Origin in Death (28 page)

"Ned."

"He went to Dublin looking for your sister and her baby."

"He did." Her mouth set. "And was nearly beaten to death for it. Patrick Roarke." She all but spat it. "The police were no help. We knew she was gone, our Siobhan. We knew but had no proof of it. We tried to find him for her, and nearly lost Ned."

"Hypothetical. If you'd known where to find Roarke when he was a kid, how to get to him, what was happening to him, when he'd been a boy, what would you have done?"

Those lovely eyes went hot and hard. "If I'd known where that bastard had my sister's child, my blood and bone, my heart that he'd murdered? That he was treating that child worse than you'd treat a stray dog, trying to train him to be what he himself was? I swear before God, I'd have moved heaven and earth to get to that boy, to get him away, to get him safe. He was mine, wasn't he? He was, is, part of me."

"Son of a bitch! Sorry," she said when Sinead's eyebrows shot up. "Son of a bitch." And she leaped to her desk 'link. "Lieutenant Dallas. Get me the lead officer on duty," she barked. "Now."

"This is Officer Otts, Lieutenant."

"Determine location of student Diana Rodriguez, age twelve. Immediately. Security check, full parameter. I'm staying linked until you report affirmation on both. Move your ass!"

Sinead's eyes were wide, and for a moment resembled her grandson's. "Well now, you're formidable, aren't you?"

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Eve kicked her desk as Sinead looked on. "Her mother. Waiting for her mother. Well, who the hell's her mother? Not that bogus data listing, that's for damn sure. Deena. She meant Deena."

"I'm sure she did," Sinead replied softly.

"Lieutenant, Diana Rodriguez can't be located. I've ordered a full search of the facilities and the grounds. There's been an unreported breach in the southwest wall. I'm checking on that."

"You're checking on it."

Sinead stood, fascinated, as Eve verbally chewed Officer Otts down to bare bone.

Chapter Seventeen

“I   SHOULD' VE THOUGHT OF IT.  I  SHOULD’VE known." She had to calm down, Eve told herself. Feeney was on his way. They'd use the homer implant. They'd track the kid.

"You have thought of it," Roarke reminded her.

"After it was too late to stop it. To use it. You got a top security facility, you've got seasoned cops, and still she walks in, gets the kid. walks out."

"She'd studied the system, Eve. She'd gotten through it once before. And her motivation was very strong."

"Which makes me more of an idiot for not realizing the kid was key. She wants to stop it. Will kill to stop it. That's what I focused on. But the kid, more than a replica of her. She's from her."

"Her child," Roarke agreed. "Obviously knowing Diana existed was one thing. Seeing her, face to face, pushed getting her out to priority."

"She wasn't trained the same as Avril," Eve pointed out. "Look at her records. Languages, electronics, comp sciences, martial arts training, international law and global studies, weaponry, explosives. Light on domestic sciences."

"Training her to be a soldier."

"No, a spook." Furious with herself, she shoved at her hair. "I'm betting spook. Infiltrate covert ops, move up the ranks. But she used her training to get out, stay gone. The murders looked professional because they were. They looked personal because they were."

"They ... encoded her ..." Roarke said, for lack of a better term, "... to do exactly what she did."

"That's the point, and the point Legal will use if and when she goes to trial. See here? They shifted training with Diana somewhat. Trying to prevent her from repeating the same pattern. Add in more of the domestic sciences, push art appreciation, theater, music. Blah, blah. Maybe, maybe it would've worked. But here comes the intangible. She sees the person she considers her mother."

He was working on the center, manually now, his sleeves rolled up, his hair tied back. "If they've based anything here, they've covered themselves brilliantly. Every area is fully accounted for."

"Okay, forget that, forget it." She pressed her fingers to her temples as if to clear her brain. "This is your place, your base. Where do you put it?"

He pushed back, considered. "Well, you go under. This isn't the sort of thing you can run cleverly in plain sight. That's the most fun, of course, but you can't mix this-or not all of it, not the core of it-in with the work-a-day. Some of the lab business, yes. With the setup they've got, you've plenty of checkpoints there. Certainly you could do alterations, sculpting, the subliminals, whatever you liked in any number of locations. But for the creating, the-for lack of a better word- the gestating. You'd need maximum cover."

"Sublevel, then." She leaned over him, studied the screen. "How do we get in?"

"Are we breaking and entering, darling? You'll get me stirred up."

"Cut it out. Nobody's stirring anything with a houseful of relatives. It's too distracting."

"I'd point out they're all tucked up neatly in bed now, but the idea of breaking into the Center has me distracted. First you walk in."

"One of the public areas. Emergency care, maybe. Most vulnerable to security, right?"

