Undercover Genius

by Rice, Patricia

  Ernest Bloom — a BM employee and Bill’s father — had died in the Mideast just like Patrick Llewellyn, and not too long after Patrick’s death. No one had done an autopsy, and heart attack had been listed as cause of death.

  Mallard’s voice through the intercom interrupted my muttering. “There is a journalist at the door, Miss Devlin,” Mallard said in a tone that indicated journalist was synonymous with big fat dirty turdy. “He wishes to interview you regarding the death of Reginald Brashton.”

  “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” I opened another file. “Tell him to bugger off.”

  “Yes, miss,” he intoned dryly. Mallard was a fantastic butler. He just didn’t like being ordered around by anyone other than Graham. I could scarcely blame him.

  I had Bill Bloom’s family tree and a life line of events for his immediate family arranged across the Whiz’s three monitors when the intercom buzzed again. EG had my cell number and could call me directly, but one never knew when the cops or immigration or Magda might arrive at the door. I tried to keep lines of communication open.

  “A gentleman from the Post and one from NBC are now camped on the doorstep,” Mallard said with impressive dignity.

  “Did someone shoot Reggie again?” I asked snidely. “Or did they take out Oppenheimer?” My eyes widened at that horrible thought, and I hastily switched all three monitors to different news outlets.

  Dr. Smythe had been arrested for Reggie’s murder!

  Oh, fun. I’d given Oppenheimer my information on the witness. He hadn’t wasted any time in checking it out and calling the police.

  Why hadn’t he called me?

  I called him. His receptionist said he was out and took my number. What the devil was Oppenheimer up to?

  “The reporters have not revealed the mysteries of the universe to me,” Mallard replied as I logged into police scanner calls and scrolled through the most recent news reports.

  I was turning into Graham. Crikey. With a sigh, I used Oppenheimer’s tactic. “Tell them I’ve just stepped out and you don’t know when I’ll return, that you’re not my babysitter.”

  “With pleasure,” he said in what sounded like gratification. Nice that I could make someone happy.

  “NBC News?” the intercom asked next. Graham. Did I hear just the faintest hint of amusement or was that my imagination? “Your mother would be wearing Dior and inviting them in.”

  “You may have noticed — I am not Magda,” I growled with irritation. I hated that comparison. “What’s the story here? Reggie isn’t that important.”

  “Dr. Smythe is. That’s quite a coup, and you should have thought twice before giving up Smythe to your tame tiger lawyer. Smythe has connections to every conservative politician in the country through R&P. You really need to learn the game if you wish to live a long life. Get rid of the news vans. They’re interfering with reception.”

  I heard the speaker snap off as if some more interesting topic had caught his attention.

  I called up a local news video under the Dr. Charles Smythe Arrested banner. Oppenheimer stood next to Lemuel, our star witness. Crap. Our lawyer was grandstanding. He was getting even with the media for blaming him for Reggie’s murder. Fair enough — we’d hired him because he got in people’s faces. But I knew this wouldn’t be good.

  Sure enough, Lemuel happily described how a Miss Lane had interviewed him in jail and then bonded him out and found him a job. That was bad enough. It made it sound as if I’d bribed him to pin the blame on Smythe. But Miss Lane didn’t exist, so no one could ask me — which worked out just fine.

  Unfortunately, Oppenheimer swung the cameras away from himself and right back at the notorious Maximillian family, the disgruntled — and increasingly notorious — heirs whose grandfather had possibly been murdered by Reggie. The shyster should have been a screenwriter. He’d practically scripted the next day’s news reports.

  Curse words sap the vocabulary and turn people into blithering idiots. I’d encouraged my siblings to be creative in their epithets, but I thought a lot of four letter blasphemies as I scrolled through the news.

  Nick called. He was not happy. “I’m due at the embassy in an hour. What should I tell them when they ask if my sister bribed a gangbanger to pin a murder rap on a highly respected US citizen?”

  “That you found said gangbanger a job and an apartment?” I asked with fake cheer. “Tell them that the truth will set them free? Lie through your pretty white teeth, lad. You learned from the best of them. Lie, evade, and ask if they need any publicity because you have national news on your doorstep.”

