Undercover Genius

by Rice, Patricia

  My phone rang and I grubbed around in my pockets until I found it. Nick. “Get the job?”

  “I did, no thanks to all of you,” he grumbled. “They wanted to know if my family will continue to garner media attention because my position is one that requires discretion. So after assuring them that we’re the souls of discretion, I come out and discover Patra is in a helicopter, the street is full of news vans, and I suppose you’re visiting another planet since you’re obviously not here.”

  “Poor baby,” I said, not quite soothingly. “I’m on my way. Patra will probably be there soon if Graham hasn’t put her on a plane back to England. But anyone who hires you for discretion is not quite playing with a full deck. Let’s tape his voice and compare it to the Brit on Patra’s recording.”

  “I’m not speaking to you ever again.” He hung up.

  Sean sent me a questioning look. I smiled, probably wearily. “Nick isn’t into paranoia.” But I was. I needed the people on Patrick’s tape identified pronto.

  * * *

  By the time we’d worked our way through rush hour traffic, the six o’clock news was wrapped up and most of the news vans had departed.

  I eyed a lingering unmarked van with suspicion and dislike. “Friends of yours?” I asked, nodding toward the seemingly empty white Ford. The vehicle ought to have a dozen parking tickets if it had been there all day.

  Sean studied the van and shrugged. “Not that I recognize.”

  Why disturb the snakes? I ignored the Ford but pulled my hood over my hair as we got out. I’d rather not have my photo plastered on Entertainment Nightly if it could be avoided.

  I actually invited Sean in. He deserved a reward for his heroic efforts. He studied the mansion longingly, looked at me in my grungy army coat, then shook his head in regret. “I’m going back to look over Bill’s files. They’re the only physical clue we have. And you need to sit down with Patra.”

  “You mean someone needs to tie her up in the basement. Tried that once. I think she charmed a rat into nibbling her free.” I waved him off, smiling as if I was joking.

  I wasn’t, except the rat had been human. Since Patra had only been ten at the time, Magda had arranged for him to be transported to Siberia for kidnapping and attempted child molestation. Honest, happy Patra had simply been puzzled that we hadn’t been pleased that she’d escaped and won the game with her slimy adult friend.

  She was older now, I told myself as I entered the house. Sean was a decent guy. She could charm him all she liked — not my problem. My problem was whacking off all the Hydra heads at once. Looked insurmountable from here.

  “May I take your coat?” Mallard asked as I headed for the stairs. “The others are gathering for dinner.”

  “No, you may not take my coat. And tell Graham if I find cat hairs on it later, I’m buying a pit bull to guard it. I have to clean up. Tell Nick and EG to start without me.”

  Graham kept a cat. Now that I knew he was mobile, I also knew he was a sneak. What irritated me most was that the damned man still intrigued me. So I focused my concern on Patra for now. Where had he taken her?

  “Shall I tell Miss Llewellyn not to wait also? She’s still in her room but promises to be down shortly.”

  Now he tells me. I drilled Mallard with a glare and dashed upstairs to the massive chamber Patra had taken for herself. She opened the door before I could pound more than once.

  She’s taller than I am. Hugging her is awkward. But we did our best before Patra looked down at my grimy jacket, made a sound of disgust, and backed off. Since she’d changed into pale blue silk dinner dress, I understood.

  “Who was in the helicopter?” I demanded immediately.

  She spun in a circle, admiring the flare of the silk. “Pilot and a hunk in a suit. It was too dark to get a good look. Very weird and James Bondish, like something Magda would have arranged. I thought you’d sent them. You didn’t?”

  “No, I just warned Graham. Almost the same thing as telling Magda. Where did the helicopter take you that you got here before us?” I was dying of curiosity, but Patra seemed to be high on an adrenaline rush and not using her head at all.

  “Helicopter pad on top of some embassy not too far from here. A security guard escorted me to the elevator, gave me directions to the Metro, and here I am.” She finally stopped twirling to face me. “I owe you big time, I know,” she said with only a little regret at the panic attack she’d caused. “What happened at the gorge after I left?”

