The Kill Room

“the most dangerous place on earth” at that time.
    In fact, the Tombs nowadays was just another lockup, although a damn big one.
    Calling into intercoms, using the code word for the day to open doors, the guard now strode down the hallway to a segregated set of cells reserved for special prisoners.
    Like the man he was now going to see. Barry Shales.
    Over his twenty-eight years as a guard here he had trained himself to have no opinion about his charges. Child killers and white-collar criminals who’d embezzled from people who probably should be embezzled from…it made no difference to him. His job was to keep order and make sure the system ran smoothly. And also to ease the difficult time these people were going through.
    After all, this was not prison but temporary detention, where individuals stayed until bail or transfer to Rikers or, in more than a few cases, freedom forever. Everybody here was presumably innocent. That was how the country worked.
    But the man whose cell he was now walking toward was different and the guard did have an opinion about him. It was an absolute tragedy that he’d been incarcerated here.
    The guard didn’t know a lot about Barry Shales’s background. But he did know that he was a former air force flier who’d fought in the war in Iraq. And that he worked for the government now, the federal government.
    And yet he’d been arrested for murder. But not for killing his wife or his wife’s lover or anything like that. For killing some asshole terrorist.
    Arrested, even though he was a soldier, even though he was a hero.
    And the guard knew why he was here: because of politics. He’d been arrested because the party that wasn’t in power had to fuck over the one that was, by making an example of this poor guy.
    The guard came to the cell and looked through the window.
    Funny.
    There was another prisoner in the cell, which the guard hadn’t known about. It didn’t make sense for him to be here. There was a second empty cell that the man should have been put into. The new prisoner was sitting off to the side, staring ahead blankly. The gaze made the guard feel uneasy. The eyes told you everything about the people here, much more than the crap they said.
    And what was with Shales? He was lying on his side on the bench, back to the door. He wasn’t moving.
    The guard punched in the code and with a buzz the door opened.
    “Hey, Shales?”
    No movement.
    The second prisoner continued to stare at the wall. Scary fucker, the guard thought, and he was a man who didn’t use that phrase lightly.
    “Shales?” The guard stepped closer.
    Suddenly the flier stirred and sat up. He turned slowly. The guard saw that Shales was holding his hands to his eyes. He’d been crying.
    No shame in that. Happened here all the time.
    Shales wiped his face.
    “On your feet, Shales. Got some news I think you’re gonna like.”

CHAPTER 83
    A T HIS DESK SHREVE METZGER HEARD the siren but thought nothing of it.
    This was, after all, Manhattan. You always heard sirens. The same way you heard shouts, horns, the occasional scream, the caw of seagulls. Backfires…Well, staccato reports that were probably backfires.
    Just the background tapestry of the city.
    He hardly paid any mind, especially now, when he was trying to put out the raging forest fire that the Robert Moreno task order had become.
    The chaos swirled around him, the tornado of flame: Barry Shales and the goddamn whistleblower and that bitch of a prosecutor and the people inside and outside the government who had put together the Special Task Order program.
    Soon there’d be more tinder adding to the smolder: the press.
    Then of course, hovering over it all, was the Wizard.
    He wondered what the “budget conference” was deciding right at the moment.
    Metzger realized the sirens had stopped.
    And they’d stopped right outside his office.
    He rose and looked down. At the gated parking lot, where the Ground Control Station sat.
    All over with…
    It sure was.
    One unmarked car punctuated with flashing blue lights, one NYPD squad car, one van—maybe SWAT. The doors were open. The police were nowhere to be seen.
    Shreve Metzger knew where they were, though. No doubt of that, of course.
    A detail that was confirmed a moment later when the guard from downstairs called him on the security line and asked in an uncertain voice, “Director?” He cleared his throat and continued, “There are some police officers here to see you.”

CHAPTER