Survivor in Death (In Death 20)

“You thinking they hired somebody to hit the doctor?”

“No. They’re too smart to hire some junkie and leave him alive after. Just covering all the ground. We’ll need clearance in order to acquire the full military records of these three individuals,” Eve added. “Which, let’s face it, isn’t going to be a snap. I’ll start fighting through the red tape there. Unless I get clear to handle it myself, I want you to talk to the primary on the Duberry case.”

She stopped when Yancy entered.

“Lieutenant.” He walked over, handed her a disc. “As ordered.”

“Have a seat, Detective. Give us the rundown.”

She plugged in the disc herself, called up the images on two screens.

On each screen a nearly identical face appeared. Squared, tough, pale brows, close-cut hair. The lips were firm, noses sharply planed. Ears close to the head, she noted. Eyes cold and pale. She judged them both to be early fifties.

“The witness was cooperative, and got a good, close-up look at both men. However, she, at least initially,” Yancy added with a flick of a glance at Eve, “had trouble with details. Both men wore watch caps and sun shades which can be seen in the next sketch. But working with the witness, and adding probability of certain details, i.e, natural eye color, given the lightness of the brows, eye shape given the facial structure, we can assume.”

“How close an assumption?”

“Close as I can get. I ran probabilities on these, with the data received from the wit. It comes to ninety-six and change. I was also able to get full-length composites. The witness recalled the body types in detail. Next sketch.”

Now Eve studied two muscular, well-built men, wide at the shoulders, narrow at the hip. Both wore black—turtleneck-style shirt; loose, straight pants; jump boots—and carried bags cross-body. Yancy had added projected heights and weights.

Six foot one, and one-ninety to two hundred on suspect one, five foot eleven, same weight range on suspect two.

“You confident in these, Detective?”

“I am, yes, sir.”

“None of them match the men Peabody dug up,” McNab said. “Body type’s close enough on her first guy and her last, but the faces aren’t.”

“No, they’re not.” And that was a severe disappointment. “But that doesn’t preclude the possibility that these were soldiers—hirelings or under orders—and that one of the men we’ve found is in a command position. We’ll put these images and the data through the system, see what we find.”

She hesitated briefly. “You can take that, Yancy. You’d have the best eye for it.”

The rigor eased out of his shoulders. “Sure.”

“Then let’s get started. You do good work, Yancy, even when you’re dealing with a pain in your ass.”

“Would that be my witness, sir, or you?”

“Take your choice

.”

She walked it by Whitney first, compiling copies of all data along with her oral. “I’ve done the first pass at both military branches for full disclosure of records, and as expected on first pass, request was denied. I’m working my way up with the second.”

“Leave that to me,” Whitney told her. He studied the sketches. “You’d have to say brothers. The resemblance is too strong otherwise. Or your witness projected the resemblance.”

“Yancy was thorough. He’s standing by the composites. Brothers isn’t far out of reach, sir, considering the smoothness of the teamwork. Twins, as they appear to be, often have a close, almost preternatural bond.”

“We’ll give them adjoining cages when you bring them in.”

Brothers they were, a unit of beliefs, desires, and training. Machines. Though they were human, though they ran on blood, humanity was lost in them.

The obsession of one was the obsession of the other.

They rose at the same hour every day, retired at the same hour in their identical rooms. They ate the same food, worshipped the same gods, in a sychronicity of discipline and objective.

They shared the same cold, harsh love for each other that each would have termed loyalty.