  “Sean and I scampered. We’ll have to check the police scanners. Want to explain what the devil that was about?”

  She made a puzzled moue. “Pee said I was a spy. Since I’d never met him before, I assume he’d been told I was a problem that needed to be removed. The zombies were mad about Smitty being arrested, but they didn’t know about it until I was over the edge. They really seemed to think it was all some weird version of the game. I’ll have to ask around tomorrow and see what I can find out about Pee.”

  I almost had a second heart attack. “While I admire your fortitude, I recommend you not return to Crap Media in the morning,” I warned, trying not to scream and bash her head against a hard object.

  “But that would take all the fun out of it!” she cried. “What can they accuse me of — not dying? I want to see their faces when I show up. Besides, I’ve already written the bones of an incredible exposé on BM. Sam said he could get the first segment onto the AP wire without anyone knowing. An exposé on BM coming from BM! Just think about it. It will be fun, and then I’ll scamper, I promise. Hurry and change so we can hear all about Nick’s new job.”

  My family was officially nuts. This was why running away had seemed my best move ten years ago. But I didn’t want to run away from my grandfather’s house. Which meant I had to learn to deal with adrenaline poisoning. Somehow. Strangling Patra probably wasn’t an option.

  I trudged over to my grandfather’s study, locked my coat in a filing cabinet, and hit the intercom on the lovely old desk overlooking the street below. “Thank you,” I said, possibly grudgingly, but I meant it.

  “She’s worse than Magda. Tie a bomb to her when she leaves in the morning.”

  Graham’s deep dry voice always had the power to stir my blood. And lately, it had made me grin. In the matter of my family, we were almost in tune. For now. “I think she’s carrying her own time bomb,” I warned.

  “I should have guessed that,” he replied. “Smedbetter is the one you need to focus on. He has something on Broderick to land him that cushy job after he got put out to pasture. They don’t exactly travel in the same circles otherwise.”

  Graham checked out before I could tell him I’d look into it. He knew I would, so telling him so was obviously redundant. Ernest Bloom had interviewed a General David Smedbetter in the article Patra had sent, and the initials DS had been in Patrick’s notes well before that. I desperately needed to dig deeper, but family was waiting.

  I didn’t own much of a wardrobe. I might have to consider some on-line shopping soon. I showered and donned khakis with my best sweater to pretend I was trying, then dashed downstairs to hear the current topic of discussion at the dinner table.

  This was the part of family that I loved. I almost wished Graham would join us. EG sipped her soup and held up her iPad so I could see the video on the rescue operation in Great Falls gorge. The zombies looked particularly foolish with their faces falling off as they tried to explain why two of their race members were so far off course.

  The guy I’d knocked off the edge had landed in a bush and survived with a few broken bones. They were still searching the river for Patra’s tormenter. Oddly, not a soul mentioned Patra’s existence. It just appeared to be a race gone strangely awry.

  Patra snatched the iPad, punched a few buttons, and produced a story on Smythe’s arrest for murdering the lawyer accused of embezzling millions. Speculation was rife that Reggie had somehow stolen funds from Smythe or the R&P. Oppenheimer had disappeared from the picture,
although one of the lesser rags had posted my glamorous dinner photo under heiress. Sweet. Not.

  “What would it take to get Smythe to rat on Top Hat?” I asked the table at large.

  Nick was really the only one who understood me, and he narrowed his eyes. “Not going there, remember? Patra’s already been targeted just for digging around and turning up nothing. And if they could murder our grandfather in his own home and Reggie in a federal prison, we really don’t need to be in deeper.”

  “We’re getting deeper by the minute. Princess there wants to return to work tomorrow.” I nodded at Patra, who ignored me.

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Right. Of course, she does. Do we handcuff her or let her learn the hard way?”

  “I’m not doing anything either of you wouldn’t do,” Patra said, helping herself to the grilled salmon.

  Sadly, she was right.

  “We need to hack the bad guys’ phones the way Broderick Media does to the politicians they want to destroy,” EG said, shoveling couscous into her maw while we passed her iPad around.

