“So what did happen to you? Where did...” Her gaze wandered away.
He recognized the sudden change in her voice. He’d heard it before in women and even in some men. It had a strange fascination that both attracted and repelled and somehow they were all embarrassed by it. “You mean the scar?”
She nodded and turned back toward him. Mentioning the scar removed her timidity and she took a good long look.
The scar started above his left eye, parted his eyebrow, skipped across his eye, and ran to a point inside his mustache. Even after all the years, he’d had it, it still had a tendency to color when his emotions raged. Nothing outlandish, but it would redden as though it was still fresh whenever he grew angry or, for that matter, aroused.
“Haiti.”
“Haiti? How? What were you doing in Haiti? I mean, well, if you don’t mind telling me.”
“Actually, I do. I don’t like to go into my past too much.”
She colored slightly and turned to stare at the window that faced the street. When she looked back, she said, “Excuse me. I ... damn it, John. I want to find out what’s happened to you. We were close once. I know it was for a very short time, but no matter what else, I haven’t forgotten that I owe you my life. I know it’s an impossible debt to repay, but it’s made me care about you. You disappearing for the last twelve years just made me more concerned.”
He looked at her softly. Her face as beautiful to him as the day they’d parted, her body just as luscious, her blue eyes just as deep. “Can’t you just accept that I’ve changed and leave it at that?”
“No, I don’t think I can,” she said with a distinct note of sincerity.
“Then I’m sorry, you’ll have to get used to disappointment.”
For a moment, he thought she would push the issue, but then she abruptly switched subjects. “What are you planning today?”
“I’m heading to the Pacific Rim first to take a look at your room and talk to hotel security. Perhaps I can learn something. Then I’ll check in with the police and make a few calls. You know, the usual stuff you see in the movies. If I don’t develop any leads, I’ll get you a flight back to Albuquerque and escort you home.”
She frowned. “I already told you it wouldn’t do any good for me to go home. You can’t guarantee me they won’t follow me there and if the government is after me, then they’ll be waiting for me.”
“That’s true.”
He didn’t particularly want to argue with her, her chances of winning were too good.
For a moment, neither of them spoke, he out of stubbornness, she ... who knew what went through a woman’s head, certainly not him.
She said, “You were saying what you intended to do today.”
“Yeah, anyway, after I’ve checked out the hotel and the police, I’ll backtrack to the business you’ve conducted since you arrived. I’ll need a list of places you’ve been and people you’ve seen.”
“Do you have to bother my clients?”
“If you want me to be thorough.”
She nodded. “If you must, but remember, I have to work with these people again.”
“Certainly.”
What did she take him for, some hard-nosed bruiser who wasn’t above intimidation to get information out of a suspect? She’d be right, but she wasn’t supposed to know the current John Blalock. She should only remember the nice graduate student she’d met all those years ago.
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”
“Sit back, relax.” He waved a hand toward the window facing the bay. “Enjoy the view.”
“Humph, I have work to do.”
“Don’t take an attitude; it’s for your own good. Can’t you use your computer here?”
“For some things, but the rest will require a Web link.”
“Don’t use your phone ... look, I’ll pick up a sat modem while I’m out. You can use it to link up.”
“Wouldn’t that leave a trace to you?”
“I’ve done this before; no one will trace your link back to me.”
“All right. If you’re sure?”
“As sure as I am of anything,” he replied, and then he stood and walked to the front door. “I’ll get your things from the hotel, and I’ll call back later to check on you.”
He opened the door and stepped outside. The parking lot was clear of people except for a couple down the way loading their car.
“John.”
He looked over his shoulder. Caitlin stood silhouetted against the ocean. She was everything he remembered and more.
“Be careful,” she said.
“That’s me, Mr. Careful.” He closed the door, blocking her from his sight.
CHAPTER 11
On the drive back toward San Francisco, John filed a verbal contract notice with the California Bodyguard License Board. It was a legal requirement, and the board’s records were open to the public. Anyone looking for Caitlin was sure to monitor the Web for any mention of her name, and the contract should draw them out of the woodwork.
The Pacific Rim Suites was one of those new places built with a mind toward the rapidly developing countries of the same name. Its forty stories were packed with the most modern of conveniences and the most obscene of the new electronic gadgets that so fascinated those nations caught up in the rapid rush into this new millennium. The hotel had risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of the old Presidio army post. Its location high on the hill of what had once been officer housing gave it a sweeping 360-degree view of the Bay Area. Caitlin’s registering here told him a couple of things about her company. They had money, and they were heavy into this new technology.
His instincts told him that the people after Caitlin were actually after some new development of her company. He knew something about industrial espionage. In the Bay Area, it had become a thriving business over the last decade. If he could learn what Caitlin’s company was working on he could probably find out who sought it. Everyone had their own specialty, except perhaps him. He preferred to diversify his talents wherever possible.
