Splicer (A Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  That dive from the safety and reality of that boat - to the vast dangerous unknown of the lake - felt just like their life over the past few years. GeneFab had slipped away from Jeff, had drifted out past the buoys. The new world they lived in was much deeper, mostly unknown and filled with dangerous undercurrents.

  And she was certain that the index cards were part of that threatening new reality.

  CHAPTER 18

  At his desk, Kozak was peeling a boiled egg. Otter found this repugnant and somehow unprofessional but he was just happy to see Kozak eating something. He sat down across from Kozak's clutter and wiggled his nose. Koz cut a perfectly round slice from the egg and laid it carefully on a piece of pumpernickel. He had a slab of red pepper waiting on a square of wax paper.

  "I give it a nine for presentation, and a fifteen for the ability to clear out a room." Otter plugged his nose with his meaty fingers and grimaced.

  "The police manual only gives tear gas a twelve," said Kozak.

  "So what did Dimbrowsky think about the lab results?" asked Otter.

  "Not too bloody impressed. He's looking for a silver bullet. With the stuff he’s found so far, he might just have enough to shoot himself in the foot." He ate noisily. “What did you learn from Debbie Grieves?”

  "That Grieves chick puzzles me. I can’t figure out the match. Husband and wife from hell, I figure."

  "Right. And your wife is living in marital bliss with a Robert Redford look-alike?"

  "You don't think we match?" Otter looked slightly hurt.

  Koz put the lid back on the hot pepper jar, then licked the juice off his finger. "She'd have to gain a hundred pounds and grow a mustache."

  Otter smirked. "Well, Mrs. Grieves really wasn’t much help. I'd really like to talk to her whacko hubby."

  Kozak belched softly and looked up surprised. "You worried? He'll turn up. The Vancouver detectives are leaving no palm tree unturned in their relentless search."

  “She did have something interesting to say about GeneFab though,” said Otter.

  “Yeah?”

  “She said GeneFab’s always been privately held by Rosenblatt and Ludd and a few other investors. But to get this Splicer into production they needed a lot more cash. Billions. So there was a lot of talk among the partners about an IPO – a new public stock offering.

  Of course everyone involved figured the stock would go through the roof. Every broker in town had their phone ringing off the hook. Then suddenly Ludd starts to act like he has cold feet. Which didn’t make him any friends. Do you know how much money Ludd was about to make in an IPO? A billion, maybe more. Overnight. Then Ludd is murdered." Otter threw up his hands. "Now Ludd’s partner is trying to get the company to go public on his own."

  “If Ludd was going to get super rich, then so would Rosenblatt,” said Koz.

  "And everybody else who was vested.”

  “Like?”

  “Their families had shares. Major clients apparently. Some of their suppliers. And there were some local government loans. Friends. I’m trying to get a complete list from the company. And everyone of course is waiting for the big payoff. And they all had a reason for hating Ludd for standing in the way of their instant wealth. And then there’s the elephant in the room...”

  Kozak stared at Otter, waiting.

  “GeneFab's biggest client - by a mile. Had pre-orders for over 100 Splicers. That's about a half a billion dollar order."

  Kozak was awake now. "Half a billion? And who would this customer be?"

  "The United States Department of Defense," said Otter.

  Kozak whistled. "You want to put them on the suspect list?”

  “This is Debbie Grieves' theory so don’t shoot the messenger. She could be one of those conspiracy theory types for all I know. But she wanted to know why the US Military would let a pip-squeak Canadian biotech company stand in the way of them acquiring one of the most dangerous weapons of the twenty-first century.”

  CHAPTER 19

  They were back at the bolted down tables - prison style. Jayne was wearing dark tweed, very conservative, with a shiny white silk tie. Rusty was still in the same wrinkled suit.

  "Think about that night," she said again. "If you talked to anyone? Anyone see you in the hallway or coming into your building?" Rusty looked tired and remote. "Don't answer now. Just think about it,” said Jayne.

