The line clicked off.
“Gandalf?” Kit said. “Who’s Gandalf? Not Ethan Weber. He’s already at the other hotel.”
“Gandalf with his passport?” Gannon said, squinting. “I guess we’re going to need to find that out.”
101
Flower Moon West was southeast of Palo Alto on Loyola Drive across from the Los Altos Golf and Country Club.
More like a kind of compound than just a regular restaurant, behind the modern glass building was a patchwork array of tiered gardens that took up several city blocks.
The vehicle that arrived at ten minutes to nine o’clock was a shiny new Chevy Suburban in iridescent black with tinted black windows. Its big twenty-two-inch tires crackled off the crushed stone as it came up the sloping driveway.
As they stopped and Harris got out to open her door, Dawn Warner turned and spotted Ethan Weber right away in the restaurant’s foyer.
“Hey, you,” Ethan said, smiling warmly as he and the maître d’ emerged out of the restaurant.
“Thanks so much for this,” he said as the maître d’ led them along a path away from the front door. “You look breathtaking, by the way. Everyone is here already. But Gandalf isn’t with you?”
“No. A few minutes behind us,” Warner said as the maître d’ pushed open a gate and guided them toward a lit door.
On the other side of it was the kitchen itself, and they were brought past stoves and steel tables and busy kitchen workers.
Instead of taking them through into the restaurant proper, the maître d’ parted some pocket doors just to the left of the swinging one.
Dawn Warner halted in the doorway as the two Chinese Communist Party officials who they were there to meet stood from the chef’s table.
The older one was silver-haired and bland-faced and round-cheeked with a bit of a beer belly while the younger one was slender and wore John Lennon glasses and had thick black hair.
As the men bowed, Dawn Warner couldn’t help but notice the perfect hang of their silk suits, the bespoke fit at the shoulder, the just-so break at the trouser cuff.
Savile Row, she thought, smiling approvingly. She loved Pacific Rim heavy hitters. Demure be damned. Why have it and not flaunt it?
“I am Bob,” the older one said, smiling. “And this is my partner, Frank. So very nice to meet you.”
Bob and Frank, Warner thought, almost laughing at the generic American car-salesmen-like cover names the agents had chosen. They certainly didn’t look like any Bob or Frank she’d ever met before.
She assumed Bob was the head honcho, but you never knew with these folks. These nosebleed-level party members didn’t do obvious. They were always playing some kind of game.
“Ni hao,” Weber said with a formal little bow in return.
Warner didn’t follow suit with the formal Chinese greeting but merely shook Bob’s hand.
As they all sat, she saw that Bob and Frank’s aides-de-camp were both young and female and annoyingly wearing midnight blue couture cocktail dresses that looked very much like the one Warner herself was wearing.
Great, Warner thought, shaking her head as one of them smiled at her subserviently. Instead of a world-shaker negotiating in a new global era, she thought, with the other females at the table she could have been just another goofy airhead bridesmaid in a cheesy wedding party.
Gandalf slipped in through the pocket doors two minutes later just behind the table-side bartender.
“So sorry I’m late,” the wiry, rumpled fifty-something said, shaking Ethan’s hand before leaning over and giving Warner an air kiss.
The good news about Gandalf’s looks was that he had a boyish face, she thought, watching him. The bad news was that with his weather-ravaged skin, deep-set eye bags and spiky dyed blond hair, it was the face of a homeless boy who was addicted to crack.
She’d never seen him in a suit before. Or in a shirt that had buttons, actually. He hadn’t shaved the poodle-like chin goatee, but he was sober enough to stand without assistance, so that was something at least.
Gandalf’s real name was Alex Novak and he was Sonexum’s resident supra-genius. From the gutters of Manchester, New Hampshire, he had graduated Brown at sixteen and by twenty-four was the youngest mathematics professor in Berkeley’s history.
“That’s one year younger than the Unabomber,” he told people at parties.
