She waited until the worst of the weight eased and air squeezed down her throat, into her lungs.
"Steady it out, Lieutenant, or I'm going to have to call the MTs." She sat up, had him nodding. "Thought that would do it. Need water?"
She could have swallowed a small ocean of it. "No, sir. Thank you. I understand that Chief Tibble may need to be apprised of-"
"If Tibble needs to be apprised of incidents that took place in another state more than two decades ago, he will be so apprised. But in my judgment this is a personal matter. I think you can rest assured it will stay one. You fired the first volley with the media leak. They'll have their hands full trying to spin and swim through that. They won't want to risk a second whirlwind. You'd already calculated all that."
"Yes, sir."
"Then you'd better get back to work and close this up. And if you have to fry a few spooks along the way, that's just a nice bonus." He showed his teeth in a grin. "A real nice bonus."
17
Eve walked out on the garage level at Central, and laid her hand on her weapon as Quinn Sparrow stepped out from behind a column.
"You take chances, Sparrow."
"You don't know the half of it. I shouldn't be speaking to you outside of authorized parameters, Lieutenant. But between us, we've got a hell of a mess on our hands. You won't back off so we have to find some level ground, some area of compromise."
"I've got four bodies. Well, had four." She eased her hand away from her weapon and moved toward her vehicle. "I don't compromise."
"Two of those bodies are ours. You may not think much of our organization, of me, of our directives, but it matters when we lose people."
"Let's get this straight. What I think or don't about your organization isn't relevant, but the fact is I'm not naive enough to think it doesn't serve a purpose. Covert operations helped end the Urban Wars, prevented numerous terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and globally. I might find some of your methods questionable, at best, but that's beside the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"You wired, Sparrow?"
"You paranoid, Dallas?"
"Oh yeah."
"I'm not wired," he snapped. "I shouldn't even be talking to you."
"Your choice. Here's the point. Four people are dead, and your organization is part of it."
"The HSO does not murder its own operatives, then frame a civilian."
"No?" She lifted her eyebrows as she slid a scanner out of her pocket. "They just sit back and watch while a child is brutalized, raped, and tortured, then tidy up after her when she takes a life desperately defending her own. When she's traumatized and broken. And they leave her alone, to wander the streets."
"I don't know what happened." He looked away from her. "I don't know why. You've read the file, so you know data was deleted. Covered up. I'm not denying it, or the poor judgment of-"
"Poor judgment?"
"There's nothing I can say to you. Nothing that can balance the scales after what was done. No excuses I can make, so I won't make them. But I will say, as you have to me, that's not the point."
"Score one for you." She moved away from him to run a program on the scanner, checking her car for devices. "I'm pissed, Sparrow, and I'm tired, and it's very, very difficult for me to accept that strangers know my private business. Because of that, I've got no reason to trust you, or the people you work for."
"I'd like to try to give you one, and to find some area of compromise that will satisfy us both. But I've got to ask you, where the hell did you get that thing?"
She found herself amused, and she hadn't expected to be, by the look of fascination and avarice on his face. "I have my connections."
"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-"
"Get me the hell out of here." She tried to dig into the roadbed with the toes of her boots, searching for traction. She made it two inches before hands gripped her legs, her hips, and eased her out of the wreckage.
"How bad you hurt?"
She managed to focus on the face, recognized Detective Baxter. "I can still see you, so I'm in considerable pain. But I think I'm just banged up. Passenger's bad."
"They're getting to him."
She winced as Baxter ran his hands over her, checking for breaks. "You better not be using this to cop a feel."
"Just one of those little bonuses life hands you. Got some lacerations, probably going to have contusions all over that nifty bod of yours."
"Shoulder burns."
"You gonna punch me if I take a look?"
"Not this time."
She rolled her head back, closed her eyes as he unbuttoned her ruined shirt. "Friction burns from the harness, looks like," he told her.
"I want to stand up."
"Just take it easy until the medicals look at you."
"Give me a damn hand up, Baxter. I want to see the damage."
He helped her up, and when her vision didn't waver, she figured she'd gotten off lucky.
