“You don’t give electronics enough respect,” Feeney stated.
“And neither, I’d venture, does Bissel.” As Eve hadn’t touched the glass of chilled juice Peabody had brought her, Roarke picked it up and helped himself. “The potential worm’s import is its theoretic ability to corrupt an entire networking system, however small or large, however simple or complex, with one stroke, to corrupt and shut down, irretrievably. That’s not what we’re dealing with. It’s a shade of that, an early version perhaps, but not nearly as powerful as we’ve been led to believe. It’s been relatively easy to clean and retrieve from the units we’ve got.”
“Relatively.” Feeney rolled his aching eyes. “It’s nasty business, but it’s not global security shit. What it is, is smoke.”
“Which means he doesn’t have what he thought he had—what he was going to parlay into a nice retirement fund. But maybe someone else does, or maybe . . . Son of a bitch. He wasn’t trying to take me out.” She tapped her fingers absently over her bruised eye. “He hit his target. Aim was a little off, but he hit.”
Roarke inclined his head as his thoughts marched with hers. “Sparrow.”
“It’d help to have somebody on the inside, somebody with some juice who could adjust or create data in-house. And provide protection. Sparrow. He’s the organized thinker. The planner. Look at Bissel. He’s not brave, he’s not very smart, he hasn’t been able to work himself up in the organization. Just a delivery boy. And here’s a big opportunity, handed to him from one of the brass. The big score. Little scores all along. The corporate espionage. Could be, just could be, some of that was outside Homeland, a little personal partnership. Bissel though, he can’t capitalize. Just a screwup with money. I bet his partner’s done better. A hell of a lot better.”
“Why not just kill Bissel then?” Peabody asked.
“Because you need a contingency. You need a fall guy. He set the putz up. Still the delivery boy. Bissel goes to deliver th
e worm disc to the high bidder, and it’s not the deal. He gets the shaft. Now he’s a dead man, a desperate one. He’s running, he’s hiding, and at all costs he has to stay dead. Our friend from the HSO wants him to stay dead, too, and he’s ready with the company line about global security when the investigation doesn’t turn the way he anticipated.”
“I imagine he planned to make an honest man out of Bissel by turning him into a dead man,” Roarke said. “Quietly, at some point.”
“Should’ve moved on that sooner rather than later, and he wouldn’t be in the hospital. I think he forgot to factor one vital element into the equation. When somebody like Bissel starts killing, it gets easier every time.”
She pulled out her communicator. “I want a block on Sparrow. I don’t want anybody, not even the medicals, talking to him until I get my shot. Start reeling in that data.”
“Hook up that tanker of coffee,” Feeney reminded her, then headed out.
“I need a moment, Lieutenant.” Roarke glanced at Peabody. “A private one.”
“I’ll wait outside.” Peabody slipped out, shut the door.
“I don’t have time to go into personal business,” Eve began.
“Sparrow has access to your data, to what happened in Dallas. If you’re right about all of this, he might very well use it against you. Make it public, even altering it in some way that twists the truth.”
“I can’t worry about that.”
“I can make it disappear. If you want that . . . element removed, I can remove it. You’re entitled to your privacy, Eve. You’re entitled to be secure that your own victimization won’t be used to draw speculation, gossip—and the pity you’d hate more than either.”
“You want me to give you the nod to tamper with government files?”
“No, I want you to tell me if you’d prefer those files didn’t exist. Hypothetically.”
“Which would let me off the hook. Legally. I wouldn’t be an accessory if I just made a little wish, and poof. This is a hell of a day. This is a hell of a funny day.”
Because emotion was flooding her throat again, she turned away. “You and me, we haven’t been this far apart from each other since the beginning. I can’t reach you, and I can’t let you reach me.”
“You don’t see me, Eve. When you look at me, you don’t see the whole of me. Maybe I’ve preferred that.”
She thought of Reva, of illusions, and a mockery of a marriage. Nothing could be further from what they were dealing with. Roarke had never lied, nor pretended to be something other than what he was. And she had seen him, right from the first moment.
“You’re wrong, and you’re stupid.” There was more weariness than temper in the words, and as such struck him more forcefully. “I don’t know how to get through this. I can’t talk to you about it, because it just circles. I can’t talk to anyone else, because if I tell them what’s ripping at us, it makes them an accessory. You think I don’t see you?”
She turned back, looked straight into his eyes. “I’m looking at you, and I see you. I know you’re capable of killing, and feeling justified, feeling right. I know that, and I’m still here. I don’t know what the hell to do, but I’m still here.”
“If I wasn’t capable, I wouldn’t be who I am, what I am, where I am. Neither of us would be here, wrestling with this.”
“Maybe not, but I’m too tired to wrestle. I have to go. I need to go.” She walked quickly to the door, wrenched it open. Then she shut her eyes. “Make it disappear. Fuck hypothetical. I take responsibility for what I say, what I do. Make it gone.”
“Consider it done.”