by Darin Gibby
Addy wondered what was going on. Quinn obviously knew something she didn’t. She cut the tension by nudging Quinn’s round bicep. “I think he wants you to quit paying so much attention to me and tell him where to go.”
Quinn fumbled with his GPS device and punched a few keys. “Okay, so I have the coordinates. Now what?” He looked into her brown eyes. “I seem to recall you don’t speak Vietnamese?”
Addy gritted her teeth. “Correct. How about pointing where you want him to go?”
Their driver gave them another toothless grin. “I speak little bit English. Was just kidding with you.”
Quinn directed him down a side street, and Addy wondered whether they were really going to the geocache. She thrust her hand into her purse and slipped out her makeup kit. “Forgot my makeup,” she said, flipping the case open. She pretended to blot on some blush while studying the mirror. Behind them, she could see a man in tattered clothes dashing between buildings, trying to remain incognito.
Addy swung around violently just as the man darted across the street. “There is a man following us,” she snapped.
Quinn nodded to the driver, and they took a quick right into another narrow alley, passing several silk stores where women in brightly colored silk dresses tried to wave them inside for a high-pressure sale. He looked over his shoulder. “I can’t see anything.”
“But a man was sprinting after us,” Addy insisted.
“Could you blame him? You’re probably the most beautiful woman he’s seen in years. Nothing to worry about. Just enjoy the ride.”
Addy again looked behind her but saw nothing. She exhaled and forced herself to lean back into her seat, still tense with apprehension. She took another deep, calming breath and smelled the sweet spices from restaurants preparing for lunch.
“Since you know all about me, how about sharing something about you, Quinn?” she tried again.
“Fair enough. Even though I don’t look American, I feel like one. I went to high school in Colorado. I loved math and science, so I went to Colorado School of Mines to get my Chem E degree. That wasn’t painful enough, so I got my master’s degree at Purdue, then a PhD at Caltech. After graduation, I wanted to see a bit of the world, so I took an engineering job in Korea with a company that has some prolific inventors. And that’s why I’m here at the conference. I need to recruit an attorney to help our company with its patent strategy.”
“And what about the dream of becoming an Olympian?”
“That’s a long story that’s best saved for another day.”
Then Addy sprang it on him. “What were you doing in Sunnyvale earlier this week?”
Quinn jerked to attention, then relaxed. “Sunnyvale?” he said with one eyebrow raised.
“You know, when my car exploded? You were wearing sunglasses and a goatee.”
He stroked his face, just as he’d done a few days before.
“And you were doing that same scratchy thing with your chin.”
Quinn froze, then shoved the offending hand is his pocket.
“We’re not going anywhere until you’re totally straight with me.”
Quinn remained silent.
“You know I’m onto you. C’mon now, out with it. What in the hell is going on here?”
Quinn exhaled and looked up to the sky. “Okay, you got me, but it’s not what you think.”
Addy folded her arms. “Lay it on me.”
“Yes, I admit I was at the scene of the incident with your car, but I wasn’t stalking you.”
“Then what would you call it?”
“I think the term you lawyers use is ‘due diligence.’ ”
“You’re pathetic,” Addy growled.
“No, let me explain. I need a US patent attorney—a really good one—who I can trust. I was in the States working on a marketing initiative for my new invention and interviewing potential candidates at the same time. You were the top one on my list. I was going to set up an appointment to formally introduce myself, but you high-tailed it to Vietnam. So I had to follow you here.”
Addy scrunched her nose. “Is it really so important that you had to come halfway around the world? It couldn’t have waited?”
Quinn rolled his eyes. “Time is of the essence. Look, we really should get going and get to the geolocation. I can explain more later.”
“I think we have all day,” Addy said, arms still folded.
Quinn sighed. “As I said, my company needs a really good patent attorney. We generate tons of US filings, and we’ve tried out several of the best firms, but it hasn’t really worked out. We don’t think they understand our business.”
