by Joseph Flynn
John thanked everyone for coming, told them to enjoy their food and wine. He added that he was sorry but he didn’t think Clay Steadman would be dropping by. Then he left the restaurant.
He was waiting at the entrance for a taxi when the only other person who’d been drinking sparkling water came through the door, gave him a look and offered her hand. There was a card in it. John took it.
Ellen Feazell, Los Angeles Times.
“You probably don’t want to tell me any more than you told the others, do you?”
“I can’t, not now. Were you at the station?”
“Yes.”
“Any chance you saw something you’d care to share? I’ll even keep it off the record, if you want.”
Ellen grinned. “How long have you been waiting to use that line with a reporter?”
“Just occurred to me.”
“But you’re not willing to trade: what I saw for what you know.”
John looked her in the eye. He decided she really had something, wasn’t just trying to play him.
“What goes around comes around,” he said, “but not necessarily immediately.”
It was the reporter’s turn to assess character. In L.A., bullshitters were more common than smog. But she’d seen this big guy’s eyes when he’d let his glasses down. Of course, he could just be one more actor, and she’d hate herself for being naive enough to trust him.
Sighing, she decided to take the risk.
“Here’s the strange thing I saw at Union Station: Edward Danner was talking, albeit briefly, with Brian Kirby.”
John searched his memory for the names, managed only superficial recall. He’d seen Danner and Kirby in print or online but couldn’t recall the context. Ellen saw she’d have to help him.
“Two of the deepest-pockets in Silicon Valley, and that’s saying a lot. Danner heads a company called Positron; Kirby’s company is Deft Play. That help any?”
“Only a little,” John said.
“All right. Short story time. Danner and Kirby, roommates at Stanford. Danner, computer science; Kirby, finance. Partners in a start-up right out of school. Start-up blows up. Each blames other. Best friends become worst enemies. Won’t speak or even look at one another.”
“And they were talking at Union Station?” John asked.
“Yeah. I knew I couldn’t get close enough to listen in without being obvious so I didn’t try.”
“You think they were patching things up?”
The reporter shook her head.
“Why not?” John asked.
“Body language was wrong. They’ve been competing fang and claw the past twenty years. It was easier to imagine one of them throwing a punch than extending a hand.”
John asked, “You think they were taunting each other? Trying to psych the other guy out. Could they have some kind of business face-off coming up?”
“It’s under way. Those two moneybags are competing to see which of them — are you ready for this — will get to build the first high-speed rail line between L.A. and San Francisco.”
John thought about that and came up with a question. “Who looked like the top dog? Could you tell?”
Ellen nodded.
“Kirby looked like he was having the better time.”
John’s cab arrived. He gave the driver a twenty, but told him to find another fare. He accepted a ride to the airport with Ellen. The two of them had more to talk about.
Chapter 15
San Francisco
The main business campus of Positron, Inc, was in Cupertino, California. Silicon Valley. Edward Danner, however, kept his personal office in San Francisco’s Financial District on First Street. He had a one hundred and eighty degree view of waterfront when the fog was in abatement. It was an easy drive from his Pacific Heights home.
Taking in the sparkling forest of the city’s high rise buildings that night, Danner’s mind momentarily drifted from his own problems to the current topic of proletarian outrage in the city: the skyrocketing cost of housing. The mob complained, accurately, that soon only the wealthy would be able to afford to live in San Francisco. Danner agreed completely.
He didn’t object to the situation, though.
He considered it to be urban renewal at its finest.
The city had become too gorgeous for just anyone to live there. His own parents, an orthodontist father and housekeeper mother, would be hard pressed to buy a nice house in town. That was just the way things went. Not everyone got into the best prep schools or universities. Not just anyone got to live in San Francisco. Even some among the entrepreneurial class. Despite popular myth, not everyone who launched a high tech start-up became a billionaire and …
That was where Danner’s thoughts veered back to his personal problems.
Brian Kirby, as he had for the past two decades, was trying to destroy him. Show Danner that he’d been responsible for their failed company back when they were just kids. Only this time the prick had found the means to do it. Thanks to that idealistic little shit heel Merritt Kinney.
Danner wished he could have thrown the bastard off his lousy apartment building.
As it was, his only pleasure lay in viewing the police photos of the runt’s broken body.
Arthur Halston had shown him the pictures. Halston was both Danner’s personal lawyer and Positron’s chief counsel. There was not a subatomic particle’s gap in their lawyer-client privilege. Given that shield, Danner told his attorney almost everything he planned to do and listened to the lawyer’s counsel before he acted. Not that he always followed Halston’s advice. The man was educated and grounded in the law.
Danner had long ago formed his own modus vivendi: The more money you had the fewer rules you needed to follow. He was now so rich it was the rare occasion when he didn’t do exactly as he pleased.
Not that the government couldn’t come after him if it chose to do so. But when you were truly rich the authorities tended to target your corporate identity not your precious pink backside. There was the rare exception, of course. Ken Lay was convicted of fraud after Enron came crashing down. He avoided serving a long stretch in prison only by dying of a heart attack while awaiting sentencing.
