Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(33)

As he thought about it, Feeney snagged a few almonds out of a lopsided bowl. “Any chance the kid’s a hostage?”

“Doesn’t feel like it. This wit? He’d have noticed if the kid came in under duress. They checked into the hotel together, had already requested that particular room. Stayed the night, stayed through the morning. That’s planning and patience. And it’s lying in wait. So I ask myself: Why this kid? You took me.”

Sipping coffee, Feeney nodded. “You had juice.”

“I was green.”

“You never had much green on you. I saw potential, guts, a working brain—cop’s brain. Maybe a little bit of me there, back in the day. And you wanted Homicide. You took Peabody,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, and thinking on that. I can’t say I saw any me in her, but I saw potential, and that working cop brain. I figured, give her a shot at Homicide—because she wanted it—and try her out as my aide. Then it fit, that’s all. We fit.”

“She’s got you in her. A sunnier outlook, and that Free-Ager base, but she doesn’t quit. And it’s not just the job matters. It’s the victim. You saw some of that, or you might’ve put her into a cube in Homicide. You wouldn’t have set yourself up to train her.”

“Yeah. I guess. Yeah. So there’s maybe some of the adult in the kid. The potential to kill. You took me, I took Peabody—and I gave Baxter Trueheart—but there’s more than the potential, all three trainees were already cops.”

With a nod, Feeney gulped some coffee. “You’re wondering if the kid’s already a killer.”

“You don’t pick an apprentice out of the air. You don’t take them on because they’re handy. Where’d they find each other? The adult suspect has to have police or military training, almost has to have been in uniform. So, do you pick this kid off the street, out of some war zone?”

“There’s another choice.”

“I know it. They’re related. Father and son, uncle, older brother, distant fricking cousins. I get the description I can run it through Missing Persons, see if anyone’s looking for a teenager. Let’s say they’re connected, why train to kill? This doesn’t come off as a pro—none of the three victims had anything worth the hire. And there are a lot less visible ways to do a training exercise if you’re heading up a fricking assassin’s school. This comes off personal.”

“A lot easier ways to kill for personal reasons.”

“Damn right.”

“Unless this is what you do.” Companionably, Feeney nudged the wobbly bowl toward her. “Not an assassin for hire, but a sniper—police or military. That’s where you’re leaning anyway.”

On a long breath, Eve nodded. It helped to have him lean where she did. “Yeah, that’s where. You take on the trainee because you want him to share what you do, you want to give him something maybe. You want to see something of you in him. The age difference . . .”

“More like you and me.” Feeney nodded. “I never worked an LDSK with a partner, or with a trainee, but I’d say the trainee has to show a—what’s it—propensity for the work, and some skill, and the same cold blood. You can’t teach the cold blood, Dallas. It’s just got to be there.”

And again, he helped to hear him say what muttered in her mind.

“How’d they pick and train snipers during the Urbans?”

“Same way they do now, I’d say. You’ve got to have the skill, the control. You have to be able to see a human being as a target. You don’t take that target until you get the green, and when you do get the green, you don’t hesitate.”

“Whoever made those strikes didn’t hesitate,” Eve said. “And they won’t hesitate when they get the green again.”

—

Working out the oral report in her head, Eve headed to Commander Whitney’s office. Whitney’s admin gave her a nod, held up one finger to signal for her to wait. Then tapped her ear-link.

“Lieutenant Dallas, Commander. Yes, sir. Go right in, Lieutenant.”

He sat behind his desk, a big man with broad shoulders that carried the weight of command. His wide dark face was set in sober lines as he watched Eve come in.

“I’ve kept you out of this morning’s media conference, as you were in the field. Tell me you have something.”

“I have the nest, I have a description of two suspects, and Detective Yancy is working with the witness.”

Whitney sat back. “That’s more than something. Details.”

She gave them all, quickly, to the point, and on her feet.

“A teenage apprentice,” Whitney murmured. “It wouldn’t be the first time. The D.C. snipers,” he told her. “Early twenty-first century. The Ozarks snipers, 2030 to ’31. Brothers, the younger barely thirteen when they began.”

Eve made a mental note to research both cases.

“When we have the sketches, we’ll release them, and this time you’ll need to participate in the media conference. Stand by while I contact Kyung. We want to set this up carefully.”

She wanted to work, wanted her board, wanted to think it through, but she stood, as ordered, and waited.

—

While Eve waited, so did the apprentice. Mixed with the cold blood was a hot thread of anticipation. This time it would be different. This time the knowledge of how it felt, how that power pumped from finger to target colored all.