by J. D. Robb
"Close the case, save the world?"
She tipped up her head until their eyes met. "You said you had people trying to develop this thing. Why?"
"Better you do it before the other one does. Self-preservation."
"I get that. It's always going to be that way. Bad guy has a stick, you get a knife. He has a knife, you get a stunner. The ante keeps going up. It's the way it is. So, there have to be rules and laws, and even when the line blurs, we have to be able to know who the good guys are. If I have the chance to find this guy, stop him before he sells this thing, maybe we hold all of it back for another day."
"The comp will signal when we have extrapolated data. Sleep awhile, then we'll see about saving the world."
It sounded reasonable.
The next thing she knew, the comp was beeping and she was springing up in bed - alone.
"What? Morning?"
"Nearly." Roarke stood behind the command center, shirtless, his trousers riding low on his hips. "And your Owl's come out."
"You found him - her?"
"Him," Roarke said as she leaped out of bed. He glanced over, smiled. "Come over here and I'll show you."
"I bet." She snatched at her shirt, her pants.
"Killjoy. Well, at least get us both some coffee."
"Who is he?" she demanded as she dragged on her clothes.
"That depends. He, like his victim, has gone by more than one name. This data claims him as Ivan Draski, age sixty-two, born in the Ukraine. Other data, which on the surface appears just as valid, has him as Javis Drinkle, age sixty, born in Poland. As Draski, he worked for the Freedom Republic, the underground, at the end of the Urbans, in communications and technological development. He's a scientist."
She brought the coffee, gulping some down as she read the data.
"Recruited by European Watch Network, techno research and development," Eve continued. "A gadget guy."
"An inventor, yes. He makes the toys."
"An inside guy," Eve mused. "Sure there's some field time clocked here, but primarily during the Urbans. It's primarily science during and after that era."
"Nanotech," Roarke began. "Hyperdimensional science, bionics, psionics and so on. He's worked on all this. It looks to me, according to this data, you owe your stunner to his work, among other things. And yet I've never heard of him. They've kept him tightly wrapped for decades."
"Maybe he decided it was time for a raise and some credit." She tried to make sense of it. "So, he's lured away from EWN to HSO nearly twenty years ago. And still, I'm not seeing wet work here. He's a techno geek."
"A brilliant one. No. No black ops or wet work listed. But look there, his wife and daughter were killed twenty years ago in a brutal slaying."
"That's interesting timing," Eve said.
"Isn't it? Officially a home invasion. Unofficially, a fringe wing of EWN who'd targeted him for his knowledge and accessibility to sensitive material."
"They eat their own." When he switched to the crime scene photos, Eve hissed out a breath. "Jesus."
"Mutilated, hacked to pieces." Roarke's voice tightened in disgust. "The girl was just twelve. The wife was a low-level agent, hardly more than a clerk. You have higher clearance, I expect."
"The writing on the wall there. Did you translate?"
"The computer recognizes it as Ukrainian for for 'traitor' and 'whore.' Neither EWN nor any other official file on the matter claims credit or responsibility for the killings."
"They were on her list. On Buckley's list of hits in HSO's data banks." She called for the computer to run the list on another screen to verify. "They're there, on her list, but no employer assigned. Nobody's taken credit."
"If there's data on that, it's in another area. If there's any more data on this hit, it's been wiped or boxed. Even I can't get at it from here, or certainly not quickly. You'd have to be inside to get at it."
"He's inside; he found it." There was motive, Eve thought. There was the personal. "Why the hell didn't they destroy the file if they continued to use her, and had him on the payroll?"
"Somebody fucked up, I'd say, but at the core HSO is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies love their paperwork."
"Does he have a fixed address?"
"Right here in New York."
She looked back over her shoulder at him. "That's too fucking easy."
"Upper East Side, in a town house he owns under the name of Frank Plutz."
"Plutz? Seriously?"
"Frank J. Plutz, employed by HSO, who lists him as Supervisor, Tech R and D, U.S. Division, in their official file. Which of course is bollocks. He's a hell of a lot more."
