“Yes, I know. Ginny was pretty vague on the phone. She said she had something she needed to show me.” Amanda touched his leg. “Thank you for coming with me, Ryder.”
Sliding into the parking lot of the Institute of Physics ninety minutes ahead of Amanda’s scheduled meeting time gave him the chance to do some recon and study the layout of the building’s grounds and surrounding area. All looked quiet. It was late enough in the evening that most of the staff had gone home. Only a handful of cars were left parked in front of the glass building.
“Why are we so early?” Amanda asked when he drove slowly around the building.
“We need to know the exits, just in case something goes wrong, Amanda.”
Noting the number of windows and doors that he passed, Ryder mentally filed that information away for later use, if need be. He scoped the area eight times looking for anything that had changed. Ryder narrowed his eyes and searched the area to see if any menacing activity lurked about that could suggest a set-up and saw none. Parking in the back east side of the lot, Ryder waited for Ginny Sullivan to appear.
When the two spearing headlights of a sedan turned into the almost vacant parking lot at eight forty-five, he watched and waited.
“That’s Ginny, Ryder,” Amanda said quietly and sat up straighter in her seat.
“Okay.” His gaze again scoped out the dark lot. Breathing in deeply, he exhaled slowly all the while searching the area for anything out of place. “Let’s just wait a few minutes.” He really did want this to be a legitimate tip. His eyes swept back and forth through the parking lot several times before he reached out to blink his headlights twice. The dim halogen lights that stood tall and loomed over the Institute of Physics parking lot, showed the BMW to look silvery in color. It blinked its lights back at them two times, confirming that Dr. Harris’ colleague saw their car as well and the BMW crawled slowly over to them.
When Amanda readied to open her door, he threw his arm over to stop her. “Wait.”
“But Ginny―,” Amanda started to say and then nodded when she seemed to understand Ryder’s caution.
“Let her come closer and then I’ll get out. You stay put.”
She again nodded grimly and clutched her hands together restlessly on her lap.
He noted the driver’s side window was already down and a short-haired woman with glasses eased her BMW next to Ryder’s Jeep Cherokee from the opposite way, so they could both see each other.
Her eyebrows jumped as she noticed him before her gaze landed on Amanda. “Amanda, I thought I said only you―”
He interrupted her. “Where Amanda Harris goes, I go until we get this mess straightened out, ma’am.”
“I see.”
“The perimeter is clear; shall we get down to the meat?”
Amanda craned over so she could speak to Ginny. “Ginny, this is Ryder Stevenson. You can trust him with any information. He’ll keep anything confidential to himself. He’s helping me get to the root of this. . . ” She waved her hands up in the air in a helpless gesture. “Whatever this is.”
Ginny pointed an index finger to the side entrance of the Institute of Physics. “Let’s head over there. We’ll go in the side door.”
“We’re going inside?” Ryder quirked an eyebrow at the older woman because he wasn’t sure he liked that idea.
“Yes,” she hissed. “I need to show you some tapes . . . as well as some other things I’ve recently discovered.”
“Ryder,” Amanda urged him quietly. “Let’s go. I trust her.”
He dipped his chin to acknowledge them both. Hoping he wouldn’t regret this move of being in an unsecured building, he put the car in drive and followed her BMW as it crept to the side entrance.
Ryder waited until Virginia got out of her car and was at the metal side door before he and Amanda met her.
“Ginny.” Amanda reached over and gave the older woman a quick hug and then pulled back to introduce them. “This is Ryder Stevenson. And Ryder, this is Ginny Sullivan.”
Ryder shook hands with the woman. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Ginny looked over at him briefly after she swiped her security card. “Likewise, Mr. Stevenson.”
The door latch clicked open and Ginny ushered them into the hallway. Over her shoulder she said, “Over here.” And they followed her into a small office to the right.
Virginia Sullivan flipped on the light switch as the three of them walked into a small, white room with computers sitting on various desks and video cameras.
“Please sit.” Virginia motioned to the two chairs that flanked the stark walls. Only Amanda took a seat, he decided to stand.
“So, what do you have to show us?” Ryder asked lifting an eyebrow. Amanda immediately laid her right hand on his arm and he tensed. If this was a set-up . . .
“I want to show you some footage.” Ginny pulled out a tape and pushed it into the video machine. “I ran across this quite by accident, actually.” The older woman pursed her lips. “I came in here to look at something else and stumbled across this. I think Terrence is in deep.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you think that?”
“Well after I came back yesterday to check on Wayne’s office, I saw Terrence surrounded by three mean-looking men.
“I’m not sure that means anything, Ms. Sullivan. Hell, I’m mean-looking.” Ryder stood with his legs spread wide and his hands clasped behind his back.
“No.” Ginny shook her head. “There was no mistaking these guys. Rough. They were dark and pushy.” She gestured with her arm to the hallway. “And they backed Terrence all the way down here.” After she depressed the button on the monitor she said, “See what I mean?”
