by J. D. Robb
He hauled her up another inch. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’m an idiot? I’m an idiot? You’re a moron if you think I’m going to stand here making clucky noises to your ego while I’ve got somebody blowing up buildings on my watch. Now, get your hands off before I take you down.”
“How close were you to going in?”
“That’s not—” She broke off, deflating as it hit her. It wasn’t the building that put that wicked light in his eyes. It was her. “Not that close.” She said it quietly as she unclenched her fists. “Not that close, Roarke. I didn’t like the setup. I’d just ordered Peabody to call it in, send for a couple of backup units. I know how to handle myself.”
“Yeah.” He took a hand off her arm to brush his fingertips over her filthy cheek. “It shows.” Then he released her completely, stepped back. “Have that leg tended to. I’ll meet you at your office.”
When he started to walk away, she jammed her hands in her pockets, pulled them out. Rolled her eyes. Damn it, she did know how to handle herself. She just didn’t always know how to handle him. “Roarke.”
He stopped, glanced back. And nearly smiled when he watched the obvious struggle between duty and heart on her face. Looking over to make certain Peabody had her back discreetly turned, she crossed to him, lifted a hand to his cheek.
“Sorry. I was a little pissed off, myself. Having a building blow up in my face does that to me.” When she heard the approaching sirens, she dropped her hands, frowned. “No kissing in front of the uniforms.”
Now he did smile. “Darling, no kissing until you wash your face. I’ll meet you at your office,” he repeated and walked away.
“Give it a couple of hours,” she called out. “I’ll be tied up here at least that long.”
“Fine.” He stopped by her car, angling his head as he studied it. “Actually, this suits you better now.”
“Bite me,” she said with a laugh, then put on her official face for the bomb squad.
When she returned to Cop Central, Eve hit the showers and washed off the stink and soot. She remembered the gash in her leg when the hot water stung. Setting her teeth, she cleaned the wound herself, dug out a first-aid kit, and went to work on it. She figured she’d watched the med-techs poke around her body often enough to handle a few cuts.
Satisfied, she rooted through her locks for her spare set of clothes and made herself a memo to bring more in. Those she’d been wearing went straight into the recycler as a dead loss.
She found Roarke in her office, having a cozy chat with Nadine Furst from Channel 75.
“Scram, Nadine.”
“Come on, Dallas, a cop nearly gets blown up when her husband’s building is destroyed by person or persons unknown, it’s news.” She offered Eve one of her pretty cat smiles, but there was concern in her eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, and I wasn’t nearly blown up. I was yards away from the building at the time of the explosion. I’ve got nothing official to give you at this time.”
Nadine merely recrossed her legs. “What were you doing at the building?”
“Maybe I was scoping out my husband’s property.”
Nadine snorted and managed to make the sound ladylike. “Yeah, and maybe you’ve decided to retire and raise puppies. Give a little, Dallas.”
“The building was abandoned. I’m homicide. There was no homicide. I suggest you stroll on up to Explosives and Bombs.”
Nadine’s eyes slitted. “It’s not your case?”
“Why would it be? Nobody died. But if you don’t get out of my chair, somebody might.”
“All right, all right.” With a shrug, Nadine rose. “I’ll go charm the boys in E and B. Hey, I caught Mavis’s video yesterday. She looked fantastic. When’s she due back?”
“Next week.”
“We’ll have a welcome home party for her,” Roarke put in. “I’ll let you know the details.”
“Thanks. You’re so much nicer than Dallas.” With a cocky grin, Nadine strolled out.
“I’m going to remember that crack the next time she wants a one-on-one,” Eve muttered and closed her door.
“What didn’t you tell her?” Roarke asked.
Eve dropped into her chair. “It’s going to take time for E and B to scan and sweep the site. At this point, they have some pieces and suspect there were at least six explosive devices, likely on timers. It’ll be a couple of days before I have a cohesive report.”
