Loyalty In Death Part 16

"Okay, it was... well, actually." She cleared her throat and shot him a hopeful glance. "I got this little nick right here." She rubbed her finger at her jawline, heart fluttering pleasantly when he smiled at her.

"So you do." He stepped to her, angled his head, and touched his lips to the tiny cut. "Take care of yourself."

"Man, man, oh man," was the best she could manage when he'd left. "He's got such a great mouth. How do you stop yourself from just biting it?" "Wipe the drool off your chin, for Christ's sake. And sit down. We've got a report to write for the commander."

"I almost got blown up and got kissed by Roarke all in the same morning. I'm writing it on my calendar." "Settle down."

"Yes, sir." She took out her log and got to work. But with a smile on her face.

Commander Whitney was an imposing figure behind his desk. He was a big man with beefy shoulders and a wide face. There were lines scored in his forehead his wife fussed at him to have smoothed away. But he knew that when furrowed, that brow symbolized authority and power to his officers.

He'd sacrifice vanity for results every time.

He'd called in the top people in the required units. Lieutenant Anne Malloy from E and B, Feeney from EDD, and Eve. He listened to the reports, dissected, calculated.

"Even using three shifts," Anne continued, "I'm projecting at least thirty-six hours before we've swept the site. The fragments coming in indicate multiple devices, using plaston explosives and intricate timers. This tells me the work was both expensive and sophisticated. We're not dealing with vandals or a scatter group. More likely we have an organized, well-funded operation."

"And the likelihood you'll be able to trace any of the fragments?"

She hesitated. Anne Malloy was a small woman with a pretty, caramel- colored face and wide eyes of quiet green. She wore her blond hair in a bouncy ponytail and had a reputation for being both cheerful and fearless.

"I don't want to make promises I can't keep, Commander. But if there's anything to trace, we'll trace it. First we've got to put the pieces together."

"Captain?" Whitney shifted his attention to Feeney. "I'm down to the last couple of layers in Fixer's unit. I should have it bypa.s.sed by the end of the day. He put in a maze, but we're working through it, and we'll have whatever data there is. I've got some of my best going through his equipment at his shop now. If, as we believe, he was connected with this morning's explosion, we'll find the link."

"Lieutenant Dallas, according to your report, the subject was never connected with any political group or involved in any terrorist activity."

"No, sir. He was a loner. Most of his suspected criminal activity was in the area of robbery, security bypa.s.s, small explosives used in those fields. After the Urban Wars, he retired from the army. He was reputed to have become disenchanted with the military, the government, and people in general. He established himself as a freelance electronics artist, with his repair shop as a front. In my opinion, it was for those very reasons that once he discovered he hadn't been hired to take out a bank but to be a part in something much larger, he panicked, attempted to go under, and was killed."

"That leaves us with a dead electronics man who may or may not have recorded data on his activities, a previously unknown group with as yet undetermined purposes, and a privately owned building that's been destroyed with enough overkill to spew debris over a two-block area."

He leaned back, folded his hands. "Each of you will work on your particular angle, but I want all efforts coordinated. Data is to be shared. We were told this morning was a demonstration. They may not choose an uninhabited building in a scantily populated area the next time. I want this shut down before we're picking fragments of civilians as well as explosives out of the rubble. I want progress reports by end of shift."

"Sir." Eve stepped forward. "I'd like to take copies of both discs and each report to Dr. Mira for a.n.a.lysis. We could use a more detailed profile on the kind of people we're dealing with."

"Granted. The media will be given only the information that this explosion was a deliberate act and is under investigation. I want no leaks regarding the discs or the possible connection to a homicide. Work fast," he ordered and dismissed them.

"Normally," Anne said when the three of them moved down the corridor together, "I'd arm wrestle you for primary on this little project, Dallas." Eve slid her eyes over, sized up Anne's tiny frame, and snorted. "I'd hurt you, Malloy."

"Hey, I'm little, but I'm tough." She bent her arm, flexing her biceps. "In this case, however, the ball bounced to you first, and these jerks contacted you personally. I'll give way here." As if to symbolize it, she gestured Eve onto the glide ahead of her, then winked at Feeney and hopped on. "I've got some of my top people on site," she continued. "I juggled the budget to work them round the clock, but it won't shake loose for that kind of OT in the lab. IDing and tracing these parts and pieces after a major explosion takes time. It takes manpower. It takes some hot f.u.c.king luck."

"We coordinate what you find with what my team comes up with at Fixer's, we might find some of that luck," Feeney said. "We could get even luckier, and I'll find names, dates, and addresses on his hard drive."

"I'll take luck, but I'm not going to count on it." Eve tucked her hands in her pockets. "If this is a well-funded, organized group, Fixer wouldn't have joined, but he wouldn't have run, either. Not as long as they were paying. He ran because he was scared. I'm going to tag Ratso again, see if he left anything out. What does Arlington mean to you, Feeney?"

