THE ORANGE MOON AFFAIR (21 page)

The words nagged at the back of my mind. I couldn't pin the memory down. What did
'Orange Moon'
mean? Where had I heard it before? There were still gaps in my memory from the crash, but I knew if I just kept at it, the memory that lurked so tantalisingly close would return.

Once I was sure that the two men had left the building, I slipped out from my hiding place and returned the office door. A couple of seconds and the lock clicked open and I slid inside and relocked the door. I had come equipped with a small LED flashlight with red bulbs, which gave just enough light in the pitch-black office for me to find the storage room and begin my search for the doorway into 'The Lab'.

The office seemed still in the stages of construction, haphazardly arranged desks behind the main robot control panel, which was up and running waiting for a full manufacturing run. It was as if the manufacturing process was an after thought and I was even more curious to take a look inside 'The Lab'. Against the far wall were shelving units and two seven foot tall steel cabinets, right where I figured the doorway should be located.

'It can't be that easy,'
I thought.

I picked the lock on the right hand cabinet and looked inside. It was stacked floor to ceiling with computer equipment, I guessed to run the manufacturing robots. The left hand cabinet was the same and yet something didn't quite seem right. Further investigation revealed a small, unnoticeable to a casual glance, biometric thumb pad right in the centre of the computer bank, disguised as a logo.

Now I needed Oldfield's help and hoped he wasn't going to be pissed and me waking him at this time in the morning.

“Yes Thomas,” he said sleepily.

“Apologies for the hour but I need to get into a building that is secured by a biometrics pad.”

“Have you been entered into the security system?”

“Yes, to open the Venus GT's doors.”

“Was it coded in the central computer?”

“As far as I know. It was done on the office computer.”

“Okay, stay on the line and give me a minute.”

I could hear him moving about, the sound of the computer booting up, a bottle top being unscrewed, I guessed his favourite Talisker, and began to wonder if he was losing control and using the whisky as a prop. Perhaps the more involved he became in my mission, the better. But what did I know? I'm not a behavioural psychologist and if I were I'd be questioning my own sanity. He began typing rapidly and I pulled the phone away from my ear so I could hear if any security were prowling around. There wasn't a sound except for the low hum of a generator somewhere.

“Okay I found your print algorithm, now just need to find where the other biometrics pad files are stored.” He was talking to himself, grunting on occasion. “Really?” he exclaimed suddenly.

“Really what?” I whispered.

“Very clever. Hiding in plain sight. I missed it the first time, and if I may say so, anyone other than me would never have found it.”

“Okay. Now what?”

“I add your biometric print to the list and hide it so it won’t show up on the lock access log.”

“How long?” I was getting nervous about the time and wanted to be out of 'The Lab' before daylight.

“Done.”

Taking a deep breath I pressed my finger to the pad and heard a soft click, then the cabinets slid apart to reveal a narrow entrance through a four-foot thick wall into what looked like some kind of airlock.

“Thanks Professor. Call you later.”

“Anytime.”

What on earth would De Costas want with an airlock in a car manufacturing plant? I stepped through and heard the cabinets slide shut behind me. After a momentary hiss of pressurised air the door in front of me slid open. I went through another four feet of concrete wall and stepped into 'The Lab'.

Compared to the outside dimensions, 'The Lab' was at least half the size, and I figured that each of the walls was at least ten feet thick. The ceiling was low and again I wondered what this was doing here. As I stepped through into 'The Lab' proper, lights snapped on, for a moment blinding me and I tugged the Glock from its holster and crouched, waiting for the first shot. But there was nobody in the room; a movement sensor activated the lights recessed into the ceiling.

The room was completely empty.

It was a 'clean room', but with no visible signs of any equipment anywhere. My thumbprint had allowed me entry, but nothing more, so there must be a secondary biometrics pad. I took out the phone and stared at the display. No signal. Of course not. With ten-foot thick walls there was no way.

I had no choice but to return the way I came and try again tomorrow night after a lengthy conversation with Oldfield. There was something we both had missed, in the plans and in the central computer.

