by J. D. Robb
“Not now. Let her do the recon for them. Let them see everything nice and quiet and in order. Goddamn, Feeney, they’re going for it after all.” She checked her wrist unit. “Forty-five minutes to mark. Keep her monitored,” she ordered, then rose to rally her troops.
At mark minus fifteen, Eve moved to the ready station, a meeting room one floor below ballroom level. Liza had already reconned the ballroom area, strolling past the target and giving her associates a shot of the secured doors and warning lights. Now she was tucked in her room, and Feeney would wait for the signal to jam. Two uniforms with a master were on hold to move into her room and take her into custody.
Eve was going to be sorry to miss it.
She fixed on her lapel recorder. “Feeney, you read.”
“Gotcha.”
She ran through her other team leaders, checking them on audio, and on the monitors. She checked her weapon, rolled her shoulder, and was pleased it had loosened up.
Then she scowled as Roarke slipped into the room.
“Off limits to civilians. Upstairs.”
“As it’s my hotel, nothing is off limits. I have clearance, from your commander. I’m in on this, Lieutenant.”
She didn’t doubt he could handle himself, though in his black sweater and trousers, he looked more like the type who’d do the breaking in than the type to frown on such activities.
“Are you armed?”
He glanced meaningfully at her recorder, letting her know he was fully aware everything he said was being transmitted. “Expert consultants, civilian, aren’t authorized to carry weapons.”
Which meant he was carrying. Since she preferred that to him going naked into a bust, she let it pass.
“When we move, we move fast,” she said to the men and women gathered in the room. “We contain quickly and completely. You have your teams. Cover each other’s backs. These people will have no place to go and are likely to resist. Our intelligence indicates they’ll be armed with tranqs, but we can’t be sure they won’t carry something more lethal. Restrain and disarm. Be aware that jamming their transmissions will also jam ours from the target area until we have it contained. Let’s keep that time frame to a minimum. Lenick, get the civilian some body armor and a recorder.”
At mark minus five, she was glued to the monitor, glanced up only when Roarke came up beside her. “Where’s your body armor?” she asked.
“Where’s yours?”
“I have the option of wearing it.”
“And you opt not to because it’s bulky and hampers quick movements. Let’s not waste time arguing. There’s Honroe, moving into position at the delivery entrance. He’ll find out shortly how much I disapprove of moonlighting.”
“He goes down with the rest of them, but I’ll make sure you’re given a minute to fire him.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Here’s the maxibus, right on schedule. Switching op to yellow light. Be ready.”
She watched the bus swerve, clip the front fender of the oncoming car. It tipped on its six side wheels, shivered, then toppled like a turtle to slide, sparks showering, into the neighboring building.
There was an impressive smashing of glass, a nice little poof of smoke. On cue, cars stopped, and people began to run toward or away from the accident. The shrill scream of the jeweler’s alarm system was a muffled buzz over her audio.
On the next monitor, she watched the delivery truck glide smoothly into place at the hotel’s rear, and Honroe step out of the shadows.
Like Roarke, the six figures who leaped out of the truck were dressed in black, with the addition of caps that fit snugly over heads and thin gloves that protected the hands and kept the fingers nimble.
“Mick’s with them,” Roarke murmured. “He’s seeing it through. I didn’t give him credit for it.”
That’s for later, Eve thought. “Seven, repeat, seven subjects, entering building from the west, delivery level.”
“Wait.” Eve laid a hand on his arm, gaze steady on the monitor. “There’s three in the lorry,” Roarke continued.
“How do you—”
“Mick’s telling me. It’s an old code. Three in the lorry, all with eyes and ears. Hand lasers, cop-style. One mini-launcher, heat-seeking, fully loaded.”
When Mick entered the building, Roarke shifted to the next monitor. He watched as his friend went to work on the first security panel, and listened with half an ear as Eve relayed the incoming data to her teams.
“The men inside are carrying, too. More than the tranqs previously reported. Two added basic police-issue lasers. There’s a woman, third back. Hand-to-hand expert. She has a blade in her right boot.” Roarke glanced to Eve. “You’ll use this for him.”
It wasn’t a question. He didn’t doubt her sense of justice.
“Let’s bring it down, then I’ll do what I can.”
“There, he’s through the second level. He’s better than he was.”
She watched Mick jerk up his thumb, then pound with the others up the service stairs. They moved fast and orderly, telling her they’d drilled well and drilled often.
