The Breaker

by Nick Petrie

  “Sounds like the American dream,” she said. “So what happened?”

  “We had a board meeting to discuss how to move forward. I argued for selling shares to Holloway. David and Sam felt strongly about taking the deal with Rockwell because they were an established Milwaukee company. In the end, the board sided with them.

  “When I told Holloway how it had gone, he showed up to make his pitch in person. It was the first time we’d actually seen him since that first visit. He brought in a fancy breakfast for the whole office and had the equity paperwork all drawn up and everything. Although it was in the name of a different company, some name we’d never seen before, which made me a little nervous. He had a PowerPoint presentation and gave a funny little speech about cash bonuses and company cars and big pay raises and dominating the market. But David and Sam weren’t convinced at all. Honestly, the whole thing was so weird that I was thinking David and Sam had been right the whole time.”

  He stared at the wall. “Well, we didn’t even have to discuss it. We gave him our answer on the spot. He wasn’t happy, but he didn’t make a scene or anything.” He shook his head. “Five hours later, David and Sam were dead. Chopped into pieces in our own parking lot.”

  He cleared his throat and paused a moment to collect himself.

  “When the police showed up, they asked about any problems with the business. We gave them a list of names, a machinist we fired for failing a drug test, a client who owed us money. Holloway was on the list, too. So was a neighborhood guy who’d been harassing our receptionist. Sam and David had actually gone out to talk to him, and he seemed a little unstable, so I thought he was the most likely guy. The police said they’d follow up.

  “Whatever they did, it didn’t seem to matter. The next day, Holloway called to say his offer was still on the table. But he said it in such a way that I knew what he’d done to David and Sam. I told him I was going to hang up and call the police. Then he asked about my twin daughters’ school trip to the Urban Ecology Center that day. He knew about my wife’s appointment with her physical therapist that afternoon, my parents’ dinner party with their church group that evening. He sent pictures, made it clear that he knew exactly how to find each one of them. David’s wife and kids. Sam’s husband. He said the only reason we were having the conversation—meaning, the only reason I was still alive—was because I had shown a willingness to sell.”

  None of this had been mentioned by the reporter June had talked with, although the police wouldn’t have talked about potential suspects. “You didn’t tell the police about that call?”

  Metzger put his hands on top of his head, almost shouting. “He had pictures of my daughters.”

  “Then why are you telling us?”

  “I mean,” he said. “I just.” He blinked away tears. He seemed utterly lost.

  June turned to Peter and Lewis. “Can Holloway really do this?”

  Lewis shrugged. “Mafia been doing it for a couple hundred years. Just a new twist.”

  Peter said, “Did you tell anyone else?”

  “My lawyer,” Metzger said. “He’s got an ex-FBI guy doing research, but he can’t even confirm Holloway exists. Or if Holloway is his real name. And I talked to the board. The members who are left, I mean.”

  June looked at him. “So what do you plan to do?”

  “We have an emergency meeting at the end of the day. We have proxies for David and Sam’s shares. We’re going to sell. I don’t know any other way.”

  “Hang on,” Peter said. “He wants to buy his way in, right? And it’s a good offer. So he’s not doing this for the money. He’s making something that he thinks is a very big deal and he’s willing to kill people to protect it. Did you ever figure out what it is?”

  Marty ran a hand down his face. “I don’t think it’s a pet.”

  “Can we see your technical drawings?”

  “I can’t,” Metzger said. “I told you, that’s all proprietary. We signed nondisclosures.”

  Then he realized what he’d said, and blinked as if coming out of a trance. For the first time, he really looked at Peter and Lewis, who stood with grim faces, their jackets unzipped. June watched him register Lewis’s shoulder holster and the new loaner gun on Peter’s hip. “Who are you guys? You don’t look like reporters.”

  “We’re not, Marty.” Peter smiled kindly. “We’re the kind of people who deal with people like Holloway. But we need your help to catch him.”

  June was amazed, as always, at how Peter could be so fearsome in one moment and so reassuring in the next.

  For just a moment, the grief and dread washed from Metzger’s face. “Okay.” He stood up. “My office is right next door.”

  50

  PETER

  Metzger had a pair of large monitors mounted above his desk. Peter and June and Lewis crowded behind as he pulled up diagrams of the legs, long and powerful. Then a sleek, streamlined torso, with pairs of protected sockets for the legs and a larger one at the top.

  “The gap at the front is for some kind of electronics package,” Metzger said. “Sensors, I think. The belly has an internal housing for an energy source, although this thing will be really power-hungry. You’d need something the size of Tesla battery to make it run for more than an hour or two. I can’t imagine what he plans to use.”

  Peter said, “Did you ever make the head?”

  “It’s not a head,” Metzger said. “It’s an arm.” He clicked the mouse and a new image came up. “Three segments, each one fully rotating and double-jointed. A four-fingered claw on the end, with pressure sensors in the tips, really sensitive, for a delicate touch.” He pulled up an exploded diagram and pointed at the screen. “But with this gearing here, and these cams, and the new servomotors, it’s also very, very strong. I’ve never seen a piece of technology like it.”

