by J. D. Robb
“People who use someone like her rarely, if ever, get their hands dirty.”
“She was a psychopath. Look at her psych profile, for God’s sake.” Eve swung an arm at the screen. “She should’ve been put away, just like the person who did her needs to be put away.”
He watched her as she read the data onscreen. “You have less gray area than most.”
“You think this is acceptable? Jesus, read the list. Some of them are kids.”
“Collateral damage, I expect. And no,” he added as she swung around, her eyes firing. “I don’t think it’s acceptable to kill for money, for the thrill or for expedience. There may be more gray in my world than yours when it comes to killing for a cause, but that’s not what she did. It was profit and, I believe, for fun. And I suspect, if it had been Buckley standing in that room when Carolee walked in, those boys would be grieving for their mother tonight instead of cuddled up with her watching in-room movies.”
“Not all assassins are created equal?” Calmer, she angled her head as she studied the screen. “We need to look at this list, see if we can connect any of these names to someone in the same business. Someone skilled enough to get the drop on her.”
“I’ll set it up. Meanwhile, there’s interesting data on the device. This memo was issued two days ago.” Again, he ordered the data onscreen.
“ ‘The Lost delayed. Owl to commence new series of tests in Sector Twelve. Owl request for seventy-two and blackout approved.’ ” Eve puzzled over it a moment. “She’s not Owl. Who’d code-name a female assassin—a young, attractive one—Owl?”
“We can go over the earlier memos, but I’d say Owl would be in charge of the development of the device.”
“The Lost. You lose time, yourself, your memory of what happened when you’re . . . gone. So, if this Owl or someone under him/her had it, maybe it was an exchange. No, no, it was a setup. It was planned. He had to have a way off the damn ferry, so none of it was spontaneous. Delayed? But if it was used, it was complete.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a member of the team decided to go free agent.”
“Fake a delay so you could sell it, but you don’t sell it. You walk away with whatever she had in that briefcase and the device. A twofer. If this is the last memo in the file, HSO isn’t yet aware they have a problem.”
“Still another reason to take the body,” Roarke pointed out. “Buys that time you spoke of. Maybe he had another offer. Or wants to renegotiate the fee, from a safe location.”
“It wasn’t about money,” Eve murmured. “not just about money. Buying time, yeah, that plays. She won’t be identified, officially, to the media until tomorrow.”
“There’s more. Photos of some of her work. Images onscreen, slide-show method,” he ordered.
She’d seen death, in all its forms, too many times to count. She watched it now, roll over the wall screen. Rent flesh, spilled blood, charred hulks.
“Some of these, of course, were very bad people. Others, very bad people wanted out of the way. It appears she didn’t discriminate. She followed the money. Some might argue whoever killed her did the world a favor.”
“And what makes him any better than her?” Eve demanded.
He only shrugged, knowing on some points they would never agree. “Some would argue otherwise.”
“Yeah, some would. Let’s find Owl.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “And I have to figure out a logical way to explain how I came by anything we get out of this tonight.”
“The ever-popular anonymous source.”
“Yeah, that’ll fool everybody who knows us.”
He initiated a series of searches, then studied her as she stood still watching death scroll by. “It’s harder when the victim is abhorrent to you.”
Eve shook her head. “I’m not allowed to decide if a murder victim is worth standing for. I stand for them.”
He rose, went to her. “But it’s harder when that victim has so many victims. So much blood on her hands.”
“It’s harder,” she admitted. “It can’t always be an easy choice. It’s just the only choice.”
“For you.” He kissed her brow, then cupped her face, lifted it and laid his lips gently, softly, over hers.
When she sighed and leaned into him, he hit the release on her weapon harness.
“Working,” she said against his mouth.
“I certainly hope so.”
She laughed when he tugged the harness off her shoulders. “No, I’ve got work.”
“Searches will take a while.” He circled her, reaching out to press a control on his console. The bed slid out of the panel in the wall.
