Severe Clear

by Stuart Woods

  21

  Holly Barker looked across her desk at the young woman. Her name was Heather Scott, she was thirty-five, single, and had been at the Agency since her graduation from college. Holly liked her. She particularly liked that she had held responsible assistant’s jobs in both analysis and operations, so she had an understanding of how both directorates worked.

  “Heather?”

  “Everybody has called me Scotty, since childhood.”

  “You were born and raised in a place called . . .” Holly checked her application. “Delano, Georgia?”

  “That’s right. Public schools, followed by the University of Georgia.”

  “And you were recruited where?”

  “On campus at Georgia. A recruiter spent a few days there.”

  “What do you hate most about the Agency?”

  Scotty erupted in laughter. “That’s a tough one, since I like so many things about it. I like coming to work every day.”

  “Come on, what do you hate?”

  “I hate it when I can see a piece of information as relevant, even critical, and it takes the Agency too long to come to the same conclusion.”

  Holly laughed. “I think we’ve all had that experience. No matter how exotic our work, we’re still a bureaucracy.”

  “I’ve had to get used to that.”

  The two women talked on for another half hour, then Holly said, “I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

  “Right,” Scotty said. She stood up and shook hands with Holly. “If it’s offered to me, I’ll take it.”

  “Good to know.” Holly watched her leave, then she got up and walked across the reception room to Grace’s desk. “Okay, I’ve found my assistant. What next?”

  “I’ll send her name to our internal security people, and they’ll do a fresh background check, from the ground up.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Yours took a week,” Grace said, “but Heather Scott’s is likely to take a lot less, since she’s never been employed anywhere but here.”

  “Then go,” Holly said, handing her Heather’s personnel file. “The sooner she’s cleared, the sooner you can wash your hands of me.”

  Grace smiled. “Oh, you’re not so bad. You’re a piece of cake, compared to the director.”

  Holly laughed and went back to her office, past the outer room where her assistant’s desk was. Her phone buzzed: the director.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Come in for a minute, Holly.”

  Holly opened the adjoining door and walked in. Kate Lee was sitting on a sofa by the window and waved her to a seat.

  “How’s the search for an assistant going?”

  “I’ve found her, I think.”

  “Did you talk only to women?”

  “I’ve seen half a dozen people. Two of them were women. The one I didn’t choose was probably a good secretary, but I thought she would never be more than that. All the men were too nakedly ambitious, I thought.”

  “And the other woman was just right.”

  “I believe so. Grace is ordering the requisite recheck of her background, and if she passes, I’ll offer her the job.”

  “Good. Now there’s something else I want to ask you about. I’m reviewing a number of people who might be suitable to replace me, and one of them, of course, is Lance Cabot.”

  Holly nodded.

  “I want to ask you some questions about Lance, and I want you to put aside personal loyalty for a moment and give me straight answers, the unvarnished truth. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Forgive me if I cover territory you’re already familiar with, but it’s necessary.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Lance had a stellar career as an agent in Europe, but nobody he worked with liked him very much, including his boss in the London station, Dick Stone, whose untimely death allowed Lance to leapfrog into his position as DDO—at least, that’s the way some people saw it at the time. Why do you think he’s not very well liked?”

  Holly thought about that for a moment. “A minute ago, you said you wanted the unvarnished truth.”

  “And I do.”

  “The unvarnished truth is what Lance offers, and he doesn’t much care who the recipient is. He states his opinions flatly and backs up his hunches with facts, then he defends his positions very strongly.”

  “I think that’s fair to say,” Kate replied.

  “It may be fair, but a lot of people don’t find it attractive. Lance can be charming, when it suits him, or when it’s required to get what he wants, but he doesn’t employ charm a lot in intra-Agency relations. As a result, people always approach Lance with some trepidation.”

  “And what is the result of that trepidation?”

  “People who know him walk into his office and present themselves concisely, and they’re always ready to back up what they say. There’s no shooting the breeze, there’s no idle gossip. Everything has to be to the point when talking to Lance.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Kate said. “Of course, I look at Lance from the top down, not from below, so I don’t see that side of him too much. However, I think the characteristic you describe would be an important asset in a director. I’m more easygoing than Lance, so people sometimes talk too much when reporting to me. Sometimes I wish I had Lance’s gift for demanding that they get to the point. What do you think of Lance’s attitude toward the women who work for him?”

  “Lance has always—well, nearly always—treated me respectfully. He’s been demanding, but fair.”

  “What about the other women who’ve had dealings with him?”

  Holly thought some more. “I think when assigning important work, Lance tends to go to men first. He assigns women as women, not as agents. I mean, he’ll assign a woman when the job calls for a woman, explicitly. I’ve nudged him about this from time to time, and he’s responded to a degree, but I think he still shies away from putting a woman in charge of men.”

