And the whole affair would have been quiet as a snake’s sleep, if not for the whistleblower.

The traitor.

Blinded by the Smoke, Metzger intercommed his assistant and picked up his coffee again.

All your intel was buttoned up, double- and triple-checked…

Well, about that…

Metzger now told himself, Think the situation through: You’ve made some calls, you’ve sent some texts. Clean-up was well under way.

“You, ah, all right, Shreve?” Ruth’s eyes were on his fingers around the cardboard cup. Metzger realized he was about to crush it and send tepid coffee over his sleeve and several files that only a dozen people in the whole of America were authorized to read.

He released the death grip and managed a smile. “Yes, sure. Long night.”

His personal assistant was in her early sixties, a long, attractive face, still dusted with faint freckles, making her appear younger. She’d been, he’d learned, a flower child decades ago. Summer of Love in San Francisco. Living in the Haight. Now her gray hair was, as often, pulled back in a severe bun and she wore bands of colored rubber on her wrists, bracelets signifying support for various causes. Breast cancer, hope, reconciliation. Who could tell? He wished she wouldn’t; messages like that, even if ambiguous, seemed inappropriate in a government agency with a mission like NIOS’s.

“Is Spencer here yet?” he asked her.

“About a half hour, he said.”

“Have him come to see me as soon as he’s in.”

“All right. Anything else I can do?”

“No, thank you.”

When Ruth had left the office and closed the door, leaving a trail of patchouli oil scent behind her, Metzger sent a few more texts and received some.

One was encouraging.

At least it thinned the Smoke a bit.

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

RHYME NOTED NANCE LAUREL scrutinizing her face in the dim mirror of the gas chromatograph’s metal housing. She gave no reaction to what she was seeing. She didn’t seem like a primping woman.

She turned and asked Sellitto and Rhyme, “How do you suggest we proceed?”

In Rhyme’s mind the case was already laid out clearly. He answered, “I’ll run the crime scene as best I can. Sachs and Lon’ll find out what they can about NIOS, Metzger and the other conspirator—the sniper. Sachs, start a chart. Add the cast of characters on there, even if we don’t know very much.”

She took a marker and walked to an empty whiteboard, jotted the sparse information.

Sellitto said, “I wanna track down the whistleblower too. That could be tough. He knows he’ll be at risk. He didn’t tip off the press that some company’s using shitty wheat in their breakfast cereal; he’s accusing the government of committing murder. Amelia, you?”