by AFN CLARKE
Billy and I continued on for another two hours, acting out our 'frustration' at not being to 'solve' the problem, and eventually shut everything down at midnight.
Eileen was waiting for me in the drawing room when I arrived back at the B&B, dressed in a thick white, floor length Terry towelling dressing gown. Beside her on the coffee table were two shot glasses and an unlabelled bottle of clear liquor.
"Come on in, I thought you might like a nightcap.” She leaned forward and lifted the bottle. “My mother's supply of very old Poteen. My uncle makes it," she whispered.
“It's a bit late,” I said dubiously eying the bottle, knowing what 'old' Poteen could do to your mind.
"Go on. Try it," she said, poured me a shot glass full and handed it to me. I took a sip of the clear liquid. It was smooth to taste, and then the 90 proof alcohol caught up as it burned all the way down my throat. It was good and reminded me of sitting with Danny, listening to Caruso and drinking until we could barely see straight.
It was comfortable in the warm little house and I could see that after two glasses, the Poteen had already gone to Eileen's head. She looked at me with smoky eyes, her mouth slightly open and lips moist.
“You are an attractive man, Mr Tom Nelson. But you know that don't you?” she said softly, slurring her words. "You're not the nerdy computer freak everyone thinks you are." She laughed quietly. “I heard you met Sean Flynn today.”
“You did, did you?”
“It's a small work force and anything that happens around 'The Lab' gets noticed.”
“Ah. Gossip. That's why I stay away from hotels.”
“Don't worry I won’t tell, if you don't.”
“That Sean guy seems a bit strange, scared the life out of me.”
“Scares the life out of everyone. That's his job.”
“Maybe he thought I was a spy or reporter looking for a story.”
“Young Aidan got fired for taking a peek inside 'The Lab'. Nobody's seen him since.”
“Better stick to my computer then.”
She rose, picked up the glasses and bottle and left the room. I heard her wash the glasses, then make her way upstairs.
I got up, switched the light out and went up to my room, undressed, washed and climbed gratefully into bed. It had been a long day and an even longer night, and my leg was throbbing from the activity. I lay awake thinking about how to get into 'The Lab', but could not come to any conclusions until I had the plans from Oldfield. And as if to answer my plea, the burn phone buzzed softly in my jacket pocket. I slipped out of bed, slipped into a pair of tracksuit pants and retrieved the phone. It was the website and code from Oldfield. Taking the laptop I went downstairs to the kitchen and turned it on. While it booted up I helped myself to a glass of milk from the fridge to ease the acid in my stomach from the Poteen. I used the iPhone Danny had left for me to connect to the Internet, typed in the computer unlock code and went to the site Oldfield had given me. How he had managed to find the correct plans amongst what seemed to be a dizzying myriad of different editions, was beyond me, but then that was his skill, not mine.
From what I could see, the doorway leading from the main assembly floor to 'The Lab', was closed off by a thick wall. The plan was dated three weeks ago and I wondered if that coincided with young Aidan's adventure.
It was just the slightest sound of bare feet on the wooden floor that alerted me to Eileen's presence, so I quickly escaped the website, unplugged the iPhone and brought up the Venus GT system controller schematic.
“What are you doing?” she whispered accusingly. I jumped and turned quickly as if startled by her voice.
“Dear God, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” I whispered hand over my heart. Eileen peered over my shoulder and stared at the schematic of which I knew she had no understanding. “I just had an idea and wanted to work on it. I didn't mean to wake you.”
“It's nearly two o'clock in the morning.”
“And I have a deadline to keep. If I don't get the system running properly, I'll lose my job.”
“I just came down for a glass of milk,” she said sleepily.
“Me too. That Poteen is pretty powerful. I’ll get it, you sit down.” I crossed to the cupboard and I fetched a glass from the cupboard, and then retrieved the milk from the fridge. Eileen yawned and rubbed her eyes.