“But it’s your case.”
“At this point, it appears the explosion is linked to a homicide I’m investigating.” Fixer was hers now. She’d arranged it. “The people responsible for both contacted me. I have a meeting with Whitney shortly, but yeah, until he says differently, it’s mine. Did you ever have any dealings with Fixer?”
Roarke stretched out his legs. “Is that an official question?”
“Shit.” She closed her eyes. “That means you did.”
“He had magic hands,” Roarke said, examining his own.
“I’m getting really tired of hearing that from people who should know better. Give.”
“Five, maybe six years ago. He worked on a little device for me. Security probe, a very cleverly designed code breaker.”
“Which I suppose you designed.”
“For the most part, though Fixer had some interesting input. He was brilliant with electronics, but not completely trustworthy.” Roarke plucked a stray speck of lint from his smoke gray slacks. “I decided it was unwise to use his services again.”
“So nothing recent.”
“No, nothing, and we parted ways amicably enough. I’ve no links to him, Eve, that should worry you or would complicate your investigation.”
“What about this warehouse? How long have you owned it?”
“About three months. I’ll get you the exact date of purchase and the details. It was intended for renovation. As the permits just came through, work was to begin next week.”
“Renovating it into what?”
“Housing units. I also own the buildings on either side, and I have a bid on another in the area. They’re to be rehabbed as well. Markets, shops, cafés. Some offices.”
“Will that sector support that kind of thing?”
“I believe it will.”
She shook her head, thinking of the income level and street crime. “You’d know more about that sort of thing, I guess. The building was insured.”
“Yes, for little more than the purchase price at this point. The project’s worth a great deal more to me.” Taking the neglected, the disdained and giving it value meant a very great deal to him. “The building was old, but it was sound. The problem with progress is that it often sweeps aside, destroying rather than respecting what others have built before us.”
She knew of his affection for old things but wasn’t sure there was a point here. She’d seen little more than a pile of bricks, and that was before it had been blown up.
His money, she thought with a shrug. His time.
“Do you know anyone name Cassandra?”
Now he smiled. “I’m sure I do. But I sincerely doubt this is a former lover’s jealous snit.”
“They had to get the name from somewhere.”
He moved his shoulders. “Maybe from the Greeks.”
“Greek Town isn’t anywhere near that sector.”
For a moment he just stared at her; then he laughed. “The ancient Greeks, Lieutenant. In mythology, Cassandra could foretell the future, but no one believed her. She warned of death and destruction and was dismissed. Her predictions always came true.”
“How do you know all this shit?” She waved the question away before he could answer. “So what’s this Cassandra predicting?”
“According to my disc, the uprising of the masses, the toppling of corrupt governments—which is one of those annoying redundancies—and the overthrow of the greedy upper class. Of which I am a proud member.”
“Revolution? Killing an old man and blowing up
an empty warehouse is a pretty petty way to revolt.” But she wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of political terrorists. “Feeney’s working on Fixer’s office unit. It had a fail-safe feature, but he’ll get by it.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“If they’d had anyone good enough to break into that fortress of his, they wouldn’t have needed him in the first place.”
Roarke considered, nodded. “Good point. Do you need me for anything else?”
“Not now. I’ll keep you updated on the investigation. If you do a press release, keep it minimal.”
“All right. Did you have your leg looked at?”
“I took care of it.”
He raised his brow. “Let me see.”
Instinctively, she tucked her legs under the desk. “No.”
He only rose and stepped over to bend down and tug her leg up. At her sputtering protest, he tightened his grip and rolled up her trousers.
“Are you crazy? Stop that.” Mortified, she reached out to slam the door shut. “Somebody could come in.”
“Then stop squirming,” he suggested, and gently peeled back the bandage. He nodded in approval. “You did a decent job.” Even as she hissed at him, he lowered his head and touched his lips to the cut. “All better,” he said with a grin just as the door opened.
