Working... all agents are issued an M3 stunner and a neuron blaster, both handheld models. Agents may choose between a 4000 blaster and a 5200, as suits their personal preference.
"An M3," Eve murmured. "I was under the impression SS agents carried A-1s."
Prior to December 5, 2055, A-1 stunners were standard issue for Secret Service. The change to the more powerful M3 went into effect at this time. The attempt on the life of then President Anne B. Foster, on August 8, 2055, the loss of two agents and civilian casualties during this assassination attempt resulted in the upgrade of weaponry.
"Is that so?"
This is accurate data.
"Right." Eve tipped back in her chair. Whoever had used and planted the M3 had assumed Reva had one. She hadn't left the SS until January. But she'd never gone back to active duty either. It was a simple matter to check to see if she'd ever been issued that style weapon.
Another detail for her report. When she'd compiled everything she wanted, she dumped it all into a file, saved it.
"Computer, analyze all data in case file HE-45209-2. Using known data, run a probability scan on Ewing, Reva, as perpetrator."
Working...
"Take your time," Eve murmured and rose to get more coffee.
She wandered back to her desk. Sat, sipped, played idly with the stuffed cat Roarke had given her since Galahad appeared to be spending the evening with Summerset.
Which just went to show, she thought, the cat's lousy judge of character.
Probability scan complete. Probability that Ewing, Reva, is perpetrator in the murders of Bissel, Blair, and Kade, Felicity, is seventy-seven point six percent.
"That's interesting. That's pretty interesting for something that, on the surface, looked like a walk. She passes Level Three tomorrow, that's going to drop another twenty points, easy. Then her lawyers are going to kick my ass."
"You don't sound overly concerned about that."
She turned her head to look at Roarke, lounging against the door-jamb between their offices. "I can take my licks."
"I'll owe you for it. Yes, yes," he said, reading her face. "Doing your job, and so on and so forth. But you'll be taking some of those licks to help a friend of mine. So I'll owe you for it. The media loves to slap down anyone who's at the top of their game, as you are."
"And gee..."-she held up the stuffed cat as if speaking to it-"... the media worries me almost as much as a bunch of pussy lawyers."
"I beg your pardon, but my lawyers are not pussies."
Eve set the stuffed cat aside and gave Roarke a steely stare. "I figured she'd lawyered up with some of your suits. If they're worth half of what you pay them, they'll have the charges dropped within another twenty-four. It'd be better if they didn't."
"Why is that?"
"As long as whoever's running this show thinks she's in the squeeze, she's safe and he won't be as likely to blow. If he's not already in the wind, and Reva shakes this loose, he'll blow. Or they will."
"They."
"There's got to be a team working on this. Someone for the murder, someone for the setup, someone for the hit on the security and data units at the gallery and studio. And somebody, I betcha, pushing all the buttons."
"It's so nice when we agree. I need to move this to the unregistered."
"Why?"
"Come with me, and I'll show you."
"I'm working here."
"You'll want to see this, Lieutenant."
"Better be good."
The equipment unregistered with, and undetectable by, CompuGuard was in a secured room.
The wide wall of windows was screened against prying eyes, but let in the view of New York, with all its spires and spears rising into the night sky.
The black, U-shaped console was slick, and studded with dozens of controls. It reminded Eve, always, of some sort of futuristic spacecraft. So much so, she wouldn't have batted an eye if the entire thing had floated up from the floor, then zoomed off, to wink away in some time warp.
He got a brandy from the fully stocked bar behind a wall panel, and because he intended for her to sleep shortly, poured her another glass of wine.
"I'm on coffee now."
"Then it won't hurt you to dilute some of the caffeine. And look what else I have." He held up a candy bar.
Greed shot into her eyes before she could disguise it. "You have candy in here? I've never seen candy in here."
"I'm just full of surprises." Watching her, he waved the wrapped bar from side to side. "You can have the candy if you sit on my lap."
"That sounds like something perverted old men say to young, stupid girls."
"I'm not old, and you're not stupid." He sat, patted his knee. "It's Belgian chocolate."
"Just because I'm sitting on your lap and eating your candy doesn't mean you can cop a feel," she said as she folded into his lap.
"I'll just have to live in hope that you'll change your mind. Which you may when you see what I've found for you."
"Put up, or shut up."
"That's my line." He nipped her ear, passed her the candy bar, then inserted a disc. Reaching over, he laid a palm on the console. "Roarke. Open operations."
It hummed, more like a powerful animal waking than a machine booting up. Lights flashed on.
"Upload data."
"If you've got data on the disc..." She swallowed a bite of candy. "... Why do you need the unregistered? You're already on record."
