Chemical Burn (4 page)

I held the shoes out to her and pushed the door closed behind me with a click. She leaned the rifle against the wall. “It’s empty,” she said as she stuck the Glock in her belt, dropped the shoes on the floor, and quickly put them on.

“Leave the rifle. I’ll come back for it later.”

Natalia finished lacing up the shoes. “A bit loose, but passable,” she said. “Thank you, Mister Case.”

“After what we just went through … call me Justin.”

“Justin,” she started, “how could you possibly build this?”

“I have a lot of tools,” I answered evasively. I strolled down the passage, and Natalia followed close behind, the Glock back in her hand. Another doorway stood at the far end of the hallway. Beyond the door lay a tight, spiral staircase going up. I flipped a light switch on the wall, but nothing happened that Natalia could see.

We walked up the stairs, and I pushed open a trapdoor in the ceiling. We stepped up into a well-lit laundry room with a wide sink, a washer-dryer set, and a row of paneled closets. I’d bolted a tall laundry basket to the top of the trap door. As I closed the door, the seams of it were partly covered by the edges of the basket.

“Clever,” Natalia said. “Whose house is this?”

“It’s one of mine,” I said simply.

From the laundry room we stepped out into a stone-tiled living room with floor-to-ceiling glass along one wall facing out onto a swimming pool. Widely spaced leather furniture made a wide conversation pit on one side, and a dining area lay beyond. Natalia yawned and stretched her arms out.

“Adrenaline wearing off?” I asked her.

“I believe it is,” she said a little tiredly.

“Do you need to be anywhere tonight? This place is about as safe as it gets. You can stay till morning.”

“How many bedrooms,” she asked suspiciously.

“Four,” I said grinning. I knew a closed door when I heard one, although I wasn’t interested in trying to open it. Rachel’s face leapt into my mind, which caught me by surprise. I also had too much respect for Xen to try something like that. Although she didn’t show it, I suspected she was truly grieving over his death.

“You need anything to eat or drink?” I asked.

“No thank you. Where am I going?”

“Down that hall,” I indicated the one on the far side of the main room past the dining area. “Do you prefer regular, foam, or waterbed?” I asked.

“Foam. Why?”

“Last door on the right. All the doors have locks on them,” I said and smiled.

“Good night, Justin.”

“Good night.”

She walked towards the bedroom, and I headed down an opposite hallway that bordered the open-air kitchen. I entered my bedroom and locked the door behind me, reveling in the blast of 100-degree air that washed over me. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my cell phone and typed in “safe—don’t worry—everything under control.” I hit SEND, and the cryptic message shot off to Rachel’s phone. I was too tired to give her the whole story, and besides, the story wasn’t over yet. I lay down flat on my back on top of the covers, closed my eyes and didn’t move for six hours.

O O O

I woke up at three-thirty a.m., totally alert. There were no more sirens at Xen’s house, but I could see the red and white flicker of emergency vehicle lights reflecting off the houses. The helicopters were gone as well, the neighborhood finally quiet. I rolled out of bed and went over to the large, sliding glass doors that opened onto my patio and pool. Flipping the latch, I slid them open and stood naked in the moonlight, letting the cool air slide over my body. The sound of the fountain outside the door soothed me.

“Terminal,” I said over my shoulder. A panel folded out of the wall opposite my bed, revealing a pair of large computer screens and a small keyboard that I almost never used. I turned back into the room, leaving the doors open, and walked over to the panel. It sat at a perfect height to allow me to stand and work. I reached into a slim, tall nook between the two screens and pulled out a thin, silver circlet of metal. It slipped on easily, resting gently around my forehead.

“Power.” Both screens came to life, revealing images of a green logo surrounded by symbols in my own language. As it was a client terminal, the system automatically connected to my mainframe. “Search: keyword SolCon,” I said.

Boxes of data appeared, instantly filling the screens. On the left SolCon’s corporate Internet website appeared: on the right, a listing of connect points that included usernames, IP addresses and the geographic areas where they were registered. The perimeter of each box had strings of characters in the same language as the logo.

