"I'll take that," McNab volunteered. "Working on a cobbler rush."
"Get started. I'm going to check on Sparrow, see if he's coherent and I can dig anything out of him. Feeney, I'm leaving you and Roarke on the machines. If Reva's backed out and Tokimoto's busy patting her head, you're going to be short-handed."
"Another tanker of coffee ought to keep us in the game."
"You may want an update before you rush off, Lieutenant. We're retrieving data from Kade's unit. It's encrypted, but we'll get through that."
"Great, good. Let me know when-"
"I'm not finished. Each of Kade's units was corrupted, but not through a networking worm. They were burned individually."
"So what? Look, this is EDD territory. All I need is the bottom line. I need the data."
"You don't give electronics enough respect," Feeney stated.
"And neither, I'd venture, does Bissel." As Eve hadn't touched the glass of chilled juice Peabody had brought her, Roarke picked it up and helped himself. "The potential worm's import is its theoretic ability to corrupt an entire networking system, however small or large, however simple or complex, with one stroke, to corrupt and shut down, irretrievably. That's not what we're dealing with. It's a shade of that, an early version perhaps, but not nearly as powerful as we've been led to believe. It's been relatively easy to clean and retrieve from the units we've got."
"Relatively." Feeney rolled his aching eyes. "It's nasty business, but it's not global security shit. What it is, is smoke."
"Which means he doesn't have what he thought he had-what he was going to parlay into a nice retirement fund. But maybe someone else does, or maybe... Son of a bitch. He wasn't trying to take me out." She tapped her fingers absently over her bruised eye. "He hit his target. Aim was a little off, but he hit."
Roarke inclined his head as his thoughts marched with hers. "Sparrow."
"It'd help to have somebody on the inside, somebody with some juice who could adjust or create data in-house. And provide protection. Sparrow. He's the organized thinker. The planner. Look at Bissel. He's not brave, he's not very smart, he hasn't been able to work himself up in the organization. Just a delivery boy. And here's a big opportunity, handed to him from one of the brass. The big score. Little scores all along. The corporate espionage. Could be, just could be, some of that was outside Homeland, a little personal partnership. Bissel though, he can't capitalize. Just a screwup with money. I bet his partner's done better. A hell of a lot better."
"Why not just kill Bissel then?" Peabody asked.
"Because you need a contingency. You need a fall guy. He set the putz up. Still the delivery boy. Bissel goes to deliver the worm disc to the high bidder, and it's not the deal. He gets the shaft. Now he's a dead man, a desperate one. He's running, he's hiding, and at all costs he has to stay dead. Our friend from the HSO wants him to stay dead, too, and he's ready with the company line about global security when the investigation doesn't turn the way he anticipated."
"I imagine he planned to make an honest man out of Bissel by turning him into a dead man," Roarke said. "Quietly, at some point."
"Should've moved on that sooner rather than later, and he wouldn't be in the hospital. I think he forgot to factor one vital element into the equation. When somebody like Bissel starts killing, it gets easier every time."
She pulled out her communicator. "I want a block on Sparrow. I don't want anybody, not even the medicals, talking to him until I get my shot. Start reeling in that data."
"Hook up that tanker of coffee," Feeney reminded her, then headed out.
"I need a moment, Lieutenant." Roarke glanced at Peabody. "A private one."
"I'll wait outside." Peabody slipped out, shut the door.
"I don't have time to go into personal business," Eve began.
"Sparrow has access to your data, to what happened in Dallas. If you're right about all of this, he might very well use it against you. Make it public, even altering it in some way that twists the truth."
"I can't worry about that."
"I can make it disappear. If you want that... element removed, I can remove it. You're entitled to your privacy, Eve. You're entitled to be secure that your own victimization won't be used to draw speculation, gossip-and the pity you'd hate more than either."
"You want me to give you the nod to tamper with government files?"
"No, I want you to tell me if you'd prefer those files didn't exist. Hypothetically."
"Which would let me off the hook. Legally. I wouldn't be an accessory if I just made a little wish, and poof. This is a hell of a day. This is a hell of a funny day."
Because emotion was flooding her throat again, she turned away. "You and me, we haven't been this far apart from each other since the beginning. I can't reach you, and I can't let you reach me."
"You don't see me, Eve. When you look at me, you don't see the whole of me. Maybe I've preferred that."
She thought of Reva, of illusions, and a mockery of a marriage. Nothing could be further from what they were dealing with. Roarke had never lied, nor pretended to be something other than what he was. And she had seen him, right from the first moment.
"You're wrong, and you're stupid." There was more weariness than temper in the words, and as such struck him more forcefully. "I don't know how to get through this. I can't talk to you about it, because it just circles. I can't talk to anyone else, because if I tell them what's ripping at us, it makes them an accessory. You think I don't see you?"
She turned back, looked straight into his eyes. "I'm looking at you, and I see you. I know you're capable of killing, and feeling justified, feeling right. I know that, and I'm still here. I don't know what the hell to do, but I'm still here."
"If I wasn't capable, I wouldn't be who I am, what I am, where I am. Neither of us would be here, wrestling with this."
"Maybe not, but I'm too tired to wrestle. I have to go. I need to go." She walked quickly to the door, wrenched it open. Then she shut her eyes. "Make it disappear. Fuck hypothetical. I take responsibility for what I say, what I do. Make it gone."
"Consider it done."