But so had she. Her mind stayed cool and focused as Mick stopped at the fire door on the ballroom level, took out a handheld unit, and telescoped it out to elbow-length. His fingers were quick and steady, and made her wonder what was in his thoughts. His unit beeped three times, and its lights glowed green.
He went through the doors first, heading for the target at a jog.
“Move out,” Eve ordered. “Feeney, prepare to jam on my signal.”
“Copy that.” His voice spoke in her ear. “They’re at the doors, working on outer security. Second from the rear’s antsy. He’s sweating. Hey, Dallas, I got an ID on him. Looks like Gerade wanted to be in on the kill.”
“Beautiful.”
“And they’re through. E-guy’s adjusting his jammer. It’s flipping through levels, backtracking. He’s keying in another code manually. Must’ve gotten it from one of the inside men. He’s got a thirty-percent clearance.”
Eve stepped onto ballroom level, held up her hand. From the other direction, her secondary team leader mirrored her move. At her nod, they moved forward. Fast.
“Jam it!” she ordered and swung through the door. “Police! Hands in the air. Up!” she shouted, then sent out a warning blast that nipped the toes of the woman’s boots as she reached down.
Return fire whizzed past her ear. Even as she pivoted, she saw one of the figures in black jerk back from the stun shot out by one of her team.
Someone shoved over a huge glass display. It boomed and shattered like cannon fire. Through the shouts and scrambles for cover or escape, she saw Mick send Roarke a sunny grin.
Then she was too busy to be amused or baffled as the woman in black hurled a two-foot vase at her head, and followed the toss with a screaming leap.
Eve had a half-second to decide. The undoubted satisfaction of a good, bloody hand-to-hand, or . . . With some regret she fired her weapon and dropped her opponent into an unconscious heap.
“Too bad,” Roarke commented. “I would have enjoyed watching that.”
He turned toward Mick and, since there was little left to do, slipped the weapon he wasn’t supposed to have back into his pocket. “I’d like a look at that jammer of yours.”
“Well now, I have a feeling it’ll be going into police custody. A terrible waste.” Mick glanced about as his former associates were rounded up. In a slick move, he palmed the jammer to Roarke, then stepped away, raising his hands cooperatively in the air.
There would be times, countless times later, when Roarke would look back and remember that moment. How he’d stood there, amused, exhilarated. And unguarded.
He’d remember the laughter in Mick’s eyes, and how it had switched over, in a flash, to alarm.
He’d turned, rounded on the balls of his feet, one hand digging out the weapon. Fast. Christ, he’d always been fast.
But this time, this one time, not fast enough.
Gerade had the knife at waist level, the blade a hard glint in the brilliant lights. His eyes were wild, mad, terrified. Roarke heard Eve shout, saw the stream from her weapon hit. Even that, too late.
At the same instant Mick leaped in front of him, and took the knife in the belly.
“Well, hell.” Mick sent Roarke a bemused look as he went down.
“Ah, no.” Roarke was on his knees, pressing a hand to the wound. Kill blood, deep and dark, gushed through his fingers.
“Little fucker,” Mick managed through hideous waves of pain. “I never gave him the guts for it. Never knew he was carrying. How bad he get me?”
“Not so bad.”
“Damn, you used to be handier with a lie.”
“I need an ambulance, surgical MTs.” Eve rushed over, took stock, and continued to shout into her communicator. “I’ve got a man down. Knife wound to the belly. Get me medical assistance in here.”
Then she stripped off her shirt without a thought, and tossed it to Roarke so he could staunch the wound.
“Now, that was a pretty thing to do.” Mick’s face had already gone from white to gray. “Am I forgiven then, Eve darling?”
“Stay quiet.” She crouched down to check his pulse. “Help’s on the way.”
“I owed him that, you know.” Mick shifted his eyes to Roarke. “I owed you that, though I didn’t expect to pay so dear. Christ, doesn’t anybody have any fucking drugs for a man?” He fumbled out, gripped Roarke’s hand desperately. “Hold onto me, won’t you? There’s a lad.”
“You’ll be all right.” Roarke squeezed as if he could make it so by will alone. “You’ll come round.”
“You know I’m done.” A trickle of blood bubbled through his lips. “You got my signals, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I got them.”
“Just like old times. Do you remember . . .” He moaned, had to fight for a breath. “When we took the mayor’s house in London, cleaning out his parlor while he was upstairs ramming it to his mistress while his wife was visiting her sister in Bath?”
