by J. D. Robb
“Have a seat. And you, Lieutenant Webster. Webster is here representing Internal Affairs. Commander Whitney is present per my request.” He turned, swooped his hawk’s gaze over the room, then moved to his desk.
“Lieutenant Dallas, it seems the HSO has some concerns about the nature of your current investigation, the direction thereof, and your techniques. They have requested, through me, that you halt the investigation and turn over all notes, data, and evidence to AD Sparrow, thereby passing this case into HSO aegis.”
“I am unable to comply with this request, Chief Tibble.”
“This is a matter of global security,” Sparrow began.
“It’s a matter of murder,” Eve interrupted. “Four civilians have been killed, in New York City.”
“Four?” Tibble asked.
“Yes, sir. I was detained due to the discovery of a fourth victim. Joseph Powell, a city employee assigned to transportation and disposal at the morgue. My partner and ME Morris are on scene.”
“How is this connected?”
“Dr. Morris contacted me this morning to inform me that the body identified as Blair Bissel had been removed from storage.”
Sparrow lunged out of his chair. “You lost the body? You lost a key factor in the investigation and you sit there and refuse to hand it over to us?”
“The body was not lost,” Eve said evenly, “but removed. Covertly. That sort of thing falls under your aegis, doesn’t it, Assistant Director?”
“If you’re accusing the HSO of stealing a corpse—”
“I’ve made no such accusation, but merely commented about the covert nature of your work.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a microtracker. “This is the sort of thing you play with, right?” She held it up, turning it between her thumb and forefinger. “Funny. I found this on my vehicle—my official police unit—which was parked outside the morgue. Does the HSO consider it a matter of global security to track and spy on a NYPSD officer while she is carrying out her sworn duty?”
“This is a sensitive matter, beyond your—”
“Electronic surveillance of a police officer, who has not been charged or is not suspected of a crime or an infraction of law,” Webster put in, “violates federal and state privacy codes as well as departmental regs. If Lieutenant Dallas is suspected of a crime or an infraction by the HSO that requires said surveillance, Internal Affairs would like to see the paperwork, the order, the charge, the evidence that led to the surveillance.”
“I am unaware of any such surveillance by my agency.”
“Is that what you call plausible deniability, Sparrow?” Eve asked. “Or just a big, fat lie?”
“Lieutenant,” Tibble said, quietly, authoritatively.
“Yes, sir. I apologize.”
“Chief, Commander, Lieutenants.” Sparrow paused, let his gaze scan the faces. “The HSO wishes to cooperate with local law enforcement whenever this cooperation is possible, but global matters take priority. We want Lieutenant Dallas removed from the investigation and all data pertaining thereto given over to me, as representative.”
“I am unable to comply with the request,” Eve repeated.
“Chief Tibble,” Sparrow continued. “I’ve given you the letter of request and authorization from the director.”
“Yes, I’ve read it. As I’ve read the reports and the case file provided by Lieutenant Dallas. Of the two, I find hers more compelling.”
“I can, if this request is denied, obtain a federal warrant for those reports and case files, and authorization to have the investigation terminated.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit here, Assistant Director.” Tibble folded his hands and leaned forward. “If you could have, you would have rather than wasting this time. Your agency is hip-deep in the mud on this. Two of yours are dead, and they were, allegedly, exploiting an innocent civilian without her knowledge or consent to gather information from a private concern.”
“Securecomp is on the agency’s watch list, Chief Tibble.”
“I can only imagine what’s on your agency’s watch list. Regardless of this, or the very legitimate reasons you may have for that list, Reva Ewing was unforgivably—and illegally—used, her reputation impugned, her life turned inside out. She is not one of you. Chloe McCoy is dead. She was not one of you. Joseph Powell is dead. He was not one of you.”
“Sir—”
Tibble merely held up a finger. “My count makes it three victims to two, weighed on this side of the fence. I will not compel my lieutenant to step out of an active investigation.”
“During the course of her investigation, your lieutenant illegally received or accessed data from the HSO. We can pursue charges on that issue.”
Tibble spread his hands. “You are free to do so. It may be necessary for you to pursue charges against Commander Whitney and myself as well, as we have both received that data from the lieutenant.”
Sparrow kept his seat, but Eve watched his hands ball into fists. The way things were going from his side, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to punch something.
“We want her source.”
“I’m not required to divulge my source.”
“You’re not required,” Sparrow snapped out the words, “but you can be charged, you can be held, and you can very possibly lose your badge.”
The more anger and frustration she read from him, the less she felt herself. “I don’t think you’re going to charge me, because if you do, it’s going to look really bad for your team. The media gets their teeth into some of the dirty little games the HSO authorized Bissel to play—and they start speculating that he was taken out, he and his partner brutally murdered by your organization, which then callously staged a frame for Bissel’s innocent and exploited wife—why they’ll just tear you to bloody pieces.”
“Bissel and Kade were not HSO-sanctioned terminations.”
“Then you really better hope I find the answers that prove your agency is not responsible.”
