Loyalty In Death Part 31

So the Bureau was keeping tabs. She'd probably been an attractive woman once. The bones were still good, but lines had dug deep around her mouth, her eyes, and both the mouth and eyes carried bitterness. Her hair had gone gray and was carelessly cut.

"She lives in Maine." Eve pursed her lips. "Alone and unemployed. Pulls in a retired professional mother's pension. I bet it's stinking cold in Maine this time of year."

"You'll have to wear your long Johns, Lieutenant."

"Yeah. It'll be worth a little chill to talk to Monica. Where are the kids?"

Roarke called the data up and had Eve raising her brow. "Believed dead. Both of them? Same date? Get me more here, Roarke." "One minute. You'll note,"

he added as he bent to the task, the dates of death coincide with the date James Rowan was killed." "February 8, 2024. I saw that."

"Explosion. The feds blew up his house, though the public stand is he did the job himself." He glanced up again, face blank and set. "But that's confirmed in this file -- time, unit, authorization to terminate. It appears he had his children in the house with him."

"You're telling me the FBI bombed his house to take him out, and took two kids along for the ride?"

"Rowan, his children, the woman he'd taken as his lover. One of his top lieutenants and three other members of Apollo." Roarke rose, moved to get more coffee. "Read the file, Eve. They'd tagged him. They'd been hunting him since his group had claimed responsibility for the Pentagon bombing. The government wanted payment, and they were p.i.s.sed." He brought fresh coffee to Eve. "He'd gone under, moved from location to location. Using new names, new faces when necessary." Roarke settled behind her as they read the data. "He still managed to make his videos and get them on air. But he stayed a step or two ahead of the hounds for several months."

"With his kids," she murmured.

"According to these files, he kept them close. Then the FBI ran him to ground, surrounded his house, moved in, and did the job. They wanted to take him out and break the back of the group. That's what they did."

"It didn't have to be done that way."

"No." He met her eyes. "It's rare in war for either side to consider the innocent."

Why hadn't they been with their mother? It was her first thought, one that came unwillingly to mind. What did she know of mothers? she reminded herself. Her own had left her in the hands of the man who'd beaten and raped her throughout her childhood.

And would the woman who had given birth to her have carried the same bitter look in her eyes as the woman now on-screen? Would she have had that same tight-lipped scowl?

What did it matter?

She shoved the thought aside, sipped her coffee again. For once, Roarke's superior blend left a bitter taste in her mouth.

"Revenge," she said. "If Fixer was right and that's part of the motive, this could be the root of it. 'We are loyal,'" she murmured. "Every message they send has that phrase in it. Loyal to Rowan? To his memory?"

"A logical step."

"Henson. Feeney said a man named William Henson was one of Rowan's top men. Do we have a dead list on here?" Roarke brought it up to the wall screen. "Christ Jesus," he said quietly. "There are hundreds."

"From what I was told, the government hunted them down for years."

Quickly, Eve scanned the names. "And they weren't too particular about it.

Henson's not on here."

"No. I'll run a check on him for you."

"Thanks. Shoot this much through to my machine here, and keep digging." He stopped her by brushing a hand over her hair. "It hurts you. The children." "It reminds me," she corrected, "of what it's like to have no choice, and to have your life in the hands of someone who thinks of you as a thing to be used or discarded as the mood strikes."

"Some love, Eve, and fiercely." He pressed his lips to her forehead. "And some don't." "Yeah, well, let's see what Rowan and his group loved, and fiercely."

She turned away to man her computer.

The answer, she thought, was in the series of statements on file that Apollo had issued during its three-year run. We are the G.o.ds of war.

Each statement began with that single line. Arrogance, violence, and power, she thought.

We have determined the government is corrupt, a useless vehicle for those inside it, used for exploitation of the ma.s.ses, for suppression of ideas, for the perpetuation of futility. The system is flawed and must be eradicated. Out of its smoke and ashes, a new regime will rise. Stand with us, you who believe in justice, in honor, in the future of our children who cry for food and comfort while the soldiers of this doomed government destroy our cities.

We who are Apollo will use their own weapons against them. And we will triumph. Citizens of the world, break the chains binding you by the establishment with their fat bellies and bloated minds. We promise you freedom.