“Which is?” Addy asked.
“Let’s put it this way; we know a lot about hydrogen and fuel cells.”
This time it was Addy who raised her brows. She turned and rested her hand on Quinn’s forearm. “Really?”
“I’m convinced you’re a perfect fit.”
Addy turned to fully face him, her knees touching his. “I guess that kind of changes things . . . But there’s this little issue about somebody wanting to hurt me if I speak to you, or don’t you know yet about the incident last night?” She ran her finger over the fading abrasion above her eye.
Quinn grasped her shoulders and pulled her forward while he inspected the wound. “What happened?”
Addy shrugged, waiting for more of a reaction.
Quinn leaned down closer to examine the wound. When he was satisfied, he looked into her eyes. “Tell me what happened.”
“Just a few thugs inviting me to fly back home to the States.”
“They hit you?”
“They didn’t need to. I tripped trying to escape and took a spill. My forehead broke the fall.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well you do now. I was warned not to speak to you, or else—” Addy pointed to her forehead.
Quinn pounded his fist on his knee. “Damn!”
“An explanation would be nice. Have you ever felt someone twice your size putting the squeeze on you? Makes having hemorrhoids seem like getting a massage.”
The corners of Quinn’s mouth curved up. “At least you have a sense of humor.”
“There are people who don’t want my technology to reach the market.” Quinn paused and inspected the street. “Let’s leave it at that for now. We really should get going. You’ll understand a bit more when we’re alone and I can explain my invention. Since you’re in Hanoi, I can arrange for you to meet with a few of my colleagues from Korea. And I’ll make sure you’re completely safe.”
“I guess that would be okay,” she said, still leery about whether he could, or would, keep his word. “I’ll need to check my schedule, but I’m sure I can fit you in sometime.”
“Let me know, and I will make the arrangements. I’m certain they will be impressed when they see how clever you’ve been to use a car named Hindy to market your practice.”
“A castrated Mustang?” she said with a grin. “How do you know it doesn’t really run on water?”
“Because that would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and I know you’re smarter than that.”
“Maybe today,” she said. “But tomorrow? It’s possible.”
Quinn raised his eyebrows and slipped on his sunglasses. “I’m looking forward to our meeting.”
Quinn tapped on the screen of the GPS unit and nodded to the driver, who immediately began churning his pedals.
“Up a block and turn right,” he said.
The driver swerved around a roadside food stand and down a narrow street lined with stores advertising foot massages. One had a fish tank filled with what looked like minnows darting through the blue water.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Addy said. “Our first stop is a masseuse?”
“Foot massage,” the driver corrected. “You dip your tired feet into the water and those little fish eat away all the dead skin.”
“A real pedicure,” she said. “I wonder if it tickles.”
&
nbsp; They hopped out of the rickshaw and skipped up onto the bamboo floor.
“Welcome,” said a woman holding a laminated brochure listing prices for foot massages.
Quinn held up his GPS unit. “No time for a massage. We need your geocache.”
The shop owner smiled and pointed at a square metal box in the corner.
“You first,” Quinn said gesturing to the back of the room.
Addy leaned over and lifted the latch gingerly, half expecting the box to explode. She pulled out a clipboard with a tethered pen. “It’s for a home for the blind. I’m going to put in my gift card for the electronics store. Maybe they can purchase a music player and some headphones. It will be perfect.” Addy signed her name, dropped in the card and fished out a T-shirt from the bottom of the box. She shook it out and held it over her chest.
“Welcome to Hanoi!” Quinn said reading the pastel letters. “I guess we’re off to the next cache.”
Rather than taking care of his own donation and souvenir, he turned his back and stared intently at their driver, who was sitting on his rickshaw, nervously flashing hand signals.
Another rickshaw appeared at the storefront with two more conference attendees, both Asian males with graying hair, who hopped out of their rickshaw and bolted into the store. Both had conference badges dangling from their necks. Addy couldn’t recognize what language they were speaking. The moment they saw Addy, they switched to English.