At the entrance to the hotel’s underground parking, he stopped beside a simple booth to show Caitlin’s room key to a security guard, a man younger and more fit than any parking lot attendant had a right to be. The guard took the key and slipped it into a reader.
A moment later, he frowned and turned to John.
“Ms. Maxwell?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. Why? Do you have a problem with my wardrobe?”
For a moment, he took the hook, and then his frown deepened. “Excuse me, sir, but you hardly look like the type.”
“What type is that?”
The guard started to open his mouth, hesitated and said, “I’ll have to see some ID before I can let you in.”
“Sure,” John answered and fished out his card.
Whenever he could, he avoided showing it. The fewer people that could place his face with a name the better. Most service-oriented people in the Bay Area were reluctant to criticize another’s quirks, whether it was cross-dressing or choice of lifestyle. His pretending to be Ms. Maxwell would have usually gotten him passage without having to prove it. He had suspected the hotel’s security was better than average and the guard’s actions had confirmed it. The guard eyeballed the holograph image on John’s card.
“Personal security, eh? What can we do for you, Mr. Brown?”
Of course, he wasn’t going to give this clown his real card. “I’m here representing Ms. Maxwell. I need to talk to your supervisor.”
The guard nodded suddenly as if remembering something. “That’s right. I thought the name sounded familiar. She’s the resident who filed an assault charge yesterday. They briefed us when I came on duty. All right. Park over there and I’ll direct you to the day watch commander.”
The guard pointed toward a couple of empty spaces labeled RESERVED and held out John’s card. John took it and nodded.
Their security was tight. He didn’t see him call anyone,
but by the time John got out of his car, another guard was marching toward him. “Mr. Brown, I’ll escort you to the watch commander.”
He was identical to the guard in the booth. John wondered if someone was cloning them or whether there was a manufacturing center making robots that appeared to be in their mid-twenties with perfect skin and perfect posture.
“Sure, lead on,” John said.
Without looking back to see if John was following, the guard turned and marched toward a bank of elevators on the opposite wall. John trailed along, making a mental note of the visible security systems as he went.
Ultra-sonic and passive-infrared detectors covered the underground parking lot, and each detector had a mini-camera. There were three elevators, two labeled guests, and one labeled employees only. The guard pressed his hand against a palm plate and looked straight ahead into another minicam. John assumed they were using facial recognition software to compare the guard’s face and palm print. A few moments later, the elevator opened. They stepped inside an austere platform and the doors closed. The guard pressed a button, and they descended. John guessed they’d dropped a couple of floors judging by the acceleration and duration.
The doors opened, and his escort stepped out into a tiled corridor. A minicam faced the open door.
He followed the guard to the left until they reached a door labeled security. As before, the door opened as they approached.
The guard led him past the interior door into an office only marginally less Spartan than the outer hallway. A receptionist, with a shoulder holster hanging from his left armpit, sat behind a black and tan desk. He looked up from a monitor when they entered. John couldn’t see the screen from his side of the desk, but he guessed it was slaved to one or all of the cameras they’d passed on the way in.
Three other doors led off this small room, one on each wall. Of the other three, only the door on his right lay open. It revealed an inner office.
“Identification,” the receptionist said and held out his left hand. John’s escort stepped back against the door they’d entered and assumed a watch position as John fished out his Mr. Brown card again. He placed the card in the outstretched hand and casually moved toward the receptionist’s right.
The right side would give him a slight advantage if the receptionist reached for his gun since the man by the door no longer stood behind him. But John didn’t anticipate a fight. He was nervous at being in a situation where he wasn’t in control. He felt he could take these two and probably whoever occupied the office behind the open door, but the other two doors held unknowns, and getting back out of this sub-basement would be harder than getting in.
No, the best he could hope for in a fight would be to take some of them with him.
He shook it from his mind. He was becoming more paranoid with each case he took. A few more and he’d have to take a sabbatical, or else start seeing a witch doctor with a couch.
The receptionist ran his ID/business card through a reader and studied the screen. John knew what would show up. He regularly scanned his business cards through a similar reader to verify their authenticity.
While his new position still didn’t give him a view of the monitor, it did let him see the LED that lit up next to it.
The receptionist passed the card back to John and motioned toward the open door. “Captain Ferguson will see you.”
He took the card, slipped it casually into a jacket pocket, and murmured thanks, then crossed the room and went into the inner office.
A muscular woman sat behind an L-shaped desk centered on the far side of the office. Brightly tinted fish swam in a saltwater aquarium behind the desk. A monitor wall was to his right, each unit broadcasting different views of the hotel.
When he entered, she looked up from a small monitor set in the top of her desk. She stood and held out a hand. “Good morning, Mr. Brown, I’m Patricia Ferguson. How can I help the Blalock Agency?”
