The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  She jerked a shoulder. “Maybe he’d have done the same, and maybe he knows I’d do the same again, given the same circumstances. But it was a hell of a screwup, and a righteous ripping. It won’t come down on Trueheart.”

  “He’d handle it if he had do. Appreciate you seeing it doesn’t. How much of a punch are you going to take?”

  “Written and oral reports to the review board. Fuck. Might get myself a departmental censure in my file. I can back up my actions, justify the call, but they won’t like it, and will like it less when the civil suits start piling up.”

  “You collar three mercenary terrorists responsible for the deaths of twelve people—including cops—the heat gets turned way down.”

  “Yeah. The same way if I don’t get them soon, the heat keeps heading up. I’ll handle it; I’m not a whiner either. But I want these fucking guys, Baxter.”

  She turned to the door as the rest of the team began to arrive. “If you’re going to eat, get it and chow it down fast,” she ordered. “We’ve got a lot to go over in a short amount of time.”

  Briefings and reports, cop chatter and coffee. And the chatter cut off, as if a knife had sliced down, when Don Webster, Internal Affairs Bureau, strolled in.

  “Morning, boys and girls. Dallas, you should’ve sold tickets to that show last night.”

  “I thought this briefing was reserved for real cops.”

  At Baxter’s comment, Eve shook her head in warning. She’d been expecting IAB to poke its sharp nose in. If it had to be IAB, Webster was a mixed bag. She trusted him, as she trusted no one else in that sector. But they had a dicey personal history, and she didn’t need a former lover and Roarke butting heads again.

  “There’s data on this case that’s on a need-to-know basis,” she began.

  “The Tower,” he said, referring to Chief of Police Tibble’s office, “has decided I need to know. You’ve got considerable OT banked on this, multiple injuries civilian and department, property damage. You’ve got multiple dead civilians and two dead cops.”

  He waited a moment, scanned the faces in the room. “You’ve been questioning the investigating officers on other cases, one of which is closed. IAB needs to know. And I’m going to say this here and now, to all of you before the record goes on, that I’m not here to bust anybody’s balls for doing what needs to be done to get the bastards responsible for Knight and Preston. I pulled some levers to get this duty. I’ve worked Homicide. I’ve worked with you,” he said to Eve. “It’s me or somebody who hasn’t.”

  “The devil we know,” Eve said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Find a seat. You’ll have to catch up.”

  She continued the briefing, picking her way carefully now through data Roarke had gained. “We believe Kirkendall, Clinton, and Isenberry executed individuals on a freelance basis for various covert agencies. We have reason to believe they were connected to the terrorist group Cassandra.”

  “How do you come by that?” Webster asked.

  She’d barely hesitated when Feeney spoke up. “It’s data we were able to extrapolate from the military files provided,” he said smoothly. “EDD knows how to do its job, and this team knows how to put a case together.”

  “With the Cassandra connection,” Eve continued, “these individuals had access to weaponry, electronics, and funds. The philosophy of this group—a world order in their image—correlates to the personal philosophy displayed by Kirkendall. His family was made to perform according to his specifications, his orders, or was disciplined accordingly. We know, through the statement given to Detectives Peabody and McNab by Roxanne Turnbill, that she was abducted and tortured by Kirkendall after his wife’s disappearance. The time elapsed makes it likely she was taken to a location in or near the city. Cassandra operated and had a base in New York last year.”

  “The current murders don’t seem to be part of a terrorist threat,” Webster put in.

  “No, they’re personal. Screw with me, I don’t just screw with you—I kill you and your whole family. It’s not revenge. It’s pride. Who insulted his pride?”

  “Everyone he’s killed had a part in it,” Peabody commented.

  “No, not everyone.”

  “Well, the kid.” McNab glanced toward the door as if she might be listening on the other side.

  “No. He wants her dead because his mission isn’t complete until that time. His wife. It’s his wife who dared to oppose him, dared to not only walk out with his kids, but who took him through the embarrassment of a custody trial. Who won. And who got away clean.”