Still, it wasn’t often when justice got personal with a billionaire. But as that prick Kirby had told Danner yesterday in Los Angeles, he might well join the VIP jailbird club. Kirby had promised to send him a cake to mark the anniversary of every year of jail time he served.
Kirby had learned that Danner kept a detailed private journal of both his personal life and his business dealings. There wasn’t a chance the greatest hacker in the world — Chinese, Russian or American — would ever be able to crack his journal. He’d done the inconceivable for a tech mogul and committed his innermost secrets solely to ink and paper.
It was nearly as quaint as if he’d used a quill and parchment.
“You’re sure you didn’t misplace the damn thing?” Halston asked.
For just a second, Danner felt like pitching his lawyer out his forty-eighth floor window.
He’d answered that question twice already. The third time wasn’t going to be the charm. He just glared at Halston by way of response.
“All right, all right,” the lawyer said. “You’re likely correct in thinking Merritt Kinney took it.”
“Stole it,” Danner said.
“Yes, stole it. The problem, however, is the police search of Kinney’s apartment didn’t turn up your journal. Neither did the examination of his safe deposit box.”
“He gave it to Kirby. The bastard knows what I’ve —”
Halston held up a hand. He didn’t know everything his client had committed to paper. Nor did he want to know. If he had to participate in Danner’s defense in a court of law, he wanted to do it with as unburdened a conscience as possible. He chose to examine his client’s assertion.
“Is Brian Kirby foolish enough to receive stolen property?” Halston asked.
Danner frowned. “No, he’s much too sm
art for that, but he knew … things he shouldn’t.”
Halston appreciated Danner’s avoidance of criminal specificity.
The lawyer said, “There’s no crime in listening to one person speak of another.”
“There is if you learn about a crime and keep it to yourself.” Danner was pretty sure he had that point of law right.
“Accessory after the fact, yes,” Halston agreed. “But how might we prove that? My investigator looked all day but couldn’t find a connection between Kinney and Kirby, much less any hint that Kirby put Kinney up to stealing your journal.”
Danner took the seat behind his desk. He sought inspiration in staring at the floor in front of him. “No, Brian didn’t reach out to Kinney. There was no way he could have known I kept a journal.”
“You didn’t keep one in college?” Halston asked.
Danner shook his head, still looking down.
From that posture, he said, “Merritt Kinney was the security officer tasked with watching the cleaning crew when they worked in my office. He was the last person in this room on the last day I made a journal entry. The next day in Los Angeles, Kirby knew too damn much. Kinney must have told him. There’s no other explanation.”
“Is it possible Mr. Kirby will be content merely to make you squirm?” Halston asked.
Danner laughed and looked up at his lawyer. “Not a chance.”
“Then we might consider the idea that Mr. Kirby told Kinney to turn himself in to the police … after perhaps showing your journal to a news outlet.”
That idea gave Danner a jolt. Then he shook his head again. “The story would have broken immediately, and you’d be posting my bail.”
“Is there anyone else Mr. Kirby might have suggested Kinney give the journal to, some person or group who would be shocked by the contents and would feel compelled to go to the police regardless of the consequences for you?”
That was when the light dawned for Danner. That conniving sonofabitch, Kirby, he thought. Yes, of course, there was a group just like that. The recent beneficiaries of a million-dollar grant from him.
“The new train museum in Chicago. That’s where Kirby had Kinney send the journal.”
Halston brightened. “If that’s the case, I can call the museum director right now. Tell him stolen property — proprietary business information — has been sent to him. I’ll say I’m obtaining a court order instructing him to leave the package unopened.” The lawyer’s face fell. “Oh, shit. That will work only if the museum hasn’t received and opened it already. If the journal was sent express delivery —”
Danner shook his head. Enemy or not, he knew Brian Kirby as well as anyone alive. “It hasn’t arrived. The journal wasn’t sent express delivery. I know how Kirby sent it.”
“How?”
“He got someone to put it on the Super Chief for him. Kirby not only knows my secrets, he wanted to see me watch them pull out of Union Station.”
Danner’s phone buzzed, an internal call from the security desk in the lobby.
Halston answered. “Yes?”
He listened for a moment, looked puzzled and then turned to Danner.
“There’s a pair of SFPD patrol officers in the lobby. They have a federal official from the Bureau of Indian Affairs with them, a man named John Tall Wolf. He’d like to speak with you.”
Danner told his lawyer, “Hang up.”
Chapter 16
San Francisco
John arrived at San Francisco International Airport after the short flight from Los Angeles. He’d had to fly commercial because the Secretary of the Interior’s plane had mysteriously been summoned back to Washington. John immediately suspected mischief on Coyote’s part.
He sent a text to Marlene: Maybe you can help me find the plane that was detailed to me. If VP should discover someone is causing delays in investigation …
There’d be no chance that person would ever become a member of the cabinet.
He didn’t need to spell that out for Marlene. He just bought a ticket to San Francisco.
