Seduction in Death (In Death #13)(35)

"Ask it."

"How did he know we were coming? He had to know. That's why he uploaded the virus. We were here minutes after notification, but he tagged us, dumped the germ and danced. How?"

"I have a theory, but I'd prefer exploring it a bit first."

She shifted her weight. "Exploring how?"

"I need to open this unit."

She debated. Strict procedure meant she could, and likely should, roust either Feeney or McNab and haul them over to check out the unit on site. Or she could call in another EDD tech.

But Roarke was here.

If he'd been a cop, he'd have been commanding EDD by this time.

"Consider yourself field drafted as an expert consultant, civilian."

"I've always liked the ring of that." He slid a small case out of his inside pocket, then wiggled his sealed fingers. "I'm touching things now."

He used a micro-drill and had the casing removed in seconds. Then he let out a little hmmm and began to probe. "There are three system levels in this club," he said conversationally. "This is the highest level and costs from one to ten dollars a minute depending on the number of functions utilized."

Her stomach sank. "Is this your club?"

"It is, yes." He continued to work, hooking his PPC to the unit with a hair-thin cable. "But that's neither here nor there. Unless you consider that you'll have no bitching and moaning from the owner about tonight's little adventure -- or the impounding of this unit as evidence." He glanced up once, just a sweep of her face with those amused blue eyes. "Less paperwork for you."

"You know how those right-wing bureaucratic demigods are. They feed on paperwork."

"You've a bruise gathering on your jaw."

"Yeah." She rubbed her thumb over the ache. "Shit."

"Hurt?"

"I bit my tongue. That hurts more. You?"

"Nothing major. This system is corrupted, and very thoroughly. Clever boy," he reflected. "Clever, clever boy. You'll need to run a full diagnostic, but it appears you have a top-level tech on your hands, and one who believes in being prepared. It isn't a simple matter to rig a public unit to notify a user of a search on his account. He had a portable scanner, highly sensitive, I'd say, interfaced it. Very cautious, very smart."

"Can you get around it?"

"Eventually. The units in this club are designed quite well to shut down and lock at any attempt at contamination. There's an internal detector and filtering system as backup. Despite that, he managed to upload a virus that wiped this unit, and every other in here. And it did it in minutes, after detecting a shield notification."

She leaned back. "You sound impressed."

"Oh, I am. Considerably impressed. Your man has a brilliant talent. A pity, really, that he's as corrupt and worthless as this unit."

"Yeah. Breaks my heart." She stood up. "I'm going to spring the staff, have the unit impounded and sent to EDD. Once we're cleared out, I want a look at security. Let's see what he looked like tonight."

He looked, Eve decided, smug. She caught it in the way his eyes drifted over the crowd -- dismissing, smirking even while he kept a pleasant, inoffensive smile on his face.

He walked through the crowd, kept himself removed from them. No contact, no casual greetings. And moved directly to the cube that put his back to the wall, and kept his view of the room unobstructed.

"He's been here before," Eve noted.

None of the staff had been able to confirm that. Then again, the manager had been so flustered -- not by the police intervention, not even by the near-riot, but, she remembered, by the realization that Roarke was in the club -- that he'd had a hard time sputtering out his own name.

The unit and cube had been reserved under the name R. W. Emerson. An alias, she had no doubt, and the name, she'd learned after a quick run, of a long-dead poet.

His hair was a smooth, warm brown mane tonight, and he wore square-framed glasses of tinted amber. She supposed his attire was casual trendy with the dark pegged pants, the ankle boots, the long, hip-swishing shirt in the same amber hue as his lenses. There was a gold cuff bracelet on his right wrist and a curve of winking studs along the shell of his ear.

He ordered the coffee first, made a call on his pocket 'link. Then he drank a little while he continued to watch the room.

"He's making sure the environment's stable," Eve said. "And he's hunting. Tracking the women, considering them. You can message to any other unit in the club, right? Isn't that one of the deals why people go instead of just staying home and scoping the 'net in peace?"

"Another way of socializing," Roarke confirmed. "Excitingly anonymous, even voyeuristic. You message a unit across the room, can watch their reaction, decide if you want to take it to the next step and make personal contact. Units are equipped with a standard privacy shield for those who don't want to be disturbed. Or hit on."

She watched her suspect log on, and choose manual instead of voice mode.

"There." Roarke touched her arm, then ordered the screen to zoom in, to enlarge a sector. "The scanner."

She saw what looked like a small, slim, silver business card case. He drew a thin, retractable cable out of the corner, plugged it into the side port of the unit.