  “He can’t find her.” Peabody spread her hands. “Neither can we.”

  Eve thought of Roarke. He could, given the time, he could. But she wasn’t going to endanger another family. “We can make him think we have her. It’ll take a while to set up. Find a female cop who can handle it, one close to her build. We can use some enhancements, but she doesn’t have to look identical. If he can have facial sculpting, he’d buy she could, too. We’d have to leak it so he didn’t suspect it’s a leak. And we’ve been pretty damn careful so far, so we’d need to trickle it.”

  “Need a location.” Feeney pulled on his lip as he took up the thought. “Secure, so he’d buy we were holding her. Lure him in, box him in, shut him down. With the equipment and know-how he’s got, you’ve got a hell of a trick on your hands, Dallas.”

  “We put it together. I want it together within thirty-six hours, another twelve for sims. When we lay this trap out, I want it to spring shut right on their necks. Feeney, you and McNab take the computer lab.”

  “We’ll get on it.”

  “The rest of you, give me five minutes with Lieutenant Webster.”

  She waited until the room emptied and the door clicked closed. “This investigation, and last night’s events, are my responsibility. The chief, IAB, or God Himself wants to file a complaint, it’s on me.”

  “So noted. I said I wasn’t here to bust balls, and I meant it. The Duberry case, I’ve had a look at the files. While I wouldn’t call the investigation sloppy, I’d call it narrow. Brenegan? It looked like a righteous bust that resulted in a righteous conviction. But this data calls that into question.”

  “The cops on those cases complained to IAB?”

  “Cops don’t complain to IAB,” he returned with the slightest of sneers. “You avoid us like a case of the clap. But we get wind. Fact is, Dallas, if the primary on Duberry had done a more thorough job, scratched out that connection to Moss, then back to Brenegan, this hunt might’ve started a year ago.”

  “Figuring a connect between a strangulation and a car bomb’s a stretch.”

  “You made the stretch.”

  “I had more. If you’re looking for fuel against another cop on this from me, you’re not going to get it.”

  “That’s up to his superiors, not IAB. Regarding the media that’s going to . . . has already started to explode on the incident last night, you spin that right—and you’ve got excellent media connections—you can circle it into a positive. Heroic cop risks life to protect the city from baby killers.”

  “Oh fuck that.”

  “Don’t think that’s not just how Tibble will have it spun. Not just your ass in the sling if you don’t get some shine on this. Turn it around, get that sexy, fierce-eyed face on camera. Shake this off so you can get back to work.”

  “I am back to work.” But she considered. “The spin lower the heat on the rest of the team, on the investigation?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. It couldn’t hurt if you tell the rest of your team to cut me some serious slack. I was a good murder cop.”

  “Yeah, too bad you didn’t stick with that.”

  “Your opinion. I can help, and that’s why I’m here. Not to roust you, and not because I’ve still got a torch going. Maybe just a little smoulder now and then,” he added with an easy smile.

  “Cut it out.”

  The door between the offices opened. Though Roarke leaned against the
jamb, he looked about as lazy as a wolf eyeballing quarry. “Webster,” he said in the coolest of tones.

  Eve had a flash of the two of them beating the crap out of each other right where she now stood. She felt the tickle that might have been panic in the back of her throat as she stepped between them.

  “Lieutenant Webster is here—at the directive of Chief Tibble—as a representative of IAB and for the purposes of—”

  “Christ, Dallas, I can talk for myself.” And he held his hands up, palms out. “Never touched her, don’t intend to.”

  “Good. She’s on a difficult investigation, as I’m sure you’re aware. She hardly needs either of us complicating things.”

  “I’m not here to complicate things for her, or you.”

  “Standing right here,” Eve said sharply. “You can stop talking around me.”