“I see we made it to the right place,” the first man said.
Addy pointed to the box. “Help yourself.” She studied his badge in an attempt to determine his name and nationality. In bold letters, she saw “South Korea.”
Before she could say something, the other man addressed Quinn in Korean.
“I’m glad there is such a beautiful lady to show me how this works,” the first man said, taking Addy by the arm.
Addy bristled, but didn’t want to cause a scene. “There’s nothing to it. Just reach in and take out one of the prizes, then replace it with one of your cards.”
The Korean smiled and leaned toward her, his lips nearly reaching her ear. “You don’t want to get involved. If Quinn tells you his secret, we will get it from you. The choice is yours. Understand?”
Addy folded up her T-shirt and tucked it under her arm. “It was so nice to meet you, but we need to get going.”
With that, Addy turned and stormed out, hauling Quinn behind her. “You Koreans need to learn some manners,” she said while they tumbled out into the street. “I think I’ve had enough excitement for today. Why don’t you call me a cab?”
Quinn didn’t bother asking what the man said, as if he already knew. He quickly flagged down a cab and insisted on escorting her back to the hotel. They rode in silence, with Addy staring out the window, struggling to process everything that had happened. What’s Quinn’s invention?
When they reached the Marriott, Quinn held out his hand. “I hope we did a little bit of good today. I’m sorry it ended on a sour note. I really would like to meet again and explain why you’re getting so much unwanted attention.”
Addy gave him a narrow smile, then placed her hand in his meaty palm. She wondered whether muscles made for a good fencer, and what was it that made him give up the chance to be an Olympic contender. “Of course we did.”
“Let me know your schedule, and we’ll set up a time to talk.”
“I’m thinking about it,” she said, even though she already knew she had to know more.
7
AGENT JESSE LONG jerked himself awake in his Buick sedan—an old man’s car. It was a perfect fit, according to his colleagues back at the office. Long rarely spent any time in his cubicle. After a quarter century with the agency, he had no desire to compete with the millennials who thought the sexy way to follow terrorists was using the latest high-tech equipment. That was fine with him. Instead of being proficient at shooting electrons, he was as good as any gunslinger from his hometown of Cody, Wyoming, at putting a slug in a sniper.
And he preferred to stake out his suspects the old-fashioned way, which was why he found himself perched on Lytton Street in Palo Alto, directly across from the offices of Wyckoff & Schechter.
Long rubbed his eyes. He loved being a father, but was still adapting to everything that came with it. He now knew what it was like to work after no sleep and a shrieking, colicky baby. He calculated that he’d slept a total of two hours that night.
As he watched a pair of Wyckoff attorneys cross the street for the coffee shop, Long tried to sort through the facts of his latest assignment from the Department of Justice: After receiving his PhD at Caltech, Quinn Moon interned with an American company, HydroGen, Inc., which had won a contract with the Department of Energy to find a way to economically produce hydrogen fuel. After six months, HydroGen’s president, Jerry Wilcox, filed a complaint alleging that Quinn had recently left for Korea to start his own company, WTG, after stealing HydroGen’s intellectual property. Long had been tracking Quinn’s visit to the States over the past year. This stopover, however, was different from the others. Quinn was involved in his own stakeout, following a patent attorney named Addeline Verges. Which was fine, except Quinn just happened to be following her when Addy’s hydrogen blimp went up in flames.
Why?
Long was familiar with cases involving the theft of trade secrets. Hackers from Eastern Europe to China constantly broke into the databases of US companies, but this case was different. Here, a Korean national had worked for a US company with strict national security requirements, then left the country with a head full of technical data. Still, Long knew he couldn’t arrest Quinn for being competitive. He needed a smoking gun, and the DOJ insisted he find it.
Long pulled out his phone and studied the photo of the man with the tattoo who’d shot the flare. Initial assessments were that he was Middle Eastern.
