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"You got a name?"
"Yes, yes, ma'am. Sherry Combs. I'm Sherry Combs." She had her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm with Zippy. I have a delivery. Please, lady, I don't carry any money."
"Is that the right name, Summerset?"
"Yes. She's just a child, Lieutenant, and you've frightened her."
"She'll live through it. How'd you get the delivery, Sherry?"
"I-I-I…" She gulped audibly, kept her eyes shut. "I'm on rotation."
"No, how did the package come in?"
"Oh, oh, oh, drop box. I think. I'm pretty sure. Golly, I don't know. My supervisor just told me to bring it here. It's my job."
"Okay." Eve eased back, patted Sherry's shoulder. "We've been getting a lot of solicitations," she said with a smile. "We really hate that here." She pulled out a fifty-credit chip and pressed it into the girl's sweaty palm. "You drive careful."
"Okay, right, thanks, gosh." She started for the door, then turned back, almost tearfully. "Man, gee lady, you're supposed to sign for it, but you don't have to if you don't want to."
Eve simply jerked her head toward Summerset, then started upstairs with the pouch. She heard him murmur to the girl. "I'm terribly sorry. She hasn't had her medication today."
Despite the fact that she'd seen the return address on the pouch, Eve had to grin. But the humor didn't last long. Her eyes were cool when she walked back into her office. She sealed her hands, opened the pouch, then slipped the disc it held into her machine.
We are Cassandra.
We are the gods of justice.
We are loyal.
Lieutenant Dallas, we hope our demonstration of this morning was enough to convince you of our capabilities and the seriousness of our intent. We are Cassandra, and we predict that you will show your respect to us by arranging for the release of the following political heroes now wrongly imprisoned in the gestapo facilities of Kent Prison in New York: Carl Minnu, Milicent Jung, Peter Johnson, and Susan B. Stoops.
If these patriots of freedom are not released by noon tomorrow, we will be forced to sacrifice a New York landmark. A symbol of excess and foolishness where mortals gawk at mortals. You will be contacted at noon for verification. If our demands are not met, all lives lost will be on your head.
We are Cassandra.
Susan B. Stoops, Eve thought. Susie B, former nurse, who had poisoned fifteen elderly patients at the rehab facility where she'd worked. Claiming they had all been war criminals.
Eve had been primary, had taken her in, and knew Nurse Susie B was doing five terms of life in the mentally defective ward at Kent Prison.
She had a feeling the other "political heroes" would have similar histories.
She copied the disc and called Whitney.
• • •
"It's out of my hands, at least for now," Eve told Roarke as she paced the main parlor. "The political heads are doing their circle and spin. I wait for orders. I wait for contact."
"They won't agree to terms."
"No. You add up the body count the four names they want are responsible for, you come up with over a hundred. Jung blew up a church claiming all religious symbols were tools of the hypocritical right. A kids' choir was rehearsing inside. Minnu burnt down a cafe in SoHo, trapping over fifty people inside. He claimed it was a front for the fascist left, and Johnson was a hired assassin who killed anyone for the right price. What the hell's the connection?"
"Maybe there isn't one. It may just be a test. Will the governor acquiesce, or will he refuse?"
"They have to know he'll refuse. They've left us no way to negotiate."
"So you wait."
"Yeah. What place in New York symbolizes excess and foolishness?"
