Lincoln Rhyme: The Kill Room Part 47

"h.e.l.lo, Counselor Laurel," the lawyer said pleasantly.

She knew him by reputation. How did he know her?

Something wasn't right here.

"Who-?" Shales began.

"I'm Artie Rothstein. I've been retained to defend you."

"By Shreve?"

"Don't say anything more, Barry. Were you advised you have the right to an attorney and you don't need to say anything?"

"I...Yes. But I want to-"

"No, you don't, Barry. You don't want to do anything at the moment."

"But, look, I just found out that Shreve-"

"Barry," Rothstein said in a low voice. "I'm advising you to be quiet. It's very important." He waited a moment then added, "We want to make sure you and your family get the best counsel you can have."

"My family?"

h.e.l.l. That's his game. Laurel said firmly, "The state has no case against your family, Barry. We have no interest in them at all."

Rothstein turned to her and his round, creased face offered a perplexed look. "We've hardly scratched the surface of the case, Nance." He looked at Shales. "You never know the direction a prosecution will take. My theory is to provide for every eventuality. And I'll make sure you and anyone else involved in this prosecution..." His voice grew indignant. "...this misguided prosecution is looked after. Now, Barry?"

The pilot's jaw quivered. He looked at Nance quickly then lowered his eyes and nodded.

Rothstein said, "This interview is now terminated."

CHAPTER 79.

MORNING SUNLIGHT FILLED Rhyme's town house.

The windows faced east and bands of direct light, filtered through many leaves, fired into the parlor in flickering streams.

The team was gathered here, Cooper, Sellitto, Pulaski. Sachs too. And Nance Laurel, who'd just returned from detention with the disappointing news that Shales had been about to confess and give up Metzger when a lawyer that NIOS or someone in DC had hired arrived and scared him into silence.

But she said, "I can still make the case work. Nothing's going to stop me this time."

Rhyme happened to be glancing at his phone when it rang and he was pleased. He answered. "Corporal, how are you?"

Poitier's melodic voice replied, "Good, Captain. Good. I was happy to get your message this morning. We miss the chaos you brought with you. You must come back. Come back for holiday. And I appreciate your invitation too. I will most certainly come to New York but that will have to be as a holiday as well. I'm afraid I don't have any evidence for you. There was no luck at the morgue. I don't have anything to deliver to you in person."

"No gla.s.s shards from de la Rua's body?"

"I'm afraid not. I spoke to the doctor who conducted the autopsy and there were no splinters left in the bodies of either de la Rua or the guard when they were brought in. Apparently they had been removed by the medical technicians trying to save the men."

But Rhyme recalled the crime scene pictures. The wounds had been numerous, the blood loss ma.s.sive. Some shards must have remained. He now eased close to the whiteboards and examined the autopsy pictures of the victims, the crude incisions, the skull cap placed back after the saw work, the Y incision decorating the chest.

Something was wrong.

Rhyme turned to the room and shouted, to no one in particular, "The autopsy report. I want de la Rua's autopsy report, now!" He couldn't juggle the phone and work the computer at the same time.

Mel Cooper complied and in a moment the scanned doc.u.ment was on a flat-screen monitor next to Rhyme.

This victim exhibited approximately 35 lacerations in various sites of the chest, abdomen, arms, face and thighs, primarily anterior, presumably caused by shards of gla.s.s from a window that was shot out at the crime scene. These lacerations varied in size but the majority were approximately 34mm in width and 2 to 3 centimeters in length. Six of said lacerations were in this victim's carotid and jugular vessels and femoral artery, resulting in severe hemorrhaging.

Rhyme was aware of faint breathing on the other end of the line. Then: "Captain Rhyme, is everything all right?"

"I have to go."

"Is there anything more you need me to do?"

Rhyme's eyes were on Nance Laurel, who was scanning quizzically, looking from the autopsy report to the photos to Rhyme himself. He said to Poitier, "No, thank you, Corporal. I'll call you back." He disconnected and wheeled closer to the screen, studying it more closely. Then he turned his attention to the whiteboards.

"What is it, Rhyme?" Sachs asked.

He sighed. When he spun around he looked to Laurel. "I'm sorry. I was wrong."

"What do you mean, Linc?" Sellitto asked.

"De la Rua wasn't collateral damage at all. He was the target."

Laurel said, "But, still, Lincoln, we know Shales intended to shoot Moreno. It was the gla.s.s shards from the bullet Shales fired that killed de la Rua."

"That's the point," Rhyme said softly. "No, it wasn't."

CHAPTER 80.

UAV EIGHT NINE TWO TO FLORIDA CENTER. Target identified and acquired. Infrared and SAR."

"Roger, Eight Nine Two...Use of LRR is authorized."

"Copy. Eight Nine Two."

And six seconds later Robert Moreno was no more.

Barry Shales was in the holding cell, alone, hands together, sitting hunched forward. The bench was hard, the air stifling and sour-human smelling.

Recalling the Moreno task, thinking particularly of the disembodied voices from Florida Center. People he'd never met.

Just like he'd never actually seen the UAV he'd flown on that mission, never run his hand over its fuselage the way he had his F-16. He never saw any of the UAVs in person.

Remote.

Soldier and weapon.

Soldier and target.

Remote.

Remote.

"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."

