The Kill Room

streams.
    The team was gathered here, Cooper, Sellitto, Pulaski. Sachs too. And Nance Laurel, who’d just returned from detention with the disappointing news that Shales had been about to confess and give up Metzger when a lawyer that NIOS or someone in DC had hired arrived and scared him into silence.
    But she said, “I can still make the case work. Nothing’s going to stop me this time.”
    Rhyme happened to be glancing at his phone when it rang and he was pleased. He answered. “Corporal, how are you?”
    Poitier’s melodic voice replied, “Good, Captain. Good. I was happy to get your message this morning. We miss the chaos you brought with you. You must come back. Come back for holiday. And I appreciate your invitation too. I will most certainly come to New York but that will have to be as a holiday as well. I’m afraid I don’t have any evidence for you. There was no luck at the morgue. I don’t have anything to deliver to you in person.”
    “No glass shards from de la Rua’s body?”
    “I’m afraid not. I spoke to the doctor who conducted the autopsy and there were no splinters left in the bodies of either de la Rua or the guard when they were brought in. Apparently they had been removed by the medical technicians trying to save the men.”
    But Rhyme recalled the crime scene pictures. The wounds had been numerous, the blood loss massive. Some shards must have remained. He now eased close to the whiteboards and examined the autopsy pictures of the victims, the crude incisions, the skull cap placed back after the saw work, the Y incision decorating the chest.
    Something was wrong.
    Rhyme turned to the room and shouted, to no one in particular, “The autopsy report. I want de la Rua’s autopsy report, now!” He couldn’t juggle the phone and work the computer at the same time.
    Mel Cooper complied and in a moment the scanned document was on a flat-screen monitor next to Rhyme.
    This victim exhibited approximately 35 lacerations in various sites of the chest, abdomen, arms, face and thighs, primarily anterior, presumably caused by shards of glass from a window that was shot out at the crime scene. These lacerations varied in size but the majority were approximately 3–4mm in width and 2 to 3 centimeters in length. Six of said lacerations were in this victim’s carotid and jugular vessels and femoral artery, resulting in severe hemorrhaging.
    Rhyme was aware of faint breathing on the other end of the line. Then: “Captain Rhyme, is everything all right?”
    “I have to go.”
    “Is there anything more you need me to do?”
    Rhyme’s eyes were on Nance Laurel, who was scanning quizzically, looking from the autopsy report to the photos to Rhyme himself. He said to Poitier, “No, thank you, Corporal. I’ll call you back.” He disconnected and wheeled closer to the screen, studying it more closely. Then he turned his attention to the whiteboards.
    “What is it, Rhyme?” Sachs asked.
    He sighed. When he spun around he looked to Laurel. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
    “What do you mean, Linc?” Sellitto asked.
    “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
    U AV 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