“I’ve never seen one quite like it. Very compact. Will it multitask? Sorry.” He laughed a little. “I’m big on gadgets. One of the reasons I got into this line of work. Look, if you’re satisfied your car’s clear, maybe we could take a ride. I’ll give you some data that may convince you to find that compromise.”
“Open the briefcase.”
“No problem.” He set it on the trunk of her vehicle, manually entered a code on the lock. When he opened it, Eve blinked.
“Jesus, Sparrow, got enough hardware?”
She saw a stunner, a miniblaster, a complex little palm ‘link, a recharger, and the smallest data system she’d ever come across. There was also a number of the same sort of tracking devices she’d taken off her vehicle earlier in the day.
She took one out, held it up, and looked him dead in the eye.
He gave her a winning smile. “I didn’t say the tracker you removed from your vehicle wasn’t HSO, I just said I was unaware of any directive to place said tracker on your vehicle.”
“Smooth.” She tossed the tracker back in the briefcase, and watched as Sparrow meticulously fit it back in its slot.
It occurred to her that under other circumstances he and Roarke would have bonded like brothers.
“I like gadgets,” he repeated. “I didn’t bug your vehicle. That’s not to say I-or someone else from the organization-won’t do so if ordered, but I didn’t lay the tracker today. Nothing in here’s activated. Your scanner will verify.”
When it did, she looked him up and down. “What about you?”
“I’ve got a lot on me.” He held his arms out to the side for the scanner. “All deactivated. You see, we’re not having this conversation. We will have had it if the outcome’s satisfactory. Otherwise, we left things up in Tibble’s office.”
Eve shook her head. “Get in. I’m heading uptown. I don’t like what you have to say, I’ll dump you in the most inconvenient spot I can manage. And I know all the inconvenient spots in this city.”
He got in the passenger seat. “You really mucked up the works with that media leak.”
She sent him her version of a winning smile. “I don’t believe I confirmed playing any part in any media leak.” She set the scanner on the seat beside her, activated. “Just in case you decide to flip something on,” she said when Sparrow frowned at it.
“With that level of cynicism and paranoia, you ought to be one of us.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Start talking.”
“Bissel and Kade were not in-house terminations. We believe, though we have no confirmed intel, that Doomsday broke Bissel’s cover, and took them out.”
“Why?” She backed out of her slot. “If they knew about him, and his connection to Ewing and hers to the Code Red, it would make more sense to watch him, or haul him off and pull data out of his toenails.”
“He was working a double. We worked over a year to set him up with a Doomsday operative. Look at his profile, and what do you see? An opportunist, a man who cheats on his wife-and his mistress, who likes the good life, spends lavishly. That’s how we wanted him to look, and that part was easy as what you see with Bissel was what you got. It’s how and why we used him to pass carefully arranged data to Doomsday. He took their money. There was no way they’d believe he was behind their philosophies. Just in it for the shine.”
“You set him up to get close to Ewing to spy on Securecomp, and you set him up to get close to Doomsday to screw with them. You guys are something.”
“It was working. The worm they’re developing, have developed,” he corrected, “could undermine governments, give the terrorists an open door. If our data banks and surveillance apparatus are severely compromised, we can’t track, we can’t know how and when they might hit. That doesn’t touch on internal crises: banks, military, transport. We needed to slow them down, and to gather intel, to have our defenses fully in place.”
“And to steal the technology from them to create your own version of the worm.”
“I can’t confirm that supposition.”
“You don’t have to. Where does Carter Bissel come in?”
“Loose cannon. He has serious issues with his brother, and took the time and trouble to learn about the extramaritals. Blackmailed him. That actually worked for us. Solidified Bissel’s cover, gave him another reason for needing quick money. We don’t know where he is, or if he’s alive or dead. Maybe they took him out, maybe they just took him. Maybe he ran or is on a fucking bender.” Frustration eked through. “But we’ll find him.”
“This just doesn’t jibe for me, Sparrow. Not all the way.” She paused at the exit of the garage. “Terminating Bissel and Kade in that manner was sloppy. And Doomsday hasn’t taken credit. They like credit.”
“Yeah, but they don’t like being conned. He conned them for months. We’ve gathered significant intel on the worm through Bissel. Enough bits and pieces that we should be able to develop the shield before…”
“Before Securecomp? God, you’re a piece of work.”
“Look.” He shifted in his seat. “Personally, I don’t give a flying fuck where the shield comes from, as long as we have it in place. But there are some who don’t like the idea of a man with Roarke’s… questionable connections having his fingers in a pie this sensitive.”
“So you undermine Securecomp, get busy like bees to beat Roarke to the punch, so you can beat your red, white, and blue chests and add the big fee to your budget.”
“Everything about the NYPSD is sunshine and roses, Dallas? You got a perfect system here?”
“No, but I don’t screw somebody just so I can take the collar.” She eased out into traffic. “I’m seriously thinking about ditching you in front of this nice little cafe where Zeus addicts hang.”
“Come on, Dallas, give a little, get a little. We need a look at the units you confiscated, and have locked down. The ones you took from the various crime scenes. Or at least the scan and analysis reports. Doomsday has the worm. Even Roarke can’t put together the brain trust we can to complete the shield and complete it now. Without it, we could be facing a crisis of goddamn biblical proportions.”
At those words, the wrath of God hit. She felt the intense blast of heat, and saw the blinding flash of light. Glass imploded, and the dust of it spewed into her face.
Instinctively, she wrenched the wheel sideways, slammed the brakes, but her tires were no longer in contact with the road. Dimly she realized they were airborne.
She choked out a warning for Sparrow to hang on, and through the haze of smoke saw the world revolve. They hit, and the impact snapped her safety harness. She tumbled, stomach pitching, head ringing, and thudded hard on the safety bags that deployed with an explosive snap. The last thing she remembered was the taste of her own blood in her mouth.
She wasn’t out long, the stink of the smoke, the quality of the screams told her she hadn’t lost consciousness more than a minute or two. That, and the fact that the pain hadn’t had time to fully process in her brain. Her vehicle-what was left of it-was on its top, like a turtle laying on its shell.
She spat out blood and shifted enough to reach Sparrow, to check for a pulse in his throat. She found a weak one, though her hand came away slick with blood that was still running down his face.
She heard the sirens now, and the rush of feet, the shouted orders that said cops. Dimly she thought, If you are going to take a sudden, unexpected air trip while still in road mode, it is good to do so within a block of Cop Central.
“I’m on the job,” she called out and began to try to wriggle her way back, out of the smashed driver door and window. “Dallas, Lieutenant. There’s a civilian pinned in here-bleeding bad.”
“Take it easy, Lieutenant. MTs are on the way. You probably don’t want to move until-”