Reese continued to hover over her chair for what seemed like an eternity. No one spoke. With a slight exhale, Chad looked back over his shoulder and studied Cyrus. He still hadn’t moved. He wasn’t even looking at Chad, who was now standing behind him. Cyrus’s hand was still planted firmly on the file folder.
At last, the door latch clicked as Chad released the knob. Slowly, and without a word, he circled back to his side of the table. He righted the toppled chair and retook his place. His face was red. Was it anger? Humiliation?
Cyrus immediately made eye contact and continued as if nothing had happened. “Tell me about Bola Alvares,” he said simply.
Chad shook his head and started to speak. Cyrus raised a hand, holding up a single finger. He looked Chad squarely in the eye. “Look, you know that I know. So don’t skate around this. Own up to what you’ve done, answer my questions, and give me what I need to fix this.”
The look in Cyrus’s eyes showed very clearly that he would accept no more excuses. He was done wasting time.
“Bola Alvares,” Cyrus started. “Mexican drug lord. Tell me what you know.”
Closing his eyes, Chad took a deep breath. He exhaled and looked back at Cyrus. “I don’t know where to start.”
He appeared sincere. It was a good sign. They were done playing games. “Why don’t we start with your brother, Brian. He’s currently serving eighteen years at Folsom State Prison for working for Alvares.”
This was a ploy on Cyrus’s part. He had raw data. From it he could infer conclusions. But a proper interrogation could turn these guesses into facts. Raw data could also be used to convince a suspect that the interrogator knew more than he really did. That was Cyrus’s goal, to use the intel he had to draw out additional information, and with a little luck, finally get a leg up in the investigation.
“My brother was convicted of laundering money for Alvares,” Chad said quietly. “He went to prison, and Alvares is still living large with his sports cars, his mansions, and his private jet.”
“So you don’t think much of the man. It didn’t stop you from taking his money.”
Chad sat silently. He seemed to be chewing over something in his mind.
“Time’s running out, Chad,” Cyrus warned. He tapped his index finger on the folder in front of him. “Talk to me now, or I’m taking all of this to the FBI and the DEA.”
Chad’s look turned questioning. “You can’t do that without exposing Meridian!”
Pushing out his chair, Cyrus picked up the folder. He rose and looked down at Chad. “Then you don’t know me very well. With what I have here, you’ll be put away for so long—your brother’ll be the one coming to see you in prison! No one’s going to be asking about Meridian.”
Cyrus only made it half a step toward the door before Chad stopped him. He wanted Chad to sweat, so it was with a show of reluctance that Cyrus finally returned to the table.
“This is your last chance,” Cyrus said sternly. “The next time I stand, I’m leaving this room, and the conversation will be over. If you can’t see that I’m throwing you a lifeline, then you deserve everything you have coming.”
Reese hadn’t moved since maters had escalated. Cyrus could almost feel the anxiety radiating from her, and he knew she wanted out of the room. Still, to her credit, she’d managed to maintain a level of composure that both surprised and impressed him. Her resilience under pressure would only help to weaken Chad’s resolve.
“I know what you’re getting at, and you’re right,” Chad said after a long silence. “I was upset when I realized the Professor intended to take Meridian public without making a profit. What was I supposed to think? We were working on a project that was bigger than anything in history. Forget Google! Forget Apple and Microsoft! This could’ve been the biggest payday ever!
“The Professor could’ve charged anything for the technology, and people would pay it. What choice did they have? There were any number of revenue models that would’ve been endless money-making machines. But he wanted to run it all as a not-for-profit? That was crazy! He wasn’t thinking straight!”
Reese broke her silence for the first time. She leaned forward on the table, her eyes drilling into Chad’s. “This wasn’t about getting rich. All Walter wanted was to make the world a better place!”
Chad leaned back in his seat. The aggression drained from him as if he were a deflating balloon. “He didn’t have the right to make that choice for all of us,” he said quietly.
“Yes he did!” Reese snapped. “He had every right! This was his project! His technology! His idea! He brought every one of us onboard. He made us a part of something special. He made us a part of history! It was his call! He could’ve done it without us if he wanted!” She sat back in her chair, looking exhausted from the emotional outpour. “He had every right,” she said, almost to herself.
“Tell me what you did,” Cyrus urged. “Tell me about the $500,000 dollars.”
After staring at the tabletop for several long moments, Chad finally raised his eyes to look at Reese. After a few long moments, he shifted his glance to Cyrus. “I contacted my brother. I asked him to put me in touch with Bola Alvares. And when I made contact, we made a deal.”
Chad looked expectantly at Cyrus. He anticipated a question. Cyrus didn’t bother, the question was obvious. He let the silence drag on, and Chad finally continued.
“I told Alvares about the technology. I explained that it was still years away from production but that we had working prototypes. I offered to sell him two platforms.”
Cyrus thought Reese was going to climb across the table and throttle Chad. While he expected this turn of events, from her perspective this was shocking. “You sold Meridian? You sold Meridian to a drug dealer, of all people? Are you crazy? That would make it impossible for the authorities to stop him! You not only sold out the project—you sold it to the devil?”
