“I don’t know but the phone calls and his coat. I just don’t know what to think. Carla can be really cold when she feels she has been wronged.”
“Thank you Mr. Larkins. I know that wasn’t easy to do. We will start checking that end as well. You could be very wrong you know,” Nelson said.
“I know. That’s why I was hesitant to even bring it up but I wanted you to know what I was thinking at least. I hope I am dead wrong about this,” he said and closed the door after himself.
“Man,” Petty said, “I can see why he is so tense with Ashton. If he feels they are in this together he has been doubly betrayed.”
“This is not a pretty career path we have chosen,” was all Nelson said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Carla? Are you here?” Stephanie’s voice drifted across the room.
“Yes,” she replied in a low whisper.
“How are you doing? Have they told you anything?” Stephanie asked.
“I’m fine I guess. How are you doing?”
“Hanging in there. So far they have not mistreated me much. A little rough treatment but nothing serious. They hit me a couple of times for not moving fast enough. How about you?” she asked.
“Okay for the most part. Do you know what’s going on?” Carla asked.
“Not really. Obviously we have been kidnapped. I suppose they have contacted Jim and Terry demanding money. Since they haven’t hurt us I am hopeful that they will let us go,” she replied.
“What if they don’t get the money? You know that DigitCom is in bad financial condition. Terry and I don’t have much in the way of cash,” she said.
“I know. Neither do Jim and I. Everything is in DigitCom. I know they talked to someone about selling the company but I guess Jim quashed the deal,” Stephanie said.
“Yeah. Terry was pretty upset about it. You don’t think this has something to do with that, do you?” Carla asked.
“Who knows? Have you been able to tell anything out about our captors?” she asked.
“Not much. There is more than one I think. At least one man and one woman. There could be more. A woman has taken me to the bathroom each time. I’m thankful for that. Of course anyone else could be watching or in the room. They always keep me blindfolded and don’t ever talk,” Carla said.
“Anything else?” Stephanie prompted.
“The woman is strong. I started to fall back once and she yanked me up. I brushed against her and could tell she was physically fit. I almost got a look at her once. I was able to work my blindfold up on my cheek and I could see has sandy blond hair. Kind of like yours only shorter,” Carla told her.
“Good. Good. We may need that. Anything else you can think of? Think. Did you see anything else?”
“Not really. I just got a quick sneak peek. Not enough to really tell anything,” she said.
“Too bad. I think at least one of the men has a beard or a very heavy stubble. It was harsh, not soft at all. I agree about the woman. She seems strong. I wouldn’t want to tangle with her,” Stephanie said.
“You are pretty fit yourself. You could stand up to her better than I could,” Carla said.
“Let’s hope I don’t have to find out. How are your shackles? Mine are awfully tight.”
“Mine too. I can’t budge them,” she replied.
They sat in silence for several minutes. It was very quiet in the room and hot. They could hear a slight scraping sound but there was no way to know what it was or where it was coming from.
“Why do you suppose they put us together from time to time?” Carla asked after a while.
“I guess to keep us from going crazy. I hadn’t thought about it. I think they keep us separated so we won’t try to come up with some plan to get free,” Stephanie said.
“Maybe they are listening to us now. Finding out more about us,” Carla offered.
“What do they need to know? I can tell them this if they are listening. We don’t have any money,” she said, raising her voice louder, “I don’t know if that did any good but it did feel better to vent some anger.”
Carla laughed. It was the first time she had laughed since she had been abducted. It has been early in the morning on Wednesday. She went to get in the car and when she reached for the garage door opener someone grabbed her from behind and placed a heavy bag over her head. She felt a sharp sting in her arm and within a few seconds she could feel herself losing consciousness. It was the last thing she remembered until she woke up.
It was dark and she couldn’t move her arms or legs much. The bag was off of her face and had been replaced by a large blindfold. Her wrists and ankles were in some kind of metal shackles. She had a very limited range of movement. She had called out for a long time but heard nothing. It wasn’t until much later that someone came into the room. She could not tell if it was day or night. The person said something to someone else in the room and they led her to where she could go to the bathroom.
Later she was brought food but it was very difficult to eat until she learned how to maneuver. The voice was strange sounding and she knew that they were being manipulated somehow. After a while she lost track of all time.
The only other time she had physical contact with them was when they took her wedding ring. She had begged them not to take it but it made little difference. Now Stephanie was in the same boat. It explained why Jim Ashton had called. Stephanie had not come home because she had been abducted as well. Poor Jim and Terry. They would be frantic. At least she was thankful that they had not been harmed in any way yet. Other than when they had taken her wedding ring she had been mostly left alone.
Every once in a while she thought she could hear muffled voices but it could have just been her mind playing tricks on her. Time has little meaning when you are tied up and blindfolded. It was impossible to keep track of it. She was thankful that they did not have any kids that were going through this as well. Poor Terry would be a basket case.
