Delusion in Death

6

She woke to the scent of coffee, And wondered if that was how mornings in heaven smelled. She opened her eyes to soft light, and Roarke sitting on the side of the bed.

Definitely had earmarks of heaven.

“Your wake-up call, Lieutenant.”

She grunted, shoved up, reached for the coffee he held. He moved it out of reach.

“What makes you think this is yours?”

“Because you’re you.”

“So I am.” He brushed at her hair, a light, easy touch, but his eyes took a deep and thorough study of her face. “You slept well enough, I think.”

“Yeah.” Taking the coffee, she breathed in the scent like air, then drank. Then gave her mind a chance to catch up.

He’d dressed, though he’d yet to put on his jacket and tie. The cat ignored them both, sprawled on the foot of the bed like a lumpy blanket.

A glance at the clock showed her it was precisely five-thirty.

She didn’t know how he did it.

He watched her come around, watched the sleep glaze fade until her eyes were alert, focused.

“And now you’re you,” he decided.

“If there wasn’t coffee, the entire world would shuffle around like zombies.”

She moved quickly now, and by the time she’d dressed he had breakfast set up in the sitting area. She eyed the oatmeal suspiciously.

“It’s what you need,” he said, anticipating her. Then trailed a finger down the shallow dent in her chin. “Don’t be a baby about it.”

“I’m an adult. I thought when you got to be an adult you could eat what you want.”

“You can, when your stomach also reaches maturity.”

Because arguing about it would waste time she didn’t have, she sat, spooned some up. Since it was loaded with apples and cinnamon, she tried to think of it as a weird apple Danish.

“I’ve copied the data I compiled and sent it to your computer,” he began, “but I can give you a summary.”

“Summarize away.”

“There are some life insurance policies large enough to be tempting.”

She loaded a piece of toast with some sort of jam. Enough jam, she thought, might disguise the weird apple Danish. “You have a different level of what’s tempting, monetarily, than the rest of the population.”

“It wasn’t always so, was it?” He ate his own oatmeal with apparent contentment. And probably actually thought of it as oatmeal. “While it’s true a certain type will kill for loose change, that’s not what you’re after here. We have a couple of victims who stood to inherit family money, and some substantially. There’s also the matter of salaries, pay scales, positions, bonuses. A large percentage of the victims were executives, junior executives, which means they certainly stood ahead of someone, or several someones on that corporate ladder.”

As he spoke he simply lifted a finger, and the cat—who’d been bellying over like some furry combatant, stopped.

Galahad stretched as if he’d had nothing more in mind.

“The admins, assistants—the support also takes a rung,” Roarke continued. “And all these positions can earn bonuses—often hefty ones—for bringing in accounts, clients, reaching or exceeding sales goals or running a successful campaign. There’s only so much bonus money to go around, so if someone’s rewarded—”

“Somebody else gets a hearty handshake.”

“Basically. Or may lose out on a desired promotion when the someone else lands that major client or account, has a good run of sales.”

“People get pissed when they get passed over, or somebody else gets the plum on top.”

“Cherry. The cherry’s on top. The plum’s in the pie.”

“Sometimes you want the plum, the cherry, and the whole damn pie. It doesn’t feel like greed, not simple, ‘I want it all’ greed. But it may be a factor. Ambition, greed, envy—it’s what starts wars. You want what the other guy has, so you fight to take it from him. It feels like a war. That’s why Summerset’s Urbans connection rings for me.”

“Not old-style, hand-to-hand or weapon-against-weapon,” Roarke put in. “But the more dispassionate, distant style of dropping a bomb from a great height, or launching a missile—or, more accurately, the cold science of germ and biological warfare.”

“That’s what it is—warfare. Cold, dispassionate, and distant. But to start a war, or wage a battle, you have to want something.”

“It’s possible all he wanted was to kill, and to see if his method worked, and how well.”

“Another factor, but if that was it, that was all, I think he’d take credit or taunt. I’m so smart, I’m so clever. Look what I did. Instead we’re into the next day, and there’s no contact. My sense is there’s a connection to the bar and/or somebody in it he doesn’t want coming back on him.”

She pushed to her feet, strode over to strap on her weapon. “Another high probability, according to the percentages: It’s a strike against a business or corporation whose suits frequent the place. He didn’t get that bonus or promotion, or more probable, got demoted or fired.”

“I’ve got most of that data as well—or will have by now as I left the search ongoing last night. By the time you compile all these names, you and your team are going to have more suspects—”

“Persons of interest—for now.”

“However you want to term it. It’ll take a week to run them, interview them, analyze.”