An enfant terrible of the worst kind, the only thing that rivaled his mathematical intellect, they said, was his voracious, insatiable, rock-star-level appetite for drugs.
Novak’s specialty was artificial intelligence, which was why he was there. If negotiations went the way they were expected to, Novak would be heading to China from the meeting on a two-year project to bring the Chinese government’s AI project up to snuff.
“Wo yao ning shei lai he yibei,” Novak suddenly cried as he slammed a fist on the linen. He grinned at the party officials as he fired up a Marlboro Red with a Zippo lighter.
Warner fiddled with her napkin, pretending she didn’t realize the stupid jerk had just asked two of the most powerful men on the planet who he had to screw to get a drink.
Across the table, the two grim-faced Chinese stared wide-eyed for a moment at the crazy American. Then their hard facades suddenly cracked as they let out roars of laughter.
As they did this, Ethan nodded over at Warner knowingly with his intelligent clear blue eyes. It was an all-systems-are-go look.
Whatever worked at this point, Dawn Warner thought as the tableside bartender uncorked the first bottle with a crisp pop.
102
The upscale restaurant had low white tables and a huge square fountain in the center and elegant curved walls of varnished bamboo.
Coming in from the garden after hopping the compound’s wrought iron gate, Gannon saw that even the Calvin-Klein-clad waiters wore crisply knotted silk ties and perfect pocket squares.
The dishwashers, too, probably, Gannon thought as he slowly walked along the curve of one of the walls toward the corner bar.
Behind the four-sided bar, an arch-browed meticulously scruffy bartender with slicked-back hair stood staring suspiciously at Gannon’s new Banana Republic jacket and Clark-Kent-style black-rimmed glasses.
“Talisker 18,” Gannon said as he flicked down a hundred.
That seemed to smooth things over with the help, Gannon thought as he watched the guy head to the other side of the bar.
Gannon took a look around the cavernous space. At the low tables sat long, slender young women with fine looks beside much shorter and older men without them. Between them processed waiters and waitresses bearing wine bottles and plates with the reverence of pagan clergy about to perform a sacrifice.
Gannon looked at one of the plates that went past. On it was a folded napkin and on the folded napkin was a single spoon covered in some yellowish-green goop.
Gannon stifled a laugh. But he had to admit, the restaurant actually smelled pretty amazing.
Gannon leaned back into the bar as he adjusted his glasses, making sure the lens of the spy camera embedded in its left front side wasn’t obscured. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could see there were two VIP rooms to the left of the front entrance.
A crashing sound of plates turned his head toward the kitchen to his right. He suddenly stood up straight as he stared at the large guy by the swinging door.
“Okay, heads up,” he said into his lapel mic. “Large Asian guy with cropped hair, lantern jaw, and boxer’s shoulders three o’clock of the kitchen’s swinging door.”
“Look at the size of him,” John Barber said in his ear. “I didn’t know China had a wrestling federation.”
The bartender had finally arrived back with his scotch when Gannon saw the wiry American guy with the spiky blond hair come out of the swinging kitchen doors beside the big Chinese bodyguard.<
br />
Gannon squinted at him. His weather-beaten face. His scraggly goatee. He definitely didn’t look like one of the Calvin Klein waiters.
“Who’s that guy?” John Barber said.
Gannon noticed the Chinese security guy talk into his hand as the spiky-haired guy passed him. The guard didn’t take his eyes off the guy. He seemed to be heading toward the bathrooms behind the bar.
That’s when it clicked.
“It’s Gandalf,” Gannon said as he made a beeline for the men’s room.
103
Another hundred-dollar bill was in Gannon’s hand as he pushed quickly into the men’s room.
He waved it like a flag at the white-jacketed attendant, who looked up from his basket of colognes. He was a white college kid of about nineteen.