When she left him, he sat down at her desk in the quiet, and wished, with everything inside him, that he could make the rest of it vanish as easily.
***
Reva waylaid her on the way outside. "I don't have time," Eve said curtly and kept moving.
"It'll only take a minute. I want to apologize. I asked you to give it to me straight, and when you did, I didn't handle it. I'm sorry, and I'm pissed off at myself for reacting the way I did."
"Forget it. Are you going to handle it now?"
"Yeah, I'm going to handle it now. What do you need?"
"I need you to think. Where he might go, what his next steps would be in a crisis. What's he doing now besides trying to find a way out? Think it through, lay it out. Have it ready for me when I get back."
"You'll have it. He'd have to work," she called out as Eve streamed out the door. "His art wasn't just a cover, it couldn't have been. It's his passion, his escape, his ego. He'd have to have a place to work."
"Good. Keep it up. I'll be back."
"That was well-done." Tokimoto stepped out of the parlor, into the foyer.
"I hope so. I'm not doing so well otherwise."
"You need time to adjust, to grieve, to be angry. I hope you'll feel able to talk to me when you need someone."
"I've been talking you black-and-blue so far." She sighed. "Tokimoto, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Are you hitting on me?"
He stiffened like a rod. "That would be inappropriate under the circumstances."
"Because I might still be married or because you're not interested?"
"Your marriage would hardly be a factor, considering. But you're not in a state of mind where... An advance of a personal nature is clearly inappropriate while your emotions and your situation are in flux."
She found herself smiling, just a little. And found something opening inside her again, just a little. "You didn't say you weren't interested, so I'll just say I don't think I'd mind. If you worked up to hitting on me."
To test it out, she rose on her toes and touched her lips lightly to his. "No," she said after a moment, "I don't think I'd mind. Why don't you think about it?"
She was still smiling, just a little, as she started back upstairs.
19
Quinn Sparrow would live. He might, with several months of intensive therapy and treatments, walk again-if he had the same level of will and guts Reva Ewing had called upon to recover from her injuries.
It was, to Eve's mind, a solid kind of justice.
He had broken bones, a fractured spine, and a concussion among other insults. He would require reconstructive surgery on his face.
But he would live.
Eve was glad to hear it.
He was and would remain in Intensive Care for at least forty-eight hours. He was sedated, but Eve's badge and some bullying got her through.
She left Peabody posted at the door.
He was either sleeping or zoned when she walked in. She was banking on the zoned and shut off his IV drip of blockers without a twinge of remorse.
It only took a few moments for him to surface, moaning.
He looked considerably worse for wear, brutally bruised around his bandages, with a skin cast on his right arm, another along with a stability cage-that looked a little like one of Bissel's sculptures-around his right leg.
The wedge of collar prevented any movement of his head or neck.
"You in there, Sparrow?"
"Dallas." White at the lips, he shifted his eyes, tried to focus on her. "What the fuck?"
She moved closer, making it easier for him to keep her in his line of vision, and laid a hand in what she considered a "survivors of the battle" gesture on his shoulder. "You're in the hospital. You're strapped in to restrict movement."
"I don't remember. How... how bad?"
It was, she thought, a nice touch to look away for a moment as if she was struggling to speak. "It's... it's pretty bad. He hit us, hard. You took the worst. Vehicle went up like a rocket, crashed like a bomb. Slammed into a maxi on your side. You're messed up bad, Sparrow."
She felt his shoulder tremble as he tried to move. "Christ, Christ, the pain."
"I know. It's gotta be rugged. But we got him." She closed a hand over his now, squeezed. "We got the bastard."
"What? Who?"
"We got Bissel, wrapped and locked. Still had the shoulder launcher he used on us. Blair Bissel, Sparrow, alive and well, and singing like a canary."
"That's crazy." He groaned. "I need the doctor. I need something for the pain."
"I want you to listen, to dig down and pay attention. I don't know how much time you've got."
"Time?" His fingers jerked under hers. "Time?"
"I want to give you a chance to clear your conscience, Sparrow. To set the record straight. You deserve that much. He's dumping the whole ball on you. Listen to me. Listen." She tightened her fingers on his. "I've got to give it to you, and you've got to prepare yourself. You're not going to make it."
His skin went sickly gray. "What are you talking about?"
She leaned in close so he could see only her face. "They did everything they could. Worked on you for hours. There's too much damage."
"I'm dying?" His voice, already a weak tremble, cracked. "No. No. I want a doctor."
"They'll be back in a minute. They'll give you... they'll give you a humane dose. You'll go out easy."
"I'm not going to die." Tears swam, and spilled over. "I don't want to die."
She pressed her lips together, as if overcome. "I thought you'd want to hear it from me, from... a colleague. His aim had been better, we'd both be on our way out. But he just sheered the front end, and we flipped. They saved your leg," she continued, and paused to clear her throat. "They hoped that... Christ. The impact messed up your insides, messed them up bad. The son of a bitch killed you, Sparrow, and tried for me."
"I can't see. I can't move."
"You've gotta stay quiet, still. It'll buy you time. You've been out of it, Sparrow, and he's using that. He tried to wipe us both, and because of that I'm trying to give you a chance to go out with some dignity. I'm going to read you your rights." She paused again, shook her head. "Jesus, this sucks."
He began to tremble as she recited the revised Miranda. "You understand your rights and obligations, Assistant Director Sparrow?"
