Chapter Four

Roarke eased away from his beautifully shambled wife, got up to find his clothes.  She was exhausted, smudges under her eyes enhanced by the paleness of her skin.  He felt another arousal growing as she snuggled into the spot he’d warmed, her stimulating body adorned with glitters he had offered her as gifts, then restrained himself.  She needed to rest, and he needed to make arrangements for their trip to the Olympus Resort and Satellite.  He’d have to talk with Chief Tibble, finding some way to save face after saying he didn’t want Eve part of any war game contingent, and now wanting her to go with her partner.  And on short notice.  They would have to leave tomorrow.
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Eve considered the lounge of the shuttle.  It was filled with roses.  Every surface had a vase or planter nailed down to it, and the walls had attached hanging… things?  The smell was … sweet.  Thank the gods I’m not allergic.  Then she considered her husband, who looked like he was in a holo battle trying to get various people off this shuttle and on to one of the other two heading to the Olympus satellite.  Part of her thought it was purposeful; couldn’t they see the flowers all over the place, read the big invisible sign “Seduction of Eve”?  Of course they could.  That was why they were trying to stay on board with her and Roarke, to irritate him.  Shaking her head, Eve went to strap herself in.
Finally, they were ready for takeoff.  Eve put her head on Roarke’s shoulder, closed her eyes, and tried to think about how Cop Central would look with sheep as receptionists.  That horrific visual got her through until they were in the relative smoothness of space.  Then everything slowed down and she was finally perfectly alone with her husband.  After he almost threw the stewardess into the stairwell to keep her from offering any  more food or drink.  She mentally sighed, got up and wandered the lounge, smelling the flowers, sipping champagne, tasting appetizers.
“Come here, Eve.”
Finally.  She took her time, not running, went to him.  Let him draw her down onto the bench style lounge with him. He smiled a little wistfully and she raised her eyebrows.  “What?”
“Do you realize when we were first together that if I asked you to come to me, you wouldn’t?”  He studied her.
Eve laughed, grinned up at him as he tugged her so she was lying down with him, snuggled close.  “That’s because, my friend, I was afraid you’d knock me out and when I came to I’d find myself in Las Vegas with a ring on my finger and you paying off a justice of the peace.”
He grinned.  “I admit the thought came to mind.  Settle down now.  I want to read you some poetry.”  He opened a book and began to recite.
Eve figured she was out in the first minute.  Anything over that was just wasted time, in her opinion.  Not that she would ever tell her snobbish husband, who thought poetry was insightful and showed great class.  Still, she’d been meaning to catch up on her sleep.  And the way Roarke was into the stuff, she’d bet he didn’t notice she was actually sleeping for fifteen minutes.
She would have been wrong.  Roarke didn’t notice for over an hour.  When he did, he assumed she had just slipped into slumber a few minutes before that.  Satisfied with his endeavors as described by Charles, a previously top rated licensed companion and now top drawer sex therapist, Roarke wrapped both arms around his sleeping wife and let himself drift away.
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It was all coming together.  Another five days and he would be on the train ride to wealth, he’d be richer than the Irish son of a bitch that nearly owned this satellite.  Then he’d never have to do anything but sit on his ass, drink beer and smoke some good Zoner.  The delivery of drugs would begin tomorrow.  It was a simple matter of supply and demand.  The satellite’s inhabitants and guests wanted recreational substances, Illegals that were manufactured on Earth.  The belief being that home world cooking was the best.  The markup on price was such that even some of the very well-heeled guests might think twice before a purchase, but not many.  And he’d developed a discount price for the regular population, with the Illegal of choice being cut in its purity appropriately.  Those who wanted their fix enough found the money.
