Malcolm looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at Collins, who was staring at the floor now, at the package, at anywhere but the man in the chair.
"Officer Collins," Malcolm said, very quietly, "when you opened my suitcase, was the red seal intact?"
The silence that followed was the loudest sound in the room.
Collins did not answer. Hale did not answer. The fluorescent panels hummed. The package sat on the steel table, white and wrapped and suddenly, impossibly, the least important thing in the room.
Because everyone in that glass box was now thinking about the same small red tag, hanging unbroken from the zipper pull, numbered 81427, and what it meant that none of them wanted to talk about it.
Chapter Ten
You Do Not Get to Interrogate Us
"You do not get to interrogate us."
Hale said it loudly, as if volume could restore the shape of the room. His face had gone from pink to red, and a vein stood out at his temple. He planted both hands on the stainless steel table and leaned toward Malcolm, looming over the package, trying to make his size do what his authority was failing to do.
Malcolm regarded him with the mild interest of a man watching weather change.
"I asked which room," Malcolm said. "That is the third time."
"It matters a great deal." Malcolm shifted in the chair, and the bolts in the floor gave a small metallic complaint. "Evidence has a history. If you cannot describe that history, you do not have evidence. You have a story."
"We have two kilos of narcotics on this table."
"You have a package on this table." Malcolm's voice stayed level. "You have not tested it. You have not weighed it on a certified scale in my presence. You have not logged it with an evidence number that I have seen. What you have, Captain, is a plastic wrapped bundle and a great deal of confidence."
Hale straightened up, breathing hard. "Camera number?" he said suddenly, seizing on the one question he could answer with bluster instead of facts. "You want camera numbers? Fine. There are cameras everywhere in this airport. You're on half a dozen of them right now."
"Then preserving the footage should be simple," Malcolm said. "I would like the footage from Carousel Nine, from screening corridor C, from secondary baggage room two, from this interview room, and from the service hallway behind inspection. I would also like the X ray image taken before Officer Collins opened the suitcase, and every routing scan associated with baggage tag 003918471."
He recited the list the way other men recited lunch orders, calmly and without notes, and with each item Hale's expression tightened.
"You seem very interested in cameras," Hale said.
"I am."
"You think a camera is going to save you?"
Malcolm looked up at the dome camera in the corner, then at the one above the door, then through the glass at the one in the outer corridor. "I think," he said, "that cameras are the only witnesses here who cannot be coached."
It was a generous framing, and Malcolm knew Hale would not take it that way. Men like Hale heard generosity as condescension, because they had spent so long confusing authority with respect.
Behind Hale, Collins had gone pale, and his eyes kept darting to the seal on the suitcase and away again, as if the small red tag were too bright to look at directly.
Malcolm noticed. Of course he noticed.
"Officer Collins," Malcolm said, "do you remember the seal?"
Collins's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"It was on the secondary zipper pull," Malcolm continued, helpful as a teacher. "Bright red. Numbered 81427. I applied it myself in Washington, less than two hours before you opened the suitcase. Was it intact when you opened the bag?"
"Stop," Hale said. "Stop asking him questions."
"Why?" Malcolm turned his calm gaze on the captain. "If the search was lawful and the evidence is real, his answers can only help you."
The logic was simple and airtight, and Hale had no response to it that did not sound like an admission. So Hale did what cornered men so often did. He got louder.
"Turn around," he barked at Malcolm. "Hands behind your back."
Collins flinched. Malcolm did not move.
"Am I under arrest, Captain?"
"You will be if you don't cooperate."
"That is not how it works." Malcolm remained seated, hands folded. "You do not get to use handcuffs as punctuation. Either you have probable cause, in which case you should state it and read me my rights, or you do not, in which case I am free to leave."