The Kill Room (35 page)

N
ICE HOUSE,” RON PULASKI SAID.

“Is.” Sachs was looking around, a little distracted.

“So this is what? Glen Cove?”

“Or Oyster Bay. They kind of run together.”

The North Shore of Long Island was a patchwork of small communities, hillier and more tree-filled than the South. Sachs didn’t know the area well. She’d been here on a case involving a Chinese snakehead—a human trafficker—a few years ago. And before that she remembered a police pursuit along some of the winding roads. The chase hadn’t lasted long; sixteen-year-old Amelia had easily evaded the Nassau County police, after they’d broken up an illegal drag race near Garden City (she had won, beating a Dodge hands down).

“You nervous?” Pulaski asked.

“Yeah. Always before a take-down. Always.”

Amelia Sachs felt if you weren’t on edge at a time like that, something was wrong.

On the other hand, ever since the arrest was blessed by Lon Sellitto and, above him, Captain Myers, Sachs hadn’t once worried her flesh, picked at a nail or—this was odd—felt a throb from her hip or knee.

They were dressed quasi-tactically in body armor and black caps but wore just their sidearms.

They were now approaching Spencer Boston’s residence.

An hour ago Shreve Metzger and Rhyme had come up with a plan for the take-down. Metzger had told his Administrations Director Boston that there were going to be hearings about the Moreno STO screwup. He wanted to use a private residence to meet with the NIOS lawyers; could they use Boston’s house and could he send his family off for the day?

Boston had agreed and headed up here immediately.

As Sachs and Pulaski approached the large Colonial they paused, looking around the trim lawns, surrounding woods, molded shrubbery and gardens lovingly, almost compulsively, tended.

The young officer was breathing even more rapidly now.

You nervous?…

Sachs noted that he was absently rubbing a scar on his forehead. It was the legacy of a blow delivered by a perp on the first case they’d worked together, a few years ago. The head injury had been severe and he’d nearly given up policing altogether because of the incident—which would have devastated him; policing was a core part of his psyche and bound him closely to his twin brother, also a cop. But thanks largely to the encouragement and example of Lincoln Rhyme he’d gone through extensive rehab and decided to remain on the force.

But the injury had been bad and Sachs knew that the post-traumatic stress continued to snipe.

Can I handle it? Will I fold under pressure?

She knew the double-tap answers to those questions were, in staccato order, yes and no. She smiled. “Let’s go bust a bad guy.”

“Deal.”

They made their way quickly to the door, bracketing it, hands near but not touching their weapons.

She nodded.

Pulaski rapped. “NYPD. Open the door!”

Sounds from inside.

“What?” came the voice. “Who is that?”

The young officer persisted. “NYPD! Open the door or we’ll enter.”

Again from inside: “Jesus.”

A moment passed. Plenty long enough for Boston to grab a pistol. Though their calculations were that he would not do so.

The red wooden door opened and the distinguished, gray-haired man peered out through the screen. He absently stroked the most prominent crease in his dry, creased face.

“Let me see your hands, Mr. Boston.”

He lifted them, sighing. “That’s why Shreve called me. There’s no meeting, is there?”

Sachs and Pulaski pushed inside and she closed the door.

The man brushed a hand through his luxuriant hair then remembered he should be keeping them in view. He stepped back, making clear he was no threat.

“Are you alone?” she asked. “Your family?”

“I’m alone.”

Sachs did a fast sweep of the house while Pulaski stayed with the whistleblower.

When she returned Boston said, “What’s this all about?” He tried to be indignant but it wasn’t working. He knew why they were here.

“Leaking the STO to the DA’s Office. We checked flight records. You were on vacation in Maine on the eleventh of May but you flew back to New York in the morning. You went to the Java Hut with your iBook. Uploaded the scan of the kill order to the DA. And flew back that afternoon.” She added details about tracing the email, the tea and Splenda and the blue suit. Then: “Why? Why did you leak it?”

