Sabotage (9 page)

The bottom drawer was empty but for a thumb-sized flash drive.

He cradled the device in his palm and removed the cap to reveal a USB plug, wondering what data could be stored within its circuitry. Averse as he was to violating the professor's privacy, Austin made a mental note to explore the chip's contents at home. He capped the drive and placed it in his pocket with the phone.

He continued searching through items on the desktop. Any clue would have sufficed—a scribbled note indicating his plans, a letter, a Post-it. Clare had left not a shred of indication.

Austin resorted to leafing through folders in the professor's file cabinet. Old exams, lecture notes, and slides proved of little use. He skimmed the tabs and found nothing of relevance. Air pockets between sheets kicked up puffs of dust as he flipped through files. He battled the urge to sneeze.

A folder at the back of the drawer caught his attention. The contents were light, the file thin. The tab at the top had one word written on it:
Baldr.

He set the folder on the desk and opened the front cover. Other folders in the drawer stored stacks of text-heavy documents. This one did not. It contained sheets of blue diagrams. The illustrations ranged in quality, some computerized and some drawn by hand with a ruler and compass.

Austin's mind churned as he studied the images. Cryptic, the drawings were poorly labeled, offering obscure combinations of scribbles, faint doodles, and computer graphics. He projected shapes onto the diagrams, dissecting the geometry and probing for patterns between angles, cross sections, and arcs. He spread out the papers, arranging them in various positions, and recognized a few schematic elements borrowed from technologies he'd studied in class. The rest was indecipherable.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor.

Instinct broke his initial paralysis, a knot twisting in his gut as he shuffled the papers and stuffed them into the folder before tucking the file under his arm. He flipped off the lights and threw himself into the professor's armoire, contorting his body to fit behind a rack of coats. He muttered a plea that the doors whine quietly as he closed them, and he left a sliver of space between the edges for a peephole.

The steps grew hard and brittle, each one more defined than the last. He hoped it was the janitor, though he heard no maintenance cart. The steps slowed to a halt outside the office. Austin wondered if a camera had revealed his break-in. Had a security guard come to grab him? He ran through the array of possible consequences for trespassing in a professor's office. Expulsion was a certainty.

A key slid into the lock, and the portal swung open.

The door frame could hardly contain the shoulders of the hulk that entered. Austin caught a glimpse of the newcomer. Bones jutted from his face like crags, his leathery skin threatening to fray under the pressure of the protrusions. One eye wilted slightly under a faded pink scar. Light projecting from the television fell over his biceps, defining sinews so strung they looked ready to snap as the massive arms shifted. One arm bore writing and a pattern. Through the peephole Austin couldn't distinguish ink from shadow.

The man struck Austin as Gothic incarnate. His face was a primitive cave carving, whose sculptor had clomped on fistfuls of clay without smoothing the edges. His hair was a dark flame of red. Austin was certain he'd seen the man before. It was a wonder someone this size had approached with a nearly soundless gait. He watched as the intruder set the professor's briefcase by the door. Next the man went straight for the bottom drawer. Finding it empty, he grimaced.

Austin played out the scene where he hurled himself at the redhead. He would swipe the telescope or empty champagne bottle on Clare's desk. With enough power and precision behind a blow, along with the strategic element of surprise, he could inflict severe damage. He could conceivably burst from the closet and lunge with a crude weapon in fractions of a second. His timing would have to be perfect. Hesitate, and he'd fail. He might also stumble—easy enough to do in the dark, as he'd discovered. After recovering from the shock, the redhead would have the clear advantage of his size. Austin opted to wait.

Watching the man, he realized he'd left the file cabinet open. Spirits sinking, he could only hope the anomaly would go unnoticed.

The intruder combed through every drawer, his fingers searching out small nooks to no avail. Austin fingered the flash drive in his pocket, willing his cell phone not to ring, dreading any urges to sneeze. He discarded the idea of assaulting the man when the champagne bottle landed in the trash. The redhead held up the flute, balancing the neck between two steady fingers. He guzzled the liquid and placed the crystal piece inside the small refrigerator.

