They're Watching (2010) (45 page)

He was so matter-of-fact that it took a moment for me to realize he was talking about the bruising on my face. "No, it's fine."

"Come in. This is my Linda."

She stood, smoothing her designer sweat suit, and offered a feminine handshake. She was around his age--noteworthy in this setting--with a graceful demeanor and sharply intelligent eyes. We exchanged a few polite words, preposterous under the circumstances, but she inspired etiquette. Then she glanced at her husband. "You need some tea, love?"

"No, thank you," he said. As she withdrew, he winked at me and reached into the minibar. "Forty-two years. You know the secret?"

"No," I said. "I don't."

"When we're at an impasse, I admit to being wrong half the time. No more, no less."

"I've got the being-wrong part down," I said. The thought of Ariana caught me by surprise here in this lavish suite. I flashed on DeWitt's broad, handsome face, those arms that barely tapered at the wrists, the shoulders that kept going. And Verrone, of the downturned mustache and the steady, lifeless glare. My wife in the hands of these men. Controlled by them. Breathing only as long as their mood or judgment held.

"You seem shaken," he said.

The time blinked out from the DVD player beneath the wall-mounted flat-screen--11:23 P.M.

Twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes until Ridgeline would kill my wife.

I said, "I won't argue that."

He gestured for me to sit. "Would you like a drink?"

"Very much."

He poured two vodkas over ice, handed me mine. "They play dirty pool, our friends over at Festman Gruber. I know their tricks, as they know mine." He sat sideways at the edge of the secretary desk and crossed his hands over a knee as if waiting for someone to paint his portrait. "It was very much in their interest for this movie not to happen. McDonald's stopped Supersizing after that documentary. If you can get McDonald's to do something, hell, sky's the limit. We needed a star of a certain status for the picture to get the kind of exposure we required. You know how it is. Given our time frame, it was tough to begin with. It's not like A-listers sit around waiting to be slotted into low-budget whale movies." He took a sip, squinted into the pleasure of the alcohol.

I followed suit, the vodka burning my throat, soothing my nerves.

He used his thumbnail to buff an imaginary spot off the lacquered desktop. "Keith Conner was not as much of a lout as you'd think."

"I'm starting to figure that out."

"Movie stars aren't killed quietly," he mused.

"They needed something failproof."

"And low-tech." He gestured with his glass. "Golf driver, was it?"

"I don't even golf."

"Don't understand the game myself. Seems like an excuse to wear bad pants and drink during the day. I did enough of that in my youth."

I looked down into the clear liquid, my hands starting to tremble. After so much menace, the human contact and our quick rapport had caught me off guard. It felt safe in here, which opened me up to what I'd been trying not to feel. The past hours were a jumble, one trauma bleeding into the next. I flashed on Sally, pinwheeling back, mouth open, eruption from her chest. "Someone was shot. Right in front of me. A single mother. There's a kid who right now is . . . is finding out . . ."

He sat there, patient as a sniper. I wasn't sure what I was trying to convey, so I drained my glass and handed him the CD. His eyebrows lifted.

He took the disc, circled the desk, and popped it into his laptop. He clicked and read. Read some more. I sipped and sat back, cataloging everything I was going to do differently if I got a chance to be with my wife again. That last night we'd been together, my thumb drawing a bead of sweat through the dip between her lovely shoulder blades, the quick urgency of her mouth against my shoulder--what if it was a final memory?

His voice startled me from my thoughts. "This internal study shows very different results from those that Festman released publicly and put into evidence before Congress. Three hundred and fifty decibels? That's well into illegal territory."

"The figure surprises you?" I asked.

"Not in the least. We all know it. This just proves that they know it." A glance back at the screen. "They stole our data, too. We must have a mole. That will be handled." He was talking to himself; I just happened to be there. His gray eyebrows furrowed, holding an anger he'd so far concealed. "At least they stole accurate data." He seemed to notice I was there again. "We have a superior product," he told me. "But innovation takes time. Change is hard. There are alliances. Partnerships. Inertia. We needed to raise awareness, apply the right pressure at the right time. The documentary was a way of doing that. Business can make for strange bedfellows."

"And by 'product' you mean the sonar system that you're developing?"

"More or less. We design transducers and sonar domes for submarines and ship hulls. Just like Festman Gruber."

"Why are yours superior? Because they don't harm whales?"

He chuckled. "Don't mistake me for some manatee hugger. We have a lot of motivations. Saving Shamu certainly isn't at the top of that list. But our system is less disruptive to the environment. That's a PR benefit, you see. Which makes it good business. And a good advantage to press. How's your physics?"

"Paltry."

"Okay, here's the shorthand: Festman Gruber's is a traditional sonar system. Low frequency but high output power--think of it as high intensity. The high intensity is what screws up whale migrations, blows out their ears, all that Greenpeace stuff. Of course, Festman denies any link."

"Like cigarette companies and cancer."

"Like smart businessmen. You can't please shareholders airing your dirty laundry all the time. The key is"--he pointed to the laptop screen--"not to get caught with your pants down."

"How can your company's sonar work in such a low decibel range?"

