Seduction In Death

CHAPTER SEVEN

She sipped wine, nibbled on caviar, and tried not to think how ridiculous it was. If anyone from Central caught wind of it, she'd never live it down.

Roarke did the same, and prepared to enjoy it. "Key in the screen names you want to watch for."

"DanteNYC," she said. "DorianNYC. Feeney's running names ending with NYC, but – "

"Yes, we can run another search. You'll end up with millions, I imagine, but we might get lucky."

"What about the account name? He may cruise with other screen names, or ditch the old ones when he's done."

"Here, nudge over." He scooted her chair a few inches to the left, then sat beside her. "Computer, run continuous search for all activity under account name La Belle Dame. "

Beginning search…

"Feeney said you had to go through the privacy blocks and account protocol in order to…" She trailed off, lifted her glass when Roarke merely quirked his eyebrows in her direction. "Never mind."

"Computer, notify if and when activity under said account takes place, and locate source of activity."

Search in process. Notification will be given. Working…

"It can't be that simple."

"Not usually, no." He leaned over and kissed her. "Aren't you lucky to have me? A rhetorical question, darling," he said and stuffed caviar into her mouth. "Just let me put that consumer list on-screen."

He did so manually, with a few deft taps on a keyboard. Eve watched them scroll on, blew out a breath.

"It could be worse," she decided. "It could have been cheap wine, then we'd have, oh, a hundred times as many names."

"More than that, I imagine. We can break these down into individual sales and restaurant orders. Now we'll see what we can find on the Cabernet."

"Is that your label, too?"

"No, a competitor's. But there are ways. This will take a few minutes."

Because she thought it slightly tacky for a member of the NYPSD to sit and watch a civilian severely bend the law, she rose and wandered closer to the wall screen. "Computer, display single male consumers on screen four."

That whittled it down some more, she noted. She couldn't and wouldn't discount the restaurant, the female, and the joint accounts, but she'd start with the two hundred recorded sales to single men.

"Computer. Display, screen five, multiple purchases of product by single men. Better," she mumbled as the number went down by another eighty-six.

"You got that data yet?"

"Patience, Lieutenant." He glanced up, then just looked at her in a way that made her skin tingle and her thigh muscles go loose.

"What?"

"You're such a study, standing there – all cop. Cool-eyed and grim with your weapon strapped on. It makes my mouth water." With a half laugh he went back to work. "Baffles me. Here you are, split on screen three."

"Do you say that sort of thing to get me stirred up?"

"No, but it's a pleasant side benefit. You're also quite a study when you're stirred up. My red edged out the competition's red by a few hundred sales in the area over the past twelve months."

"Big surprise," she said sourly, and turned around to repeat the same breakdown. "Computer, cross and match, all consumer purchases of both brands in given time period. Less than thirty." She pursed her lips. "I figured more."

"Label loyalty."

"We'll start with these. Standard run, eliminate males over fifty for a start. Our guy, or guys, are younger. Then I have to re-factor. Could be daddy who buys the wine, or uncle, or big brother. Or," she added, glancing back at the screen with joint accounts. "Mom and Dad. But I don't think so." She began to pace. "I need Mira's profile, but I just don't think so. Seems to me it's not romantic, it's not sexual if your parent or parents buy the wine. Then you're a child again and you're, by Christ, a man and you can prove it.

"You can pluck a woman right out of the pack," she continued. "Pick of the litter, and your choice. Women are merciless, from the poem. They'll crush you if you give them the chance. So you won't. You're in charge this time."

She stared at the names, moved away from them, then back again. "Women. Bitches, whores, goddesses. You desire them, sexually, but more than that, you want power. Absolute power over them. So you plan, hunt, select. You've seen her, but she hasn't seen you. You have to see her, have to make absolutely certain she is attractive enough, that she hasn't created the fantasy of herself the same way you've created yourself. She has to be real. She has to be worthy. You wouldn't waste your time on anyone or anything that's less than you deserve."

Fascinated, Roarke sat back. "What does he do?"

"He selects. He arranges. He seduces with words, with images. Then he prepares. The wine. One that suits his taste, his mood. No one else's. Candles, scented to please his senses. The illegals, so that he has control. He won't be refused. More, he'll be desired. Desperately desired."

