The Red Phoenix 12: Strength Comes in Numbers (12 page)

Hamill sat in silence, seemingly loath to make any comments.

Siddoway hurried out the door then down a corridor towards the elevator, growling angry breaths that he was just railroaded by Dennis Mueller, a man who was nothing more than a disgrace to the weapons design and engineering industry. His furious thoughts consumed him as the seconds went by.

***

Siddoway sat in his office on his laptop, bringing up his back-up files for his weapon. He turned on other sophisticated piece of robotic equipment near his workstation.

“Good day, Dr. Siddoway,” a woman’s voice said from his computer in a calm tone. “How may I help you?”

“Miss Lori? Bring up all my files on XD-Three-Thousand,” said Siddoway in a stressed voice.

“Stand by, sir.”

Siddoway rubbed his forehead, alleviating some of the tension caused by his outburst upstairs.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Siddoway, sir, all files seem to be deleted,” Lori responded.

“What? That can’t be,” stated Siddoway, sounding more stressed. “Please check all drives including the main one again, Lori.”

“Right away, sir,” Lori replied.

Siddoway scratched the side of his head and adjusted his glasses.

“I’m sorry, sir. All files show deleted,” stated Lori.

“Dammit!” Siddoway hollered as he typed on his laptop, going into his network manually.

He went to
My Documents
and clicked on a file labeled
XD-3000
. The folder said
Empty
.

“What?” he muttered in a horrified, soft voice.

He went to his USB flash drives
E
through
H
one after another, clicking on folders labeled
XD-3000
, each result showing
file empty
. He brought up the website for the
Library of Congress
and logged into his account.

“You got to be here,” he muttered, navigating to his uploaded XD files.

His files were missing.

“Son of a bitch!” he shouted, grabbing his phone to make a call.

He waited for Scott to answer, putting the phone on
speaker
.

“Scott? How are we doing on the XDs?” asked Siddoway, suppressing his stressed voice.

“Good I guess,” Scott answered. “Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve just run into some problems with my back-up files and will be going home for the day,” stated Siddoway. “I need you to look after things until I get back.”

“You got it, boss,” Scott replied in a helpful tone.

Siddoway ended the call then hurried out of his office.

***

Siddoway drove his convertible Mercedes into his driveway abruptly then slammed on the brakes. He rushed into his house, a fine, three bedroom, Mediterranean-style house with wrap-around stucco and Spanish tile roofing. The front yard was well-manicured desert scape; well trimmed bushes, a few palm trees and lava rock instead of grass.

He barged through his front door and hurried to the file cabinet in his master bedroom walk-in closet. He rifled through various folders until he reached one labeled
Copyright documents.

“No, no, no!” he mumbled, nervous, unable to find his documents.

The folder was empty.

“Dammit! Shit!” he shouted, knocking some toiletries off the top of his dresser.

He breathed heavily, resting his hands on the dresser, trying to think. Someone had been in his house, cleaned out his copyright documents and wiped out all files on his computer hardware at home and at work. He had been screwed over big time and had the two thousand XD rifles at the facility, making him look like a bigger fraud.

“Mueller!” he screamed.

***

Three days later, Siddoway sat in a chair in front of a board panel headed up by Sam Wickenburg and a few others in the Red Phoenix administration. He recognized a female on the board who was from the district attorney’s office. She was obviously there to scout out the findings of the scandal to see if felony charges of theft and copyright infringement would have to be screened.

Siddoway tapped his fingers on the side of his upper thigh, nervous. He knew all he had was his drawings with dates on them, along with Scott Warnick, his trusted assistant, to vouch for him. He glanced at his watch, wondering why in the hell Scott was running late.

Mueller walked in the room with Vincent, Seymour and two of Mueller’s attorneys, David Penrow and Thomas Kates. They took their seats on the opposite side of the room. They were all dressed in fine suits, posing as gentlemen as usual.

“Do you have everybody here, Alex?” asked Wickenburg.

“Just waiting on my assistant, Scott Warnick,” he answered, glancing at his watch again.

“Your attorney?” asked Wickenburg.

“Don’t need one,” Siddoway replied.

“I see,” Wickenburg stated.

“We are ready to begin, Mr. Wickenburg,” Penrow said in a pleasant voice.

Scott hurried into the room, panting like he’d just run a mile, carrying a briefcase, and sat next to Siddoway.

“Sorry I’m late,” Scott whispered, resting the briefcase on his lap.

“It’s okay,” Siddoway responded.

“So, we’re here to dispute the matter of identical weaponry between Dr. Alex Siddoway and Mueller Weapons Incorporated,” stated Wickenburg, paging through some documents. “This is the time for both sides to present adequate and sufficient evidence for the foundation of this design of the X-D Three-Thousand. Mr. Mueller, would your side like to go first?” asked Wickenburg.

