by Helen Hanson
“Bax, thank God you’re still here.” He withdrew a shaking hand from the pouch pocket and tossed a flash drive onto Baxter’s lap. “I need you to take this to Dr. Bisch. She’ll be in the office by the time you get there. But don’t leave it on her desk.” His gaze ricocheted around the room, his voice lowering to a near whisper. “Make sure you hand it to her personally. I need to leave town for a few days.”
Baxter retrieved the flash drive from the folds around his crotch. “What about our new client?”
But Sydney’s attention fixed outside.
A man in harmony with the ‘60s, he dialed to mellow even if it required herbal assistance. Baxter figured he was one toke over his usual line.
“I can’t stay here.” For the first time since arriving, Sydney pulled off his sunglasses to make eye contact. “Will you take care of Gertrude for me?” A thick vein throbbed at his neck, muscles twitched across his face, and his pupils dilated to ripe-olive proportions.
Sydney didn’t look stoned. Simply terrified.
“Trudy?” Baxter always liked Sydney’s Border Collie. Sure, I’ll watch her for you.” Baxter didn’t know what else to say.
“Thanks, man.” Sydney wiped an eye. “I’ve got to go.” He put on his sunglasses and returned to the dull gray of the morning fog.
Baxter stared at the front door as if it might open to a parallel universe. The good professor taught computer engineering not theater arts. And while he tilted dramatic, this performance was worthy of a nomination. Ever since Baxter joined his gig nearly five years ago, Sydney’s feet routinely got frostbite, especially lately. But he always found something to return him to calm, usually a bong, a warm hippie chick, or both.
But something had Syd rattled. Perhaps the pitches for the new email campaign contained sensitive stuff. Sure, they were spammers, but they didn’t run just any email pitch. Baxter maintained strict standards: Viagra. Yes. Online Casinos. Yes. Girls from Russia. No. His girlfriend, Natalie, wouldn’t let him keep one anyway. Their butler robot offered enough contention. Baxter squeezed the flash drive in his fist.
The weird encounter faded as his thoughts focused on his schedule for the day. Hitting Science Hill on campus wasted at least thirty more minutes just to run an errand, but he could claim the hours for his work-study position with Sydney. Then he could crank on their email campaigns until Natalie came home in the early evening. No time to catch a wave, though. Maybe tomorrow. Pocketing the flash drive, he stood and left the coffee bar.
Outside, fog patched the skyline while cars moved with caution along the streets. Baxter chirped the car alarm and trailed the sound to reach his ride. He fired up his 370Z and wended his way to High Street, putting up the Empire Grade until he reached the western entrance to UC Santa Cruz.
As life stirred along Heller Drive, bikes and backpacks bumped uphill toward their destinations and then disappeared behind an evergreen veil. He tucked the 370Z into the second level of the Core West parking garage and headed across McLaughlin Drive to the third floor of the Jack Baskin Engineering Building.
The first classes were over an hour from commencing, but the early nerds were busy catching their worms. Baxter barely remembered when he was that eager to impress. As a graduate student within the department, he needed eighteen units for his master’s, and he planned to pursue his doctorate next. Given his lucrative arrangement with Sydney, he wasn’t in any hurry. He swiped his card key in the exterior door and then for the stairs that led to the third floor.
Professor Alessandra Bisch held degrees in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Oxford, a Master of Science in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from M.I.T., and a Ph.D in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and Baxter still didn’t like her. She came to UCSC because of the degree program in robotics. And the funding. Academic researchers followed funding like the paparazzi followed celebrities. Most of the faculty were accessible and friendly, but Alessandra—or ‘The Bisch’ as she was known by students—reeked of condescension.
A student passed Baxter on the stairs, but when he entered the hall on the third floor, he was alone. The Bisch’s office was on the exterior wall with the window-endowed members of the engineering department, but the fog choked off any sunlight that morning. He’d taken two classes from her, but he only knew the location of her door because it was perpetually closed.
The Bisch was severe for the sake of it: Close-cropped hair. Flinty smile. Constant reminders of her education. Strictly enunciated diction. Brilliant or not, she possessed the warmth of the university mascot—a banana slug.
Baxter knocked on her door. He waited a polite few moments and tried again. Sydney said she’d be here by now. Another knock, only louder. She might be on the phone in which case the knocking could seriously piss her off.
Eh, what the hell? He knocked some more.