“Hey, buddy, could you run to my car?” Gannon said quickly, thrusting the hundred at him. “It’s a Bentley parked on the other side of the block. There’s a pack of Marlboros and a bag of peanut butter M&Ms on the passenger seat. I need them like now.”
“Sir, I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to leave here,” the college kid said.
Gannon took out another hundred and shoved them both in the guy’s hand.
“C’mon, be a pal, son. It’ll only take a second. It’s a gag gift for my brother. It’s his birthday. But you gotta run,” he said.
“Well... Okay. I guess, sir. Do you have the key?”
“No, it’s unlocked. Get going,” Gannon said, pushing him for the door.
After he shoved the attendant out, Gannon had just enough time to drape a napkin over his forearm and lift the hand soap before the spiky-haired guy came in a moment later.
“Good evening, sir,” Gannon said, smiling as the guy walked over to the urinal.
Gannon smiled even wider as the man zipped up.
“Great weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Gannon said as Gandalf headed to the sink. “Hey, wait, you’re that guy who works at Sonexum, right?”
Gandalf glanced at him in the mirror. A tense smile played on his lips.
“Do I know you?” he said.
Gannon tucked his nerd glasses away as he crossed the room and locked the door.
“What the hell?” Gandalf yelled as Gannon snatched the back of the guy’s jacket and bent him over the sink none too gently. It took a split second for Gannon to chicken-wing him and to get the handcuffs ratcheted on him nice and tight.
“Get off me! What is this?” he squealed.
“His name’s Novak,” Gannon called into the mic after he removed the man’s wallet. “Alex Novak.”
“Who the hell are you?” Novak said.
Gannon smiled as he put a finger to his lips.
“Bingo,” Barber finally said in his earpiece. “Oh, boy, Mike. This guy’s some kind of world-renowned artificial intelligence guru. There’s all this shit about cybernetics and quantum computing and infrared fiber optics and satellites. He works for Sonexum heading up some defense department project, it says. Some big R & D military contract Sonexum was picked for over Apple. It says Sonexum got the military contract because of that dude right there. The Albert Einstein of AI, they call him.”
“He’s right, Mike,” Kit cut in. “This must be Gandalf. And they asked about his passport, right? Mike, I think they’re about to hand this guy over to the Chicoms for AI supremacy. Tonight. That’s why they’re all here being so secretive. Why they’re all in such a fuss. Must be. This is the exchange.”
“Whatever it is we need to bust up their plan, Mike,” John Barber said. “If he’s their golden goose we need to bag him. Grab that jackass and get back to the truck now.”
“Oww, stop! Who are you? My wrists!” Novak said as there was a knock on the door.
“Okay, working on it,” Gannon said as he grabbed the computer whiz up by the scruff of his jacket.
He began to kick open the stalls. In the third one was a window with an air conditioner in it. The bottom of the sill cracked loudly as Gannon reached up and ripped it free. It shattered through the top of the toilet tank on its way down.
Gannon turned as the knock on the bathroom door became a pounding.
“Cut that chain at the north wall gate now,” Gannon said as he grabbed Novak’s belt and pushed him into the stall.
“We’re coming out hot,” he yelled.
104
“Let me out of this car now,” Novak screamed as John Barber gunned their Cadillac Escalade rental down the suburban side street back toward Palo Alto. “Or I swear you’re all going to jail!”
“It’s all good, Alex, my friend,” Gannon said calmly from where he sat beside the handcuffed scientist in the second row. “Thanks for cooperating. We just need to ask you a few questions.”
“What the hell is this? A kidnapping? What are you doing? Who are you people?” Novak said.
Kit was sitting in the center of the third row, and she leaned forward and showed him her FBI credentials.
“My name is Special Agent Hagen.”
Gannon watched the sudden wideness that came to Novak’s eyes.
“I work for the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Division,” Kit continued. “Do you know what we investigate, Alex? Any clue?”
Novak stared at Kit’s badge with his wide brown eyes.
“What happened, Alex?” Kit said. “It’s time to tell us.”
