Pushing Brilliance

by Tim Tigner

  “Outstanding, sergeant. What did you tell Katya about tonight?”

  “Operationally, she’s in the dark. She just knows to expect you around now.”

  “Perfect. Where is she?”

  “She’s in a hotel over between the airport and the university. About 10 minutes from here. Key’s in the envelope. Room 229. I’ll drop you off, but then we’ve got to run. Ortega needs to return the SUV to his brother, and then we’re wheels-up out of Vandenberg at 02:00. Best we get back to Bragg before we’re missed.”

  I opened the paper bag and began changing into my civilian clothes. “I see you switched to the new Sig.”

  “You noticed that, huh?”

  “Yeah. Been meaning to try it out myself.”

  “I suppose you’d like to field-test mine?” Dix’s teeth flashed in the dark.

  “Thanks. You can keep the belt and holster. I’m sure it will fit in my pocket.”

  “I can keep my belt and holster? That’s mighty kind of you.”

  The P320 did indeed slide easily into my jacket pocket, but then, like all my clothes, it was extra large. “How’s life back at Bragg?” I asked.

  “Same as always. Lots more practicing than doing. I was glad you finally green-lighted this op. For more reasons than one. It’s good to see you. Why’d you wait so long? I was expecting to pull you out months ago.”

  “I wanted to exhaust my traditional options before going unconventional.”

  “You mean you thought your lawyer might work some magic? From what you told me, he didn’t have a chance. Course, if I were him, I might have taken my time to tell you that as well. What’s he charging you? Five hundred an hour? A thousand?”

  “Enough to bring tears to your eyes, my friend.”

  Dix and I spent the rest of the short drive catching up in the quasi-awkward way old friends who rarely see each other do. Then Ortega pulled into a parking space near a side door to the UCSB Summer Inn, and our reunion ended. We all shook hands and I thanked them again.

  “Consider yourself freed,” Dix replied, referencing the Special Forces motto.

  I had one foot out the door when I turned back to my old friend. “Who’s Judge Cooley?”

  “Just somebody Winks invented for the occasion,” Dix replied, referring to Herald Winkle, the computer genius we’d worked with at the CIA. “He sends his best, by the way. As for old Bartholomew, he’ll disappear from the DOJ database later tonight. I suggest you do the same.”

  I whipped off a salute. “Thanks. But I’ve got other plans.”

  Chapter 17

  Telltale Tea

  I KNOCKED on Katya’s door and announced myself, knowing she’d be nervous. With anyone else, I’d have used the key to slip quietly inside, but with Katya that would have felt like a violation.

  Ours was an unusual relationship, simultaneously intimate and awkward. The total number of hours we’d spent conversing could be counted on fingers and toes, but circumstances had rendered us closer to each other than to anyone else on the planet.

  Katya opened the door and I stepped into a room that smelled of honeysuckle in bloom. Quite a treat for a nose that had just endured six months in lockup. The picture of a steaming tub with tiny bubbles and bare shoulders popped into my mind. I forced it right back out. She’d nearly been my brother’s wife.

  Katya threw the bolt and slid the chain, then turned to look at me with warm, wide eyes. “Did you really break out of jail?”

  I paused for a second, reflecting on the fact that my résumé had a new bullet point, and aware of how atypical a career had to be for successful jailbreak to be a selling point. “I had a lot of help.”

  “Were those guys from the Special Operations Group?”

  “For their sake, it’s better if we don’t get specific.”

  “Did you … have to hurt anybody? To get out, I mean?”

  Katya was clearly wound up tight and starved for information, which was easy enough to understand. I didn’t mind talking. My tongue was due for some exercise. “There are two ways to break out of prison. You can either outsmart the engineers and guards, or you can outsmart the bureaucrats. We outsmarted the bureaucrats. We used uniforms, forged papers, and a very talented hacker who had access to the Department of Justice network. So no bullets were required.”

  “You tricked the guards?”

  “We played to their weakness.”

  “Sounds risky.”

  “Fortune favors the bold. And the deck was rigged in our favor. A prison guard’s entire world revolves around the chain of command. Blindly following orders is programmed into their autonomic nervous systems, like breathing. Once the hackers and forgers did their thing, all my guys had to do was look the part and exude authority.”

  Katya gave me a look that said she grasped the theory, if not much more. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I certainly appreciate it.”

  “No worries. I understand. People hear ‘Special Operations’ and they think snipers and explosives. We use those too, but only when that’s the smartest way to complete a mission.”

  Katya double-checked the door lock.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m a bit overwhelmed by recent developments, but I’m feeling a lot better, now that you’re here.”

  If Katya had been anyone but my brother’s fiancée, I’d have given her a big hug at that moment. As it was, I kept a healthy distance. “Glad to be of service. Now, we should get going.”

  “Going? It’s one o’clock in the morning. Where are we going? Oh, are the police looking for you?”

  “No. At this point, as far as my jailers know, I’ve become the FBI’s problem. But there’s a different clock counting down my fate, and it’s very short on time.”

  She didn’t press me to clarify, and three minutes later I was driving her Ford north on the 101.