  “Just clearing the air, Lieutenant.” Roarke nodded to her, to Webster. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “A minute,” she muttered and stalked into the office behind Roarke, shut the door with a decisive click. “Listen—”

  He cut her off, pressing his lips to hers, then eased back. “I like to wind him up—and you as well. It’s small of me, but there you are. I know perfectly well that he won’t move on you, and if he lost his mind and did, you’d bloody him. Well, unless I got there first, which I sincerely hope would be the case. Actually, as I’ve told you before, I like him.”

  “You like him.”

  “Yes. He has superb taste in women, and a rather fine left jab.”

  “Great. Good.” She shook her head. You figured you knew what made men tick, she thought. But you never did. “I’m going back to work.”

  21

  WITH A FROWN ON HER FACE, EVE SURVEYED Roarke’s computer lab. Several of the units were up and running, several of the screens had words, codes, strange symbols that might as well have been hieroglyphics whizzing over them. Computerized voices intoned incomprehensible statements, questions, comments.

  And the rumpled Feeney, the neon McNab, scooted around on wheeled chairs, somehow miraculously avoiding collision with work stations and each other, like a couple of kids in a strange, strange game.

  Stepping into the room was, for her, like stepping into an alternate universe.

  “Yo.” Feeney gave her a finger point, then tapped icons on a screen that slid up out of the counter. “Got something going.”

  “Okay. I assume it’s not Maximum Force 2200.”

  “Hey.” McNab looked over. “You cruise MF?”

  “No.” Well, maybe she’d played it a couple of times, but just to test her comp skills. “What’s going?”

  “What we’ve got over here is a diagnostic on the Swisher security system. We ran all the standards on it, stripped her down. Nice system, by the way.”

  “We already know it was jammed, remote. Bypassed the failsafes and backups.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but not how, not what they used. We’re getting that. You work back from the system, code by code, signal by signal, and maybe you put together, code by code, signal by signal, the device that pulled it off.”

  “They had to get it somewhere.” Eve nodded. “Even if they reconfigured, added flourishes, they had to get the basic device somewhere.”

  “Yep. And what we got going over there is the security on the hospital lot where Jaynene Brenegan was taken out—and the system on the apartment where Karin Duberry was murdered. Hitting correlations. Gonna be the same device, or one configured the same way. When you get them, it’ll help burn them.”

  “Have you got room for one more deal?”

  “Shoot.”

  “I need you to alter my communicator. A fault, but nothing that I’d reasonably notice as a non-EDD cop. Just a blip, so that someone who’s trying to monitor communications might get through, catch a transmission.”

  “You want to leak data?”

  “Once we get this set up, select our location, put the op together, I want them to be able to monitor my communicator. Maybe it’s fuzzy, but they should get the details. Like the communicator’s going bad on me. Like the shield’s thinning out. It happens, right?”

  “Yeah, but there’s a default warning.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time departmental equipment went bad. You should see my damn computer.”

  “Still giving you grief?” McNab asked.

  “It’s holding. I haven’t gotten any foreign porn when I ask for a file. Lately.”

  “Hand it over.” Feeney held up his palm. “We’ll play with it. You got your backup?”

  “Yeah.” She pulled both out of her pocket. “Just dink with the one. Can you make it so the signal coming into it is still shielded? So they only get bits of what I transmit?”

  “We’ll get you covered.”

  There were enough rooms in the house to billet a military battalion. It was risky tucking Webster away with Baxter, but she didn’t want IAB strolling around her office. He wanted to observe, she thought, he could observe Baxter and Trueheart. Before rounding up Peabody, Eve slipped into her bedroom to make a private call.

  “How about some more tit for tat?” she asked when Nadine came on-screen. “I need a spin, apparently. An incident last night—”

  “Your air show through midtown?” Nadine gave a wicked laugh. “We got some extreme footage on that. Bought it off a tourist from Tokyo. It’s aired twice this morning.”

  “Great.”

  “You’re taking some heat on that? I’ve never known you to worry about a little sweat.”

  “They’ve sicced IAB on me, and it could get in the way of the investigation. Trueheart was with me, and shit trickles even if you plug the dam. I’m advised to spin this around so it’s the courageous cop in pursuit of kid killers. Risking life and limb to apprehend cop killers and protect the known universe.”

