“Thank you, Lisa. We understand the police are expected to make a statement within the next hour, and when they do, H News, Houston’s only twenty-four-hour news source, will bring it to you live. Turning to other news, police say drugs may be involved in the execution-style shooting of an attorney whose body was found yesterday morning…” Nigel pressed the mute button on the remote.
“You knew that professor, didn’t you?” he said.
“He was the one who fired me four months ago.”
“Wow, that’s wild.” Nigel didn’t seem know what else to say.
Kevin stared out the window. Dr. Ward, dead. When the accident had happened and he’d been fired, Kevin had wished a lot of bad things on Dr. Ward, but never death. Yet he didn’t feel grief about the loss either. He really didn’t know how he felt.
“Kevin,” Nigel said, “are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just weird.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Well enough. That’s why it’s so strange. Ward was a jerk, but he was also a careful guy, almost anal. I guess I’m just surprised that that kind of accident would happen to him.”
“I hear about these things happening to smokers all the time.”
“So do I. But it’s still strange.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Kevin decided he needed to get back to his apartment and started to search for the rest of his clothes. He found his shirt and shoes under a pizza box and put them on. The hangover was still there, but it was down to a dull throbbing.
“If you need anything, give me a call,” Nigel said.
“Really, I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Kevin walked out into the bright September morning. The newscast was right about the temperature. The heat was already shimmering off the driveway’s pavement.
He tried starting the Mustang several times before the car turned over. He automatically switched on the radio, which was usually tuned to the local jazz station, and then figured that he needed a little silence this morning and shut the radio off. As he released the parking brake and shifted into first, he looked at the trip odometer, which was how he gauged his gas level. There was enough to make it back to his apartment complex. Nothing was going to stand between him and a nice cool shower.
CHAPTER 5
The Sycamore apartment complex was nowhere near the South Texas University campus. It was located on the west side of Houston, just outside the Loop, far from the high crime area around the university where the cheapest apartments were, but not quite into the more expensive suburbs. It was relatively safe, with a security gate and fence encircling the complex, and the rent for a one bedroom apartment was affordable. The only drawback was the commute, which could take over forty minutes with the morning rush hour.
Like most complexes in the city, sprawling parking lots surrounded long rows of nondescript three-level buildings, which in turn overlooked courtyards with the de rigueur swimming pools that were used practically year-round. Hedges and small strips of grass separated the buildings from the sidewalks. The only thing that made The Sycamore stand out from other complexes, and in defiance of the complex’s name, was the abundance of large oaks shading cars from the relentless heat. In the far corner of the lot, inside a Pontiac parked under one of these oaks sat David Lobec and Richard Bern.
Bern was dozing, taking a break while Lobec read the short dossier they had compiled on Kevin Hamilton in the last few hours, cobbled together from his school files, a quick search of his apartment, and Texas Department of Public Safety records. Every thirty seconds, as if he had a built-in chronometer, Lobec would look up to observe Kevin’s first-floor apartment, whose front door faced the parking lot.
A truck with the words “Four Seasons Landscaping” emblazoned across its side in large green letters rumbled to a stop twenty yards in front of them. A man with no shirt and a huge gut hanging over a pair of greasy shorts climbed out and proceeded to unload a riding lawn mower out of the trailer hitched to the truck. Lobec, who hadn’t seen snow in the five years he’d been in Houston, wanted to ask the man when the other three seasons would arrive.
The mower belched a plume of smoke and the engine rose to an unmuffled crescendo, drowning out the distant sound of the street traffic and waking Bern. He looked around for the source of noise and through the car’s heavily tinted windows saw the fat man ride onto the grass.
“Damn! And I was having a great dream.” He turned to Lobec, who realized what was coming. He’d heard this kind of thing about fifty times from Bern.
“Oh man, what a dream! In this one I was like Frankenstein, right? You know, making my own person? Except, I wasn’t making a monster. I was making my dream girl from parts of all the girls who’ve ever been in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, cutting out somebody’s leg from this picture and somebody else’s tits from that picture. She was just hit by lightning, right? She was alive, buck naked, right on the table in front of me! So she got up and she was just about to…”
“You may save the details for your memoirs, Bern.”
Bern gave him a quizzical look. “Sometimes I don’t know if you’re really human, Lobec. You got any hormones at all?”
“I prefer to separate my sexual urges from my professional functions, and I suggest you attempt the same, if at all possible. It may help you better concentrate on your work.”
“What’s there to concentrate on? This guy ain’t even home.” He put a pair of headphones up to his ears and punched a button on a machine sitting on the seat next to him. “The tap’s working fine. What else am I supposed to do?”
Lobec looked around the parking lot. Every few minutes, a person or two would emerge from the building complex and get into one of the cars. “Perhaps we should discuss the new procedure we will follow when Kevin Hamilton returns.”
“New procedure? Too many people around for you?”
“Yes. Instead of approaching him at his apartment, we will monitor his telephone calls and wait. If no particular urgency arises, we will let him leave the apartment and stop his car in a more secluded area. I assume you have your identification with you?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Bern took out his wallet and flipped it open, revealing a Houston Police Department badge and identification. Lobec nodded and Bern returned it to his pocket. “But I’m sick of the name Kaplan. I think I’ll get Sheryl to make me a new ID after this op is over. What do you think of Braddock?”