  All our heads turned to stare at our youngest sibling. We hadn’t told her anything. I suspected she was making a general observation based on her extensive reading of current events and her curiosity about the ugly world we lived in. But she’d nailed it.

  Patra’s eyes narrowed. Without a word, she produced her smart phone and checked her list of calls. She pushed it toward me. I glanced at the screen.

  All of her calls appeared dangerous. Worse yet, she’d called Magda. That wasn’t a big deal on its own. In light of what EG had just reminded us of . . . If Broderick’s henchmen had hacked Patra’s phone and knew who she was calling . . . They had damned good reason to push her off a cliff.

  “I don’t suppose this was an innocent conversation involving cosmetics?” I asked, holding up the phone with Magda’s number showing.

  “I reached voice mail. She must have called back while I was at lunch, and I didn’t notice. I picked this up just a while ago.” Patra took the phone back, put it on speaker, and punched up her voice mail box.

  Our mother’s voice spoke clearly and succinctly. “Dear, Smedbetter and his coalition cohort, Whitehead, were up to their ugly teeth preventing media coverage of the Rose atrocity scandal in Kirkuk ten years ago. Broderick owns them. Do use safer channels to make your inquiries next time.” In true Magda fashion, she hung up without farewells or so much as asking after our health.

  The Kirkuk bombing had involved Paul Rose? Man, that had been covered up in the stories I’d read. But Kirkuk had been ten years ago, five years before Patra’s father died. Paul Rose had been back home, winning elections, by then.

  I grabbed the phone and trotted upstairs to Graham’s office. His door was closed. For a change, he wasn’t expecting me. That probably meant he’d found more important matters than monitoring our dinner table conversation. Stupid man.

  I knocked. I took his answering grunt as an invitation to enter. He was in front of his bank of computer monitors as usual. He didn’t turn to acknowledge my presence but manipulated his mouse, changing the many screens so rapidly that I couldn’t process the images. I thought I caught a glimpse of our lawyer’s office building, the prison where they’d kept Reggie — and presumably Smythe now — and Sean’s newspaper office. The man had to be autistic to focus on all those screens at once.

  I leaned over his broad shoulder and dropped Patra’s phone on the desk. “Can you debug it?”

  He stopped scrolling through his screens and picked up the equipment with interest. “Didn’t take Broderick long, did it? Hacking voice mail is the usual method, but if he could plant spyware directly . . .”

  His words trailed off as he hooked the phone up to a computer, pried through the innards, cursed, and started deleting files. The man was scary good.

  “Your sister should know better than to leave her phone where someone can get at it,” he said reprovingly. “And if she intends to snoop in company files, she needs a stronger password on her voice and email. They’ll go for those next.”

  I didn’t waste time inquiring how he knew her password wasn’t strong. As long as I had him talking, I went for the more interesting question. “Why the helicopter?”

  “I did my duty by Max by offering her the job in Atlanta. She didn’t take it. If she intends to set herself up as a target in Broderick’s office, I might as well take advantage while I can. The helicopter was just payback for the information she’s providing.”

  I clenched my fingers into fists rather than box his ears. As soon as he put the back on her phone again, I jerked it away. “You don’t care whose lives you risk as long as you get what you want, do you? Including your own. Keep in mind that the world is full of petty dictators and evil overlords and you cannot singlehandedly stop any of them. Get a life.”

  I stalked out. I had no idea where that pithy speech had come from. Sounded like one I’d probably thrown at Magda in the past. Made me want to ask just what a life was supposed to be if one wanted to get one.

  I returned downstairs and dropped the phone in front of the Brownie Surprise Mallard had just served Patra. I hadn’t even eaten my salmon yet.

  “He says get a better password and quit leaving your phone where others can hack it.”

  I skipped the brownie and went back to my office to email Magda. I hated doing it, but if Patra was determined to swim with the devil, I needed to know where the demons were hidden.

  Twenty-six

  Tuesday night, after everyone had scattered, I studied the notes I’d gathered.