  “I… wait…what?”

  I hung up while he was still spluttering. Nick just wanted to vent his rage. He knew better than I did what to do. He roamed political circles and knew where half the bodies were buried. He’d figure out the rest in another year or two. Not me. I just wanted to kill politicians before they got buried. Or Oppenheimer. I’d known he was a bloated parcel of hot air with a brain. I’d hoped he’d use that sharp mind on our enemies, not us.

  I could ask What Would My Lawyer Do? Alternatively, I could ask what Magda or Graham would do. They were all authorities on evasion.

  Personally, I preferred hiding and letting Mallard act as guard dog. But I was trying to learn assertiveness and action rather than reaction. Personal growth came from pushing boundaries, not just college courses.

  So, my goal was to remove news vans before Graham blew a gasket, then screw the lid down tight on Smitty so they couldn’t say I bribed a witness. I am nothing if not focused.

  I was feeding the list of prison visitors from the day Reggie was murdered into the back door Graham had opened into police files when I received an IM from sadams. I was not amused. I detest instant messages and never give out my ID. And sadams sounded more like a terrorist than the person I assumed had actually hacked into my program — Sam Adams. Jerk.

  “I want that virus file,” I told the intercom. It didn’t answer.

  I warily read the message, vowing to install two firewalls. Problem, it read, as if words were at a premium. I wanted to shake the computer. Or Sam Adams. Instead, I typed With?

  Great Falls.

  Getting a little nervous, I Googled Great Falls and replied How? to the IM.

  Google revealed an area less than half an hour away with waterfalls, gorges, a swift river, and big rocks — not the kind of place my very civilized, city-dwelling family would appreciate.

  These cryptic messages were taking caution to whole new levels. Patra knew Sam Adams. Patra should be at work in Broderick’s cubicle farm. If she was merrily rooting out data on BM versus her father, with side roads into Blooms, Sadams had no reason to IM me. What the hell did waterfalls have to do with anything?

  Danger was all I got in return.

  I hit the intercom. “Track this twerp and smash him into atoms,” I yelled, hoping to get our attic spider’s attention. At the same time, I was typing Who? What? Where? When?

  The IM screen disappeared. My phone rang.

  Patra’s caller ID appeared on my screen with the text message 911.

  Patra’s perspective

  Wearing the red shirt and old overalls she’d been given as part of the “race,” Patra scrambled up a bush-covered hill, keeping her head down. Covered in mud and burrs, she collapsed under a thorny shrub and gasped to catch her breath. Until now, she’d been playing along, dodging maniacal zombies.

  Not to be paranoid or anything, but she was pretty damned certain a contingent of those zombies had singled her out for a purpose. They’d not only taken most of her red flags, but chased her off the marked route in the process. She’d been herded in the same way lions cut baby elephants from the pack. Ana had taught her the tactic when they were all just kids and needed to re-arrange a bully’s thinking.

  And if she needed any reinforcement in her belief that Broderick Media and the Righteous and Proud worked hand-in-glove, Patra’s team had not only abandoned her, but joined the R&P z
ombies. Those were some of her red-shirted teammates surrounding this remote outpost, preventing anyone from coming to her rescue.

  She texted Sam and Ana while she scanned the shedding forest below. Late October and many of the trees had lost their leaves, so she could see the trails between them. The thunder of the waterfall in the gorge was not too far in the distance. She didn’t know what Ana or Sam could do, but at least Sam might know where to look for her body, just as Ana had predicted with her stupid hive mind theory. She had to remember that Ana wasn’t stupid.

  Neither was she. Patra spotted the red T-shirts of two of her fellow employees, and three wearing R&P’s zombie rags, creeping down the trails through the trees below. They weren’t chasing each other — kind of a dead giveaway.

  She didn’t like this game, and she didn’t like being herded. Where were they trying to push her, anyway? It was a damned state park. There were probably Mounties or some such riding all over. Not that she could see any in the immediate vicinity, and it was starting to get dark. That was a bit scary. She was already pretty chilly.