“We would, sir,” Penrow answered, approaching Wickenburg with files then setting blueprints and documents down in front of him. “These are my client’s patented designs that were copyrighted over a year ago. You can see that they correlate perfectly with his weapon, which he presented at the meeting three days prior.”

“Lies,” Siddoway blurted with a scowl, glancing at Mueller with hate.

Wickenburg glanced at Siddoway for his mild outburst but didn’t rebuke him.

“Here are DVD recordings of my client and his engineers creating the weapon in their lab at his facility with dates in chronological order,” added Penrow.

“Hollywood fiction at its worst,” Siddoway blurted again.

“Alex? You’ll have a chance to speak. Please contain yourself,” Wickenburg rebuked.

“It is clear the weapon was put together by my client and his team one phase at a time, tested then prepared for the market in a professional manner,” Penrow continued before taking his seat.

“Mr. Siddoway, you’re up,” stated Wickenburg.

“Kick some ass, boss,” Scott whispered, handing him the briefcase.

“Thanks Scott,” Siddoway answered in a soft tone, opening the briefcase and standing up.

Mueller and his team of goons watched him like a hawk.

“Sam, I’d like to show you what the authentic and genuine blueprint of the XD-Three Thousand looks like,” stated Siddoway, unfolding a large document. “The reason mine is genuine is for one reason and one alone. I designed it,” he added as the large blueprint unfurled and draped past his knees.

Wickenburg and the others on the board panel gave the blueprint a hard look. Siddoway continued on, oblivious to a horrible error on his blueprint, draping wide-open for all to see.

“Now, as I have mentioned before, I—”

“—What is that logo on the sides of your blueprint, Alex?” asked Wickenburg.

Siddoway paused and stared down at the schematics on the paper as he noticed the logos of the Mueller Weapons Incorporated on either side of the document. A numbing, speechless feeling of dread gripped him as he realized he was holding their blueprint and that he looked like a gigantic thieving jack-ass. He was busted and sold out.

“That’s my blueprint!” Mueller yelled, standing in disbelief.

Siddoway turned to Scott, staring at him pale-faced. His premonitions became darker by the second as he watched Scott look away from him like a coward. He was set-up, ambushed and slam dunked at the same time.

“Scott? What is this? I asked you to bring my original blueprints of the XD,” stated Siddoway, glaring. “Why the hell is this in my briefcase?”

“That’s all the plans I could find on the XD, boss,” said Scott in a quiet voice, staring at him through his spectacles.

Siddoway crumpled the blueprint, boiling with fury, staring at Scott like he was going to kill him.

“You treacherous, lying little piece of shit!” growled Siddoway, throwing the crumpled-up wad of blueprint at Scott. “They bought you out, didn’t they? You wiped out my files, didn’t you, you little bastard?”

Scott sat in his seat, scared that Siddoway was going to hit him.

“Wickenburg! Are you not going to say something?” yelled Mueller. “Siddoway had
my
blueprint in his briefcase! Is that not proof enough?”

“You freaking snake!” said Siddoway, grabbing Scott by his lab coat lapels. “I trusted you! I ought to knock your block off right now!”

“Alex, get a hold of yourself!” Wickenburg yelled, standing up along with the board members. “Get security!”

Mueller’s attorneys ran out the door for help.

“I will not, Sam!” Siddoway shouted, letting go of Scott. “These men broke into my house, stole my files, paid off my employee and the Library of Congress!”

“What?
The Library of Congress
? Are you insane?” cried Mueller. “You stole from me!”

Vincent and Seymour hid their grins well. They enjoyed watching Mueller’s long-term rival finally fall on his face.

“Alex, will you listen to yourself?” asked Wickenburg.

Security officers came into the room, standing guard.

“Just ask my employee, Scott Warnick, who is sitting right here!” Siddoway stated. “He was there when I made the designs and the prototype from the beginning!”

The room went silent.

“Mr. Warnick?” asked Wickenburg.

“Yes sir,” Scott answered in a quiet voice.

“Do we have reason to believe that Siddoway rightfully created the XD-Three Thousand?” asked Wickenburg.

Siddoway and the rest of the room waited for Scott’s response. It was Siddoway’s only chance of climbing out of his pit.

“The Mueller blueprint is the only design I’m aware of, sir,” Scott responded. “I’m sorry, Dr. Siddoway, I covered for you as long as I could.”

Muller let out a soft, cruel chuckle.

Siddoway charged Mueller, swinging his fists in a rage, but the officers held him back. They fought with Siddoway as they struggled to escort him from the room.

“I’ll get you, Mueller! You hear me! I’ll get you, you set me up, you son of a bitch!” Siddoway screamed as he was escorted out the door by the officers. “You lying, thieving bastard! You think it’s over? It’s not over til I say it is, you slimy piece of shit! I’ll fix you! You hear me!”