by J. D. Robb
She gestured to the monitor. “Find him.”
“I’d like to scan and locate,” Reva said. “I’d like to man the controls on that.”
“That’s Feeney’s call.”
Feeney gave Reva a little pat on the shoulder and had to fight off the itch to run the program himself. “Go.”
She input the designated coordinates for LeBiss, configured for body heat imaging, then did a slow scan. “Nothing there.” Her voice shook a bit, but she cleared her throat and changed the coordinates for the penthouse.
When she saw the mass of red-and-orange light, she simply stared. “Target confirmed,” she said as Eve stepped forward. “He’s alone. Coordinates put him in the studio sector.”
“What’s this?” Eve demanded, circling a line of blue.
“Fire. Flame. Intense heat. He’s working.”
“He’s armed,” Roarke put in. “See here, this space, the angle and position on the body. “Sidearms, would be my guess.”
“Okay. Suit up.” She grabbed her own body armor.
“Bringing up audio. He’s got music on. Trash rock,” Reva said after a moment. “He’s excited, buzzed up,” she added. “He listens to that when he’s revving. He’s got a lot of metal in there. Equipment, works-in-progress. It’s going to be tricky to tell if any of what I’m getting is weaponry.”
“We assume he has it. Keep him locked.” Eve fit on her headset. “I want to know where he is and what he’s doing at all times. I want to know the instant the building’s clear. Let’s move into position.”
“Go.” Feeney spoke into his communicator. “Unit Six, this is base. Friendlies moving into your sector. I repeat, friendlies moving through.”
“They’ll give us the picture,” Eve began as they started toward the stairwell. “Weapons on stun. Dallas on the door,” she said into her headset, then opened the door to the stairwell.
The two-man crisis unit stood ready. “All quiet,” she was told.
“We stun him. I don’t want him drawing a weapon. Nobody gets hurt on this op. We put him down, restrain, and move him out clean.”
“I can get behind that,” McNab muttered.
A full frontal, she thought, all four through the same door, was too risky if he was armed.
“You and Peabody on the gallery door. Roarke will open the door between the sections by remote on my command. We’ll go in the studio door. Take him in a pincer. Move on my signal.”
She moved through the stairwell door, signaled McNab and Peabody to position on the other side of the corridor.
She could hear the progress of the evacuation through her headset. It was slow, but it was moving. She rolled her shoulders.
“Jesus, I hate these vests. Can they make them any more uncomfortable?”
“In another age, Lieutenant, you’d have been my knight in shining armor. And that protection you’d have hated a great deal more.”
“Could’ve taken him, probably could’ve taken him without the evac. Could wait, stake him out. He’s got to sleep sometimes. But . . .”
“Your instincts told you to move people out of harm’s way and take him now.”
She removed her headset, gestured at his. “If it’ll help you to be the one to take him down, I’ll hold back.”
He skimmed a fingertip along her jawline. “Soft on me, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much.”
“Same goes. And no, don’t hold back. It doesn’t matter who.”
“Okay, then.” She put her headset back in place. Then rolled on her toes a few minutes later when the all-clear came through.
“Peabody, on the door. Roarke, get them into the gallery.”
He keyed in on his remote. “Done.”
“Move in. Stay ready.” She took her position by the studio door, nodded to Roarke. “Go!”
She broke through the door, went in low with Roarke high beside her. An instant later, the door between sections opened and Peabody and McNab charged through.
Bissel stood by one of his sculptures, wearing a safety helmet and goggles, light body armor. And two hand blasters in a cross-body harness. He held a torch that spurted a thin line of flame.
“Police! Put your hands in the air. Do it now!”
“It’s not going to matter. Not going to matter.” He swept the torch toward Peabody and McNab, and jerked back as he was stunned.
“Not going to matter.” He tossed down the torch and flame bounced along the reflective surface of the floor. “I rigged this. Are you hearing me!” he shouted. “I’ve got a bomb. If you come at me, I’ll blow it. I’ll blow up half this building and everyone in it. You put down those weapons and listen to me.”
“I’m all ears, Blair.” She heard the order go out for Bombs and Explosives through her earpiece. “Where’s the bomb?”
“Put down your weapons.”
