Havoc (7 page)

Alton warned himself against overreacting. He knew Mallory well enough to believe she was as content in her current relationship as she claimed to be. He told himself this, yet he felt the smallest seed of fear—a fear of Mallory eventually realizing she deserved better—plant itself in the soil of his mind.

After exiting the police building, the couple hailed a taxi to return to their hotel. During the ride, Alton leaned over to Mallory. “You okay with going on to Naples in a couple of days?”

“Yeah. I feel bad for Anna, but I don’t know what else we can do for her. If Rossi has any questions, he can always give us a call.”

“That’s how I was feeling about it, too. You know, with all the time we’ve spent helping the investigation, though, there are a few things we planned on seeing here in Rome that we won’t have time to visit, like the Trevi Fountain just down the street.”

“I know,” said Mallory. “Do you think we could tweak the rest of our schedule so we could return here a day or two early? Then we could hit that stuff at the end.”

“Yeah, let’s do that. I think returning two days earlier would give us enough time. Most of the stuff we missed is right here near the hotel. In fact, I’ll change the reservations as soon as we get back to the hotel.”

“Thanks, Sweetie,” said Mallory, scooting closer to Alton. “It’s good to know you’re always looking out for me.”

CHAPTER 18

That evening, Anna called Mallory’s cellphone. “Would you mind visiting with me tomorrow? I’m sorry for messing up your vacation, but I just need someone…” The phone fell silent except for the sound of quiet sobs.

“Yes, of course. Would you like us to meet you at your hotel?”

After a long sniff, Anna replied, “Yes, that’d be great. Thanks so much. How about nine o’clock in the morning?”

“That’s fine. I’ll call you when we get there. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“I don’t think so. Thanks for meeting me. I feel so…lost.”

“I can only imagine. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Alton and Mallory arrived on time for their appointment the following morning. After calling Anna from the lobby, they met her in the hotel’s al fresco restaurant. Her police guard maintained a watchful eye from the street bordering the restaurant.

Mallory greeted Anna with a hug. “How are you?” she asked as they took seats around a circular, wrought-iron table.

“I don’t even know how to answer that.”

“Have you eaten breakfast?”

“No—or dinner last night.”

“Let’s all get something, then,” said Mallory.

While Alton ordered a tray of continental-breakfast foods for them to share, Mallory turned her attention to Anna. “How are you holding up?”

“God, I don’t know. I just feel so…numb—like this isn’t real.”

“It’s horrible,” said Alton, remembering the black despair into which he had fallen after an Afghanistan bomb had killed most of the soldiers under his command and rendered him lame. “In a matter of seconds, your whole life can change.”

“Thank you,” said Anna, studying Alton. “I can see you understand.”

“Is there anything we can do for you?” asked Mallory. “Any errands to run or people to call?”

“Thanks, but no,” said Anna, falling into silence.

As Anna stared into the distance, Alton could hear the warble of a nearby Bluethroat and the clatter of dishes as a distant busboy cleared a table.

“Duncan and I started dating in college,” said Anna at last. “He was the brainiac of our circle of friends—and nice-looking, too. He put so much energy into everything he did—whether it was studying for classes or playing rec basketball or making a certain someone feel special. You could tell he was going to do something exceptional with himself. He was a guy who wasn’t destined for an ordinary life. I’m still not sure what he saw in me.”

“I’m sure he loved you very much,” said Mallory. “I saw how he looked at you in the cab. You could tell.”

“Thanks,” said Anna, wiping her eyes after a long sniff. “And I loved him—I can’t even tell you. This Vidulum position was his dream job. But it took so much out of him, I was getting worried. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when he finally agreed to take some time away from it to come on this vacation. If I had known this was going to happen…

“And now all this—forms and questions and meetings with the police. ‘How long have you been in Rome? Were you followed by anyone? What happened to your husband’s phone? Did he say anything about being afraid earlier that day?’ I can’t even deal with the fact that he’s gone, and they’re asking me for information I probably couldn’t recall under normal circumstances.”

“So have the police contacted you again?” asked Alton.

“Yes. You remember how they said Duncan’s wallet was missing?”

“Yeah,” replied Alton. “They thought the attack could have been a robbery.”

“Exactly,” replied Anna. “Inspector Rossi wanted to know every place we visited earlier that day—in case someone followed us, I guess.”

“Do they have any leads?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Have you had a chance to contact your parents?” asked Mallory.

“Yes—they’re as upset about it as I am. They offered to fly out, but Mom’s health isn’t so good, so I told them to just stay put. I’ll be home as soon as the investigation is over.”