  Kate smiled. “That’s an astute judgment. What do you think Lance will say when I ask him about you? Do you think he would be reluctant to put you in charge of men?”

  “Well, when you ask him, I guess we’ll find out how well I’ve trained him.”

  Kate burst out laughing.

  “Seriously, I have no fear of what Lance might say about me, and I think you should consider his comments very carefully, because they will be just as unvarnished as his views on everything else.”

  “Do you think he’s an honest man?”

  Holly shrugged. “I’m not sure honesty is a desirable quality in a spymaster. Lance can certainly be devious and, like everyone else, self-serving, but if it matters, I would be happy to work in an Agency with Lance running it.”

  “You’ve been very helpful, Holly. Now get back to work.” Kate opened a file and started reading.

  Holly got out of there.

  22

  Herbie Fisher sat in his office, speed-reading files. His secretary buzzed. “Mark Hayes on line one for you.”

  Hayes was one of Herbie’s clients, an important one. He ran High Cotton Ideas, a hot software company.

  “Good morning, Mark.”

  “Good morning, Herb. I have a problem I haven’t been faced with before, and when I have a problem like that, I always come to you.”

  “How can I help, Mark?”

  “One of my top programmers has disappeared, and I’m concerned.”

  “Concerned for his safety or concerned about the work he did?”

  “He didn’t show up for work for a couple of days, and he wasn’t responding to phone calls or e-mails, so I sent somebody to his apartment to see if he was there. It was empty, and there were painters at work. Turned out that his lease had expired and he had moved out, but nobody knows where. This morning I got an e-mail from him. It reads: ‘I resign. I’ll let you know where to send my final paycheck.’ That’s it.”

  “You didn’t respond to my quest
ion about the work he did. Are you afraid he might have gone to a competitor and taken your intellectual property with him?”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “Did he have a contract?”

  “Yes, I recently promoted him and gave him a big raise. You wrote his contract.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jimmy Chang. He’s Chinese-American, born in this country.”

  “Hang on a second,” Herbie said. He pressed the hold button and buzzed his secretary. “Please bring me the executed contract for a Jimmy Chang, at High Cotton.” He pressed line one again. “How long did he work for you, Mark?”

  “Nearly three years. He was one of the first dozen people I hired. At first, he was just writing code, but he moved up quickly.”

  “Did he have any company stock?” High Cotton was about to go public.

  “He did, but like a lot of employees, not as much as he thought he was entitled to.”

  “What will his stock be worth at the opening of your IPO?”

  “About a million and a half dollars, but who knows? It could double that day.”

  “How much was he being paid?”

  “He started at seventy-five thousand. He was making half a million when he resigned.”

  Herbie’s secretary walked in and handed him the contract.

  “I’ve got the contract,” Herbie said, leafing through it. “I remember this one. His attorney asked for some minor changes that you agreed to, but if he leaves the company, he has to give you three months’ notice, and if he leaves during that time and you continue to pay him, he can’t work for anyone else. He also has a non-disclosure clause that prevents him from divulging any of your proprietary information to a new employer. How do you pay him?”

  “All salaries are electronically transferred to employees’ bank accounts.”

  “Then continue to pay him, to hold up your end of the contract. I’ll write to his lawyer and ask him to remind his client of his contractual obligations and to go and see you immediately. I think we should also start trying to locate him now.”

  “Do you know someone who can do that?” Mark asked.

  “I do,” Herbie said, “someone very good. I have to divulge to you that I have a personal relationship with this woman.”

  “I’m not troubled by that,” Mark said.

  “All right, I need you to e-mail me his original employment application and any letters of recommendation you received.”

  “It wasn’t much of an application at that time, but you revised it, and I asked everybody to complete the new form, so I’ll send you both.”

  “Was he married?”

  “No, but he had a girlfriend who seemed to be living with him.”

  “Her name?”

  “Jasmine. I can’t remember a last name.”

  “Okay, shoot me the information I asked for, and I’ll get the investigator on it right now. She may need to get in touch with you. Her name is Harp O’Connor, and don’t call her Harpie or Harpo.”

  “Thanks, Herb.”

  “Glad to be of help. I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear something.” Herbie hung up and dialed Harp’s cell number.

  “Speak to me, Herb,” she said.

  “I’ve got you a skip tracer job for a very important client. Can you start right now?”

  “I’ll have to make a few calls, but I can start in half an hour. Give me the rundown.”

  Herbie described his conversation with Mark Hayes. “I’ll e-mail you his employment application, any letters of recommendation, his contract, and the name and address of his attorney.”

  “What do you want me to do when I find him?”

  Herbie liked it that she said, “when,” and not “if.” “If he’s in town, I want to see him, face-to-face, at the earliest possible moment. If he’s in Silicon Valley or anywhere else, I’ll send you to talk with him. At the very least, I want to talk to him on the phone.”

  “Gotcha. As soon as I make my calls and get his documents, I’ll hit the pavement. See you tonight?”

