The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

"De la Rua wasn't collateral damage at all. He was the target."

Laurel said, "But, still, Lincoln, we know Shales intended to shoot Moreno. It was the glass shards from the bullet Shales fired that killed de la Rua."

"That's the point," Rhyme said softly. "No, it wasn't."

CHAPTER 80

UAV EIGHT NINE TWO TO FLORIDA CENTER. Target identified and acquired. Infrared and SAR."

"Roger, Eight Nine Two...Use of LRR is authorized."

"Copy. Eight Nine Two."

And six seconds later Robert Moreno was no more.

Barry Shales was in the holding cell, alone, hands together, sitting hunched forward. The bench was hard, the air stifling and sour-human smelling.

Recalling the Moreno task, thinking particularly of the disembodied voices from Florida Center. People he'd never met.

Just like he'd never actually seen the UAV he'd flown on that mission, never run his hand over its fuselage the way he had his F-16. He never saw any of the UAVs in person.

Remote.

Soldier and weapon.

Soldier and target.

Remote.

Remote.

"There seem to be two, no, three people in the room."

"Can you positively identify Moreno?"

"It's...there's some glare. Okay, that's better. Yes. I can identify the task. I can see him."

Shales's thoughts were in turmoil. Like an aircraft in a spin: The horror of learning that he'd killed three innocent men, then being arrested for the murder of one. And then finding that Shreve Metzger had brought in a specialist to clean up after the operation, killing witnesses, setting that bomb.

Which all brought home to him that fundamentally what he was doing for NIOS was wrong.

Barry Shales had flown combat missions in Iraq. He'd dropped bombs and launched missiles and had some confirmed kills, supporting ground operations. When you were in live combat, even if the odds were in your favor, as with most U.S. military ops, there was still the chance that somebody could bring you down--Stingers, AK-47 fire. Even a single bullet from a Kurdish muzzle loader could do it.

This was combat. That was how war worked.

And it was fair. Because you knew the enemy. They were easy to identify: They were the ones who wanted to fucking kill you right back.

But sitting in a Kill Room, thousands of miles away, padded by layers of intel that might or might not be accurate (or manipulated), it was different. How did you know the supposed enemy really was just that? How could you ever know?

And then you'd go back home, forty minutes away, surrounding yourself with people who might be just as innocent as the ones you'd just killed in a tenth of a second.

Oh, and, honey, get some kids' Nyquil. Sammy's got the sniffles. I forgot to pick some up.

Shales closed his eyes, rocked on the bench.

He knew that there was something off about Shreve Metzger--the temper, those moments when control left him, the intel reports that just didn't seem right, the lectures about the sanctity of America. Hell, when he started a pro-U.S. tirade he sounded an awful lot like the flip side of Robert Moreno.

Only nobody pumped a .420 boattail into the NIOS director.