The Bureau was working to improve the photo’s resolution to sharpen the tattoo, but had nothing yet, other than it appeared to be some kind of Arabic writing. The most logical conclusion was that the man was part of a radical terrorist group like ISIS, which was committed to blocking technology that might reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil. But how did they know about Quinn? Had they tapped into his computer network in Korea? Heaven knows, the FBI had tried to hack the WTG files without luck.
Long wasn’t in Palo Alto to observe Addy. He already knew she was in Vietnam with Quinn. The moment US Customs scanned her passport, he’d been notified.
He needed some paid time off, self-imposed paternity leave, so he’d told his office that he was getting a feel for the neighborhood, trying to find a good place to spy on Addy when she returned.
8
AT ADDY’S REQUEST, Quinn arranged for dinner the following evening at the Green Tangerine, the one their tour guide, Tran, had touted as being world famous. She was ready to hear what Quinn wanted to tell her, in detail.
The hostess greeted her by name when she walked in through marble pillars framing the open courtyard. “Your guests are waiting,” she said, turning and shuffling in her tight skirt through a series of open-air tables. “You’ll be in our alfresco dining area this evening.”
The restored edifice was constructed in 1928 as a French villa. Addy felt a sense of nostalgia as she left the bustling streets of Hanoi behind and entered the ambiance of a bygone era. The architecture was a blend of French and Vietnamese, as was the cuisine.
They traveled over a cobblestone floor and passed through an open courtyard laced with lush green plants, where a Vietnamese musician was playing blues on his guitar.
The moment she emerged through a pair of green French doors, Quinn jumped up to greet her. Two other men, also Korean, rose to their feet and buttoned their blazers. Behind them was a woman with high cheekbones and American-looking eyes, no doubt the result of the latest in vogue surgery.
Addy felt outnumbered. She exhaled with a whoosh and unclenched her fists. Stay calm, even if you’re not, she told hersel
f.
“We’re so glad you made it,” Quinn began. “I brought a few guests—Yun Lee, our chief technical officer, and Jeyhu Mock, vice president of green technologies.” Addy shook their hands. She’d been expecting a gray-haired crowd, but she was mistaken. Yun and Jeyhu looked about her age. Both were wearing thick-framed square glasses and had close-cropped hair. They were almost bouncing with energy.
“And this is Kin Sumi, our office administrator.” Addy took her for the token female. Kin’s cocktail dress, form-fitting and low cut, could have come straight from Paris.
Their hostess pulled out Addy’s chair and Quinn gestured for her to sit.
“I hope you don’t mind, but the chef has already prepared his special sampler menu. It’s French-Vietnamese fusion. We won’t have to worry about ordering, so we can spend time getting to know each other a bit better. Do you have any food allergies?” Quinn asked.
“No, I’m fine. This is a great idea. I love trying new places, new foods. I hate being stuck in a rut.”
“You’re just like us,” the CTO, Yun, said with a mild Korean accent. “We’re always inventing, always looking for a way to improve our world.”
Addy browsed the sampler menu, salivating at the offerings: spring rolls, soy-soaked duck with pomegranate, Ca qua fish in tamarind sauce, succulent quail and, for dessert, chocolate truffle fritters perfumed with tamarind and a red fruit flower sauce.
Their waiter served the appetizers while Quinn explained that Jeyhu and Yun were both chemical engineers, and Jeyhu had also gone to business school at Drexel in Philadelphia.
“What’s your company’s name?” Addy said after the first course.
“WTG Company,” Quinn said.
“That’s not a very sexy name,” Addy said bluntly. “Nothing like Apple or Google, more like IBM.”
“We like to keep a low profile—at least for now,” Jeyhu explained.
“An acronym?” Addy said.
“Possibly. Do you want to venture a guess?”
Addy tapped her chin with her index finger. “The We’re The Good company?”
