by J. D. Robb
“Agreed.”
“So, this is like a quiz?”
“The MTs may have cleared you, but you look as if you’ve been run over by a truck. I’d like to see if you’re thinking clearly at least. Why not Doomsday, then? Subtle isn’t their style.”
“First, technos don’t send a man out to shoot missiles. That’s why they’re technos. And if they did break pattern, they wouldn’t have missed. And it was a miss. Couple of feet down, hit the car broadside, and we’re gone. They send somebody to take out a cop and/or an operative, they’re not going to be so half-assed about it. Plus, I think they’d have gone bigger. If they could get a man into position, why not use a bigger toy, and take out a chunk of Central? Hit Cop Central and you’ve got the kind of media foray they love. Take out a car, and it’s a little bulletin. Not big. This has the earmark of desperation or temper, not organization. How’m I doing?”
“Your brain doesn’t appear to have been unduly scrambled.” He rose, wandered to the window. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been called to the Tower?”
“We’re straddling a line here,” she said after a moment. “I don’t like it, I don’t like feeling . . . apart from you. But that’s the reality of it.”
“So it seems.”
“Someone tried to kill me today. Will you hunt them down?”
He didn’t turn. “It’s entirely different, Eve. I’ve had to . . . adjust myself when it comes to your work, what you do, what may be done to you. I love you, and loving you I have to accept that you are what you are, and do what you do. It costs me.”
He turned now, looked at her with those wild blue eyes. “Considerably.”
“It was your choice. It was always your choice.”
“As if I had one, from the minute I saw you. What you face now, I can accept, and admire you for facing it. What you faced then, what was forced on you when you had no defense, I can’t accept.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“That’s a matter of perspective. Does it change anything to put a killer in a cage after his victim’s in the ground? You believe it does, and so do I. And debating this now is only going to push us both further over on our own sides of that line. We both have work.”
“Yeah, we both have work.” She got to her feet. She would stand, she thought. Had to. Even if she couldn’t stand with him.
“Before we were so rudely interrupted, Sparrow told me that Bissel was a double agent. The HSO was using him to get intel from Doomsday. Giving them structured intel in return for payment. It was a long con. They wrapped Ewing up in it due to her position at Securecomp. They wanted a handle on your technology and projects, and most particularly in recent months, whatever they could get on your Code Red. They want, and apparently seriously want, to scoop you on the shield.”
“I suppose the idea of the private sector having that kind of technology irritates them. Using Bissel was sensible. He plays all ends—using Reva to gain data on Securecomp, posing as the greedy turncoat to gain knowledge of Doomsday.”
“His brother was blackmailing him over the extramaritals. But that suited their purposes. Sparrow claims they don’t know where Carter Bissel is. He might be telling the truth, but I’m not buying little brother as your standard blackmailer. No reason to corrupt his personal units, no reason for him to disappear or be disappeared. Doesn’t jibe.”
“He who can play turncoat can actually be one.”
She smiled. “There you go.”
She hated to admit it but the blocker helped. Even so the thin cotton pants and loose T-shirt felt heavy on her abused body. When Peabody took one look at her and winced, Eve decided she probably looked worse than she felt.
“You don’t look like you can hit me at the moment,” Peabody began, “so I’m going to ask. Don’t you think you should be in the hospital?”
“Don’t let appearances deceive you. No, I shouldn’t be in the hospital, and yes, I can still hit you. Bring me up on Powell.”
“Single full-contact, full-power shot with hand laser, as evaled on scene. Time of death, ten-fifteen yesterday morning. No forced entry. CSU believes a master was used. Powell’s ID, his vehicle code, his employee pass were all missing from the premises. He’d made no transmissions from his home ’link since the previous afternoon when he ordered pizza from a local place. But he did receive one at just after eight A.M. on the morning of his death. The caller cut transmission after Powell answered, groggily. We traced it to a public ’link at a subway station three blocks away from the scene. Conclusion: The killer verified Powell was home, and in bed. Gave him enough time to fall back to sleep, then entered the premises and killed him.”
