The Gypsy Queen: A Matt Preston Novel (Matt Preston Series Book 3)

by Paul Shadinger

  I smiled in return. “The fault is as much mine as it yours. It was great to see you again and I promise to work harder to stay in touch.” I extended my hand. “And Apple, if you want me to help you find the broad, you need to start being a bit more forthcoming with the information. I refuse to play in the dark.” I could tell he was at least thinking about it. “I’ll call you back and tell you what the deal is later. Are we clear?”

  “Yes Matt, I understand.” He added, “And if you don’t call me Apple I won’t call you in the middle of the night again.”

  I wasn’t going to be put off so I retorted, “I want you to call me any time you need, even at zero dark thirty. If you want my help, don’t play games with me. Understood? Tell me the truth. All of it!”

  He sighed. “Yes Matt.” He gave me a quick smile and added, “And, if you learn anything about the Herman woman, call me at once.” Even through the smile, his voice rang with the authority of his rank.

  “Yes sir.” I couldn’t help myself. It was like being back in the service again. I leaned back into the plane and called for Bean. The lazy way she got up and strolled to the door told me she kind of liked flying in a jet of her own. “Come on fuzzball, let’s get out of here,” I told her.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  After my chat with Orchard, I decided one of the first things I needed to do was to find Ralph and have a long chat with him. There were some serious discrepancies between what John had told me and what Ralph told me. Ralph baby, there are way too many things that just don’t add up in your story.

  I considered calling him, but I really didn’t want to give him any heads up I was coming to see him. His office is across Lake Washington over on the east side of the lake. The locals often refer to it as the Evil Side. Anyone who’s been stuck in the traffic over there will agree, it’s an evil place to either visit or to live. Anytime between six in the morning and eight in the evening the whole freeway is just one huge parking lot! That’s right, all day the entire area is basically one massive place to store cars.

  Most people are happy when they are correct about something, I was not happy being correct about traffic in Bellevue. There’s a floating bridge connecting Seattle with Bellevue and just a little north is the city of Redmond. A lot of folks have never heard of Redmond, but a lot of people know of a business headquartered there.

  Microsoft. You know, Bill Gates and Microsoft. One of the wealthiest men in the world and the thing that makes your computer work? Redmond is home to Microsoft and Bill lives just down the road on Lake Washington.

  The 405 freeway goes down the backside of Lake Washington, passing right through Redmond and it was packed solid with cars. It had been several months since I had been on the east side and I swear it was worse than I had ever seen it before.

  I eventually made it to Ralph’s building and I was surprised at how much his business had grown. The last time I was there he just was renting one office and now it appeared his business occupied the whole building. I was impressed.

  The receptionist is what I believe is called a MILF. I was a little surprised she wasn’t younger, considering computers and programing are thought to be a young person’s game. Ralph’s taste in women usually runs to a lot younger than this female as well. The woman appeared to be in her late forties, perhaps early fifties, but she was very attractive nevertheless. That is until she opened her mouth!

  “Good afternoon sir, how may I help you?” she greeted in an annoying tone of voice.

  “Good Afternoon. I’d like to see Ralph. My name is Matt—”

  She interrupted me, “Do you have an appointment?”

  Pleasantries seemed to run a little short with this member of Ralph’s staff. “No. But I need to see him.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Jones doesn’t see anyone without an appointment. Have a nice day.” She’s stressed anyone and she frowned at me as if that made it more official. As far as she was concerned, I had been dismissed.

  “Ma’am, I understand it’s your job to keep people away from Ralph. I know you don’t know me, but please humor me. Trust me when I tell you he’ll want to see me once he finds out I’m here. Would you please just let him know I’m here?”

  “Why? Who are you anyway?” Her tone of voice was snotty.

  I thought briefly about explaining to her I had already tried to introduce myself to her, but she had been too rude to let me finish, but that was not going to get me past Ralph’s guard dog. In my nicest tone of voice, I explained, “Because I have information about Melissa Herman and Ralph wants to know what I found out.” I was lying just a little, but I figured that might be the magic key.

  “Just a minute sir.” She reached for the phone. I was feeling pleased with myself. I’d taken the high road and I had been polite. Now she was calling Ralph to check if she should allow me into the castle. The woman picked up a phone and pushed some buttons. Shortly two burly gentlemen in what looked like security uniforms and packing heat on their belts were standing beside me.

  One of them asked the woman, “Good afternoon, Grace. Is there a problem here?”

  The receptionist pointed at me and replied, “He refuses to leave.”

  I held up one finger and said, “Hold it! That’s a lie. You never asked me to leave.” One of the guards put his hand on my elbow. I pulled my arm away and told him, “Just one moment please. I realize my mistake now. I should have called first.” I fished out my cell phone and entered Ralph’s number.

  He must have recognized my number because he answered, “Hello Matt. What a pleasant surprise. What’s up?”

  “Ralph, I’m standing here in your lobby. I asked a lovely woman by the name of Grace sitting behind the desk if I could see you, but she turned into a total bitch. I asked nicely and I was polite. Now I have two bulls packing heat standing here ready to toss me out, or even shoot me. Besides lying her ass off, she’s an extremely rude receptionist.”