“No. This is the third identification you’ve had this year. Changing aliases too often can compromise an operation. It may be difficult to remember in times of stress.”
“Afraid you’ll forget it?” Bern smirked.
“I wasn’t speaking of myself. Must I bring up the incident with the OGP?”
Bern’s smirk dissolved and he offered a curt no. The Old Growth Protectorate was a fringe environmental group bent on radical, sometimes militant, protection of primeval forests. Clayton Tarnwell had never even heard of them until his company announced plans to open a copper strip mine on virgin forest land in Montana. When the OGP threatened to destroy his mining equipment, Tarnwell sent Lobec to persuade the group’s leader to share his knowledge of their plans. Bern and Lobec had been wearing ski masks, but during the interrogation, Bern slipped and used Lobec’s name, requiring a more permanent method of dealing with OGP’s founder.
“What’s all this stuff about Adamas anyway?” Bern said, clumsily changing the subject. “Is that some new chemical Tarnwell’s trying to make?”
“You know as much as I do about Dr. Ward’s process. I am not well-versed in the chemical sciences, and Mr. Tarnwell has not seen fit to brief me on the details. I think for both our sakes it’s better not to talk about it.”
“Was he pissed about Stein?”
“You could say that he was upset.”
“Well, it’s not like it was our fault those kids found the body when they were playing in that dumpster.” Bern pulled a cigarette from t
he pack of Marlboros in his front pocket and stuck it in his mouth, then pulled a Bic lighter from the same pocket. “Christ, that lot looked so deserted, I thought it would be months before anyone would look in…”
“Mr. Bern,” Lobec said, his voice a dagger’s edge, “what have I asked you not to do in my presence?”
The Bic’s flame flickered two inches in front of the unlit cigarette. Bern’s eyes widened when he realized what he’d done and he sat up straight, releasing the Bic’s lever. “I’m s-sorry, Lobec,” he said in a rush. “I didn’t mean to, it’s just habit…”
“You know that smoking offends me, yet you do not respect my wishes. That offends me even more. I sincerely hope further correction won’t be necessary.”
Bern shook his head vigorously, and Lobec was satisfied that his point had been made. Bern had objected to his demands only twice, and he’d learned that Lobec did not take his smoking policy lightly. The burn scar on Bern’s forearm proved that.
Now that Bern was awake, Lobec returned his full attention to the folder in front of him and read from the beginning. He always liked to know as much as he could about the people he dealt with, even if it would be for only a short time.
Nicholas Kevin Hamilton. Age 26. Valedictorian of Sam Houston high school in Dallas, Texas. According to old letters of acceptance he had stored in a file box, he applied to and was accepted by 8 universities, including Stanford and MIT, but he attended Texas A&M on a National Merit scholarship and $5,000 a year in student loans. Graduated in five years with a B.A. in chemistry. Parents Frances May and Murray Hamilton both died of cancer while he was at A&M, most likely accounting for his five-year stay. He began graduate school at South Texas University in chemistry immediately after leaving A&M and was about to begin his third year of studies. He drove a nine-year-old red Ford Mustang GT hatchback, with three moving violations for speeding in the past three years.
“Is this all we have?” Lobec asked.
“Uh, no. I almost forgot,” Bern said. He pulled a notepad out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Mitch called while you were with Tarnwell. After he was done with the DPS records, he decided to access a local credit bureau. Said he finds lots of juicy stuff there. Anyway, it seems Hamilton has had a little trouble paying his bills lately. He’s been late with his rent three times this year, and he has a Visa and a Mastercard maxed out. Total limit $6000. Mitch says he’s been paying tuition with them.”
“What about the car?”
“That’s the funny thing. There’s no record of a loan on it. Must have been paid for with cash.”
“Life insurance?”
“No payout that Mitch could find. He has one checking account with the university’s credit union, current balance $85.86. We don’t know what his father did yet, but he wasn’t rich. Probably most of the benefits he did get went to pay for the funerals. Hamilton probably used the rest on the car.”
“Possibly.”
“Why do we got to get all this stuff this time anyway? I thought we were just gonna find out what he knows and take him out.”
“Bern, in my experience I have discerned one unchanging characteristic among all of the operations I’ve conducted. No matter how simple an operation seems, there will always be complications. And when they arise, the more information one has, the more likely one will be to succeed.”
Bern looked past Lobec’s shoulder and nodded as he put the microphone in his ear. “At least we don’t have to wait too long to find out.”
Lobec turned to see a car pull into the parking lot. It was a red Mustang.
CHAPTER 6
Kevin threaded the Mustang into his usual slot beside one of the parking lot’s islands, pulled through one space, and lurched to a stop in the second, the car facing away from the apartment building and shaded by an oak. He sat there for a minute, turning his face back and forth through the refreshing blast of the air conditioner, trying to soothe his still-pulsating hangover. Ready to face the heat, he killed the engine and reluctantly opened the door to the humid air that seemed to suck the coolness from the car. He was sweating by the time he reached his apartment.
He dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and walked through the tiny living room to his bedroom. After cranking the thermostat to full cool, he glanced at the answering machine. The light shined steadily. No messages.
Kevin ran his fingers through his oily hair and realized just how nasty he felt. He peeled off his sticky clothes and removed the contacts from his dry, itchy eyes. Kevin spent the next twenty minutes in a steaming shower, letting the hot water massage his aches.
When he stepped out of the bathroom, the newly cooled air of the apartment met him. He felt refreshed. With a towel wrapped around him, he put on his glasses and went into the kitchen to open a can of Diet Coke. As he passed through the living room, he hit the power key on his Mac and leaned over to turn on the TV, which he normally had on while he worked.
He stopped when he didn’t see the remote on the coffee table. He searched for a minute and finally found it under the couch. How did it get there? He tried to remember the last time he watched TV. After a second, he shrugged, picked up the remote, and flipped on the TV. It was on Headline News as usual.
After taking a gulp from the soda, he felt even better. He put the can on his desk and returned to the bedroom, where he put on workout shorts and a South Texas University T-shirt. The pair of beat up slippers he slipped into completed his typical Saturday outfit.
As Kevin sat down at his desk, an anchorman was telling viewers what they’d be seeing when the news resumed at the top of the hour. He switched on the modem, adjusted the keyboard and mouse to their correct positions, and clicked the email icon.
Waiting for the connection, he thought he should start getting ready for the appointment with Dean Baker on Monday. In the desk were copies of his original financial aid forms. He started thumbing through his file drawer, which also contained all of the research articles he had copied over the years, then abruptly stopped.
The files were all there, but something was wrong. What was it? And then he knew.
He filed his folders alphabetically by the first author of the reference, with the stapled end up so he could grab and replace the references easily when he was working on his dissertation or writing a paper. It was a habit he had developed from years of research. Today, the articles were in the exact order they always were, and the four file folders were in the correct order. But in every one of the folders, the stapled end of the article was at the bottom of the folder.
As he put the articles back in their correct orientation, Kevin didn’t know what to make of it. Just another strange thing on an already odd morning, he thought.
A flashing icon on the computer told Kevin that the connection was successful. He entered his ID and password, taking him into the school’s e-mail system.
A line blinked on the screen to alert him that three new messages were in his box. He downloaded the messages so he could work off-line and closed the modem connection, freeing up the phone line.
Two messages were on the current page, the third was on the next so he couldn’t see who it was from. The first message was from the American Chemical Society student chapter. Probably asking for dues. He skipped it.
He smiled when he saw who the second message was from: Ted Ishio, his best friend since coming to grad school. Ted had joined the program two years ahead of him and had just graduated this summer to accept a teaching position at Virginia Tech. When Kevin last saw him, Ted and his wife, Janice, were leaving to move to Blacksburg. Kevin had only heard from him once since he left. Now he obviously had his e-mail account from the university. Kevin opened the message eager to read the news.
He was disappointed when he saw how short the message was.
Kevin, I’m sorry I’ve haven’t called in a while, but as you might guess it’s been a madhouse getting ready for the semester. I’ve got three classes to teach, not to mention the ACS conference coming up nex
t Wednesday. Five days in Minneapolis. Janice is going with me because she has some family there, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
By the way, the lab is looking great, and the equipment they’re giving me is incredible. That’s about all. I’ve got to go. My presentation isn’t done yet, and I only have the weekend to do it. Talk to you later.
Ted.
Kevin exited the message. He’d send a reply later.
He paged forward to the last message and raised the Diet Coke to take a sip. When he saw who the message was from, he stopped, the can hovering in front of his face.
It was from Michael Ward. Sent at 5:43 PM the day before.
Kevin placed the can precariously on the edge of the desk, feeling strangely repulsed that one of the last messages Ward had ever sent was waiting for Kevin to read. Nevertheless, he had to read it. He opened the file.
Kevin was unprepared for the message he found. His heartbeat tripled as he read and reread the short message.
Kevin, no time for details. The same men who killed Stein are after me. Irene and I are leaving Houston. I think we’ll be safe where we’re going, but I need your help to be sure. NV117 wasn’t a failure, and Clay wants it. The details are in a notebook. I’ve recorded everything you’ll need and put it in a safe place. DA483H3 is the
Questions filled Kevin’s mind. Who was Stein? Where were Ward and his wife going? Who were these men he was talking about? They must be connected to Clay, whoever that was. And what did he mean NV117 wasn’t a failure? Of course it was a failure, a huge failure from Kevin’s standpoint.
NV117 was a routine investigation into high temperature superconductivity. They’d been conducting experiments like it for months with little success. Then the routine was shattered when it almost blew up in their faces. The damage to the equipment had been extensive, or so Kevin had been told. Ward hadn’t let him back into the lab after the accident. Even if the experiment had turned out to be a success, the results they were expecting would have been interesting, but certainly nothing revolutionary. Nothing worth killing for. It didn’t make sense.
The Adamas Blueprint Page 4
