Catalyst

by Steve Winshel

  “Very disappointed, Josh. I expect to see it at five in the morning.”

  The line went dead. Josh held the phone, willing her back on. She must have accepted it, knowing he wouldn’t risk his sister’s life. He would stick with the plan and everything would work out, he told himself. He’d be on a plane at 6:30 the next morning, the design delivered and life would go back to normal. But he knew it would never be the same. His thoughts focused on what he would do that night.

  * * *

  Helen flicked off her phone. She’d gotten Josh’s email on her Blackberry and was very disappointed. Twice now in one week clients had failed to produce on time. She looked over at Roddy Kleeg, ashen-faced and unconscious on the cheap hotel bed, the third finger of his left hand now a bloody stump to match the pinkie. Crawford was gently tracing a line across Roddy’s carotid artery, the throbbing in his neck an easy target. Helen shook her head and told him no, they still wanted the XL blueprint. Roddy was worth more alive than dead. He had pleaded with them, claiming he was close to getting it and was at the hotel just to keep a clear head, not to avoid them. Helen believed the first part, but she was angry anyway. She sighed thinking about Josh. She also believed him. But that wouldn’t buy her anything from her boss. A small shudder passed through her.

  “Do the sister tonight. I don’t like people thinking they can pick the schedule.”

  Crawford smiled. Roddy had been a warm-up. Now Helen was offering the main event. Already he was planning on using a garrote on the woman whose picture he had taken at that fancy grocery store a few days earlier.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daniel Murello sat looking at the panoramic view of Manhattan. Several years earlier he had taken over the office from the previous tenant, an insurance salesman. There were only a handful of rentable spaces with full, unobstructed views of the city north as far as the Upper West Side and south almost to Wall Street. The others were occupied either by large corporations or individuals with long-term leases. Murello had spent more than a year researching them. This office required the least effort to obtain. When the insurance salesman committed suicide, six weeks after Murello had become his partner in a new venture, Murello pulled down the blinds the previous tenant had put up, stripped the office bare, and reoriented the energy in the room toward the nexus of the glass-covered north and west walls. There he put a simple but very expensive metal desk and leather chair. The desk was long but narrow and did not impede his view out the window. It was positioned facing the windows, so anyone entering the room would have found Murello with his back to them. But no one ever came in. The office door led to a reception area; immaculate but empty. The sign on the door leading from the hall to the reception area read The Catalyst Fund. There were rarely any visitors who got as far as the reception area, only the occasional lost investment banker or tourist. The exception had been two years earlier when the woman he was seeing showed up unexpectedly. Dating for Murello was just another business proposition; he formed no emotional attachment but he had physical and social needs. The physical needs were simple and he found it easier to maintain one or two women who appreciated his charm and good looks and were happy to service him during the honeymoon period of the relationship. Once that was over, he quickly dropped them. The end of the honeymoon period was marked by their need to get to know him better, something he had no interest in. He could have relied on the services of professionals, beautiful young call girls who were only too happy to make a few thousand a night. But ironically Murello preferred the sincerity of a “real” girlfriend; it helped him maintain his façade. Same with the social needs he had. There were times he had to interact at certain events and a companion was necessary. Business. This particular time, the woman he was dating had been in a coffee shop and seen Murello enter the building across the street where his office was. She had no idea what he did for a living except that it had vaguely to do with finance and he must be good at it because there was plenty of money. She followed him in, unable to get his attention by calling across the busy intersection. When she came into the room where Murello was making a call, she overheard several sentences. They were likely innocuous comments without context, but they related to an important deal. He explained away the call and the office – it was not like any she had seen before – and made plans for dinner that night. She never made it to the restaurant where Murello sat until late, looking like the concerned boyfriend. The woman was found, strangled and beaten after a brutal mugging a few blocks from the restaurant.

  There was no telephone service in the office. When Murello made calls it was with a cell phone. Internet connectivity was done wirelessly, parasitically off any one of dozens of Wi-Fi hotspots within a hundred yards of the street below or in the surrounding building. This allowed him to use his laptop to anonymously tap into someone else’s network and surf the Web or send email. Murello had a thirty-year lease, matching the lease between the building’s management company and the owner of the building. At some point, he would acquire the entire building. The Catalyst Fund currently had seventeen billion dollars in assets, mostly in stock holdings of various forms. There were a few billion in real estate throughout the world, and one billion in cash distributed among a dozen foreign currencies. No more than twenty percent of the fund was in play at any one time, earning an average of 11% net profit annually. However, one half of the seventeen billion dollars was used to make bold, unpredictable moves. Five or six times each year, the Fund entered an industry and made a huge gamble. It staked a contrarian position, or anticipated an enormous event, and came out on top. The industries varied, but the moves were always large and unexpected. Under normal circumstances, the Catalyst Fund would receive the same attention as a Warren Buffett; every decision scrutinized, every move copied. But the it worked under a dozen different umbrella companies, none of which could be traced back to the Fund. None of which could be traced back to Murello. All of which were controlled by him.

