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“Now it lists her assets. The languages she spoke, her e-skill level, the weaponry she was cleared for. Included in her dossier is this list.” He scrolled down. “Names, nationalities, ranks if applicable, dates.”
“Her hit list,” Eve mumbled. “They know or believe she’s killed these people, but they let her walk around.”
“Undoubtedly she killed some of those people for these agencies. They let her walk around until now because she’s useful to them.”
Eve dealt with murder every day, yet this offended and disturbed her on some core level she wasn’t sure she could articulate.
“That’s not how it’s supposed to be. You can’t just kill or order someone’s death because it’s expedient. We’ve managed to virtually outlaw torture and executions; if a cop terminates in the line, he has to go through testing to ensure it was ultimate force that was necessary. But there are still people, supposedly on our side, who would use someone like her to do their dirty work.”
“People who use someone like her rarely, if ever, get their hands dirty.”
“She was a psychopath. Look at her psych profile, for God’s sake.” Eve swung an arm at the screen. “She should’ve been put away, just like the person who did her needs to be put away.”
He watched her as she read the data onscreen. “You have less gray area than most.”
“You think this is acceptable? Jesus, read the list. Some of them are kids.”
“Collateral damage, I expect. And no,” he added as she swung around, her eyes firing. “I don’t think it’s acceptable to kill for money, for the thrill or for expedience. There may be more gray in my world than yours when it comes to killing for a cause, but that’s not what she did. It was profit and, I believe, for fun. And I suspect, if it had been Buckley standing in that room when Carolee walked in, those boys would be grieving for their mother tonight instead of cuddled up with her watching in-room movies.”
“Not all assassins are created equal?” Calmer, she angled her head as she studied the screen. “We need to look at this list, see if we can connect any of these names to someone in the same business. Someone skilled enough to get the drop on her.”
“I’ll set it up. Meanwhile, there’s interesting data on the device. This memo was issued two days ago.” Again, he ordered the data onscreen.
“ ‘The Lost delayed. Owl to commence new series of tests in Sector Twelve. Owl request for seventy-two and blackout approved.’ ” Eve puzzled over it a moment. “She’s not Owl. Who’d code-name a female assassin—a young, attractive one—Owl?”
“We can go over the earlier memos, but I’d say Owl would be in charge of the development of the device.”
“The Lost. You lose time, yourself, your memory of what happened when you’re . . . gone. So, if this Owl or someone under him/her had it, maybe it was an exchange. No, no, it was a setup. It was planned. He had to have a way off the damn ferry, so none of it was spontaneous. Delayed? But if it was used, it was complete.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a member of the team decided to go free agent.”
“Fake a delay so you could sell it, but you don’t sell it. You walk away with whatever she had in that briefcase and the device. A twofer. If this is the last memo in the file, HSO isn’t yet aware they have a problem.”
“Still another reason to take the body,” Roarke pointed out. “Buys that time you spoke of. Maybe he had another offer. Or wants to renegotiate the fee, from a safe location.”
“It wasn’t about money,” Eve murmured. “not just about money. Buying time, yeah, that plays. She won’t be identified, officially, to the media until tomorrow.”
“There’s more. Photos of some of her work. Images onscreen, slide-show method,” he ordered.
She’d seen death, in all its forms, too many times to count. She watched it now, roll over the wall screen. Rent flesh, spilled blood, charred hulks.
“Some of these, of course, were very bad people. Others, very bad people wanted out of the way. It appears she didn’t discriminate. She followed the money. Some might argue whoever killed her did the world a favor.”
“And what makes him any better than her?” Eve demanded.
He only shrugged, knowing on some points they would never agree. “Some would argue otherwise.”
“Yeah, some would. Let’s find Owl.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “And I have to figure out a logical way to explain how I came by anything we get out of this tonight.”
“The ever-popular anonymous source.”
“Yeah, that’ll fool everybody who knows us.”
He initiated a series of searches, then studied her as she stood still watching death scroll by. “It’s harder when the victim is abhorrent to you.”
Eve shook her head. “I’m not allowed to decide if a murder victim is worth standing for. I stand for them.”
He rose, went to her. “But it’s harder when that victim has so many victims. So much blood on her hands.”