Attack the system, she decided, cry out for the common man, for the intellect.

Justify the ma.s.s murder of innocents, and promise a new way. We are the G.o.ds of war.

Today at noon, our wrath struck down the military establishment known as the Pentagon. This symbol and structure of this faltering government's military strength has been destroyed. All within were guilty. All within are dead.

Once again, we call for the unconditional surrender of the government, a statement by the so-called Commander-in-Chief resigning all power. We demand that all military personnel, all members of the police forces lay down their weapons. We who are Apollo promise clemency for those who do so within seventy-two hours. And annihilation for those who continue to oppose us.

It was Apollo's most sweeping statement, Eve noted. Broadcast less than six months before Rowan's house had been destroyed, with all its occupants.

What had he wanted, she wondered, this self-proclaimed G.o.d? What all G.o.ds wanted. Adulation, fear, power, and glory. "Would you want to rule the world?"

she asked Roarke. "Or even the country?"

"Good G.o.d, no. Too much work for too little remuneration, and very little time left over to enjoy your kingdom." He glanced over. "I much prefer owning as much of the world as humanly possible. But running it? No thanks."

She laughed a little, then propped her elbows on the counter. "He wanted to.

When you take out all the dreck, he just wanted to be president or king or despot. Whatever the term would be. It wasn't money," she added. "I can't find a single demand for money. No ransoms, no terms. Just surrender, you fascist pig cops, or resign and tremble, you big fat politicians."

"He came from money," Roarke pointed out. "Often those who do fail to appreciate its charms."

"Maybe." She skimmed back to Rowan's personal file. "He ran for mayor of Boston twice. Lost twice. Then he ran for governor and didn't pull it off, either. You ask me, he was just p.i.s.sed. p.i.s.sed and crazy. The combo's lethal more often than not."

"Is his motive important at this point?"

"You can't get a full picture without it. Whoever's pushing the b.u.t.tons in Ca.s.sandra's linked to him. But I don't think they're p.i.s.sed." "Just crazy then?"

"No, not just. I haven't figured out what else yet."

She shifted, rolled her shoulders, then set up to run comparisons on the names Roarke had fed into her machine.

It was a slow process, and a tedious one that depended more on the computer than its operator. Her mind began to drift as she watched names, faces, data, skim over the screen.

She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep. Didn't know she was dreaming when she found herself wading through a river of blood.

Children were crying. Bodies littered the ground, and the ones that still had faces begged for help. Smoke stung her eyes, her throat, as she stumbled over the wounded. Too many, she thought frantically. Too many to save.

Hands s.n.a.t.c.hed at her ankles, some no more than bones. They tripped her up until she was falling, falling into a deep, black crater piled with still more bodies. Stacked like cordwood, ripped and torn like broken dolls. Something was pulling her in, pulling her down until she was drowning in that sea of dead.

Gasping, whimpering, she clawed her way back, crawled frantically up the slippery side of the pit until her fingers were raw and b.l.o.o.d.y.

She was back in the smoke, crawling still, fighting to breathe, to clear her mind of panic so that she could do something. Do what needed to be done.

Someone was crying. Softly, secretly. Eve stumbled forward through the stinking, blinding mist. She saw the child, the little girl huddled on the ground, balled up, rocking herself for comfort as she wept.

"It's all right." She coughed her throat clear, knelt down, and pulled the girl into her arms. "We'll get out." "There's no place to go." The little girl whispered in her ear. "We're already there."

"We're getting out." They had to get out, was all Eve could think. Terror was crawling over her skin like ants, crab claws of ice were sc.r.a.ping the inside of her belly. She dragged the child up and began to carry her through the smoke.

Their hearts thudded against each other's, hard and in unison. And the girl's fingers gripped like thin wires when voices slithered through the mist. "I need a G.o.dd.a.m.n fix. Why the h.e.l.l isn't there money for a G.o.dd.a.m.n fix?"

"Shut the f.u.c.k up."

Eve stopped cold. She hadn't recognized the woman's voice, but the man's, the one who'd answered with that sharp, sneering snap. It was one that lived in her dreams. In her terrors.

Her father's voice.

"You shut the f.u.c.k up, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If you hadn't got me knocked up in the first place, I wouldn't be stuck in this hole with you and that whiny little brat."