"What you'll say will help people understand what happened with Halloway." Roarke spoke quietly. "It will make them see him as he was-a good cop who was doing his job. Who was killed in the line of duty by a group of people who want to be perceived as guardians of justice. You'd make them see him as a person."

"I'd like to talk about it." McNab was strapped into the chair. It was something he couldn't ignore no matter how hard he tried. He wasn't just sitting, but secured in. So he wouldn't slump down like a ragdoll, tumble out like a baby.

It burned in his belly along with the fear that he would be strapped in a chair the rest of his life. "If people listen they'd understand he wasn't the one who put me down. It was whoever infected that unit he was working on. Halloway didn't put me in here, and he doesn't deserve anyone thinking he did. So I'd like to do the interview. I'd like to say what I have to say."

"If that's what you want." Feeney picked up his coffee again, drank it to wash away the fist-sized lump in his throat. "Then that's what we'll do."

"The department's issued statements. You'll both need to read them." Eve walked to her desk, gave herself time to settle. "They won't preclude or censor anything you feel you want to say, but they'd like you to get in the bullet points, and some of the language. It's important NYPSD show unity inthis regard. Nadine can do the interviews here."

She turned back. "Now maybe we can get down to the business of cop work. We need to determine the nature of the virus in the units, and that can't be done until we have some sort of shield against that virus."

"I've done a bit of work on that," Roarke told her. "And taken the liberty of calling in a technical adviser." He turned to the 'link. "Summerset, send him up."

"You should've cleared this with me," Eve began.

"You need specific skills for this. Feeney and McNab need more than me. And I need more than an assistant. I've someone who's been doing some very innovative work with my R and D departments, and I don't think you'll find anything to worry about regarding his loyalty or his clearance."

Eve looked at the doorway. And her jaw dropped. "Well, for Christ's sake, Roarke, I can't use a kid for this."

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Genius has no age."

So said Jamie Lingstrom as he strutted into her office on a pair of dilapidated airboots.

He wore his sandy hair short and spiked on top with a longer hank in the front that flopped over his forehead. The only piercing-apparently-was to accommodate the tiny silver hoop at the tail of his left eyebrow. His face had done some fining down since the last time she'd seen him, and right now his mouth was twisted into a smirk.

He'd always been cocky.

His grandfather had been a cop, who'd gone down while unofficially investigating a cult. The cult had killed Jamie's sister and had come uncomfortably close to sacrificing Eve.

He'd sprouted up at least two inches. When did kids stop growing? she wondered. He was sixteen-no, likely seventeen by now. And he should have been doing whatever teenagers did rather than standing in her office with that cocky expression.

"Why aren't you in school?"

"I do the home thing mostly, on work program. You get to do hands-on-the-job crap as long as it's with a business that contracts through the school and shit."

Eve turned to Roarke. "One of yours."

"Actually, I have several companies that contract with the education program. The youth of today, after all, is the hope of tomorrow."

"So." Jamie scanned the room then dipped his thumbs into the front pockets of baggy jeans with holes at both knees. "When do we get started?"

"You." Eve jabbed a finger at Roarke. "There." Pointing at his office, she strode in ahead of him, slammed the door smartly.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Bringing in an expert assistant."

"He's a kid."

"He's a brilliant kid. You do recall how he managed to bypass the security here with a homemade jammer?"

"So he got lucky."

"Luck had nothing to do with it." That particular homemade had been refined, adjusted, expanded. "He has more than a knowledge of electronics-though he has that in spades, I can promise you. He has a feel, an instinct that's very rare."

"I'd like to keep his brain inside his head, at least until he turns twenty-one."

"I've no intention of allowing him to do anything that puts him in physical jeopardy."

"Neither of us intended that last fall, either, but he came damn close. And he's, well, he's like Feeney's family."

"Exactly. It'll give Feeney a lift to work with him. The fact is, Eve, we need someone like him. Someone with an open mind and a quick brain. He won't automatically think a thing can't be done because it's not been done before." Roarke spread his hands. "He'll see possibilities. He wants to be a cop," he added before Eve could speak.

"Yeah, I remember, but-"

"Is determined to be, unless I can bribe him into one of my R and D divisions permanently with great gobs of money." His lips twitched. "Which I'll certainly attempt. At the moment, he plans to ditch any thought of college and leap straight into the Academy when he hits eighteen next year."

"So what. You're hoping to use this assignment to turn him off that idea, into college so you can scoop his genius brain up for your own uses?"

He smiled slowly, and with great charm. "That's a lovely thought. But actually, I thought this would be a valuable experience for him. And we need him. I'm not blowing smoke when I say that. What you need electronically is going to take considerable work and research and experimentation, all of which you require in a compressed time frame. Correct?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Look. I'm your expert consultant for a rather pathetic monetary wage, and under that agreement I have the option of selecting a technical assistant. He's mine."

She blew out a breath, paced to the window. Paced back. "Not just yours. It makes him mine, too. I don't know how to deal with a teenaged type person."

"Ah, well, I'd say you'd deal with him as you deal with everyone else. You order him around, and if he argues or doesn't jump quickly enough you freeze his blood with one of those vicious looks you're so good at and verbally abuse him. It always works so well for you."

"You think so?"

"There, see." He cupped her chin. "There it is now. I can actually feel my blood running cold."

"You can keep him, but he's on probation. And you've waived your pathetic monetary wage."

"Have I?" He frowned. "I can't seem to recall doing so."

"And his fee comes out of your pocket."

He'd already intended to pay Jamie, but knew how to play the game. "That's exceedingly unfair. I'm going to talk to my departmental representative about this highhanded treatment."

"You don't have a departmental rep." She walked back to the door. "You got me."

"To both my joy and sorrow," he replied behind her back as she strode into her office.

Jamie was crouched between Feeney and McNab, showing off some handheld device. "It'll read every system on the market and some that aren't on it yet," he was saying. "Then it clones…"

His head came up, and then his body. The handheld was jammed into his back pocket. "So, hey. We got a deal or what?"

Roarke merely crossed to him, held out a hand.

Shoulders slumping, Jamie pulled the jammer out of his pocket. "I only borrowed one so I could see about fine-tuning a couple of functions."

"Don't hose me, Jamie. And if you continue to borrow equipment, you'll be losing your work program privileges very quickly." The jammer disappeared into one of Roarke's pockets.

"It was my prototype."

And the royalties from it, Roarke mused, would make the boy a very rich young man. But he said nothing, merely lifted an eyebrow and waited for Jamie to squirm.