Shales's thoughts were in turmoil. Like an aircraft in a spin: The horror of learning that he'd killed three innocent men, then being arrested for the murder of one. And then finding that Shreve Metzger had brought in a specialist to clean up after the operation, killing witnesses, setting that bomb.

Which all brought home to him that fundamentally what he was doing for NIOS was wrong.

Barry Shales had flown combat missions in Iraq. He'd dropped bombs and launched missiles and had some confirmed kills, supporting ground operations. When you were in live combat, even if the odds were in your favor, as with most U.S. military ops, there was still the chance that somebody could bring you down-Stingers, AK-47 fire. Even a single bullet from a Kurdish muzzle loader could do it.

This was combat. That was how war worked.

And it was fair. Because you knew the enemy. They were easy to identify: They were the ones who wanted to f.u.c.king kill you right back.

But sitting in a Kill Room, thousands of miles away, padded by layers of intel that might or might not be accurate (or manipulated), it was different. How did you know the supposed enemy really was just that? How could you ever know?

And then you'd go back home, forty minutes away, surrounding yourself with people who might be just as innocent as the ones you'd just killed in a tenth of a second.

Oh, and, honey, get some kids' Nyquil. Sammy's got the sniffles. I forgot to pick some up.

Shales closed his eyes, rocked on the bench.

He knew that there was something off about Shreve Metzger-the temper, those moments when control left him, the intel reports that just didn't seem right, the lectures about the sanct.i.ty of America. h.e.l.l, when he started a pro-U.S. tirade he sounded an awful lot like the flip side of Robert Moreno.

Only n.o.body pumped a .420 boattail into the NIOS director.

And to order in a specialist for clean-up, to set IEDs and kill witnesses.

Torture ...

Suddenly, sitting in this grim place, wafting of urine and disinfectant, Barry Shales realized he was overwhelmed. Years of hidden guilt were flooding in to drown him, the ghosts of the men and women in the infamous queue, people he'd killed, were swimming toward him now, to drag him under the surface of the inky blood tide. Years of being someone else-Don Bruns, Samuel McCoy, Billy Dodd...Occasionally, at the store or in a movie theater lobby, when Marg called his real name, he hesitated, not sure who she was talking to.

Just give up Metzger, he told himself. There was plenty of information on his Don Bruns phone to put the NIOS head away for a long time-if it turned out he'd played with the evidence and hired a specialist to eliminate witnesses here. He could give Laurel the encryption code and the backup keyfile and the other phones and doc.u.ments he'd kept.

A memory of the lawyer came back. He didn't like the man one bit. Rothstein had been retained by a firm in Was.h.i.+ngton, it seemed. But he wouldn't say which one. When they'd met after Laurel had left, the attorney had suddenly grown distracted, taking and sending several text messages as he explained to Shales how the case was going to proceed. It seemed that his att.i.tude had changed: as if whatever he said or did, Shales was f.u.c.ked.

It was odd that the man hadn't known much about Shreve Metzger, though he was very familiar with NIOS. Rothstein seemed to spend more time in Was.h.i.+ngton than here. His advice at this point had been simple: Don't say a word to anybody about anything. They would try to make him cave, Nance Laurel was a duplicitous b.i.t.c.h, you know duplicitous, you know what I mean, Barry. Oh, don't trust a thing she says.

Shales had explained that Metzger may have done some pretty bad things in trying to cover up the case. "Like, I think he might have killed somebody."

"That's not our issue."

"Well, it is," Shales said. "It's exactly our issue."

The lawyer had received another text. He regarded the screen for a long moment. He said he had to go. He'd be in touch soon.

Rothstein had left.

And Barry Shales was brought down here and deposited, alone in the silent, pungent room.

Moments pa.s.sed, a thousand heartbeats, an eternity, when he heard the door at the far end of the corridor buzz open. Footsteps approached.

Maybe it was a guard to summon him to another meeting. With whom? Rothstein? Or Nance Laurel, who would offer him a solid plea bargain.

In exchange for giving up Shreve Metzger.

Everything told him he should do it. His brain, his heart, his conscience. And think of the torture of living this way: seeing Marg and the boys through a greasy gla.s.s window. He'd never see the kids learn sports, never see them on holiday mornings. And they'd grow up enduring the torment and taunting of having a father in prison.

The hopelessness of the situation bore down on him, surrounded him and strangled. He wanted to scream. But the consequences were his own fault. He'd made the decision to join NIOS, to kill people by pushb.u.t.ton from half a world away.

But ultimately it came down to this: You didn't give up your fellow soldiers. Right or wrong. Barry Shales sighed. Metzger was safe, at least from him. Cells like this one would be his home for the next twenty or thirty years.

He was preparing to give Nance Laurel the news she didn't want to hear when the footsteps outside stopped and the door clanked open.

He gave a brief humorless laugh. The visit was not, it seemed, about him at all. A solid African American guard was delivering another prisoner, who was even larger than the turnkey, a huge man, unclean, hair slicked back. Even from across the room the man's body odor spread out like ripples on a calm pond.

The man looked Shales over with a narrow gaze and then turned to watch the guard glance at them both, close the cell door and walk off down the hall. The new prisoner hawked and spit on the floor.

The drone pilot rose and moved to the far corner of the cell.

The other prisoner remained where he was, head turned away. Yet the airman had the sense that he was aware of every move of Shales's hands or feet, every s.h.i.+ft on the bench, every breath that he took.

My new home...

CHAPTER 81.