J. Robb - Divided in Death

“Yes, yes.” He waved away her concerns. “Ah, here we are. Take a look.”

She hissed out a breath, turned back to the screen, and stared at the ID photo and the personnel file of Bissel, Blair, level-two operative.

“Goddamn! Goddamn!” She was grinning now, as wildly as Roarke. “We got us a freaking spook!”

“You have a dead spook,” Roarke pointed out. “I wonder if that’s redundant.”

“It makes sense. Don’t you see?” She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Who gets through security slicker than a spook?”

“Well, foregoing modesty, I must point out that I-”

“You don’t have any modesty to forego. Bissel was HSO, so it jibes for him to have all those blocks on his studio, for him to hook up with a security expert, and for him to be dead.”

“Assassinated by another spook, national or foreign.”

“Exactly. They knew about Bissel and Kade, and when the time was right they let Reva know. Set her up to take the fall.”

“Why? What’s the point in framing an innocent woman?”

Frowning, she studied the screen. He looked like an ordinary man, she thought. Good-looking, if you went for the smooth type, but ordinary. That would, she imagined, be part of the point. Spooks needed to blend in to stay spooks.

“Not sure there has to be a point, but if there is, it could be as simple as not wanting anyone looking too closely at Bissel, taking it on the surface. A philandering husband whacked by his crazed wife in the heat of passion. Homicide comes in, takes a look at the mess, hauls Reva off, and that’s the end of that.”

“That’s simple enough, but it would’ve been simpler yet to stage a burglary gone wrong and leave Reva out of it.”

“Yeah.” She looked back at Roarke. “And that tells me she was already in it.”

“The Code Red.”

“The Code Red, and other things she’s been working on over the past couple of years.” Jamming her hands in her pocket she began to pace. “This current isn’t your only government or sensitive project.”

“Hardly.” Roarke studied Bissel’s ID image. “He married her because of her work. Because of what she was rather than who.”

“Or because of what you are. They’ll have a file on you.”

“Yes, I’m sure they do.” And he intended to take a look at it before he was done.

“What’s level two mean? Level-two operative.”

“I have no idea.”

“Let’s take a look at his dossier. See when he was recruited.” Thumbs hooked in pockets, she read the data on screen. “Nine years ago, so he wasn’t a rookie. Based in Rome a couple of years, and in Paris, in Bonn. Got around. I’d say his artistic profession would make good cover. Spoke four languages-and that’d be a plus. We know he’s good with the ladies, and that couldn’t hurt.”

“Eve, look at his recruiter.”

“Where?”

With a keystroke, he highlighted a name.

“Felicity Kade? Son of a bitch. She brought him in.” She held up her hand for silence and paced out her thoughts. “She’d’ve been a kind of trainer to him, seems to me. A lot of times trainers and trainees develop a close relationship. They worked together, and they were lovers. Probably lovers, on and off, all along. They’re a type.”

“Which type is that?” he wondered.

“Slick, upper-class, social animals. Vain-”

“Why vain?”

“Lots of mirrors, lots of fancy duds, lots of money spent on body and face work, salons.”

Amused, he studied his fingernails. “One could claim those attributes are simply natural elements of a comfortable lifestyle.”

“Yeah, if they add up to you. You’ve got a big trunkful of vanity yourself, but it’s not the same as these two. You don’t throw mirrors onto the walls every damn place so you can check yourself out every time you move, like Bissel.”

Thoughtfully, she glanced back at Roarke and decided if she looked as good as he did, she’d probably spend half the day staring at herself.

Weird.

“All those mirrors, reflective surfaces,” she continued when he just smiled at her, “you could argue that was as much lack of confidence as vanity.”

“That would be my take, but it sounds like a question for Mira.”

“Yeah.” She would get to that, and soon. “Anyway, they’re a type. Like the artsy scene, and showing themselves off. Even if it’s cover, they have to be into it. And on another level, it must take a certain type to go into covert work, on the long haul. You live a lie, you set up an identity, a persona that’s part reality, part fantasy. How else could you make it work?”

“I’ll agree that Bissel and Kade appear to be more suited than Bissel and Reva-at least on the surface.”

“Okay, but they need Reva. They need, want, or have been assigned to infiltrate Securecomp. Felicity approaches Reva first, makes pals. Maybe feels her out. But for whatever reason Reva’s not a good candidate for the HSO.”

“She’s worked for the government,” Roarke pointed out. “Nearly died for it. She’s loyal, and the administration she was attached to had no great affection for the HSO, as I recall.”

“Politics.” Eve blew out a breath. “Makes me screwy. But if we take it down to ‘she’s not a candidate for covert,’ it doesn’t mean she’s not a good resource for the HSO. So they bring in Bissel. Romance, sex. But the marriage, that says they expected her to be of long-term use.”

“And disposable.”

She turned back to him. “It’s tough to see a friend get kicked around this way. I’m sorry.”

“I wonder if it’ll be easier on her, or harder, knowing all this.”

“Whichever, she’ll have to cope. She doesn’t have a lot of options.” She nodded toward the wall screens. “These two were using her as an information source, and it’s probable they planted various devices in the home, in her data unit, her vehicles, maybe on her person. She was their plant, an unwitting mole, and odds are they tapped her for plenty. No point in keeping up the charade of marriage and friendship if it wasn’t paying off.”

“Agreed.” And the fact that it must have been paying off was, he imagined, going to cause him considerable annoyance. “But what point is there in eliminating two operatives? If it was an in-house assassination, it seems wasteful. Outside, it seems like overkill. Messy, Eve, either way.”

“Messy, but it had the potential of taking out three key players.” She drummed her fingers on her hips. “There’s more. Has to be more. Maybe Bissel and Kade screwed up. Maybe they tried playing both sides. Maybe they blew their cover. We need to pick our way through their lives. I need all the data you can get me on them. And since we’re playing with spooks, screw the rules.”

“Could you say that again? The screw the rules part. It’s such music to my ears.”

“You’re going to enjoy this one, aren’t you?”

“I believe I am.” But he didn’t look pleased when he said it. He looked dangerous. “Someone has to pay for what’s been done to Reva. I’ll enjoy being part of that payment.”

“There’s an advantage to having a friend as scary as you.”

“Come sit on my lap and say that.”

“Get the data, pal. I need to call in, check with the men on Reva’s house. I don’t want anybody sliding in there before we sweep it for devices in the morning.”

“If there were bugs, they’d have had an exterminator of their own.”

“They had to move fast between the time Reva received the package and the hit, then her arrival.” She combed a hand through her hair as she went over the time line. “If they moved right in maybe they swept it out. But somebody was at the Flatiron. Seems to me that an op like this, double murder, would require a small, tight team. Don’t want too many in the know.”