by Dom Testa
So if we assumed that was a load of shit, why was she hanging out in the desert?
To work with Parks on details of their plan? Did that mean Scottsdale? Or Phoenix? Or some other city in Arizona?
The questions kept rolling through my head. What if the first place they’d struck was the ultimate target? What if those killings at Marquart Labs were just a preview of things to come in Santa Fe?
Of course, it could be neither Arizona nor New Mexico. Parks could be a big fat lying piece of shit.
I didn’t think so. And that meant I’d placed an awful lot on hunches lately. Not generally a good practice when lives were on the line.
Christina would be at the restaurant in Washington for another hour, so I couldn’t talk to her at the moment. And I needed a drink. Putting my shoes back on, I left the room and took the stairs down to the lobby bar.
The FBI agent, Kowalczyk, was perched on a stool.
“What’s that?” I asked, sitting down and pointing at her cocktail.
“Old-fashioned.”
The bartender ambled over and I indicated her drink. “The same, but with rye, please.”
To Kowalczyk I said, “I hope your first name is easier to say.”
She smiled. “Katarina.”
“Oh, shit. Worlds collide.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Mother from Sweden, father from Latvia. So Kat works. Or my high school friends thought Trina was cute.”
“Kat it is. How’s the big Texan?”
“Brockington? They took him to Brooke, a hospital at Fort Sam Houston. Might have a skull fracture, definitely a bad concussion. But he’ll pull through.”
My drink arrived and we clinked glasses.
“By the way,” she said. “That corpse you dumped into the water drifted downstream and scared the shit out of a bunch of people enjoying nachos.”
I almost spit out my drink. “I didn’t think the current would work that fast. Look at it this way. They’ll have a great story to tell for the rest of their lives.”
“The restaurant comped their nachos, at least. Couldn’t you have left him on the pavement for us to collect?”
“Nope.” I took another sip. “What else have you heard? Anything on Parks and Pradesh?”
“Yeah, we got a possible break,” she said. “A couple of our agents canvassed tech offices here in the downtown area and showed them pictures of Parks. A woman who runs one of those coffee carts in the lobby of a building said she definitely saw him. Said he bought tea and a scone.”
“Definitely? Why definitely?”
“Said he reminded her of her creepy uncle.”
“We’ve all got one,” I said. “Anybody else in the building confirm?”
“Not officially. But the agents said one of the companies on the 8th floor was very strange about it when shown his picture. They said they’d never seen or heard of him, but it came across as a lie. Like they were trying to protect someone.”
I nodded. “Very good. Thank you. Text me the info and I’ll call on them tomorrow.”
“Want me to join you?”
“Thanks, but no. One federal agent is intimidating enough for people.”
I realized I’d sucked down my drink already. I considered ordering a second, then decided on iced tea instead. I can be such a lightweight sometimes.
We chatted for another twenty minutes, mostly comparing work notes, at least as much as I could share. Only one person at the FBI, an agent I’d worked with in the Caribbean, knew what Q2 was really about. And it sucked having to be vague with fellow agents who risked their necks, too. I always felt like an ass, happy to soak up their stories and hear them bitch about internal politics while I couldn’t offer much in return. I found myself sometimes making shit up, just to placate their curiosity.
Kat Kowalczyk wasn’t nosey, which made this particular banter much easier. As I was getting ready to leave she nodded to the other side of the bar.
“You have an admirer,” she said.
I followed her gaze toward a pure Texas beauty, complete with large hair and a dazzling smile, which she aimed directly at me.
“With my scars she must think I’m a rodeo star,” I said, standing.
“Not gonna saddle up?” Kat asked, amused.
“Nah. I’m just gonna mosey on back to my room.”
For some reason this made her laugh. We said good night.
Getting off the elevator, I tried Christina and got her after four rings.
“You sound tired,” she said. “Long day at the office?”
“Oh, same ol’,” I said. “What was the special tonight?”
“Braised ribs and orzo. Sold out. What was the most exciting part of your day?”
“Um . . . probably when a guy threatened to cut off my ear.”
“The one that’s jacked up? Because he’d be doing all of us a favor.”
“Funny. No, the other one.”
“I assume you didn’t let him do that.”
“No. I talked him out of it.”
“San Antonio, right? When are you coming home?”
I sighed, a completely genuine sigh. “Oh, babe. Wish I could right now. I’ve got some business tomorrow, then I think I’m headed back to Arizona.”
“I’m jealous. We got an ice storm today.”
That’s the way our conversations usually went. Pretty rapid-fire, jumping from subject to subject.
Sometimes I wondered what a marriage counselor would say about our relationship. Hardly seeing each other, then brief snippets of phone conversation or a video call, and the kind of snappy talk you’d find in an old Cary Grant movie.
But the truth was, neither Christina nor I gave a rat’s ass what a counselor might say about it, which we both knew would be negative. It worked for us. It hurt, and yet worked, if that made sense.