With all the Olympus Custom Service fleet of shuttles and officers to keep people from smuggling Illegals onto the satellite undetected and the Interplanetary Law Enforcement in joint effort, they would still be blind to what was happening.   And once the supply and distribution were on satellite and moving along efficiently, it would be impossible to end it.  If anyone really did want to.  His small business here had functioned with very little problem from the Olympus Drug Enforcement Agency over the past six months. There was some truth to the rumors over the past several years that Roarke had taken a turn toward the other side, cleaning up his interests to make a show for respectability, obedience to law and order.  It was laughable, but he’d actually opened a path for the competition to get a few nice sized bites in.  And made it possible for a more competitive environment to flourish.  Maybe he should send a nice thank you card to Lieutenant Eve Dallas.  The idea made him laugh.
And if necessary the Olympus Custom Service could be completely blinded by their Director’s willingness to be bribed.  He had already felt out that party.  A few million in an Earth offshore account and he was settled in to complacency.  But it most likely wouldn’t come to even that.  No, the main diversion was in place.  A veritable massacre that would keep all the authorities and Roarke so busy cleaning up the bloody mess that his business would not even make a blip on their collective radars for months.  Maybe years, if he got Roarke’s cop in the fragments of the grenade he was about to lob.
Yes.  It was all coming together.
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Eve knew information would be vital to winning this time.  The other teams had under estimated the NYPSD last time.  That advantage would be gone.  And she’d bet Roarke’s sweet butt that they’d all heard about being taken out by a non-military organization by their respective leaders.  So … they would most likely be planning some surprises for them.   Including some interagency teamwork.  To that end, she needed some spies.
“Who has the best information on a man,” Eve asked her husband as she massaged warm oil into his hard muscled body.  She’d had the salon staff set up the massage table on the privacy screened balcony over-looking the city he’d built on this satellite.  Then she’d surprised him by the personal massage being for him, by her.  He was naked.  She’d gone with what Mavis called an “I Dream of Jeannie” outfit.  Whatever works.
“His wife?”  Roarke was enjoying the attention by his wife.  She could talk work, or in this case, war games, all she wanted, as long as her hands kept touching him.
“Possibly.  But more, his mistress.”  She used her wrist link to tag Darcia, the Chief of Police for Olympus Resorts and Satellite.  “I need the unofficial boss for LCs on satellite, Darcia.  Hey, Webster.”  She smiled as the Captain of IAB wandered through the view of Darcia’s link.
“Name’s Wononi Yawg,” Darcia reported. She’d been well briefed about the pending war game and NYPSD’s bid to win a second time.  “I can probably have her come to you.”
“Great.  We’re doing supper here at eight.  I’ll need you and Webster, too.  Thanks.”  She ended the transmission, then Eve leaned down to nip her husband’s truly excellent naked ass.  “That’s one step. Who’s head of the computer people up here?”
“That would be Randolph Spranton.”  Exactly why, Roarke asked himself, had his wife never given him a full body massage before?  It was just a matter of time before his head exploded from the feel of her oiled hands rubbing him.
Eve tagged Caro’s right hand Suzette, who had been ruthlessly, along with Summerset, brought along as a consultant.  Galahad was consulting about any rodent troubles and the lack of regular between meal snacks.  “Track down the head computer guy, Randolph Spranton.  Get him over here for supper.  Eight o’clock.  You too.  And the team.  See if Summerset will make all the arrangements, will you, Suzette?”   Eve tried to smile at the younger woman before ending transmission.  She’d badly wanted to commandeer Caro, but Roarke had put his foot down and she could hardly have argued.  Much.  He was again putting his world on hold, and this time for a game, to please Eve.  So she’d just learn to work with this woman who had been at the very outermost of her awareness when it came to Roarke’s business empire.  Finding a knot in Roarke’s upper thigh, Eve worked it with both hands.  How could she not know he had tension knots in his legs?  Maybe she should talk to Louise about it.  “You got people who know the underground layout of this piece of flying real estate?  On site,” she clarified.
