the lock on the door. At two years old, Amy Archer could get into anything: mascara, pantyhose, jewelry, Jason's ties, shoes, wallets and purses. They had once found the title to Jason's Cougar crammed in the pancake mix along with the house keys they had been frantically searching for. Once she and Jason had awoken to find a full box of dental floss wrapped around their four-poster bed. Turning doorknobs was a simple matter for the youngest Archer, hence most doors in the place had a bobby pin or bent paper clip riding above them.
Sidney went in and sat down in front of the desk. The computer screen stared back at her, its flat face dark and silent. A part of her waited for another e-mail to burst on the screen, hoping beyond hope, but it did not happen. She looked around the small room.
Being wholly Jason's, it seemed continually to draw her. She touched certain favorite items of his as if they would, by osmosis, reveal to her the secrets her husband had left behind. The phone ringing broke her thoughts. It rang again and she quickly picked it up, not knowing what to expect. For a moment Sidney did not recognize the voice. "Paul?"
"I'm sorry for calling so late. I've been trying to reach you the last few days. I left messages?
She hesitated. "I know, Paul, I'm sorry, there's been so much--" "Jesus, Sid, I didn't say that to make you feel guilty. I was just worried about you. Finding out about Jason like that, I don't know how you're holding up. You're stronger than I am."
She smiled weakly. "I don't feel so strong right now."
Paul Brophy's voice was earnest. "You've got a lot of people at Tyler, Stone pulling for you. And one New York-based partner in particular who is available twenty-four hours a day to help."
"The support is touching, it really is."
"I'm flying down for the memorial service tomorrow."
"You don't have to do that, Paul, you must be swamped."
"Not really. I don't know if you were aware, but I made a run at taking the helm on the CyberCom deal."
"Really?" Sidney did her best to keep her voice even.
"Yeah, only I didn't get it. Wharton was rather blunt in rejecting my offer."
"I'm sorry, Paul." Sidney felt momentary guilt. "There will be other deals, though."
"I know, but I really thought I could do it. I really did." He paused. Sidney prayed that he would not ask her whether Wharton had sought her advice on the matter. When he finally did speak, she felt more guilty still. "I am coming tomorrow, Sid. I can't think of any place I'd rather be."
"Thank you." Sidney pulled her robe closer around her.
"Is it okay if I come directly to your house from the airport?"
"That's fine."
"Get some sleep, Sid. I'll see you first thing in the morning. You need anything, anytime, day or night, you just have to call, okay?"
"Thank you, Paul. Good night." Sidney put the phone down. She had always gotten along with Brophy, but she was certainly aware that under his ultrasmooth exterior lurked a pure opportunist. She had told Henry Wharton that Paul did not belong on the CyberCom deal and now he was coming down to be with her in her time of grief. Well, she may be grieving, but she didn't believe in coincidences that big. She wondered what his true motive could be.
As he hung up the phone, Paul Brophy surveyed the broad expanse of his luxurious apartment. When you were thirty-four, single and good-looking with a mid-six-figure income, New York City was a great place to be. He smiled and ran his hand through thick hair.
Six figures that would, with a little luck, turn into seven. Much in life depended on whom you allied yourself with. He picked up the phone and dialed. The phone was answered after one ring. The voice was quick and businesslike after Brophy identified himself.
"Hello, Paul, I was hoping to hear from you tonight," Philip Goldman said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Frank Hardy loaded the videotape into the VCR resting under the wide-screen TV in one corner of the conference room. It was almost two o'clock in the morning. Lee Sawyer sat in one of the plush chairs, nursing a cup of hot coffee and admiring the surroundings.
"Damn, business must be really good, Frank. I keep forgetting how far you've risen in the world."
Hardy laughed. "Well, if you'd ever take my offer to join me, Lee, I wouldn't have to keep reminding you."
"I'm just so set in my ways, Frank."
Hardy grinned. "Renee and I are thinking of going to the Caribbean over Christmas. You could join us. Maybe even bring somebody else along." Hardy looked at his former partner expectantly.
"Sorry, Frank, there really isn't anybody right now."
"It's been two years. I just thought .. � After Sally walked out, !
thought I was going to die. Didn't want to go through the dating process again. Then Renee happened along. I couldn't be happier."
"Seeing as how Renee could pass as Michelle Pfeiffer's twin, I can see how you must be a very happy man."
Hardy laughed. "You might want to reconsider. Renee has some girlfriends who adhere strictly to her level of aesthetics. And the women go nuts over you tall, strong types, I'm telling you."
