The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [719]
“Then they’d all be dispensable. I really want this guy.”
This time Roarke reached over, laid a hand on hers. “I know.”
“Do you? He’s not like my father. There’s a world of difference, but somehow they’re exactly the same.”
“Brutalizing his children, day after day. Training them in his own sick fashion. Breaking their spirit, destroying their innocence, driving a young boy to contemplate suicide. The difference between him and your father, Eve, is Kirkendall has more skill, more training, and a sharper brain. But inside, they couldn’t be more alike.”
It helped that he saw that, and understood why her mind kept circling around it. “I have to get past it, or I’ll mess up. Location.” She nodded toward the map on her screen. “Lots of prime property Upper West. Have to be solo occupants. He can afford it. All those hefty fees, combined with his brother’s hefty fees—and possibly Isenberry’s. Investments like the dojo show me he likes business, making money from money. Yeah, he’s plush. You have any luck with the money?”
“Again, my sensitive feelings are bruised.”
“You can take a punch, ace. Let me have it.”
He merely sent a meaningful glance at the food still on her plate.
“Jeez.” She forked up a huge bite, stuffed it in. “Spill.”
“He has what we’ll call his dumping account, which coordinates with the profits from the dojo. Hefty, but not enough to finance this sort of operation.”
“So he’s got other accounts.”
“Has to. He doesn’t dip into this one, just dumps the funds, and his personal data on it leads to a law firm out of Eden.”
“Eden? Like the garden thereof?”
“Based on. A manmade island in the South Pacific created ostensibly for recreation and in reality for tax evasion, money laundering. It takes considerable doing to get past the legal blocks there to gain information. And it takes considerable funds to open accounts there, or utilize any of their legal protection.”
“You’ve used it.”
“Actually, I helped create it. Before I saw the light of truth and justice.” He grinned when she just stared at him. “I sold out my interests there before we were married. However, since I did have some part in the design, I have ways of getting to information. Kirkendall’s covered himself very well. His law firm there leads to an off-planet financial firm, which leads—Do you want to hear all this?”
“Bottom-line it for now.”
“It all circles back to other numbered accounts. Five. All very plush indeed, and all under various aliases. The most interesting is one with a single deposit of just under twenty million.”
“That’s million? Two-oh.”
“A tad under. But doing the math, that’s well over and above any of the recorded fees I’ve found so far—that is, including the other accounts, which jibe with those fees, and expenses.”
“He hired out to more than sanctioned U.S. agencies.”
“There will be other accounts, I haven’t swept them all up yet. It’s going to take some time. But this account is interesting for a couple of reasons. The lump-sum deposit, for one. Have a look at this.”
He drew a disc out of his pocket, plugged it in her unit himself. “Data on-screen.”
Eve skimmed the data—another CIA file on Kirkendall. “Subject is considered nonsecure. Get them,” she muttered. “Train yourself a killer, then oops, he’s no longer secure. Last psych eval, eighteen months ago. Sociopathic tendencies—another huge surprise. Suspected ties to Doomsday—and the big surprises keep rolling. Suspected ties to . . . Cassandra.”
Doomsday Group, she thought. Techno-terrorist organization she’d brushed up against, by default, on a recent case. But Cassandra, they’d been more flexible in the terrorist game, and her involvement with them the year before much more personal.
They’d nearly killed her, and Roarke, in their quest to destroy New York’s landmarks. Took out a couple, too, she remembered with some bitterness, before she’d put the hurt on the ring leaders.
“And the