“I’m going to cross them with mine. Anyone who pops on both lists, that’s priority. We’ll work through elimination, go with the percentages. I’ll get more manpower for the drone work. Whitney’s going public, so that means we’ll have the cracks and loonies buzzing us—but there may be something in what comes in. We’ll sift through, follow up.”

She paused, pulled on a jacket. “I need to see the data, and I need my boards. There’s time to filter it down some before the briefing.”

“I’ll give Feeney, and you if you want it, time when and where I can.” He laid a hand on her shoulder as they walked out together. “You’ll contact Mira, make arrangements to talk to her.”

She actually felt her hackles rise. “I said I would.”

“Then I trust you will.”

Even as she walked into her office, Summerset stepped out of Roarke’s. The man had some kind of spooky radar, or he’d found a way to plant tracking devices.

Either way, it was creepy.

“I have some information you may want.” He offered her a disc. “There are names on there of people who trust me. Their identities must be protected.”

“Understood.”

“Some of the information can’t be officially confirmed, as the files have been sealed if not destroyed.”

She lifted the disc. “Is this speculation or fact?”

“The attacks are fact. There were witnesses, including the boy I spoke of last night—though he’s no longer a boy. You have his name now, and his statement as he related it to me. Others I spoke to, who were in the position to know or find out, state the initial investigation was able to identify most of the components of the substance used. The base was lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly called—”

“LSD. I know what it is.”

“The other components are on the disc, but as I said, can’t be confirmed. I have a connection who was, during the time, in the King’s Army. We weren’t acquainted during the war, but met some years after. He states a suspect was apprehended after the second attack, taken into custody. The investigation was subsequently closed, and deemed an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Officially, yes. Speculation, as he related the rumors that ran through the ranks. The suspect was transported to an unknown location. My acquaintance believes he was executed, but that can’t be verified. Others believe he was held and used to create an antidote, or still others say the military used him to create more of the substance, perhaps others.”

“No ID on the suspect then?”

“The theory was, and remains, he—or they—were part of the fringe element who believed society had to be destroyed before it could be rebuilt. The Purging, they called it. They were, thankfully, small groups who used any means to destroy homes, buildings, vehicles—hospitals were a favorite target, as were children.”

“Children?”

“They abducted them. Those they abducted they indoctrinated, or attempted to indoctrinate into their ideology. Once they’d purged—people, culture, technology, finance—the children would repopulate and rebuild.”

“Why haven’t I heard of this?”

“The Purging is documented, though whitewashed and diluted. Study your history, Lieutenant. Past is prologue.”

“Shit.” She turned to her board. “Maybe this is some fringe group of terrorists, and I’m going in the wrong direction.”

“Has there been any contact with authorities? Any claim for credit?”

“No. And damn it, this type of group wants the credit.”

“I agree. Any attack during the Urbans initiated by these fringe groups was immediately followed by a message sent to the nearest military or police authority. It was always the same message: ‘Behold a Red Horse.’”

“Horse? What the hell does a horse have to do with it?”

“I remember this,” Roarke added. “I’ve read of this, of them. They didn’t have a specific leader or figurehead, and were for the most part scattered and disorganized. But fervent all the same. They believed the wars, and the social and economic upheaval before them, signaled the end-time. And they not only welcomed it, but sought to help it along to their own ends.”

“Great.” She shoved the disc in her pocket, then a hand through her hair. “Add possible whacked religious fanatic to the mix. What’s with the horse?”

“The Second Horseman of the Apocalypse,” Summerset told her. “‘And when he had opened the second seal I heard the second beast say “Come and See.’”

“‘And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.’”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t blame him,” Roarke said. “He didn’t actually write it.”

“The red horse is often interpreted to represent war,” Summerset added. “And so they used that symbol, and that passage to symbolize their beliefs, and justify their murder of innocents.” Summerset studied her boards. “I don’t know if it’s what you have now.”

“It’s a hell of a long time to wait between attacks, but I have to follow this up. I appreciate the information.”

“Of course.”

Roarke looked after him when he left. “Difficult memories for him. You understand difficult memories.”

“Yeah, I do. And it’s worse if they decide to make a replay. That horse thing’s from the Bible?”

“Revelation.”

“I’ll need to take a look at it, and at your data. Maybe there’s another connection, personal grievance, greed, and bastardized religion. Abducted kids. We don’t have that. Possibly the killer was an abducted kid—toddler gets snatched, raised in Crazy Town, grows up and decides to saddle the red horse.”

She shook her head. “I have to work through this.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” He took her shoulders, drew her in for a kiss. “I’ll come into Central later if I can.”

She went to her desk, called up Roarke’s data. She gauged her time, hit the highlights, ordered the cross to run, and the results to copy to both home and office comps.

