The Green Trap

by Ben Bova

  The three men found their rental car, a white Ford sedan, in the airport parking garage. Despite its being under a roof, the car was baking hot inside. Asian took the wheel, started up the car with a roar, turned the air-conditioning up full blast, and headed out toward the address of Dr. Paul Cochrane.

  In the back seat, his two cell members were busily assembling the pistols and loading them.

  Now, then,” said Gould as he sat in his shirtsleeves on the sofa of Cochrane’s living room, “we have some final arrangements to make.”

  “You’ve got what you came for,” Cochrane said tightly, standing in the middle of the room. “You’ve won.”

  Sandoval was still in the kitchen, standing tensely beside the refrigerator, her eyes shifting from Gould to Cochrane and back again. Gould’s driver and security goon were sitting in the armchairs closest to the front door.

  “Yes, I’ve won,” Gould agreed, smiling. “You gave me a few bad moments, I’ll admit, but that’s all over now, isn’t it?”

  “So what happens now?” Cochrane asked.

  With a massive shrug, Gould said, “I leave with the spoils of victory.”

  Cochrane glanced at Sandoval.

  Gould laughed. “Oh, no, not her. She’s all yours. I was referring to your brother’s data.”

  “It’s erased. Gone.”

  “Still, I’d prefer to bring your laptop along with me. Experts have been known to retrieve data that’s supposedly been erased.”

  Cochrane made a gesture of concession. “Take it.”

  “I’ll write you a check for it.” Gould looked around for his jacket.

  “It’s here,” Sandoval said, lifting the shapeless garment from one of the kitchen chairs.

  She carried it to him, and Gould extracted his checkbook from an inside pocket. Wordlessly, Sandoval brought the jacket into the kitchen and draped it back on the chair.

  “Three thousand dollars should cover it,” Gould muttered. “More than cover it, I should think.”

  He scribbled his signature, tore the check out of its book, and handed it to Cochrane.

  Cochrane didn’t move. “What happens next?” he asked.

  “Next?”

  “You just hand me a check and then leave?”

  “Yes,” said Gould. “What else would you expect?”

  “What if I go to the police?”

  “With what?”

  “You stole my computer.”

  “I’m paying you for it,” said Gould. He laid the check on the little table at the end of the sofa. “There. Paid in full.”

  “So now you leave?”

  “Now we leave,” Gould echoed. He pushed himself up from the sofa with a grunting effort.

  “Who killed my brother?”

  Gould shrugged again. “Let’s blame it on Kensington. He won’t mind.”

  “But you said he didn’t do it.”

  “That was then, this is now. You can tell the police that Mr. Kensington murdered your brother.” He turned toward Sandoval. “You can make up the details, can’t you, Elena? You have a vivid imagination.”

  Cochrane took a step toward Gould. Gould’s two men shot up from their chairs.

  “Now, now, Dr. Cochrane,” Gould said, wagging a stubby finger, “you mustn’t let your temper get the better of you, the way you did in my home. That will be the death of you.”

  “Is that a threat?” Cochrane growled.

  “A threat? Would I make a threat in front of witnesses? Do you take me for a fool?”

  Cochrane’s jaw was clenching so tightly it hurt.

  Laying a fatherly hand on Cochrane’s shoulder, Gould said, “My dear Dr. Cochrane, I never make threats. I take actions. And remember, revenge is a dish best taken cold.”

  He turned toward Sandoval again. “My jacket, please, Elena.”

  The intercom from the building’s lobby buzzed harshly, once, twice, three times.

  Asian and his two cell members had parked in a visitor’s slot, close to the Sunshine Apartments’ front entrance. No one was in sight; the parking lot was baking hot in the blazing sunshine.

  As the three men went to the double glass doors, they pulled their pistols out and fitted silencers to them. Asian scanned the list of residents, found P. COCHRANE.

  Turning to the youngest of them, he said, “Once we get into the lobby, you stay inside. Let no one in. Keep the elevators clear. Keep the gun out of sight.” The youngster nodded.

