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Misdirection in Death - Chapter 20
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Cyrex
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24 June 2012
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Roarke studied the tableau through the open doorway knowing he would have nightmares for years to come.
A shield had been raised allowing the techs to work the scene in relative safety. Eve lay with blood pumping out of her chest. She covered Angelopoulos in a failed attempt to protect and serve.
Beside Roarke, McNab was breathing noisily between his teeth as he kept retracing the blood trail with his eyes where Peabody had tried to crawl to safety.
“I want to bite out their throats,” McNab murmured.
Roarke glanced at McNab. Normally his thin face was amused and pretty. Not now. His eyes were narrowed and hard, his lips thin and peeled back from his teeth as if he saw the throat in question.
“Ian, we’ll get them.”
McNab shook his head, “It won’t be enough, it could never be enough.”
Feeney joined them at the door. “Sweepers are done. They’re bringing them in,” he warned.
In the alley, one of the techs activated a remote. The three bodies on the ground rose and started towards the building.
It was a horror vid, Roarke thought. A scene where the zombies rise and move mindlessly towards their loved ones.
Hearing Eve’s voice behind him saved his sanity, “Tell me you got him.”
“Eyes and Ears, Lieutenant. Counting 15 so far that moved off Central once the kill was reported. They had every door and window covered. You would never have made it out alive, LT,” came Connor’s response over the link.
Eve watched the bloodied, broken version of herself walk by Roarke, “Wasacki, stop the damn blood pump. Maintenance is going to be up my ass if we pump that crap all over their floor,” Eve ordered the tech manning the droid remote.”
“Damn, there’s another one,” came Connor’s voice over the link. “They were watching the sewers too. Don’t know how they thought you’d get down there, but they weren’t taking chances.”
Eve switched her link to mute and moved close to Roarke, speaking low for his ears only, “Does the bomb unit still have those toys they used during Cassandra?”
“Upgraded versions,” he answered, barely moving his lips.
Taking the link off mute, Eve ordered, “Contact the Feebs, let them know to check underground at all their buildings.”
She disconnected from Connor and contacted the Explosives and Bomb unit, “They were in the sewers,” Dallas said without preamble. “Bring out your best detectors, check every floor and underground.”
“Already have our best toys in play,” came the gruff reply. “We’ll add underground to the sweep.”
Roarke was texting similar instructions to Caro for Roarke Industries and Properties.
Peabody came in with Angelopoulos and came face to face with her droid self, “Wow, Yancy said they were mag but....wow,” she repeated, at a loss for other words.
At the sound of her voice, McNab whipped around. He plowed through the growing number of cops in the small room to grab Peabody by the arms and haul her close for a kiss.
“For Christ sakes, McNab, you’re a cop...she’s a cop...cops on duty. Put it on hold,” Dallas said. She understood. Seeing the scene outside, the trail of blood as Peabody tried to crawl to cover had hit her hard, too. Her own droid double hadn’t bothered her, but she suspected Roarke had not felt the same lack of concern. She felt his hand slide down her arm in a gesture seeking reassurance as surely as McNab’s kiss had sought affirmation of life.
“Sorry, sir,” Peabody said, shoving McNab away. “Yancy’s going to push on getting the Droid Designer added to his budget. Says it has major potential for doing ID’s.”
Angelopoulos stared into his own face. “I’ve never had a droid made that looked like me. How the hell did you do it so fast?”
Feeney answered, “Blank droids and a fancy Droid Designer program, that our primary sketch artist apparently wants for himself. Wouldn’t hold up long term, but worked for our purposes. Roarke’s Droid manufacturing arm sent over the right height and weight droid blanks. Scanned images of the three of you were put through the Droid Designer and a Droid Skin was output and put over the blanks.”
“Dallas and Peabody here are celebrities after the Icove book and movie,” Feeney said with a small smirk. “Wasn’t hard to find eyes and hair to match them. Fed in their psych profiles so they would respond like the originals and you have the perfect decoys. We used a generic for you. For a real droid, the skin would have been sealed on, it takes at least a week to get all the parts, working together. These didn’t have to talk or hold up under close inspection so a quick glue job was sufficient.”
