The Trigger

by Jacqueline Diamond

  Located about a mile from Esmee Engines, Finder Electronics occupied a tan freestanding building with a blue tile roof. “It used to be a discount furniture outlet,” Sam informed her as they parked. “My parents bought a couch here once.”

  “At least the place has a little personality.” She’d been expecting another bland white building like Esmee.

  “I kind of liked that couch. Too bad the place went out of business.”

  As at Esmee, they required clearance from a guard, who made a phone call and instructed them to wait in the foyer. Minutes ticked by, bringing a trickle of employees arriving for work. Since the hour had passed nine, Nora gathered that the company took a casual approach to scheduling.

  She had begun to wonder if they were being stonewalled when a short man with thick round glasses hurried in from the parking lot. She immediately noted that, because of his height, he couldn’t be the man who’d bumped Fran.

  “I’m Rick Tennant, president of Finder.” He shook hands with them both. “Sorry for the delay. I was expecting that you might drop by but I didn’t know you were coming this morning.”

  “Sorry for the inconvenience,” Sam said. “We don’t always know our schedule in advance.”

  “No problem.”

  After traversing a series of gray-carpeted hallways, they settled into his ample office. Nora sketched Carl Garcola’s situation quickly, aware that Rick probably had already been briefed by Nunez or someone from Wonderworld headquarters.

  Sam pointed out that Finder had lost computer chips in a warehouse fire last August, followed by the death of product designer Julius Straus when his cell phone exploded in his car two months later. “We believe these incidents may be connected to the murders and attempted murders of employees at Esmee and Speedman as well. We need your help to find the key.”

  “I’m not sure what I can add.” Tennant folded his hands on the desk. “It’s certainly alarming if someone is targeting us.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might hold a grudge against Finder Electronics or its parent company?” Nora asked.

  “People get mad about all sorts of things.” Rick blinked owlishly behind his glasses. “For instance, I’m sure you know about the environmental fringe groups that go off the deep end over anything technological, like the Unabomber.”

  “This doesn’t strike us as the work of an environmental extremist,” Nora said. “This bomber appears to be picking very specific targets.”

  “We don’t believe he’s finished, either,” Sam put in.

  Rick wiggled in his seat. He didn’t offer any more of his bland generalities, Nora noted.

  She pressed the point home. “We could see more victims. Judging by his willingness to endanger a large number of lives at the hospital yesterday, an escalation in the scope of the attacks is possible as well. Are you aware that two pounds of a plastic explosive like Semtex can destroy a small building? The attacker could hide that much inside a cassette recorder.”

  “Or that phone right there.” Picking up on her remark, Sam indicated a device on the president’s desk.

  Rick cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose—I mean, he couldn’t have rigged my phone, could he?”

  “He’s darn clever,” Sam said. “If he really wants to, he can get to almost anyone.”

  The company president had grown progressively more red-faced as they piled on the warnings. Had the subject not been so serious, Nora would have found it difficult keeping a straight face.

  Rick pursed his lips. Finally he said, “We’re not supposed to discuss internal company affairs, even with the police.”

  “Are you willing to die for your company?” Sam’s level tone intensified the chilling effect of his words.

  The president raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t know what good it will do, but I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Nora took out her tape recorder. “This is for our records.”

  Rick stared at the mechanism. “You’re sure he hasn’t tampered with that?”

  “Try not to get paranoid,” she advised, although she and Sam had just done their best to make him feel that way.

  Slowly, the man began to talk. Julius Straus, he explained, had designed a computer chip, code-named the Chiseler, which improved the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines by twenty-five percent. He’d received a large bonus.

  “That sounds like a valuable discovery,” Sam remarked.

  “If it had worked properly, it would have been worth hundreds of millions, maybe more.” Rick sighed. “Wonderworld kept the whole thing under wraps while it underwent testing. Naturally, we didn’t want to be accused of manipulating our stock value until we knew what we had.”