"Is it about sex?"

She shook her head, still studying names. "Desire. That's different. To be desired by his choice. That's as vital as his control over her. Shemust want him. He goes to too much trouble to make himself an object of desire for it to be only about control and power. He has a need to be the focus, the center because it's his moment. His game. His victory."

"His pleasure," Roarke added.

"Yes, his pleasure. But he needs her to think it's hers as well. He stands at the mirror and makes himself into what he'd like to be, and what he believes a woman wants. Dashing, sexy, stunningly handsome, but elegant. The kind of man who quotes poetry and woos with roses. The kind who makes that woman believe she's the only woman. Maybe he believes it. Or did, with the first one. Maybe he deluded himself into believing it was romance. But under it's calculation. He's a predator."

"Men are."

She glanced back. "That's right. Humans are, but sexually men are more basic. Sex is more easily viewed as a function where women, in general, prefer an emotional rush along with it. These women did, and he was aware of it. He took the time to know them first, to discover their weaknesses and their fantasies so he could play on both. Then he controlled them. Like a droid, only they were flesh and blood. They were real, so the thrill was real. When it was over, they were spoiled. He'd made them whores again, so they stopped being worthy. He'll need to find the next."

"You were wrong when you said you couldn't get inside him. I wonder how you can be so much what you are and still look so clearly, so coldly, through the eyes of the mad and the vicious."

"Because I won't lose. I can't lose or they all win. Right back to my father."

"I know it." He rose, walked to her. Wrapped his arms tight around her. "I've never been sure if you did."

Notification of activity, account La Belle Dame…

Eve jerked her body free, whirled. "Screen name of user and location of activity."

User name OberonNYC, location Cyber Perks, Fifth Avenue at Fifty-eighth…

She was running for the door when Roarke pulled it open. "I'll drive," he told her.

She didn't bother to argue. Any one of his vehicles would be faster than hers. She grabbed her communicator on the race down the steps.

"Dispatch, this is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."

Detailing orders, she snagged her jacket and headed out the front door.

It took them six minutes and twenty-eight seconds from the notification to Roarke's swing to the curb in front of Cyber Perks. She timed it. And she was leaping out of the car before the brakes stopped squealing.

At a run, she spotted the black-and-white and the uniforms she'd ordered.

"No one leaves," she snapped, flipping out her badge, then sliding it shield out into the waistband of her trousers.

The noise blasted her the instant she walked through the doors. Cyber-punk rolled like a tidal wave, swamping the voices of patrons and beating violently against eardrums.

It was a world she'd yet to explore, and it was jammed elbow to groin with a motley throng who sat at counters, tables, cubes or airskated between stations. But even in the stupendous confusion, she saw the order.

Freaks with their painted hair and tongue rings were strewn across a section of color-coded table space. The geeks, earnest faces and sloppy shirts, were huddled in cubes. Giggly teenage girls skated in herds and pretended not to notice the packs of teenage boys they sought to allure.

There were students, most of whom were gathered in the cafe area trying to look sophisticated and world weary. Pocketed with them were a smatter of the standard urban revolutionaries, uniformed in sleek black, which students worshiped.

Scattered throughout were the tourists, the travelers, the casual clientele who sought the atmosphere, the experience, or were simply scoping out the place as a possible fresh hangout.

Where would her man fit?

Tracking the room, she strode to the glass kiosk marked Data Center. Three drones in red uniforms sat on swivel chairs in the center of the tower and worked consoles. They kept up what appeared to be a running conversation through headphones.

Eve zoned in on one, tapped on the glass. The boy, with a smattering of fresh pimples on his chin, looked up. He shook his head, attempted to look stern and authoritative, and gestured to the headphones on Eve's side of the glass.

She shoved them on.

"Don't touch the tower," he ordered in a voice that was just waiting to crack. "Stay behind the green line at all times. There are open units in the cafe. If you prefer, there is currently one cube available. If you wish to reserve a unit for – "

"Kill the music."

"What?" His eyes darted like nervous birds. "Stay behind the green line or I'll call security."

"Kill the music," Eve repeated, then slapped her badge on the glass. "Now."