"Most likely. And as good as any. Let's have a look."

"You look. I have to think. Would she take her along? Take the kid?"

Because she felt a certain kinship with Deena, she asked herself what she'd do.

"Doesn't seem to follow. You pull her out of what you consider a dangerous situation, you don't dump her into another. But she'd keep her close. She'd put her where she feels it's safe. With Avril, or where Avril can get to her. If so, she has to contact Avril. Already has," she said, nodding to herself. "No move on Diana's legal guardians in Argentina. I'm betting Avril got word to her, and Deena caught another flight back, or aborted the flight she was on."

"Or never went at all," Roarke suggested. "Tossed you a red herring."

"Maybe, yeah, maybe. If she's had contact with Avril, she knows or will know that this whole thing's about to go public. What does she do?"

She paced. "She's got her mission. Most of what she wants is going to come down. But..." Case is basically closed, she thought, but was that stopping her from pursuing it, from doing what she could to finish it out herself?

"She'll try to finish it. Hell, they trained her for this kind of work. They imprinted her to succeed. She's already gone rogue from her own underground. She's been in the Center once already that we know of. To kill Icove. But she doesn't attempt to do anything else there."

"She's focused."

"So far," Eve agreed. "Icove to Icove to Samuels. Because even if she does get in, compromises their database, their equipment.. . Hell, even if she blows the place up, key members are still around to put it back together. Take out the human factor first, then the system."

She paced some more. "Don't take the chance on the government getting the system, covertly continuing the program. I put the clock on her with Nadine. She's got to move on it tonight."

She stopped when Feeney came in. He was, if possible, more rumpled than usual.

"I need that tracking."

"I got the data from Samuels's records on the type of implant." He looked at Roarke. "You got anything in here that'll track an internal?"

"I've got a few things we can put together in the computer lab. There's-"

"Go do that," Eve interrupted, sensing a compu-geek mode coming on. "I'm going to outline the op."

"What op?" Feeney wanted to know.

"I'll catch you up." Roarke started out with him. "Have you ever worked with an Alpha-5? The XDX version?"

"Only in my dreams."

"Your dream's about to come true."

Eve gave them twenty minutes. It was all she believed they could spare.

"Got her?"

"Got something," Feeney told her. "It's being jammed, and it's weak, but it matches the codes of the implant listed for Diana Rodriguez. We wouldn't be getting anything, I can tell you, if we weren't working with the Alpha, 'cause the jam is choice. Might not even get what we got with the Alpha, except the implant's within a mile of our location."

"Where?"

"Moving north. West of here. Got that map ready?" he asked Roarke.

"Just coming. And on."

A city map flashed under the fuzzy blip on-screen. "The Center." Eve set her jaw. "She's less than a block from the Center. She's taking the kid and going in. Feeney, don't lose her. Contact Whitney. You're going to have to convince him to let you break Code Blue on communications. Then you've got to convince him to get us a warrant and a team. Use the kid. Minor civilian, suspected abduction, imminent jeopardy. With or without, I'm going in. I'm changing to Delta frequency on my communicator. Use it only if you get affirmative."

She spun to Roarke. "Let's gear up."

She yanked on her weapon, strapped on a clutch piece. She opted against body armor as it was too bulky and annoying, but hooked on a combat knife.

When Roarke joined her he wore a knee-length leather coat. She had no idea what sort of weaponry and illegal electronics might be under and/or in it.

She'd leave it to him.

"Some couples," he said, "go out to a club for an evening."

Her smile was thin and sharp. "Let's dance."

Diana slipped into the Emergency Room. She knew how to look innocent, and better, knew how to move so that she was all but invisible to most adults. She kept her gaze down, away from their faces as she passed by those waiting to be treated, and those who would treat them.

It was late, everyone was tired or angry or hurt. No one wanted to bother with a young girl who appeared to know where she was going.

She knew because she'd heard Deena tell Avril.

She'd known Deena would come for her. And she'd prepared for it. She'd taken only what she was sure she'd need and put it in her backpack. Food she'd squirreled away for emergencies, her journal discs, the laser scalpel she'd stolen from Medical.

They thought they knew everything, but they hadn't known about the food, the journal, the things she'd stolen over the years.

She was a very good thief.

Deena hadn't had to explain when she'd climbed in the window. She hadn't had to tell her to be quiet, to be quick. Diana had simply taken the backpack out of her hiding place and climbed out with her.

There'd been something she'd scented in the air when they'd gone over the wall. Something she'd never scented before. It was freedom.

They'd talked all the way to New York. That was a first time, too. To talk to someone without having to pretend anything.