  Murello used an encrypted virtual private network, a technology that set up a digital tunnel from his computer out to the Internet using a hijacked connection he picked out of the air with a scanning device attached to his laptop, to check his email. His actions were untraceable. He logged in to one of his many, ever-changing email addresses. His disappointment showed as he read the message from Helen. There was another delay on the Ventrica.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Josh waited until seven p.m. to head back to Kenny’s house to start the stakeout. At a local Home Depot he’d bought the items he thought would be needed. It was a list straight from a bad detective story. Ski mask, gloves, duct tape, crow bar, bolt cutter, and a bag to carry it all in. Josh half expected the checkout girl to put her mouth to the microphone and broadcast across the store:

  “Price check, price check on Burglar Kit on register 7.”

  She barely looked at him, taking his cash and piling the coins on top of the bills when she gave him the change and the receipt. Josh didn’t bother telling her to hand him the change first so he didn’t have to fumble with a handful of paper and purchases – it didn’t seem like the right time for that. He shoved the wad of paper and coins into his pocket. Home Depot didn’t sell digital cameras, so he swung by a cheesy electronics store and got the cheapest model that came with a USB cable to connect to a computer. He was all ready for his first foray into life as a felon.

  Driving down Kenny’s street to park a few houses away and watch until all the lights were out, Josh realized he hadn’t brought any food, water, or container to relieve himself in case it was a long wait. He felt like a rookie. He was. Passing Kenny’s house to find a good spot to wait, he was pulled out of his self-absorption by almost hitting a large white Suburban as it backed out of Kenny’s drive. Josh swerved and stared at the SUV as he went by. He caught a full look at the loaded truck; kids in the middle row, back filled with gear, roof rack with more stuff strapped on with bungee cords and baling twine, and Kenny riding high in the driver’s seat. Josh’s hea
rt sank. Kenny had decided to leave tonight instead of in the morning. Josh quickly tried to think of an alternative. Block him in and tell him there was an emergency? Then what, steal the plans from his briefcase? Maybe Josh could don the mask and threaten him with the crowbar, a random carjacking. In the broad daylight of late summer on a residential street. None of these would work. He kept driving, telling himself to think harder. Maybe he could follow them to the lake, then sneak in along a trail late at night and rummage through the briefcase if Kenny left it in the car. Josh reached the corner and had to decide what to do. He had nothing, nothing at all. It was useless. He banged the steering wheel, yelling “fuck!” loud enough that the 74-year-old dog-walker on the corner looked over and shook her head at him.

  Josh had no choice. He had to go back to the office and force someone to give him access to the plans. He would put on the mask and threaten to break their legs, telling them he needed the passwords to a bunch of servers so they wouldn’t know exactly what he was after. But that would still leave a trail. There was only one answer left – but Josh didn’t know if he was willing to do it. Would he kill someone to get the information and not leave a trail? He wouldn’t know until he got there. He didn’t think so.

  The office complex was quiet; the third shift had not started in manufacturing and most of the white-collar employees were gone. Friday nights were the one slow period the entire week. Josh keyed himself into his building, carrying the equipment he had planned on using at Kenny’s. On the final miles driving over, his resolve had hardened. He would do whatever was necessary. If it were the life of his sister against someone else, he would make that decision easily. Josh walked through the building to the back exit and worked his way quietly toward the building housing Kenny’s office. Someone was probably working late and they would have the password. He steeled himself for whatever was about to happen.