  They had seen each other nearly every night since they had met, and she had slept at his apartment most of them. “You may be too busy,” he said. “We’ll talk. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  They both hung up. Now, Herbie thought, I’m going to find out whether she’s as good as she says she is.

  23

  Harp O’Connor looked through the two employment applications Jimmy Chang had filled out, one on joining the company, another two years later, when the document was expanded. The first told her little, except his current address. She would start with that, but first she read the later document.

  This listed his parents’ names and addresses, in two different California towns, San Mateo and San Rafael, both in the San Francisco area. It also listed his previous employers, but she didn’t reckon they would have any idea where he was, and she didn’t think that his parents were likely to rat him out; they would be a last resort. She phoned Chang’s attorney’s office, got the man on the phone, and requested Chang’s current location and phone number. She was stonewalled, so she took a cab downtown to Chang’s most recent address. She found a six-story apartment building with an “Apartment for Rent” sign outside. A man was standing on the doorstep, looking at his wristwatch.

  Harp paid the cab and walked up the steps. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Hi. You here to see the apartment?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Are you with John Trefford?”

  “No, but I’m interested in the apartment.”

  “Well, he’s late, so I’ll show it to you.” He unlocked the street-level door and they stepped inside and took the rickety elevator to the top floor. Some paint cans and folded drop cloths and a ladder were in the hallway outside the door.

  “The painters will come back for that stuff,” the man said. “They just finished yesterday.” He opened the door for her, and they stepped inside. It was a very nice two-bedroom apartment with high ceilings, windows overlooking a planted garden, and a good kitchen. It was devoid of any evidence of the previous occupant. Even the wastebaskets were empty. The man told her the rent.

  Harp sighed. “Too rich for my budget,” she said, “but thanks for showing it to me.”

  “Maybe you’ve got a friend who’s looking for a place?”

  “I’ll think about that.” She accepted the man’s card. “Say, did Jimmy Chang live here?”

  “Yeah, that was the guy.”

  “He’s a pal of mine. Do you know where he moved?”

  “Nope. I just got an e-mail saying he was moving out at the end of his lease. That was three, four days ago.”

  “Where did you send his security deposit?”

  The man produced a notebook. “To his mother, in San Mateo, California.”

  Harp already had that address. “Thanks again,” she said, and took the elevator down. A young man was waiting on the front stoop. “He’s up on the sixth floor,” she said, holding the door open for him. She looked around the front of the building for trash bags, but none were in sight.

  Harp walked slowly down the block, checking out the shops along the way, until she came to a small but invitingly decorated restaurant. It was getting on toward lunchtime, so she went in and took a seat at the bar. She ordered a club sandwich and a beer, and watched faces as the place started to fill up.

  The bartender sidled over. “You new in the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah,” Harp replied. “I just looked at an apartment a few doors down.”

  “I’ll bet that was Jimmy Chang’s place,” he said.

  “That’s how I heard about it,” she said. “I got an e-mail from Jimmy.”

  “You know Jimmy?”

  “Yeah, we went out a few times a while back. You know where he moved to?”

  “Out of the neighborhood,” the bartender said.

  “How far outside the neighborhood?”

  “About three thousand miles
.”

  “Ah, West Coast. Silicon Valley?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “That’s where those computer geeks go, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is. Jimmy said he doubled his salary.”

  “No kidding? He was pulling down half a million at the old place—what’s it called?”

  “High Cotton Ideas. They’re so damned hot, I’m surprised he walked.”

  “Who would pay Jimmy a million a year?”

  “He told me,” the bartender said, staring at the ceiling. “It’ll come to me in a minute.” Then he looked at Harp. “Hey, why do you want to know?”

  Harp laughed. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not carrying his baby.”

  The bartender laughed. “Yeah, Jasmine wouldn’t like that.”

  “Yeah, she’s the new girlfriend, isn’t she?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Shaz something or other—something like Shazam.”

  “Did you think of where he’s working?”

  “I got it: TIT.”

  “What?”

  “Technology Investment Team. They’re whatchacallit . . . venture capitalists?”

  “Right.”

  “A name like that should have been easier to remember. They’re where that big college is.”

  “Stanford?”

  “Right. And it’s Shazaz—Jasmine’s last name. The place is owned by her brother. She got Jimmy the deal. They’re investing in his new start-up.” The bartender moved along to help another customer.

  Harp wrapped up her sandwich and put it in her purse. She left cash on the bar and headed out to look for a cab. While she was waiting, she called Herb.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Okay, I nailed the guy. The whole thing took less than an hour, including downtown.” She related her conversation with the bartender. “So he’s in Palo Alto. What’s your pleasure?”

  “Pay him a visit and get him back here,” Herbie said. “You need an advance?”

  “Yeah, put ten grand in my bank account.” She read the account number from her checkbook. “I’ll need to buy him a ticket home.”