****
Four Japanese men sat across the table across from FBI Special Agent Rick Petty. A liaison officer was with him. Mr. Aikimoto sat ridged, in the center of his group, his arms and hands pressed against his lean body. He looked intently at the agent as if trying to see inside his head. It was very disturbing to Agent Petty.
“Mr. Aikimoto. This is Agent Petty from our FBI. We would like to thank you for taking the time to meet with us today. Agent Petty is here on a delicate and urgent matter. He would like to ask you a few questions,” the liaison officer said.
A translator was speaking quickly and softly into Mr. Aikimoto’s ear.
They waited for a response but none came so Petty said, “Mr. Aikimoto, it is our understanding that you made an offer to purchase the DigitCom Company. Is that correct?”
When the translator finished he said a single word.
“Correct.”
“Who made the initial contact?” Petty asked.
A few seconds later, “Mr. Larkins of DigitCom,” came the short reply.
“How did he contact you? I mean how did he know you would be interested?”
Mr. Aikimoto spoke to the translator without taking his eyes off the agent.
“Our field is very small. We have made it known that we were seeking to acquire a young upstart company for our organization. This is a question better asked to Mr. Larkins.”
“Did you in fact make an offer?”
“Yes,” came the reply.
“How much did you offer?”
One of the other men leaned over and held a quick conference with Mr. Aikimoto and the interrupter.
“We see no reason to divulge the amount. It is not information that we wish to discuss.”
“Look, we are conducting a very sensitive investigation. The wives of the two owners have been kidnapped. We intend to get them back safely,” agent Petty, said threateningly.
Again a quick conference was held.
“We are aware of the problem, but it does not concern us. We are only concerne
d about the acquisition of DigitCom.”
“We know that you offered them twenty million dollars. What we want to know is why? Our experts tell us that the offer is too high. So why offer more than it is worth?”
“Mr. Aikimoto said that how much the company is worth depends on what we intend to do with it once we buy it. We have made our offer.”
“In other words, you don’t intend to help us one way or the other, do you?” Petty said.
“Mr. Aikimoto asked if you intend to help us manufacture our products. We are not in the helping business. We are in the computer business. Now unless you have some pertinent questions then he would like to end this meeting,” the translator said.
“You tell Mr. Aikimoto that I will be glad to have him hauled down to the police station if he doesn’t cooperate. You are in my country now and you are going to abide by our rules,” Petty said, “you tell him that.”
The translator talked to Mr. Aikimoto for several seconds.
Finally he said, “You may go now. If you have anything further to ask you will need the proper legal documents. We may be in your country but you are in our building. You will go now.”
Agent Petty looked over at the State Department representative but he just sat there impassively. The agent glared back at Mr. Aikimoto who had not changed expressions since they started, it was very frustrating. Finally he decided that he needed further orders as how to proceed. If it were up to him he would just cuff Aikimoto and haul him down to jail but that didn’t seem prudent. Instead, he stood up and headed to the door without saying another word.
Just as he reached the door a voice said, “Agent Petty.”
He turned and Aikimoto was standing facing him. He said, “I want to thank you so much for coming. Please, the next time you come, try to remember that we are not used to rude behavior. If you intend to succeed you must learn that cooperation is asked, not demanded,” in perfect English.
Petty just turned on his heel and walked out. We definitely did not drop enough bombs on Japan during the war, he thought to himself as he headed to the car. The State Department rep had remained behind. When Petty got back to the branch office he told Nelson about the visit. The senior agent decided that any further questions would need to be handled by the protocol office. They would make that determination after the other background materials came back.
If Aikimoto was involved he was going to need more than a little stonewalling to shake the FBI off his case. Within a few hours the documents started to arrive and they went to work. Aikimoto Limited looked squeaky clean. The State Department had done a very detailed background check. They had been given permission to approach several US companies but as far as the records indicated, had only met with DigitCom.
According to the information, Mr. Larkins had written them some months ago about his interest in selling. Additional correspondence and the transfer of several financial documents had followed that up.
The State Department had been involved every step of the way except for the actual face-to-face meeting. The net worth of Aikimoto Limited was in excess of one billion US dollars. It made little sense that Mr. Aikimoto would be involved in anything so risky as extortion.
The outside possibility that one of the junior members, looking to impress Mr. Aikimoto, was discussed but in the end it seemed far from likely. Still they would not rule them out entirely.
A separate team, more familiar with Japanese customs would continue to look into the matter. Nelson and Petty concerned themselves mostly with checking out Larkins and Ashton.
Nelson ordered both Terry’s Jaguar and Jim’s Audi impounded and gone over in minute detail. Both men were upset by his decision but there was little they could do about it.
A full background investigation was being conducted at the same time on both of the men’s lives. Nelson wasn’t the fastest man but he was one of the most methodical.
