Old Poison (13 page)

With my lack of technical expertise, I was
trying to work through that, but my expression evidently looked
accusatory rather than simply confused. His voice became
defensive.

“By then all hell was breaking loose. The
day before Evelyn had gone ballistic. She was calling me, wanting
to know why some woman named Diana Hunter was talking to everyone
on the expo staff about her. I had a Caretaker come up to me at
lunch and tell me in person that I could never reveal the
Martian Diary
. The day after your email was terrible. Even
though Victor cleaned all the bugs from my office and set me up
with state-of-the-art counter-surveillance equipment, the society
still knew, before I did, that Evelyn had let herself in and stolen
the disc and new access code from my safe.”

“Evelyn broke in here?”

“She didn’t exactly have to break in. I’m
afraid I trusted her with everything, including my office key. She
knew where I kept the combination to the safe.”

“I don’t understand. Why did she give it to
you and then steal it back? Why didn’t she publish it herself in
the first place?”

“She had tried, but I wasn’t told that until
after she had taken it back. She made two hard copies of the diary
and sent one off to a regular print publisher along with
accusations against Blue Morpho. The publisher sent it to his legal
department, and somehow a copy was leaked to Morpho Petroleum. A
week later, three people in Costa Rica were dead. Both copies of
the manuscript, one in the Costa Rica house and the one with the
publisher, disappeared. At least that’s what I am told by The
Caretakers.

“My contact even showed me ‘evidence’ that
Morpho had ordered the ‘novel’ destroyed and any witnesses
silenced, but I never knew whether to believe that. I did verify
that an editor at Martino Press read the diary, but all she would
say was that their company had decided not to publish it. Under the
circumstances, I figured the most prudent thing was cut off all
communications with you, and hope that neither the Caretakers nor
Morpho knew you had seen it. I had planned to never contact you
again.”

“So why did you?”

“As far as I knew, Evelyn had simply stolen
the disc and gone underground. After that day on the river, she
never contacted me or anyone I knew. I figured that the next thing
I would hear of her would be when the diary hit the Internet.
Strangely, perhaps just selfishly, I never really thought of the
possibility that she was in danger. I was too angry with her for
choosing the diary over me and leaving me.” He pulled a stack of
paper from the file, hesitated a few moments, then handed me the
papers.

I leafed through them and realized that it
was the entire FBI file on Evelyn’s “Jane Doe” murder. The top memo
noted that a business card and been found on Jane Doe’s body and
suggested that a private investigator named Diana Hunter be
contacted to identify the body. Across the memo in red ink was a
hand-written note saying, “No mention of the disc by FBI. Find the
disc. New Caretaker has been chosen.”

“That was just sitting on my desk one
morning when I came in. The description of Evelyn’s murder was so .
. . I knew you needed to read the diary about Antia and . . .
That’s when I sent you the next excerpt from the diary. I thought
that any day you would get the call from the FBI. A hellish week
went by before they called. My last message had to wait until you
heard from them or . . . I knew you would wonder how in the hell I
knew.

My old suspicions about my pal Borson/Nate
came flooding back. I had him in a lie. “Yes, and there is
something else I wonder. I wonder just how you sent me excerpts
from the diary if Evelyn had stolen the disc?”

From his file he pulled a compact disc.
“This is my program that I used to interface with your computer.
The original disc was protected, so I had been hand-typing the
files on this CD. I programmed your disk to self-destruct when you
reached the end of the file, so you couldn’t do the same thing. I
swear to God, Diana, I had no idea I would be using it to tell you
about Evelyn’s death. I . . . loved her.”

I looked from the disc to his face. His
moist eyes and his expression full of genuine pain made me give up
the last of my suspicions. “I’m sorry, Nate. I wish I had been
better able to help her. I’m sorry I–”

“Don’t. She was so driven by this vision,
this damn diary, she might as well have been possessed. Neither of
us could have done anything to stop her. I just don’t want anyone
else hurt. I just want to give the disc back and forget I ever
heard of it. Please, Diana, tell me. Did you find the disc?”