He started to shrug, but Anne shot her hand between them, grabbed Eve's arm. "Arlington? Where does that play?"

"Fixer told my weasel he was afraid of another Arlington." She stared into Anne's troubled eyes. "Mean something to you?"

"Yeah, Christ, yeah. And to any E and B man. September 25, 2023. The Urban Wars were basically over. There was a radical group, terrorists -- a.s.sa.s.sinations, sabotage, explosives. They'd kill anyone for a price and justified it as revolution. They called themselves Apollo."

"Oh s.h.i.t," Feeney breathed when the name hit home. "Holy Mother of G.o.d."

"What?" Frustrated, Eve gave Anne a quick shake. "History's not my strong suit. Give me a lesson here."

"They're the ones who took responsibility for blowing up the Pentagon.

Arlington, Virginia. They used what was then a new material known as plaston. They used it in such amounts and in such areas that the building was essentially vaporized.

"Eight thousand people, military and civilian personnel, including children in the care center. There were no survivors."

CHAPTER SEVEN

In Peabody's apartment, Zeke cleaned and repaired the recycler and replayed the 'link conversation with Clarissa Branson on the kitchen unit. The first time he played it back, he told himself he was just making sure of the details, of what time he was to report to work, the address.

The second time he played it, he convinced himself he'd missed something vital in the instructions.

By the third time, the parts of the recycler lay neglected while he stared at the screen and let her soft voice wash over him.

I'm sure we have everything you need in the way of tools. She smiled a little as she spoke and made his heart beat just a little faster. But you've only to ask if there's anything else you want.

It shamed him that what he wanted was her.

Before he could give in and replay the transmission one more time, he ordered the 'link off. Color rose into his cheeks as he thought of his own foolishness, his own dishonor in coveting another man's wife.

She'd hired him to do a job, he reminded himself. That was all there was between them. All there ever could be. She was a married woman, as removed from him as the moon, and had never done anything to encourage these yearnings in him.

But as he rebuilt the recycler with the energy of the guilty, he thought of her.

"How much more can you tell me?" Eve asked.

Rather than squeeze into her office, she'd set them up in a conference room. Already, she had Peabody setting up crime scene photos and available data on a board. Right now, the board was very thin.

"Arlington's something anyone who wants into E and B studies." Anne sipped the stale black coffee the room's AutoChef offered. "The group had to have recruited inside people, probably both military and civilian. An instillation like the Pentagon just isn't easily infiltrated, and during that period, security was very tight. The operation was very slick," she continued. "The investigation indicated that a trio of explosive devices loaded with plaston were placed in all five sides, more in the underground facilities."

Restless, she rose, glancing at the board as she paced. "At least one of the terrorists must have had high clearance in order to set the bombs underground. There was no warning, no contact demanding terms. The entire facility went up at eleven hundred hours, detonated by timers.

Thousands of people were lost. It wasn't possible to identify all the victims.

There wasn't enough left of them."

"What do we know about Apollo?" Eve asked her.

"They took credit for the bombing. Boasted that they could do the same again, anywhere, at any time. And would unless the president resigned and their chosen representative was established as leader of what they called their new order."

"James Rowan," Feeney put in. "There's a dossier on him, but I don't think there's much data. Paramilitary type, right, Malloy? Former CIA operative with ambitions toward politics and lots of bucks. They figured him for the head guy, and likely the inside man at the Pentagon. But somebody took him out before it was verified."

"That's right. It's a.s.sumed he was head of the group; that he was pushing the b.u.t.tons. After Arlington, he went public with video transmissions and on-air speeches. He was charismatic, as a lot of fanatics are. There was a lot of panic, pressure on the administration to cave rather than to risk another slaughter. Instead, they put a price on his head. Five million, dead or alive. No questions asked."

"Who did him?"

Anne looked back at Eve. "Those files are sealed. That was part of the package. His headquarters -- a house outside of Boston -- was blown up with him in it. His body was ID'd, and the group scattered, fell apart. Splinter groups formed, managed to do some damage here and there. But the tide of the Wars had turned -- at least here in the States. By the late twenties, the core of the original group was either dead or in cages. Over the next decade, others were tracked down and dealt with."

"And how many slipped through?" Eve wondered.

"They never found his right hand. Guy named William Henson. He'd been Rowan's campaign manager during his political runs." Anne rubbed a hand over her slightly queasy stomach and set her coffee aside. "It was believed he was top level in Apollo. It was never proven, and he disappeared the same day Rowan went up. Some speculate he was inside when the bomb went, but that could be wishful thinking."

"What about their holes, headquarters, a.r.s.enals?"