Authors: Jeffery Deaver
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Thrillers, #Short Stories, #Short Stories (Single Author)
A Textbook Case (11 page)
No more flashes, no more glints.
You’re safe. Of course you are.
But still Moreno remained wary. Like Martin Luther King, like Gandhi, he was always at risk. This was the way of his life. He wasn’t afraid of death. But he was afraid of dying before his work was done. And at this young age he still had much to do. For instance, the event he’d just finished organizing an hour or so ago—a significant one, sure to get a lot of people’s attention—was merely one of a dozen planned for the next year.
And beyond, an abundant future loomed.
Dressed in a modest tan suit, a white shirt and royal blue tie—oh, so Caribbean—the stocky man now filled two cups from the coffeepot that room service had just delivered and returned to the couch. He handed one to the reporter, who was setting up a tape recorder.
“Señor de la Rua. Some milk? Sugar?”
“No, thank you.”
They were speaking in Spanish, in which Moreno was fluent. He hated English and only spoke it when he needed to. He’d never quite shucked the New Jersey accent when he was speaking in his native tongue, “hehr” for “her,” “mirrah” for “mirror,” “gun” for “gone.” The tones of his own voice took him right back to his early days in the States—his father working long hours and living life sober, his mother spending long hours not. Bleak landscapes, bullies from a nearby high school. Until salvation: the family’s move to a place far kinder than South Hills, a place where even the language was softer and more elegant.
The reporter said, “But call me Eduardo. Please.”
“And I’m Roberto.”
The name was really “Robert” but that smacked of lawyers on Wall Street and politicians in Washington and generals on the battlefields sowing foreign ground with the bodies of the locals like cheap seeds.
Hence,
Roberto
.
“You live in Argentina,” Moreno said to the journalist, who was a slight man, balding and dressed in a tie-less blue shirt and threadbare black suit. “Buenos Aires?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you know about the name of the city?”
De la Rua said no; he wasn’t a native.
“The meaning is ‘good air,’ of course,” Moreno said. He read extensively—several books a week, much of it Latin American literature and history. “But the air referred to was in
Sardinia
, Italy, not Argentina. So called after a settlement on top of a hill in Cagliari. The settlement was above the, let us say, pungent smells of the old city and was accordingly named
Buen Ayre
. The Spanish explorer who discovered what became Buenos Aires named it after that settlement. Of course that was the
first
settlement of the city. They were wiped out by the natives, who didn’t enjoy the exploitation by Europe.”
De la Rua said, “Even your anecdotes have a decidedly anti-colonial flavor.”
Moreno laughed. But the humor vanished and he looked quickly out the window again.
That damn glint of light. Still, though, he could see nothing but trees and plants in the garden and that hazy line of land a mile away. The inn was on the largely deserted southwest coast of New Providence, the island in the Bahamas where Nassau was located. The grounds were fenced and guarded. And the garden was reserved for this suite alone and protected by a high fence to the north and south, with the beach to the west.
No one was there. No one could be there.
A bird, perhaps. A flutter of leaf.
Simon had checked the grounds not long ago. Moreno glanced at him now, a large, quiet Brazilian, dark-complected, wearing a nice suit—Moreno’s guard dressed better than he did, though not flashy. Simon, in his thirties, looked appropriately dangerous, as one would expect, and want, in this profession but he wasn’t a thug. He’d been an officer in the army, before going civilian as a security expert.
He was also very good at his job. Simon’s head swiveled; he’d become aware of his boss’s gaze and immediately stepped to the window, looking out.
“Just a flash of light,” Moreno explained.
The bodyguard suggested drawing the shades.
“I think not.”
Moreno had decided that Eduardo de la Rua, who’d flown here coach class at his own expense from the city of good air, deserved to enjoy the beautiful view. He wouldn’t get to experience much luxury, as a hardworking journalist known for reporting the truth, rather than producing puff pieces for corporate officials and politicians. Moreno also decided to take the man to a very nice meal at the South Cove Inn’s fine restaurant for lunch.
Simon gazed outside once more, returned to his chair and picked up a magazine.
De la Rua clicked on the tape recorder. “Now, may I?”
“Please.” Moreno turned his full attention to the journalist.
