Greg Rucka - Critical Space

"You said a Cambridge don?" Natalie asked.

Moore managed a grin. "The gag – if you'll pardon the pun – is that one of the detectives who figured it for murder made the comment that the assailant must have been 'an Oxford man.' "

None of us laughed.

Moore slid the other photographs around. They depicted acts of exceptional violence, rarely with a single victim, and universally related to sex in one fashion or another. Bodies were bound in rope or chain, cut and stabbed, as if the pictures were all production stills from a series of snuff films.

"You can see his M.O.," Moore said. "He's considered a specialist, the fellow you hire when murder just won't do the trick, and you need to assassinate character as well. He consistently plays a sexual angle, either because that's his pathology and it gets his horn up, or because sex is almost always sensational and scandalous. Maybe both. In most cases he capitalizes on already existing relationships – affairs and the like – but he's willing to fabricate from whole cloth if need be. Most of the time the stagings don't hold up, but by the time the facts are known, the media's already finished Oxford's work for him. The victim's reputation is destroyed."

There was a silence while we all studied the photographs, then Moore began gathering them up again, casting a glance at Lady Ainsley-Hunter's closed door. We'd been keeping our voices low, conspiratorial, and Moore's glance made me feel suddenly guilty, even though I knew better. We were keeping things from our principal, but all of us knew that was for the best. Better that she remain ignorant for now than terrified for no reason.

"Why do your people think he's here?" Dale asked Moore.

"Couple days ago a listening post intercepted a call that should've gone through Rome, ended up being routed through London instead. I don't have the details of the conversation, but whatever they heard was enough for them to tell me Oxford was headed to the States."

"So nothing's to say if he's actually after her or not," Corry said.

"No, but she's a viable target," Moore answered. " She's pissed off people who make their living off trading flesh, in particular the flesh of children. Those are people with money, and they might well want her not only silenced but discredited."

We were all silent for a few seconds, thinking. Moore replaced the closed folder in his bag, and as he did so room service arrived. Dale signed for the food and Natalie brought the cart in, and everyone but me descended on the meal, cracking open cans of soda and taking halves of sandwiches.

When everyone had taken their seats once more, I said, "The CIA showed me a picture of Oxford yesterday, but they didn't identify him as such. Why would they do that?"

"Intelligence gathering?" Corry ventured. "They wanted to know if you'd seen him before."

"But they had to have access to the same sources Robert has," Natalie insisted. "Which means they had reason to believe Oxford is on the move, and potentially moving against Lady Ainsley-Hunter."

Dale shook his head. "They know something that they aren't sharing. Something about Oxford or Drama. A connection between the two, maybe."

"Like?"

"Like maybe they're working together," Corry said.

"Okay," Dale said. "But I have to ask, is that likely? We know for a fact that Drama works alone, and that's not unusual for someone in her line of work."

Moore said, "If Oxford's hunting Her Ladyship, he's hunting alone. There's been nary a whisper about Drama."

"It doesn't hold, anyway," I said. "Drama doesn't have a partner."

"Doesn't have to be a partner," Corry countered. "Just someone she's working with on this one job."

"That's a lot of money to spend to take Her Ladyship," Natalie pointed out. "Just guessing, but if it costs a million dollars to hire one of The Ten, it's got to be at least twice that for two."

"Some people might think it was a bargain," Corry said.

Natalie frowned and turned in her seat, tossing her empty soda can into the trash by the desk. "I agree with Atticus on this. Drama and Oxford are not working together. Doesn't fit the M.O."

"But it would explain why both are coming to New York, if in fact both are," Dale said.

"We don't know if either of them are coming to New York," Moore said. "All we know is that Oxford is on the move in the U.S., but not where. And if we believe what Atticus was told, we have the same problem. It's the same problem as ever with this lot, children – we know just enough to be justly dribbling down our legs, and not enough to do anything more."

"We also know that The Ten work constantly to preserve their anonymity," Natalie said. "If two work together, all of that gets blown to hell. The difficulty doesn't double, it explodes exponentially. Alone, Drama and Oxford can keep their own counsel, modify their plans as they see fit. If they partner up, they've got to worry about all sorts of new problems – including communication. And the more they communicate the greater the chance of being discovered or compromised. It'd be too risky. Even if we assume both of them are on the move, that both of them are coming to New York, that both are after the same mark, we still can't assume they're in it together."

Corry grunted, ceding the argument.

"There's one more strike against Oxford, now that I think of it," Dale said. "If he's after Lady Antonia, he'll have to get her alone to stage the hit. He needs to assassinate character along with life, right? So he's got to make her look really bad, and we know that he'll try to make that bad be some sort of sex thing. He'd need to get her alone to make that work."

"And he'd need prep," Corry added. "A lot of prep. We're talking not only props, but another person, potentially."

"Not necessarily," Natalie said. "He could use one of us."

We all looked at her.

"He could," she said. "Bodyguard in Tryst with British Peer would make great copy. Any of us would do."

"Wouldn't work," I said. "Oxford would want it to look like Lady Ainsley-Hunter was the perpetrator, not the victim. The nature of the relationship between us and her is such that no one would buy her taking advantage of us. If Oxford sets it up to look like any of us jumped her, it'd make Her Ladyship into a martyr."

Dale coughed. "Make us look pretty bad, though."

"Oh, that's a lovely thought," Natalie said. "Oxford's not after her, he's after us? Why?"

"Maybe Drama hired him," I said. It was a joke. No one laughed.

Moore cleared his throat, then asked if we had any new information on Keith.

"Logan called from Philadelphia," I said. "Joseph Keith is turning into a very interesting guy. He is on record as saying that he and Her Ladyship were, once upon a time in ancient Sumer, husband and wife. And he was expelled from Philadelphia Community College for possession of a knife."

"He cut anyone?"

"No, but that may be for lack of trying. Details of the actual event are sketchy."

"The photograph is being distributed?"

Natalie reached into her blazer pocket, produced one of the flyers we'd run off, offering it to Moore. "We've run off a hundred and fifty copies to hand out at every location. They'll go to local security and the like, mostly."

Moore stared hard at Keith's portrait before flipping the paper over and reading the back. We'd done the original on a color inkjet printer and the reproduction had worked very well. On the back of the sheet we'd printed out the protocol we wanted followed in case Keith was spotted. It wasn't terribly elaborate, the instructions straightforward – if Keith was seen, the protection team was to be notified in person immediately. We didn't want Keith engaged, simply monitored. We would take it from there.

The corner of Moore's mouth curled in a slight smile. "Very dolly, very nice."