“Yeah, Alex,” Gannon said. “What happened up on that mountain?”
“I’m...” the scientist said, looking down at the floor.
They watched as his right knee began jittering like crazy.
“Okay, I see. I’ll tell you what I know but... I need a cigarette. Please, in my jacket. Can I please have a damned cigarette?”
Gannon went into his jacket and took out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. He put one in Novak’s mouth and lit it.
“I...” Novak finally said after he exhaled. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”
Gannon reached out and snatched the cigarette out of the guy’s mouth and then zipped down the window. Sparks flew off Novak’s forehead as Gannon flicked the cigarette off his face into the night.
“Hey!” Novak said.
Then Gannon reached down between his feet and took a cut-down Sig Sauer P365XL 9mm from the gun bag and placed the carbon steel barrel of it between the scientist’s bugged out eyes.
“Games are over, jackweed. The only thing you’re getting is your genius brain blown out the back of your skull unless you start explaining exactly what the hell happened in Wyoming.”
Beads of sweat appeared on his sunburned forehead as he unsuccessfully tried to shy away from Gannon’s gun into the door.
“But you can’t do this. You guys are cops,” he said.
“No,” Gannon said, digging the barrel in beside his nose. “She’s the cop. We’re the friends of Owen Barber, the guy you scum murdered up on top of that mountain.”
“And we’re here for some damn payback!” John Barber yelled savagely from behind the wheel.
“Exactly. All that ‘I want my lawyer, day-in-court’ shit got nullified the second your billionaire boss, Weber, started bribing all the cops and judges.”
“Now we’re going old school, Hammurabi eye-for-an-eye shit, you son of a bitch,” John Barber screamed.
“We already dug the grave, Novak,” Gannon said. “Someone’s going in it. You got a minute and counting to try to convince us that someone ain’t you.”
“Wait, wait, wait. No, please.”
“Screw it!” John Barber screamed. “I’m sick of waiting. Do him, Mike. Do this piece of shit right now, then we’ll go back and get the other ones.”
“Fine,” Gannon said, snick-snacking the pistol’s oiled slide.
“No! Please stop! She fell. Lisa fell. We were camping, and she fell off the ridge we were camping on.”
“I killed her, okay?” Novak said, staring down at the floor. “You’re right. I killed Lisa Weber. Ethan did everything else. I’ll sign a confession if you want. Take me to jail. Just please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die.”
105
“Finally we’re getting somewhere. Let’s go with the rest. Now! All of it!” Gannon yelled, digging the gun into Novak’s temple.
“We just went camping while Ethan did his talk,” Novak said quickly. “Lisa hates these formal events so she and I went camping. We did it last year, too. Please, please put the gun down. It could go off by accident.”
“Yes, it could. You better believe it could,” Gannon said, tapping the barrel above his eye. “So you better keep talking quick before we hit a pothole.”
“What happened next?” Kit said.
“We hiked up to Grand Teton. We got about halfway when the sun started to go down so we set up camp. We had a glass of wine at sunset, and then Lisa went into her tent. I stayed up by the fire. It was such a nice night. And after about an hour or so as the fire died down and I finished the wine, I took, um, this, this pill.”
“A pill?” Kit said.
“It was a hallucinogenic that a friend of mine designed. He told me it was like a mix of mescaline, LSD, and DMT only different.”
Alex began sobbing.
“It was the drug, man. It wasn’t me. Please help me.”
“What happened after you took this pill, asshole?” Gannon said.
“No, no. Help me. I can’t breathe. I need an ambulance,” Novak cried.
“You’re going to need a hearse if you keep stalling,” Gannon said, clicking off the safety.
“I raped her. Okay? I raped her. Honestly, I wasn’t in my right mind. One second I’m tripping out and the next I’m on top of her. It was the drug, I tell you. I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t. Lisa was a friend. It was the drugs. Oh, please. I don’t want to go to jail.”
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