He couldn’t stop the blood. Couldn’t hold back the stream of it. He could smell death creeping close, and could only pray Mick could not. “I remember you snuck up the stairs and took videos of it with his own bloody camera. And later we sold them back to him, and fenced the camera as well.”
“Aye, aye, those were good times. Happiest of my life. Jesus, what a flaming shame it is that my mother, bless her black heart, should be right after all. At least I got the knife in my belly in a fine hotel and not a second-rate pub.”
“Quiet, Mick, the MTs are coming.”
“Oh, screw ’em.” He sighed hugely, and for one moment his eyes were clear as crystal. “Will you light a candle for me in St. Pat’s?”
Roarke’s throat wanted to close, his mind to reject. But he nodded. “Aye.”
“That’s something then. Roarke, you were ever a true friend to me. It’s happy I am for you that you found that one thing. See that you keep hold of it. Slan.”
And turning his face to the side, he was gone.
“Ah, God.” Helpless sorrow flooded over him, into him. He could do nothing but rock, his bloody hand clinging to Mick’s while the sorrow drowned him. His eyes were stark, naked with it when they lifted to Eve’s.
While the business of law went on around them, she rose, signaled her men and the MTs who rushed into the room back. And went to her husband. Kneeling with him, she put her arms around him, drew him in.
Roarke laid his head on his wife’s breast, and grieved.
He was alone with his thoughts when dawn broke. From the window of his bedroom, he watched day tremble into life and whisk away the dark, layer by thin layer.
He’d hoped for rage, had searched for it. But he hadn’t found it.
He didn’t turn when Eve came in, but the worst of the ache eased because she was home.
“You’ve put in a long day, Lieutenant.”
“So have you.” She’d worried, all through the hours she’d had to leave him to himself. She opened her mouth, shut it again. No, she couldn’t offer the empty, standard line and tell him she was sorry for his loss. Not to Roarke, not for this.
“Michel Gerade has been charged with murder, first degree. He can scream diplomatic immunity until he chokes. It won’t save him.”
When Roarke didn’t respond, she dragged a hand through her hair, tugged at her borrowed shirt. “I can break him,” she continued. “He’ll roll on the Napleses. He’d roll on his first-born if he thought it would help him.”
“Naples is under, and he’ll go deep and stay there.” He turned now. “Did you think I wouldn’t have checked already for myself? We’ve lost him. This time, at least, we’ve lost him and his bastard of a son. They’re as out of reach as Yost is—burning in hell.”
She lifted her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He crossed to her now and, in the soft half-light, cupped her face in his hands. “For what?” he repeated, kissing her cheeks, her brow. “For doing everything that could be done, and more than that? For, at the last, giving my friend, who was none of yours, the very shirt off your back? For being there for me when I needed you most?”
“You’re wrong. Anyone who saves your life is a friend of mine. He helped us so that we went into that op fully prepared. And when we get Naples and his bastard of a son, he’ll have had a part in that, too. You were right about him. There was no taste for bloodshed in him. And in the end, he stood up for you.”
“He’d have said that wasn’t so much of a thing altogether. I’ll want to take him back to Ireland, and bury him among friends.”
“Then we will. He was a hero, and the NYPSD is issuing him a posthumous citation that says so.”
Roarke stared at her, took one step back. Then to Eve’s utter shock, threw back his head and roared with laughter. Deep, rich, from-the-belly laughter. “Oh Jesus, if he wasn’t dead already, that would kill him for certain. A citation from the fucking cops as his epitaph.”
“I happen to be a fucking cop,” she reminded him between her teeth.
“No offense, no offense, my gorgeous and darling lieutenant.” He plucked her off her feet, swung her around. And knowing just how Mick would have enjoyed it all, Roarke felt the worst of the weight of grief lift. “He’ll have a great laugh over it, wherever he might be.”
She could have said it wasn’t a joke, but an honor. One of the highest and most serious it was in her power to arrange. But she was so relieved to see the glow back in Roarke’s eyes, she shrugged. “Well, ha-ha. Now put me down. I want to catch some sleep before I go back in. With this auction coming off as planned tomorrow night, it’s going to be another long one.”
“Let’s sleep later. We’re young yet.”
He gave her a last spin. They would, he thought, start the day with a celebration of life, not a mourning of death.
Capturing her mouth with his, he stepped onto the wide platform and tumbled her onto the bed.
• • •
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