by Jack Bowie
* * *
Gary set the copy of Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings on the small table and stretched back on his bed. The passage from The Ground Book was especially prophetic:
The Way of strategy is the Way of nature. When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. . . . There is Timing in everything. . . . All things entail rising and falling timing.
The last few days had been telling. Holly had been trouble since the day they started: a little too thoughtful, a little too conservative. Not the mindless, radical zealot Gary had desired. Well, now he was a little too dead.
Wicks would be able to carry out the last few steps. He was a spoiled, arrogant fool, but Gary had had no choice. The farm would still need to be taken care of. Perhaps he could fit Wicks into an appropriate part of that scenario.
Gary had packed and swept the motel room again. With each mission, his visibility increased. It was only a matter of time before someone broke. The end-game was near and he didn’t want any loose ends left around for spying eyes.
The pills had finally taken effect and he would try to rest. As sleep overcame him, his message was already on the way to its destination.
Tyler sanction required. Situation stable.
Operation CHARLIE on schedule.
Tennessee component completed. HALFTIME proceeding smoothly.
Chapter 36
Vision One, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Wednesday, 10:00 p.m.
After yet another harrowing drive through the Dutch countryside, they arrived at Vision One and Megan signed them in, explaining to the security guard that she had left her briefcase upstairs. Braxton was introduced as her date for the evening. The guard listened impatiently, nodded his acceptance, and went back to his television. The Dutch national soccer team was playing France.
They took the elevator to P&B.
Marino nervously glanced up and down the hallway while Braxton pushed on the handle to Lawson’s door. It clicked and the door swung open.
“Come on,” he said, and pulled her into the office, closing the door behind them. Moonlight filtered through the smoked glass outside wall, providing just enough light to keep them from running into the furniture.
“Adam, this isn’t a good idea. I don’t know why I let you convince me to come. I could lose my job!”
“Dammit, Sydney, then leave!” he barked. “But I’m going to find out what happened to Megan and Ben Lawson. Something’s wrong here. Are you going to help me or not?”
Marino shook her head but didn’t move. “Help you do what, Adam? Hellie had the office cleaned out after Ben died. It’s empty.”
Braxton clicked on a small flashlight and panned it around the room.
“Where’d you get that? You have one handy every time you want to go breaking into people’s offices?”
“I bought it today. Thought it might come in handy.”
She was right. There was nothing but a desk, credenza, and file cabinet in the office, all modern, Scandinavian style in a deep-burgundy wood. The surfaces were clean and polished, the owners not allowing even a layer of dust to accumulate. Damn! What had he been thinking? They wouldn’t have left anything behind.
“There’s something here! I know it. Look in the drawers. Inside the cabinets. Lawson could have hidden something.”
They spent the next ten minutes examining, scraping, and rubbing every hidden surface in the office. All they achieved were multiple cuts on the ends of every finger. Marino slammed the last drawer back into the file cabinet and turned to her partner-in-crime.
“That’s it! I quit. There’s nothing here, Adam. Let’s get out before we get caught.”
Braxton was leaned over the massive desk with his arms stuck deep into the middle drawer. He responded without looking up.
“Okay. I guess you’re right.” His voice reflected the tired frustration he felt. “It was a dumb idea anyway.”
“No. It was not a dumb idea. You want there to be a logical explanation for Megan’s death. It’s just that sometimes life isn’t logical. You know—shit happens.”
“Yeah. Maybe I was looking for . . .”
“Looking for what, Adam?”
“Sydney! Have you got a compact?”
“Huh?”
“A compact. A makeup case. One of those round things with a mirror?”
“Sure. It’s in my purse.”
“Well can I have it?” His voice had gone from morose to manic.
Marino fumbled in the bag and finally pulled out a small round plastic case. “Here. What do you want it for?”
He grabbed the case, opened it, and dropped it into the drawer. He had almost missed it. It was just a rough spot on the underside of the top. But the rest had been so smooth. And there was something very regular about the scratches.
“Here! Look.”
She came behind the desk and looked down as Braxton shown the light onto the mirror. Cut into the wood, backwards, so it could only be read with a mirror, were the numbers “7319879.”
“What is it?” Marino asked.
“I don’t know. It could be an account number, a computer password, a telephone number.”
“Couldn’t it be something from the manufacturer? A model number or something?”
“Not likely. That would be stamped or burned. This was obviously cut by hand. It had some important meaning for Lawson. We just have to figure out what. Have you got a pen?”
“Forgot that in your snooper spy kit, huh?”
“Please, Sydney.”
“Okay, okay.” She fumbled in her purse, produced a pen and scrap of paper, and copied the number.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Let’s make a quick round of the floor.”
They left Lawson’s office to check out the rest of the floor. All the other offices were locked or empty. Their last destination was the customer demonstration room.
