yes, well, we’ll have to consider our priorities, of course.”
The Wizard was referring undoubtedly to the public relations issues. It might make more sense not to pursue the matter, lest the press get their hands on the story.
Yes, well…
Metzger took out the nail clippers. But there was nothing left to clip. He spun them absently on his desktop. Put them back.
“And good job with that incident in Florida. Interesting that that bad intel turned good. Like magic. David Copperfield, Houdini.”
“They’re in custody, all of them.”
“Delighted to hear it.” As if he were sharing Hollywood gossip, the Wizard said, “Now I have to tell you something, Shreve. You there?”
How cheerfully he delivers my death sentence.
“Yes. Go on.”
“Got a call from a friend in Langley. A certain individual who was recently in Mexico.”
May-hi-co.
“A certain party,” the Wizard repeated. “You remember him?”
“In Reynosa,” Metzger said.
“That’s the place. Well, guess what? He’s vacationing outside Santa Rosa, near Tijuana.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes indeed. And apparently he still plans on making some deliveries of his specialty products in the near future. The very near future.”
So al-Barani Rashid had moved to the West Coast to hide out.
“He was just spotted with some associates but his friends’ll be leaving in the morning. And our friend will be all alone in a pleasant little cottage all day tomorrow. And the good news is that the local tourist board is absolutely fine about a visit from us. So, wondering if you could draw up some revised travel plans for our approval. Details are on their way.”
A new STO?
But aren’t I being fired? he wondered.
“Of course. I’ll get right on it. But…?”
“Yes?” the Wizard asked.
Metzger asked, “Those meetings? The budgetary issues?”
A pause. “Oh, the committee moved on to other matters.” After a beat the Wizard said sternly, “If there had been issues, I would’ve mentioned them to you, don’t you think?”
“Sure, you would have. Of course.”
“Of course.”
Click.
FRIDAY, MAY 26
VIII
WHEN YOU MOVE…
CHAPTER 99
THE MORNING OF THE SURGERY.
Rhyme, trailed by Sachs and Thom, wheeled fast down the hospital corridor to the Surgical Procedures waiting room where the patients could visit with their friends and family until they were whisked off for the knife.
“I hate hospitals,” Sachs said.
“Really? Why?” Rhyme found himself in quite a good mood. “The staff can be sooo charming, the food sooo good. The latest magazines. And all the miracles of modern medicine,” Rhyme proclaimed. “If you’ll forgive the alliteration.”
Sachs gave a brief laugh.
They’d waited only five minutes when the doctor strode into the room and shook all their hands, carefully noting Rhyme’s articulating right arm and digits. “Good,” he said. “That is very good.”
“I do my best.”
The doctor explained what they all knew at this point: that the surgery should take three hours, possibly a little longer. The stay in the recovery room could be expected to last an hour or so. The surgeon would come find them here, though, right after the operation was completed to tell them how it had gone.
Exuding confidence, the man smiled and headed off to gown and scrub.
The pre-op nurse, a pretty African American woman in puppy-decorated scrubs, arrived and introduced herself, smiling broadly. It’s a scary thing, to be knocked out and cut open then put back together. Some medicos didn’t appreciate the trauma but this woman did and kept everyone at ease. Finally she asked, “Ready?”
Amelia Sachs leaned over and kissed Rhyme on the mouth. She rose and, limping, accompanied the nurse down the hall.
He called, “We’ll be in the recovery room when you wake up.”
She turned back. “Don’t be crazy, Rhyme. Go back home. Solve a case or something.”
“We’ll be in the recovery room,” he repeated, as the door swung shut and she disappeared.
After a moment of silence Rhyme said to Thom, “You don’t happen to have one of those miniatures of whiskey, do you? From the flight to Nassau.”
He’d insisted the aide smuggle some scotch on board, though he’d learned that in first class you get as much liquor as you like—or, more accurately, as much as your caregiver is willing to let you have.
“No, and I wouldn’t give you any if I did have some. It’s nine in the morning.”
Rhyme scowled.
He looked once more at the doors through which Sachs had vanished.
We don’t want to lose her; she’s too good. But the department can’t keep her if she insists on being in the field…
Yes, he’d had a conversation with Sachs, as Bill Myers had insisted.
Though the message was a bit different from what the captain had wanted.
Neither a desk job at the NYPD and early retirement and security consulting were options for Amelia Sachs. There was only one solution to avoid those nightmares. Rhyme had contacted Dr. Vic Barrington and gotten the name of the best surgeon in the city specializing in treating severe arthritis.
The man had said he might be able to help; Rhyme’s conversation with Sachs on Saturday outside NIOS headquarters was about the possibilit
y of her undergoing a procedure to improve the situation…and keeping her in the field. Not desking her, to use one of Myers’s more pernicious verbs.
Because she wasn’t afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis—an immune system malady that affects all the joints—but more common osteoarthritis, she was young enough so that a procedure in her hip and knee could give her a dozen years or more of normal life before a joint replacement would be required.
She’d debated and finally agreed.
In the waiting room now, Rhyme was looking around at the ten or so others here, the couples, the solitary men or women, the families. Some motionless, some lost in intense dialogue not quite discernible, some jittery, some engaging in rituals of distraction: stirring coffee, opening crisp wrappers of snack food, studying limp magazines, texting or playing video games on phones.
Rhyme noted that, unlike the streets of New York, not a soul paid him more than a millisecond of uninterested attention. He was in a wheelchair; this was a hospital. Here, he was normal.
Thom asked, “You’ve told Dr. Barrington you’ve canceled your surgery?”
“I’ve told him.”
The aide was quiet for a moment. The Times in his hands dipped ever so slightly. For two people joined by circumstance and profession so inextricably and, in a way, intimately, these two had never been comfortable with discussions personal in nature. Lincoln Rhyme least of all. Yet he was surprised to find himself at ease as he confessed to Thom, “Something happened when I was down in the Bahamas.”
His eyes were on a middle-aged couple insincerely reassuring each other. Over the fate of whom? Rhyme wondered. An elderly father? Or a young child?
A world of difference there.
Rhyme continued, “On the spit of land where we thought the sniper nest was.”
“When you went for a swim.”
The criminalist was silent for a moment, reliving not the horrors of the water but the moments leading up to it. “It was an easy deduction for me to make—that the gold Mercury would show up.”
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