Everyone’s eyes jumped up to the display screen. Three large Hispanic men cornered the pudgy, dark-haired physicist and physically manhandled him to the structure they were at now. The tape documented everything. Two of the men had on baseball caps. And they barked out orders to Dr. Montgomery as they pushed him to where they wanted to go. One man on the video looked vaguely familiar to him, but his interest in what was in this building drew his attention more.
“Can we look around?” Ryder walked to the door. “I need to see what is in this building that would cause others to kill to get their hands on it.”
“I suppose,” Virginia said haltingly. “But this is confidential research material.”
“I won’t breathe a word of anything I see, Ms. Sullivan,” Ryder said. “To anyone.”
“It’s not you―” She stopped and nodded at Amanda. “Amanda works for our competitor.”
“Oh, honestly, Ginny!” Amanda took a step closer to her ex-husband’s colleague. “I won’t say a word―or copy your secrets! I’m not here trying to steal information! Someone cut Wayne up into little pieces―” She stopped and sucked in a breath before saying quietly, “Someone is trying to hurt me and my children. I have to stop this before anything happens to my kids.”
Virginia Sullivan lowered her head and closed her eyes. “Of course, I’m so sorry Amanda.” Walking over to Ryder, she opened the door. “Come on you two.” She motioned with her hand. “I’ll show you what we’ve been working on.”
Ryder waited until Amanda got in front of him, so he had her back as Ginny led them out.
“Okay.” Ginny sucked in a breath before she opened the door for the first room. “We’ve been commissioned to find an invisibility factor so that the . . .” Pausing, she used her fingers to make air quotes before she finished the sentence, “. . . ‘Powers That Be’ can move heavy artillery and aircraft through hostile combat zones undetected. That was what Wayne was consumed with before his death.” Motioning to one side of the stark white room, she continued, “To your left is our first attempt at invisibility.”
She flipped on a switch with
her hand and half of the room illuminated with light. “But we saw limitations. Our first inclination was to manipulate the rate of speed for light. We thought if we could slow it down or speed it up; we’d approach the notion in that vein, hitting the pockets where the rift splits. But again, we hit limits with space and derivatives. So then we delved into crystals.” Ginny laughed. “I swear I felt like a voodoo High Priestess conducting that trial.”
“Hey what about camouflage?” Amanda cleared her throat and then clarified, “I mean optical camouflage, of course.”
“Too basic and that would mean actually pinning the object in a specific area.” Ginny shook her head. “So not doable.”
Camo. He grunted to himself. Finally something he could understand. Had to be related again to the environment origin, right? Ryder furrowed his brow just trying to follow what the scientist was explaining. Grasping most of what was being said, but crystals? He absently shook his head not understanding that one.
Ginny smirked at him. “I know, right? But when certain crystals are cemented together they can bend light. You need light to see an object. Darkness shows emptiness.” She waved her hand at both him and Amanda. “At any point, that trial went nowhere.”
Ginny steered them on to the next room. “We did find a way to hide objects from microwaves, but only with a functionary algorithm. Again, but it only worked successfully in its natural environment and how practical is that?”
Amanda nodded with Virginia Sullivan’s ramblings and then asked, “What about metamaterials? That’s what I’d test.”
“Bingo. How long have you been at Verdant, Amanda?” Ginny flipped another switch. “We could use you here.”
“Thank you Ginny, but Verdant has been good to me; I’m not planning on looking elsewhere for a place of employment anytime soon.”
“Well, if you’re ever ready to make a switch. Call me.”
Amanda nodded and looked into the empty room. “So is this the latest prototype?”
“Yes,” Ginny said. “See if you can detect the cloaking mechanism.”
“Okay.” Amanda eagerly walked into the room and looked around.
Ryder immediately noticed two things. She was walking great, so she must have her brace on. And second, her wrist glittered. Narrowing his eyes, he watched as the silver circles floated up and down on her forearm. He’d seen the bracelet on her a lot, lately.
Ryder didn’t know about the other two, but what he saw in the room, or rather what he didn’t see in the room confused him. Running his hand over the top of his head he asked, “What am I missing here?” It was another white room like the others they’d been in, but this one was empty.
Amanda stepped up to him and pointed. “Look. Do you see the space over there?” She indicated an area just to the left of him.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Come here.” She ran her hands over the open space and her palm instantly flattened. But there was nothing there.
“Let me guess.” Ryder stepped up next to her. “Is this the invisible object?” He placed his hand next to Amanda’s and when his fingertips touched a hard surface, he took in a quick breath and muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Amanda placed her hand over his and guided his palm across the surface of the unseen object. “And this Mr. Stevenson is metamaterials at work,” she said proudly before her mouth broke into a big toothy smile.
He could tell Amanda just loved this stuff. Clearing his throat, he asked, “So how exactly is this procedure done?”
Amanda looked over at Ginny. “May I explain it to him?”
“Be my guest.”