Now Eve studied the ID shot of a middle-aged man with a thinning crop of gray hair, a round face, a bit heavy in the chin, and mild blue eyes who smiled soberly from the wall screen.
"God. He looks harmless."
"He survived the Urban Wars in the underground, has worked for at least two intelligence organizations, neither of which worries overmuch about spilled blood. I'd say appearances are deceiving."
"I need to put a team together and go visit the deceptively harmless Mr. Plutz."
"I want to play. And I very much want to meet this man."
"I guess you've earned it."
His eyes gleamed. "If you don't put him in a cage, I wonder what I can offer him to switch to the private sector."
Eight
As taking down a spy wasn't her usual job, Eve opted for a small, tight team. She had two officers in soft clothes stationed at the rear of the trim Upper East Side town house, McNab handling the com along with Roarke in the unmarked van. She, along with Peabody, would take the front.
It struck her as a bit of overkill for one man, but she had to factor in that one man had over forty years of espionage experience, and had managed to slip off a ferry of more than three thousand people with a dead body.
In the van, she cued up the security tape from the transpo station. "There he is, looking harmless. Computer, enhance segment six, thirty percent."
The man currently known as Frank J. Plutz enlarged on-screen as he shuffled his way through the ticker. "Anonymous businessman, complete with what looks like a battered briefcase and a small overnight bag. Slightly overweight, slightly balding, a little saggy in the jowls."
"And this is the guy who sliced up the high-level assassin, then poofed with her." McNab, his sunny hair slicked back in a sleek tail, his earlobes weighted with a half dozen colorful studs each, shook his head. "He looks a little like my uncle Jacko. He's famed in our family for growing enormous turnips."
"He does!" Peabody gave the love of her life a slap on the shoulder. "I met him last Thanksgiving when we went to Scotland. He's adorable."
"Yeah, I'm sure this one's just as adorable as Uncle Jacko. In a 'leaving a big, messy pool of blood behind' sort of way. He got a weapon—we assume—through the scanners without a hitch. Which, unfortunately, isn't as tough as it should be. More important, from my source, he's headed or been involved in the invention and development of all manner of high-tech gadgetry, weaponry and communications in particular.”
"Love to meet him," McNab said and got a quick grin from Roarke.
"Right with you."
"Hopefully you geeks can have a real nice chat soon." Eve shifted her gaze to the other monitor. "I'm not seeing any heat source in there."
"That would be because there isn't." Roarke continued the scan of the house. "I've done three scans each on heat, on movement. There's no one in there."
"Takes the fun out of it. Well, we've got the warrant. Let's go, Peabody. McNab, keep your eye on the street. If he comes home, I want to know about it."
"Mind your back, Lieutenant," Roarke said as she climbed out. "They're called spooks for a reason."
"I don't believe in spooks."
"I bet they believe in you." Peabody jumped down beside her.
Scanning the building, Eve pulled out her master as they approached the door. "We go in the way we would if we h
ad a suspect inside. And we clear the area, room by room."
Peabody nodded. "A guy who can disappear could probably beat a heat-and-motion sensor."
Eve only shook her head, then pounded a fist on the door. "This is the police." She used her master to unlock the door, noted the standard security went from locked red to open green. "He's got cams out here. I can't see them, but he's got them. Still, no backups set on the locks, and the palm plate's not activated."
"It's like an invitation."
"We're accepting. We're going in," Eve said to alert the rest of the team.
She pulled her weapon, nodded once to Peabody. They hit the door, Peabody high, Eve low. Swept the short foyer with its iron umbrella stand and coat tree, and the narrow hallway with its frayed blue runner. At Eve's gesture they peeled off, clearing the first floor, moving to the second, then the third.
"We're clear." Eve studied the data and communication equipment, the surveillance and security equipment ranged around the modest third-floor room. "Blue team, take the first floor. Roarke, McNab, we can use you on the third floor."
