by Desiree Holt
Chapter Four
When the call came from the guard, Chase was sitting in the hot tub on his condo terrace, splitting a bottle of chardonnay with his fiancée.
“Don’t tell me you’re leaving,” she complained, as he climbed out onto the deck.
“Something important’s come up. I have to go.”
He’d barely dried off before throwing on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and shoving his feet into loafers. In seconds he was heading for the private elevator.
Joy, irritated at having their amorous evening interrupted, pulled her robe tightly around her and raced after him.
“But where are you going?” she protested, pushing her way into the elevator with him. “Chase? It’s Friday night. What’s going on?”
“Go back upstairs,” he told her as they reached the garage level. He leaped into his expensive sports car, backed it out of its assigned space and lowered the window. “I’ll call you.”
“But—”
He shifted into drive and roared out of the garage, leaving her watching him with an angry expression on her face.
“I wasn’t sure whether to bother you or not, Mr. Carpenter,” the guard said when Chase strode into the building. “We get so many crank calls. But I know how you feel about this baby…”
“No, that’s fine, George,” Chase assured him. “You did the right thing. I’d rather be called out for nothing than have a disaster because we ignored it.”
He jiggled his keys impatiently as the elevator rose to the tenth floor. The minute the doors opened he raced down the hall to his office, unlocked his door and hurried to his computer. As soon as he booted it up, the email icon began flashing. When he clicked on it, a message opened up.
He read it through twice, not quite sure he’d understood it correctly the first time. Even then he was stunned. His first inclination was to agree with George. Someone was playing a joke on him.
If so, however, it was not a very funny one. Carpenter Techtronics had dumped a lot of money into their latest creation. The little sophisticated robot could bring someone millions—strike that, billions—of dollars on the black market. And in the hands of the enemy, it could prove disastrous to his country, in more than one area.
He read it twice, then printed it out and saved it to an electronic folder. Looking at his watch, he realized it was close to eleven, which meant after one in the morning in Baltimore but he needed to let Dan Romeo know about this. If Dan said not to worry, he’d go home, jump back in the tub with his very naked fiancée and pour another glass of wine. If not, he’d try to get Dan to come to Texas right away instead of next week.
Reluctantly he dialed the familiar number.
“You’re lucky all I’m doing is reading reports and watching reruns of 24,” Dan joked when he answered the phone.
“I’m hoping I can let you go right back to doing it,” Chase answered. Then he told him about the phone call and read him the email. “So what do you think, Dan? Can I chalk this up to someone with a warped sense of humor?”
“It would be nice if we could,” Dan replied in his deep voice. “But I think we can’t afford to assume anything at this point.” He was silent for a moment. “All right. Forward the message to me at the email address I’m going to give you. Then shut down your computer, lock your office and don’t let anyone in. I’ll call Ed to gas up the Gulfstream and be ready for wheels up at seven o’clock this morning. We should land in San Antonio about ten-thirty, give or take.”
“I’ll pick you up. Tell me where.”
“No, I’ll get my own wheels. I’ll call you as soon as we land. Where will you be?”
“Probably right here,” Chase sighed. “Going through every list I can find to see who might want to play a prank like this.”
“And let’s hope it’s a prank.”
“No kidding. If not we’re in big, big trouble. The future of the company’s riding on this.”
“We’ll get it taken care of, buddy. See you in a few hours.”
* * * * *
It wasn’t unusual to see Chase Carpenter in his office early on a Saturday morning. He had a well-deserved reputation as a workaholic. What was puzzling was his refusal to let anyone into his office. Having seen his name in the sign-in book as they checked into the building, a few hardy souls knocked on the door to conduct some business with him, only to be turned away with a terse, “Later.”
“The boss must have a big stick up his ass about something,” he heard one of them murmur as they turned away.
He’d debated about calling the others—Lucas, Ladd, Stan, Paul—but then decided if it was a false alarm no one else needed to have their weekend disturbed. It was bad enough he had a pissed-off Joy waiting for him back at the condo, demanding answers and ready, he knew, to ream him a new one for running out the way he did. He did his best to soothe her with phone calls but he knew his own edginess made everything he said seem angry and impatient.
“I’ll take care of myself,” she snapped at the end of the last call. “If I’m not here when you get home, don’t wait up for me.”
Great. Just what he needed. He was barely engaged and already at odds with the woman he’d asked to marry him. He’d just have to grovel when he got home and hope that worked. Joy was smart and sharp and understood his business in a way few women did. Surely she’d accept the fact that everything else fell by the wayside when emergencies came up. Especially with the press conference next week.
Lately he’d begun to realize under that soft, feminine exterior was an unbending core of steel. She was a woman who planned to get what she wanted one way or another. He was still trying to decide if it made their relationship more intriguing or wearing when Dan Romeo knocked on his door at ten after eleven.
Chase yanked the door open and peered out of the doorway both ways, checking for curiosity seekers. “Come in,” he told Dan and dragged him inside.