While it ran, she read Summerset’s data, picked through it, wrote up her own notes. Somewhere, she mused, there’d be a file on known members of this Red Horse cult. Sealed and buried maybe, but they’d be somewhere.

Once she’d organized for the briefing, she decided she’d program Revelation to audio on her vehicle computer. Save time.

She hauled up everything she needed, snagged her coat on the way out.

She intended to bypass her office, head straight to the conference room to update the board, program the new images. And spotted Nadine Furst, Channel 75’s top screen reporter, best-selling author, and dogged crime beat investigator pacing the corridor outside her bullpen.

They may have been friends, but at the moment, the always camera-ready, sharp-eyed Nadine was the last thing she wanted to deal with.

Nadine’s power-red toothpick heels clicked, and the glossy pink bakery box she carried swung back and forth with her movements. Eve wondered why, of all days, her men hadn’t snatched the baked goods and given Nadine a pass into her office.

Couldn’t get past her, Eve calculated, and into the conference room where even Nadine didn’t have the balls to intrude.

Eve moved forward, recognizing by those clicking heels and the swinging box Nadine was steamed.

“Getting an early start today,” Eve commented on Nadine’s return trip.

Those cat-green eyes fired. “You don’t return my half dozen contacts, and Jenkinson—Jenkinson, for God’s sake—turns down three dozen handmade pastries and tells me I have to wait out here or in the lounge. I get nothing but spin and double-speak from the media liaison. I deserve better than this, Dallas. Goddamn it.”

“I haven’t returned your contacts or any from the media. We’re Code Blue until the media conference later today.” Eve shot up a hand before Nadine could snarl a response. “My men, including Jenkinson, have more on their minds than pastries. Whatever you think you deserve, Nadine, there are times you just have to wait.”

“If you don’t trust me after all this—”

“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s about time and priorities. I can give you five minutes, and that’s all.” She turned into the bullpen, held out her hand for the bakery box. Jaw tight, Nadine shoved it at her. “Go on into my office. I’ll be right there.”

Leaving Nadine to go or stay, she crossed to Jenkinson’s desk.

“Sorry, LT. I couldn’t order her out of the building, but—”

“No problem.” She dropped her bag on his desk. “The minute Peabody gets in, give that to her, tell her to start setting up in the conference room. She’ll figure it out.”

“You got it.”

Eve plopped the big pink box beside the bag. “Fuel up. It’s going to be a long one.”

His tired face brightened. “Yes, sir!”

She heard, as she started toward her office, the stampede as detectives and uniforms surged Jenkinson.

Rather than taking the undeniably uncomfortable visitor’s chair, Nadine stood at Eve’s skinny window, arms folded.

“What group is responsible for the attack on the bar? Has Homeland or any government anti-terrorist organization joined this investigation? How many individuals infiltrated the bar, and do you have any in custody? Will you confirm a biological agent was used in this attack? There are sources that claim some of the victims were induced to injure or even kill others. Can you confirm?”

While Nadine rolled out questions, Eve rested her hip on the corner of her desk, waited.

“You just wasted a chunk of your five. You can be quiet, listen to what I can and will tell you, or you can keep wasting your time.”

“This is bullshit, Dallas.”

“No, it’s not bullshit, not when over eighty people are dead. Not when families, friends, neighbors are reeling from the shock of that loss. Not when the handful of survivors is struggling with intense physical and emotional trauma.”

“I spent time with some of those families and friends yesterday. I know what they’re dealing with. You’re not giving them any answers.”

“I can’t. Not yet. The reason you’re in this office, and I’m talking to you isn’t because we’re friends. We’ve both got jobs to do, and we’re both damn good at our jobs. You’re in here because you’re the best I know, and because I know whatever I tell you to hold, you’ll hold. I don’t doubt that, and I don’t have to ask for your word. That’s not friendship either, it’s knowing what you do isn’t just a job to you, any more than mine is to me. So be quiet, and listen, or let me get back to what I have to do.”

Nadine took a long breath, rolled her shoulders, shook back her streaky blond hair. Then she moved to the visitor’s chair, sat.

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“I don’t know what Whitney plans to say in the media conference. I haven’t had time to connect with the liaison. Whatever I tell you that isn’t part of that statement, part of what the NYPSD released to the public, has to hold.”

“All right. I want to record—”

“You can’t. Take notes if you need to in that weird code of yours. Your eyes only.”

“You’re starting to spook me,” Nadine said as she dug out a notebook.

“I haven’t even started. We’ve identified a chemical substance that was released in the bar. Hallucinogenic base that causes paranoid delusions and violent behavior. It acts quickly, only lasts a short amount of time, but long enough. It’s airborne, and as far as we know, these effects are also limited in area.”