"But – but I can't. I'm not allowed. Whatzamatter? Charlie?" He whipped around in his chair. And all hell broke loose.

The roar that burst out of the crowd outdid even the computer-generated ferocity of the music. People leaped off stools, out of cubes, screaming, shouting, cursing. A wave of them charged the data kiosk like peasants storming the king's palace. Full of fear and fury and blood lust.

Even as she reached for her weapon, she took a wayward elbow on the chin that rapped her head back against the kiosk and exploded a fountain of white, sizzling stars in front of her eyes.

And that seriously pissed her off.

She kneed a green-haired freak in the groin, stomped hard on the instep of a wailing geek, then fired three blasts at the ceiling.

It served to stop most of the momentum, though several bodies tumbled or were simply flung in the general direction of the kiosk.

"NYPSD!" She shouted it, holding up badge and weapon. "Kill that fucking music. Now! Everybody back off, go back to your seats or stations immediately or you'll be charged with rioting, assault, and creating a public hazard."

Not all of it got through, and some of her orders were lost in the swarm of voices and threats. But the more civic minded, or cowardly, slunk back.

One of the teenage girls lay sprawled at Eve's feet, airskates tangled. She was bleeding from the nose and weeping in jerky hiccoughs.

"You're okay." Eve nudged her as gently as she could with her foot. "Sit up now."

The shouts from various sections were gaining strength again. Civic duty and cowardice wouldn't hold on for long against mob passion.

"Nothing will be resolved until I have order, until I have quiet."

"This is a guaranteed virus-free zone," someone shouted. "I want to know what happened, I want to know who's responsible."

So, apparently, did a number of other people.

Roarke cleaved his way through the crowd.Like, Eve thought as she watched him,a sleek blade slicing through a jumble of rock.

"A virus was uploaded into the system," he said softly. "Corrupted the units. All of them, and from all appearances, simultaneously. You've got a couple hundred very angry people on your hands."

"Yeah, I got that part. Get out of here. Call for backup."

"I'm not leaving you in here, and don't waste your breath. Let me talk to them while you call in the troops."

Before she could argue, he began to speak. He didn't raise his voice. It was a good technique, Eve thought as she slipped out her communicator. A lot of people stopped yelling to try to hear what he was saying.

She could hear him fine, but she didn't understand half the cyber-speak he was rattling off.

"Lieutenant Dallas. I have a situation at Cyber Perks, Fifth Avenue, and require immediate assistance."

As she detailed the circumstances, she watched another portion of the mob quiet, slip back to tables. By her head count they were down to about fifty hard cases, spearheaded by the revolutionaries who were blathering about conspiracies and cyber-wars and communication terrorists.

It was time, she decided, to change tactics again. She zeroed in on one man. Black shirt, black jeans, black boots, with a shock of gilded, deliberately disordered hair.

Eve stepped up in his face. "Maybe you didn't hear me tell you to go back to your table or station."

"This is a public place. It's my civil right to stand and speak."

"And it's within my authority to deny you that right when you use it to incite a riot. When you or anyone claiming that right is responsible for bodily harm or property damage." She gestured to the young girl who sat up, still weeping quietly as a friend mopped at the blood on her face. "They look like terrorists to you? Or him?" She jerked a thumb back to where the boy she'd spoken to had his terrified white face pressed against the kiosk glass.

"Pawns are used and discarded."

"Yeah, and kids get hurt because people like you want to masturbate your ego in public."

"The NYPSD is nothing but a soiled tool used by the hands of the right-wing bureaucrats and demigods to crush the will and freedom of the common man."

"Come on, stay on target. Is it communication terrorists and cyber-war or is it bureaucratic demigods? You can't cover all the bases at one time. Tell you what. You go sit down and I'll have somebody come over to listen to all your fascinating theories. But right now there are some people in here who require medical assistance. You're hampering that, and my investigation of what transpired here tonight."

He smirked at her. Always a mistake. "Why don't you finish violating my civil rights and arrest me?"

"Okay." She'd already planned her move, and had him cuffed before he could think to resist. "Next?" she asked, very pleasantly even as backup streamed in the door. He was shouting again as she passed him to a uniform.

"Not bad," Roarke commented. "For the soiled tool of right-wing demigods."

