Divided in Death

“You know,” he began as she unclasped it, “people tend to wear jewelry so other people will notice it. Admire it, even covet it.”

“Which is why people who hang baubles all over themselves end up getting mugged.”

“That’s a downside,” he agreed and slipped the bracelet into his pocket. “But life’s full of risks. I’ll consider holding this for you my little way of saving some poor, foolish street thief from ending up with your boot stomped on his throat.”

“Birds of a feather,” she murmured and made him grin.

She went to work on the computer, with the same results she’d gotten from Bissel’s home unit. “Why is an artist so damn careful and paranoid about his data?”

“Let me have a go at it, and let’s find out.”

She stepped back, did a walk through the studio to get a sense of Bissel’s style, and to give those magic hands of Roarke’s time to work.

There was a red-and-white bath off the main floor, complete with jet tub, drying tube, and the same sort of fancy towels Roarke favored. A bedroom had been set up as well. Small, she noted, but with all the comforts. Bissel had liked his comforts.

The gel mattress was thick and cushy, the cover slick and black and sexy. One wall was mirrored, and she thought of the entrance to his house, the master bed and bath.

Liked to look at himself, and to watch himself with women. Egoist, narcissist. Pampered and confident. There was a mini data and communication center near the bed, as blocked as the others.

Chewing it over, she moved to a narrow three-drawer chest and began riffling. Spare underwear, extra work clothes.

And ah, a locked bottom drawer. Roarke wasn’t the only one who could handle such things, she thought as she pulled out a pocketknife.

She attacked the old-fashioned lock, hacking happily away, and gave a grunt of satisfaction as it gave. She jerked open the drawer. And even her cynical, seen-it-all-and-then-some eyes popped wide.

“Holy jumping Jesus.”

She pawed through satin restraints, velvet whips, leather strap-ons, the co

And more. A great deal more she wasn’t entirely sure she could identify.

It appeared Bissel not only took his work seriously, but his games as well.

“The unit’s not blocked, Lieutenant. It’s…” Roarke trailed off as he stepped in and saw what Eve was examining. “Well, well, well, what have we here?”

“The goodie drawer of all goodie drawers. This dildo not only throbs, vibrates, expands, and comes equipped with hands-free feature, it sings a choice of five popular tunes.”

He crouched beside her. “You couldn’t have tried it out that quickly.”

“Pervert. I turned it on to see. He’s got some illegals sprinkled through here, too.”

“So I see. Oh, look, what fun. His and her VR. Maybe we could-” He started to reach for the matching goggles, and had his hand slapped away.

“No.”

“You’re so strict.” He walked his fingers along her knee. “Maybe you could be strict with me later.” Wiggling those eyebrows, he held up a pair of restraints. “We already have these.”

A quick check proved the restraints were indeed her own, lifted right off her person without her feeling a thing. She snatched them back. “Cut that out. And don’t touch anything in there. I mean it. I have to log this crap. Even the mother of all goodie drawers is no reason for a guy to passcode his computers, lock the drawer in an already secured area. He-”

“I said the unit wasn’t blocked.” He patted her knee and rose, resisting-though it was difficult-palming a couple of the goodies just for the fun of it. “It’s fried.”

“What the hell do you mean ‘fried’?”

“Fried, toasted, whacked, zapped, dead.”

“I know what fried means, I meant-damn it.” She sprang up, kicked the drawer closed. “When? Can you tell when? When and how?”

“I imagine so, given the right tools and a bit of time, but I can tell you this much just from this cursory exam: It was professionally and expertly fried.”

“What does that mean?”

“Simply, the main board was destroyed so that all data was corrupted. My first guess would be a very insidious worm, with specificity for this purpose. Likely contained on a disc, inserted into the drive, used to infect, then removed when the task was complete.”

“Can you tell if data was removed first?”

“Trickier, but we can certainly try.”

“How about retrieving anything? Digging in and finding what data was on there, uncorrupting?”

“Trickier yet.”

“It’s there. It’s always there, no matter what. I know that from Feeney.”

“Well, that may not be quite true. Eve, there’s a group of techno-terrorists. They call themselves the Doomsday Group.”

“I know who they are. Glorified hackers, like to infiltrate systems, upload what they can, screw with the data. They’ve got some good, twisted brains and plenty of financial backing.”

“A bit more than glorified,” he corrected. “They’re responsible for downing a number of private shuttles by skewing data in air-traffic control. They helped themselves to several works of art, and deliberately damaged others at the Louvre by shutting down their security. They killed twenty-six employees of a research lab in Prague by sabotaging their system, shutting down the air supply, and sealing all doors.”

“I said they were twisted. I know they’re dangerous. What does it have to do with a fried unit in a dead man’s art studio?”

“They’ve been working on a worm of just this nature for the past few years. Potent, portable. Its design is not simply to corrupt data or hijack it, but to eliminate it, and on a large scale. To network, to proliferate.”

“How large a scale?”

“Theoretically, a disc could be slipped into a drive on a networking unit-even a network with fail-safes and blocks, with virus detectors and bug zappers-and download the entire data bank from that network, then corrupt the units. An office, a building, a corporation. A country.”

“Not possible. Even midlevel security detects intrusive viruses and bugs and shuts down before infection. You can’t download without detection from CompuGuard. Home units like this, okay, you might get it off and down before the security dropped on you. Small operations networks, maybe. Maybe even with the CompuGuard shields in place. But nothing over that.”

“Theoretically,” he repeated. “And this faction is reputed to have some particularly brilliant minds on board this project. The intel indicates the worm is near completion, and could work.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I have co

She sat on the side of the bed. “You’re working for the government. Ours?”

“Well, if by that you mean the U.S., yes. Actually, it’s also a conglomeration sort of thing. The U.S., the Euro Community, Russia, a few other concerned areas. Roarke Industries Securecomp arm has the contract, and R and D is working on it.”

“And Reva Ewing works in R and D, for Roarke Industries Securecomp arm.”

“She does. Eve, I said Code Red, that’s highest clearance. This isn’t something she’d have chatted about with her husband over di

“Because you didn’t chat with me about it over di

Irritation sparked, then was controlled. “Because she’s a pro, Eve. She wouldn’t hold the position she does if there was any doubt of that. She doesn’t leak data.”

“Maybe not.” Coincidence, to her mind, was just a link between points. “But it’s certainly possible someone else doesn’t have the same confidence in her that you do. It sure adds an interesting angle.”