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"Why don't you let me look at the records, with the eye of a veteran cop-spotter?''
"It couldn't hurt." She turned to her computer, ordered dupes of all operational files. "We should have plenty of full views of him on the lobby file. There's not much of his face, but maybe you'll spot something that clicks. You've got to know him, Roarke."
"I'll do what I can."
"I don't know when I'll be home." She handed him the copies. "But don't wait up."
• • •
She grabbed a cheese phyllo and an energy bar at a QuickMart and settled for a tube of Pepsi rather than their notoriously poisonous coffee. She carried the miserable meal with her into the second-floor conference room where McNab was heading the electronic sweep.
"Anything?"
"Plenty of hits on mega-links, laser faxes. The building's lousy with high-end electronics. We're checking floor to floor, but there's nothing on the scale of what our guy plays with."
Eve set the bag down, then reached out and turned McNab's face toward her with a firm thumb to his chin. There was a bruising knot on his forehead and a long thin scrap just above his right eye. "Get the MTs to look at that ugly face of yours?"
"Just a bump. Damn dog came at me like an Arena Ball tackle." He shifted in his chair so that the gold rings in his ears jangled. "I'd like to apologize for my insubordination during the operation, Lieutenant."
"No, you wouldn't. You were pissed and you still are." She pulled out her tube of Pepsi, broke the safety seal. "You were wrong, and you still are. So stuff the apology. Don't ever question an order from a superior officer during an operation, McNab, or you'll end up skulking in some little dark room listening to sex noises for a private security hack instead of rising through the ranks of the illustrious EDD."
While his temper bobbed up and down, he meticulously manipulated his scanner, noting the location of a dual communication unit on floor eighteen.
"Okay, maybe I'm still a little steamed, and maybe I know I was over the line. I'm lucky if I get out of my cube at Central once a month. This was the closest I've come to action, then you yanked me."
Looking at him, at that young, smooth, eager face, she felt incredibly old and jaded. "McNab, have you ever participated in hand-to-hand other than in training?"
"No, but—"
"Have you ever discharged your weapon at anything other than a heat target?"
His mouth went sulky. "No. So I'm not a warrior."
"Your strengths are right here." She tapped a finger on his scanner, then pulled out her energy bar. "You know as well as I do how many applicants wash out of the EDD program every year. They only take the top. And you're good. I've worked with the best," she said, thinking of Feeney, "so I know. This is where I need you to take this fucker down."
Then none too gently, she tapped her finger on the swollen bruise on his forehead. "And action mostly just hurts like a bitch."
"Guys are going to rag me for weeks. Getting taken down by a dog."
"It was a pretty big dog." Sympathetic now, Eve took out the phyllo and gave it to him. "Really big teeth. Lorimar took a bite in the ankle."
"Yeah?" Somewhat cheered, McNab bit into the bread and cheese. "I hadn't heard." A series of beeps had him frowning at the scanner. "Lots of goodies on nineteen, east wing apartment." He shifted to his communicator. "Blue team, check on nineteen twenty-three. It looks like some rich kid's entertainment center, but it's loaded."
"I'll go check on the door-to-doors," Eve said. "You get any interesting hits, pass them on to me."
"You first, Dallas. Thanks for the food. Say, ah, where's Peabody?"
Eve lifted a brow as she glanced back over her shoulder. "Overseeing the breakdown of equipment in the penthouse at the Arms. She doesn't like you, McNab."
"I know." He flashed a grin. "I find that really attractive in a woman." He turned back to his scanner, humming as he went through the complicated task of separating the beeps into known components.
• • •
At midnight, she ordered in a new crew, sent McNab home for eight hours off, and packed it in. It didn't surprise her to find Roarke up, in his office, enjoying a glass of wine while he studied the recordings.
"I had the first team wrap for the night. They were getting punchy."
"You look a bit punchy yourself, Lieutenant. Shall I pour you a glass of wine?''
