«Sublevel, then.» She leaned over him, studied the screen. «How do we get in?»
«Are we breaking and entering, darling? You'll get me stirred up.»
«Cut it out. Nobody's stirring anything with a houseful of relatives. It's too distracting.»
«I'd point out they're all tucked up neatly in bed now, but the idea of breaking into the Center has me distracted. First you walk in.»
«One of the public areas. Emergency care, maybe. Most vulnerable to security, right?»
«Most likely. And as good as any. Let's have a look.»
«You look. I have to think. Would she take her along? Take the kid?»
Because she felt a certain kinship with Deena, she asked herself what she'd do.
«Doesn't seem to follow. You pull her out of what you consider a dangerous situation, you don't dump her into another. But she'd keep her close. She'd put her where she feels it's safe. With Avril, or where Avril can get to her. If so, she has to contact Avril. Already has,» she said, nodding to herself. «No move on Diana's legal guardians in Argentina. I'm betting Avril got word to her, and Deena caught another flight back, or aborted the flight she was on.»
«Or never went at all,» Roarke suggested. «Tossed you a red herring.»
«Maybe, yeah, maybe. If she's had contact with Avril, she knows or will know that this whole thing's about to go public. What does she do?»
She paced. «She's got her mission. Most of what she wants is going to come down. But…« Case is basically closed, she thought, but was that stopping her from pursuing it, from doing what she could to finish it out herself?
«She'll try to finish it. Hell, they trained her for this kind of work. They imprinted her to succeed. She's already gone rogue from her own underground. She's been in the Center once already that we know of. To kill Icove. But she doesn't attempt to do anything else there.»
«She's focused.»
«So far,» Eve agreed. «Icove to Icove to Samuels. Because even if she does get in, compromises their database, their equipment… Hell, even if she blows the place up, key members are still around to put it back together. Take out the human factor first, then the system.»
She paced some more. «Don't take the chance on the government getting the system, covertly continuing the program. I put the clock on her with Nadine. She's got to move on it tonight.»
She stopped when Feeney came in. He was, if possible, more rumpled than usual.
«I need that tracking.»
«I got the data from Samuels's records on the type of implant.» He looked at Roarke. «You got anything in here that'll track an internal?»
«I've got a few things we can put together in the computer lab. There's—«
«Go do that,» Eve interrupted, sensing a compu-geek mode coming on. «I'm going to outline the op.»
«What op?» Feeney wanted to know.
«I'll catch you up.» Roarke started out with him. «Have you ever worked with an Alpha-5? The XDX version?»
«Only in my dreams.»
«Your dream's about to come true.»
Eve gave them twenty minutes. It was all she believed they could spare.
«Got her?»
«Got something,» Feeney told her. «It's being jammed, and it's weak, but it matches the codes of the implant listed for Diana Rodriguez. We wouldn't be getting anything, I can tell you, if we weren't working with the Alpha, 'cause the jam is choice. Might not even get what we got with the Alpha, except the implant's within a mile of our location.»
«Where?»
«Moving north. West of here. Got that map ready?» he asked Roarke.
«Just coming. And on.»
A city map flashed under the fuzzy blip on-screen. «The Center.» Eve set her jaw. «She's less than a block from the Center. She's taking the kid and going in. Feeney, don't lose her. Contact Whitney. You're going to have to convince him to let you break Code Blue on communications. Then you've got to convince him to get us a warrant and a team. Use the kid. Minor civilian, suspected abduction, imminent jeopardy. With or without, I'm going in. I'm changing to Delta frequency on my communicator. Use it only if you get affirmative.»
She spun to Roarke. «Let's gear up.»
She yanked on her weapon, strapped on a clutch piece. She opted against body armor as it was too bulky and annoying, but hooked on a combat knife.
When Roarke joined her he wore a knee-length leather coat. She had no idea what sort of weaponry and illegal electronics might be under and/or in it.
She'd leave it to him.
«Some couples,» he said, «go out to a club for an evening.»
Her smile was thin and sharp. «Let's dance.»
Diana slipped into the Emergency Room. She knew how to look innocent, and better, knew how to move so that she was all but invisible to most adults. She kept her gaze down, away from their faces as she passed by those waiting to be treated, and those who would treat them.
It was late, everyone was tired or angry or hurt. No one wanted to bother with a young girl who appeared to know where she was going.
She knew because she'd heard Deena tell Avril.
She'd known Deena would come for her. And she'd prepared for it. She'd taken only what she was sure she'd need and put it in her backpack. Food she'd squirreled away for emergencies, her journal discs, the laser scalpel she'd stolen from Medical.
They thought they knew everything, but they hadn't known about the food, the journal, the things she'd stolen over the years.
She was a very good thief.
Deena hadn't had to explain when she'd climbed in the window. She hadn't had to tell her to be quiet, to be quick. Diana had simply taken the backpack out of her hiding place and climbed out with her.
There'd been something she'd scented in the air when they'd gone over the wall. Something she'd never scented before. It was freedom.
They'd talked all the way to New York. That was a first time, too. To talk to someone without having to pretend anything.
They would go to Avril's first. Avril would disengage the security, then Deena would go in and disengage the two police droids. It would be fast, she'd promised. Then she would take her and Avril and their children to a safe location where they would wait until she'd finished what she'd set out to do.
Quiet Birth would be shut down. No one would ever be forced to become again.
She'd watched Deena go into the pretty house, watched her come out again only minutes later. And it was righteous.
The safe house was only minutes away, and that was smart. To hide so close. They could stay there, undetected, until it was safe to go somewhere else.
She pretended to go to bed.
She heard Deena and Avril arguing, in low voices. It would be done, Avril said, all they could expect to be done would be done in a day.
But it wasn't enough. Deena said it wasn't enough until she'd killed the root. Until she had, they'd never be free. They'd never be safe. It would never, never stop. She was going tonight, to finish it.
Then she told Avril exactly what she intended to do.
So she waited, and when Deena switched security to yellow to go out the front door, she went out the back.
She'd never been in a city before—that she remembered. Never been completely alone. And it was exhilarating. She had no fear, none. She reveled in the sound of her footsteps on the sidewalk, at the sensation of cool air on her face.
She worked out her route and her movements by treating the whole business like a logic puzzle she was required to solve. If Deena was going to the Center, she was going to the Center.
It wasn't far. Though she was on foot, she could run well, and run long. And Deena would have to park some distance from the target, then take the last two blocks on foot as well. If she timed it right they'd get there simultaneously, then she could follow Deena through the street-level emergency area.