by J. D. Robb
“Yes, I remember,” Summerset concurred.
“I had to move quickly, to leak the data to her, to paint the picture that I was dissatisfied with my position, my pay, and might be willing to bargain for better.”
“You let her make the approach, let her pick the time and the place so she believed she had the advantage.”
Now he smiled at Eve. “She wasn’t as smart as you. Once, perhaps, but she was arrogant and greedy. She never intended to pay me for the device and the files I’d stolen. She would kill me, have the device and all the records on it, while others competed. She had no allegiance, you see, to any person, agency, any cause. She liked to kill. It’s in her psych file.”
Eve nodded. “I’ve read it.”
Again his eyes widened before he glanced toward Roarke. “I think you may be better even than the rumors. How I’d enjoy talking with you.”
“I’ve thought the same.”
“In my business there’s no law, as in yours,” Ivan said to Eve. “No police, so to speak, where I could go and say this woman murdered my family. She was paid to do so. It’s . . . business, so there’s no punishment, no justice. I planned, I researched and I accessed her computers. I’m very good at my work, too. I knew before she arranged the meet what she intended. To take the money, disable or kill me, then—” He gestured to the case beside his chair. “May I?”
“No. She was carrying this,” Eve said as she rose to retrieve the case, “when she got on the ferry.”
“It’s a bomb. Disabled,” he said quickly. “It’s configured inside the computer. It’s rather small, but powerful. It would have done considerable damage to that section of the ferry. There were so many people there. Children. Their lives meant nothing to her. They would be a distraction.”
“Like fireworks?”
“Harmless.” He smiled again.
“Let me have that.” Roarke glanced at Summerset, got a nod, as he took the case from Eve. And opened it.
“Wait. Jesus!”
“Disabled,” he assured Eve after a glance. “I’ve seen this system before.
“You know, I think how we came to meet. The location was her choice,” Ivan added. “She thought of me as old, harmless, someone who creates gadgets, we’ll say, rather than one who would use them. But old skills can come back.”
“Six months to refine your skills,” Eve said, “and set the trap.”
“Maybe there was a cold madness in the planning, in my dedication to it. Even so, I don’t regret. I thought to do it quickly. Slit her throat. Put her in the hamper. I’d use the device to get away.”
“How?” Eve demanded. “How did you get off the damn ferry?”
“Oh. I had with me a motorized inflatable.” He shifted to Roarke as he spoke now, and his face became animated. “It’s much smaller than anything used, as yet, in the military or private sectors. Inactivated, it’s the size of a toiletry kit you might use for travel. And the motor itself—”
“Okay.” Eve cut him off. “I get it.”
“Yes, well.” Ivan drew in a long breath. “I had thought I’d do what I’d set out to do quickly, then I’d disappear. But I . . . I can’t even remember, not clearly, after I looked in her eyes, saw her shock, saw her death. I can’t remember. I think I will someday, and it will be very hard.”
Tears glinted in his eyes, and his hand trembled slightly as he drank more brandy. “But I looked down at what I’d done. So much blood. The way I’d found my wife and daughter, in so much blood. There was a stunner on the floor. She must have tried to stop me, I’m not sure. I picked it up. Then the woman came in.”
“You didn’t kill her when you had the chance.”
He shot Eve a shocked stare. “No. No, of course not. She’d done nothing. Still, I couldn’t let her just . . . It happened so quickly. I used the weapon on her, and she fell. I remember thinking, this is very unfortunate, a very unfortunate turn of events. In the old days, you thought on your feet or died. Or someone else did.”
“You used the device on her when she came around, and took her with you,” Eve supplied.
“Yes. I told her to hide. You can influence people when they’re under. She was to hide until she heard the alarm. I set it on her wrist unit. Then she was to go back where she came from. She wouldn’t remember. She looked so frightened when she came in and saw what I’d done. I didn’t want her to remember. I saw her with her children when we boarded. A lovely family. I hope she’s all right.”
