Garrett nodded to her as they came within spitting distance.
"Burton?"
His head jerked up.
"Kirsten.-what are you doing" -His look was at first confused, and then when he realized Garrett was standing behind her, angry, finally turning gray with dread.
He made a move to get out of the booth. Garrett blocked his escape.
"W-who are you?" Rawlings sputtered.
"Possibly the only thing standing between you and extinction."
"Oh, geez, oh geez, Kirsten," he cried, his voice high-pitched, frantic. Clutching his head, he began pulling on his hair, moaning, "What have you done? If Loehman finds out you've gone to the cops" "Burton, he's not a cop." She swallowed hard. Tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision.
"He's... Burton, listen to me, he's got Christo.
They've taken Christo. "
He cringed as if he'd been struck.
"What does that mean, they've taken Christo?"
Garrett waved Kirsten into the booth opposite Rawlings and slid in beside her, leaving his back exposed. If Vorees hadn't been standing guard out e side, he'd have been hard-pressed not to make Raw- lings switch sides of the booth.
"It means, pal, that I've got the lady's kid. I want what you've got on your good friend and mine, Chet Loehman. What it really means is, when I get what I want, Kirsten here gets her kid back. And the way I hear it, you happen to be in possession of what I want."
Rawlings began to shake. He fumbled for a cigarette from a pack inside the breast pocket of his shirt, lit it and dragged deeply, repeatedly.
He looked as if he'd aged fifteen years in the four days since he'd come to her house.
Whatever he'd been through had taken a terrible toll. She thought if he didn't get hold of himself, he was going to have a stroke and die.
"Burton, you've got to calm down. You're going to kill yourself."
Already a dead man in his own mind, his look told her he thought calming down more than missed the point.
"If you don't want to end up the same way, Kirsten," he uttered in defiance of Garrett, "then get the hell out. Get out now. The faster the better."
"That's not an option, Rawlings," Garrett warned softly.
"Your friend, here, has her son to think of. Get a grip. Do it now."
So overwrought he could no longer think straight, he lashed out.
"Or what? You'll take about ten seconds and then cram your fist down my throat?"
"Settle down, Rawlings," Garrett snapped.
"If you'll get your head on straight, you might begin to realize we're on the same side here. I have zero interest in you. None.
"The only thing I give a tinker's damn about is getting Loehman out of my way. He's over the edge. He has no control, and if he goes on the way he has been all summer, the organization will break up and all that'll be left is a couple thousand useless, ineffectual, and frankly dangerous hotheads."
"Like you?" Rawlings spat.
"Kidnapping innocent babies" -- "Burton, for God's sake, Christo" "Save it," Garrett cut Kirsten off, staring Raw- lings down.
"You've got no choice, and if you did, I can assure you, you'd take me over Loehman any day. For starters, my way, you hand over what I want, Loehman goes down, and you've bought yourself the chance to go on breathing."
Still shaking, Rawlings lit another cigarette from the first, then crushed out the butt and looked to Kirsten.
"Have the bastards let you talk to Christo?"
She nodded.
"I... yes."
"You believe him?" he asked, some part of him clearly desperate to believe he wasn't already a dead man, that there was still some chance, even if it meant aiding and abetting Loehman's competition.
"You believe they're going to give him back?"
Despising her own deception, she had to remind herself that it was Burton Rawlings who had dragged her back into Loehman's deadly circle of influence in the first place.
"That's all that's left to either of us now, Burton. I have to believe it."
"Never pictured you consorting with the enemy."
"That's not how I look at it. I'm dealing for my son's life. Unless I'm mistaken, you're fighting for yours."
He dragged on his cigarette once more, then began slowly shaking his head.
"I don't know. I" -But Garrett had had it. Patience was its own virtue, more often paying a dividend than exacting a price, but his had expired. It had cost them days, hundreds of hours to run Rawlings to ground, and every hour that passed was one more tilting the balance in favor of Loehman figuring out that Christo was not kidnapped but hidden.
He reached across the table in a blur and grabbed Rawlings by the woolen scarf around his neck and twisted hard. Kirsten cried out but he ignored her.
"Listen to me, you sniveling little coward, and listen well. I've run out of patience, you're out of time. You either deal with me now, or your friend here will never see the kid again. Clear enough?" Letting go of the scarf, he slammed Burton against the back of the booth.
"Now what's it going to be?"
"Burton, please!" Kirsten pleaded.
"What is it that Loehman wants enough to stalk you like this? What's in the safe-deposit box at InterBank?"
