The Kill Room

that Boston was regarding him with a close gaze. The NIOS head casually adjusted the photograph of him, Seth and Katie and a snorting horse, taken through a fine set of optics that happened, in that instance, to record a dear memory, but wasn’t dissimilar to a scope that could very efficiently direct a bullet through a man’s heart.
    “They have proof of completion, the police?”
    “No, I don’t think so. Status is closed, that’s all.”
    Kill orders were just that—instructions to eliminate a task. There was never any documentation that an assassination was actually completed. The standard procedure when asked was to deny, deny, deny.
    Boston began to ask, “Are we doing anything…?”
    “I’ve made calls. Don Bruns knows about the case, of course. A few others. We’re…handling things.”
    An ambiguous verb and object. Worthy of the Wizard.
    Handling things…
    Spencer Boston, of the impressive white mane and more impressive track record as a spy, sipped more tea. The straw eased farther through the plastic lid and gave a faint vibration like a bow on a viola string. “Don’t worry, Shreve. I’ll find him. Or her.”
    “Thanks, Spencer. Anytime. Day or night. Call me, what you find out.”
    The man rose, buttoned his ill-tailored suit.
    When he was gone Metzger heard his magic red phone trill with a text from his surveillance and datamining crowd in the basement.
    Identified Nance Laurel as lead prosecutor. IDs of the NYPD investigators to follow soon.
    The Smoke diminished considerably at reading this.
    At last. A place to start.

CHAPTER 12
    J ACOB SWANN APPROACHED HIS CAR in the lot of the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia airport.
    He set his suitcase into the trunk of his Nissan sedan carefully—his knives were inside. No carry-on with them, of course. He dropped heavily into the front seat and stretched, breathing deeply.
    Swann was tired. He had left his Brooklyn apartment for the Bahamas nearly twenty-four hours ago and had had only three or so hours’ sleep in that time—most while in transit.
    His session with Annette had gone more quickly than he’d expected. But, after he’d disposed of the body, finding an abandoned trash fire to burn the evidence of his visit last week had taken some time. Then he’d had to take care of some other housekeeping, including a visit to Annette’s apartment and a risky but ultimately successful trip back to the site of Moreno’s shooting itself: the South Cove Inn.
    He’d then had to get off the island the same way he had last week: from a dock near Millars Sound, where he knew some of the men who clustered daily to work the ships or smoke Camels or ganja and drink Sands, Kalik or, more likely, Triple B malt. They would also handle various odd jobs. Efficiently and discreetly. They’d hurried him via small boat to one of the innumerable islands near Freeport, then there’d been the helicopter ride to a field south of Miami.
    That was the thing about the Caribbean. There was Customs and there was custom. And the lower-case version allowed for people like Jacob Swann, with a bankroll of money—his employer had plenty, of course—to get where he needed to be, unnoticed.
    After the scoring with the blade, after the blood, he was convinced that Annette had not told anyone about him, about the questions he’d casually asked her a week ago regarding the South Cove Inn, suite 1200, Moreno’s bodyguard and Moreno himself. All those facts could be bundled together, resulting in some very compromising conclusions.
    He’d only used the Kai Shun a few times, slice, slice…It probably hadn’t been necessary, she was so frightened. But Jacob Swann was a very meticulous man. You could ruin a delicate sauce simply by too quickly adding hot liquid to the sizzling flour-and-butter roux. And once you’d done that there was no correction. A matter of a few degrees and few seconds. Besides, you should never miss an opportunity to hone your skills. So to speak.
    He now pulled to the airport parking lot’s exit kiosk, paid cash then drove a mile on the Grand Central before pulling over and swapping license plates. He then continued on to his house in Brooklyn.
    Annette…
    Bad luck for the poor prostitute that they’d run into each other when he’d been planning the job at the South Cove. He’d been conducting surveillance when he’d spotted Moreno’s guard, Simon Flores, talking and flirting with the woman. Clearly they’d just come out of a room