"It's not what I have, but what I intend to do with it. Digging around, I ran into a couple of blocks. Nothing unusual initially. Standard privacy blocks, all very usual and law-abiding. But when I nudged them a bit, I got this. Computer, display last task from disc on screen one."
Screen one on. Display up.
Eve frowned at the snowy-white screen and blurred black letters.
RESTRICTED DATA
ACCESS DENIED
"That's it? Access denied? You run into a wall and I have to come in here and sit on your lap?"
"No, you're sitting on my lap because you wanted my candy."
Rather than admit that was true, she took another bite of chocolate. "Why's the display fuzzy?"
"Because, fortunately, I engaged filters before digging around. If I hadn't, I'd have set off an alarm, and my little excavation would have sent up all manner of flags. So, we do it in here. Computer, redo last task."
Acknowledged.
The screen flashed off, then on again, clear.
Task complete.
"So?"
"You have no faith whatsoever. Just for that, sit over there and be quiet."
She shrugged, moved off his lap, and onto a chair. She finished off her candy bar, sipped lazily at her wine.
It wasn't exactly a hardship to watch him work. She liked the way he rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, tied his hair back-like a man preparing to do some serious physical labor.
He used both manual and verbal commands, so she could watch his quick fingers fly over keys, hear his voice-more Irish as he concentrated-flow out.
"Access denied? I'll show you access denied, bloody wanker."
Smiling a little, she closed her eyes, telling herself she was just going to rest them while she walked mentally through the investigation to date.
The next thing she knew, he was shaking her gently by the shoulder. "Eve."
"What!" Her eyes popped open. "I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking."
"Yes, I could hear you thinking."
"If that's some smart-ass way of saying I was snoring, bite me."
"I'd be more than happy to bite you later, but I really believe you'll want to see this."
She rubbed her eyes, and focused on his face. "Since you've got that big I'm-the-cat's-ass grin on your face, I guess you got into whatever you wanted to get into."
"Have a look." He gestured toward the screen.
Reading, Eve got slowly to her feet.
HOMELAND SECURITY ORGANIZATION
REDSTAR ACCESS ONLY!
"Jesus Christ, Roarke, you hacked into the HSO?"
"I have." He toasted himself with a brandy. "By God, I have, and it took considerable doing. You were... thinking for over an hour."
She knew she was goggling, but she couldn't stop. "You can't hack into the HSO."
"Well, I hate to disagree, but as you can plainly see-"
"I don't mean you can't. I mean you can't."
"Relax, Lieutenant, we're shielded." He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. "Right and tight."
"Roarke-"
"Ssh, you haven't seen it yet. Computer, employ passcode. Now, you'll see the file I dug for is encrypted, for obvious reasons. You'd think a gang like the HSO would employ more complex encryptions. Then again, I don't suppose they counted on anyone actually getting through to this point. It was a bloody battle."
"I think you've lost your mind. You may be able to get off on an insanity defense. They'll still torture you, brainwash you, and lock you in a cage for the rest of your life, but they might not beat you to death if they know you're insane. This is the HSO. The antiterrorist organization that employs methods every bit as dirty as the terrorists they were initially formed to seek out and destroy. Roarke-"
"Yes, yes." He waved away her concerns. "Ah, here we are. Take a look."
She hissed out a breath, turned back to the screen, and stared at the ID photo and the personnel file of Bissel, Blair, level-two operative.
"Goddamn! Goddamn!" She was grinning now, as wildly as Roarke. "We got us a freaking spook!"
7
"You have a dead spook," Roarke pointed out. "I wonder if that's redundant."
"It makes sense. Don't you see?" She punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Who gets through security slicker than a spook?"
"Well, foregoing modesty, I must point out that I-"
"You don't have any modesty to forego. Bissel was HSO, so it jibes for him to have all those blocks on his studio, for him to hook up with a security expert, and for him to be dead."
"Assassinated by another spook, national or foreign."
"Exactly. They knew about Bissel and Kade, and when the time was right they let Reva know. Set her up to take the fall."
"Why? What's the point in framing an innocent woman?"
Frowning, she studied the screen. He looked like an ordinary man, she thought. Good-looking, if you went for the smooth type, but ordinary. That would, she imagined, be part of the point. Spooks needed to blend in to stay spooks.
"Not sure there has to be a point, but if there is, it could be as simple as not wanting anyone looking too closely at Bissel, taking it on the surface. A philandering husband whacked by his crazed wife in the heat of passion. Homicide comes in, takes a look at the mess, hauls Reva off, and that's the end of that."
"That's simple enough, but it would've been simpler yet to stage a burglary gone wrong and leave Reva out of it."
"Yeah." She looked back at Roarke. "And that tells me she was already in it."
