Sachs debated. “Yes.”

Walker’s face was still. “I’m sorry about that. I truly am. It doesn’t do us any good when somebody misuses our products and something tragic happens.”

But that didn’t mean he was going to help. Walker rose and extended his hand.

She stood too. “Thanks for your time.”

Walker picked up the instructions and screwdriver and walked back to the trike.

Then he smiled and picked up a bolt. “You buy a Harley Davidson, you know, it comes already assembled.”

“Good luck with that, Mr. Walker. Call me if you can think of anything, please.” She handed him one of her cards – which, she suspected, he’d pitch out before she was halfway to the lobby.

Didn’t matter.

Sachs had everything she needed.

In Rhyme’s dark parlor, redolent of trace materials burned into incriminating evidence by the gas chromatograph, Sachs pulled her jacket off and held up the brochure from Walker Defense.

Ron Pulaski taped it up on a whiteboard. The glitzy piece sat next to the kill order.

“So,” Rhyme said, “what did it look like?”

“Pretty short and hidden between two buildings but I caught a glimpse from Walker’s office. There was a windsock at one end and what looked like a small hangar at the other.”

Sachs’s mission had nothing to do with getting customer information or the names of people fabricating long range rifles, which Rhyme knew Walker wouldn’t divulge anyway. Her job was to find out as much about the company’s products as she could – more than its preening and ambiguous website offered. And – most important – to find out if it had a length of asphalt or concrete that could be used as an airstrip; Google Earth had not been helpful in that regard.

“Excellent,” Rhyme said.

As for the other products, they too were just what he’d hoped: instruments and devices for guidance, navigation and control systems, in addition to ammunition. “Gyroscopes, GPS sighting systems, synthetic aperture radar, things like that,” Sachs explained.

The criminalist read through the brochure.

He said slowly, “Okay, we have our answer. The case is back on. Barry Shales did  kill Robert Moreno. He was just a little farther away from the target than two thousand feet. In fact, he was here in New York when he pulled the trigger.”

Sellitto shook his head. “We should’ve thought better. Shales wasn’t infantry or special forces. He was air force.”

Rhyme’s theory, now supported by Sachs’s legwork, was that Barry Shales was a drone pilot.

“We know his code name is Don Bruns and Bruns was the one who killed Moreno. The data show he was in the NIOS office downtown on the day the man died. He’d have been piloting a drone from some control facility there.” He paused, frowned. “Oh, hell, that’s the ‘Kill Room’ the STO refers to. It’s not the hotel suite where Moreno was shot; it’s the drone cockpit or whatever you call it, where the pilot sits.”

Sachs nodded at the brochure. “Walker makes those bullets, they make gun sights and stabilization and radar and navigation systems. They’ve built or armed a specialized drone that uses a rifle as a weapon.”

Rhyme spat out, “Look at the STO – there’s a period after ‘Kill Room,’ not a comma! ‘Suite twelve hundred’ doesn’t modify it. They’re separate places.” He continued, “Okay, this is all making sense now. What’s the one problem with drone strikes?”

“Collateral damage,” Sachs said.

“Exactly. A missile takes out terrorists but it also kills innocent people. Very bad for America’s image. NIOS contracted with Walker Defense to come up with a drone that minimizes collateral. Using a precision rifle with a very big bullet.”

Sellitto said, “But they fucked up. There was  collateral.”

“The Moreno assassination was a fluke,” Rhyme said. “Who could’ve anticipated broken glass would be lethal?”

Sellitto gave a laugh. “You know, Amelia, you were right. This was  a million dollar bullet. Literally. Hell, given what drones cost, it’s probably a ten million dollar bullet.”

“How’d you guess?” Nance Laurel asked.

“Guess?” Sachs offered acerbically.

But Rhyme didn’t need any defense. He was delighted with his deduction and was happy to explain:

“Trees. I was thinking of trees. There was poisonwood leaf trace on the bullet. I saw the tree outside the window of the suite. All the branches up to about twenty five feet or so were cut back – because the hotel didn’t want anyone touching the leaves. That meant the bullet struck Moreno at a very steep downward angle – probably forty five degrees. That was too acute even for a shooter on the spit to aim high to correct for gravity. It meant the bullet came from the air.

“If Shales fired through the trees, that means he was using some kind of infrared or radar sighting system to quote see Moreno through the leaves. I was also curious why there was no pollution on the slug – from the fumes and crap in the air over the spit. A hot bullet would have picked up plenty of trace. But it didn’t.”

Pulaski said, “By the way, Lincoln, they’re UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles. Not drones.”

“Thank you for the correction. Accuracy is everything. You’re a wealth of knowledge.”

“Discovery Channel.”

Rhyme laughed and continued, “It also reconciles why Mychal Poitier’s divers didn’t find any spent brass. It’s out to sea. Or maybe the drone retains the spent shells. Good, good. We’re moving ahead.”

Cooper said, “And he was a lot closer than two thousand yards. That’s why the high velocity of the bullet.”

Rhyme said, “I’d guess the UAV couldn’t’ve been any more than two or three hundred yards out, to make an accurate shot like that. It’d be easy for people on the ground to miss it. There would have been camouflage – just like with our chameleons. And the engine would’ve been small – two stroke, remember. With a muffler you’d never hear it.”

“It launched from Walker’s airstrip in New Jersey?” Pulaski asked.

Rhyme shook his head. “The airstrip’s just for testing the drones, I’m sure. NIOS would launch from a military base and as close to the Bahamas as possible.”

Laurel dug through her notes. “There’s a NIOS office near Miami.” She looked up. “Next to Homestead Air Reserve Base.”

Sachs tapped the brochure. “Walker has an office near there. Probably for service and support.”

Laurel’s crisp voice then added, “And you recall what Lincoln said earlier?” She was speaking to them all.

“Yep,” Sellitto said, compulsively stirring his coffee, as if that would make it sweeter; he’d added only half a packet of sugar. “We don’t need conspiracy anymore. Barry Shales was in New York City when he pulled the trigger. That means the crime’s now murder two. And Metzger’s an accessory.”

“Very good, Detective, that’s correct,” Laurel said as if she were a fifth grade teacher praising a student in class.

Shreve Metzger tilted his head back so the lower lens of his glasses brought the words on his magic phone better into focus.

Budgetary meetings proceeding apace. Much back and forth. Resolution tomorrow. Can’t tell which way the wind is blowing.

He thought to the Wizard, And what the hell am I supposed to do with this bit of fucking non information? Get my résumé in order or not? Tell everybody here that they’re about to be punished for being patriots and saying no to the evil that wants to destroy the greatest country on earth? Or not?

Sometimes the Smoke could be light, irritating. Sometimes it could be that inky mass of cloud, the sort you see rising from plane crashes and chemical plant explosions.

He digitally shredded the message and stalked downstairs to the coffee shop, bought a latte for himself and a soy laced mochaccino for Ruth. He returned and set hers on her desk, between pictures of soldier husband one and soldier husband two.