  He growled, “Damn it, just a minute. I’m on my way.”

  I hung up and the two guards started to step towards me again. “Let’s go, sir,” one of them said.

  I held up my hand, “Stop! I think you may want to wait a moment. If you do what I think you want to do, it may have an ugly outcome. You’re making career decisions right now. Don’t you want to check with Mr. Jones first? He’s on his way as we speak.” They stopped and looked at one another and then at the receptionist. I know I had a snarky tone in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. “Hey! Don’t look at Gracie over there. In about ten seconds she’ll be hard pressed to even help herself as the front door nails her in the ass when she’s tossed off the premises. And you two may even be the lucky ones who get to escort her from the building.” At which point Ralph came barreling into the lobby.

  Looking at the receptionist, Ralph, in a loud voice demanded, “Grace, what the hell is going on? Why is security here? Why can’t you handle this?” I don’t think I’d ever seen Ralph this upset.

  The receptionist spoke first, trying her snotty tone of voice, “This man came in here and rudely demanded to see you and when—”

  I interrupted, “No ma’am, you know that’s not correct. I politely asked you if I could see Ralph I asked you to tell Ralph it was about Melissa Herman.”

  Ralph quickly turned to face me as he grabbed my arm and exclaimed, “You found her?”

  “No, but I have an excellent lead. I need to talk to you about this.”

  Ralph turned back and glared at the woman behind the desk. “Did he ask to see me?” She paused and then made a very small nod of her head. “And you could see no reason to check with me?” Looking at the woman’s face I now understood the term deer in the headlights. She was terrified. “After my friend—no wait a moment, my very good friend here is gone, I’m personally going to call HR and have you replaced here at the front desk. I am sure housekeeping must have a position for you. Maybe sweeping floors is
more your speed. It is obvious you’re not fit to handle this job!”

  “But, but you said you didn’t want to be disturbed. No matter what,” she whined.

  Ralph turned and looked at the guards. “Well, the only thing I want to see of you two now is your fat butts as you waddle away from here. NOW GO!”

  With the guards fleeing and the lady behind the receptionist’s desk looking mortified, Ralph said, “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me towards his office. Once the door was shut he asked me, “What have you found out? Do you know where she is?”

  “Well, not exactly. How about let’s start with the lies you told me.”

  I know I’ve mentioned in the past why I like to be able to look a person in the face when you talk to them rather than over a phone. You can tell so much more about a person by their body actions and the facial expression than by their words. I could see Ralph was terrified. He had no idea what I knew, but he tried anyway. “I never lied to you.”

  I started to reach in my pocket as if to pull something out. “Here is Melissa’s card. I quit. I’m done with you!”

  Ralph held up his hands. “Just a minute, Matt. I didn’t tell you everything. But I didn’t lie.”

  “Sweet pea, a lie of omission is still a lie. You set me up. When were you going to tell me about the Gypsy Queen? Do you have any idea how hot your lady is right now as far as being wanted by our government?” Ralph just hung his head. “There are super-secret agencies looking for her. It’s even suspected that one of these agencies had Melissa’s roommate killed.”

  Ralph whispered, “Denise is dead? Oh, my God.”

  “How did you know she had a roommate, Ralph?”

  “Did I forget to tell you that?”

  “Yes Ralph, that and a lot of other shit. You also forgot to tell me about Black Hand.” Ralph turned and slumped down in his chair.

  “When Melissa told me about her project, I had a funny feeling. Later when I thought it through, I realized she’d been snowed. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “She may not have known exactly at that moment what she was doing, but your pillow talk as you call it got her thinking and she must have figured out what was going on. So she ran. What all did she say to you that night you were talking?”

  Ralph hesitated. “From what she told me that night, and the way she started to evade some of my questions, I knew she had figured out something. I didn’t know at the time what was going on, but later as I thought it over, I realized something was really wrong with what she was doing. She’d been lied to. Our talk started her thinking and somehow she knew, but she wouldn’t tell me what was going on.”

  “When did you learn about her being the Gypsy Queen?”

  “The last night we were together. When she told me her nickname, she also mentioned she was good at hacking into systems—”

  My voice was almost a shout as I interrupted him, “Good? Shit Ralph, according to some people she wrote the book on how to hack into just about any system. She’s better than good. As I understand it, the reason she is, or rather was, part of the team is her ability to create a program that can’t be hacked.”

  “Well, I didn’t think it mattered. Sorry if I upset you.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to control my emotions. “The woman is internationally known and you didn’t think it mattered? What else haven’t you told me? Do you have anything more to add?”

  He shook his head. “What’s going to happen to her?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I wish I had more to tell you, but I don’t.”

  “Are you still looking for her?” The look on his face resembled a lost puppy dog.

  “Yes, I am, but now there’s a lot more than just you involved.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that after all this time, I’m being asked to come out of retirement. I’ve been asked to use the skills ol’ Uncle Sam taught me so very long ago and help an old friend see if I can find Melissa. I’m not at liberty to tell you any more than I have, but the stakes for finding her just got a lot bigger than you getting your willy wet.”