“There you go,” I said quietly, placing the glass in front of her. She drank half and then stood.
“Okay. I'm going back to bed. You better get some sleep too. The big boss is visiting tomorrow.”
“Big Boss?”
“Mr De Costas. Flying in from San Francisco.”
THIRTEEN
Over the past few days I had watched the security guard schedules, and plotted the locations of all the CCTV cameras. The fence at the far side of the test track had a small blind spot where one of the cameras did not quite rotate to cover the arc of the other camera fifty metres away. I discovered it when I had taken a walk around the track during my lunch break two days ago.
Earlier in the evening I had slipped sleeping powder into the cups of tea I made for Eileen and her mother, and waited until I knew they were asleep before I left the house and headed for the factory.
It had started to rain, again, and the anorak was no match for the cold wind that made me shiver as I slipped through the hole in the fence, and quickly ran to the test building where Billy and I had been working. From there it was a question of timing the camera rotations and slipping across the open space to the main manufacturing building. The unobtrusive back door, hidden behind a builder's dumpster, left over from the construction, opened easily, much to my surprise. But then the actual manufacturing facility wasn't in full production yet, as the computer fuel metering glitch still had to be fixed so there were still lapses in the security, which surprised me.
I closed my eyes and flipped through the office floor plan I had memorised, but it is one thing to have a map in front of you, it is quite another to go from memory. Dull security lights gave the robotic machines used for welding, lifting and turning, a strange haunting and decidedly creepy look, as if any moment they would leap into life, pluck me from the floor and weld me into one of the monocoque car chassis.
Eventually I found myself in the right section close to the manufacturing supervisor's office. I was just about to turn the handle of the door when the muffled sound of voices stopped me. I tried to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It was difficult with the soundproofing. I opened the door and the voices became clearer. There were two men in the office I had to go through to get to what I thought maybe a smaller office or store room in the rear where the blocked up doorway to 'The Lab' was located.
"So everything is set then? Are you sure the load is correctly marked?" It was a man's voice with a distinctly East European accent.
"Listen, I told you. It's all set. Everything's marked up just like the Boss wants." This man's accent was pure Brooklyn. There was silence for a moment or two except for the shuffling of papers. One of the men laughed, a short crude sound.
"Orange Moon. I ask you. What the hell kind of name is that?"
The other man grunted and mumbled a reply that I missed.
"O.K. That seems to be it. Let's go." There was a scrape of chairs. I gently shut the door, and quickly slipped behind one of the part welded monocoque chassis. There was no shout. I hadn’t been spotted. As I listened to the footsteps recede, I went over what I'd heard. They had obviously been talking about a shipment and, by the sounds of it, were probably filling in shipping manifests. But it was the use of the words 'Orange Moon' that had caught my attention.
The words nagged at the back of my mind. I couldn't pin the memory down. What did 'Orange Moon' mean? Where had I heard it before? There were still gaps in my memory from the crash, but I knew if I just kept at it, the memory that lurked so tantalisingly close would return.
Once I was sure that the two men had left the building, I slipped out from my hiding place and ret
urned the office door. A couple of seconds and the lock clicked open and I slid inside and relocked the door. I had come equipped with a small LED flashlight with red bulbs, which gave just enough light in the pitch-black office for me to find the storage room and begin my search for the doorway into 'The Lab'.
The office seemed still in the stages of construction, haphazardly arranged desks behind the main robot control panel, which was up and running waiting for a full manufacturing run. It was as if the manufacturing process was an after thought and I was even more curious to take a look inside 'The Lab'. Against the far wall were shelving units and two seven foot tall steel cabinets, right where I figured the doorway should be located.
'It can't be that easy,' I thought.
I picked the lock on the right hand cabinet and looked inside. It was stacked floor to ceiling with computer equipment, I guessed to run the manufacturing robots. The left hand cabinet was the same and yet something didn't quite seem right. Further investigation revealed a small, unnoticeable to a casual glance, biometric thumb pad right in the centre of the computer bank, disguised as a logo.
