Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

‘And when that wasn’t enough, you got your boy the hunting rifle. Stefan used that to “discourage” us. Slow us down. I’m sure he wasn’t shooting to hit anyone, just to make us think that he was willing to kill police, make us wary.’

He grimaced and felt true regret. ‘I might’ve tipped to it a bit earlier: The shoe that Stefan lost struggling with Khaled Jabril’s wife also had the date-rape drug on it. We — rather unfairly, I admit — gave one young officer hell for cross-contamination. But when I realized how diligent he’d been, I wondered if the Composer had been near a source of the date-rape drug. And obviously he had: you.

‘And why did I start thinking about all of this in the first place?’ Rhyme paused. Perhaps it was overdramatic, but this seemed appropriate. ‘It was the names , Charlotte. The names on the list.’ He turned to Dante Spiro.

‘Yes, yes, Signorina McKenzie. At the farmhouse Detective Sachs found a list of the names of the victims Stefan was targeting. Ali Maziq, Malek Dadi and Khaled Jabril. Their names, their mobile numbers and the locations of the sites he was going to place them for his hanging videos. That is not how serial killers behave. No, you recruited Stefan to kidnap those men specifically. And why?’

Rhyme filled in the pause with: ‘Because, of course, you’re a spy.’ He frowned. ‘I assume you people still call yourselves that, don’t you?’

Charlotte McKenzie’s face continued to reveal nothing.

Rhyme originally thought that she was feigning innocence but that wasn’t accurate, he realized. Hers was the expression of someone who, though guilty as sin, didn’t care if she’d been nabbed or not. That image from before, a captured soldier, came to mind again. With this qualification: a soldier who had already accomplished her mission.

Rhyme said, ‘I spoke to an FBI agent in New York an hour ago. I asked him to make some calls. I was particularly interested to know about a legal liaison officer with the State Department named Charlotte McKenzie. Yes, there was. But a little more digging and he hit a dead end. No specifics, no C.V. other than a generic resume. Which is exactly what happens, he told me, in a quote “official cover” situation. Somebody apparently working for State is actually working for the CIA or another security agency. Legal liaison is a frequent official cover.

‘I asked him to see about any US security operations in Italy. A blank there too but he did find out at least that there’d been a lot of encrypted communications into and out of Naples. To and from some new government agency called the AIS. Alternative Intelligence Service, based in northern Virginia.

‘Well, my theory: You’re a field agent for this AIS and were assigned to interrogate three suspected terrorists in Italy, who’d come here from Libya, pretending to be asylum-seekers. It’s happened before — an ISIS terrorist was arrested by Italian police in a refugee camp in Bari, the Puglia region — just last year.’

Her eyes said, Yes, I know. Her mouth was silent.

‘Now, I’m guessing the Alternative part of your organization means you use unusual methods to detain and interrogate your suspects. You came up with the idea of using a serial killer as a cover for extraordinary rendition and interrogation. Somehow you learned about Stefan and thought he’d be a good pick for your project. You and another officer met with him in the hospital — pretending to be his aunt and uncle — and cut some kind of deal with him.

‘The first snatch — in New York, the one the little girl witnessed — was fake all around. The victim was a fellow agent. You needed to make it seem like Stefan was really psychotic, with no particular interest in refugees. I thought that that kidnapping seemed odd. The vic’s girlfriend never getting back to us. Robert Ellis never seemed particularly upset about nearly being hanged by a crazy man.’ Rhyme tilted his head to the side. ‘You had to be concerned that we were getting close to Stefan, when he was in the factory. Did you pull Fred Dellray and the FBI off the case? Make any phone calls to Washington?’

She said nothing, her eyes revealed nothing.

Rhyme continued: ‘After that prelude, you set up Stefan over here, you and others in your team. And you went to work tracking the terror suspects, then kidnapping them and interrogating them in the farmhouse.’

Rhyme turned to Spiro: ‘Your pattern is now clear, Dante.’

‘It is, yes. Finally. Now, that is our case. And it will all go before the court. Allora , Signorina McKenzie, we need the names of your associates. And we need you to admit that this is what has happened. Since no one died at your hand, and the kidnap victims were apparent terrorists, the punishments for you and your co-workers will not be extreme. But, of course, punishments there must be. So, what have you to say?’

At last, after a considered moment, she spoke, ‘I need to talk to you. All of you.’ Her voice calm, confident. As if she were the person who’d convened this meeting. As if she were the one in charge. ‘Everything I am about to tell you is hypothetical. And in the future I’ll deny every sentence.’

Spiro, Rossi and Rhyme looked at each other. Spiro said, ‘I’m not agreeing to any conditions of any kind.’

‘Agreement is not an issue. What I just said is a statement of fact. This is hypothetical and I’ll deny everything if asked.’ Without waiting for any response she said, ‘Abu Omar.’

Rhyme didn’t get the reference but noted that Dante Spiro and Massimo Rossi both reacted. They shared a glance and a frown.

Spiro said to Rhyme, ‘ Sì. An incident in Italy a few years ago. Abu Omar was the imam of Milan. He was abducted in an extraordinary rendition conducted by your CIA and our own security agency. He was taken to Egypt where, he claims, he was tortured and interrogated. Prosecutors here brought charges against the CIA and our officers who conducted the operation. The incident, I’ve read, virtually closed down the CIA’s Italian operation for a long time, and resulted in prison sentences, in absentia, against some of your senior agents.’

McKenzie said, ‘The Abu Omar case is typical of the two problems that intelligence services face overseas. First, sovereignty. They have no legal right to arrest or detain anyone on foreign soil, unless that government agrees. If foreign governments find out, there are serious repercussions — like the CIA station chief being indicted. The second problem is finding a suitable means of interrogation. Waterboarding, torture, enhanced interrogation, imprisonment without due process — that’s not our policy anymore. And, frankly, that’s not what America is. We need a humane way to extract information. And a more efficient way. Torture doesn’t work. I’ve studied it.’

Begging the questions: How and where and against whom?

Sachs now spoke. ‘So your AIS sets up fictions, like theater, to kidnap and interrogate subjects?’

‘You could say that.’ Hypothetically.

Rhyme had a thought. ‘Ah, the amobarbital. I thought it was a sedative Stefan took for panic attacks. But you used it for its original purpose. Truth serum.’

‘That’s right, though in conjunction with other synthetic psychotropics we developed ourselves. Combining the drugs and specialized interviewing techniques, we can hit an eighty-five to ninety percent cooperation rate. The subject has virtually no will to deceive or withhold information.’ There was pride in her voice.

But Dante Spiro said, ‘You say humane but these men were at risk!’

‘No. They were never in any danger.’

Sachs gave a faint laugh. ‘You know, the gallows were very shoddy.’