  The rapids were just on the other side of the hill from the sounds of it, but this wasn’t Africa. The pathetic rocks and falls here looked like a Disney stage set and not a life-threatening environment. There were kids laughing and shouting not too far away. Only a suspicious mind or a guilty conscience would see anything ominous in a game of tag. Guilty on both counts.

  Her bright red T-shirt made her an easy target among fading greenery. Damn, she wished she’d had time to prepare, but it had all happened too fast. She’d been shoved onto a bus, handed this horrid costume, and dumped out here without much of an alternative except to hope it really was a game.

  She wiggled the red shirt off from under the overalls and tied it to the bush. She was going to freeze to death in her overalls and athletic bra if she didn’t find a way out.

  One of the zombies shouted and pointed up the hill. Oh, copulation.

  She edged over the crest of the rocky hill. On the other side, she saw only the nearly perpendicular bluff to the river. She could jump or climb down and pray she’d find a crevasse in the bluff where they couldn’t find her, or her skeletal remains. Zombie race! Someone had a macabre mind.

  She’d be in real trouble if they had bullets. As it was, she just needed to keep her head, find a place they couldn’t reach her, and outwait them. Gazing down the steep, rock-strewn bluff to the gorge below, she finally understood why she’d been herded in this direction. She’d have to be a mountain goat to escape that way. Or turn into one of EG’s bats, vampiric preferably, so she could suck those zombies dry.

  She punched her phone again, but the reception on this side of the hill was gone. Inventing more pithy epithets, she grabbed a sturdy bush and eased her way to the nearest ledge.

  * * *

  I sicced Graham’s nifty GPS phone tracker on Patra’s call — it came from Great Falls, Virginia. Crap, Sam Adams had been right. What the devil was she doing playing in a park? Patra hadn’t trusted the neat hedgerows of Hyde Park when we’d been in London.

  Graham wasn’t responding to my intercom. For all I knew, he was steering Air Force One out of danger. Or fomenting revolution in Belize. I was on my own.

  I didn’t own a car. Mallard had access to a Bentley which was too huge to zip through DC rush hour traffic. How the devil did I find Patra in a park even if I could miraculously fly there?

  I called Nick but got his voice mail. He must still be interviewing. Desperate, I called Sean. He had an old MG he raced through traffic as if he were on a NASCAR track. I’d vowed never to ride with him again, but I was out of my comfort zone. No phone, no internet, and a sibling sending distress signals stressed my mother hen instincts. And yeah, I’m sure there’s a personality disorder in there. Stupid psychiatrists just hadn’t diagnosed it yet.

  Sean answered warily. I couldn’t blame the man. We’d already got him shot once this week.

  “Patra is sending distress calls. An IT nerd at BM is telling me she’s in danger. I don’t know what the hell is going on but she’s in Great Falls. How do I get there fast?”

  “I’m at the pub. Meet me on your curb in five minutes. If you’ve got tracking devices, bring them. There’s a damned big state park out there.”

  “No can do. News vans all over the street. I’ll meet you at the pub.”

  I hoped he hadn’t been drinking for long. I grabbed my phone, told Mallard to watch out for EG when she got home, and dug out my army coat.

  I took the kitchen steps to the backyard. I peered over the wall at the piece of street I could see — the local NBC news truck in front, and across the street, a red van in a no-parking zone. Where were the police when you needed them?

  I slipped out the back gate into the concrete yard of the building on the street behind us. A smart reporter would cover this escape route. I looked around but didn’t see any. We weren’t a real story yet.

  I ran down the street to the Irish pub on the corner. Sean was parked right outside, waiting in his nifty two-seater. He threw open the door so I could climb in. I winced as he hit the gas with his bandaged foot and spun into the Circle. Shot toes didn’t seem to slow him down.

  “You own a proper coat, don’t you?” he asked mockingly. “Most women go for leather or wool.”

  He referred to the ratty old army jacket I’d pilfered from one of Magda’s boyfriends. I patted the pockets now to be certain all my supplies were still there. “This is a coat. You’ll remember I don’t have to leave the house to work.”

  He snorted, steered the car in between two delivery trucks, floored the gas pedal at an intersection, and hit the highway already cruising faster than the rest of the traffic. I held my breath and closed my eyes as horns blew.