Now I needed Oldfield's help and hoped he wasn't going to be pissed and me waking him at this time in the morning.
“Yes Thomas,” he said sleepily.
“Apologies for the hour but I need to get into a building that is secured by a biometrics pad.”
“Have you been entered into the security system?”
“Yes, to open the Venus GT's doors.”
“Was it coded in the central computer?”
“As far as I know. It was done on the office computer.”
“Okay, stay on the line and give me a minute.”
I could hear him moving about, the sound of the computer booting up, a bottle top being unscrewed, I guessed his favourite Talisker, and began to wonder if he was losing control and using the whisky as a prop. Perhaps the more involved he became in my mission, the better. But what did I know? I'm not a behavioural psychologist and if I were I'd be questioning my own sanity. He began typing rapidly and I pulled the phone away from my ear so I could hear if any security were prowling around. There wasn't a sound except for the low hum of a generator somewhere.
“Okay I found your print algorithm, now just need to find where the other biometrics pad files are stored.” He was talking to himself, grunting on occasion. “Really?” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Really what?” I whispered.
“Very clever. Hiding in plain sight. I missed it the first time, and if I may say so, anyone other than me would never have found it.”
“Okay. Now what?”
“I add your biometric print to the list and hide it so it won’t show up on the lock access log.”
“How long?” I was getting nervous about the time and wanted to be out of 'The Lab' before daylight.
“Done.”
Taking a deep breath I pressed my finger to the pad and heard a soft click, then the cabinets slid apart to reveal a narrow entrance through a four-foot thick wall into what looked like some kind of airlock.
“Thanks Professor. Call you later.”
“Anytime.”
What on earth would De Costas want with an airlock in a car manufacturing plant? I stepped through and heard the cabinets slide shut behind me. After a momentary hiss of pressurised air the door in front of me slid open. I went through another four feet of concrete wall and stepped into 'The Lab'.
Compared to the outside dimensions, 'The Lab' was at least half the size, and I figured that each of the walls was at least ten feet thick. The ceiling was low and again I wondered what this was doing here. As I stepped through into 'The Lab' proper, lights snapped on, for a moment blinding me and I tugged the Glock from its holster and crouched, waiting for the first shot. But there was nobody in the room; a movement sensor activated the lights recessed into the ceiling.
The room was completely empty.
It was a 'clean room', but with no visible signs of any equipment anywhere. My thumbprint had allowed me entry, but nothing more, so there must be a secondary biometrics pad. I took out the phone and stared at the display. No signal. Of course not. With ten-foot thick walls there was no way.
I had no choice but to return the way I came and try again tomorrow night after a lengthy conversation with Oldfield. There was something we both had missed, in the plans and in the central computer.
Once back in the office, I rummaged through the filing cabinets and drawers and located shipping manifests from the factory outside Mojave and from Suldiski in Estonia. Two manifests were for auto-parts and the third beauty products, which was so completely out-of-place. I photographed them with the iPhone and left the office, locking the door behind me.
Outside the rain had stopped, but it was still overcast, which was lucky as through the clouds I could see faint glimmers of light. Within two minutes I was back in the car and driving slowly back to the B&B. I knew Eileen would be asleep for another hour, and her mother would not be up for another forty minutes, so I slipped back into the house, undressed and crawled into bed. I don't remember falling asleep, just waking with a start.
'Orange Moon.'
I saw the words clearly written on the pot of face cream I'd found in my father's safe. I knew I'd seen the words and it still didn't make much sense. A pot of face cream and the words 'beauty products' on the manifests from Estonia were the only solid link to my father.
I got out of bed and walked over to the window. Outside it was raining again, hammering down onto the roof and sheeting down the window, but I hardly noticed.