Sawyer grunted. "Right. Not to detract from you, handsome old buddy, but I don't have the bucks in the bank you do. Consequently, my attraction level has dimmed a little over the years. Besides, I'm still only a government employee. Coach class and K-mart are about my limit and I don't think you travel in those circles anymore."
Hardy sat down and picked up a coffee mug with one hand and the VCR remote with the other. "I was planning on picking up the whole tab, Lee," he said quietly. "Call it an early Christmas present.
You're so damned hard to shop for."
"Thanks anyway. Actually, I'm thinking about trying to spend some time with the kids this year. If they'll have me."
Frank nodded. "I hear you."
"Now, what do you have for me?"
Hardy said, "We've been Triton Global's chief security consultant for the last several years."
Sawyer picked up his coffee cup. "Triton Global? Computer, telecommunications. They're a Fortune 500, aren't they?"
"Technically, they don't qualify for the list."
"Why's that?"
They're a nonpublic company. They dominate their field, expanding like crazy, and doing it all without capital from the public markets."
"Impressive. How does that tie in to a plane taking a nosedive into the Virginia countryside?"
"Several months ago Triton suspected that certain proprietary information was being leaked to a competitor. They called us in to verify the suspicion and, if true, to discover the leak."
"Did you?"
Hardy nodded. "We first narrowed down the list of those competitors who were most likely to participate in such a scheme. Once we had those nailed down, we undertook surveillance."
"That must've been tough. Big companies, thousands of employees, hundreds of offices."
"It was a daunting challenge, at first. However, our information led us to believe the leak was fairly senior, so we kept our eye on high-level Triton people."
Lee Sawyer settled farther back in his chair and sipped his coffee.
"So you identified some other 'unofficial' places where the exchange might take place and set up your snooping shop?"
Hardy smiled. "Sure you don't want that job?"
Sawyer shrugged off the compliment. "So what happened?"
"We identified a number of these 'unofficial' locations, property owned by our suspect companies and which seemed to have no legitimate operational purpose. At each of these sites we set up surveillance."
Hardy smiled sardonically at his former colleague. "Don't read me the riot act over trespassing and other related legal violations, Lee. Sometimes the ends do justify the means."
"Not arguing with you there. I wish we could take shortcuts sometimes. But then we'd have a hundred lawyers screaming 'unconstitutional' and there goes my pension."
"Anyway, two days ago a routine inspection was made of a surveillance camera set up inside
a warehouse building located near Seattle."
"What led you to stake out that particular warehouse?"
"Information we developed led us to believe that the building was owned, through a string of subsidiaries and partnerships, by the RTG Group. They're one of Triton's major global competitors."
"What was the nature of the information Triton believed was being leaked? Technology?"
"No. Triton was involved in negotiations for the acquisition of a very valuable software company called CyberCom. We believe that information on those negotiations was being leaked to RTG, information that RTG could use to step in and buy the company itself, since it would know Triton's terms and negotiating position. Based on the video you're about to see, we've made subtle noises to RTG.
They've denied everything, of course. They're claiming that the warehouse was leased last year to an unaffiliated company. We checked out the company. It's nonexistent. Meaning RTG is lying or we've got another player in this game."
Sawyer nodded. "Okay. Tell me about the tie-in to my case."
Hardy responded by pushing a button on the remote. The large-screen TV sprung to life. Sawyer and Hardy watched as the scene in the small room in the warehouse was replayed. When the tall young man accepted the silver case from the older gentlemen, Hardy froze the screen. He looked over at Sawyer's puzzled face. Hardy pulled a laser pointer from his shirt pocket to highlight the young man.
"This man is employed by Triton Global. We didn't have him on the surveillance list because he wasn't senior-level management and he wasn't directly involved in the acquisition negotiations."
"Despite that, he's obviously your leak. Recognize anyone else?"
Hardy shook his head. "Not yet. The man's name, by the way, is Jason W. Archer of 611 Morgan Lane in Jefferson County, Virginia.
Sound familiar?"
Sawyer concentrated hard. The name did seem to ring a bell.
Then it suddenly hit him like a half-ton truck. "Jesus Christ!" He half rose out of his chair, eyes bulging at the face on the screen as the name shot out at him from a passenger manifest that he had scrutinized a hundred times already. At the bottom of the screen, digital images paraded across. The date and time stamp read NOVEMBER 17, 1995 11:15 am PST. Sawyer's quick eyes took in the information with one glance and he calculated rapidly. Seven hours after the plane had crashed in Virginia, this guy was alive and kicking in Seattle. "Jesus H. Christ!" he exclaimed again.
Hardy nodded. "That's right. Jason Archer was listed as a passenger on Flight 3223. But he obviously wasn't on the flight."