"Do you think he's coming back?" Peabody wondered.
"It's a lot to leave behind. I guarantee all this is unregistered, calibrated to duck under CompuGuard radar. But no, he's done here. He's finished."
"His wife and kid?" Peabody gestured to the framed photo on the console.
"Yeah." Eve moved over, opened a mini fridge. "Water and power drinks." She hit menu on the AutoChef. "Quick, easy meals." The sort, she thought, she'd have had in her own mini fridge - when she remembered to stock it - before she'd married Roarke. "Sofa, with a pillow, a blanket, wall screen, adjoining john. He spent most of his time up here. The rest of the house, it's just space."
"It all looks so tidy, kind of homey and neat."
Eve made a sound of agreement as she turned into the next room. "VirtualFit. It's a nice unit. He wanted to keep in shape. A weight machine, muscle balls, sparring droid. Female, and at a guess, just about the height and weight of Buckley."
Eve studied the attractive blonde droid currently disengaged and propped in a corner. "He practiced here." She moved across the room, opened the doors on a built-i n cabinet. "Wow, toy chest."
"Holy shit." Peabody gaped at the display of weapons. "Not so much like Uncle Jacko after all."
Knives, bats, stunners, blasters, clubs, short swords, guns, throwing discs all gleamed in tidy formation.
"A couple missing," Eve noted, tapping empty holders. "From the shape, he took a couple of knives and a stunner. In one of his carry-ons, on his person."
"This is a lot to leave behind, too," Peabody commented.
"He did what he set out to do. He doesn't need them anymore." She turned as Roarke came in with McNab, and caught the gleam in Roarke's eyes as he crossed toward the weapons chest. "Don't touch."
The faintest line of irritation marred his brow, but he slipped his hands into his pockets. "A nice little collection."
"Don't get any ideas," she muttered under her breath. "It's next door you might be useful." She led the way and heard both Roarke and McNab hum in pleasure as some men would at the sight of a pretty woman.
"Geek heaven," she supposed. "Seal up, then see what you can find on all this. Peabody, let's take the second floor."
"Do you want me to get someone in to take over street surveillance?" McNab asked.
"He's not coming back. He hasn't been back since he took those weapons out of the chest. He doesn't need this place anymore."
"There are still clothes in the closet," Peabody pointed out when they started down. "I saw them when we cleared the bedroom."
"I'll tell you what we won't find. We won't find any of his IDs, any of his emergency cash, any credit cards, passports."
She moved into the bedroom where the decor managed to be spartan in neatness and homey in its fat pillows and frayed fabrics. She opened the closet.
"Three suits - black, gray, brown. See the way they're arranged, spaces between? Probably had three more. Same with the shirts, the spare trousers. He took what he needed." She crouched, picked up a pair of sturdy black shoes, turned them over to reveal the worn-down heels, scuffed soles. "Frugal. Lived carefully, comfortably, but without any excess. I bet the neighbors are going to say what a nice, pleasant man he was. Quiet, but friendly."
"He's got drawer dividers. Cubbies for socks, boxers, undershirts. And yeah," Peabody added, "it looks like several pair are missing. Second drawer's athletic wear. T-shirts, sweats, gym socks."
"Keep at it. I'll take the second bedroom."
Across the hall in a smaller room fashioned into a kind of den, Eve opened another cabinet. She found wigs, trays of makeup, facial putty, clear boxes holding various styles of facial hair, body forms.
She saw herself reflected, front and back, in the mirror-backed doors.
She began a systematic search of the room, then the bathroom. He'd left plenty behind, she thought. Ordinary pieces of the man. Hairbrush, toothbrush, clothes, book and music discs, a pair of well-tended houseplants.
Everything well used, she thought, well tended. Very clean, ordered without being obsessive.
Food in the AutoChef, slippers by the bed. It all gave the appearance of a home someone would return to shortly. Until you noticed there was nothing important. Nothing that couldn't be easily replaced.