“Mr. Moreno, your Local Empowerment Movement has just opened an office in Argentina, the first in the country. Could you tell me how you conceived the idea? And what your group does?”
Moreno had given this lecture dozens of times. It varied, based on the particular journalist or audience, but the core was simple: to encourage indigenous people to reject U.S. government and corporate influence by becoming self-sufficient, notably through microlending, microagriculture and microbusiness.
He now told the reporter, “We resist American corporate development. And the government’s aid and social programs, whose purpose, after all, is simply to addict us to their values. We are not viewed as human beings; we are viewed as a source of cheap labor and a market for American goods. Do you see the vicious cycle? Our people are exploited in American-owned factories and then seduced into buying products from those same companies.”
The journalist said, “I’ve written much about business investment in Argentina and other South American countries. And I know about your movement, which also makes such investments. One could argue you rail against capitalism yet you embrace it.”
Moreno brushed his longish hair, black and prematurely gray. “No, I rail against the
misuse
of capitalism—the
American
misuse of capitalism in particular. I am using business as a weapon. Only fools rely on ideology exclusively for change. Ideas are the rudder. Money is the propeller.”
The reporter smiled. “I will use that as my lead. Now, some people say, I’ve read some people say you are a revolutionary.”
“Ha, I’m a loudmouth, that’s all I am!” The smile faded. “But mark my words, while the world is focusing on the Middle East, everyone has missed the birth of a far more powerful force: Latin America. That’s what I represent. The new order. We can’t be ignored any longer.”
Roberto Moreno rose and stepped to the window.
Crowning the garden was a poisonwood tree, about forty feet tall. He stayed in this suite often and he liked the tree very much. Indeed, he felt a camaraderie with it. Poisonwoods are formidable, resourceful and starkly beautiful. They are also, as the name suggests, toxic. The pollen or smoke from burning the wood and leaves could slip into the lungs, searing with agony. And yet the tree nourishes the beautiful Bahamian swallowtail butterfly, and white-crowned pigeons live off the fruit.
I am like this tree, Moreno thought. A good image for the article perhaps. I’ll mention this too—
The glint again.
In a tiny splinter of a second: A flicker of movement disturbed the tree’s sparse leaves, and the tall window in front of him exploded. Glass turned to a million crystals of blowing snow, fire blossomed in his chest.
Moreno found himself lying on the couch, which had been five feet behind him.
But… but what happened here? What is this? I’m fainting, I’m fainting.
I can’t breathe.
He stared at the tree, now clearer, so much clearer, without the window glass filtering the view. The branches waved in the sweet wind off the water. Leaves swelling, receding. It was breathing for him. Because he couldn’t, not with his chest on fire. Not with the pain.
Shouts, cries for help around him.
Blood, blood everywhere.
Sun setting, sky going darker and darker. But isn’t it morning? Moreno had images of his wife, his teenage son and daughter. His thoughts dissolved until he was aware of only one thing: the tree.
Poison and strength, poison and strength.
The fire within him was easing, vanishing. Tearful relief.
Darkness becoming darker.
The poisonwood tree.
Poisonwood…
Poison…
For more information about THE KILL ROOM, you can visit Jeffery Deaver’s website:
The Kill Room
*
Carte Blanche, a James Bond Novel
Edge
The Burning Wire
*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009
(Editor)
The Watch List
(The Copper Bracelet and The Chopin Manuscript) (Contributor)
Roadside Crosses
**
The Bodies Left Behind
The Broken Window
*
The Sleeping Doll
**
More Twisted: Collected Stories,
Volume Two
The Twelfth Card
*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories
The Vanished Man
*
The Stone Monkey
*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair
*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil’s Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer
*
The Bone Collector
*
A Maiden’s Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death
Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell’s Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories
(Editor)
A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime
(Editor)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(Introduction)
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest e-books and apps, sign up for our newsletter.
Or visit us at
hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
*
Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs
**
Featuring Kathryn Dance
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Gunner Publications LLC
Excerpt from
The Kill Room
© 2013 by Gunner Publications LLC
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub
First e-book edition: April 2013
Grand Central Publishing is an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to
www.hachettespeakersbureau.com
or call (866) 376-6591.
ISBN 978-1-4555-2683-3