Total Control (25 page)

"Hello, Paul, I was hoping to hear from you tonight," Philip Goldman said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Frank Hardy loaded the videotape into the VCR resting under the wide-screen TV in one corner of the conference room. It was almost two o'clock in the morning. Lee Sawyer sat in one of the plush chairs, nursing a cup of hot coffee and admiring the surroundings.

"Damn, business must be really good, Frank. I keep forgetting how far you've risen in the world."

Hardy laughed. "Well, if you'd ever take my offer to join me, Lee, I wouldn't have to keep reminding you."

"I'm just so set in my ways, Frank."

Hardy grinned. "Renee and I are thinking of going to the Caribbean over Christmas. You could join us. Maybe even bring somebody else along." Hardy looked at his former partner expectantly.

"Sorry, Frank, there really isn't anybody right now."

"It's been two years. I just thought .. � After Sally walked out, !

thought I was going to die. Didn't want to go through the dating process again. Then Renee happened along. I couldn't be happier."

"Seeing as how Renee could pass as Michelle Pfeiffer's twin, I can see how you must be a very happy man."

Hardy laughed. "You might want to reconsider. Renee has some girlfriends who adhere strictly to her level of aesthetics. And the women go nuts over you tall, strong types, I'm telling you."

Sawyer grunted. "Right. Not to detract from you, handsome old buddy, but I don't have the bucks in the bank you do. Consequently, my attraction level has dimmed a little over the years. Besides, I'm still only a government employee. Coach class and K-mart are about my limit and I don't think you travel in those circles anymore."

Hardy sat down and picked up a coffee mug with one hand and the VCR remote with the other. "I was planning on picking up the whole tab, Lee," he said quietly. "Call it an early Christmas present.

You're so damned hard to shop for."

"Thanks anyway. Actually, I'm thinking about trying to spend some time with the kids this year. If they'll have me."

Frank nodded. "I hear you."

"Now, what do you have for me?"

Hardy said, "We've been Triton Global's chief security consultant for the last several years."

Sawyer picked up his coffee cup. "Triton Global? Computer, telecommunications. They're a Fortune 500, aren't they?"

"Technically, they don't qualify for the list."

"Why's that?"

They're a nonpublic company. They dominate their field, expanding like crazy, and doing it all without capital from the public markets."

"Impressive. How does that tie in to a plane taking a nosedive into the Virginia countryside?"

"Several months ago Triton suspected that certain proprietary information was being leaked to a competitor. They called us in to verify the suspicion and, if true, to discover the leak."

"Did you?"

Hardy nodded. "We first narrowed down the list of those competitors who were most likely to participate in such a scheme. Once we had those nailed down, we undertook surveillance."

"That must've been tough. Big companies, thousands of employees, hundreds of offices."

"It was a daunting challenge, at first. However, our information led us to believe the leak was fairly senior, so we kept our eye on high-level Triton people."

Lee Sawyer settled farther back in his chair and sipped his coffee.

"So you identified some other 'unofficial' places where the exchange might take place and set up your snooping shop?"

Hardy smiled. "Sure you don't want that job?"

Sawyer shrugged off the compliment. "So what happened?"

"We identified a number of these 'unofficial' locations, property owned by our suspect companies and which seemed to have no legitimate operational purpose. At each of these sites we set up surveillance."

Hardy smiled sardonically at his former colleague. "Don't read me the riot act over trespassing and other related legal violations, Lee. Sometimes the ends do justify the means."

"Not arguing with you there. I wish we could take shortcuts sometimes. But then we'd have a hundred lawyers screaming 'unconstitutional' and there goes my pension."

"Anyway, two days ago a routine inspection was made of a surveillance camera set up inside a warehouse building located near Seattle."

"What led you to stake out that particular warehouse?"

"Information we developed led us to believe that the building was owned, through a string of subsidiaries and partnerships, by the RTG Group. They're one of Triton's major global competitors."

"What was the nature of the information Triton believed was being leaked? Technology?"

