Jeffery Deaver - The Kill Room

Sachs said to Rhyme, “That’s right. A lot of the factory facilities were shuttered when I was there.”

“Yes, ma’am. Lost sixty percent of our revenue and the company was in the red. Mr. Walker was used to a nice lifestyle. A couple of his ex-wives were too. Along with his present one and she was thirty years younger than him. Without a good income she might not’ve been too inclined to hang around.”

“Was it his Aston Martin in the lot?” Sachs asked.

“Yes. One of his. He’s got three.”

“Oh. Well. Three.”

“But it was more than that. He believed—I believed too—that the company was doing good work, good for the country. The rifle system for the drone, for instance. And that was just one of them. It was important work. We needed to keep the company afloat.”

Swann continued, “Orders weren’t coming from the U.S. like they used to so Mr. Walker ramped up business in other countries. But there’s a huge surplus of arms out there. Not much demand. So he created some.”

Nance Laurel asked, “By bribing officers and defense ministers in the armed services in Latin America, right?”

“Exactly. Africa and the Balkans too. Middle East some but you’ve got to be careful there. Don’t want to be found out selling weapons to any insurgents who take out U.S. soldiers. Okay, Simon Flores, Moreno’s guard, was with the Brazilian army. Mr. Walker’s Latin American operation is based in São Paulo and so Flores was real aware of the bribes. When he left the army he took plenty of proof with him—enough to put Mr. Walker away for the rest of his life. Flores started blackmailing him.

“Flores had met Moreno and liked the work he was doing. Moreno hired him to be his guard. I guess Flores figured it’d be a good cover. He could travel around with Moreno throughout the Caribbean, buy property, invest the cash, hit the offshore banks—and still get to play soldier as a bodyguard.” A glance toward Rhyme. “And, yeah, you got it right. Flores didn’t think it was smart to come to our home turf on May first. And Mr. Walker was worried that the subject would come up.”

Sachs asked, “And you faked the intel about Moreno?”

“No, it wasn’t faked. But selective , I guess you could say. I emphasized the fertilizer bomb materials. Then NIOS issued the STO, effective May ninth, and I took a trip down to Nassau to wait for the fireworks. Afterward, we were sure the whole thing would go away but then we heard about your case against Metzger and Barry Shales. Mr. Walker had me do what I could to stop it from going forward. Oh, Metzger didn’t know what I was up to, by the way. Yeah, he wanted Walker and all his other suppliers to lose evidence and erase emails but that was it.”

“Okay, that’s enough to get us started,” Laurel said. She nodded to Amelia Sachs. “He can go to detention now.”

Sachs had a question first, though. “At Walker, why did you come to get me in the lobby? It was a risk. I might’ve caught a glimpse of you when you were tailing me.”

“A risk, sure.” Swann gave a shrug. “But you were good. You derailed me a couple of times. I wanted to see you up close. See if you had any liabilities.” He nodded at her knee. “Which I found out. If you hadn’t been one step ahead of me in Boston’s house, it might’ve turned out different.”

Sachs rounded up a couple of uniforms from the NYPD and they helped Swann to his feet and started to direct him to a blue-and-white transport. He paused and turned back. “Oh, one thing. In my house? The basement?”

Sachs nodded.

“You’ll find somebody there. A woman. Her name’s Carol Fiori. A British tourist.”

“What?” Sachs blinked. Laurel took a moment to process this.

“It’s a long story but, anyway, she’s in the basement.”

“You…she’s in your basement. Dead? Injured?”

“No, no, no. She’s fine. Probably bored. She’s handcuffed down there.”

“What did you do, rape her?” Laurel asked.

Swann seemed insulted. “Of course not. I made dinner for her is what I did. Asparagus, potatoes Anna and my own version of Veronique—grass-fed veal with grapes and beurre blanc. I have the meat flown in from a special farm in Montana. Best in the world. She didn’t eat any. I didn’t think she would. But I gave it a shot.” He shrugged.

“What were you going to do with her?” Sachs asked.

“I didn’t really know,” Swann said. “I didn’t know.”

CHAPTER 92

THE SITE WAS SECURE, Shreve Metzger had been told, and he piloted his government car from the staging area a few blocks away through the trim streets to the home of his administrations director.

His friend.

His Judas.

Metzger was astonished to see that the man’s pleasant suburban house, where he’d had dinner two weeks ago, looked like some of the battlefield locales he remembered from Iraq, except for the lush grass and the Lexuses and Mercs parked on the street nearby. Trees smoldered and smoke dribbled skyward from Boston’s windows. The smell would be in the walls for years, even after painting. And forget the furniture and clothing.

Metzger’s own brand of Smoke filled him. He thought again for the hundredth time that day: How could you have done this, Spencer?

As with anybody who had affronted him—from rude coffee vendor to someone like this traitor—Metzger felt a mousetrap snap, a nearly overwhelming urge to grab them, shatter their bones, scream, draw blood. Utterly destroy.

But then, thinking that Boston’s life as he’d lived it would be over with, Metzger decided that was punishment enough. The Smoke within him faded.

A good sign, Dr. Fischer?

Probably it was. But would the serenity last? Maybe, maybe not. Why did all the important battles have to be lifetime battles? Weight, anger, love…

He flashed an ID at a couple of local uniforms and ducked under the tape, walking toward Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs.

He greeted them and then learned his administrations director’s motive for leaking the STO. The sin arose not from conscience or ideology or money. But simply because he was passed over for the job of head of NIOS.

Metzger was stunned. For one thing, Boston was totally wrong for the senior job. For all his scrawny physique and bland eyes, Metzger was a killer. Whatever makes your own personal Smoke go away defines you.

Spencer Boston, on the other hand, was a diligent and meticulous national security professional, an organizer, a player, a dealer, a man who got things done in the hazy streets of Managua or Rio. Who didn’t own a gun and wouldn’t know how to use one—or have the guts to do so.

What on earth would he do with an organization like NIOS, whose sole purpose was to end lives?

But ambition doesn’t grow from logic, Metzger knew.

He now nodded a tepid farewell to Rhyme and Sachs. He’d hoped to confront Spencer Boston but Sachs had explained that the administrations director had gone to be with his wife and children in Larchmont. He hadn’t been officially arrested yet. There was still considerable debate as to what crime, if any, he’d committed. The charges would be federal, not state, however, so the NYPD’s involvement was marginal.

Nothing more to do here.

Spencer, how could you…

He turned abruptly toward his car.

And nearly walked smack into stocky Assistant District Attorney Nance Laurel.

They both froze, inches away from each other.

He was silent. She said, “You were lucky this time.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“Moreno’s renunciation of his citizenship. That’s why the case got dropped. The only reason.”

Shreve Metzger wondered if she held everyone’s eyes so steadily. Probably. Everyone except lovers’, he suspected. In this they were the same. And he wondered where on earth that thought had come from.