The man sat back on the couch. He slowly reached into his pocket, extracted and clumsily ripped open a pack of antacid tablets. He chewed them.

Reminiscent of her Advil.

Sachs sat across from him: Pulaski walked to the windows and looked out over the manicured lawn.

Boston was frowning. “If I’m going to be prosecuted it’ll be under the Espionage Act. That’s federal. You’re state. Why did
you
come?”

“There are state law implications,” she answered, intentionally vague. “Now tell me. Why’d you leak the STO kill order? Because you thought it was the moral thing to do, telling the world that your organization was killing U.S. citizens?”

He gave a laugh that was untidy with bitterness. “Do you think anybody really cares about that? It didn’t hurt Obama to take out al-Awlaki?
Everybody
thinks it’s the right thing to do—everybody except your prosecutor.”

“And?” she asked.

He rested his face in his hands for a moment. “You’re young. Both of you. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Tell me,” Sachs persisted.

Boston looked up with burning eyes. “I’ve been at NIOS from the beginning, from the day it was formed. I was army intelligence, I was CIA. I was on the ground running assets when Shreve Metzger was having keg parties in Cambridge and New Haven. I was key in our resisting the Pink Revolution—the socialists in the nineties and oughts. Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Néstor Kirchner in Argentina, Vázquez in Uruguay, Evo Morales in Bolivia.” He regarded Sachs coldly. “Do you even know who those people are?”

He didn’t seem to expect an answer. “I orchestrated two regime changes in Central America and one in South. Drinking in shitty bars, bribing journalists, sucking up to mid-level politicos in Caracas and BA. Going to the funerals when my assets got accidentally on purpose killed in a hit-and-run, and nobody could know what a hero they’d been. Begging Washington for money, cutting deals with the boys from London and Madrid and Tokyo…And when it came time for a new director at NIOS, who’d they pick? Shreve Metzger, a fucking kid with a bad temper. It should’ve been
me
. I’ve earned it! I deserve it!”

“So when you realized Shreve had made the mistake with Moreno you decided to use that to bring him down. You leaked the kill order and the intel. You expected you’d be his replacement.”

He muttered angrily, “I could run the place a hundred times better than he could.”

Pulaski asked, “How’d you beat the polygraph?”

“Oh, that’s tradecraft one-oh-one. See! That’s my point. This business isn’t about pushing buttons and playing computer games.” He sat back. “Oh, hell, just arrest me and have done with it.”

S
CANNING,” THE VOICE HISSED
through an earbud. “No transmissions, no signals.”

The whispering probably wasn’t necessary. The men were in a wooded area well out of earshot of anyone in Spencer Boston’s house.

“Roger that,” Jacob Swann acknowledged, thinking the phrase sounded somewhat ridiculous.

No transmissions, no signals. This was good news. If there had been other officers around to back up Boston’s arrest, the chatter would have shown up on Bartlett’s scanner. Bartlett, a mercenary, was as dull as a slug but he knew his equipment and could find a microwave or radio transmission inside a lead box.

“Any visuals?”

“No, they came alone. The woman detective—Sachs—and the uniform with her.”

Made sense, Swann reflected, only these two and no backup. Boston was a whistleblower and possibly a traitor but he wasn’t dangerous in the resisting-arrest sense. He’d kill you with a Hellfire in Yemen or ruin your political career by planting rumors that you were gay in an ardently Catholic South American country. But he probably didn’t even own a gun; two NYPD cops would be plenty to bring him in.

Swann moved in closer, through the woods to the side of Boston’s house, keeping clear of the windows.

He now checked his Glock, which was mounted with a suppressor, and the extra mags, inverted, in his left cargo pants pocket. On his utility belt, of course, his Kai Shun chef’s knife. He pulled down his black Nomex tactical face mask.

Nearby a commercial tree service was chipping a tree they’d just taken down. The roar and grind were loud. Jacob Swann was grateful for the noise. It would cover the sound of the assault; while he and his team had sound suppressors, it wasn’t inconceivable that one of the cops inside might get off a shot before they died. He transmitted, “Advise.”