His eyes roved around the room, darting from model rocket to airship before coming to rest on a burgundy-colored model with double wings. Austin recognized the biplane. It was the model Clare had played with during their conversation. The prowler ogled the plane with deference, as if it were a relic from a shrine, taking it in his hands and feeling the weight of the wings with open palms. His fingers quivered with indecision, and for a moment Austin suspected he would crush the fuselage. The man's pensive look yielded to melancholy, then to torment. His two heavy claws lingered on the craft, their trembles faint but discernible, ready to shatter the model into shards of wood, metal scraps, and cracked paint.

They never did. The man let go of the biplane and grunted before rummaging through more drawers. He continued for a while, apparently failing to locate what he had come for. Then he stopped.

Crouching, Austin felt a sudden inertia that seized him like rigor mortis. The prowler's head had snapped to the armoire.

Austin knew he'd made no sound, but he was caught in a riptide of panic. The man was approaching his hiding spot, leaving him approximately five seconds to act. He yanked a hanger down from the crossbar and twisted it sideways, the suspended blazer now serving as a curtain. He quietly jammed himself into the least conspicuous position, his limbs searching for gaps between coats while the bulk of his body remained invisible.

The doors swung open, and a big paw reached inward, grasping at space. Mentally preparing himself for a scuffle, Austin tried to avoid the intruding hand as it groped the blazer. If he'd need to fight, he'd be sure to deliver the first blow; he had no chance otherwise against this mountain of muscle. One strike was all he could hope for, one deliberately placed strike, buying him scant seconds to flee before the other could retaliate.

He suddenly wished what he'd seen in movies were true, that one upward strike to the nose with enough force could incapacitate a man by driving the septum into the brain, causing blackout and, moments later, death. Yet the anatomical impossibility was fundamental enough, the nose built with only two bones, both small and fragile. The rest was cartilage, too pliable to exploit. Austin considered a similar maneuver, one a friend and martial artist had once described. The idea was to strike the philtrum, that soft spot under the nose and above the upper lip, with the heel of a palm. When applied with accuracy to such a vulnerable area, the arm's thrust had the power to confound and destabilize a victim, at least momentarily, earning time for the assailant to plan his next move. Then there was the classic attack on the carotid artery. The potential for lethal damage seemed farfetched, as did the notion that one quick chop to the neck could disrupt blood flow to the brain and lead to unconsciousness—but Austin didn't doubt that a shock to the carotid could decommission a person. Finally, fumbling at the limits of a narrow repertoire, he contemplated a third frontal assault, this one a blunt blow to the chest designed to disturb, or even stop altogether, the regular rhythm of the heart. Such trauma was called commotio cordis, a rare but potentially fatal shock induced by impact to the precordium. Again, this seemed farfetched, if not impossible, given the thick barrier of muscle between Austin's hand and the intruder's heart.

Not yet sensing opportunity, Austin saved his attack. The hand felt its way up the blazer and reached into the pockets. Finding them empty, it moved to the adjacent coat, then to another, discovering nothing but loose change. For a moment the giant fingers brushed Austin's skin—in its heightened sensitivity, his body tensed like a drawn cord—but then they moved on and took hold of other garments, shuffling through coats for what seemed an eternity as Austin watched the hangers sliding along the crossbar.

Finally the prowler gave up and shut the doors. He powered off the mini-TV, then picked up the briefcase and left the office, leaving no trace of his visit.

The door to the office latched shut.

For thirty full seconds, Austin remained crouched in breathless silence. He shifted his weight after the footsteps grew distant. When the sound had faded, he climbed out of the wardrobe and dusted himself off.

He was tempted to call the police and report the trespasser, but what would the police say? He was guilty of the same intrusion. Besides, if the man was as practiced a criminal as Austin supposed, he'd have left no hint of a destination. Reporting the incident would be counterproductive. Austin would be charged with trespassing, and the prowler would disappear.