  "I've forgotten how. You've got to get me out of here," pleaded Rusty. "I'm starting to do the prisoner’s shuffle. Pretty soon I'll be talking like James Cagney."

  Jayne shook her head slowly. "Getting you out hasn't been easy. You'll have to give me another day or two." Her client was beginning to develop that familiar prison pallor. It didn't take long. "Have you ever been to the President’s Club?" she asked.

  "Never."

  "How about the parking lot?"

  "Not in the past, say, 5 years.”

  "Why 5 years?"

  "I don't know. I couldn't swear that I might not have parked there ten years ago. It's too long ago to remember something so trivial.”

  “Do you know where the President’s Club is?"

  "I've lived in Toronto my whole life - of course I know the place. And why have I become Typhoid Mary?"

  "I gather it's all the attention."

  "That's bull. You guys eat that stuff up. Most of you would give your first child for that kind of media mileage."

  Jayne wasn't being baited but she wasn't displaying the kind of ironclad confidence he came to expect from her either. She turned a page in her file. "Can you tell me about the evidence?"

  "Evidence?"

  "That's why you're here, remember."

  "There's no evidence. This is all circumstantial."

  She shrugged. "They really only have one thing that links you to Ludd."

  "I'm his lost love child?"

  "Ludd was a technophile. Loved gadgets. But he carried a lined book everywhere he went to jot down ideas and appointments. In Ludd's book, Wednesday, the day he was murdered, he wrote … Dinner. Rusty. President’s Club."

  Rusty inhaled, held it. "Who wrote that?"

  "We're assuming it was Ludd. It looked like Ludd's handwriting. It's being checked."

  "How do you check that kind of thing?"

  "Hand writing expert."

  "Why not just have sheep entrails spread over them and then call in a shaman?"

  She put her elbows on the table. "Inadmissible."

  "This looks pretty shaky to me."

  "I know what you mean. But there's something subtle about it that bothers me too."

  "The unsubtle parts bother me more."

  Jayne stared at him directly for a moment. It was one of her habits. She was thinking. It gave him an opportunity to admire her eyes. “There are no other clues - only this single notation in a daily schedule. No one saw him or anyone else for that matter. No one heard the phone call. He didn't mention it to anyone. And yet the prosecutors acting like he's got an open and shut."

  "How about Ludd’s wife?" asked Rusty. "If he was going to be late, wouldn't he call his wife?"

  "He might. Carolyn, my paralegal, checked that angle. Avril Ludd say’s no. No call. Anyway, if it's a frame-up, it's a very delicate one. Which is the best kind, I suppose."

  "Do they always arrest people on such flimsy grounds?"

  "You're not being held, Rusty. As soon as we get bail posted you're free until the trial. They made their first shot. Maybe they hoped you might confess when they came to get you, or caught you with the murder weapon. You're the prime suspect and that notation was enough to make the arrest. Now they've got to make it stick. It might not make it past the pre-trial."

  "I've heard that before."

  Jayne ignored her client’s sarcasm. "I argued with the Judge and got them to set bail at $10,000. No priors. The prosecutor wanted $100,000."

  The muscles in Rusty’s face dropped his jaw like a parachute. "You're kidding. I have to come up with $10,000?"

  "No. You
sign with a bail bondsman. It'll cost you about $500 for the first 30 days. If you skip, they come after you for the balance."

  He was making a slow recovery. "There goes my life savings."

  "We'll see if we can work something out for you."

  "Pardon?"

  "I'll let you know," was all she would say. “Now if we could make some headway tracking Grieves down. He could be very useful to us.”

  "I think I have that one figured out.”

  “How so?”

  “When hackers are looking at passwords, they always look at the user’s pet names first.”

  "Really. That’s wonderfully fascinating.”

  Rusty ignored the sarcasm. “Grieves’ wife told me when they first got married they rented an old two story in Bathurst. They found on the first night they had a visitor in the attic. A bat. Grieves wouldn't let her call an exterminator or kill it. She says he actually fed it."