* * * * *

“Nate, who killed Evelyn?”

His voice changed from pleading to yelling.
“I already told you, I don’t know! It doesn’t matter now. Weren’t
you listening to anything I said? Whether Blue Morpho or the
Caretakers did it, they just want that diary kept secret. Let’s
just give it to them and get the hell out of it.”

“Fine. You ready to give up your identity,
your looks, your job, your friends and family and disappear
permanently?”

“Of course not. Why should I?”

“Suppose your first suspicions were correct.
Suppose the Caretakers killed Evelyn and her three coworkers
because they had seen the diary. You and I have both seen it too.
Maybe all they are waiting for is to get it back before they kill
us. Even though you debugged your office, they knew before you did
that Evelyn had stolen the disc. How did they do that? Someone
managed to get a complete FBI file and place it on your desk. Who
did that, and how was it done? They defied both your security and
the FBI.

“Suppose the information the Caretakers gave
you is the truth, that Blue Morpho killed Evelyn’s friends in Costa
Rica. It’s quite possible. That boat that tried to grab Evelyn was
registered to one of Morpho’s corporations. What if they also found
and killed Evelyn after she stole the disc from you. What else do
they know? How did they find out? What would keep them from killing
you and me?”

“Damn it, Diana! I thought you were going to
help me, not scare me senseless.”

“I’m trying to help you, but you have to
deal with reality here!”

He looked totally defeated. “How? As you
have already pointed out, they can get to me no matter what
security I have.”

“That’s why we have to know which group was
willing to commit murder in order to possess the diary. If it’s the
Caretakers, and they are some sort of weird cult, they could be
very dangerous to deal with because they will believe that anything
they do is justified by their cause. But the one thing they want is
to keep the diary safe and silent unless they choose to reveal it
in their own time and their own way. That is our bargaining chip.
Our safety is in keeping the disc from them with the threat that it
will be exposed if anything happens to us.”

He thought that through, his own mind now
beginning to work in analytical mode. “What if Morpho murdered
Evelyn? What if they really are experimenting with a product that
would destroy our atmosphere and make this world as barren as
Mars?”

“Is that what Red 19 is supposed to do?”

He nodded, then shrugged. “Something like
that. I don’t really understand it or know if it’s even possible.
Evelyn said it was like the ozone hole, only it would eventually
deplete all gases in our atmosphere, even water vapor, and
dissipate them into space.”

I was silent for a moment while I tried to
digest that one. “Well, that’s two problems. Let’s deal with the
immediate one first, murder. If Morpho thugs committed murder, it
wasn’t the executive floor that ordered the hit. That would be done
by a black operations group buried somewhere within the security or
PR branches, like those who supply silent muscle or bribery to
coerce countries that refuse to supply them with the oil leases or
–”

Diana saw Nate’s jaw drop, and new concern
registered on his face.

“What?”

“No wonder he’s been so helpful!”

“Who?”

“Harriman Woods, Morpho’s vice president for
public relations. For the last two weeks he has been all over me
offering every sort of assistance in preparation for this global
warming conference. He was in the audience today. I just figured
Morpho was covering its bases so it could counter anything we said
here with the usual disinformation. It never . . . I just wouldn’t
think . . . I mean, he’s PR, I would expect disinformation, but
murder? He’s a member of the Brentwood Country Club, for Christ’s
sake.”

There was a knock at the door that made us
both jump. I followed Nate to his desk and watched as he pushed a
button on the surveillance monitor. A video of the hallway
appeared, showing a man in electrician coveralls standing at the
door. I smiled. “I guess Sam is hungry.”

Nate went to the door, opened it, and Sam
strode in with a wide grin on his face. “Hello, boys and girls.
Someone call for an electronic sweep of this place?” Without
waiting for an answer, he started unloading equipment. He checked
everything in the room, including us, and came to the same
conclusion Nate’s desktop unit had. The only bug in the room was on
my lapel.

“Okay,” said Sam as he walked to the desk.
“Mind if I take a look at your system here?”

“Help yourself,” replied Nate, but Sam
already was.

