The Adamas Blueprint

by Boyd Morrison

  “That car alarm you hear,” Barnett said, “was the result of this suspect attempting to break in to a vehicle. We caught him in the act, and now he’s trying to get away.”

  Kaplan stopped the Taurus in front of the Jeep and got out. He walked around, pulling handcuffs from his pocket.

  Kevin knew it was no use trying to get help from these people. He didn’t resist as Kaplan pushed him against the Jeep, patted him down, handcuffed him, and led him to the car. Barnett rounded the car to get in. In the distance, Kevin heard sirens.

  “You’re not going to wait for the Blacksburg police, Barnett?” Kevin said, sneering the name.

  Kaplan shoved Kevin into the back seat. The man who had called himself Barnett six days ago slammed the door and looked back at Kevin from the front seat, his hollow gray eyes smiling. “Allow me to introduce myself, Mr. Hamilton. My name is David Lobec.”

  * * *

  Erica bounded down the staircase two steps at a time. To get the police’s attention quickly, she’d told them that somebody had been shot in the commuter parking lot during a fight. When she was convinced that the police were coming, she hung up and ran for the stairs, stopping only to retrieve her mace from the lab.

  She got to the first floor and burst into the hallway, her lungs burning. She ran through the outer door, squinting as she stepped into the sun, and stopped.

  To her right, the Jeep was slowly moving toward the main campus.. To her left, the flashing lights of a police car were visible cresting the hill. She quickly scanned the rest of the parking lot, but there was no sign of the brown Taurus.

  They were gone.

  CHAPTER 31

  Kevin was driven to Ted Ishio’s house, where they met a man named Vernon Francowiak. He was sickened when he saw how the house had been trashed in their search for the notebook. They waited at the house for thirty minutes, enough time for the cops to have left the commuter lot. Then the four of them returned to the university.

  While Franco, as Bern had called him, waited with the car, Bern and Lobec led Kevin to Jacobson Hall’s fifth floor. With every step, he prayed that Erica had taken the diamond specimen and left.

  “Here it is,” Bern said as they approached the lab. He looked at the number on the door. “This is the lab.”

  “The key, Mr. Hamilton,” Lobec said, holding out his hand.

  “I don’t have it.”

  Lobec nodded at Bern, who patted him down more thoroughly than when they had first caught him. Kevin was almost getting used to the process.

  After a minute, Bern shrugged. “He’s clean.”

  “Miss Jensen must have it. No matter.” Lobec withdrew a small kit from his pocket and took out two small slivers of metal. He inserted both into the lab’s deadbolt, and within twenty seconds he twisted the handle opening the lab.

  Kevin was impressed. Still, he was nervous, and he didn’t want to let them think they had him scared. He tried to lighten up the situation. “That was fast. You must get locked out of your house a lot.”

  “I’m glad you can still see the humor in this, Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Bern, wait outside while we look around the laboratory.”

  Followed by Lobec, who had his gun drawn, Kevin entered the lab and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was deserted. Erica’s purse was gone, and some papers were strewn on the floor near where it had been. He paid no attention to the experimental equipment, but Lobec walked directly to it.

  Lobec first inspected the laser, then peered inside the chamber. “It appears that your purchase from LuminOptics was not wasted. The laser is still warm to the touch.”

  Kevin’s stomach sank. Lobec realized what they had done.

  “It appears Miss Jensen took the diamond with her.” Lobec turned away from the chamber and looked at Kevin. “You warned her. How?”

  A grin spread across Kevin’s face. He shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lobec said. “I don’t think there’s any point in searching the laboratory. Even in her hurry, Miss Jensen wouldn’t have left the notebook. And we don’t want to dawdle in case she has called the police again. We should, however, check Mr. Ishio’s office to be sure she isn’t still here.”

  A search of Ted’s office revealed nothing more than that Erica had left in a hurry. She’d still had the presence of mind to lock both doors, though the gesture had been futile.