"The Code Red."
"The Code Red, and other things she's been working on over the past couple of years." Jamming her hands in her pocket she began to pace. "This current isn't your only government or sensitive project."
"Hardly." Roarke studied Bissel's ID image. "He married her because of her work. Because of what she was rather than who."
"Or because of what you are. They'll have a file on you."
"Yes, I'm sure they do." And he intended to take a look at it before he was done.
"What's level two mean? Level-two operative."
"I have no idea."
"Let's take a look at his dossier. See when he was recruited." Thumbs hooked in pockets, she read the data on screen. "Nine years ago, so he wasn't a rookie. Based in Rome a couple of years, and in Paris, in Bonn. Got around. I'd say his artistic profession would make good cover. Spoke four languages-and that'd be a plus. We know he's good with the ladies, and that couldn't hurt."
"Eve, look at his recruiter."
"Where?"
With a keystroke, he highlighted a name.
"Felicity Kade? Son of a bitch. She brought him in." She held up her hand for silence and paced out her thoughts. "She'd've been a kind of trainer to him, seems to me. A lot of times trainers and trainees develop a close relationship. They worked together, and they were lovers. Probably lovers, on and off, all along. They're a type."
"Which type is that?" he wondered.
"Slick, upper-class, social animals. Vain-"
"Why vain?"
"Lots of mirrors, lots of fancy duds, lots of money spent on body and face work, salons."
Amused, he studied his fingernails. "One could claim those attributes are simply natural elements of a comfortable lifestyle."
"Yeah, if they add up to you. You've got a big trunkful of vanity yourself, but it's not the same as these two. You don't throw mirrors onto the walls every damn place so you can check yourself out every time you move, like Bissel."
Thoughtfully, she glanced back at Roarke and decided if she looked as good as he did, she'd probably spend half the day staring at herself.
Weird.
"All those mirrors, reflective surfaces," she continued when he just smiled at her, "you could argue that was as much lack of confidence as vanity."
"That would be my take, but it sounds like a question for Mira."
"Yeah." She would get to that, and soon. "Anyway, they're a type. Like the artsy scene, and showing themselves off. Even if it's cover, they have to be into it. And on another level, it must take a certain type to go into covert work, on the long haul. You live a lie, you set up an identity, a persona that's part reality, part fantasy. How else could you make it work?"
"I'll agree that Bissel and Kade appear to be more suited than Bissel and Reva-at least on the surface."
"Okay, but they need Reva. They need, want, or have been assigned to infiltrate Securecomp. Felicity approaches Reva first, makes pals. Maybe feels her out. But for whatever reason Reva's not a good candidate for the HSO."
"She's worked for the government," Roarke pointed out. "Nearly died for it. She's loyal, and the administration she was attached to had no great affection for the HSO, as I recall."
"Politics." Eve blew out a breath. "Makes me screwy. But if we take it down to 'she's not a candidate for covert,' it doesn't mean she's not a good resource for the HSO. So they bring in Bissel. Romance, sex. But the marriage, that says they expected her to be of long-term use."
"And disposable."
She turned back to him. "It's tough to see a friend get kicked around this way. I'm sorry."
"I wonder if it'll be easier on her, or harder, knowing all this."
"Whichever, she'll have to cope. She doesn't have a lot of options." She nodded toward the wall screens. "These two were using her as an information source, and it's probable they planted various devices in the home, in her data unit, her vehicles, maybe on her person. She was their plant, an unwitting mole, and odds are they tapped her for plenty. No point in keeping up the charade of marriage and friendship if it wasn't paying off."
"Agreed." And the fact that it must have been paying off was, he imagined, going to cause him considerable annoyance. "But what point is there in eliminating two operatives? If it was an in-house assassination, it seems wasteful. Outside, it seems like overkill. Messy, Eve, either way."
"Messy, but it had the potential of taking out three key players." She drummed her fingers on her hips. "There's more. Has to be more. Maybe Bissel and Kade screwed up. Maybe they tried playing both sides. Maybe they blew their cover. We need to pick our way through their lives. I need all the data you can get me on them. And since we're playing with spooks, screw the rules."
"Could you say that again? The screw the rules part. It's such music to my ears."
"You're going to enjoy this one, aren't you?"
"I believe I am." But he didn't look pleased when he said it. He looked dangerous. "Someone has to pay for what's been done to Reva. I'll enjoy
being part of that payment."
"There's an advantage to having a friend as scary as you."
"Come sit on my lap and say that."
"Get the data, pal. I need to call in, check with the men on Reva's house. I don't want anybody sliding in there before we sweep it for devices in the morning."
J D Robb - Dallas 19 - Divided In Death Page 11