“You hacked into government files,” he tossed at her.
“Prove it,” she tossed right back.
He started to speak, or, more likely from his expression, spew, but his ’link beeped. “I’m sorry for the interruption, but that’s a priority signal. I have to take it. Privately.”
“Through that door,” Tibble told him with a gesture. “There’s a small office you can use.” When Sparrow closed the door at his back, Tibble tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk. “They may charge you, Dallas.”
“Yes, sir, they may. But I don’t think they will.”
He nodded, seemed to drift off into thought. “I don’t like their use of private citizens in this maneuver. I don’t like them planting devices to spy on my officers, and circumventing the standards of privacy and decency and law to do so. These organizations have their purpose, and require a certain amount of latitude, but there are lines. Those lines were crossed with Reva Ewing, and she’s a citizen of New York, of the goddamn United States, and as such has a right to expect her government to treat her fairly. As such, she deserves the full efforts of this police force. I’m backing you on this, but I’m warning you, get it wrapped quickly. They’re bound to send bigger guns than Sparrow to knock you out.”
“Understood. Thank you, sir, for your support.”
Sparrow stormed back in, and his face was a study in barely suppressed fury. “You went to the media.”
Nadine worked fast, Eve thought, and kept her face blank. She’d just fall back on a little plausible deniability herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You leaked Bissel’s association with the agency to the press. And Kade’s. You’ve involved the HSO in a goddamn media circus to protect your damn hide.”
Slowly, very slowly, Eve got to her feet. “I leaked nothing to the media to protect my hide. I can protect my own hide. You make accusations like that, Sparrow, you’d better be able to back them up.”
“They didn’t pluck it out of thin air.” He s
pun toward Tibble. “With this development, it’s more vital than ever that this officer be removed from the investigation and her case files be turned over to the HSO.”
“Media attention directed at the HSO doesn’t, in any way, alter the circumstances of my lieutenant’s position.”
“Lieutenant Dallas has a personal vendetta against the agency and is using this investigation to revenge herself for what transpired over twenty years ago in—”
“Hold it.” Her stomach shuddered. “Hold it right there. Sir,” she said to Tibble. “Assistant Director Sparrow is about to bring up a personal matter. One that has no bearing whatsoever on this investigation, or on my conduct as an officer. I’d like to discuss that matter with him, to resolve it. I request, respectfully, sir, that I be given that opportunity. In private. Commander . . .”
Don’t lose it, she ordered herself. God, don’t lose it.
“Commander Whitney is aware of the matter. I have no objection to him being present.”
Tibble said nothing for a moment, then rose. “Lieutenant Webster, let’s step out.”
“Thank you, sir.”
She used the time it took to clear the room to gather herself. And still, she couldn’t quite manage it. “You son of a bitch,” she said softly. “You son of a bitch, you’d throw that in my face. You’d use what was done to me—by him, by your precious agency—to get your way in this.”
“I apologize.” He seemed nearly as shaken as she. “I apologize, sincerely, Lieutenant, for allowing my temper to cloud my judgment. The incident has no place here.”
“Oh yes, it does. You bet your ass it does. You read the file?”
“I read it.”
“And you stomached it.”
“Actually, Lieutenant Dallas, I couldn’t quite stomach it. I believe in the work we do, and I know that sometimes sacrifices have to be made, that choices are made that seem—that are—cold. However, I could find no rationale, no purpose, no excuse for the lack of intervention in your case. Knowingly leaving a minor in that situation was . . . inhumane. You should have been removed, and the decision to leave status quo was ill-advised.”
“The HSO was aware of your situation in Texas?” Whitney asked.
“They were surveilling him, due to his connection with Max Ricker. They knew what he did to me, they listened to it. They listened while he raped me, and while I begged. While I begged.”
“Sit down, Dallas.”
She could only shake her head. “Can’t. Sir.”
“Do you know what I’ll do with this information, AD Sparrow?”
“Commander,” Eve began.
“Stand down, Lieutenant.” Whitney pushed to his feet, towered over Sparrow. “Do you, or your superiors, understand what I can and will do with this information if you continue to harass my officer, or in any way attempt to infringe on her duties or smear her reputation? It won’t be leaked to the media. It’ll be flooded to them. You will be washed away in the tidal wave of the public outcry. Your agency will need generations to recover from the legal tangle and the public relations nightmare. You take that back to whoever holds your leash, and you make sure they know who it came from. Then, if you want to take me on, you come ahead.”
“Commander Whitney—”
“You’re going to want to walk away now, Sparrow,” Whitney warned. “Walk away before you end up taking the punch for something that happened when you were still drooling on your bib.”
Sparrow walked over to retrieve his briefcase. “I’ll relay this information,” he said and went out.
“You need to pull yourself together, Dallas.”
“Sir. Yes, sir.” But the pressure in her chest was outrageous. In defense, she dropped into a chair, lowered her head between her knees. “Sorry. Can’t breathe.”
She waited until the worst of the weight eased and air squeezed down her throat, into her lungs.