“And you figure sex will cheer me up?”
“I’m hoping it’s a side benefit to cheering me up.”
He circled again, then launched them both toward the bed. She hit with a breathless thump, bounced and, what the hell, let herself be pinned under him.
“Rough stuff.”
He grinned. “If you like.”
He yanked her shirt over her head, let it fly as he lowered his mouth, with a hint of teeth to her breast.
She arched, urging him on. The violence here, so full of heat and hope, helped erase all those images of blood and loss. And helped her remember that no matter how they might differ on an issue, even an ideology, there was, always, love.
And lust.
She could take—a handful of that black silk hair, a ripple of muscle as she dragged at his shirt in turn. She could feel the pound of her heart and his as they rolled over the bed in a battle they would both win.
He made her laugh, made her breath catch. He made her skin shimmer and her blood swim. And when she wrapped around him, found his mouth with hers again, she could taste the flood of love and lust and longing.
So strong, so sweet. Her body moved under his, over his, agile and quick. The hum of the work that would draw them both back drowned under the thrum of his own pulse when his hands swept over her. Curve and angle, soft and firm. Wet and warm.
She arched again, rising up where he drove her, to break, then to gather again. Open for more, for him.
When he filled her, when they rose and fell, rose and fell, to break together, it gave her not only pleasure. It gave her peace.
Curled against him, warm and naked and replete, it occurred to her Peabody had been right again. After-sex snuggles were very, very good.
“You should sleep.” He spoke quietly, stroking her back. “It’s late, and there’s no urgency on this one.”
“I don’t know. Isn’t there?” She thought how lovely it would be to just close her eyes, to drift away with the scent of him all over her. “Closing the case, maybe that’s not so urgent on a technical level. But if the killer did have this thing, this weapon, and still has it, ready to sell it to God knows, doesn’t that make finding him, stopping him, part of the job, too?”
“Close the case, save the world?”
She tipped up her head until their eyes met. “You said you had people trying to develop this thing. Why?”
“Better you do it before the other one does. Self-preservation.”
“I get that. It’s always going to be that way. Bad guy has a stick, you get a knife. He has a knife, you get a stunner. The ante keeps going up. It’s the way it is. So, there have to be rules and laws, and even when the line blurs, we have to be able to know who the good guys are. If I have the chance to find this guy, stop him before he sells this thing, maybe we hold all of it back for another day.”
“The comp will signal when we have extrapolated data. Sleep awhile, then we’ll see about saving the world.”
It sounded reasonable.
The next thing she knew, the comp was beeping and she was springing up in bed—alone.
“What? Morning?”
“Nearly.” Roarke stood behind the command center, shirtless, his trousers riding low on his hips. “And your Owl’s come out.”
“You found him—her?”
“Hi
m,” Roarke said as she leaped out of bed. He glanced over, smiled. “Come over here and I’ll show you.”
“I bet.” She snatched at her shirt, her pants.
“Killjoy. Well, at least get us both some coffee.”
“Who is he?” she demanded as she dragged on her clothes.
“That depends. He, like his victim, has gone by more than one name. This data claims him as Ivan Draski, age sixty-two, born in the Ukraine. Other data, which on the surface appears just as valid, has him as Javis Drinkle, age sixty, born in Poland. As Draski, he worked for the Freedom Republic, the underground, at the end of the Urbans, in communications and technological development. He’s a scientist.”
She brought the coffee, gulping some down as she read the data.
“Recruited by European Watch Network, techno research and development,” Eve continued. “A gadget guy.”
“An inventor, yes. He makes the toys.”
“An inside guy,” Eve mused. “Sure there’s some field time clocked here, but primarily during the Urbans. It’s primarily science during and after that era.”
“Nanotech,” Roarke began. “Hyperdimensional science, bionics, psionics and so on. He’s worked on all this. It looks to me, according to this data, you owe your stunner to his work, among other things. And yet I’ve never heard of him. They’ve kept him tightly wrapped for decades.”