  “You said if it had worked?” Sam queried.

  “The thing had some unstable properties. I can’t go into detail because it’s a trade secret.”

  “You think Julius Straus became a target because of this?” Nora asked. “Why?”

  “Our lawyers will kill me for mentioning this.” Rick only hesitated for a moment, however. “A man named Freddie Wayland sued us after word leaked out that we’d begun manufacturing prototypes of the Chiseler.”

  Wayland, an amateur inventor, claimed to be the real designer of the chip, the president explained. His legal suit, which he’d filed by himself without a lawyer, claimed that he’d discussed his brilliant idea in a chat room on the Internet, where Julius must have learned about it.

  “It’s nonsense,” the president insisted. “The man hadn’t patented his device and the one he showed us lacked the sophistication of what Julius came up with. I doubt there’s any connection.”

  “What happened to the lawsuit?” Sam asked.

  “The judge dismissed it.” Rick shook his head. “The guy didn’t have a chance against our lawyers. He got so mad I thought he was going to have a stroke.”

  “You were there?” Nora hadn’t expected this.

  “Sure. I’m the company president, after all. Freddie practically pushed Julius into a wall outside the courtroom. He claimed people always steal from geniuses, but nobody could keep him down.”

  “That sounds like a threat,” Sam conceded.

  “It didn’t concern us at the time. Lots of people get mad, but they calm down as soon as they have a chance to think about it.” Rick rubbed his fingers together. “I guess not in this case.”

  “Do you have a photo of Mr. Wayland?” Nora asked. “An address would help, too.”

  “I’m not sure I should…. Oh, the heck with it.” Rick activated his intercom. After a brief conversation and a pause, his secretary entered with a file. Flipping through it, the president extracted a slightly blurred shot of a chubby, thirtyish man.

  Nora guessed it had been taken by a private detective, perhaps trying to dig up dirt on the inventor for the company. That didn’t say much for Finder’s sense of fair play.

  With no one else in the photo, she couldn’t judge the man’s height. One detail jumped out, however.

  Jammed atop Freddie Wayland’s head, a dark-blue baseball cap sported the black-and-white emblem of a skunk, exactly as Fran Garcola had described it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT DIDN’T SURPRISE Sam when they learned, later on Thursday, that Freddie Wayland no longer resided at his last known address, an apartment in a large complex. A flaky inventor who discussed his work in chat rooms and filed his own lawsuit probably had to move around a lot to avoid bill collectors.

  The manager consulted his records to refresh his memory. “He moved out about a year ago. His neighbors kept complaining about strange noises and smells from his place, so it came as a relief. I don’t know where he went.”

  “Can you describe him?” Sam asked, thinking of Fran’s description. “Height, approximate weight, that kind of thing?”

  “Tall and heavyset. According to my records, he’s in his midthirties.” The manager didn’t know whether Freddie had any friends or family in the area. He didn’t have
the man’s license plate number, either.

  “He’s the right size,” Nora remarked as she slid into the car. “From the sketch, though, I figured the Trigger to be in his forties.”

  “Maybe he’s got acne scars that make him look older.” In Sam’s experience, descriptions of a person often varied widely. Studies had repeatedly demonstrated the unreliability of eyewitnesses.

  Nora rubbed one eye with a fingertip. She didn’t look as if she’d had an easier time sleeping last night than he had.

  Weary or not, they both put in a full day. Since talking to the Finder president that morning, they’d pursued other leads and tried again, in vain, to reach Nunez at Esmee Engines.

  They also learned that Carl Garcola appeared to be slipping deeper into a coma. Perhaps the Trigger knew that as well, because he’d refrained from making any further attempts on the victim’s life.

  A sense of urgency refused to let Sam rest. “While we’re chasing shadows, the Trigger could be moving on to his next target. We need to try to figure out what he’ll do next.”