“More than you may want at dinner.”  She hadn’t invited the janitorial staff, Roarke mused.  He sighed as she kneaded his lower back.  He hadn’t even known it ached.
“Pick one or two,” Eve told him when she realized after several minutes that he wasn’t offering any names, still working the stiffness out of his lower back.  When he didn’t immediately answer, she cocked her head, looking and listening.  He was falling asleep, she realized, smiling tenderly.  Her reformed criminal who still could scare crap out of just about everybody with a look, was falling asleep under the careful reflexology of his wife.  She continued massaging the sore muscles of his back, but instead of talking began to hum a Mavis song.
It worked like a charm.  He was solidly out by the time the song was done.
She drew a soft gel blanket over him, left him on the balcony.  Washing her hands free of the massage oils, she ordered the dinner venue changed to Roarke’s Olympus Resort office complex, whatever conference room Summerset felt would work.  Just in case her sex consultant actually was still asleep in another hour, Eve thought, still pleased with herself, then Roarke wouldn’t be disturbed.  She put on jeans, shirt, harness, jacket, her weapons that Darcia had cleared.  After her last several eventful visits to the resort satellite, Eve had determined being armed was just as common a need as breathing.  Then she headed off to get the room set up, tagging security, separate from Darcia’s police force, to meet her there.
It would have all gone faster with Peabody working with her, but Eve was trying to give her partner and McNab time together.  They were making up, but it was a little shaky.  She and Roarke were used to rip roaring fights, forgiving each other completely and quickly, and moving to the making up section of the program.  They had gotten their rhythm down within the first few months of their relationship.  But Peabody and McNab weren’t like them.  This had been a “really biggie”, per Peabody, and they were stumbling through the forgiving each other completely part.  So Eve worked out details, tagged people, organized, and planned alone.
Not liking change, but trying to adjust, she drafted Suzette as her aide, added Summerset in when Feeney was still under the weather from space travel.  She couldn’t even grab Webster, at least until he’d time to bang Darcia for a couple days, Eve figured.  Then he was up for grabs.  “Roarke’s sleeping, so leave him alone,” she ordered her little team.  “I’m going back over to the hotel to put some jewelry on, and I’ll be right back.”  She would have sent Summerset for the glitters, but she’d just assigned him to tracking down likely sky drone operators they could bring on board.  Besides, he’d set out jewelry for her in her closet, and she’d ignored it.  It was only once she’d started working on her murder / war board that she’d realized she wasn’t wearing some heavy-assed bracelet that could be traded in for a Chinese Space Station.  Eve was working on keeping her promise to wear the jewelry Roarke bought her.  Twenty years, she’d be through the collection in her closet at home and the vault under it, as long as she exchanged pieces every four hours.
Eve was heading back for the conference room and dinner when she heard her name called.  Turning, she found Commander Winslett in front of the resort hotel where Roarke’s penthouse suite overlooked everything.  “Commander Winslett.”  She smiled, offered her hand.  When he used it to pull her in for a kiss, she frowned, pulled free.  The Army had apparently loosened up, if this was their greeting.  “Is you team here?”
He took her arm, guided her toward the bar, surprising power in his hold when she started to dig in her heels.  “Just one drink, Lieutenant Dallas.”  He gave her an amused smile.
Since it was go with him or punch him in the gut, Eve decided a drink would be more discreet.  She tagged Summerset to have Suzette start the meal and Peabody the briefing.  “A drink it is, Commander.”
“Please.  Call me Ulysses.  I was named after the Civil War General who became President of the United States.”  With obvious pride, he expanded and expounded on the subject.  All the while seating Eve at the bar, ordering their drinks, champagne for Eve, and bourbon for himself, and managing to brush her ass with his hand twice.