  GENERAL DAVID SMEDBETTER: Retired Army, served in Iraq, commander of troops including Lieutenant Paul Rose’s squadron in Kirkuk ten years ago. Promoted to general after Kirkuk and at command headquarters in Iraq five years ago when Llewellyn died. Currently on executive board of Broderick Media.

  LT CHARLES WHITEHEAD: Former British Army, served in foreign theaters as communications director — read PR front man. Left the service after coalition forces under Paul Rose’s command dropped a bomb on a Kirkuk mosque, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Joined the British embassy staff in Kuwait shortly after. Arranged an interview between Smedbetter and Bloom five years ago from his Kuwait office.

  ERNEST BLOOM: Broderick Media embed in Iraq five years ago. Died of apparent heart attack overseas, a month after Patra’s father was shot. A member of R&P.

  I detested Paul Rose enough by now to spin all sorts of conspiracy theories from these few facts alone. Kirkuk stank of cover-up. Rose came from a wealthy, politically conservative, well-connected family, just the kind of man Broderick would support. The good ol’ boy network took care of each other.

  I scrolled up the article Patra had sent me on Ernest Bloom’s interview with General Smedbetter — dated a week before Patrick’s death. Bloom puffed the piece to make the general sound like a war hero who enjoyed studying weapon history. Apparently Smedbetter was also an expert marksman and John Wayne on steroids. No mention of the mosque or Kirkuk.

  A short time later, Patrick and Bloom were dead. Not too long after their deaths, Smedbetter was working for Broderick. And Paul Rose was a damned senator. Money can buy anything. Don’t let folk wisdom persuade you otherwise.

  None of them seemed likely to have killed poor Bill. Reggie, maybe, but we had Smythe for that. Patrick . . . his death had to have been an execution we’d never prove. But Bill . . .

  I added LEONARD RILEY to my time line. Journalist for Broderick Media for most of his adult life. Indicted in vice presidential phone hacking ten years ago, about the time Rose was blowing up a mosque and Dr. Smythe was founding the R&P. Riley went to prison for tapping the VP’s phone line. Five years later, Riley was out and Patrick and Bloom ended up dead. Nothing connected the two events.

  Leonard’s résumé became a little unclear after he left prison. His credit report showed him as self-employed, what Magda would call a contractor, working for anyone who paid him. Currently, he had an R&P insurance card, s
o there was some connection.

  Because of the initials in Patrick’s coded files, I delved deeper. Smitty, in his vice presidential aide role, had the ability to give Riley access to the VP’s phone during a war-time crisis ten years ago. Kirkuk? Riley took the rap for the tap, but Dr. Charles Smythe had been forced to resign. Instead of prison, he landed a cushy job at R&P.

  I trolled through public records looking for more connections between Riley and R&P. Non-profit corporations file copious records if one knows where to find them. R&P had been no more than a disgruntled horde of taxpayers until about five years ago, at which point they’d been heavily funded and gone professional under Smythe’s direction.

  Bingo. Budget line item with their first filing five years ago — R&P had covered Riley’s travel expenses and provided compensation for publicity. Publicity? That smarmy slug couldn’t bum a cigarette with his spin doctor skills.

  Around ten, Magda got back to me. Since I didn’t know what country she was in this week, I couldn’t calculate her time, but she sounded bright and cheery.

  “Ana, so good to hear from you! What are all my little chickies up to these days?”

  “No good, as usual. Patra nearly got herself killed by some of Sir Archie’s goons. Has she been telling you about her latest endeavor?”

  “I left her a message and then regretted it,” Magda said with a sigh. “I tried to dissuade her from going after Broderick. Archie’s organization is so invasive, that she’ll never be able to pull out all the roots. Tell her I’m heading for Paris next, and she’s welcome to join me.”

  “Really? And you think she’ll just come running?” I couldn’t resist the snark. I didn’t bother to give her time to hem and haw. “I need more info on Lt. Charles Whitehead, General David Smedbetter, and a Leonard Riley. How did Smedbetter get from Iraq to Archie’s empire?”

  “I’m sure you know as much about them as I do, and I’m not encouraging Patra to dig into her father’s death by providing further information,” she said crisply.