It’s a fair point, Cyrus thought. There were a lot of things Chad could’ve done with the technology. But as far as Cyrus was concerned, it was actually a good thing Chad had taken it to a smuggler. It was in a smuggler’s best interest to be the sole purveyor of such a tool. Sharing Meridian, even sharing knowledge of Meridian, could undermine its usefulness. A drug smuggler would keep such a secret all to himself. That was ideal from where Cyrus sat. It would make it easier for him to close the loop.
“And the $500,000?” Cyrus asked.
“That was the down payment.” Chad ran his hands through his hair. He looked haggard and tired. The interview was wearing on him. “Another nine point five million would be paid upon delivery.”
Cyrus saw Reese’s jaw drop.
“What?” Chad said with a tired smile. “I told you the Professor was leaving a lot of money on the table.”
Again, Reese looked like she would jump from her seat. Cyrus laid a comforting hand on her arm. Her eyes were burning with rage when she turned them on him. But as soon as they met his, the flames fizzled and her blood quickly cooled. She took a deep breath, but the rosy color never left her cheeks.
The corners of her mouth pulled into a barely perceptible smile, and with an almost indistinguishable nod she thanked him for his calming presence.
Reese’s gaze fell back on Chad. “Ten million dollars? That was your price? That’s all it cost to sell out the project—sell out your team—your friends? This isn’t about leaving money on the table. It’s about doing what’s right. For God’s sake, Walter took care of all of us. He left us each something in his will. He paid off every one of your student loans. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Chad’s eyes dropped back to the top of the table. Cyrus could see Reese had struck a nerve. “Of course that meant something to me. It meant a great deal, actually. But I didn’t know about that until after! I’d already made the deal with Alvares by the time the Professor died.”
“So,” Cyrus said, trying to pull the interview back into productive territory. Emotional areas were to be avoided. They were a quagmir
e. The productive pace of questioning could be easily lost. “You sold two of the platforms to Bola Alvares for $500,000 up front and the remainder due upon delivery. But you hit a problem, didn’t you?”
Chad nodded. “Yeah. I was largely responsible for fabricating and assembling the platforms. I thought I could build an extra pair in my spare time without anyone noticing. Those would be the two I sold to Alvares.”
“What about the Halon-Seven?” Reese asked.
“That was the problem,” Chad admitted. “What I didn’t know—what the Professor apparently never explained to some of us, was that we had depleted our reserve of Halon-Seven. At first I thought it was just a temporary issue, and we would find a new supply. It wasn’t until I overheard Sanjay say something about Halon-Seven that I learned there wasn’t any more. That’s when I knew I was sunk.”
Cyrus nodded. “You couldn’t make good on the delivery to Alvares. You’d built the platforms, but you didn’t have the Halon-Seven needed to make them work.”
Chad nodded.
“But that wasn’t your only problem,” Cyrus pushed. “Even if you had the Halon-Seven, you needed to reprogram the QDL interface. If you didn’t reprogram it, Alvares’s platforms would be a part of the network. You needed the QDL adjusted so the smuggler’s platforms would be on their own private network, where they would never be discovered.”
At that realization, Chad looked like he was going to be sick. As Cyrus suspected, Chad hoped he hadn’t made that connection.
“Wait a minute,” Reese said. “That doesn’t make any sense. I’m the only one who can recalibrate the QDL.”
Cyrus waited for Chad to explain, but Chad chose to remain silent.
“He knew that,” Cyrus said with disappointment. “That’s why the thugs were waiting in your apartment the night we met. Chad was trying to cover his own ass. He told Alvares that the platforms would never work without your help. That’s why they were kidnapping you and trying to kill me.”
Reese’s eyes snapped back to Chad. Cyrus knew that she was waiting for him to dispute the allegation, but no words came from Chad’s mouth. Nothing could be said. He’d gotten himself in deep, and when he was in over his head, he’d been willing to pull Reese right down with him.
Cyrus watched as tears filled Reese’s eyes. After a few moments, she rose and left the room, never saying a word. Cyrus felt for her. He was no stranger to betrayal.
“Something happened between you and Bola Alvares. You did something to piss him off. What was it?”
Chad raised his head only slightly. He couldn’t look Cyrus in the eye. The man had been broken. There was no fight left in him. “I was screwed,” he said. “There was no way out. At first I thought it was only a matter of time before we had a new supply of Halon-Seven. Then I found out there wasn’t any more. And I realized I would need Reese’s help. There was no way she would help me. She believed in the project as fully as the Professor.”
Chad took a deep breath and thought for a moment. “I was stuck, and I was stalling for time. I was trying to find a way to fix what I’d done. That’s what got Alvares pissed off. He wanted me to make good on my part of the deal.”
“That’s when Alvares had his guys put the bomb in Alfie Ahmed’s truck.”
Chad looked at Cyrus. He didn’t understand. What Cyrus was saying confused him.
“Alvares wanted you to know he was serious. He figured blowing up a member of your team would make the point clear. It would get you back on track and convince you to make good on the deal. He picked Alfie because he’s the most expendable member of the team. Taking him out wouldn’t cost him the delivery of his platforms.”
