Sachs c.o.c.ked her head slightly, eyes narrowed. Rhyme too was surprised that the ADA had profiled her-and presumably the criminalist himself too.

Studied up...

"So." The word was delivered by Laurel abruptly. The matter was settled; they'd look for instability. Got it.

Rhyme's caregiver rounded the corner. He was carrying a pot of fresh coffee. The criminalist introduced the man. He noted that Nance Laurel's made-up facade stirred briefly as she looked at Thom. An unmistakable focus was in her eyes, though as good looking and charming as he was, Thom Reston was not a romantic option for the woman-who wore no heart-finger rings. But a moment later Rhyme concluded her reaction arose not from attraction to the aide himself but because he resembled somebody she knew or had known closely.

Finally looking away from the young man, Laurel declined coffee, as if it were some ethics breach to indulge on the job. She was digging in her litigation bag, whose contents were perfectly organized. Folder tabs were color-coded and he noted two computers, whose eyes pulsed orange in their state of hibernation. She extracted a doc.u.ment.

"Now," she said, looking up, "do you want to see the kill order?"

Who could say no to that?

CHAPTER 8.

OF COURSE THEY DON'T CALL IT THAT, a kill order," Nance Laurel a.s.sured. "That's shorthand. The term is 'STO,' a Special Task Order."

"Almost sounds worse," Lon Sellitto said. "Kind of sanitized, you know. Creepy."

Rhyme agreed.

Laurel handed Sachs three sheets of paper. "If you could tape them up, so we could all see them?"

Sachs hesitated and then did as the prosecutor requested.

Laurel tapped the first. "Here's the email that came to our office last Thursday, the eleventh."

Check the news about Robert Moreno. This is the order behind it. Level Two is the present head of NIOS. His idea to pursue. Moreno was a U.S. citizen. The CD means Collateral Damage. Don Bruns is a code name for the officer who killed him.

-A person with a conscience.

"We'll see about tracing the email," Rhyme said. "Rodney." A glance toward Sachs, who nodded.

She explained to Laurel that they worked with the cybercrimes unit in the NYPD frequently. "I'll send them a request. Do you have the email in digital form?"

Laurel dug a Baggie containing a flash drive from her briefcase. Rhyme was impressed to see that a chain-of-custody evidence card was attached. She handed it to Sachs, saying, "If you could-"

Just as the detective jotted her name on the card.

Sachs plugged the drive into the side of her computer and began to type.

"You're going to let them know that security's a priority."

Without looking up, Sachs said, "It's in my first paragraph." A moment later she sent the request to the CCU.

"Code name sounds familiar," Sellitto pointed out. "Bruns, Bruns..."

"Maybe the sniper likes country-western music," Sachs pointed out. "There's a Don Bruns who's a songwriter and performer, folk, country-western. Pretty good."

Laurel c.o.c.ked her head as if she had never listened to any music, much less something as lively as CW.

"Check with Information Services," Rhyme said. "Datamine 'Bruns.' If it's a NOC, he'll still have a presence in the real world."

Agents operating under non-official covers nonetheless have credit cards and pa.s.sports that can-possibly-allow their movements to be traced and yield clues to their true ident.i.ty. Information Services was a new division at the NYPD, a ma.s.sive datamining operation, one of the best in the country.

As Sachs put the request in, Laurel turned back to the board and tapped a second sheet she'd taped up there. "And here's the order itself."

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: 5/85/9 Approvals: Level Two: Yes Level One: Yes Supporting Doc.u.mentation:

See "A"

Confirmation required: Yes PIN required: Yes CD: Approved, but minimize Details: Specialist a.s.signed: 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 Doc.u.mentation:

N/R.

Confirmation required: No PIN required: Yes CD: Approved, but minimize Details: To come Status: Pending The other doc.u.ment on the board was headed "A." This gave the information that Nance Laurel had mentioned earlier, supporting data about the shipments of fertilizer and diesel fuel and chemicals to the Bahamas. The shipments were from Corinto, Nicaragua and Caracas.

Laurel nodded toward the flash drive, still inserted into the computer nearby. "The whistleblower also sent a .wav file, a sound file of a phone call or radio transmission to the sniper, apparently from his commander. This was just before the shooting." She looked expectantly at Sachs, who paused then sat down at the computer again. She typed. A moment later, a brief exchange came from the tinny speakers: "There seem to be two, no three people in the room."

"Can you positively identify Moreno?"

"It's...there's some glare. Okay, that's better. Yes. I can identify the task. I can see him."

Then the transmission ended. Rhyme was about to ask Sachs to run a voiceprint but she'd already done so. He said, "It doesn't prove he actually pulled the trigger but it gets him on the scene. Now all we need is a body to go with the voice."

"'Specialists,'" Laurel pointed out. "That's the official job t.i.tle of a.s.sa.s.sins, apparently."

"What's with the NIOS ID code?" Sellitto asked.

"Presumably to make sure they get the right R. A. Moreno. Embarra.s.sing to make that mistake." Rhyme read. "Interesting that the whistleblower didn't give us the name of the shooter."

