by J. D. Robb
She stopped, laughed at herself. "That sounds ridiculous. I'm always saying something ridiculous."
"No, it's not. It's what matters to me, anyway." He picked up a glass he'd filled, offered it. He didn't feel tongue-tied and miserably shy around her as he often did with women. She needed a friend, and that made all the difference. "My father taught me that whatever you put of yourself in your work, you get back twice over."
"That's nice." Her smile softened. "It's so important to have family. I miss mine. I lost my parents a dozen years ago and still miss them."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I." She sipped the juice, stopped, sipped again. "Why, this is wonderful. What is it?"
"It's just one of my mother's recipes. Mixed fruit, heavy on the mango."
"Well, it's marvelous. I drink entirely too much coffee. I'd be better off with this."
"I'll bring you a jug if you like."
"That's kind of you, Zeke. You're a kind man." She laid a hand over his. As their eyes met, he felt his heart stumble in his chest, fall flat. Then she slid her hand, and her gaze, aside. "It, ah, smells wonderful in here. The wood."
All he could smell was her perfume, as soft and delicate as her skin. The back of his hand throbbed where her fingers had skimmed it. "You've hurt yourself, Mrs. Branson."
She swung around quickly. "What?"
"There's a bruise on your cheek."
"Oh." Panic shadowed her eyes as she lifted her hand to the mark. "Oh, it's nothing. I…tripped earlier. I tend to move too fast and not watch where I'm going." She set her glass down, lifted it again. "I thought you were going to call me Clarissa. Mrs. Branson makes me feel so distant."
"I can make you a salve for the bruise, Clarissa."
Her eyes filled, threatened to overflow. "It's nothing. But thank you. It's nothing at all. I should go, let you get back to work. B. D. hates it when I interrupt his projects."
"I like the company." He stepped forward. He could imagine himself reaching out, taking her into his arms. Just holding her there. Nothing more than that. But even that, he understood, was too much. "Would you like to stay?"
"I…" A single tear spilled over, slipped beautifully down her cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm not myself today. My brother-in-law—I suppose, the shock. Everything. I haven't been able to…B. D. hates public displays."
"You're not in public now."
And he was reaching out, taking her into his arms where she fit as if she'd been designed for him. He held her there, nothing more than that. And it wasn't too much at all.
She wept quietly, almost silently, her face buried against his chest, her fists clenched against his back. He was tall, strong, innately gentle. She'd known he would be.
When the tears began to slow, she sighed once, twice. "You are kind," she murmured. "And patient, letting a woman you barely know cry on your shoulder. I really am sorry. I suppose I didn't realize I had all that pent up."
She eased back, offered him a watery smile. Her eyes glimmered with tears as she lifted to her toes to press a light kiss to his cheek. "Thank you." She kissed his cheek again, just as lightly, but her eyes had darkened, and her heart tripped against his chest.
The hands balled against his back opened, spread, stroked, her breath trembled out through lips just parted.
Then somehow, without thought or reason, his met them. Naturally as breathing, soft as a whispered promise. He drew her in, she drew him down into a kiss that spun delicately out until there was no time, no place for him but here and now.
She seemed to melt against him, muscle by muscle and bone by bone as if to prove she was as lost in that moment as he. Then she trembled, then shuddered until her body quaked almost violently against his.
She yanked back, her color high, her eyes huge and shocked. "That was—that was entirely my fault. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry."
"It was my doing." He was as pale as she was flushed, and every bit as shaken. "I beg your pardon."
"You were just being kind." She pressed a hand against her heart as if to stop it from bounding out of her chest. "I'd forgotten how that is. Please, Zeke, let's forget it."
He kept his eyes locked on hers, nodded slowly while his pulse beat like a thousand drums. "If that's what you want."
"It's what has to be. I stopped having choices a long time ago. I have to go. I wish—" She bit back whatever she'd intended to say, shook her head fiercely. "I have to go," she said again and dashed from the room.