What did it all mean? The simple explanation was that my father was heavily involved with this conspiracy or fraud or whatever it was, and perhaps been killed because of a feud with De Costas, but I didn't believe that. My father was a hard, tough businessman, but he wasn't a crook.
But just what was the link between the two?
Why was my family mixed up in this?
The questions kept coming. Spinning around in my head without answer. What was De Costas really up to?
A quick phone call to Oldfield got him re-investigating the building plans and construction materials orders for what used to be Rathborne Micro-Electronics. It would take some time and I was getting nowhere with my self-questioning, so I went back to bed.
By the time Eileen and I finished breakfast, with her complaining of a headache, and her mother blaming her for drinking the last of the Poteen, the rain had turned to snow.
I thought of Morgan and the ranch, the desert and the welcoming beach. Then I thought of Julie, and angrily kicked the snow off my feet as I entered the workshop. I was tired and the prospect of another long night after a full day's work didn't put me in a good frame of mind.
Eileen had told me that De Costas was expected in the afternoon. She couldn't be more specific about the time, which was a pity. I didn't want to end up face to face with him and run the risk of being recognised.
Billy wasn't at the office when we arrived, but had left a note saying he had a meeting in the morning and would be back mid afternoon and instructions for me to 'continue' with the diagnostic test, then maybe take the car for a test drive if I could get it working. Which meant that all I had to do was play act for a while and then start the car.
When I thought enough time had elapsed as I tinkered inside the car and in the engine bay, I shut the rear deck lid, climbed into the car and pressed my thumb on the starter button, after a couple of seconds, the display unit lit up and the engine jumped to life.
The semiautomatic transmission was a very sophisticated system, based on Formula One Racing technology, simplified for road use. Once the engine started the transmission remained in 'neutral' until the right hand paddle shifter was activated to select 1st gear, but without your foot on the brake, no gear could be selected. I let the car run for five minutes, supposedly checking the fuel system with the iPad Billy used to monitor the systems, then put my foot on the brake and flipped the paddle shifter. There was
no noticeable engagement of first gear, but once my left foot came off the brake, a light touch on the accelerator had the car moving quickly out of the test building and onto the track. I knew that there would be quite a few workers taking time out to watch my run on the test track, so had be sure to put on a good show. Billy had posted an email to the effect that I had solved the fuel-metering problem, and the first test run would happen in the early afternoon.
“Ready to go are we?”
I looked up and saw Billy standing beside the car. I had been so engrossed in what I was doing I didn't see or hear him. And that worried me. I needed to be sharper than that.
“Yup. That okay?”
“Go for it,” he smiled.
Turning onto the track, I settled back, tightened the seat belt and pressed the accelerator to the floor. I was surprised how quietly, smoothly and quickly the car hurtled down the straight to the first corner, easily reaching 290 kph (180 mph) before it was time to brake, downshift and turn in. There was no drama, just a little step out of the back-end that a touch on the steering wheel and feathered accelerator corrected, and then we were off to the next fast curving right-hander, taken just about flat out before braking again for the chicane.
It would have been easy to forget why I was here, except when I came down the main straight for the sixth time, I could see Samuel De Costas standing in the 'Pit' lane next to Billy. Just for the hell of it I put in another five laps until Billy finally waved me in.
"Well, Thomas, how did it go?"
"Fine Billy. No problems at all. She's a really beautiful machine," I said enthusiastically, trying to make my voice sound American and convincing, but any moment I was waiting for De Costas to recognise me. “I really gave the fuel system a work out and it's functioning perfectly.”
"This is Mr De Costas, Tom, the owner of the factory. He's come over personally to supervise the delivery of the first car," Billy beamed with a pride I knew he only half felt.
I turned to De Costas. His cold eyes bored into me, for a moment they flickered with uncertainty, and then the veil closed again. Had he recognised me? I felt calm. It didn't matter. I was going to kill him and I wanted him to know that it was me, but not just yet.