J. Robb - Divided in Death

Sloppy, sloppy, she thought. It’s all been sloppy.

“Jets off,” she grunted, and feeling a bit steadier, stepped out of the shower.

She knew her heart shouldn’t have jolted when she saw Roarke. Summerset-the big, fat tattletale-would have told him.

“The MTs cleared me,” she said quickly. “I’m just banged up, that’s all.”

“I can see that. You don’t want the drying tube. The hot air won’t do you any good. Here.” He picked up a bathsheet, walked to her, and wrapped it gently around her. “Do I have to force a blocker on you?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s something.” He feathered his fingers over the abrasions on her face. “We may be angry with each other, Eve, but you should have contacted me. I shouldn’t have heard you’d been in an accident from a damn media bulletin.”

“They didn’t release names,” she began, then trailed off.

“They didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t think. I’m sorry, I really didn’t think about it. It’s not because I’m-whatever I am with you right now. I didn’t think about the media, or that you’d hear anything about it until I got back and could tell you myself.”

“All right. You need to lie down.”

“I’ll take the blocker, but I’m not going down. AD Sparrow’s bad. He was with me. His spine’s messed up, and there’s severe head trauma. The passenger side was-shit. Shit. I don’t know how he lived through it. It was a short-range missile.”

She scooped her hair back and went into the bedroom to sit.

“You said missile.”

“Yeah. Probably one of those nifty one-man jobs. Handheld launcher. He must’ve fired from the roof across from Central. Had me staked out. Maybe Sparrow, but I’m thinking me. To mess up the investigation? To mess you up? Both?” She shook her head. “Maybe to put the HSO on the hot seat, taking out a cop when they couldn’t get her to pass the investigation over to them. Maybe to throw the suspicion onto the terrorists.”

He handed her a small blue pill and a glass of water. “Your word you’ll swallow it or I’ll check under your tongue.”

“I’m not quite feeling up to sex games. Leave my tongue alone. I’m swallowing it.”

Some of the warmth came back in his eyes as he sat beside her. “Why isn’t it the HSO or Doomsday?”

“Not very covert to launch a missile at a cop car in New York traffic in the middle of the day. If they wanted me out, they’d find a more subtle way and without losing one of the assistant directors in the process.”

“Agreed.”

“So, this is like a quiz?”

“The MTs may have cleared you, but you look as if you’ve been run over by a truck. I’d like to see if you’re thinking clearly at least. Why not Doomsday, then? Subtle isn’t their style.”

“First, technos don’t send a man out to shoot missiles. That’s why they’re technos. And if they did break pattern, they wouldn’t have missed. And it was a miss. Couple of feet down, hit the car broadside, and we’re gone. They send somebody to take out a cop and/or an operative, they’re not going to be so half-assed about it. Plus, I think they’d have gone bigger. If they could get a man into position, why not use a bigger toy, and take out a chunk of Central? Hit Cop Central and you’ve got the kind of media foray they love. Take out a car, and it’s a little bulletin. Not big. This has the earmark of desperation or temper, not organization. How’m I doing?”

“Your brain doesn’t appear to have been unduly scrambled.” He rose, wandered to the window. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been called to the Tower?”

“We’re straddling a line here,” she said after a moment. “I don’t like it, I don’t like feeling… apart from you. But that’s the reality of it.”

“So it seems.”

“Someone tried to kill me today. Will you hunt them down?”

He didn’t turn. “It’s entirely different, Eve. I’ve had to… adjust myself when it comes to your work, what you do, what may be done to you. I love you, and loving you I have to accept that you are what you are, and do what you do. It costs me.”

He turned now, looked at her with those wild blue eyes. “Considerably.”

“It was your choice. It was always your choice.”

“As if I had one, from the minute I saw you. What you face now, I can accept, and admire you for facing it. What you faced then, what was forced on you when you had no defense, I can’t accept.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“That’s a matter of perspective. Does it change anything to put a killer in a cage after his victim’s in the ground? You believe it does, and so do I. And debating this now is only going to push us both further over on our own sides of that line. We both have work.”

“Yeah, we both have work.” She got to her feet. She would stand, she thought. Had to. Even if she couldn’t stand with him.

“Before we were so rudely interrupted, Sparrow told me that Bissel was a double agent. The HSO was using him to get intel from Doomsday. Giving them structured intel in return for payment. It was a long con. They wrapped Ewing up in it due to her position at Securecomp. They wanted a handle on your technology and projects, and most particularly in recent months, whatever they could get on your Code Red. They want, and apparently seriously want, to scoop you on the shield.”

“I suppose the idea of the private sector having that kind of technology irritates them. Using Bissel was sensible. He plays all ends-using Reva to gain data on Securecomp, posing as the greedy turncoat to gain knowledge of Doomsday.”

“His brother was blackmailing him over the extramaritals. But that suited their purposes. Sparrow claims they don’t know where Carter Bissel is. He might be telling the truth, but I’m not buying little brother as your standard blackmailer. No reason to corrupt his personal units, no reason for him to disappear or be disappeared. Doesn’t jibe.”

“He who can play turncoat can actually be one.”

She smiled. “There you go.”

She hated to admit it but the blocker helped. Even so the thin cotton pants and loose T-shirt felt heavy on her abused body. When Peabody took one look at her and winced, Eve decided she probably looked worse than she felt.

“You don’t look like you can hit me at the moment,” Peabody began, “so I’m going to ask. Don’t you think you should be in the hospital?”

“Don’t let appearances deceive you. No, I shouldn’t be in the hospital, and yes, I can still hit you. Bring me up on Powell.”

“Single full-contact, full-power shot with hand laser, as evaled on scene. Time of death, ten-fifteen yesterday morning. No forced entry. CSU believes a master was used, Powell’s ID, his vehicle code, his employee pass were all missing from the premises. He’d made no transmissions from his home ‘link since the previous afternoon when he ordered pizza from a local place. But he did receive one at just after eight A.M. on the morning of his death. The caller cut transmission after Powell answered, groggily. We traced it to a public ‘link at a subway station three blocks away from the scene. Conclusion: The killer verified Powell was home, and in bed. Gave him enough time to fall back to sleep, then entered the premises and killed him.”

“Sweepers?”

“Only the prelim, but they haven’t identified any prints other than the victim’s, no DNA, no trace. But I do have a neighbor, Mrs. Lance, who was coming back home from the deli. She saw a man coming out of the building at about ten-thirty. Description matches the one Sibresky gave us of this Angelo.”

“How about the artist’s rendering? We got that?”

“Working on it. When I checked I was told Sibresky isn’t being particularly cooperative or open-minded. I promised the artist a backstage pass to the next Mavis Freestone concert in the city if he got us something this afternoon.”