“Like the bar, with the doors and windows closed, the air circulation helping disperse it.”

At least she didn’t have to cross every “T” with Nadine. She gave her what she could, what seemed enough to set Nadine’s reporter’s instincts humming.

“Nobody’s taken credit or issued a political statement, so you believe an individual or individuals are responsible.”

“It’s most probable,” Eve confirmed. “However, I have some information from a source.” And this, Eve thought, was where Nadine and her research chops would serve.

She outlined, briefly, Red Horse, The Purging. “I’ve only begun to dig into that angle,” she continued. “I’m going to assign men to follow that up. You could look into that, dig into that, but whoever you use can’t know it may be connected to this investigation.”

“Got it. I don’t know much about that group, and history class was a long time ago, but didn’t they take kids—for brainwashing? I haven’t heard anything about child abductions.”

“No. It’s a lead, an angle, with enough similarities to warrant a good, careful look.

“That’s all I can give you, and I’ve got a briefing.”

Nadine got to her feet. “I’m going to want more.”

“What I can, when I can. I can’t promise.”

“You didn’t need my word, I don’t need your promise. It’s professional respect, yes, but you’re wrong, Dallas. It’s also friendship.”

She started out, paused, smiled a little. “I hate to admit this, but Jenkinson hurt my feelings when he turned down my pastries.”

“It was harder on him, believe me, than you.”

“I’m soft on him, on all of them. Good hunting, Dallas,” she added, and walked out on her power shoes.

Since she was there, Eve programmed a cup of coffee, and carried it with her to the conference room.

The reliable Peabody was updating the board.

“I’m putting up the current crop of persons of interest on a separate board,” she told Eve. “Otherwise, the visual gets complicated to the eye.”

As she’d done exactly the same in her home office, Eve nodded. “We’ll need a third board. I have another angle I pulled out before I handed it off to Jenkinson. What do you know about the Urban Wars–era cult Red Horse?”

“Hard-line religious cult. Doctrine based on specific interpretations of Revelation. They were fanatics, dedicated to preparing for the end-time, which they believed had begun with the upheaval leading up to the Urban Wars. In their skewed vision, they saw themselves as servants or followers of the second horse—the red horse, of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which represents war, or general violence. Small, scattered groups attacked, bombed, set fires as part of their mission, and abducted children—no older than eight—as they believed their minds and souls were still pure enough to be indoctrinated. When the general population was destroyed, they would inherit the earth and repopulate it with true believers. They called this The Purging.”

Eve stared at her with narrowed eyes. “How the hell do you know all that?”

Just a bit smug, Peabody buffed her nails on her cranberry-colored jacket. “We studied it in school.”

“I thought Free-Agers studied herbs and flowers and fluffy woodland creatures, and how to weave blankets.”

“That—and a bunch of stuff. They also teach about wars, history, religious intolerance. You know, the ills of society and stuff. So you get the knowledge, the big pictures, and are free to choose your own path.”

“Huh. Have you read Revelation?”

“Some of it. It’s really scary.” Smug died off in a shudder. “It gave me nightmares.”

“Killer angels, pestilence, fiery pits, and death. I can’t imagine why. When we get to that part of the briefing, you summarize, just like you did for me.”

“This was Red Horse?”

“You were doing so well, now you’re jumping to conclusions. Detectives detect, they don’t jump. Plus it’s a stupid name for a murderous cult. It sounds like they should be frolicking in a meadow.”

“Maybe that was the point.”

“Maybe so.”

“They killed families, Dallas, sick people, old people, doctors. They took the kids, unless they were nine or ten or teenagers. Then they killed them, too. There weren’t any kids in the bar.”

“I’ll explain the possible connection. Just set up the third board.” She handed over a folder with attached disc. “I need a few minutes. Nadine waylaid me.”

She sat at the conference table, pulled out her PPC to review her notes. Moments later, Mira came in.

“I’m early, I know, but I wanted to look over the …” She trailed off as she saw the boards. “That’s considerable progress.”

“It’s a hell of a lot more names, faces, possibles, and angles. I haven’t decided if that’s progress.”

“Motives. Money, power, jealousy, revenge.”

“Line up the usual suspects.”

“And religious fanaticism,” Mira added with fresh interest. “The Red Horse cult? They were broken before the end of the Urbans. Do you believe they’ve reformed?”

“I doubt it, but fanatics find like minds.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

“I’ll explain.”

“They were greatly feared for the few years they purged. I had friends in Europe, where they were most prevalent.”