  Inside the office, Lobec looked out at the parking lot below. “I see. She observed our chase from here. Although I’m surprised it took her so long to notify the police, she certainly reacted swiftly in escaping. Curious.”

  Once they were back in the Taurus, Lobec said, “I think it’s safe to assume Miss Jensen is no longer in Blacksburg.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Bern from his seat beside Kevin. “She’s got the notebook.”

  “Yes,” Lobec said, training his steel gray eyes on Kevin, “but we have something equally valuable.”

  * * *

  The Taurus headed straight to the Roanoke airport where Kevin and his three captors got on the most luxurious jet he had ever seen. His hands were cuffed behind him the entire time, but he was otherwise unrestrained. The plane trip lasted less than an hour. Even though he wasn’t sure of their final destination because the window next to him was closed, the angle of the sun through the other windows of the plane indicated a north-easterly direction. At a hanger in an airport he couldn’t identify, he was put into another car. As they exited the airport, he saw a sign confirming his suspicions. Dulles Airport, Washington.

  Thirty minutes from Dulles, after a drive through lush horse farms and rolling farmland, the car turned into a long drive shielded from the afternoon sun by elms and oaks. It wound for what seemed like a mile and then the arbor opened to reveal a stunning white plantation-style mansion. The paint gleamed on the huge columns and stately frontispiece, indicating a recent restoration. Kevin noted with discomfort that his entourage had made no attempt to disguise their route or even provide him with a blindfold. He knew exactly where they were and how to get back. Which meant they intended to kill him.

  Lobec took him out of the car, released his handcuffs, and led him up the front steps into a marble-floored foyer. Large doors on each side flanked a spiral staircase straight out of Gone with the Wind. Lobec pointed to the door on the right. Kevin walked into a library with delicate Persian carpeting and handsome leather furniture. Few books lined the cherry shelving, which were instead filled with mementos and awards.

  “Ah!” said a man sipping an iced tea in one of the library’s wing-backed chairs. “You’re right on time as usual, David.” The man stood up, stretching to a height four inches taller than Kevin. He walked over to Kevin with his hand outstretched. “Kevin Hamilton, I’m Clayton Tarnwell,” he said with a clipped Texas twang.

  Kevin ignored the hand. “So you’re Clay. What do you want?”

  With a bemused look, Tarnwell dropped his hand and returned to his chair. “Please sit down while we talk, Kevin. Would you like an iced tea?”

  Kevin didn’t move. “I said, what do you want, Tarnwell, if that’s your real name?”

  Tarnwell looked at Lobec. “A little like me, wouldn’t you say David?” To Kevin, he said, “That’s good. I’m not much for pleasantries unless it’s to get what I want. And I think you know what I want.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Last Sunday, your goon here tried to kill me and my girlfriend, and we’ve been on the run ever since.”

  “By the way, Clayton Tarnwell is my name. Have you ever heard of Tarnwell Mining and Chemicals?” Kevin shrugged. “No? That’s understandable. Our annual revenue is about $1 billion, small potatoes in the mining and chemicals industry. But in three days, my company’s value will quadruple. Everyone in America will know my company’s name because of something I bought from your professor.”

  Kevin remained impassive. Tarnwell arched an eyebrow and continued.

  “I know that Erica Jensen paid over $10,000 for a new
laser, which could definitely be used in the process I bought. You see, like you, I’m a chemist.”

  “Oh, you’re like me, huh? I don’t seem to recall ever killing someone because I didn’t get what I wanted.”

  “If you mean Dr. Ward, he was trying to steal from me. I saw the risks and the possibilities of his process, and I was willing to invest in it, to make it work, to put my company and reputation on the line. As thanks for my willingness to take these risks, Michael Ward stole ten million dollars from me, which by the way, I don’t think I’ll ever see again. Not only that, but the money wasn’t enough for Michael. He had to take the Adamas process, too. It was, sad to say, a tragic situation, his wife and him dying in a fire like that.”

  “That was fire was no accident.”

  “That’s what the news reports said.”

