if he had died of natural causes. They did not want a murder. Otherwise, they could have hired a sniper to shoot him from Lafayette Park. When you destroyed that scenario, they were forced to target someone else, to make the Wilson death seem like the first high-profile strike of a hypodermic serial killer who was chasing down wealthy businessmen. Lawless happened to be the man she picked.'
'What makes you think that Lawless was an arbitrary choice?' McCaskey asked his wife.
'Look at the dissimilarities in the approach to the death,' the former Interpol agent told him. 'William Wilson had bodyguards. The assassin had to approach him as a lover to get past them and make sure they stayed away. And because she was the lover of a high-profile individual, the hotel staff would have made a point of paying her very little attention. She came to the hotel, they did their business, she left all of it relatively invisible. Tonight was different. Listen to these interviews,' she said, pointing at the TV. 'The woman spoke with another man in the courtyard but never looked up at him. The dead man's assistant noticed her, but she did not let him see her face. She was being very cautious.'
'Right. She did not want to be identified, because she was waiting to kill him,' her husband said.
'No. After the killing, she got off on the mezzanine,' Maria said.
'She had already cased out the hotel, knew how to leave with minimum visibility. Why do that and then go back outside and expose herself to all of this scrutiny? If Lawless had been the intended target all along, she could have posed as his wife or daughter and gotten into the room. She could have ambushed a housekeeper and taken a master key.
She could have knocked on his door after he had gone in. Who would not admit a young woman? She could have used a syringe to inject hydrochloric acid into the lock to dissolve it. She took none of those safer routes because our assassin did not know Lawless was going to be her victim. Not until she spoke with him, found out he was successful enough to fit the serial killer motif she or whoever hired her had invented, and learned that he was staying in the hotel alone.'
McCaskey was silent while he processed everything his wife had said.
'You're saying that making this appear to be a pattern actually underscores the uniqueness of the first hit,' McCaskey said.
'That is how I see it,' Maria replied.
'It's possible,' he muttered after a long, long moment. 'Dammit, it really is. Brava, my love.'
She smiled at him.
'Paul, did you hear any of that?'
'I did, Darrell, and I'm still processing it,' Hood told him. 'But tell Maria 'well done.'
'Thank you!' she said from under her husband's arm.
'It sounds like we're going to have to stay involved with this, then,'
Hood said.
'Maybe even deeper than we were before,' McCaskey said.
If Maria had nailed this, they were not looking at a vengeful escort or industrial espionage. They were looking at something strongly reminiscent of what the FBI called an IOS, an improvised operational scenario. One in which the carefully devised plans for a strike team, undercover personnel, or sometimes both had to be quickly and effectively reconfigured because something had gone wrong.
An operation that was traditionally handled by seasoned intelligence personnel.
TWENTY
Washington, B.C. TUesday, 7:13 a.m.
Paul Hood had gone home for a long sleep, shower, then returned to Op-Center. He was wiped out from a day that was spent mostly with Ron Plummer, reviewing the restructuring of Op-Center. The investigation was also draining. It was not just a chess game but a chess game on multiple levels. Overinvolvement to help Scotland Yard might damage relations with the Metro Police. A concession to the police might weaken Hood's credibility not just with the Yard but with other intelligence agencies. Spending money on a non-core operation might hurt Hood's standing with the CIOC and with Op-Center employees who were going to be hard-pressed to do their existing jobs. In one sense, it was a hell of a challenge. In another, it was daunting and exhausting.
The previous afternoon had been so full that Hood did not have an opportunity to call his former wife. When he finally did have the time, it was nearly eleven p.m. Sharon would probably be asleep or with Jim Hunt. In any case,
