Loyalty in Death

"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 co

"Normally," A

Eve slid her eyes over, sized up A

"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 fucking 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 A

"Fixer told my weasel he was afraid of another Arlington." She stared into A

"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 – assassinations, sabotage, explosives. They'd kill anyone for a price and justified it as revolution. They called themselves Apollo."

"Oh shit," Feeney breathed when the name hit home. "Holy Mother of God."

"What?" Frustrated, Eve gave A

"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 perso

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.

– =O=-***-=O=-

"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." A

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 assumed he was head of the group; that he was pushing the buttons. 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?"

A

"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." A

"What about their holes, headquarters, arsenals?"

"Found, destroyed, confiscated. It's assumed everything was found, but if you ask me, that's a big assumption. A lot of the data's sealed tight. Rumor is that a lot of the people taken in were killed without trial, tortured. Family members unlawfully imprisoned or executed." A

Eve rose, studied the photos on the board. "In your opinion, this deal is linked with what happened in Arlington?"

"I want to study the evidence more closely, pull the available data on Arlington, but it follows." She hissed out a breath. "The names – both mythical types – the political crap, the material used for explosives. Still, there are variations. It wasn't a military target, there was a warning, no lives were taken."