Conspiracy in Death

Still breathing, she thought, and she intended to keep it that way.

"You got sloppy in the end, Doc."

"I don't think so. Just a few loose ends needing to be tied off and snipped. I suggest you put down your weapon, Lieutenant, unless you want me to administer this very fast-acting, very lethal medication to our young friend here."

"Is that the same stuff you used on Friend and Wo?"

"As it happens, Hans treated Tia. But, yes. It's painless and efficient. The drug of choice for discriminating self-terminators. She'll be dead in less than three minutes. Now, put down your weapon."

"You kill her, you've got no shield."

"You won't let me kill her." He smiled again. "You can't. A woman who risks her life for dead derelicts will swallow her pride for the life of an i

"You saw to that, too." She would count on her wits now, Eve thought, as she laid the gun on the counter beside her. And on Roarke.

"You made that simple, all in all. Or Bowers did. Close doors and secure," he ordered, and she heard them snick together at her back, locking her in. Locking backup out.

"Did she work with you?"

"Only indirectly. Move away from your weapon, slowly, to the left. Very good. You have a good mind, and we won't be disturbed in here for some time. I'm happy to cooperate and fill in the blanks for you. It seems only fair, under the circumstances."

To brag, she realized. He needed to brag. Arrogance, God complex. "I don't have too many blanks yet to fill. But I'm interested in how you roped Bowers in."

"She walked into it. Or you did. She turned out to be a handy tool to get rid of you, since threats didn't do the job, and bribery seemed absurd, considering both your record and your financial situation. You cost this area of the Drake a very expensive security droid."

"Well, you've got more."

"Several. One is even now dealing with your husband." The flash in her eyes delighted him. "Ah, that concerns you, I see. I've never been a believer in true love, but the two of you do make a lovely couple. Did."

Roarke was armed, she reminded herself. And he was good. "Roarke isn't easy to deal with."

"He doesn't trouble me overmuch." The arrogance seeped through as Waverly shrugged. "Now, the two of you together were an irritant, but… well, you were asking about Bowers. It simply fell into place. She was a paranoid violent tendency that slipped through the system and ended up in uniform. There are others, you know."

"It happens."

"Every day. You being assigned to the investigation on – what was his name?"

"Petrinsky. Snooks."

"Yes, yes, that's right. Rosswell was supposed to be assigned to that matter, but there was some slipup in dispatch."

"How long have you owned him?"

"Oh, only a few months. If all had gone according to plan, the entire business would have been filed and forgotten."

"Who've you got in the ME's department?"

"Just a mid-level clerk with an affection for pharmaceuticals." He smiled slowly, wi

"You killed Snooks for nothing. You failed with him."

"A disappointment to us. His heart didn't respond. But there must be failures in any serious search for progress, just as there are obstacles to be overcome. You've been quite an obstacle. It was clear very quickly that you'd dig hard and deep and uncomfortably close. We had this problem in Chicago, but we handled it quite easily. You weren't so quickly dispatched, so it took other means. A little cooperation from Rosswell, a bit of ruffling of Bowers's feathers, false data planted, then, of course, we arranged for both of you to meet on another murder scene. She reacted very much as predicted, and while you were admirably controlled, it was enough."

"So you had her killed, knowing procedure would require my suspension and an investigation."

"It seemed that had solved our little problem, and with Senator Waylan putting pressure on the mayor, we'd have time to finish. We were so very close to complete success."

"Organ regeneration."

"Exactly." He all but beamed at her. "You have filled in blanks. I told the others you would."

"Yeah, I've filled them. Friend screwed up your cushy circle with his artificial implants, knocked away your funding." She hooked her thumbs in her pockets, moved a little closer. "You'd have been pretty young then, maybe just getting your toehold. Must've pissed you off."

"Oh, it did. It took me years to establish myself enough to gather the resources, the team, the equipment to compatently continue the work we'd been doing when Friend destroyed it. I hadn't quite reached the brass ring of prominence when he and some colleagues began experimenting with melding live tissue with the artificial material. But Tia, she believed in me, in my passions. She kept me well informed."

"Did she help you kill him?"

"No, that I did unassisted. Friend had gotten wind of my interests, experiments. Didn't care for them. He intended to use his influence to cancel my funding – pitiful as it was – to research the regeneration of animal organs. I canceled him and his little project first."

"But then you had to go under," she said easing forward with her eyes steady on his. "You pla

"And covered them well. Enlisted some of the very best hands and minds in the medical field. And all's well that ends well. Watch your step."

She stopped at the foot of the gurney, laid a hand casually on the guard. "You know they've got Young. He'll roll over on you."

"He'd die first." Waverly chuckled. "The man is obsessed with this project. He sees his name shining in medical journals for the ages. He believes I'm a god. He would bite through the artery in his own wrist before he'd betray me."

"Maybe. I guess you couldn't count on that kind of loyalty from Wo."

"No. She was always a risk, always on the outskirts of the project. A skilled doctor but a fairly unstable woman. She began to balk when she discovered our human samples had been… appropriated without permission."

"She didn't expect you to kill people."

"They're hardly people."

"And the others?"

"In this arena? Hans believes as I do. Colin?" He moved an elegant shoulder. "He prefers to wear blinders, to pretend not to know the full extent of the project. There are more, of course. An undertaking of this magnitude requires a large if select team."

"Did you send the droid after Jan?"

"You've found her already." He shook his head in admiration, and his hair gleamed like gold under the bright lab lights. "My, that was quick. Of course. She was one of those loose ends."

"And what will Cagney say when you tell him Louise was another loose end?"

"He won't know. It's very simple, if you know how, to dispose of a body in a health center. The crematorium is efficient and never closed. What happened to her will remain a mystery."

In an absent gesture, Waverly stroked a hand over Louise's hair. Eve wanted to taste his blood for that alone.

"It will likely break him," Waverly considered. "I'm sorry for it. Very sorry to have to sacrifice two fine minds, two excellent doctors, but progress, great progress, requires heavy sacrifice."

"He'll know."

"Oh, on some level, certainly. And he'll deny. He does his best work in denial. But he will consider himself responsible. Guilty, I suppose, by omission. He is certainly aware that experiments and research are being conducted in this and other facilities, without official sanction. He tends to look the other way easily, to call out his loyalty to the club. One doctor does not turn on another."