Peabody gaped, flushed, then stammered out, “Excuse me.”
“Just leaving,” Roarke said, patting the bandage back in place while Eve ground her teeth. “How did you come through this morning’s excitement, Peabody?”
“Okay, it was . . . well, actually.” She cleared her throat and shot him a hopeful glance. “I got this little nick right here.” She rubbed her finger at her jawline, heart fluttering pleasantly when he smiled at her.
“So you do.” He stepped to her, angled his head, and touched his lips to the tiny cut. “Take care of yourself.”
“Man, man, oh man,” was the best she could manage when he’d left. “He’s got such a great mouth. How do you stop yourself from just biting it?”
“Wipe the drool off your chin, for Christ’s sake. And sit down. We’ve got a report to write for the commander.”
“I almost got blown up and got kissed by Roarke all in the same morning. I’m writing it on my calendar.”
“Settle down.”
“Yes, sir.” She took out her log and got to work. But with a smile on her face.
Commander Whitney was an imposing figure behind his desk. He was a big man with beefy shoulders and a wide face. There were lines scored in his forehead his wife fussed at him to have smoothed away. But he knew that when furrowed, that brow symbolized authority and power to his officers. He’d sacrifice vanity for results every time.
He’d called in the top people in the required units. Lieutenant Anne Malloy from E and B, Feeney from EDD, and Eve. He listened to the reports, dissected, calculated.
“Even using three shifts,” Anne continued, “I’m projecting at least thirty-six hours before we’ve swept the site. The fragments coming in indicate multiple devices, using plaston explosives and intricate timers. This tells me the work was both expensive and sophisticated. We’re not dealing with vandals or a scatter group. More likely we have an organized, well-funded operation.”
“And the likelihood you’ll be able to trace any of the fragments?”
She hesitated. Anne Malloy was a small woman with a pretty, caramel-colored face and wide eyes of quiet green. She wore her blond hair in a bouncy ponytail and had a reputation for being both cheerful and fearless.
“I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, Commander. But if there’s anything to trace, we’ll trace it. First we’ve got to put the pieces together.”
“Captain?” Whitney shifted his attention to Feeney.
“I’m down to the last couple of layers in Fixer’s unit. I should have it bypassed by the end of the day. He put in a maze, but we’re working through it, and we’ll have whatever data there is. I’ve got some of my best going through his equipment at his shop now. If, as we believe, he was connected with this morning’s explosion, we’ll find the link.”
“Lieutenant Dallas, according to your report, the subject was never connected with any political group or involved in any terrorist activity.”
“No, sir. He was a loner. Most of his suspected criminal activity was in the area of robbery, security bypass, small explosives used in those fields. After the Urban Wars, he retired from the army. He was reputed to have become disenchanted with the military, the government, and people in general. He established himself as a freelance electronics artist, with his repair shop as a front. In my opinion, it was for those very reasons that once he discovered he hadn’t been hired to take out a bank but to be a part in something much larger, he panicked, attempted to go under, and was killed.”
“That leaves us with a dead electronics man who may or may not have recorded data on his activities, a previously unknown group with as yet undetermined purposes, and a privately owned building that’s been destroyed with enough overkill to spew debris over a two-block area.”
He leaned back, folded his hands. “Each of you will work on your particular angle, but I want all efforts coordinated. Data is to be shared. We were told this morning was a demonstration. They may not choose an uninhabited building in a scantily populated area the next time. I want this shut down before we’re picking fragments of civilians as well as explosives out of the rubble. I want progress reports by end of shift.”
“Sir.” Eve stepped forward. “I’d like to take copies of both discs and each report to Dr. Mira for analysis. We could use a more detailed profile on the kind of people we’re dealing with.”
“Granted. The media will be given only the information that this explosion was a deliberate act and is under investigation. I want no leaks regarding the discs or the possible connection to a homicide. Work fast,” he ordered and dismissed them.