  “Where are we going?” Katya asked.

  “Back to Palo Alto.”

  “Are your friends meeting us there?”

  “No. They need to be back home before anyone notices they were gone. And we won’t need them anyway.”

  As I activated the cruise control, she asked the question I’d been anticipating. “If you could have broken out of jail at any time, why did you wait? Don’t get me wrong, I’m profoundly grateful, but as we mathematicians like to say, the equation doesn’t appear to balance.”

  The truth was, I’d have broken out just to save Katya. I owed that to Colin. But she didn’t need to know that. “I broke out the moment the benefits of doing so outweighed the benefits of staying in. Helping you added weight to the escape side, but I’d already green-lighted the plan. Good thing I did too.”

  “How so?”

  “Three inmates tried to crack my skull in the shower this morning, with the help of a bent guard. It was a contracted kill, a coordinated assassination attempt.”

  “Assassination? Why? What could anyone gain by killing you?”

  I liked how her mind jumped right to the unsolved part of the problem. “I need coffee. Please grab an iPhone out of the manila envelope in the glovebox and find us a diner that’s open 24 hours.”

  She did. Denny’s was just one exit and two right turns away.

  As the waitress filled my cup with coffee, I said, “Please keep it coming.”

  Wendy said, “Sure thing, sugar.”

  Mid-fifties and working the graveyard shift at Denny’s and our waitress still had a good attitude. I admired people like her. Wondered momentarily about her source of joy — a hobby or a granddaughter that offset the grind.

  Katya tried her tea, and then looked at me expectantly.

  I dove right in, answering the question she’d asked in the car. “There is exactly one person with something to gain by killing me. It’s the same person who killed my family and framed me for it.”

  Katya processed that faster than most people over thirty can recall their age. “That doesn’t make sense. If he’d wanted you dead, he’d have killed you
at the same time. The frame was clearly part of the killer’s calculation.”

  “You’re thinking like a mathematician. I admire that, but this isn’t like solving a mathematical proof.”

  Katya wrinkled her nose. “You don’t think the rules of logic apply to investigations? Sherlock Holmes would disagree.”

  “That’s not what I said. Logic is exactly what I’m using. But not a mathematician’s logic.”

  “Mathematics is the purest form of logic.”

  “Purest, perhaps. But this isn’t a pure situation.” I paused, but didn’t take my eyes off hers while I stole a sip of coffee. “It’s evolving.”

  Her face flushed a bit as comprehension dawned. “Of course. It’s game theory, not algebra. Do you have any suspects?”

  “I have two. One for each motive.”

  “And what are those motives?”

  “The first motive is money.”

  “What money?”

  “My father’s money.”

  “But you got it all.”

  “I did, for now. Whether or not I get to keep it is a different question. Someone could be playing a long game. Someone with the ability to predict the result of a complicated series of events ... the solution to a long equation.”

  I studied Katya’s face as I spoke. I liked coffee as much as the next guy and more than most, but we were in Denny’s rather than her car for one reason: so that I could study her face at this moment. Katya didn’t go through the usual feigned surprise or delayed reaction that the rules of etiquette call for when polite discussion turns accusatory. Perhaps that was because it was 2:00 a.m. at Denny’s and not 4:00 p.m. at Harrod’s, but I took it as a sign of her character.

  “How could I benefit financially? Colin and I weren’t married. We were barely engaged.”

  “In Russia, that would be the end of it. But as everyone knows, the US has a very special legal environment. People sue for things here. It’s practically a national sport. First, you get the murders pinned on me. Then you sue the estate for damages. You were almost killed. Certainly traumatized. A jury would likely be very sympathetic, especially with the money coming from a convicted murderer.”

  Chapter 18

  Motives

  KATYA DIGESTED my accusation in silence, intermittently sipping her tea and flicking her fingernails off the pad of her left thumb. One, two three, four. One, two, three, four. She probably ran a thousand iterations through that big brain of hers before she looked up. “What’s the second potential motive? The one that isn’t money.”

  I’d seen what I wanted to see. “Let’s hit the road. I’ll tell you in the car.”

  I paid at the counter while Katya visited the restroom. Using Kyle Yates’s new credit card, I tipped Wendy more than the cost of our beverages. It felt good to be back in society. Signing the check, it occurred to me that coffee at Denny’s had been my first purchase as a rich man, legal fees aside. Alas, the money would likely all be gone before the credit card bill came due.

  Katya took the driver’s seat this time. As she moved it forward I racked the passenger seat all the way back. I still couldn’t fully stretch out my legs, but wasn’t complaining. This was the most comfortable I’d been for months. Not that there wasn’t tension. In fact, I thought I detected a bit of anger in the way Katya handled the steering and pressed the gas as we navigated back onto the highway, but I had no comparison. She’d never driven me before.

  Once Katya had engaged the cruise control, she turned my way. “Why did you tell me that? If you suspect me, wouldn’t the smart tactical move be feigning ignorance?”

  “You just answered your own question, but on top of that, it was a tactical decision. The odds of my making a mistake go up considerably if I have to split my attention between two investigations. And I can’t afford any mistakes. Plus, I don’t have time to play it subtle, which isn’t really my style anyway.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t have time?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re cryptic?”