“Oh God!” Chad doubled over red in the face and suddenly choking on his own breath. He was truly floored by the realization. He was the reason the bomb was planted in his friend’s car.
For Cyrus, this explained why Alfie was targeted when none of the other team members were attacked. He had walked into the room with everything else sorted out, but the truth of the car bomb had just click for him while he was sitting there. Sure, the gang made an attempt to kidnap Reese, but the lone attempt on Alfie finally made sense as well. Things were falling into place.
There was only one question left on Cyrus’s mental checklist. He wanted to know what Chad planned to do about being short the missing Halon-Seven. But the more he thought about it, there was just one way around that. Chad would’ve stolen that from a pair of the active platforms and done his best to cover his tracks. And if the investigation was leading to him, he still had ten million dollars to fall back on. He would’ve run.
Two things were certain. First, nothing had gone according to plan for Chad Brewster. Second, things were about to get a lot worse for Bola Alvares. It was time to close the loop.
Chapter 28
Berton Springs, Colorado
Thursday, 7:30 pm
Time zones around the world would be one of the more unique challenges of instant global travel. It was the first thing Cyrus considered as he and Reese stepped off the transport platform in the spare bedroom of the Colorado house. As he tapped the transport authorization codes into his phone in preparation for the return trip, he realized it was 1:30 Friday afternoon in Australia. But after arriving in Colorado, his phone read the time as 7:30 in the evening, and it was only Thursday. Instant travel was going to present a fundamental series of scheduling issues. Though, in fairness, those were only the tip of the iceberg. New protocols in vaccination and other medical procedures would surely need to be established as well. When a person could cross the planet as easily as they crossed a room, the world quickly became a much smaller place.
Society would change in so many ways. But first, he had to eliminate the threat posed by the Alvares Cartel. That was the order of the day. Well, maybe that could wait until tomorrow. Cyrus was tired. Looking at Reese, he could see she was feeling it too. A good night’s sleep would do them good. His plan was simple. He was going to hit Alvares head on. But not tonight.
He went about starting a fire in the living room hearth. Within minutes he had a blaze that radiated a warmth not found in the subterranean tunnels of Australia.
“I’m famished. Are you hungry?” Reese asked, as she sank into the sofa before the fireplace. She pulled a blanket over herself. Her eyes looked heavy.
“Absolutely,” he answered without hesitation. “Have a taste for anything special?”
She thought for a moment before she smiled. “Yeah, actually. How do you feel about Chinese?”
“That works for me.”
“I’m thinking takeout. Pick something up and bring it back here?”
He nodded.
In a matter of minutes they decided on their order. Reese pulled out her cell and phoned in the order. Cyrus would run out and pick it up.
“Give me your phone,” Reese said. “I’ll pin the location of the restaurant on the map so you don’t get lost.”
“Get lost? Where did you order from?”
Her coy smile hinted at an unlikely answer. “This little place I haven’t had in years. But it’s the best Chinese food I’ve ever had.”
Cyrus waited for the other shoe to drop.
“It’s in Manhattan.”
He couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. The absurdity of sitting in front of a roaring fire in Colorado ordering takeout from a place in New York struck him as comical. This would take some getting use to.
Reese laughed, more at his response than anything. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. The restaurant’s only a few blocks from the transport site!”
“No problem,” he smiled and handed over his phone. With a few taps on the screen she tagged his destination on the map.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a bath while you’re gone. I’m wrecked. If I stay on the couch I’ll be asleep by the time you get back.”
He crawled away from the fire and leaned over her on the couch. A mischievous grin crept across his face. “I’ll make you a
deal. You think of me while you’re scrubbing all your naughty bits, and I won’t mind at all.”
She pulled him closer and kissed him deeply. “On second thought, why don’t you stay? You can take that bath with me?”
Her kiss and hungry eyes were making his heart beat faster. The temptation was exhilarating. “Why Miss Knoland, I like the way you think,” he said quietly and kissed her again. “Unfortunately, you’ve already placed the order. But hold that thought. I’ll be back before you know it. Then it’s you, me, and a roaring fire.”
That brought a girlish giggle from Reese that surprised them both. Her hand covered her mouth in embarrassment. They both roared with laughter.
“It’s a date,” she said in a low whisper in his ear. “Maybe I can find a nice bottle of wine?”
“You’re on!” He gave her another quick kiss and headed for the spare bedroom. Manhattan was only a few steps away.
Chapter 29
Manhattan, New York
Thursday, 9:49 pm (7:49 pm Colorado Time)
Cyrus stepped off the teleportation platform. His movement activated the motion-sensing trigger for the lights of the room. He was standing in the small living room of a studio apartment. There were no furnishings, except for the pair of small tables that held lamps. They were the only source of light in the small open space. A thick set of old drapes were drawn against the windows.
Checking the display of his phone, Cyrus confirmed he was actually in New York before heading for the front door. As he stepped into the hallway, he took note of the number on the door. It was apartment 812. He pulled the door shut, ensuring the lock latched firmly behind him, and headed down the hall following the sign toward the elevator.
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