The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme 8)

"Then why lie about it, why say you're SSD employees?" Pulaski blurted. Rhyme had never seen the young man angry. He sure was now.

"We need to keep a low profile," Brockton explained. "You can see why pipelines and drug companies and food processors would be great targets for terrorists. Well, think what someone could do with the information that SSD has. The economy would be crippled if their computers were brought down. Or what if assassins learned details of executives' or politicians' whereabouts and other personal information from innerCircle?"

"Did you have Lon Sellitto's drug test report changed?"

"No, this suspect of yours--Five Twenty-Two--must've done that," Inspector Glenn said. "And had Officer Pulaski's wife arrested."

"Why do you want the investigation stopped?" Pulaski blurted. "Don't you see how dangerous this man is?" He was speaking to Mark Whitcomb but the Compliance assistant continued to examine the floor and remained silent.

"Our profile is that he's an outlier," Glenn explained.

"A what?"

"An anomaly. He's a nonrecurring event," Brockton explained. "SSD has run an analysis of the situation. The profiling and predictive modeling told us that a sociopath like this will hit a saturation point any time now. He'll stop what he's doing. He'll simply go away."

"But he hasn't, now has he?"

"Not yet," Brockton said. "But he will. The programs're never wrong."

"They'll be wrong if one more person dies."

"We have to be realistic. It's a balance. We can't let anybody know how valuable SSD is as a terrorist target. And we can't let anybody know about the Compliance Division of DHS. We have to keep SSD and Compliance off the grid as much as possible. A murder investigation puts them both on it in a very big way."

Glenn added, "You want to follow up conventional leads, Lincoln, go ahead. Forensics, wits, fine. But you'll have to keep SSD out of it. That press conference was a huge mistake."

"We talked to Ron Scott in the mayor's office, we talked to Joe Malloy. They okayed it."

"Well, they didn't check with the right people. It's jeopardized our relationship with SSD. Andrew Sterling doesn't have to provide us with computer support, you know."

He sounded like the shoe-company president, terrified of upsetting Sterling and SSD.

Brockton added, "Okay, now, the party line is that your killer didn't get his information from SSD. Actually, that's the only line."

"Do you understand that Joseph Malloy is dead because of SSD and innerCircle?"

Glenn's face tightened. He sighed. "I'm sorry about that. Very sorry. But he was killed in the course of an investigation. Tragic. But that's the nature of being a cop."

The party line . . . the only line . . .

"So," Brockton said, "SSD is no longer part of the investigation. Understood?"

A chill nod.

Glenn gestured to the FBI agent. "You can let him go now."

The man uncuffed Pulaski, who stood, rubbing his wrists.

Rhyme said, "Get Lon Sellitto reinstated. And have Pulaski's wife released."

Glenn looked at Brockton, who shook his head. "Doing that at this point in time would be an admission that maybe data-mined information and SSD were involved in the crimes. We'll have to let those things go for the time being."

"That is bullshit. You know Lon Sellitto's never done any drugs in his life."

Glenn said, "And the inquiry will clear him. We'll let the matter run its course."

"No, goddamnit! According to the information the killer put into the system--he's already guilty. Just like Jenny Pulaski. All this is on their record!"

The inspector said calmly, "This is how we'll have to leave it for now."