Alone, Zeke laid his hands against the workbench, leaned in, and closed his eyes. What in God's name was he doing? What in God's name had he done?
He'd fallen flat-faced in love with a married woman.
*** CHAPTER ELEVEN ***
"Sir." The minute Eve walked into the conference room, Peabody was on her feet. Strain showed in the tightness around her mouth. "You received another communication."
Eve pulled off her jacket. "Cassandra?"
"I didn't open the pouch, but I had it scanned. It's clean."
With a nod, Eve took the pouch, turned it over in her hand. It was identical to the first. "The rest of the team's on the way in. Where's McNab?"
"How would I know?" It came out in something close to a squeak that had Eve glancing over to watch Peabody stuff her hands in her pockets, take them out, fold her arms over her chest. "I don't keep tabs on him. I don't care where he is."
"Tag him, Peabody," Eve said with what she considered admirable patience. "Bring him in."
"Ah, the superior officer should send for him."
"Your superior officer is telling you to get his skinny butt in here. Now." Annoyed, Eve dropped into a chair and ripped open the pouch. She examined the disc briefly, then plugged it into the computer. "Run disc."
Running…contents are text only as follows…
We are Cassandra.
We are the gods of justice.
We are loyal.
Lieutenant Dallas, we enjoyed today's events. We are in no way disappointed in our choice of you as adversary. In less than our projected time allotted, you located the described target. We are pleased with your skills.
Perhaps you believe you won this battle. Though we congratulate you on your quick and decisive work, we feel, in fairness, we should inform you today's work was only a test. A preliminary round.
The first wave of police experts entered the target building at eleven hundred hours and sixteen minutes. Evacuation proceedings began within eight minutes. You arrived at target twelve minutes after evacuation had begun.
At any time during this process, the target could have been destroyed. We preferred observing.
We found it interesting that Roarke became personally involved. His arrival was an unexpected bonus and allowed us to study you working together. The cop and the capitalist.
Forgive us for being amused by your fear of heights. We were impressed that despite it, you performed your duties as the tool of the fascist state. We had expected no less from you.
In triggering the last device, we allowed time for containment. Lieutenant Malloy will confirm that without this time, without this containment, several lives and a great deal of property would have been lost.
We will not be as accommodating with the next target.
Our demands must be met within forty-eight hours. To those initial demands, we now demand a payment of sixty million dollars in bearer bonds in increments of fifty thousand dollars. The capitalistic figureheads that line their pockets and break the back of the masses must be made to pay in coin they worship.
Once confirmation of the liberation of our compatriots is assured, instructions on delivery of the monetary penalty will be issued.
To prove our commitment to the cause, a small demonstration of our power will be made at precisely fourteen hundred hours.
We are Cassandra.
"A demonstration?" Eve glanced at her wrist unit. "In ten minutes." She pulled out her communicator. "Malloy, are you still in the target?"
> "Just securing."
"Get everybody out, keep out for another fifteen minutes. Run another scan."
"This place is clean, Dallas."
"Run it anyway. After the fifteen, have Feeney send a unit of exterminators in. The building's full of bugs. They were watching every move. We'll need the bugs brought in for analysis, but get out and stay out of the building until after fourteen hundred."
Anne opened her mouth, obviously decided to save her questions, then nodded. "Affirmative. ETA to Central thirty minutes."
"Do you think they got a bomb past the scan?" Peabody asked when Eve broke transmission.
"No, but I'm not taking the chance. We can't track every damn building in the city. They want to show us how big and bad they are. So they're going to take something out." She pushed away from the desk, walked to the window. "There's not a fucking thing I can do to stop them."
She scanned her view of New York, the old brick, the new steel, the crowds of people jammed onto glides or sidewalks, the nervous, edgy traffic in the streets, the rumble of it in the air.
Serve and protect, she thought. That was her job. That was her promise. And now all she could do was watch and wait.