“You’re a heart attack waiting to happen,” Dan told him, looking at him critically after they’d shaken hands. “Come on. Let’s see if this is really anything to worry about.”
“I’ve been using my secretary’s computer to go over employee lists, past and present and review the list of projects from the last two years. I guess I was hoping a name would jump out at me.”
“Good. That gives us a start.”
“Not so much. So far nothing rings a bell.”
“But at least we have a list to begin with.” Dan headed for Chase’s desk. “Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with. Then I’ll tell you what the Dragon found out.”
The Dragon, a super-sophisticated computer setup at Phoenix headquarters, ran on one-of-a-kind programs. There was very little it couldn’t find out, decipher or decode. Dan liked to say you couldn’t hide from the Dragon’s fire.
Chase turned on his computer and waited for it to come to life, then clicked on the folder icon and opened the email. When the message filled the screen he stood back and let Dan sit down at the desk.
The email hadn’t changed, although he didn’t know why he expected it to. It still sat there blinking its warning. Chase leaned back against the credenza and watched while Dan manipulated the software codes, searching, searching, searching. At length he turned to Chase and said, “Well Andy, our new and wonderful geek, ran this through the Dragon and found the same thing.”
As he was about to give the rundown on the email trace, the phone on the desk rang and a highly stressed Chase scooped up the receiver impatiently.
“What?” He listened to George, the security guard, on the other end, then turned to Dan. “Another call asking if we got the email.”
“Is the person still on the line?”
“I think so.”
Dan grabbed the receiver. “Can you transfer the call up here?” he asked. “I see. Okay. No, don’t worry. I have other ways I can check it.”
“What’s the deal?” Chase had to force himself to stand still.
“No deal. The minute George put the c
all on hold, whoever it was hung up. Come on. I want to go talk to him about the voice. Then we’ll need to get a dump of all your incoming calls. You still record them electronically on a computer, right?”
Chase nodded. “All the lines are hooked into a central system and the numbers automatically stored.”
“Thank God you’re an obsessive electronics nut.” Dan grinned. “We might be able to trace this.”
He was already heading for the elevator, Chase hot on his heels. “But what about the email? You said you had news about it?”
“As soon as we talk to George.”
They had barely entered the elevator when Chase’s cell rang. He frowned at the number displayed. “Yes, Joy. No, I can’t leave now. No, I think it would be a waste of your time to come down here.” He took a deep breath and softened his tone. “No, honey, I’m not mad at you. Just grumpy. Give me an hour and I’ll call you back.”
* * * * *
Making the phone calls was always dangerous but necessary. She could never afford to have the emails ignored. At least Mia knew they couldn’t be traced. But the call was necessary, just to make sure the message got through. Somehow she had to make them take her warning seriously. Hopefully the call would get through to Chase Carpenter. Now she had to see if they acted on it. Chad had convinced her that if they took it seriously there’d be activity of some kind and the media would sniff it out. She’d have to monitor the news.
Back at her house, she couldn’t rid herself of a bad case of the jitters. Not even her herbal tea and a hot soak in the tub could sufficiently calm her nerves. Deep down she had a conviction that something evil was brewing. If what Chad told her was true, Carpenter Techtronics was sitting on a gold mine that every country and terrorist organization in the world would pay anything to possess.
She fretted about it all night, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw either the hands grabbing for the rock or plunging the knife into a body. At dawn she finally dropped off, only to be awakened by some nightmare that she couldn’t bring back but that left her sweat-soaked and trembling. Pulling herself out of bed, she trudged down to the kitchen to make herself some tea. She heated water in the microwave for tea, then took out a knife to cut herself a slice of pound cake.
At once the image of the hand thrusting with a knife gripped her again, paralyzing her. She dropped the knife she was holding onto the counter, the sharp edge of the blade catching her other hand as she did so. It wasn’t until her accelerated heart rate slowed and her eyes began to focus again that she saw blood welling from the sharp cut between her thumb and forefinger.
Hastily she yanked paper towels from the holder and pressed hard against the wound. Nausea bubbled up from her stomach, as much from the vision as from the trauma of the wound and she collapsed into one of the chairs at the table.
Someone’s going to be killed.
The voice danced in her head again. She had to swallow three times before she didn’t feel as if her throat was stuck together inside. God, please let them listen to her. They had to. Going to the police was certainly not an option, not with her spotty track record. She’d have to call them again, just for added insurance. Deliver the message and hang up quickly. And this time she’d use a pay phone.
Pulling a dishtowel from a drawer, she wrapped it around her hand and knotted the ends. She needed to make this second call before she lost her nerve. Better first aid could wait until after that.
Driving with an open wound on one hand wasn’t the easiest thing to do but she managed it until she found a pay phone outside a convenience store without too many people around. Nervously she pulled out the slip of paper with the company’s phone number on it, tugged the edge of her shirt over the mouthpiece and used a hankie she dug out of her pocket to hold the receiver.
The same man answered and she spat out her message as quickly as she could. But this time she nearly had a problem.
