"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."