“Maybe he decided it was time for a raise and some credit.” She tried to make sense of it. “So, he’s lured away from EWN to HSO nearly twenty years ago. And still, I’m not seeing wet work here. He’s a techno geek.”
“A brilliant one. No. No black ops or wet work listed. But look there, his wife and daughter were killed twenty years ago in a brutal slaying.”
“That’s interesting timing,” Eve said.
“Isn’t it? Officially a home invasion. Unofficially, a fringe wing of EWN who’d targeted him for his knowledge and accessibility to sensitive material.”
“They eat their own.” When he switched to the crime scene photos, Eve hissed out a breath. “Jesus.”
“Mutilated, hacked to pieces.” Roarke’s voice tightened in disgust. “The girl was just twelve. The wife was a low-l evel agent, hardly more than a clerk. You have higher clearance, I expect.”
“The writing on the wall there. Did you translate?”
“The computer recognizes it as Ukrainian for ‘traitor’ and ‘whore.’ Neither EWN nor any other official file on the matter claims credit or responsibility for the killings.”
“They were on her list. On Buckley’s list of hits in HSO’s data banks.” She called for the computer to run the list on another screen to verify. “They’re there, on her list, but no employer assigned. Nobody’s taken credit.”
“If there’s data on that, it’s in another area. If there’s any more data on this hit, it’s been wiped or boxed. Even I can’t get at it from here, or certainly not quickly. You’d have to be inside to get at it.”
“He’s inside; he found it.” There was motive, Eve thought. There was the personal. “Why the hell didn’t they destroy the file if they continued to use her, and had him on the payroll?”
“Somebody fucked up, I’d say, but at the core HSO is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies love their paperwork.”
“Does he have a fixed address?”
“Right here in New York.”
She looked back over her shoulder at him. “That’s too fucking easy.”
“Upper East Side, in a town house he owns under the name of Frank Plutz.”
“Plutz? Seriously?”
“Frank J. Plutz, employed by HSO, who lists him as Supervisor, Tech R and D, U.S. Division, in their official file. Which of course is bollocks. He’s a hell of a lot more.”
Now Eve studied the ID shot of a middle-aged man with a thinning crop of gray hair, a round face, a bit heavy in the chin, and mild blue eyes who smiled soberly from the wall screen.
“God. He looks harmless.”
“He survived the Urban Wars in the underground, has worked for at least two intelligence organizations, neither of which worries overmuch about spilled blood. I’d say appearances are deceiving.”
“I need to put a team together and go visit the deceptively harmless Mr. Plutz.”
“I want to play. And I very much want to meet this man.”
“I guess you’ve earned it.”
His eyes gleamed. “If you don’t put him in a cage, I wonder what I can offer him to switch to the private sector.”
Eight
As taking down a spy wasn’t her usual job, Eve opted for a small, tight team. She had two officers in soft clothes stationed at the rear of the trim Upper East Side town house, McNab handling the com along with Roarke in the unmarked van. She, along with Peabody, would take the front.
It struck her as a bit of overkill for one man, but she had to factor in that one man had over forty years of espionage experience, and had managed to slip off a ferry of more than three thousand people with a dead body.
In the van, she cued up the security tape from the transpo station. “There he is, looking harmless. Computer, enhance segment six, thirty percent.”
The man currently known as Frank J. Plutz enlarged onscreen as he shuffled his way through the ticker. “Anonymous businessman, complete with what looks like a battered briefcase and a small overnight bag. Slightly overweight, slightly balding, a little saggy in the jowls.”
“And this is the guy who sliced up the high-l evel assassin, then poofed with her.” McNab, his sunny hair slicked back in a sleek tail, his earlobes weighted with a half dozen colorful studs each, shook his head. “He looks a little like my uncle Jacko. He’s famed in our family for growing enormous turnips.”