“Got ‘em,” Dallas murmured. Then looked up, “The shooters are congregating at a residence hotel. Looks like they are using them as a barracks. National Guard is moving in.”
Dallas responded to another beep and Darcia’s voice came over the link, “Dallas, we let the shuttle take off under remote. It exploded as expected. We’ve got three suspects in custody. You’ve got your offworld terrorism connection.”
They would never see the light of day...or the feel of earth gravity again, Dallas thought. Offworld terrorism resulted in automatic offworld incarceration. Space was too unforgiving to allow people to blow things up. “I hope it was an old shuttle,” Dallas said.
There was a moment of silence, “It was supposed to be taking Roarke back to earth...it was the top of the line.”
Inside Roarke winced. He wondered if he could bill the government for it.
While Dallas and Peabody coordinated the taking of the mercenaries at the residence hotel, and the techs finished clearing the droids out, Angelopoulos maneuvered close to Roarke.
“I noticed you are attracted to the Lieutenant,” Stephano said in a low voice. “Mind some free advice?”
“I’m a married man,” Roarke said, lifting his hand with Brisbaine’s plain gold band.
“But she’s a fascinating woman, no?” When there was no response, he continued, “I saw you brush a hand down her arm. I don’t know how much of the reported divorce is true, but until a divorce was final I would be very careful not to poach.”
Roarke remained silent. Angelopoulos sighed, “They call her Roarke’s cop and Roarke protects what is his. Wait, my friend, till he no longer considers her his.”
“What do you think he would do if someone...poached?” Roarke asked curiously.
“It would depend. If she was not interested, she would probably knock you on your ass and step on you on her way out. If she was interested,” Stephano paused, thought, “I think no one would ever see you again.”
“But he’s married to a cop...a murder cop.”
“Ah, but I don’t think he would simply murder you...he would erase you, as if you had never been.”
Galahad padded to the pillows, dug a little with paw and nose. Comforted by the familiar scent of his humans, he turned several times and curled into ball, putting one paw over his eyes.
Satisfied with the cat’s reaction, Summerset hunted down a small pan for litter and bowls for food and water. He created a corner for the Galahad when he woke from his nap.
He went into the living area, pleasantly surprised it was not as messy as he had expected. It took just a few minutes to put it to rights. Once he was comfortable with the space, Summerset pulled out his link and sat. He started to notify Roarke he had gotten himself and Galahad safely out of the house, when he heard the unmistakable sound of burglary tools in use at the door coming from the security monitor.
This unit had both the standard electronic locks that were susceptible to jammers and the additional protection of physical locks that required manual manipulation. Summerset went to the computer station and watched the feed from the exterior cameras.
The green light blinking on the lock indicated the jammer had made quick work of the electronics. The person breaking in had less skill with the manual locks, Summerset thought with a disdainful curl of his lip. Really, where was the pride in his work?
He ran a face recognition program as the man slowly sought to catch the tumblers.
When he finally made it through the door, Leo Muldowney came face to face with with an illegal stunner pointed directly at him.
Mei Zhang felt rage pounding behind her eyes. She never missed. This system never missed in over 100 field tests.
But Roarke’s house stood untouched. The gardens were damaged. A patio lay in ruins. Trees were down but the house was untouched.
What the hell was protecting the house? This was a home, not a top secret military facility.
She thought for a moment, letting cool determination dampen the rage. Something was protecting the house. This was Roarke’s place after all. He undoubtedly utilized the latest advancements in his R&D divisions for his own protection. Chances were the devices sat around the perimeter. All she needed to do was hit one of those devices and the defenses would be down.
Then no one would ever know she had missed. Zhang went into the truck cab and pulled up the plans of Roarke’s estate. She began to methodically plot a grid to send the next missiles.
Dallas ordered the small room and corridor that lead out to the alley cleared of all but essential personnel. Cops kept filing in, taking a look at the blood soaked scene, even without the droid decoys, and leaving with eyes flat and mouths grim.
Their city was under siege, cops had been targeted. It didn’t matter that droids had taken the hit, the intent had been clear. There would be little sleep and no down time, until this was stopped.