McNab came in, looked anywhere but at Peabody. He preferred to pretend she wasn't in the room. "You sent for me, Lieutenant?"
"See what you can do with the disc I just ran. Make copies for my files and for the commander. And what is the status on Fixer's code?"
McNab allowed himself a small, smug smile and a sly sidelong glance at Peabody. "I just cracked it." He held up his own disc and struggled not to scowl as Peabody turned her head away and studiously examined her nails.
"Why the hell didn't you say so?" Eve strode over to snatch it out of his hand.
Insulted, McNab opened his mouth, then shut it tight when he caught Peabody's smirk out of the corner of his eye. "I'd just run the backups when you sent for me," he said stiffly. "I didn't take the time to read the contents comprehensively," he continued as Eve jammed the disc home. "But a quick skim indicates he lists all materials used, all devices made, and there are enough of them to wipe out a Third World country."
He paused, deliberately moving to the other side of Eve as Peabody shifted closer to see the screen. "Or a major city."
"Ten pounds of plaston," Eve read.
"An ounce would take out half this level of Cop Central," he told her. When Eve shifted to the wall screen, he moved another lateral foot away from Peabody, and she from him.
"Timers, remotes, impacts, sound and motion activated." Eve felt the ice crawl into her stomach. "They didn't miss a trick. Plenty of security, sensors, surveillance toys, too. He put together a goddamn warehouse for them."
"They paid him plenty," Peabody murmured. "He's got his costs, his fees, his profits all listed nice and tidy beside each unit."
"Hell of a businessman. Guns." Eve's eyes narrowed. "He got hold of banned weapons for them. Those are Urban War era."
"Is that what they are?" Interested, McNab leaned closer. "I didn't know what the hell he was talking about there, but didn't take time to run a check. Fifty ARK-95s?"
"Riot dispersers, military. A troop could take down a city block of looters—stunned or terminated—with a couple of passes."
Roarke had one in his collection. She'd tested it herself and had been stunned by the hot ripple of power up her arms at discharge.
"Why would they need guns?" Peabody wondered.
"When you start a war, you arm the troops. It's not a damn political statement." She shoved back. "That's smoke. They want the city, and they don't much care if it's in rubble." She blew out a breath. "But what the hell do they want to do with it?"
She shifted to continue the run. Without thinking, both Peabody and McNab moved in. Their shoulders bumped. Eve glanced back with a baffled scowl when they leaped widely apart.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Nothing. Sir." Peabody snapped to attention even as color washed into her cheeks.
"Well, stop dancing around and contact the commander. Request he join us for debriefing and update as soon as possible. Inform him of the new deadline."
"Deadline?" McNab asked.
"New communication. A promised demonstration at fourteen hundred." Eve looked at her wrist unit. "Less than two minutes from now." Nothing to be done, she thought, but deal with the after. She turned back to the screen.
"We've got what he made them and how many. We don't know, however, if he was their only source. From his list here, we can calculate that he was paid more than two million, cash, over a period of three months. I suspect they put that money back into their pie when they took him out."
"He knew they meant to." McNab glanced over. "Scan down to page seventeen. He adds a sort of journal there."
Eve did as he suggested, then slid her hands into her pockets and read.
It's my own fault, my own fucking fault. You keep looking at the money, you get blinded. So the assholes sucked me in, and sucked me deep. This ain't no bank job. They could take out the National fucking Mint with what I've put together for them. Maybe it's money, maybe it's not. I don't give a rat's ass.
Guess I thought I didn't give that rat's ass about nothing. Until I started thinking. I started remembering. It's smarter not to remember. You got a wife and kids once, they get blown to pieces, no point in thinking about it the rest of your life.
But I'm thinking about it now. I'm thinking what's in the works here is another Arlington.
These two jokers I've been dealing with figure I'm old and greedy and stupid. But they're off. I got enough brain cells left to know they aren't running this song and dance. Fucking-A. Mechanical muscle's all they are. Muscle with dead eyes. When I started to tip to how things were, I added a little bonus to one of the transmitters. Then all I had to do was sit and wait and listen.
