The Kill Room

They couldn’t have known each other. No, Panama was just a coincidence.
    But Rhyme had decided that Metzger’s administrations director would make excellent bait, because whoever was behind the plot—the unsub’s boss—would want to kill the whistleblower too.
    This was the help he’d enlisted Shreve Metzger for. Ever since he’d learned of the investigation last weekend, Metzger had been contacting everyone involved in the STO drone project and telling them to stonewall and dump evidence. These encrypted texts, emails and phone calls were sent to people within NIOS but also to private contractors, military personnel and Washington officials. This was how Unsub 516’s boss had known so much about the case. Metzger had been feeding everyone virtually real-time intelligence about what was going on, so passionate was he about keeping the STO program going. The boss, in turn, briefed the unsub.
    But who exactly was that person?
    At Rhyme’s insistence, Metzger had called these same people an hour ago and told them the whistleblower had been identified as Spencer Boston and they should destroy any evidence linking them to the man.
    Rhyme suspected that the mastermind behind the plot to kill Moreno’s guard would order Unsub 516 to show up in Glen Cove to eliminate Boston.
    So the administrations director, along with Sachs and Pulaski, waited inside. NYPD and Nassau County tactical forces took up hidden positions nearby, a helicopter from Emergency Service included. The noisy wood chipper, to cover up the sound of the aircraft, had been Ron Pulaski’s idea.
    The kid was on a roll.
    Rhyme now looked over Unsub 516, sitting shackled and cuffed on the front lawn of Boston’s house, about thirty feet away. His hand was bandaged but the wound didn’t seem to be too serious. The compact man gazed back at the authorities placidly, then turned his full attention to what seemed to be an herb garden nearby.
    Rhyme said to Sachs, “Wonder how much work it’ll be to find out who he’s working for. I don’t suppose he’ll be very cooperative in naming the mastermind.”
    “He doesn’t need to be,” Sachs said. “I know who he works for.”
    “You do?” Rhyme asked.
    “Harry Walker. At Walker Defense Systems.”
    The criminalist laughed. “How do you know that?”
    She nodded at the unsub. “When I went out to the company to look for the airstrip? He’s the one who came to get me in the waiting room and took me to see Walker. By the way, he was really a flirt.”

CHAPTER 90
    H IS NAME WAS JACOB SWANN , the security director for Walker Defense Systems.
    Swann was former military but had been drummed out—if that was what they still called it—for excessive interrogation of suspects in Iraq. Not waterboarding but removing skin from several insurgents. Some other body parts had been removed too. “Expertly and slowly,” the report said.
    Further datamining revealed that he lived alone in Brooklyn, bought expensive kitchen items and took himself to fine restaurants frequently. He’d had two emergency room visits in the last year. One was for a gunshot wound, which he claimed was inflicted by an unseen hunter when he was out after some venison. The second was for a bad cut on his finger, which he attributed to a knife slipping off a Vidalia onion when he was preparing a dish.
    The first would have been a lie, the second probably true, Rhyme guessed, considering what they now knew was Swann’s hobby.
    Combine those ingredients with caviar and vanilla and you have a real expensive dish that’s served at the Patchwork Goose…
    A car pulled up near the police tape, an older-model Honda in need of some bodywork.
    Nance Laurel, in her white blouse and navy suit, cut the same as her gray one, climbed out. She was rubbing her cheek and Rhyme wondered if she’d just applied more makeup. The assistant district attorney approached and asked if Sachs was all right.
    “Fine. Little tussle. But he got the worst of it.” A nod at Swann. “He’s been read his rights. He hasn’t asked for a lawyer but he’s not being cooperative.”
    “We’ll see about that,” Laurel said. “Let’s talk to him. I may need your help, Lincoln. We’ll bring him over here.”
    “Not necessary.” He glanced down at the Merits wheelchair. “They tell me it’s particularly good on rough terrain. Let’s find out.”
    Without a hesitation the chair sped over the lawn straight to the perp.
    Nance Laurel and Sachs joined him. The