Broken Protocols 1-3

by Dale Mayer

  “Don’t open the door,” hissed Milo. “He might have come here to kill us.”

  That was a possibility as well. But he had other options. He opened the wall com. “What do you want?”

  “The girl,” came a hard flat voice.

  Levi closed his eyes. Damn.

  “Give her up.”

  “Or else what,” Levi asked, deceptively calm. He stared at Milo, who was waving his hands in the air in a wild manner.

  “She’s nothing to you. But she’s worth a lot of money to us. You already have money, and with her, we will, too.”

  Levi frowned. “That makes no sense. She is worth something to me. She’s not worth any money to you. How could she be?” He managed to work just the right amount of helpless confusion into this voice.

  “I’m not getting into an argument with you. I have orders.”

  “Orders from whom?” Levi watched as Milo finally stopped panicking and started calling someone – anyone – for help. He hoped Milo was calling the same people that hassled them all the time. It was only fair.

  The big wall screen beside him opened up to show Milo sending a live feed of their visitor to the same department handling Lina’s murder case. At the same time, Milo sent a feed from Lina’s office showing the same Defino brothers with her that morning. Levi didn’t know if any of this would happen fast enough, but if the cops came…he didn’t want Dani anywhere around. Or Charmin. And that damn pod needed to stay hidden.

  Suddenly, the male outside the door sneered. “Called the cops, have you? That’s all right; you can’t stay in there all the time. She’s the one I want. Give her up and I’ll leave your freak of a brother alone.”

  A frightened squeak behind him said Milo had heard that bit.

  Just as suddenly, their visitor disappeared.

  Levi turned to Milo. “How long have we got before the police arrive?”

  “They’re almost here.”

  And sure enough, the alarms sounded. Within minutes, a small force had arrived at the door.

  He had to open up this time. He faced the officers, “Sorry, gentlemen, you just missed him.”

  “We need confirmation of the material that was sent over.”

  Of course they did. Resigning himself to a long couple of hours, he opened the door and let the men in. They had ComBots with them. Using combat robots was standard procedure with apprehending anyone considered dangerous. At least the authorities believed him about the thug. If he’d had something to do with Lina’s death, then he was very dangerous.

  His mind immediately considered getting a ComBot as a security guard to help keep Dani safe just in case he wasn’t home.

  He waited off to the side as Milo confirmed the video footage and explained via HoloKomp to the Council Security officials how he’d come into possession of the feed and why he hadn’t turned it over earlier.

  They all appeared satisfied with his explanation about not knowing about the dead woman until her partner called to see if she’d been in contact.

  Just when he thought it was over, the person in charge handed over more orders. Both he and Milo were to appear in front of the Council.

  Now.

  Chapter 15

  Dani held her breath as she heard heavy footsteps approach. There were other people in the flat besides the two brothers. It bothered her to be locked in the small room but at the same time, if the stealth mode meant what she thought it meant, no one would see this room either.

  That should keep them safe. The pod itself was illegal, so even finding that would cause Levi big trouble. She was a whole new dimension of trouble.

  She didn’t want that for anyone. If anyone knew the truth about her, she’d never be allowed to stay with Milo and Levi. No, the best thing she could do was learn to blend in. To be one of them.

  “Charmin, is there anything that will help me learn how things work here?”

  “Time?”

  “We don’t have time,” she said urgently. “I need to fit in. I have this horrible feeling that Milo and Levi are in trouble.”

  Charmin studied her, but his thoughts appeared to be far away. “There is no comp in here, is there?”

  “I have no idea.” She spun around. “Comp turn on.”

  Nothing.

  Charmin spoke up. “Audio from the rest of the apartment on.”

  Immediately, sounds of people moving through the rooms filled the air. Dani shuddered and squeezed Charmin tight.

  “We are to take you down to the Council right now.”

  “Why?” Levi said. Dani shivered at the barely contained anger in his voice. “Why are we going back to the Council when we were just there?”

  “More questions need to be answered.”

  Then there was no more talking as they all filed out of the apartment.

  Charmin stared at Dani. “They’ve gone back to Council without saying anything to us.”

  “They couldn’t,” she said absently. “He didn’t dare speak to us.”

  “I will contact Milo then.” And damn if Charmin didn’t hop up onto the pod and push some buttons on the unit that Milo had left humming away in the background.

  “That’s a bug finder. Not a com.”

  Charmin shot her a look. “They are all computers, and here all computers can communicate with each other.”

  “Oh.” Of course they could. It seemed like everything here communicated with every other thing. The damn coffee maker probably talked to the house alarm and vice versa. “So you can talk to Milo?”

  “Of course. So can you.”

  “I’d like to talk to Levi.”

  “His comp is on silent mode.”

  “Oh, but Milo’s isn’t?”

  “His is never off. He’s receiving my message now.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “Probably.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. She also wished she could go outside and double check that the apartment was empty. But what if it wasn’t?

  Then she heard it. The sound of a door opening. She couldn’t help herself. She stared up at the ceiling as they heard audio of someone else entering the house.