  “Give me a break. What about Herbert Stein? What about my father?”

  “Yes, Michael did think I had Herbert Stein killed, but murders are very common in Houston. As for your father, his death was tragically unnecessary, but as I understand, David and Richard were only defending themselves. You shot at them first. That’s why they had to apprehend you the way they did.”

  Kevin ground his teeth. “You can’t explain it all away that easily.”

  “I just did,” Tarnwell said with a wicked smile. “Very easy, wasn’t it? It’s exactly what I’ll tell anyone who asks if your girlfriend goes to the authorities with that notebook. What do I want? I want what I paid for. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Lobec spoke up. “And the videotape.”

  Kevin tried to hide his surprised reaction, but it was too late. Lobec smiled.

  Damn, Kevin thought. How did he know about that?

  “Ah,” Tarnwell said. “So Michael wasn’t bluffing. Yes then. The videotape too.”

  “And I suppose you’ll let me go free if she gives them to you.”

  “Of course.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? Once I have Adamas, who do you think anyone will believe? A wealthy business man who is a pillar in the community, who has donated over a million dollars to charities and political causes around the state? Or a struggling student and his girlfriend who have recently had trouble with the police?”

  Kevin walked over to the window and looked out at the lush green lawn. “And once you get the Adamas Blueprint, you’ll be satisfied?”

  “The Adamas Blueprint? You mean the notebook?”

  “That’s what Ward called it. He liked thinking up names for patents and new research methods. It got him more recognition in publications.”

  “It sounds like Michael.”

  “All you want is the blueprint?”

  “It’s all I’ve wanted from the first day Michael contacted me. In a way, Michael was trying to cheat both of us. If I had known you were one of the coinventors, I wouldn’t have left you out of the deal. In fact, I’m willing to pay you the balance of what I was going to pay Michael. How does $5 million sound to you?”

  * * *

  Erica turned off the Chevy’s engine. She was stopped at the gas pump island of a Philips 66 truck stop just outside of Front Royal, Virginia, about an hour and a half west of Washington’s Beltway. She opened the door to the smell of diesel fuel and truck exhaust. The Philips 66’s parking lot was packed. It was 6:00 on Saturday night, and Erica wasn’t surprised at the congestion considering the heavy truck traffic she’d seen on I-81 for the past three hours.

  When Kevin had been abducted, Erica immediately ran back to the lab and began gathering her belongings, including the notebook, videotape, and the diamond specimen, all the while terrified that Barnett and Kaplan would burst into the lab at any moment and kidnap her as well. The specimen had been difficult for her to dislodge without Kevin’s help, but after 10 minutes she worked it free. Then she ran to the truck, stopping only to pick up Ted Ishio’s cellular phone, the one Kevin had dropped during the chase.

  On her way out of town, she hadn’t gone anywhere near Ted and Janice’s house, afraid that they would be waiting there for her. She headed west, away from the interstate, and then worked her way toward Roanoke over the back roads, getting lost several times on the twisting one-and-a-half-lane highways.

  After filling up the enormous tank, Erica went into the convenience store and bought some coffee and a Hershey bar to tide her over until she got supper in Washington. She didn’t know when or even if the kidnappers would try to contact her. She had called her apartment several times during the drive, hoping they had left a message for her on the answering machine, but all that was on it were four messages: a call from one of her friends, one from the hospital asking when she’d be in again, and two marketing calls. If she didn’t hear from them by Sunday night, she had to conclude that they were torturing information out of Kevin. But she had no idea where to find him or who it was that had abducted him, leaving her with only one option. Given the situation, there was no alternative but to go to Congressman Sutter on her own and get his help in trying to find Kevin.

  As she walked back to the truck, Erica heard a faint but distinctive sound, a periodic high-pitched bleat. She looked around to see if it came from someone else’s vehicle, but it grew louder as she approached the Chevy. It was the ringing of a cellular phone.