  "What, for God's sake?"

  "Fish food. He left a tray on the floor for the little beastie. He used to sit in the attic and watch it. He called it Dante. From that famous painting by Hieronymus Bosch called Dante's Inferno. You know, the one with the little devils and bats poking their pitchforks at hundreds of fat naked little butts? Sort of a Where's Waldo from Hell?”

  "And from this you deducted … "

  “His company name. Jayne, this stuff is old hat. Using a pet name is a clue. Grieves doesn't seem to be trying very hard to hide from us. And that bothers me a bit. It doesn't make sense that he would want to be caught. Unless he's playing games with us."

  "Games?" She shook her head like a disgusted school marm.

  "It's his game of Clue. He's playing with us. I guarantee his company name is called Dante something. Dante Inc. Or Dante Software. If you do a search you may find an address."

  Jayne made a note. "Well, here's something else about Mr. Grieves that should send a chill up your spine. I checked his record. He was charged about ten years ago for shoplifting. That's the only criminal mark in the file. Officially. But Carolyn connected with a caseworker in the Toronto Social Services department that told a pretty ugly story. This wasn't Criminal. It's Family Services. When Grieves was younger, he got mixed up in drugs. A couple of fights. Beat a man in a bar with a baseball bat. Somehow managed to escape prosecution. And based on a phone call report, physically abused his mother once. She never laid charges though."

  Rusty winced. "This is Malcolm Grieves we're talking about?"

  "My social worker friends would say he was going through a stage. Could be stress. But it shows he does have a record for violence."

  "He beat up his mother? And I'm here while he's out there?"

  Jayne stood to leave. "Normally I'd ignore that question, Rusty. Tell you life just isn't fair. But there's more to it than that, isn't there?"

  Rusty just nodded. A lot more.

  CHAPTER 20

  The New York Times once told the story of an employee with a giant insurance firm in Boston. Rumor had it that cuts would be made to his department. He walked down to the employee washroom on a different floor and spent the afternoon sitting on the toilet trying to figure out how he would survive - how he would support his family without a weekly paycheck. The next morning, afraid to face the music in his department, he retired to the washroom again. Following a week of loitering around the stalls, he received his paycheck, as usual in the mail.

  For the next seven years he continued to be paid on a regular basis, not once showing his face in his department, but never failing to arrive at the office promptly at 7:30 AM. Every day he would make the washroom his center of operations. At Christmas he would join the office staff parties - in the summer his family would make their appearance at the company picnic. It was only when he succumbed to a coronary and died, in the very same washroom, that his ruse was discovered.

  Aaron Grey was reminded of this story almost daily as he made his way through the labyrinth of hallways and departments on his way to his office at CIA headquarters in Langley. His itinerary, his sphere of attention, was so narrowly focused these past few years, that the number of fellow operatives he came into contact with on a daily basis was limited to one or two retired senior area managers. Like the guy in the story, he was virtually invisible to others he shared the building with. And that was the way he preferred it.

  Most of the men he had worked with over the years at the shop had retired or died. The ones who had passed away, did so on golf greens and dance floors, their only reminder of action on alien soil a geriatric flashback. Last year, his personal assistant of 32 years had finally sold her home and moved to a condo in Arizona. He never replaced her.

  Other departments, insulated by function of harsh security, had little interest or involvement in his territory or responsibilities. And Grey had no interest in theirs. His contacts were largely outside of the CIA – a handful of trusted field operatives, who shared his ideals and a few chosen new recruits, trained in the traditional arts.

  Grey's budget was considerable, for all intents, infinite. He currently had over fifty lawyer spotters on his payroll placed all over the country. Their job was to identify companies with cash flow or management problems. Grey’s people would then swoop down and buy the companies cheap and refinance them through a number of covert banks owned by POG. These companies would then pledge bearer bonds on the open market to raise money and then eventually declare bankruptcy. Millions were generated this way every month. All for the cause.