Now I know who they are and what they want. Bastards.
They're going to have to take me out. It's the only way they can cover their asses. One day soon, one of them's walking in here and slicing my throat.
I've got to go under. I've built and handed over to them enough to blow me out of here as soon as they're done with me. I've got to take what I can and go under deep. They won't get inside my place, not for a while, and they don't have the brain power to get to the data on here. This is my backup. The proof, the money, they're going with me.
Jesus, Jesus, I'm scared.
I gave them everything they need to blow this city to hell. And they'll use it. Soon.
For money. For power. For revenge. And God help us all, for the fun.
It's a game, that's all. A game played in the name of the dead.
I have to go under. I have to get out. Need time to think, to figure things out. Christ, I might have to go to the cops with this. The fucking bastard cops.
But first I'm getting out. If they come after me, I'm taking the two drones down with me.
"That's it." Eve curled her hands into fists. "That's all. He had names, he had data. Why didn't the stubborn old fuck put the info on his machine?" She whirled away to pace. "Instead, he takes it with him, whatever he had on them, he takes with him. And when they off him, they have it all."
She stalked to the window. Her view of New York hadn't changed. It was five after two. "Peabody, I need everything you can get on the Apollo group. Every name, every incident they took responsibility for."
"Yes, sir."
"McNab." She turned, stopping when Feeney stepped into the doorway. His face was drawn, his eyes too dark. "Oh hell. What did they hit?"
"Plaza Hotel. The tea room." He walked slowly to the AutoChef, jabbed his finger into the controls for coffee. "They took it out, and the lobby shops, most of the goddamn lobby, too. Malloy's headed to the scene. We don't have a body count yet."
He took out the coffee, drank it down like medicine. "They'll need us."
• • •
She'd never lived through war. Not the kind that killed in indiscrimina
te masses. Her dealings with death had always been more personal, more individual. Somehow intimate. The body, the blood, the motive, the humanity.
What she saw now had no intimacy. Wholesale destruction accomplished from a distance erased even that nasty bond between killer and victim.
There was chaos, the screams of sirens, the wails of the injured, the shouts of onlookers who stood nearby, both shocked and fascinated.
Smoke continued to stream out of the once-elegant Fifth Avenue entrance of the revered hotel to sting the air and the eyes. Hunks of brick and concrete, jagged spears of metal and wood, glittering remnants of marble and stone lay heaped with grim pieces of flesh and gore scattered over them.
She saw tattered rags of colorful cloth, severed limbs, hills of ash. And a single shoe—black with a silver buckle. A child's shoe, she thought, unable to stop herself from crouching down to study it. It would have been shiny, a little girl's dress-up-for-tea shoe. Now it was dull and splattered with blood.
She straightened, ordered her heart to chill and her mind to clear, then began to make her way over, around the rubble and waste.
"Dallas!"
Eve turned, saw Nadine picking her way through the filth in lady heels and thin hose. "Get back behind the press line, Nadine."
"No one's put up a line." Nadine lifted a hand to push at her hair while the wind blew it back in her face. "Dallas. Sweet God. I was finishing up a luncheon speech deal over at the Waldorf when this came through."
"Busy day," Eve muttered.
"Yeah. All around. I had to pass on the Radio City story because I was committed to the lunch. But the station kept me updated. What the hell's going on? Word was you evacuated over there."
She paused, scanned over the destruction. "It wasn't any water main problem. And neither was this."
"I don't have time for you now."
"Dallas." Nadine caught at her sleeve, held firm. Her eyes, when they met Eve's, were ripe with horror. "People have got to know." She said it quietly. "They have a right to."
Eve jerked her arm free. She'd seen the camera behind Nadine and the remote mike pinned to her lapel. Everyone had their jobs. She knew it, understood it.