John took three steps, smiled and shook her strong, dry hand. “We represent Ms. Caitlin Maxwell, a registered guest of your hotel. As I’m sure the outside guard told you, I’m investigating the assaults on her.”
Her face darkened. “Alleged assault. We have no evidence that an assault actually took place.”
“Come now Captain Ferguson, you can’t expect me to believe our client made up this story.”
“I don’t mean to imply she’s lying. Look, Mr. Brown, it’s not that I don’t sympathize with her problem, but we have the most sophisticated hotel security system in the state of California. If this assault took place, we would have some evidence. Unfortunately, we have none.”
“That’s sounds a lot like you’re saying our client is lying,” John said.
“Now, Mr. Brown. We aren’t interested in pointing fingers or getting into name-calling. We are both professionals, and as such I’m sure you can see our side of this.”
John stroked his mustache to give an air of consideration and slowly turned toward the monitor wall. Two of the monitors showed the hotel’s lobby, one showed the central security room and the rest oscillated between the seemingly hundreds of cameras placed about the hotel.
While he watched the monitor in the upper left corner switched to the interior view of a hotel room. A small number in one corner showed Caitlin’s room number, the other corner displayed a date-time group that would match the time Caitlin told him she ran into her attacker the first time.
The room was empty and neat.
He turned to Captain Ferguson.
“If you will keep watching,” she said and touched a spot on her desk.
John faced the screen. The time readout sped up until minutes swept past in seconds.
On the replay, the door opened, and two security guards with drawn guns entered the room.
“As you can see, the room was empty for a full half hour before Ms. Maxwell reported an assault. There’s no way anyone could have been in her room during the time she claims to have been attacked.”
That was more than passing strange, but it explained why hotel security and the police would have discounted her claim.
John thought for a moment, and then asked, “Where was she when she hit the alarm?”
Captain Ferguson touched another point on her desk, and a third monitor lit up. This one showed Caitlin running down the stairs. The readout said the 31st floor, northwest corner. She stopped, sat on a step, and fumbled with a pen-like object.
“That the panic switch she told me about?”
“Yes, it’s standard on our keys.”
“And why is the camera already following her before she presses the alarm.”
“The cameras are always recording, but when she hit the panic button, it flashed the alarm to central security and showed them where the alarm was located. I’ve just replayed the entire time she occupied the stairwell.”
“I see.”
“This panic button, what’s it like?”
“I understand you have Ms. Maxwell’s key.” She held out her hand.
“Yes.” John pulled it from an inner pocket and passed it to her. She flipped it right side up and pointed toward the end.
“This is it,” she said and handed it back.
He took it and made a quick appraisal. He hadn’t paid any attention to it when Caitlin gave it to him. It still appeared to be little more than a light blue, plastic ink pen, with a pocket clip. Pacific Rim Suites was etched in gold on the barrel. It had a red top, but the key’s opposite end drew his attention. Microchannels were etched into the sides. He’d seen them before, but not on this type of device. They were connectors for a data link. The guts of this little pen hid a microchip.
“How does it work?”
“As you know, it’s the guest’s key. Each is encoded with the guest room number and other pertinent information. At any hotel terminal they use it to call up information on their account or access our many services.”
It sounded like a canned statement.
“And the panic button?
”
“If the clip and button are both held down it broadcasts a signal to our computer alerting us that the guest is in trouble. The computer automatically pinpoints the guest’s location and we can have security or if necessary, medical staff on the site within seconds.”
“Impressive.”
The technology wasn’t what impressed him, although she probably assumed it had and he didn’t feel the need to correct her. No, what impressed him was that someone felt like they needed that much protection.
“So that’s how you were able to reach her so soon.”
“Exactly.”
John toyed with the device and then innocently asked, “Does it also write?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
John put the marvelous toy in his pocket and turned back to the monitor wall. In one screen, he could see the two guards searching Caitlin’s room, in another, guards were just reaching her in the stairwell.
“Do the guests know there are cameras in their rooms?”
“It’s not something we put in our brochures, but I can assure you that the room cameras are not monitored unless something causes the computer to alert security.”
Why did the idea of blackmail enter his head? “And the recordings?”
“The video from private rooms are in a sealed area that can only be accessed by both the day manager and the watch commander. There is no way they can be used for anything other than legal purposes. We’re a bonded security firm.”
John didn’t argue the point, but it was a cinch he’d never stay in one of the Rim’s suites.
“I guess there’s no way for anyone to tamper with the recordings.”
Captain Ferguson blinked once and said, “No, there are two guards in security central at all times and cameras recording everything that occurs there. If anyone modified the equipment, it would have to show up on the recordings.”
John didn’t reveal his thoughts, “Unless that recording was also modified.” What was the point? Being able to prove the tapes were modified would be next to impossible.
Instead, he said, “Can you give me a copy of Ms. Maxwell’s complaint?”
The Phoenix Egg Page 10