by J. D. Robb
“You lose operator instinct,” McNab told her. “You got him right there, at the infected unit. He can make judgment calls in a blink.”
“Besides—ow.” Jamie rubbed his belly where Feeney’s elbow had landed.
“Besides what?” Eve demanded. “Don’t pull this e-solidarity crap with me. McNab?”
“Okay, okay, in simple terms we can’t be sure the shield will filter out the infection during an interface. It could, probably would, spread from one unit to another. We figure that’s how it pumped into the eight units we hauled out of Fitzhugh’s place. Infect one, infect all. Efficient, time-saving, and thorough. So if we try a remote, it could leak into the other unit, potentially through the whole system.”
“We need more data to confirm,” Jamie piped up. “Then we’ll create a shield to handle that area. Priority was shielding the operator while he extracts the data. When you’re dealing with a remote, and a multisystem network, the units have a language. They, like, talk to each other, right? The infected unit’s got a different language, compatible, but different. Like, I dunno, Spanish and Portuguese or something.”
“Okay.” Eve nodded. “I get that. Keep going.”
“Me and McNab, we’re working on what you could call a translation deal. Then we can zap it in, run sims. We’ll shield the whole system. We figure we’ll be able to link to CompuGuard and shield the whole damn city.”
“Getting ahead of yourself, Jamie. One thing at a time.” Feeney glanced up at the wall screen where they could see Roarke attaching the sensors.
“Gonna run your medicals. You copy?”
“Yes.”
“Medicals normal. You’re good to go.”
“Booting.”
Eve never took her attention away from the screen. Roarke had tied his hair back as he often did when he was working. And his shirt was carelessly open. His hands were quick and steady as he slid the disc into its slot.
“Loading the filter. Estimate seventy-two seconds to upload on this unit. Loading Jamie’s code breaker. Forty-five. Running diagnostic from point of last attempt. Multitasking with search and scan for any programs loaded within the last two weeks.”
He was working manually, with those quick and steady hands, relaying his intentions in a voice that was brisk and cool, and beautiful.
“Disc and hard copy of data requested, as accessed. Upload complete. We’re shielded. There now, Jamie. Fine job. Data’s coming up readable. Here now, what’s this? You see the data on monitor, Feeney?”
“Yeah, yeah, wait. Hmmm.”
“What?” Eve shook McNab’s good shoulder. “What are they talking about?”
“Ssh!” Such was his concentration, he didn’t notice her jaw drop at his command as he drove his chair closer to the screen. “That is so total.” Forgetting himself, he started to push himself up. And his dead hand slid off the arm of the chair.
For a moment, he simply froze, and Eve’s throat filled at the look of shocked panic on his face. Then he adjusted the chair smoothly, bringing it to a different position so he was higher and straighter, with a better view of the monitor.
The room was full of jargon again, rapid questions, comments, observations as foreign to her as Greek.
“Somebody speak in English, damn it.”
“It’s bloody brilliant. I shouldn’t have missed this on the first pass.” Roarke reached over to another control, keyed in commands by feel. “Ah, bugger it. She’s trying to fail-safe. Not yet, you bitch, I’m not done with you.”
“Shield’s breaking up,” Feeney warned him.
“Shut down,” Eve ordered. “Shut it down.”
“It’s still at ninety percent. Hold your jets there, Lieutenant.”
Before she could repeat the order, Feeney interrupted. “He’s all right yet, Dallas. Medicals are holding. Son of a bitch’s pulse barely shows a blip. He must run on ice. Roarke, go to shell. Try the—”
“I’m in the flaming shell.” His voice was a mutter, and Irish now as a shamrock. “And I’ve already tried that. Clever bastard. Look here, look at this. It’s voice printed. Can’t override manually. Fuck it, there she goes.”
Eve saw his monitor erupt with jags of black and white. He flipped out data discs an instant before a nasty grinding sound came through the speakers, and a small, gray plume of smoke puffed out of the back of the machine.