  “Cryptic used to be my job description.”

  Katya kept quiet for a few miles.

  I felt her relaxing.

  “Why did you quit? You never really told me. The first time we met, when you were on that case in Moscow, you seemed so happy.”

  I didn’t want to add that emotional maelstrom to the mix I was already feeling. “That’s a long story for another time.”

  “There you are being cryptic again.”

  I said nothing.

  A minute later, she asked her next question. “What’s the second motive?”

  “It’s a bit more nebulous than the first. Let me tell you what I’m thinking. You can tell me if my deduction passes muster.”

  That pepped her right up. “Okay.”

  “Watch your speed.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Let’s begin with the reason for framing me. In this scenario, that would be misdirecting the police investigation.”

  Katya was all over that theory. Clearly, she’d given it some thought while I was in jail. “Wouldn’t it be better if they weren’t investigating anybody at all? They could accomplish that by making the murders appear to be an accident. Surely that would be simpler. We should be looking for the simplest explanation. Occam’s razor.”

  “You’re right. And you’ve just hit on the key. The best way to avoid a serious investigation would have been to make the murders look like an accident. So that’s what they would have done — if they could have.”

  “You’re implying they couldn’t?”

  “Exactly. They couldn’t. But why couldn’t they? More specifically, what would make it difficult to credibly stage the murder as an accident?”

  Katya turned from the road to look at me. “You’ve obviously run the permutations. What did you conclude?”

  “I figure they needed to kill more than one person. They needed to kill at least two of the three, one of which had to be my brother.”

  “Why did one have to be Colin?”

  “Because it would have been easy to stage an accident killing my father and mother. They’re always together. A hit and run car crash would have been quick, and clean, and credible.”

  “There could be a hit and run with Colin in the car too.”

  “Sure, if Colin was with them on any kind of a regular, predictable basis. But he was in Moscow. The sixtieth birthday cruise, however, was tightly scheduled well in advance. There were plane tickets on both ends, and a detailed itinerary in the middle. Two weeks’ worth. It also provided a controlled and isolated environment. Perfect for a planned murder.”

  I gave her a second to think that through.

  “I’ve never heard of a fatal yacht crash.”

  “Exactly. So what kind of accidents can you have on a yacht? Not a lot of pirates off the coast of California. You’re left with poison and explosions.”

  She mulled that over as a black Lamborghini screamed past at twice our speed like the shadow of an airplane. “Suppose that’s true. Suppose they implemented a scenario that framed you, with inheritance as the obvious motive. Why? What was their motive? How did they benefit?”

  “That’s the rub, and it’s driving me crazy.”

  Chapter 19

  Invisible Enemies

  DURING MY DISCUSSION with Katya, I began to feel something unexpected: a great sense of relief. The district attorney, the detectives, and the actual perpetrators were all still out to get me, but talking to Katya made me feel better. As they say, a problem shared is a problem halved.

  I was no longer waging this war alone.

  Sure, back in jail, I had Casey. But when the meter’s running at an obscene rate, you don’t really feel like a team. And while Dix had been beyond great, he was also remote, and our contact infrequent. Interaction feels different live, and when people are truly in it together, as Katya and I were now.

  I looked over at my unlikely comrade in arms, seated behin
d the wheel of her little red Ford, and continued presenting my analysis under this new light. “I can’t come up with a direct financial motive for the killings. Therefore I’ve concluded that there must be some indirect benefit.”

  “Indirect benefit. What could that be?”

  “My best and only guess is that it’s a business benefit. Colin and my father both worked at the same startup.”

  Katya shook her head. “But it wasn’t making any money. The product was still in clinical trials when it folded.”

  “True, but startup valuations are based on expectations of future earnings. With pharmaceutical companies, I’m sure nine-figure valuations aren’t uncommon.”

  “Do you know what Vitalis was valued at?”

  “I have no idea, but with a big name like Vondreesen involved in the financing, it had to be significant.”

  Katya’s expression told me she wasn’t impressed with my deduction. “It really doesn’t matter. The company folded a couple of months before the ... incident. Vitalis’s valuation dropped to zero. Your father retired and Colin got a new job.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m stuck.”

  “If there’s a business benefit behind this, it could just as easily be Colin's new job. He talked about it with your father, doctor to doctor, businessman to businessman.”

  “I know. You’re right. I’ve got a lot of investigating to do. That’s another reason I needed to be out of jail.”

  Katya chewed on that for a while.

  I started to doze.

  “There’s a third option, a third motive.”

  That woke me up. “I’m all ears.”

  “You started this conversation by saying that the reason for framing you was to misdirect the police investigation, but what if that’s wrong? What if everything was done for revenge against you? I suspect you made some cunning enemies during your government career?”

  “You’re right. I left that one off the list. It had been at the top for months. In my cell I cranked out hundreds of thousands of sit-ups and pull-ups and leg-lifts and crunches while working up my list of suspects and how to get at them. But that motive faded the moment someone ordered a hit on me. It vanished when they also went after you.”