  “We have to arrive alive to be of any help,” I reminded him.

  He tossed me his phone. “Call Morales. Tell him to give you the lowdown on BM’s zombie games.”

  “Who’s Morales?” I asked in suspicion, searching through his address book.

  “A damned good reporter on our side now. He once worked with BM and can tell you the tales. Broderick likes his employees to be lean, mean, and nasty. The zombie game is just a fun warm-up to cull the herd. He has more intriguing competition for older employees, usually involving war zones and real terrorists.”

  Had Ernest Bloom been one of the employees “culled”? And dead.

  Hand shaking, I found “Morales” in his address book and hit the number.

  “Yo, O’Herlihy, you owe me,” was the reply. “I want the scoop on the Maximillian chick.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Sean, but he wasn’t paying attention. Not in the mood for games, I replied a little nastily. “My name is Devlin, the only Maximillian chick is nine-years old, and the scoop is in Great Falls and Broderick Media and not my front door.”

  I gave him a minute to absorb all that ripe information. At his muttered shit, I gathered he’d put pieces together, and I continued, “O’Herlihy tells me you have the scoop on Broderick’s zombie games. Want to trade?”

  “Shit, yeah,” was the low-throated reply. “Give me a second to pull up my stuff. I was just on my way out the door. Sean with you?”

  “He’s become one with the wheel right now. We’re heading for Great Falls. How much trouble is my sister in?”

  “Last guy they culled went into the gorge, broke his leg in three places, but didn’t hit the river. One before that drowned. The police called them tragic accidents. You know for certain they’re culling your sister?”

  I think I had a heart attack.

  Twenty-four

  By the time Morales and I had finished exchanging pleasantries, Sean was swerving into the parking lot. I was pretty certain I was gray-haired by now. I checked my braid to see. Still black. My parents obviously had strong genes.

  I was beyond terrified and wanted an AK-47.

  There weren’t many cars left at this hour. The park would be closing shortly. I took photos of
all the license plates and sent them to Graham. A few zombies were laughing and waving their flags as they shared a flask near a flashy dual-cab pickup. I growled and reached for the MG’s door.

  Sean caught the back of my neck, freezing me. “Those are the ones not chasing your sister. Go easy on them,” he warned.

  I’m a sneak — hence the protective coloration of army coat and hippy braid. I’m small and not dangerous-looking enough to intimidate self-confident clowns. But it was irrationally satisfying to know that Sean thought I could.

  I strolled up and snapped a photo of the group. As expected, that brought them down off their happy cloud.

  “Hey, who do you think you are?” Zombie #1 asked, wiping mud off his face with one of his rags.

  “Your worst nightmare,” I said sweetly. “I grew up playing with real terrorists, not fake ones. My sister had better be in one piece when I find her or Broderick will be the subject of the next congressional investigation. And oops, looks like the lot of you will be first on the witness stand. Want to help me get my sister back safely?” There, I’d been as polite as I knew how.

  Sean leaned against his car door, crossed his arms, and just watched, reserving his injured foot for back-up, I had to assume.

  Zombie #2, a big, square brute who apparently enjoyed throwing his defensive tackle weight around, loomed over me. “I want to make pizza pie out of you.”

  This game was more fun with Nick to laugh and wallop the brute’s skull with a blackjack. Sean wouldn’t appreciate my nefarious talents. Oh well.

  “You and who else?” I asked without an ounce of menace — as I rammed my brass knuckles into his nuts. I saved that particular trick for times I’m dealing with bullies a foot taller than me. The angle is good.

  He went down hard, holding his junk. Since brass knuckles are just a shade illegal, I slid my weaponry into my capacious pocket and smiled at the rest of the zombies.

  Sean snapped photos and pretended he hadn’t seen what I’d just done.

  “I repeat, I grew up with real terrorists.” My heart was pounding, and I wanted to scream and kick shins, but I had plenty of experience in getting a message across with a barely sane composure. “Your friends may be out there attempting to push my sister over a ledge. Either you help us bring her back alive, or you’ll end up in war zones you don’t even know exist yet. Right now, I’m asking nicely to help me find my sister. The invitation will not be extended again.”