“I’m not going to do that.” She watched out of the corner of her eye as Roarke shifted, then crouched to retrieve the torch and turn it off. “You want me to listen, I’ll listen. Where’s the bomb? You could be bullshitting me. You want me to listen, you’ve got to tell me where it is.”
“This. The whole damn thing.” He slapped his hand on the twisting column of metal. His face was sheened with sweat. From the work, she imagined, and from excitement. And panic.
“There’s enough in here to blow this place, hundreds of people, to hell and back again.”
“You’d go with them.”
“You listen.” He shoved back his helmet and she saw his eyes. Zeus, she thought. He was riding on it. Between that and the body armor, he’d take a few stuns before he went down.
“I said I was listening. What do you have to say?”
“I’m not going to jail. I’m not going in a cage. Sparrow, Quinn Sparrow’s the one who set this up, who set me up. I’m not going in a cage. I’m an HSO operative, on assignment. I don’t answer to the NYPSD.”
“We can talk about that.” She kept her voice even, the tone interested. “You can tell me about your assignment, unless you blow yourself up first.”
“We’re not going to talk. You’re going to listen. I want transportation. I want a jet copter, and pilot, on the roof. I want ten million in nontraceable currency. When I’m clear I’ll send you the deactivation code. Otherwise . . .”
He held up his left hand and displayed the remote trigger strapped to his palm. “I use this. I’m HSO!” he shouted. “Do you think I won’t use this?”
“I don’t doubt you’ll use it, Agent Bissel. But I have to verify the explosive exists. Unless I can confirm the threat and tell my superiors, they’re not going to listen. I need to verify, so you can stay in control.”
“It’s there. And one twitch—”
“You know procedure and protocol. We’re professionals. I’ve got to answer to my superiors. Let’s confirm, then we can move on to your demands and negotiate.”
“It’s inside, you stupid bitch. I put it inside. You’d stayed out of this, I’d’ve had it drop-kicked to fucking HSO Base for screwing with me.”
“We’ll scan it. No point in anybody getting hurt. We’ve got Sparrow. He’s enough for me. He’s the one who got you into this mess. I’ve just got to confirm, so we can start the process.”
“Scan it, then. You’ll see. I want that jet copter. I want you to pull back, pull the hell back. I want transportation to a location of my choice.”
Roarke held up both hands. “Let me just get out my scanner, configure it for reading an explosive device. You know I own part of this building. I don’t want it damaged.”
Bissel shifted his gaze from Eve’s face to Roarke’s. Wet his lips. “Make one move, just one I don’t like, it goes.”
Roarke reached in his pocket, held out the scanner for Bissel’s approval.
“You’ve been dipping in Zeus, Agent Bissel,” Eve said to bring his attention back to her. “It’s not good for you. It can cloud your thinking.”
“You think I don’t know what I’m d
oing?” Sweat was running down his face, pooling at the base of his throat. “You think I don’t have the balls?”
“No. You couldn’t do what you do, be what you are if you didn’t have balls. Sparrow hadn’t screwed you up, you’d be fat city.”
“The son of a bitch.”
“He thought you were his dog, that he could keep you on a leash.” She didn’t look at Roarke, but sensed him at her side. “But you showed him what you were made of. I think all you wanted to do was get away after your assignment was complete. To get what was owed to you and get away, and things kept going wrong. You know, I bet Chloe would’ve gone with you. You didn’t have to kill her.”
“She was an idiot! A decent roll, but she’d irritate the hell out of you out of bed. I used her data unit to store information, to formulate plans. I know how to make my own plans. Contingencies. And what do you think I saw when I peeked in through the listening device I planted in the bedroom? She was trying to get into it, trying to break my passcode. Probably thought I was screwing around on her. Stupid, jealous little bitch.”
“What about the locket you gave her?”
He looked blank, then his jittery eyes smiled. “Passkey, drop box. Think I don’t know how to cover myself? I had drop boxes all over the damn place. Emergency funds, weapons, whatever I needed. Can’t put everything in one spot. Gotta spread out.”
“And she knew about this place. She knew, and she had that incriminating data buried on her unit, and one of your passkeys. I guess I was wrong. You did have to kill her.”
“Damn straight. It should’ve worked. It should’ve. I even got her to write the note. Just write it down for me, baby. One line, just one to say how you felt when you thought I was dead. And she was stupid enough to do it.”