He stared, his mouth gaping.
"How do you know about that?"
"We know," Garrett snapped.
"What is it?"
Rawlings head shook so desperately he looked palsied. He took another cigarette out but didn't even try lighting it.
Chapter Eleven
"I... it's tapes, Kirsten."
"Tapes of what?"
"Evidence. Every last thing you had on him five years ago."
She felt the blood drain from her body.
"Burton, what are you talking about? Are you saying there was tape backup of my personal files that I didn't know about? That no one knew about?"
"A variation on the theme, but yes."
"How is that possible, Burton? No one had access to those computer files but me. Hardly anyone even knew they existed. It was the first time that photographic evidence had ever even been compiled like that.
It wasn't being done on the mainframe. My own computer wasn't even tied into the mainframe. No one could have"-- " Lane could, Kirsten. " He lit his cigarette then.
"And he did. From there, he made his own copies."
"Wait a minute. I don't get it." Garrett frowned.
"You're talking about the same evidence that was destroyed by Montgomery five years ago?"
"Yes."
"And you have it?"
"Not exactly. It's a tape backup of Kirsten's personal files, but the photographic evidence on it is... inaccessible."
"Burton," Kirsten cried softly, frustrated, "what does that mean?"
"Computer security was our business edge, Kirsten."
"I know that, but" -- "I'm not sure you do." Resigned now, he began talking with more ease.
"We provided the building security, but the reason Lane's company won the contracts for the Federal Building in the first place is that we were developing a system that had the ability to make computer data virtually invulnerable."
"Document security, then?" Garrett asked.
"Yes. We were way ahead of the curve. Absolutely unique. We were working out the kinks, but we were easily within six months of delivering the equivalent of an electronic notary service--a virtual guarantee that no data would ever be lost or fraudulently altered."
He gave a short barking laugh that grated on her spine.
"If he hadn't gotten himself into financial straits, Lane would be alive today--and a billionaire. So would I." A violent shiver went through him.
"Do you know how big a business this is, Kirsten? Any idea the amount of money to be made protecting computerized transactions" -- "Fortunes," Garrett broke in, cutting him off.
"But if Lane Montgomery stood to make that kind of money"
"Wait, please," Kirsten interrupted.
"Burton, I really don't understand. Are you saying Chet Loch- man knew Lane had backups?"
"Yes." His head tilting, he studied the orange glow at the tip of his cigarette.
"Lane Montgomery's murder was never meant to be a warning to you, Kirsten. I started to tell you that the other night, and then" -He broke off, coughing.
"You told me yourself Loehman never thought of you as that big a threat. He-Never mind. The point is, when I understood that's what you believed, I knew you didn't have any idea of what really happened. I knew there was no way you could help me, even if you wanted to."
"How could Loehman have known?"
He looked at Garrett, who answered her question.
"Lane Montgomery must already have been in Loehman's back pocket."
Rawlings nodded.
"Afterward, I guess, Lane must have thought he could go back to that well one more time. He had the evidence. All he had to do was blackmail Loehman--the tape backup in exchange for God knows what obscene amount of money. I don't think he quite grasped the implications of pulling off an extortion attempt against a man like Loehman who was more than capable of rubbing him out in the blink of an eye."
"I'm still confused about exactly what it was that Lane did," Kirsten said.
"I had those photo files backed up myself. I even took tapes home so that they would be off-site. Lane had simple access to all of those. He could as easily have used one of those to conduct his blackmail. Why would he bother tying my computer into the mainframe?"
"You can never have too much backup, Kirsten. No one understood that better than Lane. But tape data can be copied over and over again.
Loehman really had no choice but to get rid of Lane. "
Kirsten shook her head.
"I'm sorry, but Lane was smarter than that.
Why would he take that kind of risk if the company was positioned to be worth billions? "
"I'm talking potential, Kirsten. Lane was already dead broke when he married you. No" -he shook his head "--that's not even right. The company was broke, and Lane was personally into the IRS for over a hundred grand. Probably ten times that amount to private investors.
Meanwhile, Loehman was looking for the weak link in the evidence chain. Lane Montgomery was it, and you became the object of his affections the minute he appreciated the position you were in. "
Garrett took over. "When did you find out about allot this?"
"From the minute I learned the evidence lockers had been destroyed.
The next thing I knew, Lane was dead. I suspected that was what had happened, but I had no proof. "
Garrett didn't believe him.