Agent Petty, on the other hand, was all action. He had little tolerance for tedious repetitious work. The last case he had been assigned to had ended in near disaster and resulted in the wrong man being tried. Fortunately the error was discovered and charges were dropped. While not directly reprimanded, he was assigned to work with Nelson in the hopes that he would learn some valuable lessons on procedure.
Petty felt that Nelson was too slow. He looked at each piece of evidence from three different perspectives. It was fine to make sure, but sometimes things were just what they appeared to be.
In his mind Ashton was the prime suspect. His story was too full of inconsistencies. He was sure that Ashton was involved up to his neck but the motive was his only drawback. He speculated that the kidnapping was just a ruse.
Ashton had probably had been having an affair with someone, perhaps even Carla Larkins, and had been caught. He had gotten rid of his wife and made it look like a kidnapping. They would find Carla holed up someplace waiting for this to all blow over. It was just a matter of time before he would prove it to Nelson. He could plod along all he wanted but action got cases solved, not forensic mumbo-jumbo.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Larkins had been classified as 4-F due to respiratory problems and never entered the military. He had wanted to join the Air Force and become a flyer but was turned down. He became interested in computer science and found that he had a natural talent for thinking in the abstract that helped him to do really well. He graduated twelfth in his class.
He met Jim Ashton during his freshman year and they immediately took a liking to each other. Jim was a natural athlete. It didn’t matter what sport he took up, within a few tries he was more accomplished than most.
He had a magnetic personality and while he was not as brilliant in class as Terry, he somehow managed to make remarkably high grades. His professors liked him almost immediately and even though his test scores were always lower than Terry’s he would still end up with the same grade at the end of the semester.
They had started to work on computer games while still in college and it wasn’t long before they were actually marketing a couple of their products. Terry would do most of the work but it was Jim who would market them.
They started DigitCom during their senior year. It wasn’t much and it was very difficult to get anyone to take them seriously. Ashton’s forte was marketing. He had the talent of being able to charm and wiggle his way into the right groups and it usually paid off.
They were able to get a small grant and before long they started to find modest success. Ashton had met Stephanie while they were taking English 112 and they started dating seriously within a few months. Stephanie’s parents were killed in a plane crash during their first year of marriage and she inherited around two hundred thousand dollars. It wasn’t going to make them set for life but it did come at a time when DigitCom was really struggling. It was actually the thing that allowed them to stay in business until their first major commercial success.
While Jim had natural drive, it was really Stephanie who pushed Jim to keep DigitCom moving forward. She had always wanted to be rich and this was her chance. If she could just keep Jim motivated she was sure they would be millionaires in no time.
For a time everything went well. The company continued to grow and sales and profits took a great upswing but it was such a fast paced field that the technology changed overnight it seemed. Soon DigitCom was starting to slip behind because of the giant companies' ability to throw money at any problem.
The saving grace was that they had discovered a new technology which could put them on the leading edge. A new process had allowed them to develop a chip that would take computers into the next dimension. Suddenly everything looked like it was going to pay off.
The first chips that went to beta program testers came back with overwhelmingly enthusiastic reports. Nothing like it had been introduced and the excitement was rampant. Within a few weeks things changed rapidly as the more advanced users got the chips. At first only one report came back that the chip was not performing accurate highe
r math functions. The linear particle accelerator facility at Berkley, California reported that they were getting inconsistent data and when checked against other calculations they found several errors.
Bob Spitzer performed the same calculations on the lab computer at DigitCom and came up with the correct answers every time. It was speculated that either the chip had been improperly installed or that it could possibly be a faulty chip.
They sent a replacement one and new installation instructions. Before long, two other facilities called with similar problems and within the month they had half a dozen different test facilities reporting problems.
A mild panic ensued and Bob immediately went to Terry with the reports. They quickly reviewed the manufacturing specifications and ran their own calculations. They could find no inconsistencies. Terry ordered new chips sent to each facility along with new, simpler instructions. One of the problems they were facing was a loss of confidence in the Millennium3 by the test facilities. They simply stopped using them so at first it seemed the problems had been corrected when in fact they had not.
It wasn’t until follow-up contact was made that they found out that some of the places had not even bothered to install the replacement chips. Terry spent a great deal of time prodding them to install and test the chip.
No new problems cropped up for two weeks so they felt they were out of the woods when suddenly a rash of new anomalies became apparent. Now everyone involved with the process was burning the midnight oil trying to solve the problem.
Linda Taylor had responsibility for making the final check to ensure that each chip was within the strict specifications. She had checked each one personally and performed all of the final readings with her assistant verifying the results. She had actually been the one who inadvertently informed Ashton of how serious the problem was.
Jim had then gone to Terry to find out what was going on. Terry downplayed the problem assuring Jim that it was not as serious as Linda had made it out to be. Terry told him that Bob had isolated the problem and was making the necessary changes.
Avarice or Innocence (JOHN LOGAN FILES Book 1) Page 10
