In Death 08 - Conspiracy in Death

end of the procedure, or a second surgeon with some knowledge of anesthesia to assist."
    "They didn't have to worry about the patient surviving, Eve pointed out. "But I'd think he wouldn't settle for anyone but the best. And it would have to be someone he trusted."
    "Or controlled. Someone he knew was loyal to the purpose."
    Eve lifted her cup, then had to control a wince when she remembered it wasn't coffee. "What's the purpose?"
    "As to the motive behind taking the heart, I only see two avenues. One is profit, which seems very narrow, given Dr. Morris's evaluation of the victim's overall health. The second would be experimentation."
    "What kind of experiments?"
    Mira lifted a hand, waved it vaguely. "I don't know, but I'll tell you, as a doctor myself, the possibility frightens me. During the height of the Urban Wars, illegal experimentation on the dead and dying was quietly accepted. It wasn't the first time in history atrocities were commonplace, but one always hopes it would be the last. The justification then was that so much could be learned, other lives saved, but there is no justification."
    She set her tea aside, folded her hands on her lap. "I'm praying, Eve, that this is an isolated incident. Because if it's not, what you're dealing with is more dangerous than murder. You could be dealing with a mission, cloaked under a veil of the greater good."
    "Sacrifice the few to save the many?" Eve shook her head slowly. "It's a stand that's been taken before. It always crumbles."
    "Yes." There was something of pity and something of fear in Mira's quiet eyes. "But never soon enough."

CHAPTER FIVE
    Most people were creatures of habit. Eve figured a second rate chemi-dealer who enjoyed gobbling up his own products would follow the rule. If memory served, Ledo liked to spend his worthless days fleecing suckers at Compu-Pool or Sexcapades at a nasty little joint called Gametown.
    She didn't think a few years in a cage would have changed his recreational choices.
    In the bowels of downtown, the buildings were slicked with filth, the streets scattered with it. After a recycling crew had been attacked, their bones broken and their truck destroyed, the union had crossed this four-block section off the list. There wasn't a city employee who ventured into what was known as the Square without combat gear and stunners. It was in their contract.
    Eve wore a riot vest under her jacket and had ordered Peabody to do the same. It wouldn't keep them from getting their throats slit, but it would stop a knife to the heart.
    "Put your stunner on wide range," Eve ordered, and though Peabody exhaled sharply, she said nothing.
    Her run on cults that linked any knowns to the type of murder they were investigating had turned up nothing. She'd been relieved. Having dealt with that kind of terror and butchery once, Peabody knew she'd live happily never having to deal with it again.
    But as they drove into the Square, she thought she'd take a few bloodthirsty Satan worshipers over the residents of this sector any day of the week.
    The streets weren't empty, but they were quiet. Action here waited for dark. The few who loitered in doorways or roamed the sidewalks did so with their eyes sharp and moving, their hands in pockets that held a weapon of choice.
    Midway down a block, a Rapid Cab rested on its roof like an upturned turtle. Its windows were smashed, its tires stripped, and several interesting sexual suggestions had already been spray painted over its sides.
    "Driver must have been brain damaged to bring a fare down here," Eve muttered as she swung around the abandoned cab.
    "What does that make us?" Peabody asked.
    "Tough-ass cops." Eve grinned and noted that while the graffiti looked very fresh, there were no signs of blood.
    Eve spotted two beat droids in full riot gear making their pass in an armored black and white. She flagged them, holding her badge to the window.
    "The driver make it out?"
    "We were in the vicinity and dispersed the crowd." The droid in the passenger's seat smiled just a little. Occasionally some E-man programmed a beat droid with a sense of humor. "We secured the driver and transported him to the edge of the sector."
    "Cab's a dead loss," she commented, then forgot it. "You know Ledo?"
    "Sir." The droid nodded. "Convicted illegals manufacturer and distributor." That faint smile again. "Rehabilitated."
    "Yeah, right. He's a pillar of the community now. He still hang down in Gametown?"
    "It is his known area of