“What were you going to do with her?” Sachs asked.

“I didn’t really know,” Swann said. “I didn’t know.”

Chapter 92

CHAPTER 92

THE SITE WAS SECURE, Shreve Metzger had been told, and he piloted his government car from the staging area a few blocks away through the trim streets to the home of his administrations director.

His friend.

His Judas.

Metzger was astonished to see that the man’s pleasant suburban house, where he’d had dinner two weeks ago, looked like some of the battlefield locales he remembered from Iraq, except for the lush grass and the Lexuses and Mercs parked on the street nearby. Trees smoldered and smoke dribbled skyward from Boston’s windows. The smell would be in the walls for years, even after painting. And forget the furniture and clothing.

Metzger’s own brand of Smoke filled him. He thought again for the hundredth time that day: How could you have done this, Spencer?

As with anybody who had affronted him—from rude coffee vendor to someone like this traitor—Metzger felt a mousetrap snap, a nearly overwhelming urge to grab them, shatter their bones, scream, draw blood. Utterly destroy.

But then, thinking that Boston’s life as he’d lived it would be over with, Metzger decided that was punishment enough. The Smoke within him faded.

A good sign, Dr. Fischer?

Probably it was. But would the serenity last? Maybe, maybe not. Why did all the important battles have to be lifetime battles? Weight, anger, love…

He flashed an ID at a couple of local uniforms and ducked under the tape, walking toward Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs.

He greeted them and then learned his administrations director’s motive for leaking the STO. The sin arose not from conscience or ideology or money. But simply because he was passed over for the job of head of NIOS.

Metzger was stunned. For one thing, Boston was totally wrong for the senior job. For all his scrawny physique and bland eyes, Metzger was a killer. Whatever makes your own personal Smoke go away defines you.

Spencer Boston, on the other hand, was a diligent and meticulous national security professional, an organizer, a player, a dealer, a man who got things done in the hazy streets of Managua or Rio. Who didn’t own a gun and wouldn’t know how to use one—or have the guts to do so.

What on earth would he do with an organization like NIOS, whose sole purpose was to end lives?

But ambition doesn’t grow from logic, Metzger knew.