“He does!” Peabody gave the love of her life a slap on the shoulder. “I met him last Thanksgiving when we went to Scotland. He’s adorable.”
“Yeah, I’m sure this one’s just as adorable as Uncle Jacko. In a ‘leaving a big, messy pool of blood behind’ sort of way. He got a weapon—we assume—through the scanners without a hitch. Which, unfortunately, isn’t as tough as it should be. More important, from my source, he’s headed or been involved in the invention and development of all manner of high-tech gadgetry, weaponry and communications in particular.”
“Love to meet him,” McNab said and got a quick grin from Roarke.
“Right with you.”
“Hopefully you geeks can have a real nice chat soon.” Eve shifted her gaze to the other monitor. “I’m not seeing any heat source in there.”
“That would be because there isn’t.” Roarke continued the scan of the house. “I’ve done three scans each on heat, on movement. There’s no one in there.”
“Takes the fun out of it. Well, we’ve got the warrant. Let’s go, Peabody. McNab, keep your eye on the street. If he comes home, I want to know about it.”
“Mind your back, Lieutenant,” Roarke said as she climbed out. “They’re called spooks for a reason.”
“I don’t believe in spooks.”
“I bet they believe in you.” Peabody jumped down beside her.
Scanning the building, Eve pulled out her master as they approached the door. “We go in the way we would if we had a suspect inside. And we clear the area, room by room.”
Peabody nodded. “A guy who can disappear could probably beat a heat-and-m otion sensor.”
Eve only shook her head, then pounded a fist on the door. “This is the police.” She used her master to unlock the door, noted the standard security went from locked red to open green. “He’s got cams out here. I can’t see them, but he’s got them. Still, no backups set on the locks, and the palm plate’s not activated.”
“It’s like an invitation.”
“We’re accepting. We’re going in,” Eve said to alert the rest of the team.
She pulled her weapon, nodded once to Peabody. They hit the door, Peabody high, Eve low. Swept the short foyer with its iron umbrella stand and coat tree, and the na
rrow hallway with its frayed blue runner. At Eve’s gesture they peeled off, clearing the first floor, moving to the second, then the third.
“We’re clear.” Eve studied the data and communication equipment, the surveillance and security equipment ranged around the modest third-floor room. “Blue team, take the first floor. Roarke, McNab, we can use you on the third floor.”
“Do you think he’s coming back?” Peabody wondered.
“It’s a lot to leave behind. I guarantee all this is unregistered, calibrated to duck under CompuGuard radar. But no, he’s done here. He’s finished.”
“His wife and kid?” Peabody gestured to the framed photo on the console.
“Yeah.” Eve moved over, opened a mini fridge. “Water and power drinks.” She hit menu on the AutoChef. “Quick, easy meals.” The sort, she thought, she’d have had in her own mini fridge—when she remembered to stock it—before she’d married Roarke. “Sofa, with a pillow, a blanket, wall screen, adjoining john. He spent most of his time up here. The rest of the house, it’s just space.”
“It all looks so tidy, kind of homey and neat.”
Eve made a sound of agreement as she turned into the next room. “VirtualFit. It’s a nice unit. He wanted to keep in shape. A weight machine, muscle balls, sparring droid. Female, and at a guess, just about the height and weight of Buckley.”
Eve studied the attractive blonde droid currently disengaged and propped in a corner. “He practiced here.” She moved across the room, opened the doors on a built-i n cabinet. “Wow, toy chest.”
“Holy shit.” Peabody gaped at the display of weapons. “Not so much like Uncle Jacko after all.”
Knives, bats, stunners, blasters, clubs, short swords, guns, throwing discs all gleamed in tidy formation.
“A couple missing,” Eve noted, tapping empty holders. “From the shape, he took a couple of knives and a stunner. In one of his carry-ons, on his person.”
“This is a lot to leave behind, too,” Peabody commented.