The Kill Room

the speaker like nutshells on a tabletop.
    “Agent Dellray,” Laurel began.
    “Call me Fred. An’ don’tcha fret. I’m as encrypted as can be.”
    A blink. “Thank you.”
    “Okay, just looking at our files here, our files…” A lengthy pause. “Robert Moreno, aka Roberto. Sure, here’s some notes on APDR, American Petroleum Drilling and Refining…Looks like our Miami office was scrambled on a potential terrorist incident but it turned out to be a big false a-larm. You want what I got here on Moreno?”
    “Please, Fred. Go ahead.” Sachs sat at a computer and started a file.
    “Hokay, our boy left the country over twenty years ago and only comes back once a year or so. Well, came back. Let’s see…Watchlisted but never in any active-risk books. He was mostly all talk—so we didn’t pri-oritize him. Hobnobbed with al-Qaeda some and Shining Path, folk like that, but never actually shouted out for an attack.” The agent was whispering to himself. Then he said, “Note here says that the official word is some cartels might’ve been behind the shooting. But that couldn’t be verified…Ah, here’s this.”
    A pause.
    “Fred, you there?” Rhyme asked impatiently.
    “Hm.”
    Rhyme sighed.
    Then Dellray said, “This could be helpful. Report from State. Moreno was here. New Yawk City. Arrived April thirty, late. Then left May second.”
    Lon Sellitto asked, “Anything specific about what he did here, where he went?”
    “Nup. That’s gotta be your job, friends. Now, I’ll keep on it from my end. Make some calls down to my folks in the Caribbean and South America. Oh, I got a picture. Want it?”
    “No,” Laurel said abruptly. “We need to minimize any communication from your office. I’d prefer phone calls to me or Detectives Sellitto and Sachs or Lincoln Rhyme. Discretion is—”
    “The better part of valor,” Dellray intoned cryptically. “Not a single problem in the world on that. But broachin’ that subject: You sure our friends don’t know anything yet? At NIOS?”
    “No,” the ADA said.
    “Uh-hum.”
    Rhyme said, “You don’t sound convinced.”
    He chuckled. “Good luck, one and all.”
    Sachs clicked the phone off.
    “Now, where can I work?” Laurel asked.
    “How’s that?” Sachs wondered aloud.
    The ADA was looking around. “I need a desk. Or table. It doesn’t need to be a desk. Just something big.”
    “Why do you need to be here?”
    “I can’t work out of my office. How can I?” As if it were obvious. “Leaks. NIOS’ll eventually find out we’re running the investigation but I need to delay that for as long as possible. Now, that looks good. Over there. Is that all right?”
    Laurel pointed to a worktable in the corner.
    Rhyme called Thom in and had the aide clear the surface of books and some boxes of old forensics gear.
    “I have computers but I’ll need my own line and Wi-Fi router too. I’ll have to set up a private account on it, encrypted. And I’d prefer not to share the network.” A glance toward Rhyme. “If that can be arranged.”
    Sachs clearly didn’t like the idea of this new member of the team. Lincoln Rhyme was by nature a solitary person but at least when a case was ongoing he’d come to tolerate, though hardly relish, the presence of others. He had no particular objection.
    Nance Laurel hefted her briefcase and the heavy litigation bag onto the table and began unpacking files, organizing them into separate stacks. She looked as if she were a student moving into a dorm on the first day of freshman year, placing her few possessions on the desk and bedside table for most comfort.
    Then Laurel looked up to the others. “Oh, one thing: In working the case I need you to find everything you can to make him look like a saint.”
    “I’m sorry?” From Sachs.
    “Robert Moreno—a saint. He’s said a lot of inflammatory things. He’s been very critical of the country. So I need you to find what he’s done that’s good. His Local Empowerment Movement, for instance. Building schools, feeding third-world children, that sort of thing. Being a loving father and husband.”
    “You need us to do that?” Sachs questioned. The emphasis pointed the question in the direction of disbelief…and gave it a nice tidy edge, to boot.
    “Correct.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s just better.” As if obvious.
    “Oh.” A pause. “That’s not really an answer,” Sachs said. She wasn’t looking at Rhyme and he didn’t want her to. The tension