J. Robb - Survivor in Death

“Cut it out.”

The door between the offices opened. Though Roarke leaned against the jamb, he looked about as lazy as a wolf eyeballing quarry. “Webster,” he said in the coolest of tones.

Eve had a flash of the two of them beating the crap out of each other right where she now stood. She felt the tickle that might have been panic in the back of her throat as she stepped between them.

“Lieutenant Webster is here-at the directive of Chief Tibbie-as a representative of IAB and for the purposes of-”

“Christ, Dallas, I can talk for myself.” And he held his hands up, palms out. “Never touched her, don't intend to.”

“Good. She's on a difficult investigation, as I'm sure you're aware. She hardly needs either of us complicating things.”

“I'm not here to complicate things for her, or you.”

“Standing right here,” Eve said sharply. “You can stop talking around me.”

“Just clearing the air, Lieutenant.” Roarke nodded to her, to Webster. “I'll let you get back to work.”

“A minute,” she muttered and stalked into the office behind Roarke, shut the door with a decisive click. “Listen-”

He cut her off, pressing his lips to hers, then eased back. “I like to wind him up-and you as well. It's small of me, but there you are. I know perfectly well that he won't move on you, and if he lost his mind and did, you'd bloody him. Well, unless I got there first, which I sincerely hope would be the case. Actually, as I've told you before, I like him.”

“You like him.”

“Yes. He has superb taste in women, and a rather fine left jab.”

“Great. Good.” She shook her head. You figured you knew what made men tick, she thought. But you never did. “I'm going back to work.”

WITH A FROWN ON HER FACE, EVE SURVEYED Roarke's computer lab. Several of the units were up and running, several of the screens had words, codes, strange symbols that might as well have been hieroglyphics whizzing over them. Computerized voices intoned incomprehensible statements, questions, comments.

And the rumpled Feeney, the neon McNab, scooted around on wheeled chairs, somehow miraculously avoiding collision with work stations and each other, like a couple of kids in a strange, strange game.

Stepping into the room was, for her, like stepping into an alternate universe.

“Yo.” Feeney gave her a finger point, then tapped icons on a screen that slid up out of the counter. “Got something going.”

“Okay. I assume it's not Maximum Force 2200.”

“Hey.” McNab looked over. “You cruise MF?”

“No.” Well, maybe she'd played it a couple of times, but just to test her comp skills. “What's going?”

“What we've got over here is a diagnostic on the Swisher security system. We ran all the standards on it, stripped her down. Nice system, by the way.”

“We already know it was jammed, remote. Bypassed the failsafes and backups.”

“Yeah, yeah, but not how, not what they used. We're getting that. You work back from the system, code by code, signal by signal, and maybe you put together, code by code, signal by signal, the device that pulled it off.”

“They had to get it somewhere.” Eve nodded. “Even if they reconfigured, added flourishes, they had to get the basic device somewhere.”

“Yep. And what we got going over there is the security on the hospital lot where Jaynene Brenegan was taken out-and the system on the apartment where Karin Duberry was murdered. Hitting correlations. Gonna be the same device, or one configured the same way. When you get them, it'll help burn them.”

“Have you got room for one more deal?”

“Shoot.”

“I need you to alter my communicator. A fault, but nothing that I'd reasonably notice as a non-EDD cop. Just a blip, so that someone who's trying to monitor communications might get through, catch a transmission.”

“You want to leak data?”

“Once we get this set up, select our location, put the op together, I want them to be able to monitor my communicator. Maybe it's fuzzy, but they should get the details. Like the communicator's going bad on me. Like the shield's thinning out. It happens, right?”

“Yeah, but there's a default warning.”

“Wouldn't be the first time departmental equipment went bad. You should see my damn computer.”

“Still giving you grief?” McNab asked.

“It's holding. I haven't gotten any foreign porn when I ask for a file. Lately.”

“Hand it over.” Feeney held up his palm. “We'll play with it. You got your backup?”

“Yeah.” She pulled both out of her pocket. “Just dink with the one. Can you make it so the signal coming into it is still shielded? So they only get bits of what I transmit?”

“We'll get you covered.”

There were enough rooms in the house to billet a military battalion. It was risky tucking Webster away with Baxter, but she didn't want IAB strolling around her office. He wanted to observe, she thought, he could observe Baxter and Trueheart. Before rounding up Peabody, Eve slipped into her bedroom to make a private call.

“How about some more tit for tat?” she asked when Nadine came on-screen. “I need a spin, apparently. An incident last night-”

“Your air show through midtown?” Nadine gave a wicked laugh. “We got some extreme footage on that. Bought it off a tourist from Tokyo. It's aired twice this morning.”

“Great.”

“You're taking some heat on that? I've never known you to worry about a little sweat.”

“They've sicced IAB on me, and it could get in the way of the investigation. Trueheart was with me, and shit trickles even if you plug the dam. I'm advised to spin this around so it's the courageous cop in pursuit of kid killers. Risking life and limb to apprehend cop killers and protect the known universe.”

“Boy, that's killing you.” But Nadine angled her head. “That's what you were doing, wasn't it?”

“The point is this kind of thing doesn't reflect well on the department.”

“And the department will take a sacrifice, if deemed necessary.”

“It'll be Trueheart, Nadine. They'll give me a slap, maybe a smudge on my record, but if they have to roast somebody, it'll be him. He's more disposable. I put him on the line.”

“So you're asking me to spin the story so the crap doesn't clog up the momentum of your investigation, and so the cutie-pie doesn't get his tight little ass fried.”

“That's the idea. And in return-”

“No, don't tell me.” Nadine sat back, held up both hands. “Because it'll kill me to turn it down.”

“Look, Nadine, it's not that big a spin.”

“Obviously you didn't catch my pithy and insightful morning report. Spin's already spun. The cool-headed, nerveless Lieutenant Dallas and the young, dedicated Officer Trueheart, risking their lives in pursuit of the vicious killers of children and their fellow officers. Killers who discharge weapons with no thought to the welfare of innocent strangers-men, women, and children who live in or visit our great city. And so on.”

“Okay. You've got another IOU.”

“Slate's clear. This played better-and the vid showed the blasts coming out of that van. Most of the competition worked the same angle, but there's still some heat, some stirring of the urban terrorism pot and why aren't we safe walking the streets, in our own homes.”

“It's a good question. Could it be because a portion of society sucks?”

“Can I quote you? Better, how about a quick talking head while you repeat that?”

Eve considered. “How about you say, 'When contacted, Lieutenant Dallas stated that every member of the NYPSD will work diligently to identify and apprehend those responsible for the deaths of their fellow officers, for Grant, Keelie, and Coyle Swisher, for Inga Snood, for Linnie Dyson. We serve them, we serve New York. We serve Nixie Swisher because surviving the brutality that was brought into her home isn't enough. She deserves justice, and we'll get it for her.'“