Once back in the office, I rummaged through the filing cabinets and drawers and located shipping manifests from the factory outside Mojave and from Suldiski in Estonia. Two manifests were for auto-parts and the third beauty products, which was so completely out-of-place. I photographed them with the iPhone and left the office, locking the door behind me.

Outside the rain had stopped, but it was still overcast, which was lucky as through the clouds I could see faint glimmers of light. Within two minutes I was back in the car and driving slowly back to the B&B. I knew Eileen would be asleep for another hour, and her mother would not be up for another forty minutes, so I slipped back into the house, undressed and crawled into bed. I don't remember falling asleep, just waking with a start.

'Orange Moon.'

I saw the words clearly written on the pot of face cream I'd found in my father's safe. I knew I'd seen the words and it still didn't make much sense. A pot of face cream and the words 'beauty products' on the manifests from Estonia were the only solid link to my father.

I got out of bed and walked over to the window. Outside it was raining again, hammering down onto the roof and sheeting down the window, but I hardly noticed.

What did it all mean? The simple explanation was that my father was heavily involved with this conspiracy or fraud or whatever it was, and perhaps been killed because of a feud with De Costas, but I didn't believe that. My father was a hard, tough businessman, but he wasn't a crook.

But just what was the link between the two?

Why was my family mixed up in this?

The questions kept coming. Spinning around in my head without answer. What was De Costas really up to?

A quick phone call to Oldfield got him re-investigating the building plans and construction materials orders for what used to be Rathborne Micro-Electronics. It would take some time and I was getting nowhere with my self-questioning, so I went back to bed.

B
y the time Eileen
and I finished breakfast, with her complaining of a headache, and her mother blaming her for drinking the last of the Poteen, the rain had turned to snow.

I thought of Morgan and the ranch, the desert and the welcoming beach. Then I thought of Julie, and angrily kicked the snow off my feet as I entered the workshop. I was tired and the prospect of another long night after a full day's work didn't put me in a good frame of mind.

Eileen had told me that De Costas was expected in the afternoon. She couldn't be more specific about the time, which was a pity. I didn't want to end up face to face with him and run the risk of being recognised.

Billy wasn't at the office when we arrived, but had left a note saying he had a meeting in the morning and would be back mid afternoon and instructions for me to 'continue' with the diagnostic test, then maybe take the car for a test drive if I could get it working. Which meant that all I had to do was play act for a while and then start the car.

When I thought enough time had elapsed as I tinkered inside the car and in the engine bay, I shut the rear deck lid, climbed into the car and pressed my thumb on the starter button, after a couple of seconds, the display unit lit up and the engine jumped to life.

The semiautomatic transmission was a very sophisticated system, based on Formula One Racing technology, simplified for road use. Once the engine started the transmission remained in 'neutral' until the right hand paddle shifter was activated to select 1
st
gear, but without your foot on the brake, no gear could be selected. I let the car run for five minutes, supposedly checking the fuel system with the iPad Billy used to monitor the systems, then put my foot on the brake and flipped the paddle shifter. There was no noticeable engagement of first gear, but once my left foot came off the brake, a light touch on the accelerator had the car moving quickly out of the test building and onto the track. I knew that there would be quite a few workers taking time out to watch my run on the test track, so had be sure to put on a good show. Billy had posted an email to the effect that I had solved the fuel-metering problem, and the first test run would happen in the early afternoon.

“Ready to go are we?”

I looked up and saw Billy standing beside the car. I had been so engrossed in what I was doing I didn't see or hear him. And that worried me. I needed to be sharper than that.

“Yup. That okay?”

“Go for it,” he smiled.

Turning onto the track, I settled back, tightened the seat belt and pressed the accelerator to the floor. I was surprised how quietly, smoothly and quickly the car hurtled down the straight to the first corner, easily reaching 290 kph (180 mph) before it was time to brake, downshift and turn in. There was no drama, just a little step out of the back-end that a touch on the steering wheel and feathered accelerator corrected, and then we were off to the next fast curving right-hander, taken just about flat out before braking again for the chicane.