  “Can we see one that’s all put together?”

  “We’ve never put one together,” Metzger said. “We don’t have the power source or sensor package or the motherboard, either.”

  “But you must have a drawing of the finished thing, right?”

  “Holloway is so secretive, he pretends each component is a separate project. Although any half-decent engineer can see how they come together. One of our people made a 3-D rendering.” He clicked again and a new image appeared.

  “Wow,” June said. “That doesn’t look like a toy.”

  “No,” Metzger said softly. “It’s not exactly cuddly, not with that claw instead of a head.” He moved the mouse, rotating the rendering for a complete view. “From the bench tests, we know the completed device will be extremely capable. Revolutionary. A whole new category, if you got the software right.”

  Peter knew the software would work just fine. Oliver had told them all about it. A new language specifically designed for solving complex physical problems.

  “How many of these have you made?”

  “Enough components to make eight hundred complete units.”

  “That many? Are the parts still here?”

  “Only for the last eighty units. We’ve already shipped the rest.”

  “You shipped them?” Peter tried not to raise his voice. “Where the hell did they go?”

  “We don’t know. His truck arrives, we load the pallets, and it leaves. The whole thing takes about five minutes. The driver never even gets out of the cab. Holloway must have a facility somewhere, because we already delivered twenty automated assemblers. Really just one flexible platform that can do a lot of different tasks. It’s quite elegant, actually.”

  Engineers. “What happens with the last eighty units?”

  “We’re shipping them, too.” Metzger gave Peter an apologetic look. “We have a contract. He’s already paid in full.”

  Peter looked at Lewis. “When does the next truck come?”

  “Four o’clock today.” A little mo
re than five hours from now.

  Lewis gave Peter a wide, tilted grin. “Be good to be on offense for a change.”

  “What?” Metzger’s eyes got wide. “Oh, no. What about my family? What about my people?”

  Peter put his hand on Metzger’s shoulder. “Do you think that threat will end if you sign that paperwork? It won’t. I’m sorry, Marty, but you have to make a choice. Do you want to live under this shadow for the rest of your life? Or do you want to stand up and fight back?”

  Metzger looked like he was about to throw up.

  Peter felt for the guy. It was easy to talk tough about fighting back. It wasn’t Peter’s family at risk. But he didn’t know another way to find Holloway.

  “Here’s what you do,” he said. “Bring everyone into the office, right now. Tell them to get their spouses home from work, pull their kids out of school, throw a few things in a bag, and go to a hotel outside the city. It will only be for a few days. Once the shipment is out the door, have your lawyer call the police.”

  Metzger pulled in a ragged breath and held it for a long moment. Calculating the enormity of what he would be asking of his people, the risk involved no matter which choice he made.

  Finally he released his breath. “Okay,” he said. “I can do that. All of it.”

  “That’s great, Marty.” Peter turned to June and Lewis. “What else are we missing?”

  June flipped through her notebook for a moment, then pointed at Metzger. “You said Holloway’s offer didn’t actually have his name on it, right? It was from a company you’d never heard of. What was the company?”

  “Let’s see. It sounded like a law firm. You know, with two last names. Graham, Brown LLC.”

  Peter smiled. It was the name on the credit card Holloway had used to send flowers to his ex-girlfriend. Not a person, but a company. Another piece of the puzzle.

  June said, “Did the offer provide proof of funds for the purchase?”

  “Yes. He had a letter from a private bank.”

  “Can you email me a copy of the offer with the letter?” She tapped the screen. “Actually, send me these drawings, too.”

  She forwarded everything to Oliver with a quick note about their progress, then sent a text to Zedler at the paper with instructions to focus on the buyer, Graham, Brown LLC, and any physical address they might have.

  Peter looked at Lewis. “What the hell does he need with eight hundred of those things?”

  Lewis gave him a predatory grin. “Brother, we gonna know soon enough.”

  * * *

  —

  Leaving Metzger to the task of getting his people to a safe place, they walked across the shop floor to the fenced-in rear parking lot. June wanted to see where Metzger’s cousins, David and Sam, had died.

  It was hard to miss. The bodies were gone, and someone had used a high-pressure hose to wash away what they’d left behind on the faded gray asphalt. But a pale shape remained, a large, irregular form that suggested what had happened there.

  June put her palm to her chest. “That must have been a lot of blood.”

  “It’s just the start, we don’t get this right.” Lewis had his head on a swivel, looking for angles of attack. They all knew Edgar was still out there somewhere, watching and waiting.

  51

  On their way back to the Yukon, Peter’s cell rang. The number was blocked. Peter answered, hoping it was Kiko. “Hello?”

  “Who the hell are you guys?” It wasn’t Kiko. It was Spark.

  Peter elbowed June and pointed at the phone. “Hi, Spark. Thanks for calling. I’m going to put you on speaker.”

  “Answer my question. Who do you work for and what do you want?”

  “We want Vincent Holloway,” Peter said. “He took some very sensitive information several years ago. But now you also have that information. So we need to ask you to empty your pockets, too.”

  “You mean the hyena? A four-legged mechanical thing with a claw where the head should be?”

