Loyalty in Death

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."

– =O=-***-=O=-

She'd never lived through war. Not the kind that killed in indiscriminate 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.

"I don't have anything to add to what you see here, Nadine. This isn't the time or the place for statements." She looked down again at the small shoe, the silver buckle. "The dead make their own."

Nadine held up a hand to signal her camera operator back. Lifting a hand, she closed it over her mike and spoke softly. "You're right, and so am I. And just now, it doesn't matter a damn. If there's anything I can do – any sources I can tap for you, just let me know. This time, it's for free."

Nodding, Eve turned away. She saw the MTs scurrying, a team of them working frantically on the bloody mess that must have been one of the doormen. Most of him had been blown clear, a good fifteen feet from the entrance.

She wondered if they'd ever find his arm.

She stepped away and through the blackened hole into what was left of the lobby.

The fire sprinklers had gone off so that streams and puddles of wet ran through the waste. Her feet squelched as she pushed through. The stench was bad, very bad. Blood and smoke and ripe gore. She forced herself not to think about what littered the floor, ordered herself to ignore the two emergency workers who were weeping silently as they marked the dead, and looked for Anne.

"We'll need extra shifts at the morgue and the labs, to deal with IDs." Her voice was rusty, so she cleared it. "Can you clear that with Central, Feeney?"

"Yeah, goddamn it. I brought my daughter here on her sixteenth birthday. Fucking pigs." He yanked out his communicator and turned away.

Eve kept going. The closer she came to point of impact, the worse it got. She'd been there once before, with Roarke. She remembered the opulence, the elegance. Cool colors, beautiful people, wide-eyed tourists, excited young girls, groups of shoppers crowding at tables to experience the old tradition of tea at The Plaza.

She fought her way through rubble then stared, cold-eyed, at the blackened crater.

"They never had a chance." Anne stepped up beside her. Her eyes were wet and hot. "Not a fucking chance, Dallas. An hour ago there were people in here, sitting at pretty tables, listening to a violinist, drinking tea or wine and eating frosted cakes."

"Do you know what they used?"

"There were children." Anne's voice rose, broke. "Babies in strollers. It just didn't mean a damn. Not one damn to them."

Eve could see it, and much too well. She already knew it would come back to her in dreams. But she turned, faced Anne. "We can't help them. We can't go back and stop it. It's done. All we can do is move forward and try to stop the next. I need your report."

"You want business as usual?" In a move Eve didn't bother to block, Anne snagged her by the shirt front. "You can stand here and look at this and want business as fucking usual?"

"They do," Eve said quietly. "That's all this is to them. If we're going to stop them, we have to do the same."

"You want a goddamn droid. You can go to hell."

"Lieutenant Malloy." Peabody stepped forward, laid a hand on her arm.

Eve had forgotten Peabody was there, and now shook her head. "Stand back, Officer. I'll settle for a droid if you can't give me your report, Lieutenant Malloy."

"You'll get a report when I've got something to give you," Anne snapped. "And right now I don't need you in my face." She shoved Eve aside and pushed her way through the ruins.

"She was off, Dallas, way off."

"Doesn't matter." But it stung, Eve realized, more than a little. "She'll pull herself back together. I want you to edit that from the record. It isn't pertinent. We'll need masks and goggles from the field kit. We won't be able to work in here otherwise."

"What are we going to do in here?"

"The only thing we can at this point." Eve rubbed her stinging eyes. "Help the emergency team collect the dead."

It was miserable and gruesome work – the kind that would live inside you always unless you turned off everything you were.

It wasn't people she was dealing with, she told herself, but pieces, evidence. Whenever her shield began to slip, whenever the horror of it crept through, she yanked it up again, blanked her mind, and went on with the job.

It was dark when she stepped outside with Peabody. "You all right?" Eve asked.

"I'll get there. Jesus, Dallas, sweet Jesus."

"Go home, take a soother, get drunk, call Charles and have sex. Use whatever works, but blank it out."

"Maybe I'll go for all three." She tried for a halfhearted smile, then spotted McNab coming their way and stiffened like a flagpole.

"I need a drink." He looked directly, deliberately at Eve. "I need a whole bunch of drinks. Do you want us back at Central?"

"No. We've had enough for one day. Report at eight hundred hours."

"You got it." Then, following the lecture he'd given himself off and on throughout the day, he made himself look at Peabody. "You want a lift home?

"I – well…" Flustered, she shifted from foot to foot. "No, um. No."

"Take the lift, Peabody. You're a mess. No point in fighting public transpo at this hour."

"I don't want…" Before Eve's baffled eyes she blushed like a schoolgirl. "I think it would be better…" She coughed, cleared her throat. "I appreciate the offer, McNab, but I'm fine."

"You look tired, that's all." And Eve watched in amazement as his color rose as well. "It was rough in there."

"I'm okay." She lowered her head, stared at her shoes. "I'm fine."

"If you're sure. Well, ah, eight hundred hours. Later."

With his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, he headed off.

"What's the deal here, Peabody?"

"Nothing. No deal." Her head came up sharply, and despising herself, she watched McNab walk away. "Not a deal. Not a thing. Nothing going on."

Stop it, she ordered herself as babbling continued to stream out of her mouth. "Zip. Zero happening here. Oh look." With outrageous relief for the distraction, she saw Roarke step out of a limo. "Looks like you've got a lift. A class one."

Eve looked across the avenue, studied Roarke in the blinking red and blue emergency lights. "Take my vehicle and go home, Peabody. I'll get transpo to Central in the morning."

"Yes, sir," she said, but Eve was already crossing the street.

"You've had a lousy day, Lieutenant." He lifted a hand, started to stroke her cheek, but she stepped back.