“Sweepers?”
“Only the prelim, but they haven’t identified any prints other than the victim’s, no DNA, no trace. But I do have a neighbor, Mrs. Lance, who was coming back home from the deli. She saw a man coming out of the building at about ten-thirty. Description matches the one Sibresky gave us of this Angelo.”
“How about the artist’s rendering? We got that?”
“Working on it. When I checked I was told Sibresky isn’t being particularly cooperative or open-minded. I promised the artist a backstage pass to the next Mavis Freestone concert in the city if he got us something this afternoon.”
“Good bribe. I’m so proud.”
“I had an excellent trainer.”
“Suck up later. Have you been in to see McNab?”
Peabody pokered up. “I only stopped by the lab to check on the progress of their work.”
“Yeah, and to give his bony ass a pat.”
“Unfortunately, he was sitting on said bony ass at the time of my visit, so I was unable to complete that part of my mission.”
“Because, despite all my efforts, the image of that bony ass is starting to form in my fevered mind, tell me about the rest of the mission. How’s it going in there?”
Peabody wanted to ask why Eve hadn’t been in to see for herself, but from the snags of tension around her and Roarke, she thought she knew.
“Well, there’s a lot of techno-talk, some pretty creative cursing. I like how Roarke says ‘bugger.’ Tokimoto stays iced, and Reva’s like a woman on a religious quest. McNab’s in heaven, hacking away. But what tipped me was Feeney. There’s this gleam in his eyes. I think they’re getting close.”
“While they’re making the world safe for democracy, let’s see if we can solve a few murders.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” she said when her communicator signaled. “I’ll get on that little task as soon as I take this. Detective Peabody,” she announced. “Hey, Lamar, you got something for us?”
“You got my backstage pass?”
“My word’s my bond.”
“Then I got your face. How do you want me to send it?”
“Laser fax,” Eve ordered from her desk. “And a file to my unit here. I want a hard copy, and I want one on my computer.”
Peabody relayed, then walked over to retrieve the fax herself. “Lamar’s good. Could probably make a better living doing portraits than detailing bad guys. Not the prettiest petal on the flower,” she added, passing the printout to Eve. “But not as ugly as Sibresky said. The scar just messes up the face.”
“Yeah, it draws the eye, too, doesn’t it? You’re going to think scar when you see this face. Big, nasty scar, so maybe you don’t look too close, because, gee, that’s rude.”
“Sibresky doesn’t seem to have had that problem.”
“I get the feeling Sibresky’s not too big on sensitivity and etiquette. Let’s play a game, Peabody.”
“Really? Okay.”
“We’ll start by you going in the kitchen, getting a pot of coffee and . . . something. There’s gotta be something to eat.”
“You want food?”
“No, my stomach’s still shaky. You get food.”
“Hey, so far I like this game.”
“Don’t come back in until I tell you.”
“No problem.�
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Eve turned to her computer, rubbed her hands together. “Okay, let’s play.”
It didn’t take long because the process and the possibility had been brewing in her brain for some time. She used the imaging program, shooting the visuals on the wall screens as she worked the details.
“Okay, Peabody, you’re up, and bring me coffee.”
“You should have some of this apple-cranberry cobbler.” She came in with a bowl of it, and a mug for Eve. “It’s really mag.”
“What do you see?”
Peabody eased a hip onto the edge of the desk, spooned up cobbler. “The artist’s rendering of the suspect known only as Angelo.”
“Okay. Computer split screen, keep current image and display image CB-1.”
Working . . . Images displayed.
“Now what do you see?”
“Carter Bissel, split screen with Angelo.” She frowned, and though she understood immediately what direction Eve was taking, she shook her head. “I’ll go with the Angelo person being a disguise. I don’t see Carter Bissel in there. There’s no data on him being an expert on disguise. Buy a wig, slap on a mustache, sure. Even maybe manage the scar. But the line of the jaw’s off—an implant for the bucked teeth would change the shape of the mouth, but not the jaw. He’d need more for that, and even if Kade was working him, or with him for a few months, how’d he get so skilled in disguise?”