“You see, Ryder.” Amanda eyes gleamed as she explained the phenomenon. “The man-made properties that the cloak is made from, effectively guide electromagnetic waves around the solid, making it invisible.” Her voice hitched slightly with excitement. “The cloak splits light into two waves and it wraps around the object and re-emerges at the end as one single wavelength. There is no break at all and no shadow.”
Virginia Sullivan nodded. “Yes. That is about it. In layman’s terms, of course.”
“Fascinating,” Amanda murmured.
“So.” Ryder rubbed his hands together and faced the two women. “This material . . ." He lifted an eyebrow at Amanda. “Can make anything invisible to the naked eye and to radar? Anything at all?”
Ginny and Amanda both nodded.
An idea was forming in his head and he didn’t like what he’d pieced together. “I need to see that tape once more.”
Ginny led them back to the first office they were in and she popped back in the surveillance tape.
The scenario played over again. This time Ryder narrowed his eyes. One of the stocky, dark-haired guys looked too damn familiar.
Awe . . . His gut roiled.
The goon wearing the blue baseball cap was definitely the perp that broke into Amanda’s house on Saturday night. Ryder swore underneath his breath.
“What is it?” Amanda asked.
Ryder instinctively knew what they―The Mexican Cartel―wanted, no . . . demanded, from Dr. Terrence Montgomery.
Invisibility.
They wanted to be invisible.
The Cartel wanted the technology that the Institute of Physics was unearthing.
Totally concealed as they what?
Run their drugs, arms, and girls up to the States? Ryder shook his head when he fully figured out what the scum suckers wanted. The Cartels wanted the technology to transport anything and everything they wanted across the borders without any hindrance. Go right over the fricken’ American border with anything they wanted. Right in front of our noses?
Hell No.
No. Way.
Ryder’s head got hot when he thought on Amanda’s ex-husband selling these secrets to the slimy Cartel. Where’d his American honor go?
“What’s the timeline on this?” he asked.
“This footage was from yesterday,” Ginny answered.
Ryder shook his head. Montgomery’s cheeks were flushed as two big men pushed the chubby white male in a lab coat so vigorously that he stumbled numerous times. It looked as if the third man was the lookout. The muscular man that broke into Amanda’s house was roughing up Dr. Montgomery and enjoying himself.
“So . . .” Ryder looked over at Virginia Sullivan. “Why did they push him to come here? To this particular building?”
“This is our lab. Where we test our theories. And have models set-up, of course.”
His blood boiled as the rage surged though him.
“I think Terrence sold us out.” Ginny’s hands trembled as she turned the nobs on the desk trying to get sound from the video. “They wanted our new technology we’re working on.”
“Did they have to sign their names anywhere to enter the building?” Ryder asked the older woman, but he already knew the answer to that question.
“I can check at the front desk.” Her brows furrowed as she explained, “Everyone is supposed to sign it at the front desk, but Terrence could’ve met them at a side door and let them in like I did with you two.”
“Can I get a copy of this tape?” Ryder asked Ginny before they left.
Chapter 14
“Amanda.” Her mom looked beseechingly at her. “Please, darling, come back home with us.” Beverly Anders grabbed both her arms. “We’ll all go right now. All five of us. This morning.”
“Mom, I’ll be fine.” Amanda hugged her. “I promise.”
Ryder stood beside her and spoke in hushed tones with her dad, who was on the other side of her pleading mother. Her father’s brows were pulled down as they talked.
Amanda darted her eyes back to them in between convincing her mom she’d be safe.
Don Anders seemed satisfied at whatever R
yder told him, because he smacked him on his back then both men shook hands. She wondered what Ryder told her father to satisfy him. Why couldn’t Mom relax?
Her mother was driving her crazy. Because there was absolutely no way that she would go home with them.
“Come give your father a hug, Panda.” Her father held out his arms to her and Amanda walked into him and gave him a squeeze and whispered in his ear, “Dad, I’ll be fine.”
“I know, honey.” Her father gave Ryder a hard look then turned his gaze back to Amanda and his eyes softened. “I love you, honey.” Squeezing her shoulders, he said. “We’ll see you in two weeks. Get some rest.”
“Will do, Dad.”
“Ryder?” Nickel came up beside Ryder and they spoke in low voices.
“Do you need something, honey?” Amanda wrinkled her brows, hoping she didn’t forget to remind them to pack something for this trip.
“Ah, no, Mom.”
Curious as to what Ryder and Nick were speaking about so secretively, she circled around them.
“I trust ya, buddy.” Ryder shook her son’s hand and Nick nodded.
Before she had a chance to ask them what was going on, her dad put his arm around her for one last hug.
“Come along, Beverly.” Don Anders walked to their SUV. Sammie was already inside ready to go.
Nick jumped in the car next to Sammie. “C’mon already, Gramps,” Nick yelled out the window he buzzed down. “I’m getting hungry.”
Invisibility Cloak Page 24