This was a story meant for Victoria's ears.

She wasn't going to like it, but that wouldn't stop him from telling her. Clutching the file folder, he swiped the spyglass from Clare's desk and left the room. He descended the stairs to the first floor, certain the prowler had elected the same route.

He faced two exits, one on the side of the building, the other feeding into the engineering quad. He chose the side outlet, which provided faster access to the bushes. Darting outside, he hid within a blanket of foliage, listening for footsteps. He gauged himself at a safe twenty-five seconds behind the other man, who was now finding it easier to blend in with the evening's cyclists and passersby.

But some were too big to hide, Austin thought, peering through brambles in the underbrush. At first he saw nothing. He checked his watch. Time was running short. The longer he waited, the more easily the intruder would evade detection.

He zeroed in on the noise of a car door opening. Not fifty yards away, he spotted the prowler's thick arm, his hand clasped on the handle of Clare's briefcase as he stepped into a black sedan. It was parked in the Oval, the road looping at the university's entrance. The engine rumbled to life, and the automobile backed out.

Austin scrambled away from the bushes and jogged toward the Oval for a better view. He was safe now. From behind a tree he expanded the telescope and trained it on the sedan's license plate. Three strips of duct tape covered the plate.

The road folded back on itself and became Palm Drive, a main artery. The sedan sped away, mingling with traffic until Austin could no longer distinguish it. He lost track of the car at the intersection with Campus Drive.

The faraway hum of passing cars punctuated an occasional horn blare as he stared at the intersection. Desperation grabbed hold of him. The license plate was his only connection to the prowler. Now he doubted he'd see the sedan again. He found the prospect haunting as he stood behind the tree.

Malcolm Clare's cell phone vibrated inside his pocket.

He checked the caller identification and let out a sigh of relief. He recognized the voice on the other end.

“Dad?”

“Victoria, this isn't your dad,” he said. “This is Austin Hardy.”

“From the Axe and Palm?”

“Yes. We need to talk.”

“Clearly. You have my dad's phone.”

“I found it in his office, and I wasn't alone. Can we meet?” He took her silence as a sign of indecision. He searched for words, which usually came to him so swiftly. “I know it's strange, but I need you to hear me out.” He didn't know how else to say it. “I just witnessed a break-in. I don't think your father is safe.”

“I know,” she said.

“You do?”

“My dad carries an emergency pager. I doubted your story back at the restaurant but figured it wouldn't hurt to verify what you'd said. He never called back.”

“Believe me now?”

There was another pause. “Let's meet,” she said. “Someplace private.”

“Better not be my place. I have a roommate. He'll hear everything.”

“Come to Roble. I have a single.”

“See you in five.”

 

SEVEN

A jet wheeled to a stop on a tiny runway in the Central Pacific. The hatch clicked open, and a stairwell appeared. Dan Chatham stepped onto the landing and let the warm breeze of the equator embrace him.

“
Yokwe,
Omelek Island,” he muttered.
Hello, Omelek Island.

He swept the terrain with gray, baggy eyes that moved erratically. He was a thickset man who looked as if he'd played professional football early on and escaped any form of physical exertion since. It was just an appearance; he'd never actually set foot on a gridiron.

Scraggly trees covered the island, a sheet of green growing on reef rock somewhere between Hawaii and Australia. Over time, coral, mollusks, and other remnants of marine life had accumulated to form the island. A bent road carved through its eight acres.

Chatham glanced up at a cloudless sky and surveyed the stars, a thousand lights winking back at him.

A voice broke his meditation.

“Mr. Chatham, sir?” At the base of the stairs stood a young man in uniform, his expression stiff as his spine. “Airman Gibbs. Welcome to the Marshall Islands, sir.”

“Thank you,” Chatham replied, adjusting his suit. “At ease, soldier, or you'll fall over.”

“Yes, sir.” The airman bowed his head with no change in posture. “We didn't expect you this early. Luckily we're ahead of schedule. I'm assigned to escort you to the control room, where you'll be able to watch the process.”