“Your folks really know how to keep a place clean,” Braxton commented as they completed their search of the area.
“Paul’s a real stickler on corporate security,” Marino replied from the other side of the room. “I saw him chew out a programmer for leaving some listings in the demo room. The poor guy was shaking. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Whatever he does, it sure works. I’ve seen secure military facilities less sterile than this.”
Marino glanced at her watch. “My god, Adam. We’ve been here nearly a half an hour. It only takes so long to find a briefcase. Security will come looking for us if we don’t get downstairs.”
“Okay, we may as well go. I certainly haven’t found anything else. Thanks for putting up with this little escapade.” He reached over and kissed her on the cheek.
“Well you certainly are a strange date. All this drama and you were only looking for a place to make-out."
They walked back through the dark halls to the elevator stack.
“What now, mister consultant?” Marino asked as they entered the elevator. “Are we done?”
“I don’t know. I really believe we must have missed something.” He reached for the “G” button then changed his mind and pressed “-1.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just playing a hunch.”
The elevator passed through the ground floor and stopped. The doors opened and Braxton gingerly looked out. The basement was a giant room of machinery. The space appeared to span the whole cross section of the building, only occasional thick concrete pillars breaking the open expanse. The floor and walls were painted a drab battleship gray, but multicolored pipes covered the ceiling, snaking between boilers and pumps.
“I’m gonna take a look,” he said and stepped out into the dimly lit maze.
“Look at what?” Marino cried.
Braxton scanned what he could see of the area, then looked up and picked a particularly obvious purple pipe snaking its way across the ceiling. He jogged
down the aisles between the electrical and HVAC components trying to keep the pipe in view. Barely missing protruding valve wheels and low cross-pipes, he finally stopped and turned to wait for his accomplice to catch up.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“Just checking the layout,” he replied.
“Well, see. It is just the maintenance floor,” Marino proudly stated.
“Okay, but what’s below here?”
“Below here? Nothing. There wasn’t any other floor on the panel.”
“Then where do those pipes go?” All the ducting and pipe seemed to converge in the center of the huge area, just ahead of where they were standing. Most disappeared upwards, into the heart of the building, but a few seemed to go down. He pointed into the abyss.
“I don’t know. And frankly I don’t care. Enough is enough, Adam. Let’s get out of here!”
Braxton sensed Marino was in no mood for further discussion so he followed her silently back to the elevator. Once again in the main lobby, he stopped and stared back at the elevators.
“Adam, come on,” Marino pleaded.
“Not yet. I know we’re missing something.” He glanced over to the security desk and saw the guard look up at them briefly then return to his soccer game.
“I don’t know where else we can look.”
“What about the computer rooms in the center of the building? Can we get in there?”
There was a soft buzz and Braxton noticed the light above the first elevator come on.
“I doubt it. I’ve never even seen them. I wouldn’t know how to get in.”
The doors to the elevator opened and two men in white lab coats stepped out. They pulled cigarette packs out of their pockets and headed for the front door.
Braxton grabbed for Marino just as the doors started to close.
“What . . .”
He pulled her into the cab just as the doors slammed shut. Marino stood frozen as Braxton looked around. The cab appeared to be the same as the other elevators, except there was only one unmarked button on the control panel.
“Adam! We shouldn’t be in here.”
“Why not? I thought you said it was just a service elevator.”
“That’s what they told me.”
“Then why would two guys looking like lab technicians be coming out of here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they were fixing something.”
“Or maybe there’s a secret lab.”
“If there is, we’re not supposed to be there.”
“Well, let’s take a look anyway.” He reached over and pressed the button.
Chapter 37
Vision One, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Wednesday, 10:30 p.m.
The elevator lurched and they could feel it going down. They stood next to each other, silently staring at a dark indicator above the doors. After about ten seconds the cab slowed to a stop.
“Seemed like a long trip for one floor,” Braxton commented.
Again the door opened, but this time onto a very different vista.
They stepped into a tiny room, about ten feet wide by six feet deep. There were no windows, the walls were painted concrete block. Opposite the elevator was a single door; next to it, a plain black box with electronic keypad hung on the wall.
“I don’t like this, Adam. It doesn’t look like any parking garage I’ve ever seen.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Sydney?” He felt his heart beat a little faster. Would this help him understand what happened to Megan?
He reached for the door and tried the knob. No alarms went off, but neither did the knob turn. “Should we try Lawson’s code?”
“Will it make any difference what I say?”
“No.”
Marino took the paper from her purse and read each number while Braxton entered them into the keypad. The door responded with a click.
“You don’t have to come in with me,” he said. “But I’m going to check it out.” He reached for the knob.
“I think I’ll stay here.”
“Suit yourself.”
The pounding in his chest was getting louder. He turned the knob, pulled open the door, and went through. Ahead was a long, empty hallway. Light shown through glass doors and observation windows along each side. Not seeing anyone, he cautiously headed down the hall.
