He was working manually, with those quick and steady hands, relaying his intentions in a voice that was brisk and cool, and beautiful.

"Disc and hard copy of data requested, as accessed. Upload complete. We're shielded. There now, Jamie. Fine job. Data's coming up readable. Here now, what's this? You see the data on monitor, Feeney?"

"Yeah, yeah, wait.Hmmm."

"What?" Eve shook McNab's good shoulder. "What are they talking about?"

"Ssh!" Such was his concentration, he didn't notice her jaw drop at his command as he drove his chair closer to the screen. "That is so total." Forgetting himself, he started to push himself up. And his dead hand slid off the arm of the chair.

For a moment, he simply froze, and Eve's throat filled at the look of shocked panic on his face. Then he adjusted the chair smoothly, bringing it to a different position so he was higher and straighter, with a better view of the monitor.

The room was full of jargon again, rapid questions, comments, observations as foreign to her as Greek.

"Somebody speak in English, damn it."

"It's bloody brilliant. I shouldn't have missed this on the first pass." Roarke reached over to another control, keyed in commands by feel. "Ah, bugger it. She's trying to fail-safe. Not yet, you bitch, I'm not done with you."

"Shield's breaking up," Feeney warned him.

"Shut down," Eve ordered. "Shut it down."

"It's still at ninety percent. Hold your jets there, Lieutenant."

Before she could repeat the order, Feeney interrupted. "He's all right yet, Dallas. Medicals are holding. Son of a bitch's pulse barely shows a blip. He must run on ice. Roarke, go to shell. Try the-"

"I'm in the flaming shell." His voice was a mutter, and Irish now as a shamrock. "And I've already tried that. Clever bastard. Look here, look at this. It's voice printed. Can't override manually. Fuck it, there she goes."

Eve saw his monitor erupt with jags of black and white. He flipped out data discs an instant before a nasty grinding sound came through the speakers, and a small, gray plume of smoke puffed out of the back of the machine.

"Toasted," Jamie said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Unit's a dead loss." Roarke had yet to button his shirt, however he had removed the sensors. "But it gave its life for a good cause."

He turned one of the discs in his hand. "These should be clean-nothing on that program was geared to the external drive. But they should be labeled and set aside for testing after we've managed to extract the entire program. Hard copy will do for now. Jamie, you can start inputting the data in the morning."

"I can start now."

"You'll have some supper, then a two-hour recreation break. If you feel like putting an hour in after that-an hour only-that's fine. In bed, lights out, by midnight. If you don't rest your brain, it won't be of any use to me."

"Man, my mother isn't even that strict."

"I'm not your mother. Feeney-"

"You don't want to tell me when to go to bed, kid. I'm old enough to beyour mother."

"I was going to ask if you could do with a meal. I imagine we all could."

"Hold it. Just hold it." Frustrated, Eve held up both hands. "Nobody eats anything until I get an explanation. What did you get, and what does it mean? And if I hear one word of computerese, everybody gets rabbit food."

"Talk about strict," Jamie countered.

"Tell me," ordered Eve.

"He got the frequency," McNab told her. "And the spectrum. Another minute, tops, we'd've had the pulse and speed."

"Basically, Lieutenant." Roarke tugged the band out of his hair so it fell like black rain. "With a little more finessing, we've got your virus."

"Did you get the method of infection?" she asked.

"Possibly. There's data to analyze, but from the look I could get on the scroll, I'm putting my money on the simplicity of e-mail."

"They e-mailed it? Fucking e-mail?" Eve had wanted simple, but this… this was almost insulting. "You can't infect that way. CompuGuard-"

"Has never seen the likes of this," Roarke interrupted. "My guess would be…" He trailed off, gestured. "Go ahead, Jamie, before you erupt."

"Okay, see what it looks like-and I have to figure out how to do it-is they cloaked a doc, micro'ed and stealthed-"

"Do you want to eat radishes and lettuce?" Eve asked mildly.

"Right." He adjusted his brain to lay terms. "So they attached the virus to the e-mail, only it didn't show up as having an attachment, doesn't alert the receiver. Sender can check if it went in just by doing the standard scan on when the mail was read. Had to download fast, really fast, without showing the operator what it was doing. It had to talk to the unit, temporarily at least shut down the prompts and alerts for a download. Then it filed itself, as a document, an invisible document in the main drive program. It wouldn't register on a standard doc search and scan. It doesn't ID. It's just there, like lurking and doing its job. It's way radical."

"Okay, I follow that." Eve looked at Roarke. "If this could be done, how come you didn't know about it?"

"Lieutenant, I am chagrined."

"Me, I'm just starved." Jamie patted his belly. "Got any pepperoni pizza?"

Eve had a couple of slices herself, bided her time through the noisy, confused meal, let her mind drift to the case, away from it, back again.

She wasn't sure when it struck her-maybe when Feeney casually speared some of the pasta off Roarke's plate, or when Jamie dumped another slice of pizza on McNab's as he stretched across the table for another for himself. Maybe it had always been there, and just chose that moment to clarify.

Mira had said it on the terrace. Family.

This was what families did, she realized. This was what she'd never experienced as a child. Noisy, messy dinners with everyone talking over everyone else, which wasn't as annoying as it should've been.

Stupid jokes and casual insults.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of it when it applied to herself, but she could see what it might do to that pattern when something or someone damaged a part of the whole.

It would fall apart. Temporarily for those who were strong enough to glue it all back into pattern or make another. Permanently for those who couldn't. Or wouldn't.

She glanced at McNab. Even here, with all the chatter, there was a smear of worry over it all. If that one part of them stayed broken, the rest would tumble down like tiles. They'd form a new pattern-that was the job-but they'd never forget the way it had been.

She pushed back from the table. "I've got some stuff I need to do."

"The Walking Dead said there was chocolate cake."

"Jamie," Roarke said mildly.

"Sorry," Jamie said reluctantly. "Mister Walking Dead, also known as Summerset, said there was chocolate cake."

"And if you eat it all, I'll kill you in your sleep. Then you can join The Walking Dead. Roarke, I need to talk to you."

As they started out, she heard Jamie ask: "Think they're gonna go do it?" And heard the quick slap of Feeney's hand on the teenaged skull.

"Are we going to go do it?" Roarke grabbed her hand.

"Want me to have Feeney knock you, too?"

"I'm a bit quicker than Jamie yet. But I take that to mean we're not going back upstairs for a fast tumble."

"How many times a day do you think about sex?"

He gave her a considering look. "Would that be actively thinking of it, or just having the concept of it lurking there, like Jamie's invisible document?"

"Never mind. Did you see Mira before?"

"I didn't, no. I was in the lab. Sorry I missed her. Peabody said Mavis stopped by as well, and needed a private word with you. Is she all right?"