Loyalty in Death

"Then that's where we'll start."

"I need names, Roarke, of known members, living or dead. I need to know where they are, what happened to them. Then I need names and locations of family members, lovers, spouses, siblings, children, grandchildren."

She paused, her eyes going cop flat. "In Fixer's little journal, he mentioned revenge. I want survivors and loved ones. And I want those closest to James Rowan."

"The FBI will have files, sealed, but they'll have them." He lifted a brow, amused by the obvious struggle on her face. "It'll take some time."

"We're a little pressed in that area. Can you zing whatever you pull up into one of the auxiliary units? I can start a comparison run on ID, see if I can tag anyone co

He nodded toward a machine on the left of his console. "Help yourself. I'd focus on lower-level positions," he suggested. "Security checks are likely to be spottier there."

She settled down, spending the next twenty minutes reviewing everything she could find on the Pentagon bombing. At the control center, Roarke went coolly about the business of bypassing FBI security and delving into sealed files.

He knew the route – had taken it before – and slid through the locked levels like a shadow through the dark. Occasionally, for his own amusement, he checked in to see just what the Bureau had in their file marked Roarke.

It was surprisingly lean for data on a man who had been and done and acquired all he had been and done and acquired. Then again, he'd erased and destroyed a great deal of that data, or at least altered it, when he'd still been a teenager. Files at the FBI, Interpol, IRCCA, and Scotland Yard contained nothing he didn't care for them to contain.

It was, he liked to think, a matter of privacy.

He regretted only mildly the fact that since he'd met Eve, none of those agencies had cause to add any interesting facts about his activities.

Love had him walking the straight and narrow, with only the occasional step into the dark.

"Incoming," he murmured, and had Eve's head coming up.

"Already?"

"It's only the FBI," he pointed out, and tipping back in his chair, ordered data onto the wall screen. "There's your head man. James Thomas Rowan, born in Boston, June 10, 1988."

"They so rarely look like madmen," Eve murmured, studying the image. A handsome face with sharp bones, easily smiling mouth, clear blue eyes. His dark hair was shot with distinguished gray, lending him the look of a successful executive or politician.

"Jamie, as he was called by friends, came from good, solid, New England stock." Roarke angled his head as he read data. "And healthy Yankee money. Prep schools, Harvard. Poli-sci major. Likely being groomed for politics. Did his military stint – angled into Special Forces. He did some work for the CIA. Parents deceased, one sibling. Sister. Julia Rowan Peterman."

"Professional mother, retired," Eve read. "She lives in Tampa. We'll check her out."

She rose as much to stretch her legs as to get a closer look at the screen. "Married Monica Stone, 2015. Two children: Charlotte, DOB September 14, 2016, and James Junior, DOB February 8, 2019. Where's Monica?"

"Display current data on Monica Stone Rowan," Roarke ordered. "Split screen."

Going by the age of the subject, Eve decided the picture was fairly recent. 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 pissed."

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 i

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 sca

"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 gods 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 masses, 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.