The third time, Eve smacked his hand, like a boy with his hand going toward the cookie jar.  “I’m married,” she reminded him.  Boy when Roarke was right, he was right, she thought, remembering he’d told her the man had been making a pass.
He apologized, kept right on talking.  Eve gave him a half hour, then excused herself firmly and got to her dinner meeting only a half hour late.  There, she got down to business.
Wononi Yawg was perfectly willing to sign on for some undercover work, and willing to recruit other LCs who could keep their mouths shut.  Considering there were twenty teams, minus hers, Eve was thinking that was one whole hell of a lot of professional talent.  Eve set her on Suzette to figure payment arrangements.  Randolph Spranton was an idiot, so she sicced Feeney and McNab on him.  Eve figured he’d either gain some insight or self-terminate by the time the two E-men were done with him.  Getting into her zone, Eve led her team into battle planning.
When Roarke arrived an hour late, no one thought it unusual.  After all, her team was used to him having other responsibilities, and the people from Olympus knew him to be busy also.  He came to Eve for a brief kiss, then sat down to eat and watch the show that was his blushing wife in action.  His good mood edged out for a few minutes when he watched the replay of Winslett pawing Eve that his Olympus Security Chief sent him.  Pantemen was good, but Eve had shown herself comfortable with Davidson.  Best to get Davidson up here.  He raised his eyes to her face, enjoying the way Eve made it all look so … simple.  There was fierce concentration in her as she planned her battle, but her face revealed so little.  She could have been planning a day at the beach.  This reminded Roarke of a few details left in the surprise he had planned for his lovely Eve.  
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Four days and counting until the War Game.  Eve mentally marked her calendar.  She and the other twenty Team Commanders were reviewing the electronics.  This meant that Roarke and Feeney were being entertained while she pretended to have some understanding of what in the fuck they were talking about.  All she had gotten out of it so far was that the e-troops would be holed up in identical small rooms with a massive amount of computers to help them figure out some puzzle.  When they’d begun to talk about submarines, Eve felt her head began to ache.  They were on a man-made planetoid-looking satellite …just where were the submarines?  In the man-made oceans?
“Lieutenant Dallas?”
Eve focused on the young man all but saluting her.  Whichever branch of the service he was in, he didn’t have the geek look of the room full of men and women at her back.  “Yes.”
“Ma’am, if your people are settled into the briefing, I can show you to the prepping site.”  He waited for her decision, obviously long used to such duties as escorting civilians.
Eve glanced at her two favorite men.  Roarke had his hair tied back with a leather lace, Feeney was chewing on a nut, she hadn’t seen the baggy to recognize what kind.  Waves of affection made her smile, then frown fiercely as Roarke looked over and saw her expression.  One black eyebrow winged up in surprise, then he grinned.  Eve hated it when he caught her looking at him mushy in public.  Private, too, but not as bad.  She shook her head and went with the soldier.  He escorted her to a black hummer and opened the door.  Securing herself with the harness, Eve looked out over the huge expanse of manmade land that they would be using to kick some military ass.  The landscape had been made to look like a theme park.  Different sections as far as the eye could see converged before the buildings they were parked before.  She hit her memory files, found that maybe Summerset had informed her that it was five square miles.  Miles, Eve thought.  Thank God McNab and Feeney were inside working the computers, because the day those two managed five miles cross country … well, it wasn’t happening in her lifetime.
Her escort drove into the center of the acreage where a command post was settled.  Getting out, Eve noticed the lack of other vehicles.  Only one other hummer sat there.  “I thought this was a briefing,” she commented.
“I’m probably back first, Ma’am” he responded, ignoring her order to use ‘Sir’ and waiting patiently for her to start toward the doors.  “You were closest to the site.”