  Then Asian pressed the buzzer under Cochrane’s name.

  The intercom buzzed again impatiently.

  Cochrane glanced at Gould, then pushed between the two men standing by the door and pressed the button on the intercom wall panel. “Yes?”

  “Delivery for Dr. Cochrane,” came a guttural voice.

  Gould said to Cochrane, “Tell him to leave it in the lobby.”

  “I can’t come down right now. Leave it there, please.”

  “Needs signature.”

  Without waiting for orders from Gould, Cochrane said, “Okay, bring it up.”

  Frowning, Gould waved his two men to either side of the door. “Were you expecting a package?” he asked Cochrane.

  “I get books and things all the time.”

  Sandoval came around the counter that served as a partition between the kitchen and living room.

  Gould said to his driver, “You open the door and take the package. Dr. Cochrane, best you stay back here with me.”

  Cochrane stepped away from the door and went to one end of the coffee table, between Gould and Sandoval.

  A gentle rap on the door. “Delivery for Dr. Cochrane.”

  The driver opened the door a crack and it was suddenly slammed back, staggering the driver backward. Two burly men pushed in. Gould’s security man reached inside his jacket and one of the intruders shot him, his gun silenced to a barely audible pfft. The other shot the driver before he could recover his balance, twice in the chest.

  Sandoval stifled a scream as the driver crashed to the floor at her feet, his chest soaked with blood, his eyes staring blankly. The security man slid to the floor, leaving a smear of blood on the wall by the door.

  “Quiet!” Asian commanded. “Not a sound!”

  Cochrane goggled at the two dead bodies, the two swarthy men in windbreakers waving their automatics at them. He reached for Sandoval, standing there horrified, her hands on her face.

  Gould stared, too, as he touched the stem of his heavy gold wristwatch. Perspiration streamed down his fleshy face.

  “Who are you?” he asked, his voice shaky.

  “That’s of no matter,” said Asian. Pointing his pistol at the laptop still on the kitchen table, he demanded, “Give me that computer.”

  “You’re too late,” Cochrane said. “It’s been erased.”

  Asian glanced furiously from Cochrane to Gould and back again. “Which of you is Cochrane?”

  “I am,” Cochrane said.

  “Then you must be Lionel Gould.”

  “That I am,” Gould replied, his voice steadier. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” Asian replied. Turning to Cochrane, he said, “Dr. Cochrane, you will take your laptop and show me how to access your brother’s work.”

  “I told you, it’s been erased.” Pointing to Gould, Cochrane added, “He made me wipe it out.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  Pointing with his pistol at the driver, dead on the floor, Asian said, “Dr. Cochrane, you have ten seconds to bring up your brother’s work on that computer. Otherwise you will join these two on their way to hell.”

  “And what good would that do you?” Cochrane snapped.

  Asian nodded knowingly. “Yes, of course. Killing you would not be wise.” He turned toward Sandoval. “But shooting this woman—that’s a different matter, isn’t it? You wouldn’t want to see her shot, would you?”

  Suddenly desperate, Cochrane insisted,
“I’m telling you, the data you want has been erased from the laptop!”

  “My first shot would not kill her, of course. Perhaps I’ll merely put a bullet through one of her lovely legs.”

  Cochrane’s hands balled into fists.

  “Or perhaps her belly,” Asian continued, looking Sandoval over. “Gut wounds are very painful. A slow death.”

  Gould raised a hand, like a traffic cop signaling to stop. “You ought to know that a team of my security people is on its way here at this very moment.”

  Asian’s expression hardened. “Don’t try to bluff me, Mr. Billionaire.”

  “I summoned them the moment you broke in.” Raising his left arm, Gould went on, “With this. It’s a communications device in addition to being a timepiece.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Gould shrugged.

  Suspiciously, Asian asked, “Where would this security team be coming from?”

  “The campus,” Gould replied. “I had a team deploy with the university’s security director as soon as I decided to bring Dr. Cochrane home from Palo Alto this morning.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Asian repeated, less firmly than before.