If she were in there, he would have roused her by now. He could leave the drive on her desk. Syd would never know, anyway. Baxter gripped the door handle and moved it downward.
With a slight push, the door swung freely to a crack. Since his intrusion didn’t elicit any yelling, he posted an eye at the opening to survey the interior. The Bisch wasn’t here.
Sweet. In. Out. No fuss. No muss.
The light was on as he pushed the door open and slipped inside. With open files and a coffee cup on the desk, the room looked like she should be working. Then he noticed the papers on the floor. Cabinets and drawers splayed open. As he neared her desk, he noticed a reddish-brown pattern in the carpet unlike that in any of the other offices. It glistened.
Nausea swelled in his belly.
Baxter stumbled to avoid stepping in it. And then he saw her. Dr. Alessandra Bisch slumped forward on the floor with a hole at the back of her neck.
Description
Meet Baxter Cruise. Gifted robotics student. Spammer for hire. His cozy world of lattes and free wi-fi explodes when a hippie professor disappears, and Baxter discovers a lady professor’s warm corpse on campus.
With his secretive lifestyle, he hasn’t cultivated any real friends. When a student asks for help with a class assignment, Baxter figures it’ll throttle his funk. But the guy blackmails Baxter into programming narcotics delivery vehicles for a notorious cartel. Working for drug lords rattles the needle on Baxter’s errant moral compass, but it’s better than a bullet in the head.
Beautiful FBI agent Claudia Seagal tracks the professor’s brutal assassin, but every angle of her investigation leads to Baxter. He’s hiding something and in far too deep to cooperate with the law.
Baxter ignores the cartel’s depravity until he watches an innocent woman die. When he wakes up on a plane, it’s too late for remorse. In bed with dangerous allies, the cartel requires Baxter’s talent until the robots are complete. Then, he and thousands of others face certain death unless Baxter can find a way to escape.
Author Bio
Bestselling Kindle author Helen Hanson writes thrillers about desperate people with a high-tech bent. Hackers. The CIA. Industry titans. Guys on sailboats. Mobsters. Their personal maelstroms pit them against unrelenting forces willing to kill. Throughout the journey, they try to find some truth, a little humor, and their humanity — from either end of the trigger.
While Helen writes about the power hungry, she genuinely mistrusts anyone who wants to rule the world.
Helen directed operations for high-tech manufacturers of semiconductors, video games, software, and computers. Her reluctant education behind the Redwood Curtain culminated in a B.S. in Business Administration with concentrated studies in Computer Science. She also learned to play a mean game of hacky sack.
She is a licensed private pilot with a ticket for single-engine aircraft. Helen and her husband spent their first anniversary with their flight instructor studying for the FAA practical. If you were a passenger on a 737 trying to land at SJC, she sends her most sincere apologies. Really.
Born in fly-over country, Helen has lived on both coasts, ne
ar both borders, and at several locations in between. She lettered in tennis, worked as a machinist, and saw the Clash at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium sometime in the eighties. She currently lives amid the bricks of Texas with her husband, son, a dog that composes music with squeaky toys, and another dog that’s too lazy to bother.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
From the Author
Geeky Thrillers by Helen Hanson
3 LIES Excerpt
3 LIES Description
OCEAN OF FEAR Excerpt
OCEAN OF FEAR Description
Author Bio
Acknowledgements
My husband, Michael, deserves a byline for picking up the slack while I wrote DARK POOL. As always, he’s the sturdy string to my short-tailed kite. His expertise gives my writing a depth I could not reach on my own; and his love, a contentment my soul never expected on this rock.
MPH, you continue to amaze me. I’m grateful that you are mine.
Maybe another language has a deeper phrase than ‘thank you’ because it never seems adequate to express my appreciation of my writing tribe. Jayme, Skip, and Sonjia your generous encouragement and patient review of my early drafts rein the worst of my proclivities.
My writing sis, Hannah, is my beautiful weekly reminder to keep moving forward.
To the citizens of Half Moon Bay, please forgive my taking license with your lovely burg-by-the-sea. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet. My thanks to the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce for helping me make the details realistic, if not exact. Anyone looking to escape for a breath of fresh air would do well to visit this lovely hamlet.
Maybe I should leave out my Lord, Jesus Christ, because His example loses vibrancy in me. I struggle, flounder, and stumble. Through Him, somehow, it all still works.
In the end, any errors, omissions, or epic fails are fully mine. Thank you for reading.