“Steady it out, Lieutenant, or I’m going to have to call the MTs.” She sat up, had him nodding. “Thought that would do it. Need water?”
She could have swallowed a small ocean of it. “No, sir. Thank you. I understand that Chief Tibble may need to be apprised of—”
“If Tibble needs to be apprised of incidents that took place in another state more than two decades ago, he will be so apprised. But in my judgment this is a personal matter. I think you can rest assured it will stay one. You fired the first volley with the media leak. They’ll have their hands full trying to spin and swim through that. They won’t want to risk a second whirlwind. You’d already calculated all that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’d better get back to work and close this up. And if you have to fry a few spooks along the way, that’s just a nice bonus.” He showed his teeth in a grin. “A real nice bonus.”
17 EVE WALKED OUT on the garage level at central, and laid her hand on her weapon as Quinn Sparrow stepped out from behind a column.
“You take chances, Sparrow.”
“You don’t know the half of it. I shouldn’t be speaking to you outside of authorized parameters, Lieutenant. But between us, we’ve got a hell of a mess on our hands. You won’t back off so we have to find some level ground, some area of compromise.”
“I’ve got four bodies. Well, had four.” She eased her hand away from her weapon and moved toward her vehicle. “I don’t compromise.”
“Two of those bodies are ours. You may not think much of our organization, of me, of our directives, but it matters when we lose people.”
“Let’s get this straight. What I think or don’t about your organization isn’t relevant, but the fact is I’m not naive enough to think it doesn’t serve a purpose. Covert operations helped end the Urban Wars, prevented numerous terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and globally. I might find some of your methods questionable, at best, but that’s beside the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“You wired, Sparrow?”
“You paranoid, Dallas?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I’m not wired,” he snapped. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
“Your choice. Here’s the point. Four people are dead, and your organization is part of it.”
“The HSO does not murder its own operatives, then frame a civilian.”
“No?” She lifted her eyebrows as she slid a scanner out of her pocket. “They just sit back and watch while a child is brutalized, raped, and tortured, then tidy up after her when she takes a life desperately defending her own. When she’s traumatized and broken. And they leave her alone, to wander the streets.”
“I don’t know what happened.” He looked away from her. “I don’t know why. You’ve read the file, so you know data was deleted. Covered up. I’m not denying it, or the poor judgment of—”
“Poor judgment?”
“There’s nothing I can say to you. Nothing that can balance the scales after what was done. No excuses I can make, so I won’t make them. But I will say, as you have to me, that’s not the point.”
“Score one for you.” She moved away from him to run a program on the scanner, checking her car for devices. “I’m pissed, Sparrow, and I’m tired, and it’s very, very difficult for me to accept that strangers know my private business. Because of that, I’ve got no reason to trust you, or the people you work for.”
“I’d like to try to give you one, and to find some area of compromise that will satisfy us both. But I’ve got to ask you, where the hell did you get that thing?”
She found herself amused, and she hadn’t expected to be, by the look of fascination and avarice on his face. “I have my connections.”
“I’ve never seen one quite like it. Very compact. Will it multitask? Sorry.” He laughed a little. “I’m big on gadgets. One of the reasons I got into this line of work. Look, if you’re satisfied your car’s clear, maybe we could take a ride. I’ll give you some data that may convince you to find that compromise.”
“Open the briefcase.”
“Jesus, Sparrow, got enough hardware?”
She saw a stunner, a miniblaster, a complex little palm ’link, a recharger, and the smallest data system she’d ever come across. There was also a number of the same sort of tracking devices she’d taken off her vehicle earlier in the day.
She took one out, held it up, and looked him dead in the eye.
He gave her a winning smile. “I didn’t say the tracker you removed from your vehicle wasn’t HSO, I just said I was unaware of any directive to place said tracker on your vehicle.”
“Smooth.” She tossed the tracker back in the briefcase, and watched as Sparrow meticulously fit it back in its slot.
It occurred to her that under other circumstances he and Roarke would have bonded like brothers.
“I like gadgets,” he repeated. “I didn’t bug your vehicle. That’s not to say I—or someone else from the organization—won’t do so if ordered, but I didn’t lay the tracker today. Nothing in here’s activated. Your scanner will verify.”
When it did, she looked him up and down. “What about you?”
“I’ve got a lot on me.” He held his arms out to the side for the scanner. “All deactivated. You see, we’re not having this conversation. We will have had it if the outcome’s satisfactory. Otherwise, we left things up in Tibble’s office.”
Eve shook her head. “Get in. I’m heading uptown. I don’t like what you have to say, I’ll dump you in the most inconvenient spot I can manage. And I know all the inconvenient spots in this city.”
He got in the passenger seat. “You really mucked up the works with that media leak.”
She sent him her version of a winning smile. “I don’t believe I confirmed playing any part in any media leak.” She set the scanner on the seat beside her, activated. “Just in case you decide to flip something on,” she said when Sparrow frowned at it.
“With that level of cynicism and paranoia, you ought to be one of us.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Start talking.”