Page 47 of Bonded in Death

“Detecting terrorist activity…” She rolled her eyes at herself. “And they don’t do such a hot job there, either. Not anymore.”

“Outdated, underfunded, exploitive. So? Continue?”

“Yeah. Do what you do.”

“Command, Sicurezza Informatica,Rome, Italy, and satellite locations. Shielded first-level search.”

Received, accessing…

He took off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves. From his pocket he took out a leather tie, pulled his hair back in a short tail.

Work mode, Eve thought, and settled into her own.

Her first step was to read Peabody’s report on the deeper run on the vic.

Everything about it said ordinary, blameless.

The ordinary and blameless often ended up on a slab, she thought, but not like this.

While Roarke worked manually, fingers swiping, tapping, sliding, so did she. His occasional voice command didn’t disturb her as she dug into 2025 and 2026, Europe.

Something happened, something she believed was big enough, important enough to resonate for decades after—and lead to the murder. The precise and complicated murder.

She found a pair of executions in Athens—ugly, public executions.

Over a dozen dead anti-war protestors, gunned down as they’d marched in Paris.

A group bringing humanitarian aid ambushed in Rome and slaughtered.

A bombing of a building in London, Dominion—extremists, a violent fringe element—HQ, resulting in more than a hundred deaths, scores of injuries.

Beatings of civilians by police in Dublin.

Homes invaded, bombed, burned. Children abducted.

When the back of the wars broke in the early summer of 2026 in Europe, the tribunals and trials. War crimes, insurrection, treason, assassinations.

Some, in that dreary aftermath, had medals pinned on them. Others sat in cages. And others faced execution.

When she sat back, Roarke signaled to her.

“Have a look here.”

He used the wall screen now, and on it she saw what she recognized as blueprints.

“Okay, that’s the building the cyber firm’s in?”

“It is, yes. And you see we have labs, offices, temp-controlled areas, secure areas, lounge areas, a fitness center—small, but big enough—data storage, two conference areas, and so on.”

“And?”

“Well now, it’s bollocks. Not all, but bollocks just the same. Look here.”

He brought up a second set of blueprints.

“This is the building that stood there until the mid-twenties. It was severely damaged in the Urbans, but not destroyed. Then it was razed, as it was deemed unsafe. What do you see?”

“I see there’s an underground area. Looks like two levels, and they don’t show on the new blueprints. Neither do the tunnels.”

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