All records of interpreting assignment for Robert Moreno on May 1 stolen.

No cell phone or computer.

Receipt for Starbucks where Lydia waited during Moreno’s private meeting on May 1.

Rumors of drug cartels behind the killings. Considered unlikely.

Supplemental Investigation.

Determine identity of Whistleblower.

Unknown subject who leaked the Special Task Order.

Sent via anonymous email.

Traced through Taiwan to Romania to Sweden. Sent from New York area on public Wi Fi, no government servers used.

Used an old computer, probably from ten years ago, iBook, either clamshell model, two tone with other bright colors (like green or tangerine). Or could be traditional model, graphite color, but much thicker than today’s laptops.

Individual in light colored sedan following Det. A. Sachs.

Make and model not determined.

“Some mysteries here,” Rhyme said, musing, as he stared at the whiteboards, losing himself in the facts. Half whispering: “Do we like mysteries, rookie?”

“I’d say we do, Lincoln.”

“Ah, right you are. And why?”

“Because they keep us from being, you know, complacent. They make us wonder and when we wonder we discover.”

A smile.

“Now, what do we have, what do we have? First, Unsub Five Sixteen. We’ve got plenty of evidence against him – for the murder of Annette in the Bahamas, the bomb in Java Hut and the murder of Lydia Foster. If – excuse me when –we get his ID we can make a solid case against him for explosives and murder.

“Now, the conspiracy case against Shales and Metzger. We can link them – they both work together at NIOS – and we’ve got Shales’s code name, Don Bruns, on the kill order. All we need now is the last piece of the puzzle: proof that Barry Shales was in the Bahamas on May 9. Once we do we’ve got both of them for conspiracy.”

Whispering to himself as he stared at the boards. “Nothing in the physical evidence placing him there. We can prove the unsub was in the South Cove the day before the shooting but not Shales.” He looked toward Sachs. “How’s the datamining coming – is there anything about Shales’s travel history?”

“I’ll call Information Services.” She picked up her mobile.

We don’t need much, Rhyme reflected. A connection could be inferred by the jury – that’s what circumstantial evidence was all about. But there had to be some  basis for a valid inference. A jury can find a man guilty of DUI hit and run, even if he’s found sober and denying the next morning, if a bartender testifies that he downed a dozen beers an hour before the accident and the jury takes that testimony as credible.

Vehicle E ZPass transponders, credit cards, RFID chips in employee badges, subway MetroCards, TSA records, Customs documents, traffic cameras and security cameras in stores…dozens of sources of information could be used to place suspects at scenes.

He noted that Sachs was jotting quick notes. Good. They’d struck gold, he had a feeling.

Something  would pin Barry Shales to the Bahamas on May 9.

Sellitto was looking at the chart and he echoed Rhyme’s thought. “There’s gotta be something. We know Shales’s the shooter.”

Amelia Sachs disconnected the call and with an uncharacteristically bewildered expression said, “Actually, Lon, no, he’s not.”

A half hour later Nance Laurel was in Rhyme’s town house.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

Sachs said, “He’s not the sniper. Look for yourself.”

And she tossed a number of documents on the table in front of Laurel with a bit more force than Rhyme supposed was necessary under the circumstances. On the other hand, clearly these two women were never destined to be friends. He’d been expecting a knock down drag out between them the way a storm chaser eyes a pea green overcast and thinks: Tornado’s brewing.

What the Information Services operation of the NYPD had discovered was that Barry Shales had not  been in the Bahamas on the day Moreno was shot. He was in New York City all day – in fact, he hadn’t been out of the country in months.

“They ran a dozen searches, cross referenced everything. I asked them to double check. They triple  checked. Radio frequency ID chip scans of him going into the NIOS office at nine and leaving for lunch, I’d guess – about two. During that time he went to Bennigan’s, paid with a credit card. Handwriting scan is his, and then went to an ATM – the scan by the cash machine camera is positive. Sixty point facial recognition. Returned to the office at three. Left at six thirty.”

“May nine. You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

An odd sound, a snake’s hiss. The breath easing from Nance Laurel’s mouth.

“Where’s that leave us?” Sachs asked.

“With Unsub Five Sixteen,” Pulaski said.

Sellitto added, “We have nothing to suggest he’s the sniper – he seems more like backup, or clean up. But we have charges against him.”

Rhyme said, “Here’s an alternative case. We forget the Moreno homicide altogether. We prove Metzger had Unsub Five Sixteen kill Lydia Foster and set the IED. At the least there’s your conspiracy charge. It’s probably likely to get Metzger murder two.”

But Laurel looked doubtful. “That’s not the case I want.”

“You want?” Sachs asked, as if she’d decided the ADA sounded like a spoiled little girl.

“Right. My case is against Metzger and his sniper for conspiring to commit an illegal targeted assassination.” Her voice rose, the first edge Rhyme had heard in it. “The kill order was the whole basis for that.” She stared at the copy on the whiteboard as if it had betrayed her.

“We can still nail Metzger,” Sachs countered petulantly. “Does it matter how?”

Ignoring her, the ADA turned and walked to the window in the front of the parlor. She was staring out at Central Park.

Amelia Sachs gazed after her. Rhyme knew exactly what she was thinking.

I want…

My case…

Rhyme’s eyes swiveled to Laurel. The tree she was looking at was a swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor , a thick and not particularly tall tree that did well in Manhattan. Rhyme knew about it not because of a personal interest in arboriculture but because he’d discovered a minuscule fragment of a swamp white oak leaf in the car of one Reggie “Sump” Kelleher, a particularly unpleasant Hell’s Kitchen thug. The sliver, along with a bit of limy soil, had placed Kelleher at a clearing in Prospect Park, where the body of a Jamaican drug kingpin had been found, though the head had not.

Rhyme was focusing on the tree when the idea occurred to him.

He turned quickly to the evidence charts and stared for a long moment. He was vaguely aware that people were saying things to him. He paid no attention, muttering to himself.

Then he called over his shoulder, “Sachs, Sachs! Fast! I need you to take a drive.”

The business of war was winding down around the world and some of the buildings in the New Jersey headquarters of Walker Defense Systems were shuttered.

But Sachs observed that there must be some  market left for weapons of mass – and personal – destruction; dozens of high end Mercedeses and Audis and BMWs dotted the parking lot.

And an Aston Martin.

Man, Sachs thought. I would love to take that Vanquish for a spin – and she fantasized about letting the horses loose on the company’s private drive.

Inside the fifties style building, she checked with reception and was led to a waiting area.

“Sterile” was the word that came to mind and that was true in two senses: The decor was minimal and austere, a few gray and black paintings, some ads for products whose purpose she couldn’t quite figure out. And sterile in another sense: She felt she was a virus that researchers didn’t quite trust and were keeping isolated until they knew more.