“Fucker’s got enough electronics to open his own shop,” Feeney complained.
“That could make me like him, if he wasn’t a fucker.” Callendar jiggled while she worked.
“A fucker he is,” Roarke agreed, “but a smart enough one, or paranoid enough, to have filters and fail-safes on every bleeding thing. We’d do better with this in the lab, as even when we get through on something, the scanning and decoding from here will take hours—and that’s piece by piece.”
Feeney chugged out a breath. “You’re right on that. We’ll haul it down to Central.”
“My lab’s closer,” Roarke pointed out, which had Feeney rubbing his chin.
“You’re right on that, too. Still, we’ve got the portables he had with him to get through, and that shit pile from Silverman’s.”
“Split it up, Cap?”
Feeney grunted at Callendar. “Yeah, shit. I hate missing out on any of it, but that’s the way to do it. I’m going to have some boys head up, tag, and log all this and haul it to your lab. You take that, and my boy and I here will head to Central with the rest.”
“Girl, Feeney. I keep telling you, I’m a freaking girl.”
“Boy, girl, what’s the diff?
“Boy, penis. Girl, vagina.”
The tips of Feeney’s ears pinked. “Don’t start that. An e-man’s an e-man, whatever their works.”
Feeney pulled out his comm, walking away with his pink-tipped ears to start it rolling.
“I don’t mind being one of his boys,” Callendar told Roarke. “I just like to rag him, watch him get all hunchy.” She looked around the living area where they’d pulled out and set up all the electronics. “It’s a lot.”
“Less fun if it’s easy.”
“Straight up.” She offered her fist to bump. “Wonder if Dallas is having fun yet.”
Eve gulped coffee as she waited for the results from her button pushing. Losing time, she thought as she stared out her window, watched evening rolling toward night. All because some pricey lawyer with a sociopath for a client would play every trick in the hat, use every evasion on the field to get some sort of win.
Baxter came in, pointed at her AC, got her nod. “Good news first. My friend at the IRS is very, very interested in Iler, and is pushing the paperwork through the system, the legal areas to do just what you want. Freeze it all.”
“What’s the bad?”
“Singa just pulled the plug for the night. His client’s exhausted, requires his full eight hours of rest before resuming interview.”
“Goddamn it. I knew that was coming, but goddamn it.”
“The maybe good news in the bad? Singa didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked pretty seriously pissed off.”
“Not good enough.” Frustrated, she gave her desk a quick kick. “Right now, he’s pulling in his own investigators, and they’ll be all over trying to get data on Silverman. He’ll use, or try to use, everything he gets to deal down Iler. Silverman could be on his way to Argen-fucking-tina.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think it’s a hell of a lot worse.”
She stared at her desk ’link, willing it to signal.
“Maybe, maybe I can break through. But if he’s got Iler locked for the night, I can’t break until morning. Eight hours. Fine. Not a second more. Go get Trueheart, go get something to eat or whatever. Go home. Keep in touch with the IRS skirt, let me know if that moves any. Be back here at four hundred. We’ll put him back in the box at oh-four-thirty.”
Baxter grinned. “That’s just nasty. I like it. Are you heading out, too?”
“Waiting for a tag back. If this works, we’ll break Iler by five hundred.” She looked back out at the dark. “I hope to Christ it’s soon enough.”
*
At least she didn’t have to deal with Summerset by the time she finally made it home. As Roarke had texted he’d tackle Iler’s electronics in his lab, she tossed her coat over the newel post, headed straight up.
There he was, full work mode. He’d changed into a black sweater, had the sleeves shoved up above his elbows. A strip of thin leather secured his hair back in a short tail.
She assumed there was logic and order in the line up of Iler’s many e-toys, just as she assumed the same about the codes, images, symbols rolling over Roarke’s multiple wall screens.
The cat found it all fascinating, or so it seemed, as he squatted on a stool and watched. He gave Eve a glance with his bicolored eyes when she walked in, then went back to his evening’s entertainment.
“Anything?” she asked.
“A considerable lot, actually.” Roarke continued to work, swiping screens, tapping keys and controls. “You’ll have him on tax evasion. I pushed through some files, got enough to see that, then moved on as it’s not your priority right now.”
“It’s not, but still.”
“Insider trading as well—and you might find it interesting he paired up with Hugo Markin there.”
“I do, but.”
“Not priority, understood. Which is why those files are earmarked for another time.” He paused the work, rolled his shoulders. “If he’d applied himself, he might have had a very successful career in cyber security. He’s buried data deep, encoded it well. It’s a job of work getting down to it.”
“You’re better than he is.”
“I am.” Now he put his hands on her shoulders. “We are. I can see by the look in your eyes you didn’t get what you need from Iler. You will.”
“I will. I’m working an angle.” She picked up the water on his workstation, drank deep. “He’s lawyered up, which is no surprise. Sharp, high-priced lawyer, also no surprise. He’s not talking. I could get a few rises out of him, but the lawyer shut him down. But he’s scared of being locked away off-planet. Got annoyed at the idea of a white-collar cage, but scared, shaky at the threat of off-planet. Off-planet’s the key,” she said as she wandered the room.
She drank again. “He hadn’t told the lawyer about Silverman, I got that, too. So the lawyer shuts it all down—consult with client, client needs his eight hours down. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“The rules are often infuriating.”
“Maybe, maybe if I can keep shoving the off-planet up his ass, dangling Silverman, maybe he starts to crack even with the lawyer running interference. But now we wait—until we toss him back in at oh-four-thirty.”
With a laugh, Roarke ordered up another water. “That won’t sit well with Iler or his lawyer.”
“One thing, it gives me time to work an angle. The father. I get the father to understand his son’s going down, one way or the other—and Silverman’s going to benefit from Iler’s loyalty. And funds. I’m working on blocking those funds, but the father has plenty I can’t block.”
“So you convince the father to block that stream.”
“Yeah, no money for you if you continue to protect Silverman, if you don’t reveal the name of other targets. If he flips, talks, I deal. On-planet incarceration.”
“A cage is still a cage,” Roarke said, but Eve shook her head.
“You didn’t see his face. Mira agrees, says he might be spacephobic. Have you found anything about him going off-planet—business or pleasure?”
“I haven’t, now that you mention it, not as yet.”
“I think I can use that fear, and the father. One son smearing the honor of the dead son. This goes to court, all that publicity, all that humiliation for the family. But the father’s in freaking France. I got the father’s lawyer, got him to contact Reginald Iler, get it going. I’ve been haggling with the lawyer off and on, maybe making progress. But the senior Iler’s going to freaking sleep on it, and because of the damn rotation of the stupid Earth he’s like hours ahead. Behind.” She closed her eyes. “No, ahead, so I can’t lock it up until right before I get Iler junior back in the box.”
She two-pointed the empty tube of water into the recycler. “Screw science.”
“You need pizza.”
The thought nearly perked her up. “Maybe, but I have to tie up some contingencies with Reo.”
“You can eat pizza while you tie. I’ll eat while I work on this.”
“Pizza?”
He pulled her in for a kiss. “In solidarity.”