In the conference room that had been certified cleared of all listening devices, Dallas worked with her team to coordinate efforts around the city. Hastily devised and less than state-of-the-art bombs had been found underneath Cop Central and several other precinct cop shops, Roarke Industries, the U.N, and FBI Headquarters. The raid on the warehouse had crippled the group, but they had been able to pull together enough items to seriously threaten the city.
The National Guard had taken 28 men and women in custody at the residence hotel. Some had been preparing to go out on assignments. A sniper attack on Time Square was averted. Two bombs did go off at the Empire State Building, but the damage had been contained.
The power stations were targeted and now a quarter of the city was without power. With the power down, and the day growing towards evening, those areas of town were experiencing high instances of looting and like crimes of opportunity.
Dallas pulled the droid beat cops off their standard duties and focused them in the dark areas of the city, keeping only a minimum presence at other sites.
Roarke, Feeney and McNab were tracking and blocking cyber attacks on everything from traffic lights to Wall Street.
Into this hive of activity, Whitney walked. Dallas left Peabody and Baxter and crossed to Whitney.
“Status?” he asked
“We have them on Terrorism charges offworld and onworld. From the report from the National Guard we’ve scooped up 62% of Mercenaries and they are closing in on the identified target sites. They expect to have the rest within the next two hours.”
“There has been no further reported biological attacks. They may have supplies elsewhere, but it’s unlikely they have much, if any, remaining in the City after the warehouse raid.”
“The Muldowney brownstone was taken half an hour ago, but King and Muldowney were both gone. We got a small lab and scientists and techs, a couple of military types and a politician.”
“Cyber attacks are continuing, leading us to believe King and Muldowney are both directing the attacks from an undisclosed location.”
Whitney nodded. “I’ve received a report on your place.”
Roarke looked up, saved the information he was working on and moved behind Dallas. Baxter frowned slightly, why the hell did Bainbridge care about Roarke’s place?
Then he thought about how seamlessly Bainbridge had fit in with the team, as if he had worked with them many times before. There were certain rhythms when working within a team. His eyes widened as he recognized the rhythm. He tapped Peabody on the shoulder. Distracted she looked up as Baxter aimed a look in the direction of Whitney, Dallas and Bainbridge. He mouthed Roarke? silently.
She glanced over and grinned. It still was hard to believe the tall, almost gaunt geek with the wavy pants was the slick, elegant, toned, billionaire.
Baxter whistled silently. He only wished he had bet more on Dallas and Roarke staying together in the betting pool that had grown like wildfire after yesterday morning’s broadcast.
He took a moment to capture the image of Roarke in his Bainbridge disguise and went back to work.
“A Marine unit took into custody one Mei Zhang who was firing on your place from the neighboring estate of the Lyle’s. I’m told she was angrier that she had been unable to destroy your place than she was at being caught.”
“The Marines?” Dallas asked.
“Under the Urban Terrorism Act of 2036, the President has sent in a number of Marine teams to back up the National Guard. It seems the rocket launcher Zhang was using had been designed for Chinese military use. The missiles they were using had been designed in Great Britain. This is on the way of becoming a very big and very nasty international incident.”
“I take it she wasn’t able to damage the house?” Roarke said.
“No, and I’ve had a number of requests to find out what you used. I’m sure you’ll be flooded at Roarke Industries with inquiries,” Whitney told him.
Roarke nodded, “It’s experimental. By chance I had it installed last month but hadn’t had the opportunity to run tests. I guess you could say this was the first real world test of the system. I’d say this will increase interest in it.”
Dallas just stared for a moment. Their home had nearly been demolished and somehow Roarke was going to get big orders for a new product out of it. She remember Angelopoulos saying he had the Midas touch. Sometimes it was downright spooky.
Roarke’s link beeped and he looked down at the read out.
When he looked up, he was smiling. It looked more like a wolf who had caught the scent of prey than humor. It didn’t sit right on Bainbridge’s features, but it was all Roarke.
“I know where Muldowney is,” Roarke said.
“Where?” Whitney and Dallas said in unison.
“The Bainbridge apartment, with Summerset.”