He’d identified himself as a federal agent to the Transportation Security Administration people at LAX. He’d even gone so far as to use his new co-director’s title. It took fifteen minutes for his bona fides to be verified; the Bureau of Indian Affairs was a low-profile agency. Few of his federal colleagues came into regular contact with it.
Once John had been recognized as one of the good guys, and a fairly significant one, he was privately introduced to the undercover air marshal who would be aboard the flight. The man knew better than to question John’s right to be armed. He only said, “If something bad happens, I’ll take the lead, right?”
“Sure,” John said.
“You don’t use your weapon unless I go down.”
“Not even if I have the opportunity to prevent you from going down?”
That made the marshal think. “Only if you’re good enough to hit the bad guy and not some grandma from Pacoima.”
“Right. Unless she’s the hijacker.”
The marshal grinned. “Yeah, unless that.”
The flight went smoothly: no one charged the cockpit; there wasn’t even any turbulence. John did use one perk of his federal status. He went back to the galley and discreetly made a phone call to the San Francisco Police Department. He explained he was working an investigation and would need to speak with a prominent local citizen, Edward Danner. Would it be possible to have a couple of San Francisco’s finest act as his escorts.
Always best to get the local cops to buy in early, John felt.
Culturally sensitive department that it was, the SFPD knew all about the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As John was a senior BIA official and had politely requested help, the cops would be only too happy to assist him. Officers Chang and Gilhooley, both female, met John at the airport and drove him into town.
“Big fish you’re going after,” Gilhooley said.
“You want to try the man’s home or office first?” asked Chang.
She was driving.
“Let’s try his place of business first,” John said. “If we’re lucky, we won’t have to disturb him at home.”
Turned out, Danner didn’t want to be disturbed at all.
The security guard at Danner’s workplace, wearing a look of surprise, told John and the two cops, “The guy just hung up on me.”
“Danner?” John asked.
“Don’t think so. Sounded more like his lawyer, Mr. Halston.”
John exchanged a look with the cops and quick-stepped outside. Chang and Gilhooley followed. Chang asked, “You think Danner is trying to duck you?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” John said. He was looking at the entrance to the building’s garage. The overhead door was down, but John expected it to go up any moment. “We might have to follow the man home.”
Chang jogged back to her patrol unit and turned the motor on.
A moment later, John and Gilhooley heard a far larger engine roar into life. They looked up and saw a helicopter lift off from the office building’s roof. It turned south and was soon out of sight.
Wasn’t a cop in the world who liked it when somebody skipped out on them.
So Gilhooley asked, “You want me to call for a CHP aviation unit? Intercept the guy?”
John shook his head. “No need for drama. That might not even be Mr. Danner up there.”
Gilhooley looked highly skeptical.
“Probably is,” John conceded.
And he thought Maj Olson might be right.
Maybe, in the end, they would need their own aircraft.
Chapter 17
Southern California
Maj Olson’s train had barely cleared Union Station in L.A. when a thought occurred to her. Maybe whoever had commandeered the Super Chief had taken it into dark territory. That was the railroad term for a section of track that wasn’t controlled by signals: mechanical or electrical signs that told the engineer what lay ahead. Dark territory track didn’t tell the engin
eer a safe speed at which he might proceed or whether he should get onto a siding to avoid a collision with an oncoming train. It was closer to nineteenth century railroading than twenty-first century.
In dark territory an engineer might have to rely on a track warrant to guide him. A warrant was a verbal report of conditions that lay ahead received from a dispatcher by radio or phone contact. Warrants were also used to grant main track access from smaller lines. They might contain time restraints. Make your move only within a specified period of time, perhaps a matter of minutes.
This method was effective up to a point, but compared to the direct traffic control system used on main lines it was a decided step down in safety. In dark territory, there was no way for a dispatcher to control the switches that led onto main tracks or to detect misaligned switches, broken rails or runaway trains.
Worse still, runaways weren’t detectable on a line with no signals. The result could be a wreck of tragic proportions, such as the one that occurred in Lac Megantic, Quebec in 2013. A runaway train carrying a cargo of crude oil derailed in the Canadian town causing explosions and an inferno that killed forty-two people.
Despite such hazards or maybe because of them, Maj felt dark territory might be just the place for whoever stole the Super Chief. The thieves could maintain communications silence with dispatchers, disable their GPS transponder and become functionally invisible.
Maj asked Don Prosser, the senior engineer on board, “What do we have in the way of dark territory around here? Anything?”
“Miles, miles and more miles,” he said, made uneasy by the question. “All of it belongs to Union Pacific.”
“Really?” Maj hadn’t expected that. Usually, you found dark territory in the middle of nowhere. Places where towns and even people were few and far between. Not adjacent to the second biggest city in the country.
Prosser said, “Really.”
His lack of enthusiasm for what he felt might be coming was obvious.
The other guys in the cab, Prosser’s fireman Dean Spaneas, and the relief crew of Ed Fenwick and Leo Taylor, didn’t look too cheerful either.