Jeffery Deaver - The Kill Room

She continued, “How did you manage to pull it off?”

“What?”

“Did Moreno really renounce? Were those documents from the embassy in Costa Rica legitimate?”

“Are you accusing me of obstruction?”

“You’re guilty of obstruction,” she said. “That’s a given. We’re choosing not to pursue those charges. I just want to know specifically about the renunciation documents.”

Meaning calls had been made from Washington to Albany dictating that obstruction charges not be brought. Metzger wondered if this was a farewell present from the Wizard. Probably not. A case like that would look bad for everybody.

“I don’t really have anything more to say on that topic, Counselor. Take it up with State.”

“Who’s al-Barani Rashid?”

So she had at least two entries in the STO queue—Moreno’s and Rashid’s.

“I can’t discuss NIOS operations with you. You don’t have a clearance.”

“Is he dead?”

Metzger said nothing. He kept his hazel eyes locked easily on hers.

Laurel pressed ahead, “You’re positive Rashid is guilty?”

The Smoke boiled and cracked his skin like an eggshell. He whispered harshly, “Walker used me, he used NIOS.”

“You let yourself be used. You heard what you wanted to about Moreno and stopped asking questions.”

Smoke, plumes and plumes of Smoke now. “What’s wrong, Counselor? Upset that all you ended up with was a run-of-the-mill homicide? A CEO at a defense contractor orders a couple of hits? Boring. Won’t make CNN the way a federal security director’s going to jail would.”

She didn’t rise to the argument. “And Rashid? No mistakes there, you’re convinced?”

Metzger couldn’t help but recall that Barry Shales—and he—had nearly blown two children to oblivion in Reynosa, Mexico.

CD: Not approved…

An urge to strike Laurel swelled. Or to lash out with cruel words about her short stature, wide hips, excessive makeup, her parents’ bankruptcy, her failed love life—a deduction but surely accurate. Metzger’s anger had inflicted only a half dozen bruises or welts over the years; his words had hurt legions. The Smoke did that. The Smoke made you inhuman.

Just leave.

He turned.

Laurel said evenly, “And what’s Rashid’s crime—saying things about America you didn’t like? Asking people to question the values and the integrity of the country?…But isn’t being free to ask questions like that what America’s all about?”

Metzger stopped fast, turned and snapped, “Spoken like the most simple-minded, cliché-ridden of bloggers.” He reseated himself in front of her. “What is it with you? Why do you resent what we do so much?”

“Because what you do is wrong. The United States is a country of laws, not men.”

“‘Government’ of laws,” he corrected. “John Adams. It’s a nice-sounding phrase. But parse it and things aren’t so simple. A government of laws. Okay. Think about that: Laws require interpretation and delegations of power, down and down the line. To people like me—who make decisions on how to implement those laws.”

She fired back with: “Laws don’t include ignoring due process and executing citizens arbitrarily.”

“There’s nothing arbitrary about what I do.”

“No? You kill people you think are going to commit an offense.”

“All right, Counselor. What about a policeman on the street? He sees a perp in a dark alley with what might be a gun. It seems that he’s about to shoot someone. The cop is authorized to kill, right? Where’s your due process there, where’s your reasonable search and seizure, where’s your right to confront your accuser?”

“Ah, but Moreno didn’t have a gun.”

“And sometimes the guy in the alley only has a cell phone. But he gets shot anyway because we’ve chosen to give the police the right to make judgments.” He gave a deep, chill laugh. “Tell me, aren’t you guilty of the same thing?”

“What do you mean?” she snapped.

“What about my due process? What about Barry Shales’s?”

She frowned.

He continued, “In making the case, did you datamine me? Or Barry? Did you get classified information from, say, the FBI? Did you somehow ‘accidentally’ happen to get your hands on NSA intercepts?”

An awkward hesitation. Was she blushing beneath the white mask? “Every bit of evidence I present at trial can pass Fourth Amendment scrutiny.”

Metzger smiled. “I’m not talking about trial. I’m talking about unwarranted gathering of information as part of an investigation.”

Laurel blinked. She said nothing.

He whispered, “You see? We both interpret, we judge, we make decisions. We live in a gray world.”

“You want another quotation, Shreve? Blackstone: ‘Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.’ That’s what my system does, makes sure the innocent don’t end up as victims. Yours doesn’t.” She fished her keys from her battered purse. “I’m going to keep watching you.”

“Then I’ll look forward to seeing you in court, Counselor.”

He turned and walked back to his car. He sat, calming, in the front seat, not looking back. Breathing.

Let it go.

Five minutes later he started at his phone’s buzz. He noted Ruth’s number on caller ID.

“Hi, there.”

“Uhm, Shreve. I heard. Is it true about Spencer?”

“Afraid it is. I’ll tell you more later. I don’t want to talk on an open line.”

“Okay. But that’s not why I called. We heard from Washington.”

The Wizard.

“He wanted to schedule a call with you for tomorrow afternoon.”

Didn’t firing squads gather at dawn ?

“That’s fine,” he said. “Send me the details.” He stretched. A joint popped. “Say, Ruth?”

“Yes?”

“What did he sound like?”

There was a pause. “He…It wasn’t so good, I don’t think, Shreve.”

“Okay, Ruth. Thank you.”

He disconnected and looked out over the busy crime scene at Spencer Boston’s house. The sour chemical vapors still lingered, surrounding the Colonial home and the grounds.

Smoke…

So that was it. Whether Moreno was guilty or not was irrelevant; Washington now had plenty of reason to disband NIOS. Metzger had picked for his administrations director a whistleblower, and for his defense contractor a corrupt CEO who’d ordered people tortured and killed.

This was the end.

Metzger sighed and put the car in gear, thinking: Sorry, America. I did the best I could.

SATURDAY, MAY 20

VII

MESSAGES

CHAPTER 93

AT NINE ON SATURDAY MORNING Lincoln Rhyme was maneuvering through the lab and dictating the evidence report to back up the Walker trial and the Swann plea agreement.

He noted too his calendar, up on a big monitor.

Surgery Friday, May 26. Be at hospital at 9 a.m.

NO liquor after midnight. None. Not a drop.

He smiled at the second line, Thom’s entry.

The town house was quiet. His aide was in the kitchen and Sachs was in her apartment in Brooklyn. She’d had basement problems and was waiting for the contractor. She would also be seeing Nance Laurel later today—getting together for drinks and dinner.

And dish on men too…

Rhyme was pleased the women had, against all odds, become friends. Sachs didn’t have many.

The sound of a doorbell echoed and Rhyme heard Thom’s footfalls making for the portal. A moment later he returned with a tall figure in a brown suit, white shirt and green tie whose hue he couldn’t begin to describe.

NYPD Captain Bill Myers. Special Services Division. Whatever that might be.