  “It should only take them a few minutes to get from the campus to here. They should be arriving at any moment.”

  For several heartbeats Asian stood silent, his mind racing. Then he decided. “Very well. Dr. Cochrane, pick up your computer and come with us.”

  “Paul,” Sandoval said, reaching a hand toward him.

  “It’s all right,” he said, heading back to the kitchen. “I’ll go with them.”

  “Quickly!” Asian commanded.

  Cochrane disconnected the power cable, shut down the laptop, and closed its lid. All the time he watched Sandoval, standing in the living room looking frightened, uncertain. Gould, a few paces away from her, looked somehow sure of himself despite the sweat streaming down his face, staining his collar.

  “Come on,” Asian prodded. “Come on.”

  Cochrane tucked the laptop under his arm and came around the kitchen counter.

  “I don’t know who’s paying you or how much,” said Gould, “but I can easily double it.”

  “Yes,” Asian replied, with a malicious grin. “You could fill our hands with gold, couldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  Waving the automatic in Gould’s face, the Chechen snarled, “I should shoot you. Here and now. Kill you and rid the world of a parasite.”

  “Parasite? Me?” Gould frowned with loathing. “Let me tell you—”

  Shots! Muffled, but clearly gunshots. Several of them.

  The man still standing by the door turned and started to open it a crack, but before he could, Sandoval covered the distance between them in two lightning-fast strides, jabbed stiff fingers into the man’s windpipe, then slammed the heel of her hand into his nose. Cochrane could hear cartilage crunching from all the way across the room and the man’s face spurted blood as he slammed against the wall.

  Asian turned toward her, slack-jawed with surprise. Cochrane threw the laptop at his gun hand, then leaped at him with a flying tackle that sent them both sprawling to the floor. He grabbed for Asian’s gun arm with both his hands. The Chechen pounded his ribs with his free hand as they rolled across the carpeting.

  Gould waddled around the coffee table and dropped to his knees on Asian’s outstretched gun arm. As Gould twisted the pistol from the Chechen’s hand, Cochrane punched Asian’s face with both his fists.

  The front door burst open and four dark-suited men boiled in, guns in their hands.

  “Hold it!” their leader shouted.

  Cochrane looked up. Sandoval was standing over the Chechen gunman, who was slumped on the floor by the door, his face a bloody mess. Asian was grimacing with pain—whether from Cochrane’s punches or the weight of Gould kneeling on his arm, Cochrane could neither tell nor care.

  Gould heaved himself to his feet, then looked at his wristwatch.

  “Eleven minutes,” he murmured. “Not as good as it should have been.”

  “There’s a lot of traffic out there, Mr. Gould,” the security man apologized.

  Cochrane went to Sandoval. She was trembling visibly, but the gunman at her feet wasn’t moving at all.

  “My god,” he said to her, “he looks dead.”

  She nodded, then leaned against him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, folding his arms around her.

  “I am now,” she said.

  They heard sirens wailing.

  “Someone’s summoned the police,” Gould said. “Best we make our exit.”

  “And leave us with this mess?” Cochrane grumbled.

  “I’ll have my lawyers contact the local police,” Gould said. “They’ll explain everything.”

  Cochrane realized that Gould held the pistol he’d taken from the intruder, who still lay on the carpet of the living room, unmoving except for his eyes, which flicked from Gould to Cochrane and back again. Gould’s four security men were standing by the door. He’s got all the cards in his hands, Cochrane said to himself. As usual.

  “Pick up that laptop,” Gould said to one of his men. Then, turning to Sandoval, he asked, “Would you care to come with me, Elena?”

  She shook her head and clung to Cochrane.

  Gould shrugged. “Adieu, then, Dr. Cochrane. Until we meet again. And trust me, we will meet again.”

  They left as the sirens grew louder.

  TUCSON:

  POLICE HEADQUARTERS

  Cochrane’s knuckles were skinned and sore. His glasses had been bent askew in the brawl. Sandoval, sitting beside him, seemed totally untouched by the violence they had gone through.