  “Is that what he calls it? We think it’s based on some of the technology he stole. But he took a lot more than that. You copied a chunk of it when you got into his phone at the market.”

  “I knew those kids were there,” she said abruptly. “At the market. I’m a really good shot. I wouldn’t have hurt them. I wouldn’t have hurt anyone but him.”

  June raised her eyebrows at Peter. He nodded. “Hi, Spark, my name is June. I’m Peter’s friend. This sounds like something very personal for you. What did Holloway do?”

  “He took everything I loved.” The pain in her voice was like acid on the skin. “I’ll deal with him. You people can go home.”

  “Spark, we can’t do that,” June said. “There’s too much at stake. More than you know.”

  “I know a lot,” Spark said. “I didn’t just get his phone. I took over his entire computer system. I have his lab notes, his engineering drawings, his whole financial structure, everything. I just haven’t had time to dig through everything yet.”

  “We’d love to get a look,” June said. “It will be very helpful unwinding his operation after we take him down.”

  Spark laughed bitterly. “What are you going to do, arrest him? The court system can’t touch guys like Holloway. He can buy his way out of anything, and he fights dirty. There’s only one way to bring him down and that’s to put his whole life online. Where he hides his money, all the specs for that hyena thing, all his emails, even his personal journal. Expose it all. The whole world will know what he’s done.”

  “Please, Spark,” Peter said. “Don’t do that.”

  “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” she said. “I made myself an insurance policy. I thought it was protection against Holloway, but I guess it’s protection against you, too. I put a fail-safe on my servers. A dead man’s switch. If I don’t write a very specific piece of code every night by eight o’clock, all that data dumps online to every major news outlet in the country. He won’t be able to buy his way out from that.”

  Peter felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. “That’s a very bad idea, Spark. I know you’re hurting, but this won’t help things at all. Trust me on this.”

  Spark wasn’t listening. “One last thing,” she said. “Leave Kiko out of this. It’s not his fault. He didn’t do anything. It was all me.”

  “Spark, please. Let’s meet somewhere to talk, okay? Anywhere you want. Spark?”

  But Spark didn’t answer. Because she’d already hung up.

  Peter turned to June. “Are you going to keep your appointment with the cops?”

  June checked the time. “I mean, I don’t want to be early. What are you thinking?”

  “I think we need to find Spark before this whole thing turns to shit.”

  52

  By the time they hit the freeway and headed toward the south side, it was after eleven. The sky was low and dark but it had not yet begun to rain.

  On National Avenue, Peter ran up the back steps to Spark’s apartment while Lewis waited at the front door, but she wasn’t there. Peter knew she’d been home because her electric bike was gone, along with the shoebox it had been plugged into.

  They stopped at the MakerSpace, but nobody answered the bell and the place was buttoned up tight. The hole in the wall at Spark’s shop had been covered with sheet metal bolted to the brick. The solar panels still gleamed on their rooftop rack, making electricity despite the clouds.

  With no more direct leads for Spark, they went looking for Kiko. The Walker’s Point gallery was closed until four and the side door for the studios, which had been held open by a block of wood on their first visit, was firmly locked. Peter carried the crowbar tucked up the sleeve of his coat, the curve of the hook in his cupped palm, but when he dropped it down to pry the door, June stopped him.

  She’d been on her laptop on the drive down and had run a few
simple searches. “Kiko’s full name is Enrique Tomczak. He’s got a maroon 1986 Chevy S-10 registered to him personally. Kiko’s Welding Services has a Chevy P20. That’s like a UPS truck,” she said. “You see either one of those?”

  “I know what a P20 is.” Peter put the crowbar back up his sleeve and scanned the block. The S-10 was a small, boxy pickup. Both trucks would stand out in a crowd. There was plenty of open street parking and neither vehicle was visible. “Shit.”

  “I have his home address, too. He’s on South Pine, down by the airport.” June patted his arm. “Maybe you’ll get to do some breaking and entering there.”

  Peter was ready to break something, that was for goddamn sure.

  Kiko lived in a small postwar Cape Cod on a corner lot, the red metal siding faded to a soft pink where the sun had beaten it. In the side yard sat a four-car garage that might have been bigger than the house. A concrete walkway ran between the two, with a wheelchair ramp rising to the back stoop. The shades were down in every window, and bright with lights in half the rooms.

  Peter knocked on the rear door while Lewis waited at the front, in case Spark was there and tried to run. Her AK and Kiko’s wrist rocket were very much in their minds, but they kept their guns under their jackets. Shooting either one of them wouldn’t help anything. They didn’t need a neighbor calling the police, either.

  There was no answer to Peter’s knock. He tried the knob. It was locked. The door had a window with individual panes. He poked the crowbar blade through the pane closest to the knob, then raked away the remaining glass. The sound was unmistakable. So much for the element of surprise. But it was easier to fix a broken window than a wrecked jamb, and Peter had done enough to Kiko in the last twelve hours.

  On the other hand, if Spark was angry or afraid and willing to pull the trigger, a lot of shit was going to get wrecked.