  “Boy, that’s killing you.” But Nadine angled her head. “That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it?”

  “The point is this kind of thing doesn’t reflect well on the department.”

  “And the department will take a sacrifice, if deemed necessary.”

  “It’ll be Trueheart, Nadine. They’ll give me a slap, maybe a smudge on my record, but if they have to roast somebody, it’ll be him. He’s more disposable. I put him on the line.”

  “So you’re asking me to spin the story so the crap doesn’t clog up the momentum of your investigation, and so the cutie-pie doesn’t get his tight little ass fried.”

  “That’s the idea. And in return—”

  “No, don’t tell me.” Nadine sat back, held up both hands. “Because it’ll kill me to turn it down.”

  “Look, Nadine, it’s not that big a spin.”

  “Obviously you didn’t catch my pithy and insightful morning report. Spin’s already spun. The cool-headed, nerveless Lieutenant Dallas and the young, dedicated Officer Trueheart, risking their lives in pursuit of the vicious killers of children and their fellow officers. Killers who discharge weapons with no thought to the welfare of innocent strangers—men, women, and children who live in or visit our great city. And so on.”

  “Okay. You’ve got another IOU.”

  “Slate’s clear. This played better—and the vid showed the blasts coming out of that van. Most of the competition worked the same angle, but there’s still some heat, some stirring of the urban terrorism pot and why aren’t we safe walking the streets, in our own homes.”

  “It’s a good question. Could it be because a portion of society sucks?”

  “Can I quote you? Better, how about a quick talking head while you repeat that?”

  Eve considered. “How about you say, ‘When contacted, Lieutenant Dallas stated that every member of the NYPSD will work diligently to identify and apprehend those responsible for the deaths of their fellow officers, for Grant, Keelie, and Coyle Swisher, for Inga Snood, for Linnie Dyson. We serve them, we serve New York. We serve Nixie Swisher because surviving the brutality that was brought into her home isn
’t enough. She deserves justice, and we’ll get it for her.’ ”

  “Good. Got it. As for the other IOU, toasting these bastards from my media vantage point? I’d be doing it now anyway. I’d be doing it for Knight and Preston. Both of their memorials are tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see you there.” Eve hesitated. “An unnamed source at Cop Central has confirmed that the abduction and murder of Meredith Newman has been connected to the recent home invasion and murder of five people, including two children, on the Upper West Side. Meredith Newman, a Child Protection Services caseworker, was abducted—fill in the rest.”

  “Can I say Newman was assigned to the invasion survivor, nine-year-old Nixie Swisher?”

  “Yes, get it out there. And that multiple premortem burns on Newman’s body indicate she was tortured before her throat was cut in the same manner as the members of the Swisher household. Ms. Newman’s body was discovered in an alley—”

  “We’ve got all that.”

  “Say it again. Say it again—her naked body, covered with electrical burns, with its throat slit, was discovered after being dumped in an alley. Witnesses saw a black FourStar van, forged New York license AAD-4613, exiting the alley moments before the body was discovered. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, primary, and Officer Troy Trueheart, acting as aide, encountered a van of this description when leaving the scene.”

  “And pursued,” Nadine finished. “Which leads right back to the flight show. Good. Solid. Thanks. How many witnesses?”

  One, Eve thought, and only on the taillights. But why quibble. “When contacted, Lieutenant Dallas would neither confirm nor deny the report.”

  “A formal one-on-one would round this off sweet.”

  “I’m cutting back on sweets. Later.”

  Juggling plans in her head, Eve headed to her office, then swung toward Roarke’s. She gave a quick knock, opened the door. And winced.

  It was full of people. Or more accurately, it was full of Roarke and holos. His admin, Caro, sat in her tidy way, her hands folded in her lap. Two men in square, collarless suit jackets, and three women in similar conservative corporate gear studied yet another holo of some sort of elaborate development, complete with winding river and a sheer tower ringed with people glides.