“She’s fine. Why the fireworks?”
“A good distraction. You’d think I used them to get away, and I’d already be away. And my little girl loved fireworks. You know the rest, I think. You’ve hacked into my system at home, and into hers. You have a very good e-team.”
“Why did you come here?” Eve asked. “You could be thousands of miles away.”
“To see an old friend.” He glanced at Summerset. “Because you were involved.”
“What difference does it make who led the investigation?”
“All,” he said simply. “It was a kind of sign, a connection I couldn’t ignore.” He looked at Eve then with both understanding and sorrow. “I know what they did to you. They ignored the cries of a child being brutalized. They killed my child, who must have cried out for me in fear and pain. The same man ordered both. The slaughter of my family, and some years before the sacrifice of a child’s body and mind.”
He sighed when Eve said nothing. “I couldn’t ignore that. It seemed too important. You and Mylia would be of an age now, had she lived. You lived, and you’re part of the family of my old friend. How could I ignore that?”
“How did you come by that information?” Eve asked, her voice flat.
“I . . . accessed it when you married. Because of my friend. I couldn’t contact you,” he said to Summerset. “It might cause you trouble, but I wanted to know your family. So I looked, and I found. I’m sorry for what was done to you. He’s dead, the one who ordered the listening post to do nothing to interfere. Years ago,” Ivan added. “I don’t know if that comforts you. It comforts me because I believe I would have killed him, killed again if he wasn’t dead.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
He nodded. “So is this. There are dirty pockets in the well of the organization. She, this woman, was one of the things that crawled around inside those pockets. But still, I took her life, and it doesn’t, as I thought it would, balance the scales. Nothing can. These people shaped our lives, pieces of our lives, without giving us a choice. They took something deeply personal from us. So, when I learned it was you looking for me, I had to come. If I may?”
He held up two fingers, pointed them at his jacket pocket. At her nod, he reached in carefully and slid out what looked like an oversized ’link.
“It’s only the casing,” he said when both Eve and Roarke lunged for it. “I dismantled and destroyed the rest. And all the data pertaining to it.”
Roarke let out a breath. “Well, bugger it.”
Ivan laughed, then blinked in surprise at the sound. “It needed to be done, though I admit it was difficult. So much work.” He sighed over it. “If I’m arrested, they’ll come for me. Or others like them will come. I have knowledge and skill. Your law, your rules, even your diligence won’t stop them. I don’t say this to save myself,” he said gently. “But because I know they’ll find a way to make me use my knowledge and skill for them.”
“He saved lives, innocent lives, on that ferry,” Summerset said. “He’s certainly saved others, perhaps scores of others, by destroying that thing.”
“That’s not why I went there. I went to kill. The lieutenant knows that. The rest is circumstance. I’m content to leave this in her hands. Content to face justice.”
“Justice?” Summerset snarled at the word. “How is this justice?” He rose, rounded on Eve. “How can you even consider—”
“Shut it down. Don’t,” she added to Roarke before he could speak. She paced away to stand at
the window and wait for the war inside her to claim a victor.
“I saw her files, as I’m sure you wanted me to when we found her body. She kept reports and photos of her kills like a scrapbook. She’s what I work against every day. So is what you did on that ferry.”
“Yes,” Ivan said quietly. “I know.”
“They will come for you, and whatever obstacles I put in their way so you can face justice won’t be enough to stop them. I consider this matter out of my jurisdiction, and will certainly be told the same when I contact HSO to report what I’ve learned up to the time I walked into this house.”
She turned back, spoke briskly. “This is an internal HSO matter, involving one of their people and a freelance assassin they have previously employed. It’s possible this is a matter of national security, and I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t report what my investigation has turned up. I’m going to go up to my office, inform my commander of my findings and follow his directive. You’d better say good-bye to your friend,” she told Summerset.
She turned to Ivan, his pleasant face and mild eyes. “Disappear. You’ve probably got an hour, two at the outside, to get lost. Don’t come back here.”