“Toasted,” Jamie said.
Chapter 13
“Unit’s a dead loss.” Roarke had yet to button his shirt, however he had removed the sensors. “But it gave its life for a good cause.”
He turned one of the discs in his hand. “These should be clean—nothing on that program was geared to the external drive. But they should be labeled and set aside for testing after we’ve managed to extract the entire program. Hard copy will do for now. Jamie, you can start imputting the data in the morning.”
“I can start now.”
“You’ll have some supper, then a two-hour recreation break. If you feel like putting an hour in after that—an hour only—that’s fine. In bed, lights out, by midnight. If you don’t rest your brain, it won’t be of any use to me.”
“Man, my mother isn’t even that strict.”
“I’m not your mother. Feeney—”
“You don’t want to tell me when to go to bed, kid. I’m old enough to be your mother.”
“I was going to ask if you could do with a meal. I imagine we all could.”
“Hold it. Just hold it.” Frustrated, Eve held up both hands. “Nobody eats anything until I get an explanation. What did you get, and what does it mean? And if I hear one word of computerese, everybody gets rabbit food.”
“Talk about strict,” Jamie countered.
“Tell me,” ordered Eve.
“He got the frequency,” McNab told her. “And the spectrum. Another minute, tops, we’d’ve had the pulse and speed.”
“Basically, Lieutenant.” Roarke tugged the band out of his hair so it fell like black rain. “With a little more finessing, we’ve got your virus.”
“Did you get the method of infection?” she asked.
“Possibly. There’s data to analyze, but from the look I could get on the scroll, I’m putting my money on the simplicity of e-mail.”
“They e-mailed it? Fucking e-mail?” Eve had wanted simple, but this . . . this was almost insulting. “You can’t infect that way. CompuGuard—”
“Has never seen the likes of this,” Roarke interrupted. “My guess would be . . .” He trailed off, gestured. “Go ahead, Jamie, before you erupt.”
“Okay, see what it looks like—and I have to figure out how to do it—is they cloaked a doc, micro’ed and stealthed—”
“Do you want to eat radishes and lettuce?” Eve asked mildly.
“Right.” He adjusted his brain to lay terms. “So they attached the virus to the e-mail, only it didn’t show up as having an attachment, doesn’t alert the receiver. Sender can check if it went in just by doing the standard scan on when the mail was read. Had to download fast, really fast, without showing the operator what it was doing. It had to talk to the unit, temporarily at least shut down the prompts and alerts for a download. Then it filed itself, as a document, an invisible document in the main drive program. It wouldn’t register on a standard doc search and scan. It doesn’t ID. It’s just there, like lurking and doing its job. It’s way radical.”
“Okay, I follow that.” Eve looked at Roarke. “If this could be done, how come you didn’t know about it?”
“Lieutenant, I am chagrined.”
“Me, I’m just starved.” Jamie patted his belly. “Got any pepperoni pizza?”
Eve had a couple of slices herself, bided her time through the noisy, confused meal, let her mind drift to the case, away from it, back again.
She wasn’t sure when it struck her—maybe when Feeney casually speared some of the pasta off Roarke’s plate, or when Jamie dumped another slice of pizza on McNab’s as he stretched across the table for anothe
r for himself. Maybe it had always been there, and just chose that moment to clarify.
Mira had said it on the terrace. Family.
This was what families did, she realized. This was what she’d never experienced as a child. Noisy, messy dinners with everyone talking over everyone else, which wasn’t as annoying as it should’ve been.
Stupid jokes and casual insults.
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it when it applied to herself, but she could see what it might do to that pattern when something or someone damaged a part of the whole.
It would fall apart. Temporarily for those who were strong enough to glue it all back into pattern or make another. Permanently for those who couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
She glanced at McNab. Even here, with all the chatter, there was a smear of worry over it all. If that one part of them stayed broken, the rest would tumble down like tiles. They’d form a new pattern—that was the job—but they’d never forget the way it had been.