  Charmin froze, his whiskers quivering.

  He tapped the comp very gently, as if afraid that the very tiny clicks could be heard. The unit in front of him flashed an answer back. He swallowed, looked at her, and said, “It’s not the group that was just here. It’s someone else.”

  She closed her eyes. “That can’t be good.”

  “Milo says to not make a sound. Stealth is on, but…”

  She grabbed Charmin, the comp unit, and crawled underneath the pod.

  She didn’t know who the unknown visitor was, but nothing about this situation was good. “Did Milo say if they were on the way home?”

  “They can’t yet. He says he’s sending help.”

  She thought about that. “I wonder what that means?”

  “No idea.” He added slowly, “I wonder if they are bringing food.”

  *

  Levi glared at the Council. “What was that question again?”

  “We wish to know where you obtained copies of these videos.” Off to the side, the videos of the two badass henchmen entering Lina’s reception room were displayed.

  “It’s obvious where we got it. We do consulting work for John Driscoll’s office.” Levi didn’t like where this was going. Sure, they’d crossed the line by showing it to the police, but as they were looking for a murderer, he hadn’t thought they’d crossed the line that much. “Why is this an issue?”

  “Because,” the speaker said, anger putting an edge in his voice, “If you accessed the private feeds from the lawyer’s office, what else might you have obtained and why?”

  “Nothing other than the regular security feeds. Which is funneled to Johns security company,” Levi tried to stay calm, but he was damn worried about Dani. “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything.”

  “We have a murdered lawyer, who prior t
o you sending this feed is known to have spoken to your wife before her disappearance.”

  “No. My wife had nothing to do with this. As we’ve shown, Lina was still alive when we left. The conversation with those two men prove that.”

  “Except that as both you and your brother are known to have exceptional skills with anything electronic, you can’t actually prove that you didn’t doctor this feed.” He pointed to the feed frozen on the wall, the henchmen’s face stopped with his mouth open. “For all we know, this man was there visiting the lawyer earlier in the morning and you just made it look like their visit was later.”

  “Good Lord. You actually think that we had something to do with Lina’s murder?” His voice rose at the end. “That’s preposterous.”

  “Why is that?”

  Levi could hardly formulate an answer. How did one prove that he hadn’t done something? “For one, I have an alibi. I’ve been home with my wife and my brother all day. Besides, what possible reason could I have for hurting Lina?”

  “Lina?” This was from one of the other Councilmen. “You have a personal relationship with her?”

  “No.” Levi shook his head. “No. I knew her before she joined John’s firm, but not well.”

  “But she wanted to know you better? She might have pushed you. Hard. Became a little too pushy. Maybe you told her to back off. Maybe she pushed back. You argued…and things went from bad to worse.”

  Levi stared wordlessly at the four men staring down at him. He wanted to rage and scream at them for their blatant stupidity. “You have this all wrong.”

  “That’s not what this man says.”

  Levi turned to stare, shocked as a very sober and sad-looking John walked in. “John? You’re the one accusing me of hurting Lina?”

  John’s dour faced turned even more sober. “I didn’t want to believe it, Levi.”

  “But you just can’t help yourself.” Levi’s cynicism kicked in. “This is your attempt at damage control? Place the blame on my shoulders, then you and your firm don’t have to take the fall for a rogue lawyer. Won’t have to reassure all the clients that she didn’t sell their secrets?”

  Milo stared at John. “Wow. Slick move. Of course, it’s not going to work.”

  John’s gaze hardened. “And why is that, genius?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure if I were to access your office, we’d find a string of communications showing that Lina was alive after we left her office. Your office. The office you have full access to. The office you pay the security company to do whatever you want. The office where you can screen potential clients to do some of your dirty work.”

  John’s face became a picture of innocence. “I had nothing to do with the death of my colleague.” He managed to look outraged yet grieving at the same time. “How dare you accuse me of such a heinous crime?”

  “Oh, but it’s okay for you to accuse us?” Levi was back to being stumped. At the same time, his mind raced in circles looking for something, anything, the one thing that would get him off the hook. “Then let us take a look at your communications.” He dared John.

  John raised an eyebrow. “Of course. Here.” And he dropped his comp onto the table in front of everyone. “I have nothing to hide.”

  Milo snatched it up, clicked a few buttons, and lifted his gaze to stare hard at John. “It’s a brand new phone.”

  “Yes, sorry. I lost my other one yesterday afternoon.”

  “Of course you did,” Levi mocked. “Coincidental timing, I suppose.”

  John stared at him blandly. “Whatever.”

  Milo continued to click and click. Levi hoped he was finding something useful. His brother’s head was bent like always when he was focusing on a new project. “Find anything, Milo?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  John stiffened. “Impossible. There is nothing to find.”

  “Well, not on the phone. But I tracked it back to the office.”

  Milo looked up with a smile and hit play. Lina’s voice could be heard easily. “You know very well why I’m going to be late for dinner.” She sighed. “Dear boy, I need to meet someone. This is going to be an easy open-and-shut deal. No worries.”