A shield had been raised allowing the techs to work the scene in relative safety. Eve lay with blood pumping out of her chest. She covered Angelopoulos in a failed attempt to protect and serve.
Beside Roarke, McNab was breathing noisily between his teeth as he kept retracing the blood trail with his eyes where Peabody had tried to crawl to safety.
“I want to bite out their throats,” McNab murmured.
Roarke glanced at McNab. Normally his thin face was amused and pretty. Not now. His eyes were narrowed and hard, his lips thin and peeled back from his teeth as if he saw the throat in question.
“Ian, we’ll get them.”
McNab shook his head, “It won’t be enough, it could never be enough.”
Feeney joined them at the door. “Sweepers are done. They’re bringing them in,” he warned.
In the alley, one of the techs activated a remote. The three bodies on the ground rose and started towards the building.
It was a horror vid, Roarke thought. A scene where the zombies rise and move mindlessly towards their loved ones.
Hearing Eve’s voice behind him saved his sanity, “Tell me you got him.”
“Eyes and Ears, Lieutenant. Counting 15 so far that moved off Central once the kill was reported. They had every door and window covered. You would never have made it out alive, LT,” came Connor’s response over the link.
Eve watched the bloodied, broken version of herself walk by Roarke, “Wasacki, stop the damn blood pump. Maintenance is going to be up my ass if we pump that crap all over their floor,” Eve ordered the tech manning the droid remote.”
“Damn, there’s another one,” came Connor’s voice over the link. “They were watching the sewers too. Don’t know how they thought you’d get down there, but they weren’t taking chances.”
Eve switched her link to mute and moved close to Roarke, speaking low for his ears only, “Does the bomb unit still have those toys they used during Cassandra?”
“Upgraded versions,” he answered, barely moving his lips.
Taking the link off mute, Eve ordered, “Contact the Feebs, let them know to check underground at all their buildings.”
She disconnected from Connor and contacted the Explosives and Bomb unit, “They were in the sewers,” Dallas said without preamble. “Bring out your best detectors, check every floor and underground.”
“Already have our best toys in play,” came the gruff reply. “We’ll add underground to the sweep.”
Roarke was texting similar instructions to Caro for Roarke Industries and Properties.
Peabody came in with Angelopoulos and came face to face with her droid self, “Wow, Yancy said they were mag but....wow,” she repeated, at a loss for other words.
At the sound of her voice, McNab whipped around. He plowed through the growing number of cops in the small room to grab Peabody by the arms and haul her close for a kiss.
“For Christ sakes, McNab, you’re a cop...she’s a cop...cops on duty. Put it on hold,” Dallas said. She understood. Seeing the scene outside, the trail of blood as Peabody tried to crawl to cover had hit her hard, too. Her own droid double hadn’t bothered her, but she suspected Roarke had not felt the same lack of concern. She felt his hand slide down her arm in a gesture seeking reassurance as surely as McNab’s kiss had sought affirmation of life.
“Sorry, sir,” Peabody said, shoving McNab away. “Yancy’s going to push on getting the Droid Designer added to his budget. Says it has major potential for doing ID’s.”
Angelopoulos stared into his own face. “I’ve never had a droid made that looked like me. How the hell did you do it so fast?”
Feeney answered, “Blank droids and a fancy Droid Designer program, that our primary sketch artist apparently wants for himself. Wouldn’t hold up long term, but worked for our purposes. Roarke’s Droid manufacturing arm sent over the right height and weight droid blanks. Scanned images of the three of you were put through the Droid Designer and a Droid Skin was output and put over the blanks.”
“Dallas and Peabody here are celebrities after the Icove book and movie,” Feeney said with a small smirk. “Wasn’t hard to find eyes and hair to match them. Fed in their psych profiles so they would respond like the originals and you have the perfect decoys. We used a generic for you. For a real droid, the skin would have been sealed on, it takes at least a week to get all the parts, working together. These didn’t have to talk or hold up under close inspection so a quick glue job was sufficient.”
“Got ‘em,” Dallas murmured. Then looked up, “The shooters are congregating at a residence hotel. Looks like they are using them as a barracks. National Guard is moving in.”