  Getting off the elevator on Kenny’s floor, Josh had to step over a bucket and mop. The cleaning crew was emptying trashcans, mopping the bathrooms, and vacuuming. All the office doors in the corridor were open, including Kenny’s. He looked for an office occupied by someone other than the cleaning crew or a security guard. Walking past Kenny’s office, he paused to look in, fantasizing about Kenny having left a copy of the Ventrica design on his desk or in the trash. No chance. Josh kept going, scouting out the other offices. He pulled up suddenly, a thought flickering across his mind. He pictured Kenny’s office and, in the corner, the printer that had spit out a copy of the design. He looked around. No one was in the corridor; a woman had just gone into the men’s room with a mop and Josh could hear a vacuum three doors away from where he stood. He slipped into Kenny’s office and went to the printer. Modern printers weren’t just dumb machines – they were computers, with microprocessors and software. And memory. Even the simplest printer used memory. When you sent a document to print, it stored it in memory first. Every time you sent a new document to print, it deleted the memory of the previous document and used the space to store the current job. If the Ventrica had been the last thing Kenny printed before leaving, it would still be in memory. It was a simple matter to tell the machine to reprint the last job, if you knew how to do it – which Josh did. His heart began to beat faster. Maybe there was a way out of this. He looked at the printer, praying no one had used it since the Ventrica design. All the printers were connected to the network, so almost anyone in the building could send a job here and come pick it up. He had to hope no one had done that. He reached for the printer to begin the sequence of manual commands using the Mode button that would reprint the last job, when suddenly it began to hum. A small display screen that had been dark lit up and began blinking the words Processing Job. This meant someone in the building with the same security clearance as Kenny – and access to his office – had sent a new job to the printer. Probably this had happened several times since Kenny printed the design and Josh was just grasping at straws. But maybe not. He began hitting the buttons as fast as he could, trying to beat the command being sent by someone somewhere in the building. He had to get in his command to reprint before it finished loading up the new job. Josh had never done this under pressure, much less holding the knowledge that the life of someone he loved was the price of failure. He worked on autopilot, racing as fast as he could. After a few seconds, the heavy sound of the roller inside the printer rumbled and Josh could hear the first piece of paper being fed. It was going to print something and he could do no more. He waited and watched. The edge of the first sheet began to emerge, then the words on the cover sheet. Josh couldn’t make them out until more of the page showed. When it was halfway done, he almost broke into tears. It read: Ventrica VII Design…It had worked.

  Josh waited by the machine as more than 114 pages printed out. At any second, the person who sent the job that almost erased this document could step into the office and ask what he was doing. Josh took a chance and peeked out the door, looking up and down the hallway. No one. Back at the printer he strummed it with his fingers, impatient. He was so close yet the danger of being caught was greatest right now. Concentrating so hard on the printer and willing it to go faster, he didn’t hear anyone come in until he sensed someone watching him. Josh looked up into the face of a young Latina woman holding a half-filled trash bag.

  “Basura?”

  “Yes, yes…that’s fine. Please, go ahead.”

  If she wondered why his voice croaked, she didn’t ask. As she emptied the trash, the printer spit out the last page. It had only been five or six minutes, but felt like a month. Josh gathered up the document and put it in the bag that still held the tools he’d planned on using to beat some poor manager into unconsciousness after divulging the password. He almost ran back to his office.

  Josh didn’t have a number for Helen, so he sent her an email. He had gotten the design. He would fly in tonight and hand-deliver it, wherever, whenever she wanted. Or he would scan it and send it; whatever she wanted. It would be over now. He had done it.

