J. Robb - Vengeance in Death

"All of them, sir."

"And have you considered that your objectivity might be in question in this matter? That you've begun to pit your ego against the killer's. Are you investigating a series of homicides, Lieutenant, or are you playing his games?''

She accepted the slap, agreed that she deserved it, but she wouldn't back off. "At this point in time, sir, I don't believe I can do one without doing the other. I realize that my performance in this matter has been substandard. It won't continue to be."

"I'd like to know how the hell I'm supposed to give you a dressing-down when you keep beating me to it." He pushed away from the desk and rose. "Consider your wrist officially slapped. Privately, I'll tell you that I don't find your performance in this matter substandard. I've watched the recordings of the operation. You command well, Lieutenant, with authority and without hesitation. Your strategy to entrap this perpetrator can't be faulted. Damn poodle," he said under his breath. "And you were denied air support due to some foul-up at control – a foul-up that will be fully investigated. Consider yourself officially supported.

"Now…" He lifted a small clear globe filled with glinting blue fluid, turned it so that the tiny enclosed sea ebbed and flowed. "The media will no doubt enjoy our embarrassment today. We'll just take that on the chin. Will he contact you again?"

"He won't be able to stop himself. He's likely to have a period of silence. He'll sulk, have a temper fit, and he'll attempt to find some way to harm me physically. I'd say he'd consider that I cheated, and it's his game. Cheating would be a sin, and he'll want God to punish me. He'll be scared, but he'll be pissed, too."

She hesitated, then decided to lay out her thoughts. "I don't believe he'll return to the Luxury Towers. Whatever he is, Chief, he's smart. He'll know that if we could get as close as we did today, it's likely we've begun to track his transmissions. He made us in the lobby today, so he's got sharp instincts when it comes to cops. He walked into us at the hotel and we blew it. But if we can find his equipment, if we can find his hole, we'll find him."

"Then find his hole, Dallas, and bury it."

She swung by her office to make copies of all audio and video discs from the failed operation. She intended to study every second of every disc.

"I told you to go on home," she said when she saw Roarke waiting for her.

He rose, walked over, and rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. "How much skin did Tibble leave on your hide?"

"He barely stripped any, considering."

"This wasn't your fault."

"Fault doesn't matter, responsibility does. And this was mine."

Understanding, he rubbed her shoulders. "Want to go out and kick some poodles?"

She let out a short laugh. "Maybe later. I've got to get my record copies then I'm heading over to join the search and sweep team."

"You haven't eaten in hours," he pointed out.

"I'll grab something at a QuickMart." Disgusted, she scrubbed her hands over her face. "Goddamn it, Roarke, we were inches away. Inches. Did he see Baxter go for his weapon through the door? Did one of the team look too hard in his direction? Did he just smell us?"

"Why don't you let me look at the records, with the eye of a veteran cop-spotter?''

"It couldn't hurt." She turned to her computer, ordered dupes of all operational files. "We should have plenty of full views of him on the lobby file. There's not much of his face, but maybe you'll spot something that clicks. You've got to know him, Roarke."

"I'll do what I can."

"I don't know when I'll be home." She handed him the copies. "But don't wait up."

She grabbed a cheese phyllo and an energy bar at a QuickMart and settled for a tube of Pepsi rather than their notoriously poisonous coffee. She carried the miserable meal with her into the second-floor conference room where McNab was heading the electronic sweep.

"Anything?"

"Plenty of hits on mega-links, laser faxes. The building's lousy with high-end electronics. We're checking floor to floor, but there's nothing on the scale of what our guy plays with."

Eve set the bag down, then reached out and turned McNab's face toward her with a firm thumb to his chin. There was a bruising knot on his forehead and a long thin scrap just above his right eye. "Get the MTs to look at that ugly face of yours?"

"Just a bump. Damn dog came at me like an Arena Ball tackle." He shifted in his chair so that the gold rings in his ears jangled. "I'd like to apologize for my insubordination during the operation, Lieutenant."

"No, you wouldn't. You were pissed and you still are." She pulled out her tube of Pepsi, broke the safety seal. "You were wrong, and you still are. So stuff the apology. Don't ever question an order from a superior officer during an operation, McNab, or you'll end up skulking in some little dark room listening to sex noises for a private security hack instead of rising through the ranks of the illustrious EDD."

While his temper bobbed up and down, he meticulously manipulated his scanner, noting the location of a dual communication unit on floor eighteen.

"Okay, maybe I'm still a little steamed, and maybe I know I was over the line. I'm lucky if I get out of my cube at Central once a month. This was the closest I've come to action, then you yanked me."

Looking at him, at that young, smooth, eager face, she felt incredibly old and jaded. "McNab, have you ever participated in hand-to-hand other than in training?"

"No, but – "

"Have you ever discharged your weapon at anything other than a heat target?"

His mouth went sulky. "No. So I'm not a warrior."

"Your strengths are right here." She tapped a finger on his scanner, then pulled out her energy bar. "You know as well as I do how many applicants wash out of the EDD program every year. They only take the top. And you're good. I've worked with the best," she said, thinking of Feeney, "so I know. This is where I need you to take this fucker down."

Then none too gently, she tapped her finger on the swollen bruise on his forehead. "And action mostly just hurts like a bitch."

"Guys are going to rag me for weeks. Getting taken down by a dog."

"It was a pretty big dog." Sympathetic now, Eve took out the phyllo and gave it to him. "Really big teeth. Lorimar took a bite in the ankle."

"Yeah?" Somewhat cheered, McNab bit into the bread and cheese. "I hadn't heard." A series of beeps had him frowning at the scanner. "Lots of goodies on nineteen, east wing apartment." He shifted to his communicator. "Blue team, check on nineteen twenty-three. It looks like some rich kid's entertainment center, but it's loaded."

"I'll go check on the door-to-doors," Eve said. "You get any interesting hits, pass them on to me."

"You first, Dallas. Thanks for the food. Say, ah, where's Peabody?"

Eve lifted a brow as she glanced back over her shoulder. "Overseeing the breakdown of equipment in the penthouse at the Arms. She doesn't like you, McNab."

"I know." He flashed a grin. "I find that really attractive in a woman." He turned back to his scanner, humming as he went through the complicated task of separating the beeps into known components.

At midnight, she ordered in a new crew, sent McNab home for eight hours off, and packed it in. It didn't surprise her to find Roarke up, in his office, enjoying a glass of wine while he studied the recordings.

"I had the first team wrap for the night. They were getting punchy."

"You look a bit punchy yourself, Lieutenant. Shall I pour you a glass of wine?''

"No, I don't want anything." She walked over, noted that he paused the recording at the point where McNab made abrupt contact with the stationary panel of the main doors. "I don't think he'd consider that suitable for framing."