Dallas responded to another beep and Darcia’s voice came over the link, “Dallas, we let the shuttle take off under remote. It exploded as expected. We’ve got three suspects in custody. You’ve got your offworld terrorism connection.”
They would never see the light of day...or the feel of earth gravity again, Dallas thought. Offworld terrorism resulted in automatic offworld incarceration. Space was too unforgiving to allow people to blow things up. “I hope it was an old shuttle,” Dallas said.
There was a moment of silence, “It was supposed to be taking Roarke back to earth...it was the top of the line.”
Inside Roarke winced. He wondered if he could bill the government for it.
While Dallas and Peabody coordinated the taking of the mercenaries at the residence hotel, and the techs finished clearing the droids out, Angelopoulos maneuvered close to Roarke.
“I noticed you are attracted to the Lieutenant,” Stephano said in a low voice. “Mind some free advice?”
“I’m a married man,” Roarke said, lifting his hand with Brisbaine’s plain gold band.
“But she’s a fascinating woman, no?” When there was no response, he continued, “I saw you brush a hand down her arm. I don’t know how much of the reported divorce is true, but until a divorce was final I would be very careful not to poach.”
Roarke remained silent. Angelopoulos sighed, “They call her Roarke’s cop and Roarke protects what is his. Wait, my friend, till he no longer considers her his.”
“What do you think he would do if someone...poached?” Roarke asked curiously.
“It would depend. If she was not interested, she would probably knock you on your ass and step on you on her way out. If she was interested,” Stephano paused, thought, “I think no one would ever see you again.”
“But he’s married to a cop...a murder cop.”
“Ah, but I don’t think he would simply murder you...he would erase you, as if you had never been.”
#
Summerset entered the Brisbaine apartment. He took the carrier into the bedroom and released Galahad. The cat turned his broad backside to Summerset, making it clear he no longer existed in the cat’s world.Galahad padded to the pillows, dug a little with paw and nose. Comforted by the familiar scent of his humans, he turned several times and curled into ball, putting one paw over his eyes.
Satisfied with the cat’s reaction, Summerset hunted down a small pan for litter and bowls for food and water. He created a corner for the Galahad when he woke from his nap.
He went into the living area, pleasantly surprised it was not as messy as he had expected. It took just a few minutes to put it to rights. Once he was comfortable with the space, Summerset pulled out his link and sat. He started to notify Roarke he had gotten himself and Galahad safely out of the house, when he heard the unmistakable sound of burglary tools in use at the door coming from the security monitor.
This unit had both the standard electronic locks that were susceptible to jammers and the additional protection of physical locks that required manual manipulation. Summerset went to the computer station and watched the feed from the exterior cameras.
The green light blinking on the lock indicated the jammer had made quick work of the electronics. The person breaking in had less skill with the manual locks, Summerset thought with a disdainful curl of his lip. Really, where was the pride in his work?
He ran a face recognition program as the man slowly sought to catch the tumblers.
When he finally made it through the door, Leo Muldowney came face to face with with an illegal stunner pointed directly at him.
#
Mei Zhang felt rage pounding behind her eyes. She never missed. This system never missed in over 100 field tests.
But Roarke’s house stood untouched. The gardens were damaged. A patio lay in ruins. Trees were down but the house was untouched.
What the hell was protecting the house? This was a home, not a top secret military facility.
She thought for a moment, letting cool determination dampen the rage. Something was protecting the house. This was Roarke’s place after all. He undoubtedly utilized the latest advancements in his R&D divisions for his own protection. Chances were the devices sat around the perimeter. All she needed to do was hit one of those devices and the defenses would be down.
Then no one would ever know she had missed. Zhang went into the truck cab and pulled up the plans of Roarke’s estate. She began to methodically plot a grid to send the next missiles.
#
Dallas ordered the small room and corridor that lead out to the alley cleared of all but essential personnel. Cops kept filing in, taking a look at the blood soaked scene, even without the droid decoys, and leaving with eyes flat and mouths grim.
Their city was under siege, cops had been targeted. It didn’t matter that droids had taken the hit, the intent had been clear. There would be little sleep and no down time, until this was stopped.