  After spending most of the afternoon talking with Lieutenant Danvers and other Tucson detectives, they had been walked down a corridor and ushered into a stuffy, windowless conference room.

  “An FBI agent is driving over from Phoenix,” Lieutenant Danvers had told them. “He should be here shortly.”

  Then she left them alone to sit at the oblong conference table, waiting for the FBI agent to show up.

  Fiddling with his bent glasses, Cochrane said to Sandoval, “You were incredible back there. Where’d you learn that martial arts stuff?”

  She made a tight smile. “I told you, Paul, in my business a girl has to be able to defend herself”

  “Defend yourself? You beat the crap out of that guy. He’s dead, for chrissakes.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill him. That shot to his throat… it must have ruptured the blood vessels in his windpipe and he bled into his lungs.”

  “He drowned on his own blood?”

  She nodded, then looked down, as if ashamed.

  “But what if—”

  The door to the corridor opened and three men entered the conference room.

  “I’m Special Agent Ignacio Yañez,” said a sturdy-looking man in a tight-fitting tan sports jacket and darker slacks. “These two gentlemen are lawyers from the Gould Energy Corporation.”

  Yañez took the chair at the head of the table; the lawyers sat opposite Sandoval and Cochrane. Yañez had burly weight-lifter’s shoulders that strained his jacket when he moved his arms. His face was not much darker than Cochrane’s, but his hair was midnight-black, as was his bushy mustache. The two lawyers both wore impeccable three-piece gray suits: Brooks Brothers, Cochrane guessed. They each placed compact notebook computers on the table and opened them. Yañez put down a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen.

  Yañez cleared his throat noisily, then said, “I know you’ve told your story to the Tucson detectives all day, but I’m afraid I’m going to need to hear it from you again.”

  Cochrane glanced at Sandoval. The two lawyers tapped on their computer keyboards.

  More than an hour later, Special Agent Yañez looked as if he didn’t believe a word that any of them had told him. “And you’re saying that this was a terrorist attempt to kidnap Lionel Gould?”

  “Tha
t is correct,” answered one of the lawyers.

  Turning to Cochrane, Yañez said, “Tell me again what Gould was doing at your apartment.”

  “He was looking for information on the work my brother was doing at the time of his murder.”

  “And?”

  “He took my computer, my laptop.”

  “Which he paid for,” the other lawyer jumped in.

  “All nice and legal, huh?”

  Both lawyers nodded in unison.

  “And the two other guys were terrorists.”

  “Apparently so,” said the first lawyer.

  “Muslims,” said the second. “From Chechnya.”

  “The one live suspect admits to being a Chechen. He’s here illegally.”

  “They are part of a conspiracy that reaches into the United Nations bureaucracy in New York,” the first lawyer said.

  “So you told me.”

  Cochrane said, “Look, we’ve been here all damned day, just about. We haven’t even had lunch. Can’t we go now? You’ve got our statements.”

  Yañez looked distinctly unhappy. But he admitted, “Washington says they’re taking jurisdiction. I’m just supposed to hand everything over to them.”

  “Well, then,” said the second lawyer, shutting his notebook with an audible click.

  “Unless you are charging Dr. Cochrane or Ms. Sandoval,” the first lawyer said.

  “There’s an open murder investigation in Palo Alto that seems to be connected with all this,” Yañez said.

  Cochrane said, “That was my brother.”

  “I checked with the Palo Alto police,” said the FBI agent. “They don’t consider you a suspect.”

  “That’s good to know,” Cochrane said.

  “So we’re free to go?” Sandoval asked.

  With a shrug of his big shoulders, Yañez pushed his pad of lined paper toward her. “Write down an address and phone number where I can reach you. E-mail address, too, if you have one. Same for you, Dr. Cochrane.”

  “We’ll both be at this address,” Sandoval said. And she wrote down a totally fictitious address in Denver, Colorado.

  LAS VEGAS: