The Lost

He sighed when Eve said nothing. “I couldn’t ignore that. It seemed too important. You and Mylia would be of an age now, had she lived. You lived, and you’re part of the family of my old friend. How could I ignore that?”

“How did you come by that information?” Eve asked, her voice flat.

“I… accessed it when you married. Because of my friend. I couldn’t contact you,” he said to Summerset. “It might cause you trouble, but I wanted to know your family. So I looked, and I found. I’m sorry for what was done to you. He’s dead, the one who ordered the listening post to do nothing to interfere. Years ago,” Ivan added. “I don’t know if that comforts you. It comforts me because I believe I would have killed him, killed again if he wasn’t dead.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”

He nodded. “So is this. There are dirty pockets in the well of the organization. She, this woman, was one of the things that crawled around inside those pockets. But still, I took her life, and it doesn’t, as I thought it would, balance the scales. Nothing can. These people shaped our lives, pieces of our lives, without giving us a choice. They took something deeply personal from us. So, when I learned it was you looking for me, I had to come. If I may?”

He held up two fingers, pointed them at his jacket pocket. At her nod, he reached in carefully and slid out what looked like an oversized ’link.

“It’s only the casing,” he said when both Eve and Roarke lunged for it. “I dismantled and destroyed the rest. And all the data pertaining to it.”

Roarke let out a breath. “Well, bugger it.”

Ivan laughed, then blinked in surprise at the sound. “It needed to be done, though I admit it was difficult. So much work.” He sighed over it. “If I’m arrested, they’ll come for me. Or others like them will come. I have knowledge and skill. Your law, your rules, even your diligence won’t stop them. I don’t say this to save myself,” he said gently. “But because I know they’ll find a way to make me use my knowledge and skill for them.”

“He saved lives, i

“That’s not why I went there. I went to kill. The lieutenant knows that. The rest is circumstance. I’m content to leave this in her hands. Content to face justice.”

“Justice?” Summerset snarled at the word. “How is this justice?” He rose, rounded on Eve. “How can you even consider-”

“Shut it down. Don’t,” she added to Roarke before he could speak. She paced away to stand at the window and wait for the war inside her to claim a victor.

“I saw her files, as I’m sure you wanted me to when we found her body. She kept reports and photos of her kills like a scrapbook. She’s what I work against every day. So is what you did on that ferry.”

“Yes,” Ivan said quietly. “I know.”

“They will come for you, and whatever obstacles I put in their way so you can face justice won’t be enough to stop them. I consider this matter out of my jurisdiction, and will certainly be told the same when I contact HSO to report what I’ve learned up to the time I walked into this house.”

She turned back, spoke briskly. “This is an internal HSO matter, involving one of their people and a freelance assassin they have previously employed. It’s possible this is a matter of national security, and I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t report what my investigation has turned up. I’m going to go up to my office, inform my commander of my findings and follow his directive. You’d better say good-bye to your friend,” she told Summerset.

She turned to Ivan, his pleasant face and mild eyes. “Disappear. You’ve probably got an hour, two at the outside, to get lost. Don’t come back here.”

“Lieutenant,” Ivan began, but she turned her back and walked out of the room.

Epilogue

Roarke found her in her office, pacing like a caged cat. “Eve.”

“I don’t want any damn coffee. I want a damn drink.”

“I’ll get us both one.” He touched the wall panel and chose a bottle of wine from inside. “He was telling the truth. I got deep enough to find considerable data on him, on his work prior to Homeland, on the decision to kill his family and plant evidence that led to his own organization.”

He drew the disc from his pocket. “I made you a copy.” He handed her the wine, set the disc on her desk. “And he was telling the truth when he said they, or others like them, would come for him. He would have self-terminated before he worked for anyone like them again.”

“I know that. I saw that.”

“I know a decision like this is difficult for you. Painfully. Just as you know I stand across the line so it wouldn’t be difficult for me. I’m sorry.”

“It shouldn’t be for me to decide. It’s not my place, it’s not my job. It’s why there’s a system, and mostly the system works.”

“This isn’t your system, Eve. These things have their own laws, their own system, and too many of those pockets inside them don’t quibble about letting a child be tortured, don’t lose sleep over ordering the death of a child to reach the goal of the moment.”

She took a long sip. “I can justify it. I can justify what I just did because I know that’s true. It’s not my system. I can justify it by knowing if Buckley had gotten the upper hand yesterday, Carolee Grogan would be dead, and that kid waiting for his mother outside the door would be blown to pieces along with dozens of others. I can justify it knowing if I arrested him, I would be killing him.”

She picked up the disc from her desk, and remembering what he’d once done for her, snapped it in two. “Don’t let him come here again.”

He shook his head, then framed her face and kissed her. “It takes more than skill and duty to make a good cop, to my way of thinking. It takes an unfailing sense of right and wrong.”

“It’s a hell of a lot easier when they don’t overlap. I have to get my report together and contact the commander. And for God’s sake, get that boomer out of the house. I don’t care if it is diffused.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Alone, she sat down to organize her notes into a cohesive report. She glanced over when the cat padded in, with Summerset behind him.

“Working,” she said briefly, then frowned when he set a plate with an enormous chocolate chip cookie on her desk. “What’s this?”

“A cookie, as any fool could see. It’ll spoil your di

She sat back, staring at the empty doorway, when he’d left her. Then she sca

She had to hope so.

Breaking off a hunk of cookie, she got back to work.