“Normally,” Anne said when the three of them moved down the corridor together, “I’d arm wrestle you for primary on this little project, Dallas.”
Eve slid her eyes over, sized up Anne’s tiny frame, and snorted. “I’d hurt you, Malloy.”
“Hey, I’m little, but I’m tough.” She bent her arm, flexing her biceps. “In this case, however, the ball bounced to you first, and these jerks contacted you personally. I’ll give way here.” As if to symbolize it, she gestured Eve onto the glide ahead of her, then winked at Feeney and hopped on.
“I’ve got some of my top people on site,” she continued. “I juggled the budget to work them round the clock, but it won’t shake loose for that kind of OT in the lab. IDing and tracing these parts and pieces after a major explosion takes time. It takes manpower. It takes some hot fucking luck.”
“We coordinate what you find with what my team comes up with at Fixer’s, we might find some of that luck,” Feeney said. “We could get even luckier, and I’ll find names, dates, and addresses on his hard drive.”
“I’ll take luck, but I’m not going to count on it.” Eve tucked her hands in her pockets. “If this is a well-funded, organized group, Fixer wouldn’t have joined, but he wouldn’t have run, either. Not as long as they were paying. He ran because he was scared. I’m going to tag Ratso again, see if he left anything out. What does Arlington mean to you, Feeney?”
He started to shrug, but Anne shot her hand between them, grabbed Eve’s arm. “Arlington? Where does that play?”
“Fixer told my weasel he was afraid of another Arlington.” She stared into Anne’s troubled eyes. “Mean something to you?”
“Yeah, Christ, yeah. And to any E and B man. September 25, 2023. The Urban Wars were basically over. There was a radical group, terrorists—assassinations, sabotage, explosives. They’d kill anyone for a price and justified it as revolution. They called themselves Apollo.”
“Oh shit,” Feeney breathed when the name hit home. “Holy Mother of God.”
“What?” Frustrated, Eve gave Anne a quick shake. “
History’s not my strong suit. Give me a lesson here.”
“They’re the ones who took responsibility for blowing up the Pentagon. Arlington, Virginia. They used what was then a new material known as plaston. They used it in such amounts and in such areas that the building was essentially vaporized.
“Eight thousand people, military and civilian personnel, including children in the care center. There were no survivors.”
chapter seven
In Peabody’s apartment, Zeke cleaned and repaired the recycler and replayed the ’link conversation with Clarissa Branson on the kitchen unit.
The first time he played it back, he told himself he was just making sure of the details, of what time he was to report to work, the address.
The second time he played it, he convinced himself he’d missed something vital in the instructions.
By the third time, the parts of the recycler lay neglected while he stared at the screen and let her soft voice wash over him.
I’m sure we have everything you need in the way of tools. She smiled a little as she spoke and made his heart beat just a little faster. But you’ve only to ask if there’s anything else you want.
It shamed him that what he wanted was her.
Before he could give in and replay the transmission one more time, he ordered the ’link off. Color rose into his cheeks as he thought of his own foolishness, his own dishonor in coveting another man’s wife.
She’d hired him to do a job, he reminded himself. That was all there was between them. All there ever could be. She was a married woman, as removed from him as the moon, and had never done anything to encourage these yearnings in him.
But as he rebuilt the recycler with the energy of the guilty, he thought of her.
“How much more can you tell me?” Eve asked.
Rather than squeeze into her office, she’d set them up in a conference room. Already, she had Peabody setting up crime scene photos and available data on a board. Right now, the board was very thin.
“Arlington’s something anyone who wants into E and B studies.” Anne sipped the stale black coffee the room’s AutoChef offered. “The group had to have recruited inside people, probably both military and civilian. An instillation like the Pentagon just isn’t easily infiltrated, and during that period, security was very tight. The operation was very slick,” she continued. “The investigation indicated that a trio of explosive devices loaded with plaston were placed in all five sides, more in the underground facilities.”