The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

"I'm sure it'll go fine."

"I'm sure it will too."

Ruth sat at her desk, which was decorated with pictures of her family--her two teen daughters and her second husband. Her first spouse died in the initial Gulf War. Her present one had been a soldier too, wounded and confined to a less-than-pleasant VA hospital for months.

The sacrifice people make for this country and how little they're appreciated for it...

The Wizard should talk to her, learn what she'd given up for this country--the life of one husband, the health of another.

Metzger sat and read the assessment but found he wasn't able to concentrate. The Moreno matter roiled.

I've made calls. Don Bruns knows about the case, of course. A few others. We're...handling things...

The efforts were completely illegal, of course, but they were also proceeding well. The Smoke dissipated a bit more. He asked Ruth to summon Spencer Boston. He then read encrypted texts regarding the efforts to derail the investigation.

Boston arrived a few minutes later. He was wearing a suit and tie, as he always did. It was as if the old-school intelligence community had a dress code. The distinguished man instinctively swung the door shut. Metzger saw Ruth's eyes gazing into the office for a moment before the heavy oak panel closed with a snap.

"What do you have?" Metzger asked.

Spencer Boston sat, removed a fleck of lint from his slacks that turned out to be a pill of cloth. He stopped pulling before a run appeared. Boston didn't seem to have had much sleep, which, for someone in his sixties, made him seem haggard. And what the hell do I look like? Metzger wondered, brushing his chin to see if he'd remembered to shave. He had.

Despite Metzger's reputation, Boston never hesitated to give him bad news. Running assets in Central America gives you a fortitude that won't be scuffed by a younger bureaucrat, however ill-tempered. He said evenly, "Nothing, Shreve. Nothing. I've checked every log-in for the kill order files. And all the outgoing email and FTP and upload servers, had our IT security people see if they could find anything. And the security folks at Homestead. Nobody downloaded it except those on the list. That means somebody probably snagged it off a desk here, Washington or in Florida, smuggled it out and copied it or scanned it at home or a Kinko's."

At NIOS and its affiliated organizations, all photocopying and logging on were automatically recorded.

"Kinko's. Jesus."

The administrations director continued, "And I went back and looked over the vetting assessments here. Not a hint that anybody'd have a problem with STO missions. Hell, most of our people knew what we were up to before they joined."

NIOS was created after 9/11 largely for the purpose of targeted remedies, along with other extreme operational activities, like kidnappings, bribery and other dirty tricks. Most of the office's specialists had a history of military service and had taken lives in the course of their careers before joining NIOS. It seemed inconceivable that any of them would have a change of heart and try to bring down his operation. As for the other staff, Boston was right, most applicants knew what the organization was up to before they signed on.

Unless, of course, that was why they joined in the first place. Moles. Despicable.

Metzger: "We'll have to keep looking. And for God's sake, there can't be any more leaks. He already knows too much."

Wizardly.

Boston's white eyebrows furrowed. He whispered, "They're not...This isn't going to knock us out, is it?"

Metzger was painfully aware that he didn't have a clue what Washington was thinking, since he hadn't heard a word from the man after the initial phone call.

It turns out some Intelligence Committee budget discussions have come up. Suddenly. Can't understand why ...

"Jesus, Shreve. They can't. We're the best ones suited for this kind of work."

True. But apparently not the best suited for keeping this kind of work secret.

Which Metzger didn't say.

Boston asked, "What more do you know about the investigation, the police?"

Now Metzger grew cautious. He said, "Not much. Still circling the wagons. Just to be safe." And glanced at his magic phone, the red one, which happened to contain an acid capsule that would melt the drive in a matter of seconds. The screen reported no messages.

He exhaled. "Fact is, I don't think it's moving very quickly. I got the names of the investigators and've checked them out. The cops're using a skeleton crew to stay under the radar, not standard NYPD. Keeping it quiet. It's really just Nance Laurel, the prosecutor, and two others and some support staff. The main cop's a detective named Amelia Sachs and, get this, the other guy is a consultant, Lincoln Rhyme. Retired from the force a while ago. They're operating out of his apartment on the Upper West Side. A private residence, not police headquarters."

"Rhyme, wait. I've heard of him," Boston said, frowning. "He's famous. I saw a show on him. He's the best forensic scientist in the country."

Metzger knew this, of course. Rhyme was the "other" investigator gunning for him, the intel memo had reported yesterday. "I know. But he's a quadriplegic."