She pushed back from the table. “I’ve got some stuff I need to do.”
“The Walking Dead said there was chocolate cake.”
“Jamie,” Roarke said mildly.
“Sorry,” Jamie said reluctantly. “Mister Walking Dead, also known as Summerset, said there was chocolate cake.”
“And if you eat it all, I’ll kill you in your sleep. Then you can join The Walking Dead. Roarke, I need to talk to you.”
As they started out, she heard Jamie ask: “Think they’re gonna go do it?” And heard the quick slap of Feeney’s hand on the teenaged skull.
“Are we going to go do it?” Roarke grabbed her hand.
“Want me to have Feeney knock you, too?”
“I’m a bit quicker than Jamie yet. But I take that to mean we’re not going back upstairs for a fast tumble.”
“How many times a day do you think about sex?”
He gave her a considering look. “Would that be actively thinking of it, or just having the concept of it lurking there, like Jamie’s invisible document?”
“Never mind. Did you see Mira before?”
“I didn’t, no. I was in the lab. Sorry I missed her. Peabody said Mavis stopped by as well, and needed a private word with you. Is she all right?”
“She’s knocked . . .” She didn’t have time for that little routine again. “She’s pregnant.”
“What?” He stopped in his tracks.
It was always a treat, a rare one, to see him stupefied. “Totally pregs, as she puts it. On purpose, too.”
“Mavis? Our Mavis?”
“One and the same. She came in jumping and spinning and dancing. I don’t know if she should be bouncing around like that now. Seems like you could, I don’t know, dislodge the thing in there. She’s really hyped.”
“Well, this is . . . lovely,” he decided. “Is she well?”
“I guess. Looks great anyway. Said she was puking in the mornings, but she liked it. I don’t get that.”
“No, I can’t say I do either. We’ll take them out to dinner as soon as we’re able. I should check on her performance and recording schedule.” He knew every bit as much about the care and feeding of expectant mothers as Eve did. Which was nothing. “I don’t suppose she should be overdoing.”
“If this afternoon was any gauge, she’s got enough energy for both of them, and then some.”
When they stepped into her office, she shut the door. The action made him lift a brow. “As you’ve vetoed sex, I assume you want privacy for a less pleasurable reason.”
“They’re blocking my warrant, and when you’ve got two bureaucracies duking it out in court, you can die from natural causes before there’s a ruling. I had a brief consult with Mira. I’ve still got to read her profile, but she gave me the gist in the oral. I got Baxter’s take.”
“Eve, what is it you want me to do that you’d prefer not wanting me to do?”
“People are dying, right now. They don’t know it, but they’re infected, and for some it’s already too late. It’s going to keep spreading. A good cop is dead. Another . . . another who’s a friend of mine—and Jesus, I can’t believe I’m friends with such an idiot—may not walk again under his own power. Some of the answers to who’s doing this are in those sealed files.”
“Then we’ll break the seal.”
She stared at him, then cursing, spun away. “And what makes me any different from them? I’m willing to slide around the law because I think I’m right.”
“Because they’re killing people.”
“I can tell myself that. But it’s just a matter of degrees.”
“The hell it is. You’ll always have a conscience, and you’ll always question the right and wrong of it. Worry it to death, and yourself with it. You know how far to push the line before it breaks, Eve. You’ll never break it. You can’t.”
She closed her eyes. “I said something similar to Baxter. They’re using the law to slow me down. I can’t let them.”
“It would be best if we used the unregistered.”
She nodded. “Let’s get it done.”
The room was accessible only by voice- and palmprints. Only three people were cleared for entry.
There was a single window, wide and uncovered to the dying evening. But she knew it was privacy treated to prevent anyone nervy enough to try a flyby from seeing in.
The room itself was designed almost rigidly. This was work space. Serious space. There was a wide, U-shaped console in sleek black that commanded all the research, retrieval, communication, and data systems. Systems unregistered with CompuGuard, and therefore illegal.