  “Somehow whenever you say that, it works out to be the opposite.”

  “Then come with me so I’m not alone. That way, we can go to dinner earlier and that will make for an earlier playtime.” On that last note, she dropped her tone, oozing a very low, suggestive sexuality.

  Milo clicked on something, and the feed froze.

  Levi said, “So John, would you care to change your story? After all, you are now the prime suspect. You spoke to her well after we did.”

  “That means nothing,” he blustered. “And that conversation could have happened a while ago. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it did.”

  “Oh, it probably did when she was always wheeling and dealing. However, by your own admission, this phone links to both your office and home, and it’s a new phone, so you spoke to her after you got it. Which you said was late yesterday afternoon. So technically, you were the last one to speak with her.”

  Silence.

  Chapter 16

  Dani crouched low, making herself as small as she could. The South Pacific theme was open and empty. Kinda hard to hide. She had no idea who walked the hallways outside the pod room, but from the sound of heavy footsteps and pounding on the walls, there was no doubt someone was.

  Her nerves were shot with every hard thump on the wall. The intruder were looking for her. She knew it deep inside. And the fear choked her. She couldn’t take a breath. She clutched Charmin so tightly to her chest, she doubted he could breathe either. She closed hers.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. She shuddered and buried her face into his fur. “Please keep us safe.”

  Thud.

  They had to be following the signal from the tracker before it was fried. Charmin shivered in her arms. She squeezed him tighter.

  Then the door opened. She gasped silently and shrank lower.

  “Bloody hell. Here it is. How the hell did they hide this place?” The stranger walked in. From her position under the pod, she could only see his boots. Leather. Heavy. High. Studded. One of the Defino brothers. The boots were meant to instill fear. And they succeeded. She was terrified.

  From the quivering flesh in her arms, she presumed that Charmin felt the same.

  The footsteps circled the room one way then returned the other way. Back in front of the door, the boots stopped. “Damn.” The boots shuffled slightly. As if he was standing in one place and looking the place over. “Who’d want a pod on an island? Stupid people.”

  His hands hit the floor and he bent down to look under the pod.

  And Charmin attacked.

  He flew at the stranger, claws out, slashing and slashing…and yowling.

  “Holy shit. What the hell?”

  Charmin howled again and dashed away, only to come back and jump up again, this time going after the man’s face. Footsteps sounded as the stranger, she thought it was the older thug, raced out of the room.

  Charmin gave chase.

  A horrible alarm set off, filling the halls and making the walls rattle. Dani cried out and slapped her hands over her ears. “Oh, make it stop.”

  She scrambled out from under the pod, raced to close the door, and stopped. She couldn’t leave Charmin out there alone. He could be hurt. In danger. But the horrific noise was worse with the open door.

  “Charmin,” she whispered. There was no way he’d be able to hear her with that alarm going off.

  Damn. She snuck into the kitchen, but there was no sign of him. Scared to be too far away from the pod room, she snuck back and called for him again.

  Still nothing.

  On the floor, she found a comp unit. It wasn’t one she recognized. She picked it up, wishing she understood how to use it.

  After tucking it into her pocket, she went to close the pod room door when she heard, “Hey, open up.”

  She pulled the
door wide open. “Charmin!”

  He jumped into her arms. She shut the door with her hip and hugged him close.

  After a cuddle, Charmin dug his claws into her arm. “Ow! What was that for?”

  “You have the intruder’s comp,” he said, jumping from her arms to the top of the pod. “Let me see it.”

  Feeling ridiculous but willing, she laid it down on the slightly rounded top of the pod and held it steady for her cat to use. Boy, if any of her old friends could see her now. They’d lock her up in the loony bin. Then again, she’d have been living there for the last few days anyway if she tried to explain what had happened to her.

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “See his connections.”

  She frowned. “As in whom he worked for?”

  “And when he last had contact with that lady.”

  “Lina?” That might be helpful, but she wasn’t sure how since she was dead. But if they could find the person behind all this, she’d be happy. Maybe then she could settle in to learn about her new world.

  “Do you think the apartment is empty now?”

  He shrugged. “I think so.”

  She walked back to the door and opened it. Everything was quiet. Maybe too quiet? She really wanted to make sure the damn intruder had closed the front door. There were all kinds of security in place – but she was pretty sure the door had to be closed for any of it to work.

  Milo said he was sending someone to help them. Surely they’d be here by now?

  Leaving Charmin to work the phone awkwardly with his fat paws, she crept toward the front door. And stopped. A man approached the open doorway. Then she realized who it was. Thank heavens.

  It was John. Levi’s lawyer. Still in his blue outfit.

  “Thank heavens you’re here,” she exclaimed with a big smile. “The place was broken into. We’ve been trying to reach Levi and Milo and can’t seem to get through.”

  “You did get through. The alarm on the place sent an automatic alert to them. That’s why I’m here.” He smiled with relief and held out his hand. “I’m so happy to find you safe. Hurry now. I’m to take you to Levi.”

  “Oh.” She was so happy to see someone she recognized. She raced toward him.