“And why did I start thinking about all of this in the first place?” Rhyme paused. Perhaps it was overdramatic, but this seemed appropriate. “It was the names, Charlotte. The names on the list.” He turned to Dante Spiro.

“Yes, yes, Signorina McKenzie. At the farmhouse Detective Sachs found a list of the names of the victims Stefan was targeting. Ali Maziq, Malek Dadi and Khaled Jabril. Their names, their mobile numbers and the locations of the sites he was going to place them for his hanging videos. That is not how serial killers behave. No, you recruited Stefan to kidnap those men specifically. And why?”

Rhyme filled in the pause with: “Because, of course, you’re a spy.” He frowned. “I assume you people still call yourselves that, don’t you?”

Chapter 57

Charlotte McKenzie’s face continued to reveal nothing.

Rhyme originally thought that she was feigning innocence but that wasn’t accurate, he realized. Hers was the expression of someone who, though guilty as sin, didn’t care if she’d been nabbed or not. That image from before, a captured solider, came to mind again. With this qualification: a soldier who had already accomplished her mission.

Rhyme said, “I spoke to an FBI agent in New York an hour ago. I asked him to make some calls. I was particularly interested to know about a legal liaison officer with the State Department named Charlotte McKenzie. Yes, there was. But a little more digging and he hit a dead end. No specifics, no C.V. other than a generic resume. Which is exactly what happens, he told me, in a quote ‘official cover’ situation. Somebody apparently working for State is actually working for the CIA or another security agency. Legal liaison is a frequent official cover.

“I asked him to see about any U.S. security operations in Italy. A blank there too but he did find out at least that there’d been a lot of encrypted communications into and out of Naples. To and from some new government agency called the AIS. Alternative Intelligence Service, based in northern Virginia.

“Well, my theory: You’re a field agent for this AIS and were assigned to interrogate three suspected terrorists in Italy, who’d come here from Libya, pretending to be asylum-seekers. It’s happened before—an ISIS terrorist was arrested by Italian police in a refugee camp in Bari, the Puglia region—just last year.”

Her eyes said, Yes, I know. Her mouth was silent.

“Now, I’m guessing the Alternative part of your organization means you use unusual methods to detain and interrogate your suspects. You came up with the idea of using a serial killer as a cover for extraordinary rendition and interrogation. Somehow you learned about Stefan and thought he’d be a good pick for your project. You and another officer met with him in the hospital—pretending to be his aunt and uncle—and cut some kind of deal with him.

“The first snatch—in New York, the one the little girl witnessed—was fake all around. The victim was a fellow agent. You needed to make it seem like Stefan was really psychotic, with no particular interest in refugees. I thought that that kidnapping seemed odd. The vic’s girlfriend never getting back to us. Robert Ellis never seemed particularly upset about nearly being hanged by a crazy man.” Rhyme tilted his head to the side. “You had to be concerned that we were getting close to Stefan, when he was in the factory. Did you pull Fred Dellray and the FBI off the case? Make any phone calls to Washington?”