All of this was exacerbated by the wicked cocktail of emotions tumbling around my head. I’d taken a gamble by letting two murderers and an accomplice walk, I’d lost the confidence of my boss, I’d fought with — and killed — a brute who could’ve starred in the WWE, and now I was lonely. I sat in a hotel room in Texas and wished I was in an ice storm back in D.C.
There were times I wondered about the mind that kept getting uploaded and downloaded. I could never be sure if it was the exact same mind I’d started with at Q2. It was, after all, a product of evolution and wasn’t built to be transferred back and forth in a stream of ones and zeroes. Could it become degraded through all the exchanges? We hadn’t had the technology long enough to find out.
Or maybe we had, and the powers at the top, including Dr. Nayar — my Dr. Frankenstein — knew I was getting damaged, but did a cost-benefit analysis and determined the gradual erosion of my essence was a small price to pay for saving America’s collective ass.
It was late, I was tired, and these thoughts weren’t productive. Finding the technology geeks that Parks met with would be productive.
I said a few sappy things to Christina and told her good night.
Five minutes later I got a text from Jonas Aiken.
Chapter Eighteen
The message was short, vague, and thoroughly frustrating.
Leaving town tomorrow. It’s not what you think.
I almost threw my phone across the room. Leaving town for where, asshole? And what’s not what I think? The poison plan? His relationship with Jayanti? His return to the dark side?
Goddamned rookies.
Then other thoughts rushed in. Like the possibility that Aiken was screwing with me; or worse, that Parks and Pradesh had his phone and were about to send me on the mother of all wild goose chases.
I couldn’t text him back. Not yet, anyway. I still had to wait and hope. Not generally my tactic of choice.
But there was nothing else to be done except try to catch some sleep and see what developed in the morning. I turned on the ringer and set my phone next to the bed in case Aiken made a stealth call in the middle of the night.
He didn�
��t.
In the morning the sun snuck through a tiny opening in the curtains and that sliver of light happened to line up perfectly on my face, rousing me at around 7:30. I’d managed a full night of rest, which was overdue.
After ordering room service and taking care of morning rituals, I opened the curtains and took in the wintery view. Standing there with a towel around my waist and my hair still wet from the shower, I visualized the work that lay before me. The most important task was a visit to the tech company that had acted screwy when asked to identify Steffan Parks. It was suspicious, but I’d be able to confirm or rule out their association with him in just a few minutes.
A knock on the door signaled the arrival of eggs, bacon, and coffee. While I fueled up I called Poole and put it on speaker.
“There’s something odd about the murders in Santa Fe,” she said.
“Tell me.”
“We’ve been able to track down both Parks and Pradesh on the two days those happened.”
“Okay. And?”
“And they weren’t in New Mexico.”
I was in the process of lifting a strip of extra-crispy bacon off the plate. I stopped and held it in the air. “How reliable is the information?”
“Pretty solid,” she said. “Data shows that Parks was in the Washington area and Pradesh was already in Arizona, although not checked in at the Scottsdale resort. Of course, it’s possible we’ve got it wrong, and either one or both of them could’ve been there to pull it off. Or—”
“Or there’s another person involved,” I said. Finally taking a bite of the bacon, I thought about this possible development. Poole waited patiently while I took a drink of coffee and wiped my hands.
“Okay,” I said. “Aiken told me this association of disgruntled scientists had several members. But he was confident that few, if any, would go to the extremes that Parks advocated. In fact he led me to believe nobody would help him.”
“All it takes is one,” Poole said.
She was right. So now, on top of everything else, we had to factor in the possibility that Parks had indeed recruited another mad scientist to his cause. If that was the case, this person was just as dangerous and deadly as any of them. They had confirmed kills on their resume.
This case was aggravating. At the moment it seemed like the only thing that had gone right was this morning’s bacon.
I said to Poole, “I know he said he’d contact me if he found anything new, but would you please check in with that sheriff in Santa Fe. What was his name?”
“Tonkin.”
“Yeah, him. He wasn’t crazy about working with damned Feds, so he might’ve conveniently forgotten to call.”
“Will do.”
We hung up and I finished breakfast. Pouring my third coffee — hotel cups are small enough for children’s tea parties — I got dressed and packed my things. If all went well I’d go straight from my tech meeting to the airport.
The company on the 8th floor was called AppaDabba, which must’ve sounded breezy and playful to the founders. The logo was a finger on a phone screen with glitzy graphics to make it seem futuristic. Seemed corny to me.
But their offices were furnished in a way that conveyed success and money, so what did I know? Maybe AppaDabba was the coolest name ever.
At the desk I displayed my fake government badge and asked for the most important person in the place. The bored receptionist made a call and a minute later I was shaking hands with a guy named Guy. He looked about 30, as casually dressed as you’d expect for a young tech guru, with a shaved head but full beard. Some people can pull that off. Guy couldn’t.
He took me back to his corner office and indicated the chair across from his desk. We settled in and he gave me his best concerned look.
“I met yesterday with some of your people,” he said. “Or were they not with you?”
“We work in tandem,” I said. “But we’re after the same thing.” I turned my phone around and showed him the photo. “This is what we’re after. Steffan Parks, one of your clients. I want to know what you built for him.”