“Scroll right, use left,” I said, and the listing on the right began scrolling upwards quickly, faster than a human eye could follow. My eyes flickered back and forth between the two screens. When I blinked on a word or symbol on either screen, it would flash red and transition to the data behind the link.

Images, articles, reports, user data, and financials flashed across both screens as I absorbed data at an inhuman rate. My eyes bounced back and forth, digging into various facets of SolCon’s business, employees, and corporate partners. If the data was out there and connected to a system, I could get at it, and my mainframe could hack through most of the puny human security protocols it encountered.

The system did run into several more resilient security barriers, but it’s smart enough to stop at government networks locked down with newer encryption protocols. The system would also stop at networks capable of identifying the subtle intrusions and violations it could inflict upon digital victims. There are ways to hack through those without raising alarms, but it wasn’t necessary to get what I was after. The biggest challenge I usually faced was when the data wasn’t on a machine connected to a network. Most people don’t know this, but the only really safe computer is the one that’s powered down. There are ways around that, too, but it’s a lot more complicated. As I dug into SolCon, I found links back to DiMarco, so I dug into those, too.

I kept digging for three hours, and as I did, several pictures took shape about SolCon, Natalia, and DiMarco. DiMarco’s accessible network was pretty straightforward, and I got most of what I wanted. I was surprised, however, to run into not one but two inner networks at SolCon that my system shied away from. The first was heavy-duty encryption, and the second involved security protocols much beefier than any run-of-the-mill chemical company required. My digging still unearthed a great deal of data, but the pictures were not complete. I also added a new name to add to the list of players—Pyotr Nikolov, head of SolCon’s U.S. operations. As I read, a dangerous picture of the Russian formed—more sketch than picture, but he was clearly into a lot of shit. I wasn’t after him, though. I wanted DiMarco. Finally, with every reasonable search-point for DiMarco accessed, the screens stopped flashing.

“End left and right,” I said as I breathed deeply, trying to make sense of all the data. I’d culled a lot of data, even for me. The boxes disappeared, leaving the original logos. I removed the circlet and returned it to its cubbyhole. “Close panel.”

The monitors went black as the panel silently folded back into place. I turned, walked out onto the patio, and stood next to the fountain. I stared fondly at the sky for several long minutes, wishing I could see the stars beyond the glow of Los Angeles. I sat down, crossed my legs and positioned myself comfortably, palms resting on my knees. I closed my eyes and began processing the data roiling through my skull.

For two hours, I sat motionless. Eventually, my internal clock told me it was eight-thirty. I went back into my room, got dressed in the clothes from the night before, and walked out into the kitchen.

Draping my coat over a tall chair in front of the breakfast counter, I pulled out the makings for omelets. I chopped up everything I needed and set some orange juice on the counter just in time to see Natalia walking down the hall in the clothes she’d worn the night before. She carried Xen’s sneakers.

“Good morning!” I said cheerily. “Sleep well?”

“Like the dead,” she replied. “And good morning to you, too. Breakfast?” She sat in the chair next to my coat and dropped the sneakers on the floor.

“If you like omelets, it is.” I turned around and ignited two burners of the gas stove. I pulled down two small skillets from the hanging rack and placed them on the blue flame. A splash of oil went into each, and then I turned to face Natalia. I poured juice into both glasses, handed one to her and added three teaspoons of sugar to my own, mixing it up with a spoon. “SolCon is a front,” I said bluntly.

She looked at me, mouth agape, but she quickly regained her composure. Wary, her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch and shoulder muscles tightened. I watched gears start to turn behind her eyes.

“What makes you say that?” she said as she picked up her glass.

“Let’s just say I did more than sleep last night.”

“A front for what … or who?”

I smiled at her, enjoying the façade. “Four layers back sits Solntsevskaya,” I explained. “In Russia they’re the biggest boys on the block, aren’t they? I mean, they go
way
beyond ‘mob,’ right?”

I could see that she knew I was dead on. A barely perceptible look of impressed fear fluttered across her face as she sized me up.

“Yes,” she said quietly, exploring my face over the lip of the glass. She set the glass down and placed her hands under the counter.

