The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

Suddenly the conflict between Shreve Metzger and Nance Laurel came into stark, wrenching focus.

"Four Eight One, this is Florida Center. No response to the hail. Payload launch is authorized."

Rhyme could see Barry Shales stiffen.

He sat absolutely still for a moment and reached forward, flipped up the cover of a button on a panel in front of him.

Shreve Metzger said into a stalk mike on the desk in front of him, "Barry. Fire the rifle across their bow."

Over the speaker Shales said, "UAV Four Eight One to Florida Center. Negative on payload launch. Switching to LRR mode."

"Copy, Four Eight One."

In the Kill Room, Barry Shales juggled a joystick and squinted at the video image of the speeding ship. He touched a black panel in front of him. A brief delay and, in eerie silence, three sequential plumes of water shot into the air a few feet in front of the speeding boat.

The slim vessel kept going, though everyone on board was looking around. Several of the sailors seemed very young, no more than teenagers.

"Florida Center to Four Eight One. We copy no change in target velocity. Payload launch is still authorized."

"Copy. Four Eight One."

Nothing happened for a moment. But then, with a lurch, the speedboat slowed and stopped in the water. Two of the sailors were pointing to the sky, nowhere near the camera, though. They couldn't see the drone but they all now understood where their enemy was.

Almost in unison they raised their hands.

What followed was comical. The water was choppy and the boat small. They were trying to maintain balance but afraid if they lowered their arms, death from on high would find them. Two fell over and scrabbled quickly to their feet, shooting their hands into the air. They seemed like drunks trying to dance.

"Florida Center to UAV Four Eight One. Copy surrender. Navy advises Cyclone-class patrol ship, the Firebrand, one mile away, making thirty knots. Keep secondary target dead in the water until it arrives."

"Copy. Four Eight One."

CHAPTER 97

BARRY SHALES CLOSED THE DOOR to the Kill Room and, ignoring Shreve Metzger, walked to Rhyme and Sachs. He nodded.

The policewoman told him what a good job he'd done at the commands of the drone. "Sorry, I mean UAV."

"Yes, ma'am," he said unemotionally, his bright blue eyes averted. Some of this reserve was perhaps because he was facing two people who'd intended to hang a murder charge on him. On reflection, though, Rhyme thought not. He simply seemed to be a very private person.

Maybe when you have his particular skill you're mentally and emotionally in a different place much of the time.

Shales then turned to Rhyme. "We had to move pretty fast, sir. I never got the chance to ask how you figured it out--that there was going to be an attack on the rig, I mean."

The criminalist said, "There was some evidence unaccounted for."

"Oh, that's right, sir. You're the evidence tsar, someone was saying."

Rhyme decided he liked that pithy phrase quite a bit. He'd remember it. "Specifically paraffin with a branched-chain molecule, an aromatic, a cycloalkane...oh, and some alkenes."

Shales blinked twice.

"Or to put it in more common parlance: crude oil."

"Crude oil?"

"Exactly. Trace amounts were found on Moreno's and his guard's shoes and clothes. They had to pick that up at some point before your attack on May ninth when they were out of the South Cove Inn, at meetings. Now, I didn't think much of it--there are some refineries and oil storage facilities in the Bahamas. But then I realized something else: The morning he died Moreno met with some businesspeople about starting up transportation and agriculture operations there as part of his Local Empowerment Movement. But we'd also learned that fertilizer, diesel oil and nitromethane had been shipped weeks ago to his LEM companies. If those companies hadn't even been formed yet, why buy the chemicals?"

"You put together crude oil and possible bomb."