The Kill Room

more common parlance: crude oil.”
    “Crude oil?”
    “Exactly. Trace amounts were found on Moreno’s and his guard’s shoes and clothes. They had to pick that up at some point before your attack on May ninth when they were out of the South Cove Inn, at meetings. Now, I didn’t think much of it—there are some refineries and oil storage facilities in the Bahamas. But then I realized something else: The morning he died Moreno met with some businesspeople about starting up transportation and agriculture operations there as part of his Local Empowerment Movement. But we’d also learned that fertilizer, diesel oil and nitromethane had been shipped weeks ago to his LEM companies. If those companies hadn’t even been formed yet, why buy the chemicals?”
    “You put together crude oil and possible bomb.”
    “We’d known about the rig from the initial intelligence about Moreno’s plans for May tenth. Since Moreno was so vocal against American Petroleum Drilling maybe the company was a target, after all—for a real attack, not just a protest. I think on Sunday or Monday he went to meet rig workers—maybe to get up-to-date information about security. Oh, and there was one other thing that didn’t make sense. Sachs here figured that out.”
    She said, “When Moreno came to New York earlier in the month, the one meeting he had that he didn’t invite his interpreter to was with Henry Cross at the Classrooms for the Americas Foundation. Why not? Most of his meetings were innocent—Moreno wouldn’t let her interpret for him if the meeting was about something illegal. But what about the Cross meeting? If it was innocent, what was wrong with Lydia Foster being here, even if she didn’t have to interpret? Which told me maybe it wasn’t so innocent. And Cross told me about this mysterious blue jet that Moreno kept seeing. Well, we couldn’t find anything about any blue jets with travel patterns that seemed to match Moreno’s. That was the specific sort of thing somebody would tell a cop to lead them off.”
    Rhyme picked up again: “Now, Classrooms for the Americas had offices in Nicaragua—which is where the diesel fuel, fertilizer and nitromethane were shipped from. There was too much to be coincidental. We looked into Cross and found out that he was really Cruz and that he and Moreno had a history together. It was Cruz’s brother who was Moreno’s best friend, killed in Panama during the invasion. That’s what turned him against the United States. We datamined Cruz’s travel records and credit cards and found he left New York for Nassau yesterday.
    “My contact at the Bahamian police found that he and Moreno had chartered a cargo ship a month ago. It left port this morning. The police raided a warehouse where the ship had been docked and found traces of the explosive chemicals. That was good enough for me. I called Shreve. He called you.”
    “So, Moreno wasn’t innocent after all,” Shales whispered, glancing at Metzger.
    Sachs said, “No. You took out a bad guy, Airman.”
    The officer looked at his boss. The expression in his blue eyes was complex. And conflicted. One way to read it was: You were right, Shreve. You were right.
    Rhyme added, “And this wasn’t going to be his only project.” He told both men about the intercept Nance Laurel had read to them in their first meeting on Monday.
    I have a lot more messages like this one planned…
    “Barry,” Metzger said. “I’m going to see our visitors out. Then, could I talk to you in my office? Please.”
    A pause worthy of Nance Laurel. Finally the airman nodded.
    Metzger escorted them to the exit, across the parking lot, thanked them warmly.
    Outside the security gate, Rhyme took the accessible cutaway in the sidewalk to cross the street to where the van waited, Thom at the wheel. Sachs stepped off the curb. As she did, Rhyme saw her wince, gasp slightly in pain.
    She offered a furtive glance his way, as if to see if he’d caught her frown, and then looked ahead quickly.
    This cut him. It was as if she’d just lied to him.
    And he lied right back; he pretended he hadn’t noticed.
    Across the street they continued to the van for a moment. Then Rhyme braked the Merits chair to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
    She turned.
    “What is it, Rhyme?”
    “Sachs, there’s something we need to talk about.”

CHAPTER 98
    T HE PHONE RANG ON SCHEDULE.
    Whatever else you could say about him, the Wizard was prompt.
    Shreve Metzger, at his