That was true, Eve thought, since she’d been the only Team Leader to be along with the electronics people.  The rest of the Team Leaders no doubt had enough sense to let their Commanders and e-geek experts handle their briefing.  She’d gone along because she hadn’t realized that little semantic.  Hell, Roarke and Feeney had probably been glad to see her go.  She nodded, walked into the building.

And there he was.  “Commander Winslett.”  Eve heard the impatience in her own voice as her eyes took in the intimate table set for two, the soft violin music, the flowers, the tall well-built Army Commander dressed casually in slacks and polo shirt, blue-grey eyes fastened on her like she was a piece of candy.  “You do know I’m married,” she asked, hearing the engine fading as the escort no doubt followed his orders to get lost immediately upon his delivery.

“I don’t consider that a barrier to friendship,” he responded easily.  He held out his right hand.  “Come and eat, Eve.  I know you haven’t had lunch yet.”

Eve felt her lips quirk.  Why were men always trying to feed her?  She was skinny, not underweight.  “Sure, why not?  When’s my ride coming back?”  Why hadn’t she had Roarke teach her how to make one of those damn fancy vehicles start without codes?  She knew he could do it.  She avoided Winslett’s hand, sat down at the table.  He brushed his hand over her neck before going to his side of the table.  Maybe she should just look at this as an opportunity to do a little scout work.

“Now, tell me what you’ve learned so far,” he invited, smoothly taking the silver domes off their plates.  “Since I’m sure your husband has made all the plans to the game site available to you.”

“And you haven’t gotten them through some other means,”  Eve asked sweetly, picking up her fork.  Lasagna tended to call to her even in the worst of times.  She tried a mouthful, hummed.

“You like it.  Good.  My personal chef made it.  And yes, of course, the US Army has its ways of obtaining such information.  May I offer you a small trade?”  He poured them wine, watched her as he sipped.

“Ok.”  She waited, tried a sip.  Not bad.  A thought flitted through her brain that if this had been four years ago she may have been rather flattered.  After all, the man had gone to a lot of trouble to get her alone.  That thought was bulldozed by the thought of what Roarke was going to do when he found out his wife was having an intimate lunch with another man.

“I’ll give you a piece of information that will help you in the target shooting portion of the games; in return, you say my given name.”  He broke a bread stick in two, offered a half.

“That’s a very easy trade, Ulysses.”  Eve accepted the bread, chewed a bite.  Waited, eyes cool, bland.

“It won’t be announced until the games start.  You will be told to select your best two marksmen and they’ll be taken to the target range to compete.  But once they’re done, they’re out of the game all together.  You can’t use them the rest of the day.  And the score is only worth ten percent of the game total.”  He tapped her salad plate with the tines of his fork.  “Eat your salad, Eve.”

Ok, that was just weird.  He even wanted her to eat vegetables like Roarke.  Were there some classes for alpha males?  Special seminars maybe, Eve considered.  Unlike when Roarke tried to dictate to her, she made no effort to eat the attractively plated greens.  “And how do you handle that?”

“My Team Leader typically gives up our two least valuable men.  If you won’t eat the salad, finish your lasagna” he coaxed, reached out and took her hand as she reached for her wine glass.

“Look, Commander Winslett,” she made her tone clipped, cold.  She was undeterred when her effort to free her hand was unsuccessful.  “I love my husband.  Nothing is going to happen between us.”  She yanked free, stood, placing the napkin neatly on the tablecloth.

He stood smoothly, hands out at his side in a gesture of peace.  ‘Of course.  I see you haven’t had time to consider my interest, Eve.  If you’re done eating, I’ll escort you back to your hotel.”  His eyes watched her closely, considering, evaluating.

“Damn right.”  She turned on her heel and led the way out.
Roarke found her with several of the NYPSD team that Chief Tibble and Commander Whitney had sent whom he had never met before two days ago.  They were at the shooting range he had ordered to be functioning while Eve had slept in the Vault room of their home, deciding it would be a good idea.  She looked over, winked, and walked to him.  Delighted, he put his arms around her, drew her close to him.  “And what canary have you swallowed, my little cat”  he asked, kissing her cheeks.

She blinked at him, obviously puzzled, then pushed it aside.  “I have some information for us from my lunch briefing.”

He tasted her lips.  Considered.  Tasted slower, deeper, more.  “Lasagna?”  She laughed against his lips, then squirmed to be free.  Since her new team members weren’t as good as they old ones at pretending they didn’t notice Roarke’s complete inability to keep his hands off his wife, he let her get away.  “Information?”

“Oh, yeah.  I’ll tell you later.  In the meantime, care to help me create two crack shots?”  Glowing brown her eyes told him she had every faith in his ability to do so.

Roarke thought he’d teach Galahad to shoot a stunner for that look.