Missing in Death (In Death #29.5)(19)

“Nearly.” Roarke stood behind the command center, shirtless, his trousers riding low on his hips. “And your Owl’s come out.”

“You found him—her?”

“Him,” Roarke said as she leaped out of bed. He glanced over, smiled. “Come over here and I’ll show you.”

“I bet.” She snatched at her shirt, her pants.

“Killjoy. Well, at least get us both some coffee.”

“Who is he?” she demanded as she dragged on her clothes.

“That depends. He, like his victim, has gone by more than one name. This data claims him as Ivan Draski, age sixty-two, born in the Ukraine. Other data, which on the surface appears just as valid, has him as Javis Drinkle, age sixty, born in Poland. As Draski, he worked for the Freedom Republic, the underground, at the end of the Urbans, in communications and technological development. He’s a scientist.”

She brought the coffee, gulping some down as she read the data.

“Recruited by European Watch Network, techno research and development,” Eve continued. “A gadget guy.”

“An inventor, yes. He makes the toys.”

“An inside guy,” Eve mused. “Sure there’s some field time clocked here, but primarily during the Urbans. It’s primarily science during and after that era.”

“Nanotech,” Roarke began. “Hyperdimensional science, bionics, psionics and so on. He’s worked on all this. It looks to me, according to this data, you owe your stunner to his work, among other things. And yet I’ve never heard of him. They’ve kept him tightly wrapped for decades.”

“Maybe he decided it was time for a raise and some credit.” She tried to make sense of it. “So, he’s lured away from EWN to HSO nearly twenty years ago. And still, I’m not seeing wet work here. He’s a techno geek.”

“A brilliant one. No. No black ops or wet work listed. But look there, his wife and daughter were killed twenty years ago in a brutal slaying.”

“That’s interesting timing,” Eve said.

“Isn’t it? Officially a home invasion. Unofficially, a fringe wing of EWN who’d targeted him for his knowledge and accessibility to sensitive material.”

“They eat their own.” When he switched to the crime scene photos, Eve hissed out a breath. “Jesus.”

“Mutilated, hacked to pieces.” Roarke’s voice tightened in disgust. “The girl was just twelve. The wife was a low-l evel agent, hardly more than a clerk. You have higher clearance, I expect.”

“The writing on the wall there. Did you translate?”

“The computer recognizes it as Ukrainian for ‘traitor’ and ‘whore.’ Neither EWN nor any other official file on the matter claims credit or responsibility for the killings.”

“They were on her list. On Buckley’s list of hits in HSO’s data banks.” She called for the computer to run the list on another screen to verify. “They’re there, on her list, but no employer assigned. Nobody’s taken credit.”

“If there’s data on that, it’s in another area. If there’s any more data on this hit, it’s been wiped or boxed. Even I can’t get at it from here, or certainly not quickly. You’d have to be inside to get at it.”

“He’s inside; he found it.” There was motive, Eve thought. There was the personal. “Why the hell didn’t they destroy the file if they continued to use her, and had him on the payroll?”

“Somebody f**ked up, I’d say, but at the core HSO is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies love their paperwork.”

“Does he have a fixed address?”

“Right here in New York.”

She looked back over her shoulder at him. “That’s too f**king easy.”

“Upper East Side, in a town house he owns under the name of Frank Plutz.”

“Plutz? Seriously?”

“Frank J. Plutz, employed by HSO, who lists him as Supervisor, Tech R and D, U.S. Division, in their official file. Which of course is bollocks. He’s a hell of a lot more.”

Now Eve studied the ID shot of a middle-aged man with a thinning crop of gray hair, a round face, a bit heavy in the chin, and mild blue eyes who smiled soberly from the wall screen.

“God. He looks harmless.”

“He survived the Urban Wars in the underground, has worked for at least two intelligence organizations, neither of which worries overmuch about spilled blood. I’d say appearances are deceiving.”

“I need to put a team together and go visit the deceptively harmless Mr. Plutz.”

“I want to play. And I very much want to meet this man.”

“I guess you’ve earned it.”

His eyes gleamed. “If you don’t put him in a cage, I wonder what I can offer him to switch to the private sector.”

Eight

As taking down a spy wasn’t her usual job, Eve opted for a small, tight team. She had two officers in soft clothes stationed at the rear of the trim Upper East Side town house, McNab handling the com along with Roarke in the unmarked van. She, along with Peabody, would take the front.

It struck her as a bit of overkill for one man, but she had to factor in that one man had over forty years of espionage experience, and had managed to slip off a ferry of more than three thousand people with a dead body.