She scooped up more cobbler and continued to study and compare the two images. “And Carter Bissel’s ears are bigger. That’s the tip. Ears are a good giveaway. He could make them bigger for Angelo, but not smaller.”
“You’ve got a good eye, Peabody. But watch and learn.”
18 PEABODY ATE COBBLER and watched as Eve and the computer added the hair from image one onto the head of image two.
“You know, you can do it all with one command if you—”
“I know I can do it all with one command,” Eve said irritably. “It doesn’t make the same damn point that way. Who’s running this game?”
“You know, getting shot at with a short-range missile makes you really testy.”
“Keep it up, and the next short-range missile’s going straight up your ass.”
“Dallas, you know how I love that sweet talk.” Shifting to a more comfortable position, Peabody licked her spoon, then waved it at the screen. “Okay, you add the bad hair, but it doesn’t change jaw structure or ear size and shape. Also, the witness makes Angelo slimmer, considerably slimmer than Carter Bissel. Fifteen pounds, easy. Bissel carried some extra weight according to his ID stats. The witness said Angelo was trim, in good physical shape. Again, you can add weight in a disguise, but you can’t shave off fifteen pounds overnight. If you could, I’d be signed up for the program.”
“If you don’t want to play, take your cobbler and scram. Computer, replicate facial scar from image one onto image two.”
“The entry into Powell’s apartment, as in the Bissel home, was slick.” Peabody scraped at the bowl, looking for any escaping cobbler as the computer complied with the command. “Has to be someone with experience or training. And all the murders in this case have been particularly cold, even the first ones, which were staged to look hot-blooded. It’s the very staging that makes them cold.”
“Nobody’s arguing that. Give me motive. Computer, assume front top teeth of image one is an implant. Calculate and replicate same on image two.”
“Covert organization screwup—either one. Or, I’ve been thinking about this—a kind of gang war. The worm is complete so Doomsday must want to utilize. They know a shield’s being created. HSO and its associates create havoc to slow technos down or circumvent, or destroy the worm. Doomsday creates havoc to scatter resources, create havoc, which is what terrorists do anyway, and circumvent the creation of the shield until they get some use out of all the time, trouble, and expense they’ve gone to. One side murders a couple of operatives, the other snips off a potential loose thread—McCoy. One side grabs operative’s brother. The other steals dead operative’s body, and does the overkill attack on the primary investigator. Escalated espionage,” Peabody said with a shrug. “Not as iced as Bond, but plenty convoluted. It seems to me spies convolute everything.”
“Look at the images, Peabody.”
Peabody complied, and tapped the spoon gently on her teeth. “I see a resemblance, largely superficial, between the two images. Dallas, you put my image up there and do computer composites, you could make me look like Angelo. But don’t, okay, ’cause I just ate.”
“Still hung up on the variation of jawline and the ears?”
“If you tried to take this into court, they’d throw you out.”
“Guess you’re right. Computer, remove image two and replace with image three.”
Peabody’s brows knit when the split screen showed two images of Angelo. “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“Why are you projecting two images of the same guy?”
“Am I? You sure they’re the same guy? Maybe getting tossed around earlier’s messed up my vision.”
“You got Angelo up there side by side.” Concerned, Peabody shifted to study Eve’s face. “Look, if you don’t want to go to the hospital, maybe you could call Louise. She’d make a house call for you.”
“I don’t want to bother the busy Dr. Dimatto. Let’s just see what I . . . oh yeah, that’s right. Here’s what I meant to do. Computer, remove all replications from image three and display original.”
Eve sat back with a very satisfied grin as Peabody dropped the spoon. “That’s Bissel. That’s Blair Bissel.”
“It sure is, isn’t it? You know, I’m thinking reports of his death have been largely exaggerated.”