  As she got into the truck, the phone bleated again. It couldn’t be Murray Hamilton’s phone; they’d turned it off after the first time one of his business clients had called. Which meant it was Ted’s cellular phone, the one Kevin had used to call her from the Virginia Tech parking lot. Erica tried not to get excited. It could very well be one of Ted’s friends calling.

  She waited through another ring, hesitant to pick it up. But the ringing was insistent. She flipped open the phone and clicked the TALK button to answer it.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Erica Jensen,” said an unmistakable Texas drawl, “I’m so glad we were able to contact you this way.”

  “Who is this?”

  “As you might guess, I’m sort of reluctant to give my name out over the phone. I believe we both have something the other wants.”

  “What have you done with Kevin?”

  “Why, I haven’t done anything. He’s right here. Would you like to speak with him?”

  “Put him on.”

  “I will, but you didn’t say please.”

  After a slight pause, she heard Kevin’s voice, and she almost cried. “Erica? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I got out before they came back.”

  “I know. Don’t worry about me, and don’t deal with them. Stick to our plan…”

  She heard a scuffle on the other end of the line. Then the Texan was back on the phone.

  “That’s too bad. I thought we convinced Kevin of our good intentions. I even offered him $5 million for what my former friend Michael Ward called the Adamas Blueprint. You know what he did? He tried to spit in my face.”

  “Good.”

  “You two are a pair, aren’t you? Well, it doesn’t matter. Erica, do you want Kevin to live?”

  Erica’s breath caught in her throat.

  “I said do you want Kevin to live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll have to come to an agreement. Murray Hamilton’s truck should get you to Washington, which will be much more convenient for us. I will have the two men you met earlier take Kevin and meet you behind a warehouse on the Potomac. The address is…”

  “No. I haven’t done this before, but I’m not stupid. It has to be someplace public.”

  A second’s pause. “All right. Where?”

  Erica had lived in Washington during a summer job after her sophomore year in college. She worked downtown, but hadn’t had a car at the time. Instead, she avoided the traffic and the crush of the Metro by biking in each day from her apartment in Arlington, Virginia through the Mall. On her route she had crossed one of the busiest bridges in the Washington area, the Arlington Memorial Bridge, directly across
from the Lincoln Memorial. It was almost always busy, especially during rush hour, and the moment she thought of the bridge, she got the inkling of a plan.

  “The middle of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, north side. The only ones I want to see there are Kevin and the two I’ve already met. If I see an army of guys out there, I’ll leave and send a copy of Adamas to every newspaper in the country.”

  Another pause, probably to discuss the risks of the location. “All right, Erica. The Arlington Memorial bridge tomorrow at noon.”

  “It has to be Monday morning,” she said, trying to stall for time.

  “Monday? Schedule is important to me, Erica.” Her nerves grated every time the Texan said her name.

  “If you want the notebook, you’ll have to wait.” She looked at the backpack with the notebook in it. “I can’t get to where it’s hidden until tomorrow night.”

  A sigh. “Seven AM Monday morning. Oh, and there’s something else I want you to bring. A particular videotape that you found. You’ll have access to that as well, I assume?”

  “Yes,” Erica said, reluctantly. Although it didn’t show much, it was a link between Kevin and the Adamas process.

  “Good. I can’t afford for you to miss this appointment, Erica. If you’re not there, they will never find Kevin’s body. If you don’t have the notebook and the videotape, they will never find Kevin’s body. If you bring the police, yada yada yada. Get it?”

  “I get it.”

  “I’m glad we got to talk finally. I’m sure you’re just as smart as you are pretty. Don’t make an error in judgment like Michael Ward did.” Then the phone went dead.

  She turned it off and dropped it on the seat in revulsion, realizing the Texan had gotten pictures of her from somewhere. There wasn’t time to stew on that. She started the truck, pulled down on the stalk shifter, and floored the gas. She had to get to Washington and see whether her plan might actually work.

  CHAPTER 32

  “Hey! Hey out there! Franco!” Kevin continued to pound on the bedroom door. “I have a problem in here.”