In the conference room that had been certified cleared of all listening devices, Dallas worked with her team to coordinate efforts around the city. Hastily devised and less than state-of-the-art bombs had been found underneath Cop Central and several other precinct cop shops, Roarke Industries, the U.N, and FBI Headquarters. The raid on the warehouse had crippled the group, but they had been able to pull together enough items to seriously threaten the city.
The National Guard had taken 28 men and women in custody at the residence hotel. Some had been preparing to go out on assignments. A sniper attack on Time Square was averted. Two bombs did go off at the Empire State Building, but the damage had been contained.
The power stations were targeted and now a quarter of the city was without power. With the power down, and the day growing towards evening, those areas of town were experiencing high instances of looting and like crimes of opportunity.
Dallas pulled the droid beat cops off their standard duties and focused them in the dark areas of the city, keeping only a minimum presence at other sites.
Roarke, Feeney and McNab were tracking and blocking cyber attacks on everything from traffic lights to Wall Street.
Into this hive of activity, Whitney walked. Dallas left Peabody and Baxter and crossed to Whitney.
“Status?” he asked
“We have them on Terrorism charges offworld and onworld. From the report from the National Guard we’ve scooped up 62% of Mercenaries and they are closing in on the identified target sites. They expect to have the rest within the next two hours.”
“There has been no further reported biological attacks. They may have supplies elsewhere, but it’s unlikely they have much, if any, remaining in the City after the warehouse raid.”
“The Muldowney brownstone was taken half an hour ago, but King and Muldowney were both gone. We got a small lab and scientists and techs, a couple of military types and a politician.”
“Cyber attacks are continuing, leading us to believe King and Muldowney are both directing the attacks from an undisclosed location.”
Whitney nodded. “I’ve received a report on your place.”
Roarke looked up, saved the information he was working on and moved behind Dallas. Baxter frowned slightly, why the hell did Bainbridge care about Roarke’s place?
Then he thought about how seamlessly Bainbridge had fit in with the team, as if he had worked with them many times before. There were certain rhythms when working within a team. His eyes widened as he recognized the rhythm. He tapped Peabody on the shoulder. Distracted she looked up as Baxter aimed a look in the direction of Whitney, Dallas and Bainbridge. He mouthed Roarke? silently.
She glanced over and grinned. It still was hard to believe the tall, almost gaunt geek with the wavy pants was the slick, elegant, toned, billionaire.
Baxter whistled silently. He only wished he had bet more on Dallas and Roarke staying together in the betting pool that had grown like wildfire after yesterday morning’s broadcast.
He took a moment to capture the image of Roarke in his Bainbridge disguise and went back to work.
“A Marine unit took into custody one Mei Zhang who was firing on your place from the neighboring estate of the Lyle’s. I’m told she was angrier that she had been unable to destroy your place than she was at being caught.”
“The Marines?” Dallas asked.
“Under the Urban Terrorism Act of 2036, the President has sent in a number of Marine teams to back up the National Guard. It seems the rocket launcher Zhang was using had been designed for Chinese military use. The missiles they were using had been designed in Great Britain. This is on the way of becoming a very big and very nasty international incident.”
“I take it she wasn’t able to damage the house?” Roarke said.
“No, and I’ve had a number of requests to find out what you used. I’m sure you’ll be flooded at Roarke Industries with inquiries,” Whitney told him.
Roarke nodded, “It’s experimental. By chance I had it installed last month but hadn’t had the opportunity to run tests. I guess you could say this was the first real world test of the system. I’d say this will increase interest in it.”
Dallas just stared for a moment. Their home had nearly been demolished and somehow Roarke was going to get big orders for a new product out of it. She remember Angelopoulos saying he had the Midas touch. Sometimes it was downright spooky.
Roarke’s link beeped and he looked down at the read out.
When he looked up, he was smiling. It looked more like a wolf who had caught the scent of prey than humor. It didn’t sit right on Bainbridge’s features, but it was all Roarke.
“I know where Muldowney is,” Roarke said.
“Where?” Whitney and Dallas said in unison.
“The Bainbridge apartment, with Summerset.”