It would have been easy to forget why I was here, except when I came down the main straight for the sixth time, I could see Samuel De Costas standing in the 'Pit' lane next to Billy. Just for the hell of it I put in another five laps until Billy finally waved me in.

"Well, Thomas, how did it go?"

"Fine Billy. No problems at all. She's a really beautiful machine," I said enthusiastically, trying to make my voice sound American and convincing, but any moment I was waiting for De Costas to recognise me. “I really gave the fuel system a work out and it's functioning perfectly.”

"This is Mr De Costas, Tom, the owner of the factory. He's come over personally to supervise the delivery of the first car," Billy beamed with a pride I knew he only half felt.

I turned to De Costas. His cold eyes bored into me, for a moment they flickered with uncertainty, and then the veil closed again. Had he recognised me? I felt calm. It didn't matter. I was going to kill him and I wanted him to know that it was me, but not just yet.

"Hi. Great car you have sir," I said and extended my hand. He ignored it and turned his eyes to the car, walked around slowly scrutinising it from every angle.

“You say you fixed the fuel problem?” he said without looking at me.

“Yes sir. One of the algorithms that adjusts the turbocharger back pressure was interfering with the fuel injection metering unit. I programmed a fail-safe so it never happens again.”

De Costas looked at me blankly and then again there was a slight puzzlement in his eyes as he stared at me. I stared right back, trying to keep an excited expression on my face like a puppy that had just learned a new trick, and was waiting for a treat.

“You work for Orion?”

“Yes sir, we make the best on-board central....”

“Yeah right,” he interrupted just as a black Range Rover braked to a halt. He looked annoyed and nervous as the rear passenger side window rolled down and a dark haired woman looked at De Costas imperiously. Sean Flynn stepped out of the driver's seat and stood between the woman and De Costas.

“Make sure all the other units are fixed,” De Costas said between clenched teeth. “And make sure it gets cleaned up,” he commanded and hurried away to the car, climbing into the front passenger seat. The woman stared at me for a long moment until the tinted window rolled up and blocked my view. I had a feeling I had seen her before, and cursed the head injury that was messing with my memory, but as the Range Rover drove away I knew where I had seen her. Once in De Costas' office in San Francisco and then again at the Mojave facility, but there was another memory nagging at the back of my mind. From her behaviour, it seemed that De Costas deferred to her, and if that was the case, then the mystery was deepening at every turn. And again I wondered if I had been recognised. Now it was even more imperative that I get back into 'The Lab' tonight. My time here was rapidly running out, and instinct told me I had less than twenty-four hours to get out of Ireland.

It was another late night
, with Billy and I supposedly working on the other systems we had collected from the parts department. There was of course nothing wrong with them at all, and while we worked I filled Billy in with what I had found and what I was going to do.

“You shouldn't be here, so make some excuse and leave now,” I told him quietly, my voice low so the microphone on the CCTV wouldn't pick it up. “Tell gate security I'll be at least another four to five hours, completing the fixes De Costas ordered.”

“Okay.”

Ten minutes later, Billy stood up and stretched.

“De Costas wants them all completed tonight, Tom. I told the wife I'd be back early. She's not feeling so well.”

“No problem Billy, I've got it covered.”

“I'll buy you a pint tomorrow.”

“You're on, but it'll be two pints.”

He laughed, winked at me and strolled away. I hoped our little play-acting convinced whoever was watching the CCTV that we were just a couple of workers under duress from the Boss to get everything done. For the past few hours, we had established a routine of stacking the units on the bench on the far wall, which was out-of-site of the CCTV camera, and talking to each other. I worked on the bench where I couldn't be seen and talked to Billy as he worked on the car.

When Billy left I turned on the car stereo and set the music to low as I whistled tunelessly and worked. Using the iPhone, I recorded my tuneless whistling, and every now and then, swore loudly and cursed De Costas time schedule. It was raining again outside and I knew none of the guards was going to check on me.