"Thanks. I need time to re-establish some order." She scanned the faces. "He's not here anymore."

"No," Roarke agreed. "He's not here. I'd say he was out before your uniforms arrived. Why don't I talk to the data crunchers? See what I can find out for you?"

"Appreciate it."

She interviewed and released the injured first, then sprang the under-twenty and over-fifty crowd. Out-of-towners came next, then the remaining women. Even as she took data, formed impressions, listed names, she was certain her bird had flown.

Left with staff, she set them in the cafe and joined Roarke at a private cube. The monitor of the unit was, like every other she'd seen, swimming with chaotic colors and strange symbols. Beside it was a tall mug of some fancy coffee mixture.

"Is this the source?" she asked him.

"It is, yes. I'll need to – "

"Don't touch anything!" She grabbed his wrist. "Don't – touch – anything," she repeated, then signalled a uniform. "I need a CS kit."

"We've only got minis in the patrols."

"That'll do. Then, Officer Rinksy," she added scanning his nameplate, "you can inform the guy in charge around here that this joint is closed by order of the NYPSD until further notice."

"Won't that be fun?" With surprising cheer, Rinksy walked off to get the kit.

"I wasn't," Roarke said when she turned back to him, "going to touch anything. This is hardly my first day on the job, Lieutenant."

"Don't get pissy. And it's my job, not yours. How do you know this is the source?"

He circled his fingers, examined his manicure. "I'm sorry." He smiled absently. "Did you say something? I'm just biding time, waiting to take my lovely wife home when she finishes work."

"Jeez. Okay, okay, sorry I jumped on you. I'm a little tense. Would you tell me, since you're so brave and strong and smart, how you know this is the source?"

"That would've sounded better if you hadn't had your lip curled, but it'll do. I know this is the source because by tracking through the central system, I traced the virus to its starting point. This unit was the first infected, and the virus was programmed to self-clone and, I suspect, slither into central, spread to all interfaced units, then erupt in a nearly simultaneous burst. It's very clever."

"Great."

Rinksy stepped up beside her again. "Your kit, Lieutenant."

"Thanks." She took the kit, opened it. She coated her hands with Seal-It first, then passed the can to Roarke. "Don't touch anything yet." She took out a wand, shined its pencil-thin beam and washed cool blue light over the coffee mug. "Gotta good thumbprint. Yeah, partial index finger. You got your palm unit on you?"

"Always."

"Can you access the casefile? I need to compare these latents."

While he did as she asked, Eve shined the light over the table surface. Too many prints, she mused, most of them smeared.

"Lieutenant?" Roarke held out a small printout of the casefile prints.

She grunted, then held the printed copy against the latent on the mug. "That's our boy. Hold on." Using the wand she picked up the mug, balanced it with a sealed finger on the base, then poured the coffee mixture into an evidence bag. "Why do people screw up perfectly good coffee with all that froth and flavors?" She sealed the bag, then tipped the cup into a second, sealed that. "Question."

"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 littlehmmm 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.

"Oh, he is very, very good. I've never seen one that compact," Roarke told her. "Odds are he made it himself. I wonder – "

"Think about your research-and-development potential later," she ordered. "Bang. He's made us."

His body went rigid, his face slack. He didn't look so smug and superior in that instant. He looked shocked, and he looked scared. The eyes behind the fashionable lenses were jittery as they darted around the room.

He pulled the scanner out, then curled over the keyboard with the earnest devotion and intensity of the classic compu-geek.

"Coding in the virus," Roarke said quietly. "He's sweating, but he knows what he's doing. Uploading it."

He was shaking. He rubbed the back of his hand repeatedly over his lips. But he sat where he was, his gaze glued to the monitor. Then he was up, leaving his barely touched coffee, and hurrying for the door recklessly enough to run into tables, bump into people.

He was nearly running by the time he made the door. Eve saw him swing his body to the right before he disappeared and the door closed behind him.

"Out. Out and gone in what, under two minutes. Bolted a good minute before the uniforms responded and arrived on scene."

"Ninety-eight seconds by the clock," Roarke concurred. "He's fast. He's very fast."

"Yeah, he's fast, but he's shook. He was heading uptown. And he was running scared – for home."