“Does Duncan’s family know?” asked Alton.

“His parents are dead, and he’s…he
was
…an only child. There wasn’t anyone to tell besides his Vidulum colleagues. I did call Leo Burton, his boss, the night it happened. He was shocked, of course.”

“I can imagine,” said Mallory.

“Wait,” said Alton. “Isn’t Leo Burton Vidulum’s CEO?”

“I think so, but I can’t swear my life on it,” replied Anna. “I know for sure that’s who Duncan reported to.”

“Have the police said what they’re going to do next?” asked Mallory.

“They did, but I’m having a hard time remem…” Stopping mid-sentence, Anna rose from her chair. “Is that…? It can’t be, but I swear it looks like Terry Langford from Vidulum.” She took a few steps forward and shouted, “Terry!”

An approaching blond-haired man looked in their direction and called in return. “Anna! Thank God I’ve found you.” He closed the gap in a half-trot and stood in front of her in an awkward silence.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” exclaimed Anna. “How did you know where I was?”

“I was filling in for Duncan as project lead during his vacation, so he sent me a copy of his itinerary in case I had trouble reaching his cellphone.” He studied Anna. “Are you okay?”

An internal fortification inside Anna seemed to crumble. She began to cry and fell into his arms. “Oh, God,” she cried. “Terry, it was horrible. One minute Duncan and I were enjoying a dream vacation, and the next minute he was dead on the floor of the Colosseum. It was like something out of a horrible nightmare—only real.”

Terry smoothed her hair. “It’s okay. I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Alton and Mallory exchanged surprised glances. Was Terry acting in the interests of his company, or did he have a more personal agenda? Alton supposed he wouldn’t be in Rome long enough to find out.

After composing herself and introducing Alton and Mallory to Duncan’s Vidulum colleague, Anna turned to Terry. “At first, the police said Duncan was murdered during an attempted robbery,” she said, wiping her eyes once again, “but now they’re not so sure. Do you have any idea what’s going on? Why someone would have wanted to kill Duncan?”

“I think I do,” replied Terry. “He oversaw the development of a technology that will change the world as we know it—a technology people would be willing to kill to possess.”

CHAPTER 19

“Wait a minute,” said Alton, “so you’re saying Duncan’s murder was more than just a simple robbery gone horribly wrong?”

“Yes, I believe so,” replied Terry. “Anna, did Duncan ever mention to you what he did at Vidulum?”

“He tried to, but I couldn’t follow it. I know it was high tech.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” said Terry. “And did he ever talk about the people he worked with?”

“Yes, but not what they were doing at work. He knew that kind of talk was over my head, so he’d stick to the personal things: who got married or had a birthday…stuff like that.”

Terry appeared relieved at Anna’s response. “The things he worked on—we all worked on—will change the landscape of our society. And our work has everything to do with Duncan’s murder, I believe.”

“It sounds like your information will be crucial to the investigation.” said Alton. “Are you at liberty to discuss the nature of your work?”

“Anna,” said Terry, “this is probably a conversation I should have with you alone.”

“It’s all right, Terry,” she replied. “Mallory is an FBI agent. Plus, she and Alton both helped me the night of Duncan’s murder and are here again at my request. You can trust them.”

“Okay—if you say so,” replied Terry. “But let’s move to that area over there first. We can’t take a chance on being overheard.”

They relocated to an isolated table, far away from the other patrons in the sparsely-populated restaurant.

“Shouldn’t we go to the police station?” asked Mallory. “We can’t withhold this type of information from them, not if it’s important to understanding Duncan’s murder.”

“No way,” said Terry in a low voice. “Vidulum’s technology is extremely sensitive and therefore extremely guarded. A leak on the nature of our work would almost certainly destroy the company.”

“Destroy Vidulum? How?” asked Mallory.

“If I describe what we’re working on in front of a roomful of cops, it’ll be all over the station by the end of the day. Ten days later, at most, it’ll be all over the internet, and Vidulum’s challenge of warding off the inevitable deluge of corporate spies and hackers would increase a hundredfold. It’s a virtual certainty one would get through in a matter of days.”

“From my experience within the Bureau,” said Mallory, “I have to agree with the likelihood of an interesting bit of news spreading through the law-enforcement rumor mill.”

Alton nodded. His experience with cryptology and with the defensibility of most corporate networks against a relentless barrage of cyber-attacks also led him to agree with Terry’s assessment.