Hardy let the tape run. When the roar of the plane erupted on its sound track, Sawyer jerked his head to the window. The damn thing sounded like it was coming right at them. When he looked back at Hardy, his friend was smiling.
"I did the same thing when I heard it for the first time."
Sawyer watched as the men on the screen looked skyward until the sound of the plane in the background drifted away. Sawyer squinted at the screen. Something caught his eye; he just couldn't put his finger on it.
Hardy was watching him closely. "See something?"
Sawyer finally shook his head. "Okay, what was Archer doing in Seattle on the morning of the Virginia crash if he was supposed to be on a plane to L.A.? Company business?"
"Triton didn't even know Archer was gong to L.A., much less Seattle. They thought he was taking some time off to spend at home with his family."
Sawyer narrowed his eyes, searching his memory. "Help me out here, Frank."
Hardy's answer was prompt. "Archer has a wife and young daughter.
His wife, Sidney, is an attorney at Tyler, Stone, Triton's lead outside counsel. The wife works on a number of Triton's business matters, including heading up Triton's pursuit of CyberCom."
"That's real interesting, and maybe convenient for her and her husband."
"Gotta admit, that's the first thought that struck me, Lee."
"If Archer was in Seattle by, say, ten or ten-thirty in the morning, Pacific time, he must've grabbed an early morning flight from D.C."
"Western Airlines had one leaving about the same time as the L.A. departure."
Sawyer stood up and walked over to the TV screen. He rewound the tape and then froze it. He scrutinized every detail of Jason Archer's face, burning it into his memory. He turned to Hardy. "We know Archer was on Flight 322Ys passenger manifest, but you say his employer didn't know about the trip. How'd they find out he was on the plane? Supposedly was," Sawyer corrected himself.
Hardy poured out some more coffee and stood up, moved over to the window. Both men seemed innately to crave movement while thinking. "Airline tracks down the wife while she's on a business trip to New York and tells her the bad news. At that meeting are a bunch of people from Triton, including the chairman. They find out then. Pretty soon everyone knew. This videotape has only been shown to two other people: Nathan Gamble, the chairman of the board of Triton, and Quentin Rowe, the second-in-command over there."
Sawyer rubbed a kink out of his neck, picked up the fresh cup of coffee and took a gulp. "Western confirmed that he checked in at the ticket counter and that his boarding pass was collected. They wouldn't have informed his family otherwise."
"You know as well as I do that it could've been anyone checking in there using a dummy I.D. The tickets were probably paid for ahead of time. He checks a bag, goes through security. Even with the FAA's recent heightened security requirements, they don't require photo identification to board a plane, only at check-in or with the skycaps."
"But somebody got on the plane in Archer's place. The airline has his boarding pass, and once on, you do not get off an aircraft."
"Whoever it was, was one very stupid or one very unlucky sonofabitch.
Probably both."
"Right, but if Archer was on that Seattle flight, that means he had another ticket."
"He could've checked in twice, once for each flight. He could have used an alias and dummy I.D. for the Seattle flight."
"That's true." Sawyer pondered the possibilities. "Or he could're simply switched tickets with the guy who took his place."
"Whatever the truth is, you've certainly got your work cut out for you."
Sawyer fingered his coffee mug. "Anyone talk ro the wife?"
In response, Hardy opened the file he had carried in with him.
"Nathan Gamble did, briefly, on two occasions. Quentin Rowe also talked to her."
"And what's her story?"
"Initially she said she didn't know her husband was on the plane."
"Initially? So her story changed."
Hardy nodded. "Next she told Nathan Gamble that her husband had lied to her. Said he told her he was going to L.A. to meet with another company about a job. Turns out he wasn't meeting with any other company."
"Who says?"
"Sidney Archer. I guess she must have called the company, probably to tell them her husband wasn't going to be making it."
"But you verified it?" asked Sawyer. Hardy nodded. "So, any progress with your investigation?"
Hardy's face took on almost a pained expression. "Not much makes sense right now. Nathan Gamble is far from a happy man. He pays the bills and wants results. But it takes time, you know that.
Still..." Hardy paused and studied the thick carpet. It was easy to see the man did not enjoy being puzzled about anything. "Anyway, according to Gamble and Rowe, at least, Mrs. Archer thinks her husband's dead."
"If she's telling the truth, and right now everything with me is a big if." Sawyer's tone was heated.
Hardy looked at him quizzically.
Sawyer caught the look and his shoulders slumped. "Just between you and me, Frank, I'm feeling a little stupid on this one."
"Why's that?"
"I had it pegged for sure that Arthur Lieberman was the target.
Structured the whole investigation around that theory, mainly just going through the motions on any other angle."
"It's early on in t
he investigation, Lee. No harm done yet.
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