“I’d like your opinion on this angle once I brief the team.” Her promise to Roarke gnawed at her. “I’d like some time today, if you have it.”

“I’ve cleared my day to focus on this. Any time you need.”

“Ah, this is mostly personal, so—”

“Of course.” Mira’s eyes met hers. “I’ll be available when you need me.”

Get it over with, Eve told herself, like a dose of nasty medicine. “Maybe we could take a few minutes after the briefing. That way it’ll be off both our plates.”

“All right.”

They began to filter in, the detectives, the uniforms, the e-team. The room buzzed with voices, scraping chair legs, shuffling feet.

She took her place, waited a beat. “Before you each give your own reports, I’m going to give you a fresh overview. As you can see we’ve added a selection of persons of interest.”

She ran them through it, focusing on the twelve people who’d come up in the cross-match search.

“We’re going to add another factor to the scans. Connections to the Urban-era cult Red Horse, or any connection to cults or fringe religious or political groups. Peabody, give the team summary of Red Horse.”

“We didn’t have much out of them in New York,” Feeney commented when Peabody finished. “Had a couple hits, I remember they took credit for. They didn’t last long here. People fight back, and fight dirty when you go after their kids.”

“My source has verified that there were two incidents in Europe, credited to Red Horse. Cafés where the substance we’re dealing with—one with the same elements we’ve identified, and with the same results—was employed. The same substance,” she repeated, “that the investigators identified. Before the government shut down the investigation, then closed and covered it. The cover-up included the apprehension of a suspect whose identity is unknown. Where he was taken is unknown. Whether he was executed, imprisoned or used to develop the substance or other chemical and biological weapons is unknown.”

She let the conversation on politics, cover-ups, the feds run its course.

“There’s a connection,” Eve continued. “And we need to find it. I trust Mira’s profile. This isn’t about politics or grand agendas. But the UNSUB has some connection to Red Horse or the cover-up or the original creator of the chemical.

“Feeney, I’d like to use Detective Callendar, and whoever you feel is your best in this area to dig for that connection. We need solid e-skills on this. Records were spottily kept during the Urbans.”

“You’ll work with Nickson,” Feeney told Callendar.

“I’m all over it.”

“Anything to add from EDD, Feeney?”

“We don’t have much, and nothing that adds at this point.”

“Baxter?”

“Stewart, Adam. You’ve got him up there. Sister, Amie Stewart’s one of the vics.”

“Trust fund babies.” Eve flipped through her list of victims. “She was in-house legal for Dynamo. And he’s currently unemployed, and borrowing heavily from the trust.”

“We got some of that,” Baxter continued. “Plus he buzzed. He’s got something going. He’s off, Dallas. And he was jittery, trying to pull off the grieving sib, comfort the parents. It didn’t play. We earmarked him, too.”

“Bring him in. Toast him some.”

He gave her two more, another of which crossed with hers.

She called on Jenkinson and Reineke, got four with three crosses.

“Prioritize the board, Peabody. Stewart, Adam—connect to Stewart, Amie. Berkowitz, Ivan—connect to Quinz, Cherie. Callaway, Lewis—connect to Cattery, Joseph. Burke, Analisa—connect to Burke, John. McBride, Sean, connect to Garrison, Paul. Add Lester, Devon, manager of the bar, and Lester, Christopher, his brother, a chemist.

“These are the next wave of interviews. Work them. Dig in for a connection to the Red Horse cult, the cover-up. I want their financials and electronics gone over in detail. Peabody and I will take the Lesters.”

She handed out other assignments, legwork, drone work, to uniforms, scheduled a briefing at four.

Whitney stood. “We’ll issue a statement to the media this morning, and hold a media conference at thirteen hundred. I’ll need you to meet with the liaison, Lieutenant, in an hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Handpick two more uniforms or detectives to assist in the search for sources of the chemicals and illegals. You’re cleared for it.”

“I’d like Detective Strong from Illegals, Commander, if she’s up for it.”

“Make it happen. You’ll need more to run the tip line after the media breaks this. One hour, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. Get moving,” she told the team. “Peabody, contact Lester, Devon. Ask him to come in. Just a follow-up.”

“And the brother?”

“Not until Devon’s in the house. We’ll send a couple of stern-faced uniforms to bring him in. I need to reconnect with Morris, with Dickhead. And I want to go back to the scene. Get Devon in here asap, and we’ll take him after I meet the liaison, shift to the brother, then go out in the field.”

“On it.”

Eve turned back to the board, started toward it.

“Eve.” Mira moved to her. “You have an hour now. Why don’t we go to my office?”

“I really should—” Get it over with, she reminded herself. “Sure. I’ll be there in five.”