“Position,” Bartlett said, and the same message was delivered a moment later by the other member of the team, a broad-shouldered Asian American named Xu, whose only substantive comment since they’d rendezvoused had been to correct Jacob Swann’s pronunciation of his name.

Xu.

“Like
Shoe.
”

I’d change it, thought Swann.

“Scan, interior,” Swann said to Bartlett.

A moment later: “Have three souls, all ground floor. Right of the front door, six to eight feet, sitting. Right of the front door, four to five feet, sitting. Left of the front door, four to five feet, standing.” Their electronic expert was scanning the house with an infrared sensor and SAR.

Swann asked, “Any visuals, surrounding premises?”

“Negative,” transmitted the Shoe. The houses on either side of Boston’s were out of range of the infrared but they were dark and the garage doors were closed. This was afternoon in suburbia. Children in school, moms and dads at work or shopping.

Another convenient roar of the chipper.

“Move in,” Swann commanded.

The others acknowledged.

Bartlett and Swann were going through the front door. The Shoe, the rear. The approach would be a dynamic entry, shoot on sight. This time Amelia Sachs would have to die, not just join Rhyme in the world of paralysis. If she’d cooperated earlier at least she would have survived.

Leaving his backpack in the bushes, Jacob Swann stepped onto the lawn, crouching. Bartlett was twenty feet away, closer to the house. His mask was down too. A nod.

Fifty feet from the house, then forty.

Scanning the windows. But the attack team was to the side and couldn’t be seen from where Bartlett had assured him the occupants were sitting and standing.

Thirty feet.

Looking around the lawn, the houses.

Nobody.

Good, good.

Twenty-five feet.

He would—

And then the hurricane hit.

A massive downwash of breathtaking air slammed into him.

What, what,
what
?

The NYPD chopper swept in fast, dropping, cantilevering to a stop over the front yard.

Swann and Bartlett froze as the lithe aircraft spun broadside and two Emergency Service officers trained H&K automatic weapons on the men.

The wood chipper. Oh, hell. The police had ordered it—to obscure the sound of the helicopter.

Goddamn.

A setup. They knew all along we were coming.

D
ROP YOUR WEAPONS!
Lie facedown. Or we
will
fire.”

The voice was clattering from a speaker on the helicopter. Or maybe from somewhere on the ground. Hard to tell.

Loud. And no nonsense. The commander meant what he was saying.

Swann noticed that Bartlett complied at once, flinging his own H&K away, lifting his hands and practically falling to the ground. Jacob Swann looked past him and saw that the upstairs window of the house behind Boston’s was open and a sniper was aiming into the backyard. He would have the Shoe covered.

The voice from on high: “You, on your feet. Drop your weapon and lie facedown! Do it now!”

A debate.

Swann looked at the house.

He tossed his gun to the ground and got down on his belly, smelling the piquant scent of grass. It reminded him of Chartreuse, the strident liquor that he used in one of his few desserts—peaches in Chartreuse jelly, part of the tenth, and last, course on
Titanic
’s first-class menu. As the helicopter lowered he gripped the key fob he’d been holding. He pressed the left button once and then the right for three seconds. And closed his eyes.

The explosive in the backpack, which he’d hidden nearby, detonated with more force than he’d expected. It was a diversionary charge only—for eventualities like this, to draw an enemy’s attention, get them to turn away momentarily. But this charge, right at the edge of the trees, exploded in a massive fireball, pitching the helicopter sideways a foot or two. The craft wasn’t damaged and the pilot controlled it immediately but it had bobbled enough that the gunmen lost their targets.

Jacob Swann was on his feet in an instant, leaping over the prone Bartlett and charging for the house, a smoke grenade in his hand. He flung the compact cylinder through the front window, shattered by the backpack bomb, and leapt through the frame after it.

INSIDE, SWANN SLAMMED
into a coffee table, scattering candy bowls, statuettes and framed pictures, and he rolled onto the floor.