“It was a good plan. So was Powell. It was just bad luck.”
“Explosive device confirmed,” Roarke said coolly. “My, my, Bissel, you certainly put all your eggs into one very volatile basket. If you discharge that, they wouldn’t be able to sweep up the pieces.”
“I told you. Didn’t I tell you? Now get me that copter. Get it now!”
“If you discharged it,” Roarke continued. “But you won’t, as I’ve just deactivated the timer. You’re clear, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks.” She aimed for Bissel’s unprotected legs. He staggered, roared, and his eyes went wild as he closed his hand into a fist to try to set off the explosive.
She hit him a second time when he reached for the sidearms, and Peabody came in from the side, bowling in mid-body to send them both flying across the now scarred floor.
Pumping on Zeus, he backhanded her, but she held on.
McNab leaped, diving in to catch Bissel in a headlock, and, using his fist instead of his weapon, rammed three short, hard punches to the face.
Her nose was streaming blood, but Peabody grabbed her restraints. Between the two of them, they held him down and cuffed his wrists.
“Get his ankles, too,” Eve suggested, and tossed over her own restraints. “He’s still pretty hopped. This is Dallas,” she said into her headset. “Suspect is secured. Send in Bombs and Explosives to remove device.”
When Peabody panted and sat hard on Bissel’s still bucking back, McNab offered her a polka-dotted handkerchief. “Here you go, baby. Your nose is bleeding. I mean, Detective Baby,” he added with a glance at Eve.
“Doing okay, Peabody?” Eve asked her.
“Yeah. It’s not broken.” She held the colorful cloth to her nose. “We got him, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, we got him. Arrange to have the prisoner transported to Central. Good job, Detective Baby. You, too, McNab.”
“You held back,” Roarke said when Eve stepped out of the way to let the bomb squad deal with the sculpture. “So McNab could punch him a few times for Peabody.”
“I think Peabody might have handled it on her own, but he deserved a shot. Got a good, solid right for such a skinny guy.”
She checked her wrist unit. It looked as if she was going to be right on time for Nadine.
Screw political wisdom.
“I’m going to have to go in, do the paperwork, warm up Bissel in Interview. Going to take some time. Maybe you could fill in Reva and Tokimoto, make sure they know their assistance and cooperation have been noted and appreciated. Let Reva know I’m going to clear it so she gets five private minutes with Bissel. And maybe you could tell Caro she did a good job raising her kid.”
“You could tell her that yourself.”
“Guess I could. Meanwhile”—she jerked a thumb so he’d step with her into the relative quiet of the gallery—“you’ve been putting in a lot of time and energy as regards this investigation. Personal interest or not, that’s also noted and appreciated.”
“Thank you.”
“I guess it’s going to take you some time to get your own stuff back in order. All that universal magnate and corporate god stuff.”
“A few days. A week or so, we’ll be on balance again. I’m going to have to be out of town for a bit. Some of it needs to be hands-on.”
“Okay. But you figure you’ll be back in order in about a week?”
“More or less, why?”
“Because when you’re all set, I’m going to take you away for a long weekend. So you can relax.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Are you?”
“Yeah. You’ve been revving on all engines. You need a break. So we’ll say . . . a week from Friday. Where do you want to go?”
“Where do I want to go? And you’re doing this because I need a break?”
She glanced through the doorway, just to make sure nobody was paying any attention. Then cupped his face in her hands. “You do. Then there’s the fact that I intend to make you my sex slave for a couple days. So where do you want to go?”
“We haven’t been to the island in awhile.” He didn’t bother to check if anyone was watching, but leaned down and kissed her. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“No. I’ll make the arrangements. I can do it,” she said when he didn’t quite hide the wince. “I can. Jesus, I can coordinate a major op, I should be able to coordinate some damn travel. Have a little faith.”
“In you I have more than a little.”
“Then I’ll see you later. I’ve got to go let the dogs out.”
She headed out, then walked back and gave him a hard, short kiss. “Later, Civilian Baby.”
She heard him laugh as she walked out, skirted around other cops. And when she was alone, riding down alone, she tapped her finger—the one that wore her wedding ring—against the image of the badge on her heart.
• • •
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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