Guy frowned and did a slight shake of his head. “I think you have the wrong company. I’m not familiar with a Steven Parks.”
I chuckled at the intentional mistake. “My friend, there are three things I’m going to share with you, and I want you to really listen closely.
“One, Steffan has already told us he did an app project with you, so you’re lying. Two, lying to a government official, especially my department, will get your ass shut down before lunch and your doors will be locked. You can bet on that.”
I put my phone back in my pocket. “And three, multiple departments in Washington will make sure you personally never get over this. You might be working in a call center by this summer.”
He did what I expected, which was to put on his best outraged look. But before he could stammer a sentence I kept going.
“And here’s the real heavy stuff, Guy. Steffan Parks has obviously bullshitted you on what his toy will do. So let me set you straight. What you’ve created for him will lead to the deaths of not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of people. And guess what the government’s next move against you will be? A murder charge. Not accessory to murder, but the big M itself, because you built it. So now you can even forget the call center, my little Texas buckaroo. Your skinny ass will be in a prison yard getting sized up for a little nighttime company, if you know what I mean.”
I leaned forward. “So now, let me ask you again, asshole, and don’t piss me off. What did your company build for Steffan Parks, and what will it do for him?”
His face had gone pale. I learned a long time ago to press these advantages before the subject could fully recover.
“Let’s start with some simple questions first,” I said. “Why the deception? Why tell us you weren’t working for Parks?”
He leaned across his desk, his palms spread apart. “Listen, I am fully cooperating with you, okay? There was nothing to suggest any crime would be committed, let alone murder. So I had nothing to do with those plans. I’m—”
“Guy,” I said, holding up a hand in the stop position. “I don’t want to send you to prison, okay? That’s not what I’m after. If Parks conned you, like he’s conned a lot of other people, then you might come across as a victim instead of an accomplice. So answer my question: What did he do to make you lie about this?”
“Um, he, uh, he said this was proprietary information that could someday be used in a lot of other applications. So he demanded a complete NDA, and to never let anyone know we were working with him.”
“Okay, a non-disclosure agreement I get. But didn’t you get even a little suspicious that you couldn’t utter his name?”
Guy took a breath. “I mean, you’ve heard of Steffan Parks before, right? The dude’s an award-winning scientist. So of course I believed that people would want to pirate something he’d commissioned. He’s not the first person to ask us for complete confidentiality. It’s one of the reasons we’re successful.”
I nodded. “All right, fair enough. Now that we’ve wasted valuable time getting all that out of the way, why don’t you tell me exactly what he hired you to do.”
“It’s a triggering device, but in the form of an app.”
“Triggering device,” I said. “So, almost like a remote detonator?”
He frowned. “No. It’s similar to what you might use on a phone to connect with your home security system while you’re out of town. Or some smart thermostats in houses can be controlled with a phone app. You turn down the air conditioning or turn up the heat when you leave the office and the house will be at the right temperature when you get home.”
“How was his different from those applications?”
He thought about this for a moment, then turned around and got something off the credenza behind his desk. Facing me again he set a mechanical device between us.
“This,” he said, “is a valve used by a natural gas company in Louisi
ana. They use it when they’re processing the raw natural gas taken from the ground. Something to do with separating impurities.” He shrugged. “Anyway, the important thing is they have to be able to open and close these valves quickly. Yes, there’s someone on site and they use actual levers and buttons and whatnot.
“But their chief engineer talked with us about creating an app that worked on both ends. So we built the app that goes onto a phone or tablet, and also created the receiving end that’s built into these valves.”
It was my turn to frown. “I don’t understand what makes this so difficult. You mentioned all the home security systems and thermostats. I know people who use apps to open and close their garage. What makes this special?”
This produced a smile in young Guy, and I realized I’d tapped into his passion. Now that he was no longer fearful of becoming a cell-block date for someone, he was only too happy to explain.
“Those are mass produced. The software controls tens of thousands of them, and the only thing separating one from the other is the personal ID and the password. These,” he said, pointing to the valve, “are custom built. We engineer both sides for specific tasks.”
I sat back and digested what he was saying. “All right. So Parks wanted a custom app that worked on both ends of the signal. What do they do?”
“They release salt water into a container of fresh water.”
“That’s it?”
“Basically. Steffan Parks has done a lot of work with desalination systems, and a lot of that research involves controlling the ratio of fresh to salt water. So he wanted a device that would work for a large water treatment system. He would mix salt water with the fresh, and then use his methods to purify the whole thing. But he needed to remotely control the saturation level of salt.”
I rubbed my hand against my chin and jaw, looking down at the fancy tiled floor between my feet. Salt water to fresh water. Controlling the amount of salt that entered the treatment tanks. And . . .
Of course. This made complete sense. All those years of publishing papers on desalination work, all those projects the government paid for; it all created a perfect backdrop for what Parks was planning now. Certainly no one would question his order for a control valve into a water treatment plant. And his demand that it stay hush-hush wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, either. Big science was big money, and intellectual property thieves abounded.