Missing in Death (In Death #29.5)(27)

“You were—are—a scientist,” Eve interrupted. “I read your file.”

“Then you’re very good indeed. Did you find the rest?”

“Yes. Just shortly ago,” Roarke answered. “I’m very sorry. Homeland wanted to recruit him,” he told Eve, “possibly use him as a mole or simply bring him over.”

“I was happy where I was. I believed in what I was doing.”

“They considered various options,” Roarke continued. “Abducting him, torture, abducting his child, discrediting him. The decision was, as time was of some essence, to strip him of his ties, and offer him not only asylum but revenge.”

“They sent that woman to murder my wife, my child, to make it seem like my own people had ordered it. They showed me documentation, gave me the name of the assassins, the orders to terminate me and my family. I should have been home, you see, but I had car trouble that delayed me. They’d rigged it, of course, but I believed them. I of all people should have known how these things can be faked, but I was grieving, I was wild with grief, and I believed. I betrayed good men and women because I believed the lie and was happy to take my pound of flesh. And I became one of them. Everything I’ve done for these twenty years has been on the blood of my wife and child. They killed them to use me.”

“Why now?” Eve demanded. “Why execute her now, and with such theatrics?”

“Six months ago I found the file. I was searching for some old data, and found it. The man who’d ordered the murders is long dead, so perhaps there was carelessness. Or perhaps someone wanted me to find it. It’s a slippery world we live in.”

He stroked the cat methodically. “I thought of many ways to kill her.” He sighed. “I’ve been one for the laboratory for a very long time, but I began to train. My body, with weapons. I trained every day, like the old days,” he said with a smile for Summerset. “I had purpose again. I found my way with Lost Time. So apt, isn’t it? All the time I’d lost. Time she’d cost me, had stolen from my wife, my baby.”

“I’m sorry, Ivan.” Summerset laid a comforting hand on his friend’s arm. “I know what it is to lose a child.”

“She was so bright, the light . . . the proof of light after all those dark times. And this woman snuffed her out, for money. If you’ve read her files, you know what she was.”

He paused, sipped brandy, settled himself again. “I formed the plan. I was always good at tactics and strategy, you remember.”

“Yes, I remember,” Summerset concurred.

“I had to move quickly, to leak the data to her, to paint the picture that I was dissatisfied with my position, my pay, and might be willing to bargain for better.”

“You let her make the approach, let her pick the time and the place so she believed she had the advantage.”

Now he smiled at Eve. “She wasn’t as smart as you. Once, perhaps, but she was arrogant and greedy. She never intended to pay me for the device and the files I’d stolen. She would kill me, have the device and all the records on it, while others competed. She had no allegiance, you see, to any person, agency, any cause. She liked to kill. It’s in her psych file.”

Eve nodded. “I’ve read it.”

Again his eyes widened before he glanced toward Roarke. “I think you may be better even than the rumors. How I’d enjoy talking with you.”

“I’ve thought the same.”

“In my business there’s no law, as in yours,” Ivan said to Eve. “No police, so to speak, where I could go and say this woman murdered my family. She was paid to do so. It’s . . . business, so there’s no punishment, no justice. I planned, I researched and I accessed her computers. I’m very good at my work, too. I knew before she arranged the meet what she intended. To take the money, disable or kill me, then—” He gestured to the case beside his chair. “May I?”

“No. She was carrying this,” Eve said as she rose to retrieve the case, “when she got on the ferry.”

“It’s a bomb. Disabled,” he said quickly. “It’s configured inside the computer. It’s rather small, but powerful. It would have done considerable damage to that section of the ferry. There were so many people there. Children. Their lives meant nothing to her. They would be a distraction.”

“Like fireworks?”

“Harmless.” He smiled again.

“Let me have that.” Roarke glanced at Summerset, got a nod, as he took the case from Eve. And opened it.

“Wait. Jesus!”

“Disabled,” he assured Eve after a glance. “I’ve seen this system before.

“You know, I think how we came to meet. The location was her choice,” Ivan added. “She thought of me as old, harmless, someone who creates gadgets, we’ll say, rather than one who would use them. But old skills can come back.”

“Six months to refine your skills,” Eve said, “and set the trap.”

“Maybe there was a cold madness in the planning, in my dedication to it. Even so, I don’t regret. I thought to do it quickly. Slit her throat. Put her in the hamper. I’d use the device to get away.”

“How?” Eve demanded. “How did you get off the damn ferry?”