His fingers danced over the computer keys as
he ran the specs on the security system. “Okay, can be only one
thing. Nate, when you come in you check in on that alarm pad by the
door and assume surveillance control, right?”

“Yes.”

“And when you leave you check out again,
right?”

“Yes.”

“And when you’re not in the office, who
monitors the security?”

“Our corporate security monitors the whole
building.”

“Right, and central security takes manpower,
usually people who are paid just slightly above minimum wage. No
mystery here. No matter how fancy the gadgets, security eventually
depends on people. Someone in your central security either belongs
to the Caretakers or has a lucrative sideline supplying them with
information. When Evelyn broke in, your security videos were
feeding into central security rather than your own desktop monitor.
Someone saw Evelyn on the monitor and reported it to the
Caretakers. Maybe not just the Caretakers. Someone who’s dirty
might not have any qualms about collecting for information
twice.”

I mentally tallied a few of the disasters
that complication could cause. “Nate, who sent the FBI file, Morpho
or Caretakers?”

“Oh, that was definitely the
Caretakers.”

“Why so certain?”

“Because I was contacted by the same
Caretaker I have dealt with all along. He showed up at lunch the
next day and asked if I got the file and gave me instructions to
contact them if I heard anything about the missing disc.”

Sam looked over his half eye-glasses and in
his fatherly tone said, “So you have this Morpho guy hanging off
your flank at the conference and the Caretakers entering your
office at will and joining you for lunch.” Sam turned to me. “I
think it is a very good thing you left Diana Hunter out there in
Arizona, and I believe Mr. Niedlemyer should leave immediately, for
a quiet, secluded vacation.”

* * * * *

It took a bit of doing, but we managed to
convince Nate to report in sick, send his assistant to complete the
afternoon conference, and leave unseen in Sam’s car. Then Sam and I
helped him with a disappearing act. I called Richard and borrowed
his cabin at Big Bear, while Sam rented a car for Nate under an
alias. Promising it would be only a few days, we bundled a worried,
depressed Nate into the rental car and pointed him toward Big
Bear.

Next I picked up my few belongings at the
Yellow Umbrella, moved to Sam’s house in San Pedro, and settled in
to work the case. The only solid lead I had was the boat, and I
decided to trace it and see where it led. To help with the task, I
used the scanner, computer, and printer to create a bit of helpful
paperwork. I decided to maintain the Shimmerhorn persona, but
peeled off the padding and costume and put on the more comfortable
pant suit I had taken to Arizona. It still had a few suitcase
wrinkles but was serviceable. Armed with the paper tools I had
created for the Shimmerhorn Insurance Agency, I headed out to
Terminal Island.

Like a divided fiefdom, Terminal Island is
partitioned down the middle, providing domain to the two great
ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Side by side they sit, in
constant cutthroat competition to wear the title of the busiest
port in the country. It was late, but I had a couple hours before
businesses closed for the day.

As I drove down several small streets, the
rather shabby-looking buildings belied the fact that much of the
world’s wealth passed through here. A few oil wells still dotted
the island, but now it was mostly occupied by huge stacks of cargo
containers. A forest of giant gantry cranes and smaller mobile
cranes moved inbound containers from freighters to railroad cars
and truck trailers and loaded the outbound ones onto the
freighters. A friend of mine who works for the U.S. Customs office
says they get a chance to inspect less than five percent of those
big boxes. Pretty good odds for smugglers.

Winding my way past older-looking office
buildings and warehouses, I spotted the names of several oil
companies, freight-forwarding companies, chemical companies, and
other business that make high use of the harbor. None of them
seemed to feel that their port buildings were the place to put
forth a highly polished corporate image. It was therefore somewhat
of a shock when I pulled up in front of the address for Blue Morpho
Global Investments. I double-checked the address. Here in the midst
of this dingy port sat a palace of smoky gray glass surrounded by a
Japanese garden that was manicured and sculpted like cut green
jade. There were oddly shaped gray glass towers jutting out at
unexpected angles, creating a surprising, pleasing, and unique
building. It must surely have won an architectural prize or two,
but what was it doing here?