The first time she’d seen it, well over a year before, even she’d recognized the level of equipment as superior to anything in Central. Since then, some units had been upgraded.
She imagined there were some toys in here not yet on the market.
There were comp stations with monitors, a holo unit, a smaller auxiliary station, which now boasted its own miniholo.
Crossing the glassed black tile, she studied the new addition. “Never seen one like this.”
“Prototype. I wanted to run some tests on it without documenting them. It seems to be working out nicely.”
“It’s really small.”
“We’re working on smaller yet. Palm-sized.”
She glanced up. “Get out. Palms with full holofunction?”
“Three years, maybe less, and you’ll be slipping one into your pocket just like your ’link.” He placed his palm on the console’s identi-screen. “Roarke. Open operations.”
The console came to life with lights. Eve walked over to join him, laid down her palm. “Dallas.”
Identification verified, Darling Eve.
She hissed. “Why do you do that? It’s embarrassing.”
“Darling Eve, the computer, however brilliant, is an inanimate object and can’t embarrass anyone. Where would you like to start?”
“Start with Cogburn. He was their first. You can pull the data off my unit.” She gave Roarke the case number and the file number for her notes.
He had them accessed, copied, and displayed in almost less time than it had taken her to give him the numbers.
“You see his sheet? I’ve made notations of the case files that connect him to the other victims through arresting officers, social workers, legal, medical. Baxter’s started interviews where we have vic ID, but he hasn’t gotten a bump.”
“Bump.”
“The vibe.”
“No bump on the vic,” Roarke repeated with a chuckle. “And you threatened rabbit food for comp jargon.”
“Jeez. Upon interviewing identified victims related to this matter, Detective Baxter found no connection to The Purity Seekers, nor felt any indication of connection from statements, attitude, or background checks.”
“I got it the first time, darling, but it’s such fun to hear you explain it to me in such official tones.”
“Moving on,” she continued. “The incident reports list interviews wit
h two additional minors. Records sealed.”
“It’ll take me a few minutes.”
“Yeah. I’ll get the coffee.”
“Let’s have some wine instead,” he said as he began to work on a keyboard. “I’d prefer not to get buzzed on caffeine.”
“I need to keep sharp.”
“Any sharper, you’d be drawing blood. Now this is interesting.”
“What?”
“There’s a secondary block on this file. That’s not usual for a standard seal. Damn good block, too. Well now.” He rolled his shoulders like a boxer about to enter the ring.
“When was it put on?” She hurried back to lean over his shoulder. “Can you tell when it was put on?”
“No talking.” He brushed her back, and continued to work one-handed. “Yes, indeed, I’ve seen your work before, haven’t I? You’re good, very, very good. But . . .”
“He gets to talk,” Eve grumbled and because watching the speed of his fingers flying over keys made her antsy, she went to get the wine.
“Got him.” Roarke sat back a moment, reached out a hand without glancing at her to take the glass of wine. “Wouldn’t have been quite that quick if I hadn’t already dealt with his work on those two units in the lab.”
Now, there’s a bump, she thought. “You’re sure of that?”
“A good compu-jock has a style. Take my word for it, the block was added by the tech who designed the virus. Or techs. I doubt this was the work of one.”
“Organized, thorough, and skilled.” Eve nodded. “And careful. Let’s see who they wanted to hide.”
“Screen Three. Display.”
“Devin Dukes,” Eve read. “Twelve at the time of the incident.” She scanned the data quickly to get to the meat. “Okay, Cogburn sold him some Jazz. Parents—Sylvia and Donald—turned it up, confronted the kid, pressed the right buttons, and got the story. Brought the kid in to make the complaint, and DS Dwier caught the case.”
“Might’ve been wiser to leave the cops out of it.”
She looked back, coolly. “Excuse me?”
“Just a thought. Dragging the boy into a cop shop, putting him in the system. Put his back up, wouldn’t it?”