Lincoln Rhyme 10 - The Kill Room

by Jeffery Deaver

  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 structur
e, 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.”