“Wait a minute,” he drawled. “Let me just get a pen and write this down, okay? If it’s important I don’t want to mess it up.”
No! She knew he had to be transferring her to someone. That was unacceptable. Get the message out as quickly as possible and hang up. That was her standard method. It occurred to her that with all his sophisticated electronics, Chase Carpenter might be able to triangulate the call and pinpoint her position. Maybe get someone there before she could leave.
She hung up the phone as if it burned her hand and hurried back to her car. Heart pounding and hands shaking, she drove home as fast as she could without drawing attention to herself. She was still trembling when she pulled into her garage and punched the button to close the door. Fully five minutes passed before she could move from the car into the house. And another fifteen before she felt steady enough to treat the wound on her hand.
It probably needed stitches but in her present state she didn’t want to have to deal with an emergency room or urgent care clinic. Instead she cleaned the cut, put ointment on, used butterfly closures and wrapped the whole thing in gauze. Her hand felt as if someone was banging a drumstick on it, so she swallowed some aspirin.
What if they traced the number on the pay phone? Well, what about it? Anyone could have used it. She hadn’t left any fingerprints. The location of the phone wouldn’t necessarily indicate that the caller was from around there.
Damn! Why hadn’t she driven across town? Well, too late to think about that now.
Finally she dragged herself upstairs and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over herself the way she wished she could escape from the world and hide in a little hole.
* * * * *
“Damn it.” Chase slammed his hand on the guard’s desk.
“I tried, Mr. Carpenter. Honest. Whoever it was just hung up.”
“Not your fault, George.” Chase fisted his hands. “You did your best.”
Dan had pulled out his cell phone and was speed dialing a number. “Could you tell if it was a man or a woman?” he asked while he waited for the call to go through.
George shook his head. “Sorry. The voice was muffled. And whispering. And spoke very quickly.”
“Figures.” Dan straightened and moved away from the desk to speak as his call connected. “Andy. Make yourself a gallon of coffee. I’m sending you an extremely large file of telephone records. I want you to pull off every incoming call to the main Carpenter Techtronics number yesterday and today and tell me where they came from.” He recited the main Carpenter number and had Andy repeat it back to him.
Andy’s laugh echoed back over the airwaves. He was rapidly getting used to his new boss and the ever-present crisis situations that involved the work he was given. “And you want it five minutes ago, right?”
“I see you know me so well already, my hardwired friend. All right. Call my cell the instant you get anything. Oh and Andy? See if any of the numbers match up geographically with what you got on the email trace.” He snapped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket.
“Are you ready to tell me now what you’ve got on that email?” Chase demanded, his body humming with tension.
“Yes.” Dan took him by the arm. “As soon as we’re back in your office.”
Chase ground his teeth as they rode up in the elevator. He jogged down the hall, banged open the door to his office and strode inside.
“Now.” He turned to Dan. “Give. Whatever it is.”
Dan studied his face for a moment. “Do you make it a habit to visit art museums?”
Chase’s jaw dropped. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You heard me. Do you spend a lot of time in art museums?”
“I guess I go to a benefit now and then with Joy. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”
Dan dropped his rangy frame into one of the armchairs. “Whoever sent that email is very clever. They know how to build enough layers to create anonymity.” He grinned. “Except from the Dragon, of course. The Dragon can seek out anything.”
He paused. “The email came from someone at the DeWitt Museum.”
Chase stared at him. “But that’s absurd. What would anyone in a museum have to do with techtronics? Especially sophisticated robotics.”
“You’ve got me. What about your partners. Any of them doing a weird dance with museum people?”
“No more than I do. We all give a chunk of change to the art world and hoist a glass of champagne when we have to. Jesus. An art museum? Why would someone there want to steal Oscar?”
All humor disappeared from Dan’s face. “I don’t know. But someone’s trying to warn you about this and doing their damnedest to make sure you get the message. You think it might be a good idea for you to call your partners now and fill them in?”
Chase shook his head. “Not until we know more about who this is. They’ll want specific information. So do I.”
“Okay. Meanwhile I want to meet with your security people. I’m calling Troy to send in some reinforcements. I think we should beef things up.” Troy Arsenault, among his many other responsibilities with the agency, supervised the training and assignment of field agents, juggling schedules as new jobs came up. “And I want to get hold of the director of the museum.”
Chase’s eyes widened. “You think he might know something?”
Dan shook his head. “No. But I want access to all his computers. I want to find the right one before I confront whoever it is.” He stood up. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. I know you want to run around and pull someone’s hair out but you’ve got to let me do my job. I promise to keep you up to date. And I agree with you. Let’s not tell the others until we know who we’re dealing with.”
“You do realize the ramifications if someone steals Oscar, right?” Chase was pacing nervously, hands shoved in his pockets, a muscle jumping in his cheek.
“Trust me, Chase.” Dan’s voice was even, calming. “Oscar will be perfectly safe. It’s what I do for a living, remember?”
“Yeah, well.” He yanked a hand from one pocket and raked his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “Until you get back, you don’t mind if I keep Oscar company, do you?”