The explosion had surprised Boston, Sachs and the other cop and when the smoke grenade bounced into the room they’d scrabbled away for cover, apparently expecting not covering haze but another bang.

Hostages. That was all Swann could think of to buy some time, negotiate his way out. Boston, coughing fiercely, was the first to see him. The man made a halfhearted lunge for his attacker but Jacob Swann drove a fist into the man’s throat and doubled him over.

“Amelia,” came a voice from somewhere on the other side of the spewing grenade. The young cop’s. “Where is he?”

Swann then saw the woman detective, on her side, coughing and squinting as she gazed around her. A Glock was in her hand. Swann went for it—he hadn’t had time to collect his pistol outside. He recalled her limping and the occasional wince, recalled too her references to the health problems he’d learned about when he’d hacked her phone. He now saw a frown of pain cross her beautiful face as she tried to rise and draw a target on him. The delay was enough for him to leap forward, tackling her before she fired.

“Amelia!” came the voice from the distance once more.

As they grappled fiercely—she was stronger than she looked—she shouted, “Shut up, Ron! Don’t say anything more!”

She was protecting him. When Jacob Swann got her gun he’d fire in the direction of the shouts.

Slamming a fist into his ear, with surprising and painful force, she spat the chemical smoke residue from her mouth and pitched hard into him. Swann hit her in the side and tried to grip her throat but she shoved his arm away and delivered another blow to the side of his head. “Get out, Ron. Go for help. You can’t do anything here!”

“I’ll get backup.” Running footsteps, exiting. A door in the back crashed open.

Swann elbowed her, aiming for the belly, but she twisted just in time to avoid a debilitating blow to the solar plexus. Sachs drove a fist into his side, near his kidney, which sent a burst of pain up to his teeth. Still gripping the wrist of her gun hand, he slugged her hard in the face with his left fist. She grunted and winced.

Thinking again of her injury, he slammed a knee into hers, and she gave a gasping cry. The pain seemed to be intense. It loosened her guard for a moment and his strong hand clawed farther toward the gun in her hand. He was almost to it. Another few inches.

He kicked her joint again. This time she barked a high scream and her grip on the gun slackened even more. Jacob Swann lunged for the weapon.

He touched the grip of the Glock—just as she flung her hand backward, releasing her hold. The pistol spiraled away, invisible in the smoke.

Shit…

Tugging at each other’s clothing, trading glancing blows and direct strikes, rolling on the floor, they fought desperately. Smelling sweat, smoke, a hint of perfume. He tried to force Sachs to her feet, which, with her damaged knee, would give him the advantage. But she knew it would be all over then and kept the fight on the ground, grappling and striking.

He heard voices from outside, calling for him to come out. The tactical teams wouldn’t risk an entry with the smoke and their star detective inside, invisible through the smoke. Also, for all they knew he’d had an Uzi or MAC-10 hidden on him and would spray the first dozen officers through the door with automatic fire.

Swann and Sachs, sweating, exhausted, coughing.

He leaned toward her as if to bite; when she backed away fast he reversed direction and broke her grip. He rolled away and crouched, facing her. Sachs was in more pain and more winded. She was kneeling on the ground, cradling the joint. Tears filled her eyes from the ache and from the fumes. Her form was ghostly.

But he had to get the gun. Now. Where was it? Nearby, it had to be. But as he moved forward she glared at him, feral, hands turning from fists to claws and back again. She rose to her feet.

She froze and, wincing, reached for her hip, which like her knee also seemed a source of agony.

Now! She’s in pain, distracted. Now, her throat!

Swann leapt forward and swung his left hand, open, toward the soft pale flesh of her neck.

And then pain like nothing he’d felt in years exploded up the arm he swung, pain from hand to shoulder.

He jerked back fast, staring at the stripes of blood cascading through his fingers, staring at the glint of steel in her hand, staring at her calm eyes.

What…what?