“What I can’t figure out is why SolCon would be paying Xen to research a new dry cleaning fluid that has no other application,” I said, giving her my best confused look.

“Diversification.”

Plausible
, I thought. I knew SolCon had already developed the advanced tetrachloroethylene product for abatement—and body disposal, if the truth be told.

“Really?” I said a bit suspiciously. “SolCon is into explosives—nice irony there, considering their owners—military-grade fuels, a bevy of industrial adhesives and acids, space-age polymers and a whole slew of other high-tech molecular applications. But there isn’t a single product in their repertoire that even closely resembles something as insignificant …” I changed my voice to that of a commercial, “… as commercial applications for making evening gowns last longer and look brighter after you take them to the dry cleaners.…” I spoke normally again. “The silicon molecule won’t, for example, dissolve bodies. It has no other application,” I emphasized.

I took a long swig of my orange juice—perfectly sweetened—and set it on the counter. I wanted to let her mull on all of that, so I turned around and grabbed the two containers of chopped vegetables, quickly tossing each into the pans with a satisfying hiss. I went about sautéing them, glancing back to see her face. I caught her hands sliding nervously underneath the countertop as she eyed me with a calculating gaze.

While the vegetables cooked down, I grabbed three eggs, wacked each with the edge of a knife, and poured the contents into a mixing bowl. I whisked them to a froth, threw in some spices, and with a final whisk, poured half of the beaten eggs into each pan. I waited silently while the bottoms cooked.

“Perhaps they’re trying to increase the perception that they’re widely diversified,” she offered.

“Perhaps,” I nodded, smiling broadly with my back to her. After a minute, the tops of the omelets began to solidify. I grabbed a pan in each hand, lifted them up, expertly flipped both omelets simultaneously, and caught them as they landed neatly into their respective pans. I set them down, threw on some grated pepper-jack cheese and folded them over into perfect half-moon shapes. A few quick flops melted the cheese inside. Turning off the burners, I lifted the pans once again and, spinning around with a dramatic flourish, dumped a perfect omelet onto each of the waiting plates.

“Voilà!” I said triumphantly. “Breakfast is served!” The pans went into the sink next to me. I placed a fork on each plate, slid one in front of Natalia, grabbed my own, and leaned up against the stove, waiting to see if she would add anything. Seconds ticked by as I took a couple of bites, grinning widely despite mouthfuls of egg.

“Delicious,” I said mostly to myself. The smile on my face was openly victorious, expectant, and accusatory all at once. I didn’t take my eyes off her.

“As I said, diversification,” Natalia said evenly, not touching her plate.

“Would it surprise you that Xen was being paid as a consultant for research and development into
jet fuel
? On the books, at least.” I took another bite, chewed it and swallowed, smiling the whole time. “As far as SolCon is concerned, they’ll be getting more efficient planes, assuming the fuel ever works. And if it doesn’t, the cost of the project gets written off. Xen pretty much had carte-blanche and reported to only the project stake-holder.”

“Interesting.” she said slowly. I could see her wondering how I could have learned all of this … and learned it overnight. We both knew I was spot on, and I could see it scared the hell out of her.

“It
is
interesting,” I said cheerily. “And do you know who the stake-holder of the project was?”

“Who might that be?” she said, smiling uncomfortably but knowing what I was going to say next.

“Why,
you
.” I took another bite of the omelet and chewed thoughtfully. “The back of the car was empty last night. I didn’t think of it in the heat of the moment, but if someone had been back there, I’d like to think you would have mentioned it. People don’t just forget that their bosses are still in the car being shot at. They forget purses, not people. There was no mysterious employer in the car, because there’s
no mysterious employer
at all
.
You
initiated the project and never told SolCon what you were doing.” She looked nauseous. “You haven’t touched your omelet,” I said with a cheery smile. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” she grumbled, staring down at the plate in front of her. She looked up into my face, searching for something—anything—that would get her out of the conversation, but I could tell she came up short. “How could you possibly know all of this?” She finally asked incredulously. “About the project.”