"No, don't touch me. I'm filthy." She saw the look in his eyes, knew he'd ignore her, and yanked the door open herself. "Not yet. Okay? God, not yet."

She climbed in, waited for him to settle beside her, order the driver to take them home, then lift the privacy screen.

"Now?" he said quietly.

Saying nothing, she turned to him, turned into him. And wept.

– =O=-***-=O=-

It helped, the tears and the man who understood her enough to offer nothing more until they were shed. When they were home, she took a hot shower, and the wine he poured her and was grateful he said nothing.

They ate in the bedroom. She'd been certain she wouldn't be able to swallow. But the first spoonful of hot soup hit her raw stomach like a blessing.

"Thanks." She sighed a little, leaned her head back against the cushions in the seating area. "For giving me an hour. I needed it."

She needed more than an hour, Roarke thought, studying the pale face, the bruised eyes. But they'd take it a step at a time. "I was there earlier." He waited while her eyes opened. "I would have done what I could to help you, but civilians weren't permitted."

"No." She closed her eyes again. "They're not."

But he had seen, briefly at least, he had seen the carnage, the horrors, and her. He had seen her deal with it, her hands steady, her eyes dark with the pity she thought she hid from everyone.

"I don't envy you your job, Lieutenant."

She nearly smiled at that. "You can't prove that to me when you're always popping up into it." With her eyes still closed, she reached out for his hand. "The hotel was one of yours, wasn't it? I didn't have time to check."

"Yes, it was one of mine. And so are the people who died in it."

"No." Her eyes flashed open. "They're not."

"Only yours, Eve? Are the dead your exclusive property?" He rose, restless, poured a brandy he didn't want. "Not this time. The doorman who lost his arm, who may yet lose his life, is a friend of mine. I've known him a decade, brought him over from London because he had a yen to live in New York."

"I'm sorry."

"The wait staff, the musicians, the desk and bell staff, every one of them died working for me." He turned back, and a fierce and cold fury rode in his eyes. "Every guest, every tourist who wandered through, every single person was under my roof. By Christ, that makes them mine."

"You can't take it personally. No, you can't," she repeated when his eyes flashed. She got up, gripped his arm. "Roarke, it's not you or yours they're interested in. It's their point, it's the power."

"Why should it matter to me what they're interested in beyond using that to find them?"

"It's my job to find them. And I will."

He set his brandy down, caught her chin in his hand. "Do you think you'll close me out?"

She wanted to be furious, and part of her was, if for nothing more than the proprietary way he held her face. But there was too much at stake, too much to lose. And he was much too valuable a source. "No."

His grip gentled, his thumb skimmed over the shallow dent in her chin. "Progress," he murmured.

"Let's understand each other," she began.

"Oh, by all means."

Now she did suck in a breath. "Don't start that with me. By all means, my butt. Makes you sound like some sort of snotty blue blood, and we both know you grew up scrambling for marks in Dublin alleys."

Now he grinned. "See, we already understand each other. You don't mind if I get comfortable before the lecture, do you?" He sat again, took out a cigarette, lighted it, then picked up his brandy while she smoldered.

"Are you trying to irritate me?"

"Not very hard, but it rarely takes true effort." He drew in smoke, blew out a fragrant stream. "I don't really need the lecture, you know. I'm sure I have the salient points memorized. Such as this is your job, I'm not to interfere. I'm not to explore any angles on my own, and so on."

"If you know the points, why the hell don't you follow them?"

"Because I don't want to – and if I did, you wouldn't have Fixer's data decoded." He grinned again when she gaped at him. "I had it late this morning and slipped the code into McNab's unit. He was close, but I was faster. No need to mention that," Roarke added. "I'd hate to dent his ego."

She frowned at him. "Now I suppose you think I should thank you."

"Actually, I was hoping you would." He crushed out his cigarette, set aside his barely touched brandy. But when he reached for her hand, she folded her arms over her chest.

"Forget it, pal. I've got work."

"And you'll reluctantly ask me to assist you with it." He hooked his fingers in her waistband and tugged until she tumbled on top of him. "But first…" He rubbed his mouth persuasively against hers. "I need you."

Her protest would have been lukewarm in any case. But those words melted it away. She skimmed her fingers through his hair. "I guess I can spare a couple of minutes."

He laughed, and tucking her close, reversed position. "In a hurry, are you? Well then."

Now his mouth crushed down on hers, hot, greedy, and with enough bite to shoot her pulse from steady to screaming. She hadn't expected it, but then she never quite did expect what he could do to her with a touch, with a taste, with as little as a look.

All the horror, the pain, the misery she'd waded through that day fell away in the sheer drive to mate.

"I am. In a big hurry." She tugged at the hook of his trousers. "Roarke. Inside me. Come inside me."

He yanked down the soft slacks she'd slipped into after her shower. Mouth still devouring mouth, he lifted her hips. And he plunged into her.

Into the heat and the welcome and the wet. His body shuddered once as he swallowed her groan. Then she was moving under him, driving him, setting a frantic pace that ripped her to peak and over before he could catch his breath.

She closed around him, vise tight, erupted around him, nearly dragged him off that fine edge with her. Gasping for air, he lifted his head, watched her face. God, how he loved to watch her face when she lost herself. Those dark blind eyes against flushed skin, that mouth full and soft and parted. Her head tipped back, and there was that long smooth throat, its pulse wildly beating.

He tasted her there. Flesh. Soap. Eve.

And felt her building again, fast and sure, her hips pistoning as she climbed, her breath ragged as the wave swept in.

And this time, when it crested, he buried himself deep and let it swamp them both.

He collapsed on her, let out a long, contented sigh as his system shimmered. "Let's get to work."