She held a switchblade knife firmly in front of her. He realized she hadn’t been gripping her hip out of pain, but had been fishing for the weapon and clicking it open. She hadn’t stabbed him; he’d done it himself—with his furious blow aimed at her throat he’d driven the flesh of his open hand into the sharp blade.

My little butcher man…

Sachs backed away, crouching in a street-fighter knife-fight pose.

Swann assessed the damage. The blade had cut to bone between his thumb and index finger. It hurt like hell but the wound was essentially superficial. The tendons were intact.

He quickly drew the Kai Shun and went into a stance similar to hers. There was, however, no real contest. He had killed two dozen people with a blade. She was probably a great shot, but this wasn’t her primary weapon. Swann eased forward, his knife edge-up as if he were going to gut a hanging deer carcass.

Feeling comfort in the handle of the Kai Shun, the weight, the dull gleam, the hammered blade.

He started for her fast, aiming low, imagining the slice, belly to breastbone…

But she wasn’t leaping back or turning and fleeing, as he’d anticipated. She stood her ground. Her weapon too—Italian, he believed—was positioned edge-up. Her eyes flicked confidently among the blade, his eyes and various targets on his body.

He stopped, backed up a few feet and regrouped, flicking hot blood from his left hand. Then moving in fast once more, he feinted with a lunge but she anticipated that and easily avoided the Kai Shun, swinging the switchblade fast and nearly taking skin from his cheek. She knew what she was doing, and—more troubling—there wasn’t an iota of uncertainty in her eyes, though evidence of the pain was clear.

Make her work her leg. That’s her weakness.

He lunged again and again, not actually trying to stab or slash but driving her back, forcing her to shift her weight, wear down the joints.

And then she made a mistake.

Sachs stepped back a few yards, turned the knife around, gripping the blade. She prepared to throw it.

“Drop it,” she called, coughing frantically, wiping tears with her other hand. “Get down on the floor.”

Swann eyed her cautiously through the smoke, watching the weapon closely. Throwing knives is a very difficult skill to master and works only when there’s good visibility and you have a properly balanced weapon—and you’ve practiced hundreds of hours. And even striking the target directly usually results in a minor wound. Despite the movies, Jacob Swann doubted that anybody had ever died from being struck by a thrown knife. Blade killing works only by slashing important blood vessels, and even then death takes time.

“Do it now!” she shouted. “On the ground.”

Still, a flying blade can distract and a lucky hit can hurt like hell and possibly take out an eye. So, as she jockeyed to get the distance right, Jacob Swann kept moving side to side and crouching further to make himself a small, evasive target.

“I’m not going to tell you again.”

A pause. No flicker in her eyes.

She flung the switchblade.

He squinted and ducked.

But the throw was wide. The knife hit a china cabinet two feet from Swann and shattered a small pane. A plate inside, on a display rack, fell and broke. He was instantly back in stance, but—another mistake—she didn’t follow through.

He relaxed and turned back to face her, as she stood leaning forward, arms at her sides, breathing hard, coughing.

She was his now. He’d get the Glock, negotiate some kind of escape. They could use the chopper for a ride out, of course.

He whispered, “Okay, what you’re going to do is—”

He felt the muzzle of a pistol pressing against his temple. His eyes shifted to the side.

The young officer, Ron apparently, had returned. No, no…Swann understood. He’d never left at all. He’d been making his way through the smoke, carefully seeking a target.

She’d never been planning to skewer him with the switchblade at all. She was just buying time and talking, to guide the cop here through the smoke. She’d never intended Ron to leave. Her words earlier meant just the opposite and he’d understood completely.

“Now,” the young man said ominously. “Drop it.” Swann knew he was fully prepared to send a bullet into his brain.

He looked for a place where the Kai Shun wouldn’t get dented or chipped. He tossed it carefully onto the couch.

Sachs eased forward, still wincing, and retrieved it. She noted the blade with some appreciation. The young cop cuffed Swann, and Sachs strode forward, gripped the Nomex hood and yanked it off him.