"No. Triton was involved in negotiations for the acquisition of a very valuable software company called CyberCom. We believe that information on those negotiations was being leaked to RTG, information that RTG could use to step in and buy the company itself, since it would know Triton's terms and negotiating position. Based on the video you're about to see, we've made subtle noises to RTG.

They've denied everything, of course. They're claiming that the warehouse was leased last year to an unaffiliated company. We checked out the company. It's nonexistent. Meaning RTG is lying or we've got another player in this game."

Sawyer nodded. "Okay. Tell me about the tie-in to my case."

Hardy responded by pushing a button on the remote. The large-screen TV sprung to life. Sawyer and Hardy watched as the scene in the small room in the warehouse was replayed. When the tall young man accepted the silver case from the older gentlemen, Hardy froze the screen. He looked over at Sawyer's puzzled face. Hardy pulled a laser pointer from his shirt pocket to highlight the young man.

"This man is employed by Triton Global. We didn't have him on the surveillance list because he wasn't senior-level management and he wasn't directly involved in the acquisition negotiations."

"Despite that, he's obviously your leak. Recognize anyone else?"

Hardy shook his head. "Not yet. The man's name, by the way, is Jason W. Archer of 611 Morgan Lane in Jefferson County, Virginia.

Sound familiar?"

Sawyer concentrated hard. The name did seem to ring a bell.

Then it suddenly hit him like a half-ton truck. "Jesus Christ!" He half rose out of his chair, eyes bulging at the face on the screen as the name shot out at him from a passenger manifest that he had scrutinized a hundred times already. At the bottom of the screen, digital images paraded across. The date and time stamp read NOVEMBER 17, 1995 11:15 am PST. Sawyer's quick eyes took in the information with one glance and he calculated rapidly. Seven hours after the plane had crashed in Virginia, this guy was alive and kicking in Seattle. "Jesus H. Christ!" he exclaimed again.

Hardy nodded. "That's right. Jason Archer was listed as a passenger on Flight 3223. But he obviously wasn't on the flight."

Hardy let the tape run. When the roar of the plane erupted on its sound track, Sawyer jerked his head to the window. The damn thing sounded like it was coming right at them. When he looked back at Hardy, his friend was smiling.

"I did the same thing when I heard it for the first time."

Sawyer watched as the men on the screen looked skyward until the sound of the plane in the background drifted away. Sawyer squinted at the screen. Something caught his eye; he just couldn't put his finger on it.

Hardy was watching him closely. "See something?"

Sawyer finally shook his head. "Okay, what was Archer doing in Seattle on the morning of the Virginia crash if he was supposed to be on a plane to L.A.? Company business?"

"Triton didn't even know Archer was gong to L.A., much less Seattle. They thought he was taking some time off to spend at home with his family."

Sawyer narrowed his eyes, searching his memory. "Help me out here, Frank."

Hardy's answer was prompt. "Archer has a wife and young daughter.

His wife, Sidney, is an attorney at Tyler, Stone, Triton's lead outside counsel. The wife works on a number of Triton's business matters, including heading up Triton's pursuit of CyberCom."

"That's real interesting, and maybe convenient for her and her husband."

"Gotta admit, that's the first thought that struck me, Lee."

"If Archer was in Seattle by, say, ten or ten-thirty in the morning, Pacific time, he must've grabbed an early morning flight from D.C."

"Western Airlines had one leaving about the same time as the L.A. departure."

Sawyer stood up and walked over to the TV screen. He rewound the tape and then froze it. He scrutinized every detail of Jason Archer's face, burning it into his memory. He turned to Hardy. "We know Archer was on Flight 322Ys passenger manifest, but you say his employer didn't know about the trip. How'd they find out he was on the plane? Supposedly was," Sawyer corrected himself.

Hardy poured out some more coffee and stood up, moved over to the window. Both men seemed innately to crave movement while thinking. "Airline tracks down the wife while she's on a business trip to New York and tells her the bad news. At that meeting are a bunch of people from Triton, including the chairman. They find out then. Pretty soon everyone knew. This videotape has only been shown to two other people: Nathan Gamble, the chairman of the board of Triton, and Quentin Rowe, the second-in-command over there."