"Just a nasty inkling, huh?"
Burton flushed in anger.
"Go to hell."
"And that's what is locked up in a bank vault?"
"Yes."
"Then... Lane paid the rent on a box in advance?" Kirsten asked.
Rawlings nodded.
"That's exactly what he did-in the company name--actually a nonexistent subsidiary. The rent came due in June.
With Lane dead, my name is the only one listed in the state's business records. The bank notified me, I went to see what was there. "
"Burton, was any of what you told me about the guys you met at that bar true?" Kirsten asked.
Avoiding her eyes, he nodded. He looked at her then.
"I knew what you were thinking that night. That I was no match for Loehman. That I didn't have any business even talking to those goons."
She felt teary again, sympathetic to his intentions.
"Burton" -- "No," he cut her off, refusing sympathy.
"I was stupid. They were... I'm sure they were probably laughing at me. But by then, I'd found that tape backup in the safe-deposit box, and it just infuriated me, Kirsten, knowing that evidence was sitting there, and Loehman was never going to pay."
"But if that evidence survived, it would send Loehman to the electric chair. I'm sure John Grenallo would" -- "Kirsten, it's there, but it's not in any form that you can use. You see" -- "Come on, Rawlings," Garrett interrupted, impatient.
"What does that mean, 'not in any form that you can use'?"
"It's booby-trapped. That's the only reason I got Kirsten involved in the first place." He looked at her.
"You remember, Kirsten, the first time I called back in July? I asked if you had kept anything of
Lane's. If you'd ever found anything at all left with his handwriting.
Remember? "
"Vaguely, Burton. But I'd walked away from all of that. I knew I didn't have anything, so I never gave it another thought. Did you ask me again?"
"No." Again, he averted his eyes.
Garrett swore softly.
"When did you know you'd already tipped your hand to Loehman?"
Burton's chin began to quiver.
"Not until... I don't know, weeks after that first call to Kirsten."
She drew her coat more tightly around her body.
"I don't understand."
"That first call to Kirsten," Garrett guessed.
"You must have said something about finding that tape backup?"
He nodded, his head wagging desperately again.
"I don't know what I said, exactly" -- "But whatever it was, Loehman understood the significance."
"I didn't know that then," Burton protested.
It all came clear to her then. From Burton's first amateurish contacts with the two men in that bar, he'd been made by Loehman's people. He was watched, his house bugged, his phone lines tapped, which, all the way back to July, had implicated her as well.
There was no way he could have foreseen what was coming.
"Burton, when you say the tape data isn't accessible, that it's booby- trapped... what do you mean?"
He stubbed out his cigarette, croaking through the smoke in his throat.
"They're encoded with what I would call self-destruct instructions."
"So that if they fell into the wrong hands..."
"Exactly. If you don't know the code, or if you aren't able to key it in within a very narrow window of time, the program not only refuses access, it destroys the data."
"So you were hoping the key was contained in Lane's effects?"
"Yeah."
"Aren't there hackers smart enough to bypass those kinds of safeguards?" Garrett asked.
"I talked to a guy who thought he might be able to dub the tape from one to another, minus the destruct codes, but I didn't want to take that gamble."
This was it, Kirsten thought. Loehman must have interpreted Burton's appearance at her house as a sign that the two of them had found a way to get at the evidence. The prize for which Loehman was prepared to do whatever it took to recover. Time never ran out on the charge of capital murder.
"At least now we know exactly what Loehman is after."
"Yeah." Burton looked even more ill. Terrified.
"Whatever else Loehman knows or doesn't, we're forcing him out of the woodwork. Clever."
"Burton, why didn't you go straight to Grenallo with this? He would- Burton?"
He was looking at her as if he no longer recognized her.
"I gotta get out of here." He began to slide across the booth. Garrett straightened, his very posture a warning that they were far from done with him.
"I'm just going to the men's room. Look. You can see it from here."
Garrett sat back and Burton bolted for the rest room. Shaking his head, Garrett called for coffee, three of them, black.
She didn't understand his look.
"What?"
"" Men's room,"" he answered, "In a place like this, you hit the head, maybe the can. What you don't do is go to the men's room."
She looked down at her hands, then at Garrett.
"Don't you think you're being a little hard on him?"
His jaw tightened.
"He was a babe in the woods, Kirsten. The goons he met up with at the bar on the beach would have had him pegged
inside of thirty seconds, and you ask if I'm being hard on him?"
Carly Bishop - No Baby But Mine Page 16