  “If Freddie’s the Trigger, a logical target would be Rick Tennant,” Nora observed. “I hope he didn’t disregard our warning the minute we walked out the door.” They’d advised the executive to take precautions after making sure he understood the Trigger’s methods.

  “Let’s hope our guy doesn’t decide to change his operating method,” Sam said. “He must know we’re wise to him.” Although killers usually stuck with the same MO, the Avenger hadn’t, so why should the Trigger?

  When Nora spoke again, Sam could tell she’d been thinking along different lines. “You know, Tennant’s so obvious, I keep wondering why Freddie didn’t go after him right away,” she said. “And why pick people from Esmee and Speedman? They didn’t steal his chip.”

  Although Sam had no answer, another idea came to him. “Since he’s an inventor, he must advertise his business somewhere. Where’s the best place to find buyers and investors?”

  “The Internet,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  When they reached the fire station and accessed the computer, they found that, indeed, Freddie maintained a web site. In gee-whiz prose marked by misspellings and poorly lit photographs, he offered the manufacturing rights to half a dozen devices. At the bottom, the home page provided an e-mail address and a P.O. box.

  “Bingo,” Nora said. A P.O. box meant his street address would be registered with the post office.

  “It’s not sexy, but it’s a start.” Sam noted her startled look at his choice of words. Sexy certainly described Nora right now, with her pupils widened and her lips parted.

  They regarded each other for a long moment. “I think we’re getting punch-drunk from exhaustion,” she said at last.

  “I don’t feel exhausted. Do you?”

  “I feel tired and stimulated at the same time,” she admitted. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

  “Some people recommend cold showers.” Sam refused to bring up the other alternative: consummating their lust. Not only did it not suit either of them, he also had the feeling that once wouldn’t be nearly enough.

  “I’ve got a better cure,” she said. “Getting Freddie’s address.”

  An alarm shrilled through the fire station. Sam’s pulse speeded instinctively. “We’d better find out what it is.”

  It turned out to be a fire at Finder Electronics.

  As they headed for the door, Sam suspected they both entertained the same dismal notion: their warnings to Rick Tennant had been too little, too late.

  BLACK SMOKE POURED from the lobby, nearly obscuring the blue roof. The parking lot, which that morning had dozed half-empty in the sunshine, swarmed with fire trucks and police cruisers. Behind a police line, employees waited uncertainly.

  To Nora’s relief, Rick Tennant stood to one side talking with the fire department’s Captain Joe Ripani. Whatever had happened, the company president had escaped without serious harm.

  “There they are.” The president pointed as Sam and Nora approached. “Those are the people who came to see me this morning.”

  Joe greeted them. “This must be about the Trigger case. How’s it coming?”

  “We’ve got one suspect but he’s shaky.” Sam’s eyes narrowed against the smoke.

  “What happened?” Nora asked Rick.

  “According to the guard, a man walked into the lobby about half an hour ago wearing something like a space suit and demanded to speak to me.” Rick spoke so fast the words tripped over each other. “Since he looked like a nut case and didn’t have an appointment, the guard tried to escort him out. He set off some kind of device.”

  “What did it look like?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it!” He spoke in a high-pitched tone. “The next thing you know, the place filled with smoke. An alarm went off and we evacuated. Is this the bomber? Was he trying to kill me?”

  “I doubt it,” Nora assured him. “Did you hear an explosion?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Maybe I missed it.”

  “I doubt you’d have missed it. Any idea where the intruder is now?” Sam raked the crowd with his gaze. Nora, too, was looking for a man matching the Trigger’s description.

  “Still inside, I suppose,” Rick answered. “I went out the back way. I don’t know where he is.”

  Flint Mauro, the assistant police chief, approached. “We’ve deployed the SWAT team, and we’re trying to make contact with the guy holed up in the lobby, assuming he hasn’t managed to sneak out. Are all your employees accounted for?”