They would go to Avril's first. Avril would disengage the security, then Deena would go in and disengage the two police droids. It would be fast, she'd promised. Then she would take her and Avril and their children to a safe location where they would wait until she'd finished what she'd set out to do.

Quiet Birth would be shut down. No one would ever be forced to become again.

She'd watched Deena go into the pretty house, watched her come out again only minutes later. And it was righteous.

The safe house was only minutes away, and that was smart. To hide so close. They could stay there, undetected, until it was safe to go somewhere else.

She pretended to go to bed.

She heard Deena and Avril arguing, in low voices. It would be done, Avril said, all they could expect to be done would be done in a day.

But it wasn't enough. Deena said it wasn't enough until she'd killed the root. Until she had, they'd never be free. They'd never be safe. It would never, never stop. She was going tonight, to finish it.

Then she told Avril exactly what she intended to do.

So she waited, and when Deena switched security to yellow to go out the front door, she went out the back.

She'd never been in a city before-that she remembered. Never been completely alone. And it was exhilarating. She had no fear, none. She reveled in the sound of her footsteps on the sidewalk, at the sensation of cool air on her face.

She worked out her route and her movements by treating the whole business like a logic puzzle she was required to solve. If Deena was going to the Center, she was going to the Center.

It wasn't far. Though she was on foot, she could run well, and run long. And Deena would have to park some distance from the target, then take the last two blocks on foot as well. If she timed it right they'd get there simultaneously, then she could follow Deena through the street-level emergency area.

By the time she was discovered, it would be too late-and too illogical-to take her back.

Simple was usually the most successful.

Because she knew where to look, she spotted Deena quickly. She looked ordinary, everything about her from the light brown hair, the jeans, the hooded jacket. The bag she carried looked like one anybody might carry-just a lightweight shoulder sack.

Simple is successful.

She was waiting, but didn't wait long. When an emergency vehicle raced up, Deena used someone's misfortune to slide into the confusion and into the center.

Diana counted to ten and bounded after. But she slowed, cast her gaze down, and moved with what she considered casual purpose once she was inside.

No one bothered her. No one asked what she was doing, and there was another burst of freedom in that.

She cut away toward Ambulatory, then watched from the corner as Deena casually dropped something in a recycler. Deena kept walking, even stopped a harried-looking intern to ask directions. Simple and smart.

When she reached a fork, alarms began to peal. Deena quickened her pace, still not obviously hurrying, and split off to the left. Diana risked a quick look back, saw smoke rolling into the corridor. And for the first time allowed herself a grin.

Deena came to a set of double doors marked STAFF ONLY. She swiped a code card in the slot, and the doors parted. Diana forced herself to wait until they'd started to close, then sprinted forward and nipped inside.

Medical supplies, Diana noted. A lot of them. Some portable diagnostic equipment, secured drug cabinets. Why here? she wondered, then heard the faint swish of a bag being opened. She eased forward, and found herself against the wall with a stunner at her throat.

"Diana!" Deena hissed as she jerked the stunner away. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Going with you."

"You can't. For God's sake. Avril must be out of her mind by now."

"Then we'd better hurry, get done, get back."

"I have to get you out of here."

"You've come too far to turn back now. Someone might come looking soon."

"No, they won't, not where I'm going. And where I'm going, what I'm going to do, you can't have any part of that. Listen to me." She took Diana's shoulders. "There's nothing more important than your safety, than your freedom."

"Yes, there is." Diana's eyes were clear and dark. "Ending it."

Alarms were shrilling when Eve strode into the ER. So were a lot of people, she noted. But then, they would. Panic was as natural to some as breathing.

Health care workers, security guards were trying to restore order.

"This will be her work." Eve badged an ER nurse who barely gave her a glance. "Emergency entrance has to be the weakest point. Add some disorder to the natural disorder an area like this has, and go about your work." She glanced at Roarke. "Let's take a page out of her book."

He looked down at the scanner he'd palmed. "Beacon is a hundred meters northwest. No current movement."

They followed the trail, came to a dense cloud of smoke.

"Sulphur cube," Roarke said when Eve cursed at the stench. "Kids tend to make them up. I did myself. Messy, smelly, and harmless."

Eve sucked in a breath, moved into the stench at a jog. A maintenance worker wearing a safety mask waved her back. She shoved her badge into his visor, then kept going.

"Harmless?" she said on the other side. "How about the hour we're going to have to spend in fumigation?"

"The fact it reeks to heaven and back is part of the fun." He coughed, winced. "When you're twelve. Forty-six meters, east." He adjusted his earpiece. "We've still got her," he told Feeney on the other end. "Got that. He says the commander's authorized backup. Feeney'll be guiding them in using the beacon. As long as he can hold it."