She turned, walked down the corridor to the tall double doors of Roarke's weapon room. Frowning a little, she hitched her bag on her shoulder more securely. She was aware that only Roarke, Summerset, and she could gain access to this room.
Roarke's collection was legal – at least it was legal now. She had no idea if every piece had been obtained by legal means. She doubted that sincerely.
Eve laid her hand flat on the palm plate, waited while the cool green light shimmered on to take her print, then stated her name, and finally used the key code.
The security computer verified her identification, and the locks snicked open.
She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and let out a long breath.
Weapons of violence through the ages were displayed, somehow elegantly, in the great room. Encased in glass, showcased in beautiful cabinets, gleaming on the walls were guns, knives, lasers, swords, pikes, maces. All testaments, she thought, to man's continued ambition to destroy man.
And yet, she knew the weapon strapped to her side was as much a part of her as her arm.
She remembered the first time Roarke had showed her this room, when her instinct and her intellect had been waging a battle. One telling her he could be the killer she sought, the other insisting it wasn't possible.
The first time he'd kissed her had been here, in this private museum of war. And another element had been added to her personal battle: her emotions. She'd never quite gotten her emotions back on track when it came to Roarke.
Her gaze skimmed over a case of handguns, all illegal but for collections like this since the Gun Ban implemented decades before. Clumsy, she thought, with their bulk and their weight. Lethal with their propulsion of hot steel into flesh.
Taking such impulsive killing devices off the street saved lives, she was sure. But as Lisbeth Cook had proved, there were always new ways to kill. The human mind never tired of dreaming them up.
She took the rack out of her bag, then studied her choices to find one that would fit.
She'd narrowed it down to three side arm types when the door behind her opened. She turned, intending to scald Summerset for interrupting, and Roarke strolled in.
"I didn't know you were here."
"I'm working at home today," he told her and lifted a brow. She looked a little frazzled, he noted, a bit distracted. And alluring.
"Do I assume the same for you, or are you just playing with guns?"
"I've got a case, sort of." She set the rack down, gestured to it. "Since you're here, you'd be better at this. I need an army-issue blaster, Urban War style, that would fit into this rack."
"U.S. Army?"
"Yeah."
"European style's a bit different," he commented as he walked to a display cabinet. "The U.S. had two hand blasters during that period, the second – toward the end of the war – was lighter, more accurate."
He chose a piece with a long double over-and-under barrel and molded grip in a dull gray. "Infrared sight, heat-seeking directional. The blast can be toned down to stun – which would drop a two-hundred-pound man to his knees and have him drooling for twenty minutes – or tuned up to shoot a fist-sized hole in a charging rhino. It can be pinpointed or scattered to wide range."
He turned the weapon over, showing Eve the controls on either side. She held out her hand, testing the weight when Roarke passed the weapon to her.
"Can't weigh more than five pounds. How does it charge?"
"Battery card in the butt. Same principle as a clip on an old-fashioned automatic."
"Hmm." She turned and tried it in the rack. It slid in, settled snug, like a foot in a comfortable shoe. "Looks like a winner. Are there many of these around?"
"That depends on if you choose to believe the U.S. government, which claims that the vast majority were confiscated from its troops and destroyed. But if you believed that, you wouldn't be the cynic I know and love."
She grunted. "I want to test this out. You've got a battery card, right?"
"Of course." He picked up the gun and rack himself, walked to the wall, and opened the panel. Frowning a little, Eve got on the elevator with him.
"Don't you have to go back to work?"
"That's the beauty of being the boss." He smiled as she hooked her thumbs in her pockets. "What's this about?"
"I'm not sure. Probably a waste of time."
"We don't get to waste nearly enough time together."
The doors opened to the lower-level target range with its high ceilings and sand-colored walls. He hadn't indulged his appreciation for comfort here. This room was spartan and efficient.
Roarke ordered the lights, set the rack on a counter area on the long glossy black console. He took a slim battery card from a drawer. He slid it into a slot on the butt of the weapon, gave it a quick shove with the heel of his hand.
"Fully charged," he told her. "You've only to activate. A thumb flick on the side here," he showed her. "Set your preferences and let it rip."
She tried it out, nodded. "It's fast, efficient. If you were worried about an attack, you'd have it on, already set." Experimentally, she laid it against her own weapon harness. "With decent reflexes, you could have it out, aimed, and fired in seconds. I want to discharge it a couple of times."
He opened another drawer, took out earplugs and safety goggles. "Hologram or still target?" Roarke asked as she put them on, then laid his palm on the identiscreen so that console lights glowed on.
"Hologram. Give me a couple of guys, night scene."
Obligingly, Roarke programmed the target range, then settled back to enjoy the show.
He'd given her two bulky men who were nonetheless fast on their feet. Their images came at her from both sides. With a quick pivot, she blasted them both.
"Too easy," she complained. "You'd have to be a one-armed moron with a vision impairment to miss with this thing."
"Try it again." He reprogrammed while she balanced on the balls of her feet and tried to imagine herself a scared old man getting ready to run.
The first one came at her fast, out of the shadows, and head-on. She shifted, firing in a crouch, then swiveling around in anticipation. It was closer this time. The second man had a steel bat lifted, had started into his swing. She rolled clear, fired up, and took his face off.
"Christ, I love to watch you work," Roarke murmured.
"Maybe he wasn't as fast," she considered as she rose. "Maybe they knew about the blaster. But it would've given him the edge. And I had it on pinpoint. If he'd put it on wide range, he'd have taken out half the block in one swing."
To demonstrate, she switched it herself, then using a two-handed grip sprayed the street scene. The vehicle parked on the opposite curb went up in flames, window glass shattered, alarms screamed.
"See?"
"As I said." He stepped forward to take the weapon from her. Her hair was a tousled mess, and in the hard light every shade upon shade, every tone upon tone in the mix of brown showed. "I do love watching you work."
"They didn't just step up and knock him cold when he had one of those," she insisted. "They had to distract him, send in a decoy or someone he trusted. They needed enough time to blindside him and not get blown to hell while they were at it. He didn't have a vehicle, and he didn't call for transport. I checked. So he'd've been on foot. Armed, ready, street savvy. But they took him out as quick and easy as plucking a Nebraskan tourist's pocket in Times Square."
"You're sure it was quick and easy?"
"He had a blow to the head, no defensive wounds. If he'd fired that thing and the blast didn't go into someone, there'd be a sign of the discharge. It isn't neat."
She blew her hair out of her eyes, shrugged. "Maybe he was just old and slow after all."
"Not everyone reacts to fear clearheadedly, Lieutenant."