“But we need to find a way to share this with the police,” insisted Mallory. “We can’t just exclude them altogether. If you’re right, and your information is germane to the investigation, they’ll have no hope of solving the crime without it.”

Terry pondered for a moment. “I’ll only tell the top cop overseeing Duncan’s case. He’s the only person who needs to know all the facts. And I’ll tell him only if he agrees not to share the information with other cops.”

“Fair enough,” said Alton. “The lead investigator gave us his card. He seems like a capable guy. Why don’t we invite him down here, away from the scrutiny we’d receive in the precinct office?”

“Okay. Give him a call.”

Mallory dialed the number. “Inspector Rossi?”

“Yes, is me.”

“This is Mallory Wilson. Alton and I just became aware of some information that may be important to the Duncan Wells case. I’m sitting with a co-worker of Duncan’s who can provide this information, but he’s only willing to speak with the lead investigator of the case—no one else. He’s worried about the spread of sensitive company information. Can you come meet us?”

“Yes. Tell me where you are, and I will come now.”

“Tell him to bring his gun,” said Terry. “Duncan wasn’t the only person in danger.”

CHAPTER 20

Inspector Rossi joined the gathering at a table located along the edge of the hotel’s al fresco dining area, far away from the restaurant’s other patrons.

“I am Tito Rossi,” he said to Terry. “I am lead investigator in the case of the murder of Duncan Wells.”

“My name is Terry Langford. Duncan and I were colleagues at Vidulum. My company sent me here to follow up on his murder investigation. I can also provide some information that might help with that investigation. But first, can you tell me what you’ve learned about the case so far?”

Rossi eyed Terry for a moment before answering. “Okay, I tell you, then you tell me what’s so important I need to know.” Terry nodded, and Rossi shared the details of the investigation to date, including the cigarette fragment.

“Okay, so far, everything you’ve said fits in with my suspicions,” said Terry.

“Okay, so how about you tell us about your suspicions,” said Rossi.

“Fair enough, and you can judge for yourselves the relevance of my information.” Terry licked his lips. “Let me start with a description of my company, Vidulum. I work as second-in-command on a team Duncan led. We—me, Duncan, and the rest of our company—are working on a whole new type of computer technology.”

“Which is…?” asked Alton.

“You’re familiar with electronic memory and storage, right? It’s what we use to store information on electronic devices like computer and cellphones.”

They all nodded.

“In a few years, the whole hierarchy of computer memory—RAM, cache one, cache two, disks—will collapse with the advent of a new technology generically called ‘universal memory.’”

“And what’s so important about universal memory?” asked Mallory.

“It’s faster, cheaper, and—most importantly—holds
a lot
more information in a given space. At the moment, three multinational conglomerates and four smaller tech companies—including Vidulum—are racing to develop different types of universal memory.”

“Why racing?” asked Rossi.

“Each company wants its proprietary technology to become the worldwide standard, like USB or flash memory did in the past. The company that does so will have a monopoly on that technology. They’ll be able to charge a monopolistic price and collect huge royalty fees.”

Alton nodded. “First one to the finish line wins the prize, huh?”

“Exactly. In terms of storage density—how much information you can pack into a given space—Vidulum’s approach is the undisputed leader of the various universal-memory technologies under development.

“Our platform is called ionic memory. For a long time, electrical engineers loved the theory of ionic memory but didn’t think it could be put into practice due to the degree of manufacturing precision required. Just last month, however, we finally cleared the last hurdle, called the packing problem. We’ve transformed ionic memory from an abstract theory into an actual product—one that can be patented and produced.”

“I understand it’s a better technology,” said Mallory, “but would someone really kill just so people can store more photos on their smart phones?”

“It’s more than that—so much more. Do you remember from your chemistry class what an ion is?”

“Yes,” replied Alton. “It’s an atom with a positive or negative charge, right?

“Yep—exactly,” said Terry. “Well, as you know, all computer information is stored using bits. Each bit is either a one or a zero. An ion with a positive charge can be used to represent a one, and an ion with a negative or neutral charge can be used to represent a zero. Ionic memory uses lithium ions for exactly this purpose. Today’s computer-memory devices measure the size of bits using micrometers, which is small but still enormous compared to atoms. Because ionic memory stores bits at the atomic level, it represents a seismic leap forward in electronic memory.”

“How big of a leap?” asked Alton.

“It’ll hold over five thousand Exabytes per cubic centimeter.”

“How about putting that in terms a normal human being can understand,” said Mallory, looking slightly put off.