"Maybe he doesn't know," Sellitto said.

Sachs: "Looks like he knows everything else. His conscience extends up to a certain point. He'll dime out the head of the organization but he's sympathetic toward the guy who got the a.s.signment to shoot."

Laurel said, "I agree. The whistleblower has to know. I want him too. Not to prosecute, just for information. He's our best lead to the sniper-and without the sniper there's no conspiracy and no case."

Sachs said, "Even if we find him he's not going to tell us willingly. Otherwise he already would have."

Laurel said absently, "You get me the whistleblower...and he'll talk. He'll talk."

Sachs asked, "Any consideration about going after Metzger for the other deaths, the guard and that reporter, de la Rua?"

"No, since only Moreno was named in the kill order and they were collateral damage we didn't want to muddy the waters."

Sachs's sour expression seemed to say: even though they were just as dead as the target. Can't confuse the precious jury, can we?

Rhyme said, "Give me the details of the killing itself."

"We have very little. The Bahamian police gave us a preliminary report, then everything shut down from them. They're not returning calls. What we know is that Moreno was in his suite when he was shot." She indicated the STO. "Suite twelve hundred. The Kill Room, they're calling it. The sniper was shooting from an outcrop of land about two thousand yards from the hotel."

"Well, that's one h.e.l.l of a shot," Sachs said, eyebrows rising. She was quite a marksman, competed in shooting matches often and held records in the NYPD and in private compet.i.tions, though she favored handguns over rifles. "We call that a million-dollar bullet. The record for a sniper's about twenty-five hundred yards. Whoever it was, that shooter's got some skill."

"Well, that's good news for us," Laurel continued. "Narrows down the field of suspects."

True, Rhyme reflected. "What else do we have?"

"Nothing."

That's all? Some emails, a leaked government doc.u.ment, the name of one conspirator.

And notably absent was the one thing Rhyme needed the most: evidence.

Which was sitting somewhere hundreds of miles away, in a different jurisdiction-h.e.l.l, in a different country.

Here he was, a crime scene expert without a crime scene.

CHAPTER 9.

SHREVE METZGER SAT AT HIS DESK in lower Manhattan, motionless, as a band of morning light, reflected off a high-rise nearby, fell across his arm and chest.

Staring at the Hudson River, he was recalling the horror yesterday as he'd read the encrypted text from NIOS's surveillance department. The outfit was no more skillful than the CIA's or NSA's, but wasn't quite so visible, which meant it wasn't quite so hobbled by the inconvenience of FISA warrants and the like. And that in turn meant the quality of its information was golden.

Yesterday, early Sunday evening, Metzger had been at his daughter's soccer game, an important one-against the Wolverines, a formidable opponent. He wouldn't have left his seat in the stands, dead center on the field, for anything.

He trod lightly when it came to the children, he'd learned all too well.

But as he pulled on his light-framed gla.s.ses-after cleaning the lenses-and read the perplexing then troubling then shattering words, the Smoke formed, fast and unyielding, more a gel than vapor, and it closed around him. Suffocating. He found himself quivering, jaw clenched, hands clenched, heart clenched.

Metzger had recited: I can handle this. This is part of the job. I knew there was a risk of getting found out. He'd reminded himself: The Smoke doesn't define you; it's not part of you. You can make it float away if you want. But you have to want. Just let it go.

He'd calmed a bit, unclenched fingers tapping his bony leg in dress slacks (other soccer dads were in jeans but he hadn't been able to change between office and field). Metzger was five ten and three-quarters and clocked in about 150 pounds. Formerly fat, as a boy, he'd melted the weight away and never let it return. His thinning brown hair was a bit long for government service but that's the way he liked it and he wasn't going to change.

Yesterday, as he put the phone away, the twelve-year-old midfielder had turned toward his section in the stands and smiled. Metzger had grinned back. It was fake and maybe Katie knew it. Wished they sold scotch but this was middle school in Bronxville, New York, so caffeine was the strongest offering on the menu, though the Woodrow Wilson PTO's kick-a.s.s cookies and blondies gave you a high of sorts.

Anyway, liquor was not the way to defeat the Smoke.

Dr. Fischer, I believe you. I think.

He'd returned to the office last night and tried to make sense of the news: Some crusading a.s.sistant district attorney in Manhattan was coming after him for Moreno's death. A lawyer himself, Metzger added up the possible counts and knew the biggest, bluntest truncheon would be conspiracy.

And he'd been even more shocked that the DA's Office had learned of Moreno's death because the Special Task Order had been leaked.

A f.u.c.king whistleblower!

A traitor. To me, to NIOS, and-worst of all-to the nation. Oh, that had brought the Smoke back. He'd had an image of himself beating the prosecutor, whoever he or she was, to death with a shovel-he never knew the themes his rage would take. And this fantasy, particularly b.l.o.o.d.y and with a gruesome soundtrack, both mystified and viscerally satisfied with its vivacity and persistence.

When he'd calmed, Metzger had set to work, making calls and sending texts wrapped in the chrysalis of sublime encryption, to do what he could to make the problem go away.