Sawyer rubbed a kink out of his neck, picked up the fresh cup of coffee and took a gulp. "Western confirmed that he checked in at the ticket counter and that his boarding pass was collected. They wouldn't have informed his family otherwise."

"You know as well as I do that it could've been anyone checking in there using a dummy I.D. The tickets were probably paid for ahead of time. He checks a bag, goes through security. Even with the FAA's recent heightened security requirements, they don't require photo identification to board a plane, only at check-in or with the skycaps."

"But somebody got on the plane in Archer's place. The airline has his boarding pass, and once on, you do not get off an aircraft."

"Whoever it was, was one very stupid or one very unlucky sonofabitch.

Probably both."

"Right, but if Archer was on that Seattle flight, that means he had another ticket."

"He could've checked in twice, once for each flight. He could have used an alias and dummy I.D. for the Seattle flight."

"That's true." Sawyer pondered the possibilities. "Or he could're simply switched tickets with the guy who took his place."

"Whatever the truth is, you've certainly got your work cut out for you."

Sawyer fingered his coffee mug. "Anyone talk ro the wife?"

In response, Hardy opened the file he had carried in with him.

"Nathan Gamble did, briefly, on two occasions. Quentin Rowe also talked to her."

"And what's her story?"

"Initially she said she didn't know her husband was on the plane."

"Initially? So her story changed."

Hardy nodded. "Next she told Nathan Gamble that her husband had lied to her. Said he told her he was going to L.A. to meet with another company about a job. Turns out he wasn't meeting with any other company."

"Who says?"

"Sidney Archer. I guess she must have called the company, probably to tell them her husband wasn't going to be making it."

"But you verified it?" asked Sawyer. Hardy nodded. "So, any progress with your investigation?"

Hardy's face took on almost a pained expression. "Not much makes sense right now. Nathan Gamble is far from a happy man. He pays the bills and wants results. But it takes time, you know that.

Still..." Hardy paused and studied the thick carpet. It was easy to see the man did not enjoy being puzzled about anything. "Anyway, according to Gamble and Rowe, at least, Mrs. Archer thinks her husband's dead."

"If she's telling the truth, and right now everything with me is a big if." Sawyer's tone was heated.

Hardy looked at him quizzically.

Sawyer caught the look and his shoulders slumped. "Just between you and me, Frank, I'm feeling a little stupid on this one."

"Why's that?"

"I had it pegged for sure that Arthur Lieberman was the target.

Structured the whole investigation around that theory, mainly just going through the motions on any other angle."

"It's early on in the investigation, Lee. No harm done yet. Besides, maybe Lieberman was the target, in a way."

Sawyer's head jerked back. "How's that?"

"Think about it. You already answered your own question."

Hardy's point suddenly came to him. Sawyer's face grew dark.

"You mean you think this guy Archer arranged to blow up the plane because we'd think Lieberman was the target? Come on, Frank, that's a helluva stretch."

Hardy countered. "Well if we hadn't lucked out with this video, that's exactly what you'd still be thinking, isn't it? Remember, there's one unique thing about an airplane crash, particularly one where the aircraft collides with the ground relatively intact, as happened here."

Sawyer's face turned ashen while he thought it through. "No bodies.

Nothing to identify, no remains."

"Exactly. Now, if the plane had been conventionally blown up in the air, you'd have a lot of bodies to identify."

Sawyer continued to look stunned at Hardy's revelation. "That issue had been bugging the hell out of me. If Archer sold out, collected his payoff and was planning to run, he'd know at some point the police would be on to him."

Hardy picked up the thread. "So to cover his tracks he sets it up like he gets on a plane which ends up thirty feet under. If evidence of sabotage is discovered, you logically think Lieberman's the target.

If evidence of sabotage isn't found, you still won't be looking for a dead man. Everyone stops looking for Jason Archer. End of case."

"But Christ, Frank, why not just take the money and run? It's not that difficult to disappear. And there's another thing. The guy we're pretty sure sabotaged 3223 ended up with a bunch of holes in him."