Except the photo over his work area, she mused. But he'd have copies of that. Certainly he'd have copies of that image that drove him. She studied the wigs and other enhancements again.
He'd left all this, and the weapons, the electronics. Left what he'd been all these years? she wondered. He'd done what he'd set out to do, so none of it mattered to him now.
Peabody came in. "I found a lock box, open and empty."
"One in here, too."
"And bits of adhesive behind drawers, behind the headboard."
Eve nodded. "Under the bathroom sinks, behind the john. He's a careful guy. I'd say he kept weapons, escape documents, in several places around the house, in case he had to get out fast."
"We're not going to find him, Dallas. He's in the wind. It's what he does."
"What he did. I'd say he's finished, so it depends on what he's decided to do next. Check on the first floor, will you?"
Eve went upstairs to find both Roarke and McNab huddled with the electronics. On a quartet of small monitors she saw various spaces of the house - Peabody walking down the steps, her two men searching, an empty kitchen, the street view from the front of the house. Every ten seconds, the image changed to another location.
"Guy covered his ass double," McNab told her. "This place is hot-wired, not a trick missed. Motion, heat, light, weight. He's got bug sensors every fricking where. And check it."
He flipped a switch and a panel slid open in the wall beside her. She peered in, scanned the stairs and the weapon adhered to the wall. "Emergency evac."
"Icy. Plus, he could shut and bolt that door from right here."
"It's blast-proof," Roarke added. "He's got his C and D buried on here, but we're digging it out. I'd have to say it's not as well covered as I'd expect when you consider the rest of the security."
McNab shrugged. "Maybe he figured he didn't have to worry about anyone getting this far in."
"Or he didn't care particularly what they found at this point."
She glanced back up at the photo. "Possibly. It looks like he's finished, and with or without the cloak of invisibility, gone. No reason to stay in New York. He eliminated his target. We dig here, hoping we find some link to where he might go. If we don't find it, we're going to have to contact HSO."
Roarke gave her a long, cool look. "I don't see the value of that."
"It's not a matter of value. It's SOP. He's their operative. If he's gone rabbit or rogue, and has a device that's as dangerous as this one might be, we'll need their resources."
"Give us a moment, would you, Ian?"
McNab glanced over at Roarke, then at Eve. He didn't n
eed a sensor to feel the blips of tension and trouble. "Ah, sure. I'll . . . ah, see if I can give She-Body a hand."
"This is my job," she began as soon as they were alone. "When I report in with what we have here, Whitney's going to order me to contact Homeland and give them what I have."
"You have nothing," he said evenly, "but the nebulous connection of one Frank Plutz, on the word of an 'anonymous source' connecting him to HSO and to Buckley."
"I have him getting on the ferry, and not getting off, which secured the warrant more than the source did. I have what we found here."
"And what have you found here that verifies he's an operative for HSO, or that he targeted and killed Buckley?"
She felt her stomach muscles quiver even as her spine stiffened. "We know he has a potentially dangerous weapon. He may intend to sell that weapon. In the wrong hands - "
"Homeland's aren't the wrong hands?" Roarke demanded. "Can you stand there and tell me they aren't every bit as ruthless and deadly as any foreign bogeyman you can name? After what they did to you? What they allowed to be done to you when you were a child? Standing by, listening, for Christ's sake, while your father beat you and raped you, all in the hopes they could use him to catch a bigger monster?"
The quivering in her gut became a roil. "One has nothing to do with the other."
"Bollocks. You tried to 'work' with them before, not so long ago. And when you found murder and corruption, they tried to ruin you. To kill you."
"I know what they did. Damn it, that wasn't the organization, as much as I despise it, but individuals inside it. Ivan Draski is probably thousands of miles away by now. I can't chase him outside New York. I don't know where he might try to sell this thing."
"I'll look into it."
"Roarke - "
"Goddamn it, Eve, you're not going to ask me to stand by a second time. I did what you asked before. I let it go. I let go the ones who'd had a part in letting you be abused and tormented."