  I swear I saw tears in his eyes. “It was my fault. I got her talking about what she was doing and I shared what I was doing and now she’s in trouble.”

  “Well, that ain’t what you told me to start. You said you were telling her about your project and she was making comments and suggestions. You didn’t ask her what she was doing, did you?” He shook his head. “Then what you just said was not totally correct. You may have helped open her eyes, but it’s hardly your fault. You weren’t the one who created the Gypsy Queen. I want you to promise me if you hear anything from her you’ll call me at once. Promise? Say it, I promise!”

  “I promise I’ll call if I hear from her. And Matt, please find her first. The more time passes, the more I realize just how special she is. I want to see her again. I want my Gypsy Queen back.”

  I grinned at him. “Just call me cupid!”

  As I walked out the door I thought to myself, “There’s something else you can call me. And it rhymes with cupid and starts with an S.”

  I just have to learn how to say no.

  I noticed that Grace was still sitting behind the desk. “Still here are you? Well, I’m sure Ralph is taking care of that right now.”

  I watched her mouth move up and down like a guppy. I know, I just have a nasty streak sometimes. But it keeps me happy!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The drive back home wasn’t as difficult as the one over to see Ralph for which I was grateful. I hate to admit it, but my mind wasn’t focused on driving and not paying close attention is not a good thing for anybody. I was still trying to decide if I wanted to keep looking for Melissa for Ralph. I wasn’t getting a good feeling about things. I just kept reminding myself that I was doing this for Johnny, and not so much for Ralph. You’re right, I wasn’t buying it either.

  After we got upstairs, Bean started pawing at my shoe and I understood her message. Once more I found myself standing at the end of the vacant lot watching her sniff bushes looking for the correct one. I heard my cell go off in my pocket and I fished it out. It was Orchard. “Matt, if you’re interested, I think I may have a lead on Melissa. Have you made the decision whether you’re going to help me or not?”

  At that moment, I realized I’d made my decision, I’d just forgotten to call John and let him know the answer. “Sorry John, yes I made my decision and I’m going to try and help you see if—”

  John interrupted, “Thank God. Matt I owe you big time for this.”

  I continued, “Okay. Later! While I have you on the phone, I have a question. Am I on the payroll or what? Exactly how much juice do I have?”

  “What the hell does that mean? What do you mean by ‘juice?’”

  “John, I’m going to have to go around asking a lot of questions. If I’m asked where I come off asking these questions, what do I say? Do I get to tell folks I’m with you or some sort of other agency or…?” I let my voice drop off.

  John sounded thoughtful. “I’ll get you creds you can use from a bogus agency that can’t be tied back to me. That way you have some credibility, but I’m covered. If you’re asked, say it’s all part of the President’s Task Force. I’ll get them to you as quickly as possible. As far as being on the payroll, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “No John, sorry about that part. Money’s not a problem, I just wanted to have some sort of authority to be investigating this. I don’t want to start asking questions only to find myself in some holding cell. As they say, been there, done that and I actually have a T-shirt to prove it!”

  I continued, “Thanks for offering the proper credentials to be involved with your clusterfuck.” I heard him laugh on the other end of the phone. “However, I may need to fly places to look for our lost lady and
I believe a couple of these places may not be served by standard airlines. Do you have a plane I can use? Something at my disposal?” Silence. “Apple, are you there?”

  “Don’t call me Apple! Sorry, I was thinking how I can do this and keep it hidden. I think I can cover you for about a month maybe two. Unlimited air time.” I was stunned. I know what it costs to hire one of those jets. But a month or two, unlimited? For whatever reason, Admiral Orchard wanted—no, make that had to have Melissa before anybody else.

  “I have one more question.”

  I heard an exasperated, “Yes, what is it?”

  “How I can find Jack Roberts? Do you know where he is? Like where was the location that all this code got written? You must have some idea.”

  Silence.

  “Apple, are you still there?”

  He growled, “Don’t call me Apple.”

  “Then answer my question. Do you know where Roberts is right now?”

  “I know where he is, but I guess my question for you is why you want to talk to him? What’s the point?”

  “The point, John, is you asked me to find Melissa. I would think one of the best places to start trying to find her is by speaking to her last supervisor. Maybe he won’t tell me anything, but you never know.”

  John thought over what I’d just said. “If I tell you where he is, what are you going to do?”

  “Like I said, I think I want to have a chat with him.”

  “No!” His reply was a shout. “It’s too much of a risk.”

  “Johnny, if you want my help, you have to trust me. You tell me in one breath that you need me and I’m the only one you trust with everything that’s going on and then when I ask you for something, I get this runaround. That tells me you don’t trust me. Which is it? Come on Apple, where is Roberts?”

  “Don’t call me Apple!” We both laughed. Johnny told me where the building was located in some Podunk village in rural Alabama, along with some information on how to get into the building. He said he’d text me the entry numbers for the keypad on the main floor elevator doors, but I’d have to get into the building on my own. He added he would prefer I not flash the creds he was sending me if I didn’t have to. He ended our conversation with, “Matt, promise me you won’t shoot him or harm him.”