  His desk was old and marked - each scratch, a bookmark, a link to a case or a cause dead but not forgotten. On one uncluttered wall was a faded signed photograph of Richard Nixon and a blank spot where once was hung a likeness of Ronald Reagan. Grey took it down and trashed it the day that Gorbachev landed in New York to mark the official end of the cold war.

  His office, like his appearance, was unassuming. But his eyes, on closer inspection, were the nexus of a grim determination. Most of the younger secretaries, the clerks and the managers avoided his gaze. They were thankful he appeared only at Langley once or twice a week, making the center of his operations his home in Connecticut. Those eyes were burning now.

  What angered him was the response he was getting from the other side.

  Something had happened. The gloves were off.

  Someone in the State department had decided that the Splicer would make a very clever gift to the military. Grey was aware of a standing order made by the Army to GeneFab for several hundred million dollars. His first order of business would be to tell the hardware boys to fuck off. But they were too bull-headed to consider a simple no for an answer. They wanted the Splicer and they hated Grey's department for getting in their way. They were capable of anything right now.

  Grey had met with an acquaintance by the name of Ford several months before. He ran an import business that specialized in selling technology and software to third world countries. He had assisted Grey in the past in providing payoffs to small rebel groups in other countries. Computers used properly can be more effective than guns in many cases. Of course, if they needed guns, those too could be found.

  Grey offered Ford the opportunity to take over GeneFab. Ford's company, X-Tech, had a wholly owned subsidiary in Toronto. Free trade would make it possible to buy out GeneFab without too much difficulty and the Canadian connection would make the deal that much cleaner. Grey's department would provide the initial funding. X-Tech only had to come up with the balance within twelve months, long after the diffused bits and pieces of the Splicer were sold or scattered to the international wind.

  Two weeks later, Ford and Grey met with the two owners of GeneFab at a quiet business club in downtown Toronto. Ludd and Rosenblatt failed to impress Grey with their demeanor or their style, but one thing was clear - they were not in agreement over the future of GeneFab. Something was troubling Rosenblatt, who appeared anxious and uncommunicative.

  Ford made a simple offer. The company was valued by two independent consulting firms at
somewhere between 1.2 to 1.5 billion. Ford was prepared to offer the shareholders two billion if they agreed to the deal within three days. They would not be required to stay on. Outside management would be brought in. Rosenblatt's pupils dilated and he almost gagged on his club sandwich. Ludd showed little emotion and said that they would consider it.

  Two days later, Ludd called to say that they were not prepared to sell. Grey was astounded by the refusal. He decided that he would have to take other steps.

  That afternoon Ford received a call from Rosenblatt. He offered to sell XTech his 40% of the company. Ford explained to him that they required controlling interest. Rosenblatt asked to speak to Grey.

  What was it in Rosenblatt that he was able to detect a subtle difference between the two buyers from New York? Somehow he was able to understand that Grey was the kind of man prepared to take drastic action if it was called for - the kind of action that Ford would be better off not knowing about.

  "How badly do you need to own GeneFab?" asked Rosenblatt, almost in a whisper.

  "You and your partner must recognize just how generous our offer was. Money is not the issue with us."

  "Ludd doesn't buy your answer about using the technology to improve life in the third-world."

  "Your partner is a cynic, Mr. Rosenblatt. What do you think our motive is?"

  "Funny thing. I hadn't even thought about it," answered Rosenblatt with a nervous laugh.

  "What have you got in mind?"

  "Maybe I can buy Ludd out."

  "He's already said he doesn't want to sell."

  Rosenblatt didn't answer right away. Grey could hear his asthmatic breathing in the phone. "We have an insurance funded buy-sell agreement. A key man policy. For example, if he dies in a car accident next week, the insurance company would pay out his heirs, and the other 40% of his shares would come to me."

  Grey thought for a moment. Rosenblatt's emphasis on the word dies was a clear but veiled suggestion. This man was desperate. "What are you suggesting?"