“Lieutenant,” Ivan began, but she turned her back and walked out of the room.
Epilogue
Roarke found her in her office, pacing like a caged cat. “Eve.”
“I don’t want any damn coffee. I want a damn drink.”
“I’ll get us both one.” He touched the wall panel and chose a bottle of wine from inside. “He was telling the truth. I got deep enough to find considerable data on him, on his work prior to Homeland, on the decision to kill his family and plant evidence that led to his own organization.”
He drew the disc from his pocket. “I made you a copy.” He handed her the wine, set the disc on her desk. “And he was telling the truth when he said they, or others like them, would come for him. He would have self-terminated before he worked for anyone like them again.”
“I know that. I saw that.”
“I know a decision like this is difficult for you. Painfully. Just as you know I stand across the line so it wouldn’t be difficult for me. I’m sorry.”
“It shouldn’t be for me to decide. It’s not my place, it’s not my job. It’s why there’s a system, and mostly the system works.”
“This isn’t your system, Eve. These things have their own laws, their own system, and too many of those pockets inside them don’t quibble about letting a child be tortured, don’t lose sleep over ordering the death of a child to reach the goal of the moment.”
She took a long sip. “I can justify it. I can justify what I just did because I know that’s true. It’s not my system. I can justify it by knowing if Buckley had gotten the upper hand yesterday, Carolee Grogan would be dead, and that kid waiting for his mother outside the door would be blown to pieces along with dozens of others. I can justify it knowing if I arrested him, I would be killing him.”
She picked up the disc from her desk, and remembering what he’d once done for her, snapped it in two. “Don’t let him come here again.”
He shook his head, then framed her face and kissed her. “It takes more than skill and duty to make a good cop, to my way of thinking. It takes an unfailing sense of right and wrong.”
“It’s a hell of a lot easier when they don’t overlap. I have to get my report together and contact the commander. And for God’s sake, get that boomer out of the house. I don’t care if it is diffused.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Alone, she sat down to organize her notes into a cohesive report. She glanced over when the cat padded in, with Summerset behind him.
“Working,” she said briefly, then frowned when he set a plate with an enormous chocolate chip cookie on her desk. “What’s this?”
“A cookie, as any fool could see. It’ll spoil your dinner, but . . .” He shrugged, started out. He paused at the door without turning around. “He was a hero at a time when the world desperately needed them. He would be dead before the night was over if you’d taken him in. I want you to know that. To know you saved a life today.”
She sat back, staring at the empty doorway, when he’d left her. Then she scanned her notes, the report on screen, the photographs of the dead. They were the lost, weren’t they? All those lives taken. Maybe, in a way that nudged up against that line between right and wrong, she was standing for the lost.
She had to hope so.
Breaking off a hunk of cookie, she got back to work.
The Dog Days of Laurie Summer
PATRICIA GAFFNEY
For Jolene,
who’s always allowed
on the furniture
Before
I have a strange story to tell.
Too bad there’s no one to tell it to. No real way to tell it, and by now, no compelling reason to, either. Still. I feel the need to get it off my chest. Already it’s beginning to blur at the edges, fray in my mind like a dream in the morning. If I’m going to tell it at all, I’d better tell it quickly.
That’s what I’ll do, then: I’ll tell the story to myself.
Where to begin? With my childhood? When I married Sam and we had Benny? When I landed the broker job at Shanahan & Lewis? But those were all normal stages, unremarkable. They followed acceptable patterns; they were to be expected.
Better to begin when things started to go off track. Faster, more interesting. Well, that’s easy—that would be the day I drowned. The first time.
