“Wait. What are you talking about?”
She paused. Then, surveying his face closely, said, “The individual trying to stop our case, the specialist, they’re called, aren’t they? He killed a witness in the Bahamas and one here in New York. He detonated an IED to destroy a computer holding evidence, nearly killed a half dozen people, including an NYPD police detective. You’re not familiar with these?”
“No…”
Bishop to queen’s knight three. Check.
She whispered, “Yes. Oh, yes.”
He looked away whispering, “Minimal steps…”
She didn’t know what that meant.
But Laurel did know that this wasn’t an act. Shales, of the pink flesh and eyes impossibly old and achingly blue, hadn’t known anything of Unsub 516. Not a single thing. Shreve Metzger had thoroughly deceived him.
Work it…
“Well, Barry, we have proof positive that this man was in the Bahamas around the time of your drone strike. We thought he was your partner.”
“No, I work alone. NIOS sometimes has assets on the ground for intel…” His voice faded.
“Who are sent there by Shreve Metzger.”
Not a question.
“Sometimes.”
“So he’s the one who manipulated the evidence in the first place. And has been trying to stop the investigation.”
“You have a name?” Shales asked.
“No, he’s an unknown subject at this point.”
Shales whispered, “Tell me, who’s this Lydia Foster you mentioned?”
“Moreno’s interpreter here in New York. This unsub killed her. He was eliminating witnesses.”
“And the bomb, was that the gas main explosion in the news the other day?”
“Yes, that was the cover story. But it was a bomb. The point was to kill investigators and destroy evidence.”
The pilot looked off.
“And two people died?”
“And they were both tortured first.”
He said nothing. His eyes focused on a dime sized ding in the table.
“Barry, you called the South Cove Inn two days before the Moreno assignment. You called from your operational phone, registered to Don Bruns.”
If he was surprised at this he gave no reaction.
“I know why you called,” Laurel said softly. “It wasn’t to confirm Moreno’s reservation. The CIA or NIOS’s own assets could verify he was going to be there. You wanted to be sure that he was going to be there alone . That his wife and children wouldn’t be coming with him. You wanted to be sure. So that there was no collateral damage.”
The airman’s lip trembled for an instant. He looked away.
Laurel whispered, “That tells me you had doubts about the assignment from the beginning. You didn’t want it to end up the way it did.” She held his eye, whispered, “Work with us, Barry.”
There’s a moment in chess, David had told her, of alarming clarity. You understand that the strategy you’ve been confidently following is completely wrong, that your opponent has been playing an entirely different game – one of insight and brilliance, outstripping yours. Your loss might not be in the next move or the next ten but defeat is inevitable.
“He’ll see it in your eyes,” David had explained. “Something changes. You know you’ve lost and your eyes tell your opponent you understand that.”
This is what she observed now with Barry Shales.
He’s going to cave, she understood. He’s going to give me Shreve Metzger! The murderer who uses national intelligence to kill whomever the hell he wants to kill.
Checkmate…
His breathing was rapid. “All right. Tell me…Tell me how this could work?”
“What we can do is–”
A pounding on the door.
Laurel jumped.
A man in a close fitting gray suit stood at the window, looking matter of factly from her to Shales and back again.
No, no, no…
Laurel knew him. He was one of the most tenacious – and vicious – defense lawyers in the city. That is, one of the best. But he primarily appeared in federal court in New York at the behest of associated firms based in Washington, DC. Curious that he was here, rather than an attorney who knew his way around the rough and tumble state trial court, which in New York was called the Supreme Court.
The guard opened the door.
“Hello, Counselor Laurel,” the lawyer said pleasantly.
She knew him by reputation. How did he know her?
Something wasn’t right here.
“Who–?” Shales began.
“I’m Artie Rothstein. I’ve been retained to defend you.”
“By Shreve?”
“Don’t say anything more, Barry. Were you advised you have the right to an attorney and you don’t need to say anything?”
“I…Yes. But I want to–”
“No, you don’t, Barry. You don’t want to do anything at the moment.”
“But, look, I just found out that Shreve–”
“Barry,” Rothstein said in a low voice. “I’m advising you to be quiet. It’s very important.” He waited a moment then added, “We want to make sure you and your family get the best counsel you can have.”
“My family ?”
Hell. That’s his game. Laurel said firmly, “The state has no case against your family, Barry. We have no interest in them at all.”
Rothstein turned to her and his round, creased face offered a perplexed look. “We’ve hardly scratched the surface of the case, Nance.” He looked at Shales. “You never know the direction a prosecution will take. My theory is to provide for every eventuality. And I’ll make sure you and anyone else involved in this prosecution…” His voice grew indignant. “…this misguided prosecution is looked after. Now, Barry?”
The pilot’s jaw quivered. He looked at Nance quickly then lowered his eyes and nodded.
Rothstein said, “This interview is now terminated.”
CHAPTER 79
Morning sunlight filled Rhyme’s town house.
The windows faced east and bands of direct light, filtered through many leaves, fired into the parlor in flickering streams.
The team was gathered here, Cooper, Sellitto, Pulaski. Sachs too. And Nance Laurel, who’d just returned from detention with the disappointing news that Shales had been about to confess and give up Metzger when a lawyer that NIOS or someone in DC had hired arrived and scared him into silence.
But she said, “I can still make the case work. Nothing’s going to stop me this time.”
Rhyme happened to be glancing at his phone when it rang and he was pleased. He answered. “Corporal, how are you?”
Poitier’s melodic voice replied, “Good, Captain. Good. I was happy to get your message this morning. We miss the chaos you brought with you. You must come back. Come back for holiday. And I appreciate your invitation too. I will most certainly come to New York but that will have to be as a holiday as well. I’m afraid I don’t have any evidence for you. There was no luck at the morgue. I don’t have anything to deliver to you in person.”
“No glass shards from de la Rua’s body?”
“I’m afraid not. I spoke to the doctor who conducted the autopsy and there were no splinters left in the bodies of either de la Rua or the guard when they were brought in. Apparently they had been removed by the medical technicians trying to save the men.”
But Rhyme recalled the crime scene pictures. The wounds had been numerous, the blood loss massive. Some shards must have remained. He now eased close to the whiteboards and examined the autopsy pictures of the victims, the crude incisions, the skull cap placed back after the saw work, the Y incision decorating the chest.
Something was wrong.
Rhyme turned to the room and shouted, to no one in particular, “The autopsy report. I want de la Rua’s autopsy report, now!” He couldn’t juggle the phone and work the computer at the same time.
Mel Cooper complied and in a moment the scanned document was on a flat screen monitor next to Rhyme.