  “I’m not sure,” Rick admitted. “I’ll ask around. Maybe one of my managers did a head count.” He went off to join a small knot of people in business suits.

  The president had been quick to save his own hide without, apparently, a thought for his workers, Nora reflected in disgust. She wondered if the same self-serving philosophy permeated the rest of the company. Ramon Nunez at Esmee hadn’t given that impression, but he hadn’t yet kept his promise to provide further information, either.

  Rick had mentioned that Julius’s chip was unstable, Nora recalled, and wondered whether there’d been any safety implications. With a fortune at stake, to what lengths had Wonderworld been willing to go to try to make it work? And had anyone been hurt as a result?

  “He’s coming out!” an officer shouted.

  The onlookers quieted. Rick Tennant ducked behind a fire truck, while the other emergency workers also took cover. Nora and Sam retreated to a spot that still afforded good visibility.

  From the entryway waddled one of the strangest sights Nora had ever seen. The man’s getup resembled an old-fashioned diving suit altered so it bristled with wires. With one arm, he swung a flexible tube over his head lasso-style, sending a small saucer-shaped object whistling around in a circle.

  “What on earth is he doing?” Flint muttered.

  “Is that thing going to blow?” Joe asked Nora.

  She wished she knew. She’d never seen a bomb like it. “This is a darn weird way to commit suicide, if that’s what he’s planning,” she pointed out. “Frankly, I’m as confused as you are.”

  The bizarre-looking figure let the saucer clunk to the ground. In a fit of rage, he leaped forward and jumped on it repeatedly until pieces spewed across the parking lot.

  “I guess it’s not going to blow up,” Sam drawled.

  Flint stepped cautiously into the man’s view. “Courage Bay police! Put your hands up!”

  An incomprehensible mumble issued from inside the suit. The man wrestled with his helmet and at last wrenched it off.

  The bespectacled face that emerged wore an expression of frustration mixed with alarm. Atop his head, flattened by the helmet, lay a baseball cap with a skunk logo.

  If Nora had had any doubts about the man’s identity, they vanished. “Freddie Wayland,” she said aloud.

  “Up close and personal,” her partner added for good measure.

  Freddie gape
d at all the emergency vehicles and the police with their weapons drawn. “Oh, for Pete’s sake! It didn’t work,” he announced. “You might as well all go home.”

  “Hands in the air!” Flint trained his gun on the man isolated in an expanse of blacktop.

  The object of everyone’s attention blinked as the officer’s meaning sank in. Slowly, as if finally recognizing the gravity of the situation, he raised his hands and let the helmet plunk to the pavement.

  The SWAT team raced in and handcuffed the suspect. Behind them, the smoke pouring from the lobby began to dissipate.

  “This is ridiculous!” Freddie stared wild-eyed as Sam and Nora approached. “You’re making such a fuss.”

  Rick Tennant held back, probably still afraid for his safety. One of the managers came close enough to listen.

  “What’s going on?” Nora asked Freddie.

  “I’m an inventor.” He seemed to think that explained everything. When they continued regarding him dubiously, he said, “I set off a smoke bomb to prove my point. My Smoking-Gone was supposed to clear it up in no time.”

  “Your smoking gun?” Flint said.

  “No!” Freddie cried. “My Smoking-Gone!”

  Nora remembered seeing the device on the web site. According to the ad, when activated, it cleared air rapidly of something called large particulates—dust and grime.

  “It worked perfectly in my storage unit,” the inventor insisted. “You whirl it around and it eats the smoke. I figured Finder Electronics would want to license the rights to it. I mean, they owe me a break.”

  The onlookers stared as if they’d captured a Martian.

  “That’s why I released the smoke bomb. So I could prove how it operates.” Freddie tried to gesture, but the handcuffs prevented it.

  “Tell me about your hat,” Nora said.

  “What?” He shifted uncomfortably. “Would someone please take these cuffs off me? I explained what I’m doing.”