The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

The pilot looked off.

"And two people died?"

"And they were both tortured first."

He said nothing. His eyes focused on a dime-sized ding in the table.

"Barry, you called the South Cove Inn two days before the Moreno assignment. You called from your operational phone, registered to Don Bruns."

If he was surprised at this he gave no reaction.

"I know why you called," Laurel said softly. "It wasn't to confirm Moreno's reservation. The CIA or NIOS's own assets could verify he was going to be there. You wanted to be sure that he was going to be there alone. That his wife and children wouldn't be coming with him. You wanted to be sure. So that there was no collateral damage."

The airman's lip trembled for an instant. He looked away.

Laurel whispered, "That tells me you had doubts about the assignment from the beginning. You didn't want it to end up the way it did." She held his eye, whispered, "Work with us, Barry."

There's a moment in chess, David had told her, of alarming clarity. You understand that the strategy you've been confidently following is completely wrong, that your opponent has been playing an entirely different game--one of insight and brilliance, outstripping yours. Your loss might not be in the next move or the next ten but defeat is inevitable.

"He'll see it in your eyes," David had explained. "Something changes. You know you've lost and your eyes tell your opponent you understand that."

This is what she observed now with Barry Shales.

He's going to cave, she understood. He's going to give me Shreve Metzger! The murderer who uses national intelligence to kill whomever the hell he wants to kill.

Checkmate...

His breathing was rapid. "All right. Tell me...Tell me how this could work?"

"What we can do is--"

A pounding on the door.

Laurel jumped.

A man in a close-fitting gray suit stood at the window, looking matter-of-factly from her to Shales and back again.

No, no, no...

Laurel knew him. He was one of the most tenacious--and vicious--defense lawyers in the city. That is, one of the best. But he primarily appeared in federal court in New York at the behest of associated firms based in Washington, DC. Curious that he was here, rather than an attorney who knew his way around the rough-and-tumble state trial court, which in New York was called the Supreme Court.

The guard opened the door.

"Hello, Counselor Laurel," the lawyer said pleasantly.

She knew him by reputation. How did he know her?

Something wasn't right here.

"Who--?" Shales began.

"I'm Artie Rothstein. I've been retained to defend you."

"By Shreve?"

"Don't say anything more, Barry. Were you advised you have the right to an attorney and you don't need to say anything?"

"I...Yes. But I want to--"