“Clack.”
He jumped and spun around. Shit! It had just been the door latch.
The throbbing moved into his head. His ears were filled with the sound of rushing blood. He crept up to the first window on the left and peered in.
He hadn’t been in a chemistry lab since high school, but there was no mistaking the scene. Lab benches, test tube racks, microscopes, and centrifuges filled the room. Along with some equipment he didn’t recognize.
Proceeding slowly down the hall, he checked out each room. They were all the same, complete chemistry labs. It was quite a set up. What were they doing in the basement of a computer software company?
As he approached the end of the hall he found not a wall, but a heavy door. Through a small window he saw another door, sandwiching what he assumed was some kind of airlock. The corridor continued past the second door with even more facilities on the other side. Inside the airlock he saw two white plastic isolation suits, dangling from hooks on the wall like medieval prisoners.
He stepped back, wary of the discovery and then noticed something that made him even more frightened: the symbol stenciled on the door. It was the purple circles of the international biohazard symbol. This wasn’t just a chemistry lab, it was a biochemistry lab. And whoever ran it, was dealing with some pretty heady stuff.
All those pictures of molecules and viruses upstairs, could they be for work here? Why would it be so hidden?
A sound broke his concentration. A grating along the floor. Someone was coming! He froze as if this would hide his presence.
Suddenly something brushed his back.
Braxton jumped to the side and raised his hands in a mock fighter’s pose. His martial skills were a little rusty, but he’d at least try to put up a fight.
“Eeek!” Marino screamed.
“What are you doing scaring me like that?” Braxton’s muscles relaxed but his stomach was locked in a knot. He felt sweat running down the inside of his shirt.
“I’m sorry, but you were gone so long. I got worried. What is this place?”
“It looks like some kind of a biochemistry lab. Did you ever hear of anything like this down here?”
“Never. I thought it was just Vision One.”
“It may be, but they’re sure into something other than computer graphics.”
“Are you going to go any further? In there?” She pointed through the airtight door.
“Not without knowing what’s inside. I’m not a fan of invisible microbes. Let’s see what we can find in the labs.”
They turned into the first laboratory and started searching. Marino checked the shelves while Braxton looked into the storage areas under the benches. After a few minutes of shoving dusty bottles back and forth all he had managed to do was remember how awful chemicals smelled.
“Nothing here,” he said. “It’s as clean as the rooms upstairs. I’ll try the next one.”
“Not without me,” Marino replied as she hurried to catch up with him.
“Here’s something.” Braxton had gone into the next lab and was leaning over one of the bench tops.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s some kind of laboratory notebook. Those researchers must have been working here when they went for a break.”
“Do you understand any of it?”
“Not a bit. But this looks familiar.” He had turned a page and was staring at a wildly colored picture of sticks and spheres.
“It’s a picture of a molecule,” Marino said. “Or at least part of a molecule. It’s like the ones upstairs in P&B. Do you think that’s what they’re trying to make?”
�
�That sounds like a pretty good guess. I wonder what it is.”
“Usually there’s a legend somewhere on the picture. There!” She pointed to a line of tiny text at the bottom of the print.
“Lawson 423V85,” Braxton read.
“Is this what he was working on?” Marino whispered.
The reference to the dead scientist brought a chill to the room. It took a moment for Braxton to recover.
“Okay,” he finally replied. “First we check the lab books for anything else to help us identify what’s going on here. Then we leave. I doubt whoever runs this lab would like our snooping around.”
They spent the next five minutes flipping through notebook pages and searching the lab cabinets. Marino heard a sound and looked up to see Braxton carefully tearing pages out of one of the books.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I needed something to write on. And I found some other pictures of Lawson’s molecule. But I think we’d better get out of here.”
He folded the sheets of paper and slid them into his jacket pocket. Then he took Marino’s hand and they ran back down the corridor. Once back inside the security foyer, Marino reached for the elevator button.
“No!” Braxton shouted as he grabbed her hand.
“What’s the matter?”
“That!” He pointed up to the indicator light. “It just went out. The elevator’s going up. The technicians must be coming back. We’ve got to find a place to hide.”
He pulled her back to the access door. “What’s the combination?”
“731 something. I don’t remember!”
“Where is it? You opened the door last!” He looked up and saw the indicator panel stop at “G.”
Marino shuffled through her purse looking for the paper with the access code. The “G” light went out.
“Here. 7 3 1 9 8 7 9.”
Braxton punched in the code. The lock clicked and they rushed through. He shoved the door shut and pulled Marino into the first lab. He hoped it was as unused as it looked.
“Where do we hide? What if they come in?” she cried.
“Here, behind the cabinet.” They huddled behind a low cabinet next to the corridor window. Braxton poked his head above the cabinet, looked around, then ducked back down.