The Kill Room

between her and the ADA was simmering just fine on its own.
    “The jury again.” With a glance toward Rhyme who’d apparently fueled her argument earlier. “I need to show he was upright and a good, ethical man. The defense is going to paint Moreno as a danger—like lawyers try to portray a rape victim as somebody who was dressing provocatively and flirting with her attacker.”
    Sachs said, “There’s a big difference between those scenarios.”
    “Really? I’m not so sure.”
    “Isn’t the point of an investigation to get to the truth?”
    A pause for digesting these words. “If you don’t win in court, then what good does having the truth do?”
    Then, for her, the subject was settled. Laurel said to everyone, “And we need to work fast. Very fast.”
    Sellitto said, “Right. NIOS could find out about the case at any time. Evidence could start disappearing.”
    Laurel said, “That’s obvious but it’s not what I’m talking about. Look at the board, the kill order.”
    Everyone did, Rhyme included. Yet he could draw no immediate conclusion. But he suddenly understood. “The queue.”
    “Exactly,” the prosecutor said.
    RET - TOP SECRET - TOP SECRET - TOP SE
Special Task Orders
Queue
8/27
    Task: Robert A. Moreno (NIOS ID: ram278e4w5)
    Born: 4/75, New Jersey
    Complete by: 5/8–5/9
    Approvals:
    Level Two: Yes
    Level One: Yes
    Supporting Documentation:
See “A”
    Confirmation required: Yes
    PIN required: Yes
    CD: Approved, but minimize
    Details:
    Specialist assigned: Don Bruns, Kill Room, South Cove Inn, Bahamas, Suite 1200
    Status: Closed
9/27
    Task: Al-Barani Rashid (NIOS ID: abr942pd5t)
    Born: 2/73, Michigan
    Complete by: 5/19
    Approvals:
    Level Two: Yes
    Level One: Yes
    Supporting Documentation:
N/R
    Confirmation required: No
    PIN required: Yes
    CD: Approved, but minimize
    Details: To come
    Status: Pending

    She continued, “Now, I can’t find out anything about this Rashid or where he is. Maybe his kill room’s a hut in Yemen, where he’s selling nuclear bomb parts. Or given Metzger’s zeal, maybe it’s a family room in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where Rashid is blogging against Guantánamo and insulting the president. But we do know that NIOS’s going to kill him before Friday. And who’ll be the collateral damage then? His wife and children? Some passerby? I want Metzger in custody before that.”
    Rhyme said, “That won’t necessarily stop the assassination.”
    “No, but it’ll send a message to NIOS and Washington that somebody’s looking very carefully at what they’re up to. They might delay the attack and have somebody independent review the STO and see if it’s legitimate or not. That’s not going to happen with Metzger in power.”
    Like counsel in a closing argument Laurel then strode forward and dramatically tapped the kill order. “Oh, and these numbers at the top? Eight/twenty-seven, nine/twenty-seven? They’re not dates. They’re tasks in the queue. That is, victims. Moreno was the eighth person NIOS killed. Rashid’ll be the ninth.”
    “Twenty-seven total,” Sellitto said.
    “As of a week ago,” Laurel said briskly. “Who knows how many it is today?”

CHAPTER 11
    A HUMAN FORM, LIKE AN UNFLAPPABLE , patient ghost, appeared in Shreve Metzger’s doorway.
    “Spencer.”
    His administrations director—his right-hand man around headquarters—had been enjoying the cool blue skies and quiet lake shore line in Maine when an encrypted text from Metzger had summoned him. Boston had immediately cut short his vacation. If he’d been pissed off, and he probably had been, he’d given no indication of it.
    That would be improper.
    That would be unseemly.
    Spencer Boston’s was a faded elegance, a prior generation’s. He had a grandfatherly face, creases bracketing his taut lips, and thick, wavy white hair—he was ten years older than Metzger. He radiated an utterly calm and reasonable demeanor. Like the Wizard, Boston wasn’t troubled by the Smoke. He now stepped into the office, shut the door instinctively against prying ears and sat opposite his boss. He said nothing but his eyes dipped to the mobile in his boss’s hand. Rarely used, never to leave the building, the device happened to be dark red in color, though that had nothing to do with its top-secret nature. That was the shade that the company had had available for immediate delivery. Metzger thought of it as his “magic phone.”
    The NIOS director realized his muscles were cramping from the