“Okay…that’s five point four
trillion
gigabytes of primary storage…per cubic centimeter…directly on the device. That’s equivalent to eighty-four billion smart phones, assuming each one has sixty-four gigs of memory. If you laid that many iPhones end-to-end, the line would be long enough to reach the moon and back fourteen times.”

They sat in stunned silence for a moment.

“It’s a game-changer,” said Alton at last. “If it’s cheap enough, it’ll obsolete all existing storage devices overnight.”

“A single device will be somewhat expensive at first,” said Terry, “but the cost per gigabyte will be less than one percent of current technology. One thing’s for sure: within three or four years, when our manufacturing capacity ramps up and the prices come down, it’ll spell the end of all memory devices currently on the market. Everything else will fall onto the dust heap of history.

“And did I mention that with ionic memory, access times are a fraction of what they are today? You won’t have to wait a perceptible amount of time for data to be saved or retrieved. Since the information has to travel only atomic distances, it’s transmitted far quicker than we as humans can perceive.”

“And you say ionic memory is ready to go?” asked Alton.

“Yes.”

“So how does all this tie back to Duncan’s murder?”

Terry glanced over both shoulders to ensure their solitude remained undisturbed. “This technology is extremely valuable.”

“How much is ‘extremely’?” asked Rossi.

“Billions of dollars, for sure. That’s why we at Vidulum have been so careful to guard it. If we’re first to the universal-memory market with our ionic drive, we’re the next Microsoft. If we’re late…well, we’d better start updating our resumes.

“Our name for the ionic-drive project is Silverstar. A few days ago, someone copied our key Silverstar files—the ones that explain the entire ionic drive manufacturing process and theoretical underpinnings—onto a separate device.”

Terry turned to Anna for a moment before looking away with a frown. “This copying wasn’t authorized. Whoever did so had to defeat a dozen security measures specifically designed to prevent such an attempt. As we investigated the security breach, we soon realized a Vidulum employee had to be the thief. The job was much too clean. An outsider would have left at least a few tracks, but this person left none.

“Brian McFarland, our Chief of Security, set about investigating the people who would have had sufficient access to attempt such a theft and who might have an upcoming opportunity to sell the files.”

“So you believe the purpose of copying the Silverstar files was to sell them to a competitor?” asked Mallory.

“It has to be, don’t you think?” replied Terry. “The manufacturing setup costs are huge. Ionic-drive technology is valuable, yes, but only to a company that has tens of millions of dollars available and the expertise to construct state-of-the-art production facilities for electronic devices.”

“And those are the companies to which the thief would try to shop the ionic-drive plans?” asked Alton.

“Yes, we believe so,” said Terry. “Anna, I’m sorry…We’re almost certain Duncan was the person who copied the files.”

“And you think he was trying to sell them to someone a few nights ago,” deduced Alton.

“Wait a minute,” protested Anna. “I can’t imagine Duncan doing something like that. Plus, we booked this trip three or four months ago. Didn’t you say your project team figured out the final whatchamacallit problem just last month?”

“Yes, that’s true,” replied Terry. “But Duncan led the Silverstar project. He could have recognized the solution was near and begun planning the theft and sale in advance.”

Anna hung her head. “I wondered why he suddenly changed his mind about this vacation,” she said at last, almost to herself. “I could never talk him into it before, and then a few months ago, he was like, ‘yeah, Honey, that’s a great idea.’ I was too happy about coming back to Rome to wonder why he suddenly changed his mind. I just figured he finally realized he needed a break from work.” Her lips trembled, and her eyes welled with tears as she fell into silence.

Alton saw Terry cast a worried glance at the strawberry-blonde Anna. It wasn’t the first time Terry had gazed at her during the meeting. Throughout the conference, he had studied Anna quite frequently, more than might have been expected from a mere acquaintance.

“In reality,” said Alton, “Duncan’s true purpose in coming to Rome was to sell ionic-drive technology to one of Vidulum’s competitors. But something went wrong, and he ended up being murdered.”

“It fits the facts,” replied Terry. He turned to Rossi. “Did you happen to find a smartphone on Duncan’s body?”

“No, nothing.”

“Damn! That’s how he would have transported the files. They’d easily fit on a sixty-four gig phone. He always kept his phone on him. The fact that it’s gone can only mean one thing: the sale was consummated before he died.”

“And the guys in the Colosseum that night now have the files,” said Mallory.

“So now we work to find out who has Duncan’s phone,” said Rossi. “If we find it, we are one step closer to finding his murderer…and recovering your important technology.”