“I know you ran that theory, but I never thought you put real weight on it. The DNA, the prints, were Blair Bissel’s. His own wife ID’d him.”
“HSO training, several years on the job, even at a lower operative level, should give a guy the skills to doctor records, change his to his brother’s. Add overkill, the blood, the gore, the fact that Ewing was shocked, and the fact that in all probability Carter Bissel had undergone some recent surgery to enhance his fairly strong family resemblance to his brother. Body weight was high for Blair’s records, but not more than a lot of people lie about on official documents anyway. Nobody pays any attention to an extra ten or fifteen pounds.”
“I skim ten off mine. I don’t know why. It’s a compulsion.”
“We expect to see Blair Bissel, so we see him. Why should we question the identity of the victim?”
“But why would he go along with it? Carter? There wasn’t any sign of force, no ligatures. How do you induce somebody to undergo surgery, change appearance?”
“Could’ve paid him. Money, sex—probably both. Let’s screw with big brother and screw his girlfriend while we’re at it. No love lost between the brothers.”
“There’s a wide gulf between no love lost and deliberately, coldly murdering your brother and your lover. If Kade was helping to set Carter up—”
“Then Blair planned to do her all along. Yeah, that’s what I think. You want to fake your own death, do it in a big way. A vicious way that tosses the blood in your wife’s face, at least initially, and gets rid of the monkey on your back and one of the people who knew you intimately enough to muck the deal. They’ll say you were a cheat, a liar, a bastard. What do you care, you’re dead.”
“I have to think about this.” Peabody pushed away from the desk to pace. “With this theory, Blair and Kade did a number on Carter outside the HSO directive.”
“Maybe they started inside, probably did, but I figure they started coloring outside the lines at some point.”
“As a solution for the blackmail.”
“Partially. It’s money, it’s adventure, it’s risk. All those fit their profiles. But they had bigger goals. Keep going.”
“Crap. Blair was a liaison, doubling under HSO directive, as a liaison for Doomsday. F
eeding them selected data for payment, and establishing himself as a source, a traitor, a free agent. Part of this cloak was his marriage to Reva Ewing, blueprinted by the HSO.”
“Corporate espionage on one hand—a lucrative game, and with so much privatization of intel- and data-gathering sources over the last couple of decades, the HSO has to compete with civilian companies for revenue.”
“Like Securecomp.”
“Like that, and the dozens of others on and off planet they arranged for Blair to plant his listening posts. And think about this, Peabody. You always have to have a backup plan. You require plausible deniability. What contingency plan do you suppose the architects of this blueprint drew up in the event one of the sculptures was detected?”
Peabody stopped in front of the screens, studied the faces. “Blair Bissel, fall guy.”
“You bet, and by association, Reva would fall with him and Securecomp is compromised. It could—and I think would—have been said that they’d worked together. After all, they were husband and wife.”
“So they were building a frame after all.”
“Contingencies. Blair’d been in the organization long enough for this to occur to him. And if not him, it occurred to Kade.”
“So he took steps to protect himself?” Peabody shook her head. “Really big steps.”
“Not only protection. Factor in the satisfaction of getting back at his blackmailing brother, Homeland—the people, the government who’d use and discard him if things went wrong. Then add a big shit-pile of money.”
“From the technos? He makes a deal with them. Unauthorized information. Something big.”
“He’s the bridge between points A and B, and he knows more about both points, in this aspect, than either point knows of each other. Because he’s the one passing the data. He’s in control of that. Heady stuff for a guy with his personality profile. Why not take more? More control, more power, more money, and get out? Only one way out. Go rogue, and they’ll hunt you down. Both sides.”
“But they won’t hunt if they think you’re dead.”
“There you go. Add to that the HSO busy trying to cover up the mess you left behind, the cops busy investigating a prime suspect handed them on a platter, and the death of the only person who had knowledge of your plans, and you’re in the cozy part of fat city.”