Such a nice day, too. Early June, late afternoon, our first full weekend at Sam’s cabin on the river. Our cabin, but I thought of it as Sam’s—he was the one who’d found it, dreamed of restoring it, and generally yearned for it, until I surprised him on his thirty-eighth birthday and bought it for him. Us. It needed an enormous amount of work, but it was habitable, barely, and even though it wasn’t my idea of paradise, I had to admit it did look charming that afternoon, with the windows blazing orange, the low sun casting tree shadows on the rough planks and the dirty white chinking. We were watching it from aluminum lawn chairs in the fast-m oving shallows of the Shenandoah, Benny sprawled across my lap, half asleep after the long day. “To you,” I toasted Sam with a last sip of wine. “To your project for the next ten or twenty years.”
“To us,” Sam toasted back with his beer, and I hoped that didn’t mean he thought I was going to help with the renovation. I liked the idea of him and Benny spending weekends here being handymen together while Mom stayed in town and did her job. Which was to bring home the bacon.
Sam had looked handsome the night before in his magic-act tuxedo, but he looked even better now in faded cutoffs and a holey tee. Mmm, all that tan skin and soft blond hair. I was looking forward to later, after we put Benny to bed. Our first time in the new cabin.
“But mostly to you, Laurie,” he said, “for being brilliant.”
“Thank you,” I said with mock modesty. Mock, yes. Last night I’d received the Shanahan & Lewis Mega Deal Maker of the Year award, and this morning Ronnie Lewis had promoted me to senior portfolio manager. You could say I was riding high. You could say I was proud of myself—except, of course, pride goeth before a fall, and what happened next just makes that too ridiculously literal.
Full of myself, then. I was pret-ty damn full of myself.
“Looks like somebody’s ready for bed.”
I thought Sam meant me and he’d been reading my mind, a skill he only pretends to have in his magic act. But then Benny squirmed on my lap and muttered that he wasn’t sleepy. “Mom,” he said clearly, out of the blue, “can we get a dog?”
Does that mean anything? Or my refusal—does that mean anything? I said, “No, honey, we can’t,” without hesitation, because it was completely out of the question. No way could we get a dog; we were all too busy, and besides, I had allergies.
But now I wonder. It was the last thing my sweet, five-year-old son asked me.
Then again, the last thi
ng Sam asked me was to bring in my chair, and I didn’t come back as a chaise longue.
My cell phone rang.
“Don’t answer.”
I checked the screen. “I have to. It’s Ronnie.”
Sam made a face, one I’d seen (and ignored) many times before, and started to get up, stretching his long arms over his head, splashing his bare feet in the water. “Okay, pal,” he told Benny, and they reached for each other. He stuck his folded chair under one arm, hitched Benny onto his hip with the other. “What’s this? You’re drinking now?” With both arms full, somehow he’d plucked his empty beer can from behind Benny’s ear.
And Benny snickered obligingly, always glad to be the dupe. Daddy’s best audience.
“Hi, Ron,” I said at the same time Sam said to me, for a joke, “Don’t forget your chair.” I smiled, watching him pick his way through the rippling, ankle-deep river toward shore. Then Ron mentioned the new Potomac Aerie development and I stopped watching. That was my last look at my family: Sam setting Benny down on terra firma and letting him run ahead, up the weedy path to the cabin. I got caught up in a preliminary design meeting coming up, the feasibility study, finance and development applications.
Something else I wish I could go back and redo.
Ron’s a talker; our conversation went on for a good fifteen minutes. More or less—it’s about now that things begin to blur. I remember deciding not to bother putting on my water sandals to make the twenty-yard trek to the riverbank. I remember standing up and folding my chair. I must’ve had my sandals, empty wineglass, and cell phone in one hand, chair in the other. Why didn’t I put the phone in my pocket? My lifeline, my keystone, my—words fail me. The beating heart of my professional life. Why didn’t I put it in my pocket?
I didn’t, and it flipped out of my hand like a live fish.
I guess I lunged for it. Don’t remember, but that’s what I would have done. I probably threw everything else up in the air first, shoes, chair, glass. Who knows? If I’d been carrying Benny, I might’ve thrown him up in the air, too.