She walked up, and into her office to what appeared to be a recreation break. Her team was spread out, lounging, she thought sourly, while each sucked on the beverage of his choice.
Jamie was feeding Galahad little bits from what seemed to be a sandwich the size of Utah. Perched on the arm of McNab’s chair, Peabody filled them in on the details of the media conference.
“Well, this all looks so nice and cozy,” she said. “I bet those terrorists are shaking in their boots.”
“You gotta rest the brain cells and orbs every few hours,” Feeney told h
er.
She stepped over the feet Roarke had stretched out. He could consider himself lucky, she decided, she didn’t give them a good kick. She walked directly to her desk. Sat. “Maybe while you’re resting those cells and orbs, someone could take just a moment out of playtime and update me.”
“Missed lunch again, didn’t you?” Roarke said mildly.
“Yes, I did. It had something to do with the woman who’d hanged herself with her own bedsheets, the pesky little details of serial homicides, an annoying little meeting with city officials—some of whom seem to be more interested in media image than those inconvenient dead people—and the hour or so I was ordered to spend feeding those media hounds.”
She bared her teeth in a smile that had Jamie sliding down in his chair. “And how was your day?”
Roarke rose, took half the sandwich Jamie and the cat had yet to devour and set it in front of her. “Eat.”
Eve shoved it aside. “Report.”
“Now, let’s not have any bloodshed.” Feeney shook his head. The two of them made him think of a couple of bulls about to ram heads. “We’ve got some progress for you, which is why we’re on break. We built a shield that partially filtered the virus. We think we’ve nearly isolated the infection on the Cogburn unit. We were able to extrapolate a portion of it. Computer’s running an analysis now. Once we’ve got that, we may be able to simulate the rest of the program without going back into an infected unit.”
“How long?”
“I can’t give you that. It’s a program the likes of which I’ve never seen. Encoded, fail-safed. We’re working with the bits and pieces we got out before the sucker self-terminated.”
“You lost the unit?”
“That baby is fried,” Jamie put in. “Didn’t just blast the program, it killed the whole machine. Toasted it. But we got some good data. We’d have had enough to be sure of a sim if Roarke had had another minute—even forty-five seconds, but—”
He trailed off because Eve was getting to her feet. Really slow. Something in the movement made him think of a snake coiling up right before it lashed out with fangs.
“You operated the Cogburn unit?”
“I did, yes.”
“You operated an infected unit, using an experimental filter, one that subsequently failed? And you took this step without direct authorization from the primary.”
“Dallas.” Feeney rose. It was a testament to his courage under fire that he didn’t back off when she murdered him with one vicious glare. “The electronic end of this investigation falls on me. The lab work falls under my hand.”
“And your hand falls under mine. I should have been notified of this step. You know that.”
“It was my call.”
“Was it?” She looked back at Roarke as she spoke. “Get out.”
No one mistook she meant for Roarke to leave. The general exodus was more of a scramble. And at the doorway, Feeney batted the flat of his hand at the back of Jamie’s head.
“What?” Sulkily, Jamie rubbed the spot. “What?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Feeney muttered and closed the door at his back.
Eve kept the desk between them. She wasn’t entirely sure what she might do without the symbolic barrier holding the line. “You may run half the known universe, but you don’t run my investigation, my operations, or my team.”
“Nor do I have any desire to, Lieutenant.” His voice was just as cold, just as hard as hers.
“What the hell do you think you were doing? Exposing yourself to an unidentified infection so you could prove you’ve got the biggest dick?”