  The 11:05 p.m. flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles left on time and was aided by tailwinds. It landed early at 12:32 a.m. Saturday morning and nine minutes later Josh was in his car heading home. He checked his Blackberry for a message from Helen but found nothing. She was expecting the design tomorrow morning, so he would scan it first thing and send it to her. Despite the still existing danger and the strange, horrifying days that had just passed, Josh felt relief.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Josh pulled into the driveway and cut the lights before they could sweep his house. The guest bedroom was in the wing near the garage and he didn’t want to wake Allison. Killing the engine before coming to a complete stop, he left the car in the drive and shut the car door with a soft push, handle up until the latch took. He left his bags in the car. Turning the key in the front door lock slowly and with a lot of pressure, he controlled the movement of the bolt so it made only the softest of sounds as it retreated. It was 1:30 a.m. and Allison would be deeply asleep. The master bedroom was in the same wing as the guest bedroom. A short walk to the right from the front door led to the hallway where a left turn ended in the master bedroom fifteen feet down. To the right down the hallway was the guest bedroom Allison occupied. Across from it was a second room he usually used for reading but had a twin bed for extra guests. A faint glow came from that end of the hallway, visible in the near black of the entryway where Josh stood. Most likely it was a small night light Allison kept on in the second guest room – light enough so she could find her way to the bathroom in the middle of the night but not so bright as to keep her awake in the larger guest bedroom. All the outside lights as well as those in the entryway were out, with only one lamp illuminating the large living area straight ahead of the front door. The house was asleep. Josh took several quick steps to the alarm control panel to disarm it during the 30-second delay that applied only to the front door. Breaking the seal of any other door or window in the house would set the alarm off immediately. Just as he reached to punc
h in the disarm code, he noticed the indicator lights were all green. Allison had not turned on the alarm. Josh was pissed, but couldn’t do anything about it now. He’d bought an extra day with Helen. There was no danger tonight. Holding his keys close in his hand so they wouldn’t jangle, Josh went into the kitchen. There was a faint odor, familiar but he couldn’t place it. Probably the cleaner Allison had been using. He quietly emptied his pockets onto the edge of the large counter that ran the length of the cooking area. Stepping onto the carpet of the living room, he fought an urge to go to his office, far enough away that Allison wouldn’t be woken, and scan the design. He needed a few hours of sleep and the partial relief of having met Helen’s demands was a chance to do that. Taking off his shirt, shoes, pants and socks, he balled up the clothes and tiptoed toward the laundry room next to the linen closet. Wearing boxers with pictures of baseball players on them, a joke gift from a former girlfriend, he reached the laundry. The scent he had noticed in the kitchen was stronger here. He listened carefully to make sure he hadn’t woken Allison but heard only the whir of the pump from the pool outside. Before turning back toward the master bedroom to get some sleep, out of the corner of his eye he felt, more than saw, a flicker. The nightlight in the spare guest room must have been loose and was hanging precariously in the outlet, flicking off and on occasionally. Or maybe Allison had gotten up and wandered in to that room. When he turned to look down the hall, the light flickered again but not quickly, like someone had passed across it. Allison was definitely up and walking around the room. Josh started down the hall to let her know he had gotten in earlier than expected when a large shadow crossed from the spare room to the larger guest room where Allison slept. Bigger than Allison. Josh suddenly felt very cold. A shiver ran across his shoulders and up his scalp and he immediately understood. Someone was in the house. And they were in Allison’s room now after finding the other room empty. Josh had no coherent thoughts, no plan. But he had instinct. His knees pulled up high to his chest in a cartoonish sprinting start as he ran down the hall toward Allison’s door. It was twenty feet and it seemed to take hours to reach the end, like a bad dream where the end of the corridor kept getting further away. He didn’t know what he was going to do, only that he would do anything. A guttural sound escaped his lips and as Josh reached Allison’s door he shouted “No!” Distract him, stop him, keep him from doing whatever he was there to do. Josh clutched at the doorframe as he reached it, shifting momentum from a straight-ahead run down the hall and arcing into the room so he wouldn’t shoot past. As he swung into the room he slammed into a rock-hard shape. The smell was stronger now and Josh knew where he recognized it from; it was men’s aftershave and it was from Jerry’s deli, the day before. Crawford stood before him, hands by his side. Josh bounced off his chest and back a few inches, nose bent from hitting Crawford’s chin and his ears ringing as Crawford stood immobile, unfazed by Josh’s weight slamming into him. Josh couldn’t see past him, they were so close, and even if he had it was too dark to discern whether his sister lay undisturbed on the bed. In the flash of time between colliding with Crawford and coming to a stop inches away, he had time to think of the horrible possibilities. Had he already hurt Allison? Was she somewhere else in the house, already dead, and Crawford was just checking the other rooms? There was no time to consider all the implications. Crawford’s hands rose up and reached toward Josh, lightning fast. They came toward Josh’s neck, hands parallel, and it was too late when Josh realized Crawford had a thin wire held taut between them. He looped it once around Josh’s neck and began to pull tight, Crawford’s hands just under Josh’s chin. The dim rays cast by the nightlight made Crawford’s yellow eyes glow. Josh could hear no sound other than the echo of his shout as he had run down the hall. Crawford was focused and silent. He stared into Josh’s eyes as Josh clawed at Crawford’s hands and stars began to float in front of his eyes. The pain in his throat and neck were unbearable, worse than the thirst for oxygen, and he just wanted it to stop. Josh felt his feet start to come off the floor as Crawford moved his hands up against Josh’s jaw harder. Holding him up took just a shade of the pressure off Josh’s throat. As his strength ebbed, held suspended with only his toes reaching the floor and the wire digging into his throat, Josh feebly kicked at Crawford’s groin. Crawford didn’t both to deflect the knee. Josh was drowning and his last thoughts were what would happen to Allison in the moments after he was dead. Josh stared into Crawford’s eyes and a calm part of his brain couldn’t believe this was how he was going to die.