“Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“That’s no problem either.” He held them out, and up. “You’re jumpy, Lieutenant.”
“I’ve got reason, Assistant Director. Let’s walk.” Rather than holstering her weapon, she slid it inside her jacket as they walked toward the garage exit. “What makes you think I want a conversation?”
“Reva Ewing spoke with a mutual contact in the Secret Service. Given the current situation, I was assigned to come over from the New York base and speak with you.”
“What’s your function?”
“Data cruncher, primarily. Administrative area.”
“You knew Bissel?”
“Not personally, no.”
She turned, moved briskly down the sidewalk. “I assume this conversation is being recorded.”
He gave her a very easy, very pleasant smile. “Is there something you don’t want on record?”
“I bet there’s a lot you don’t.” She swung into a bar and grill, largely patronized by cops. Because it was change of shift, it was packed with them. Eve moved to a high-top where two detectives from her division were sharing beer and shoptalk.
“I got a meet here.” She dug out credits, laid them down. “Do me a favor and let me have the table. Beer’s on me.”
There was some grumbling, but the credits were scooped up, and the detectives moved off. Eve chose a stool that kept her back to the wall.
“Felicity Kade recruited Blair Bissel for the HSO,” Eve began.
“How did you come by that information?”
“Subsequently,” she went on, “he functioned as a data liaison—data’s your territory, right?—transporting same to and from sources, and using his profession as a cover. Was he ordered to marry Reva Ewing, or was that his own suggestion?”
Sparrow’s face had gone to stone. “I’m not authorized to discuss—”
“Then just listen. He and Kade targeted Ewing due to her contacts with government officials, and her position in the private sector at Securecomp. She was, without her knowledge, injected with an internal observation device—”
“You’re going to wait a minute.” He laid a hand on the table. “You’re going to wait a damn minute. Your data’s incorrect, and if you put this sort of skewed information in your reports, it’s going to cause trouble for you. I want your source.”
“You’re not getting my source, and my data is on the mark. The device was removed from Ewing today. You’re finished using her. You shouldn’t have set her up on my watch, Sparrow. You want to take out a couple of your own, that’s your business, but you don’t set up civilians to take the fall for murder.”
“We didn’t set her up.”
“Is that the company line?”
“There was no hit ordered or sanctioned by the HSO.”
“You lied when you said you didn’t know Blair Bissel. You’re the AD, you damn well knew him.”
Sparrow’s gaze never flickered, and Eve decided she’d been right about the seasoning. “I said I didn’t know him personally. I didn’t say I didn’t know him professionally.”
“Being slippery, Sparrow, isn’t making me like you any better.”
“Look, Lieutenant, I’m doing my job here. The incident involving him and Kade is being investigated, internally. It’s believed that the hit was carried out by a cell of the Doomsday Group.”
“And why would a group of techno-terrorists bother to build a frame around Ewing?”
“It’s being investigated. This is a global security matter, Lieutenant.” His voice was very low now, and very cold. “The termination of two operatives is an HSO matter. You’re required to step back.”
“I’m required to do my job. Another of Bissel’s side dishes is dead. This one was a twenty-one-year-old girl, still wet enough behind the ears to believe in true love.”