"Because North Vector has developed a low-frequency, high-pulse-rate, low-intensity sonar, based on the type used by whispering bats. We overlap signals correlating from multiple sources to increase propagation distance without raising intensity. This offers a huge strategic advantage, because even though it's active, it's hard to detect, record, or source, even with specialized acoustic equipment."

"And what could a little arts-and-crafts project like that be worth?"

"About three point nine billion. Annually. For five years." He uncrossed his hands, held them out like Vanna White. "But can we really put a price tag on the well-being of our seafaring mammals?"

I wanted to make a smart reply, but I thought of Trista sitting in her bungalow with those autopsy photos, Keith lingering in the shadow of the Golden Gate to rest a hand on the side of that gray whale, and decided to keep my mouth shut.

He continued, "NSA has an essentially unlimited budget. They need more money, they print it. But they don't like paying twice for the same thing, not in these amounts. Looks bad to the Senate Appropriations Committee. And Festman, see, is in the middle of a long-term naval sonar contract. So despite all our advantages, we're next in line. And this document"--another adoring glance at the laptop screen--"or more specifically the threat of this document, is the kind of thing that will accelerate certain processes."

"They can't just say it's doctored?"

"It won't come to that. This battle has to be over before a single shot is fired."

"How?"

"I make sure that the right people in the right positions are aware that if they support Festman, they will be on the losing side. Senators. United States Attorneys. Cabinet members."

"How do you do that?"

"There is no greater power--not bombs, not laws, not parliaments--no greater power than picking up the phone and having the right person on the other end."

"Won't the government push back?"

"I am the government."

I said, "You're a private company."

"Exactly."

I nodded slowly. "I keep finding I'm not cynical enough to live in this country."

"Try living in other countries," he said. "It won't convert you to an optimist."

I jabbed a finger in the direction of the laptop. "Can you use that internal study to nail Festman's hide to the wall?"

"That's not what we want."

"After what I've been through, Mr. Kazakov, I'm not sure you can speak for what I want."

"You came to me for a reason, Patrick. I know how to swim in these waters."

I tapped the empty glass against my thigh.

"You never want to humiliate a rival," he continued. "Because then you don't get what you want. You flash your hand, give them a way out. Avoidance of shame is a vastly effective and underutilized motivator. We bury the study. Arrange to clear your name for whatever charges they've drummed up. It all happens quietly, behind the scenes, and we agree on a headline or two that we can all sell and live with. The higher-ups at Festman Gruber won't be imprisoned. They'll just lose. This round."

"And you'll get the defense contract."

"How much," he asked, "do you want for this CD?"

"I don't want money. I want my wife."

"Then let's get you your wife."

"It's not that easy." Standing, I pulled the folded documents from my pocket and tossed them on the desk before him, all those phone bills, wire transactions, bank accounts, and photographs linking Ridgeline to Festman Gruber. "There's much more at stake. And I've got a lot more than just an internal study."

I explained to him about Ridgeline and what I'd determined about their relationship with Festman Gruber. When I told him about Ariana's being taken, his eyes burned with forty-two years of empathy and his hand tightened angrily around the arm of his chair. His wife emerged silently, ostensibly to return the tea service to the counter, but her timing suggested she'd been listening to our conversation. She made sure to catch her husband's eye, and his expression of marital resignation made clear the decision was no longer in his hands. When she retreated to the bedroom again, he nodded at me weightily.

"This," he said, "changes everything." He sank back, rubbed his temples with his fingertips. His silver goatee looked gray in the glow of the banker's lamp. "If Ridgeline so much as catches wind of the fact that you're making a play, they'll clean up, understand? That's what they've been doing. Cleaning up."

I fought off dread, the endless wrong-turn scenarios, the crimescene imagery.

"I need to know how it works," I said, "if I'm gonna help my wife. Who's involved and at what level? Does Festman's CEO make the call to hire Ridgeline?"

"The CEO?" He waved a dismissive hand. "The CEO isn't even aware of this. It's not like in the movies. He lists corporate priorities. Makes a directive. 'Stop that fucking Keith Conner documentary.' That's all. The rest gets brainstormed and implemented."

"By whom?"

"Security."

"Who's Security report to?"

"Legal. Insert lawyer joke here. But that's how it's done."

Kazakov's neutrality--his casualness--was chilling.

My voice shook. "So they're the ones who laid the plan? To fuck with me and my wife? To murder Keith? To frame me and take away my life? Lawyers?"

"I don't know that Legal would have come up with the plan. But that's who would have approved it."

"Once they'd hired Ridgeline."

"That's right."

"How do I know who's at the top of this particular food chain?" I asked. "Legal?" I spit the word.

"You show up with some information and see who comes out to talk to you."

"Show up? Aren't they in Alexandria?"

"You bet your ass whoever's running things is on this coast overseeing this little imbroglio."

"Won't they just call the cops on me?"

"Maybe," he said. "You'll be betting that they'll want to talk to you first."

"Betting my life and Ariana's."

"Yes."

On the leather blotter rested a satellite cell phone. Distractedly, he reached over and spun it. The Glock was digging into my kidney, so I pulled it free and set it on the coffee table.

He eyed the pistol, unimpressed. "That's useless. This is a power and intel game. You're not going to win it with that. You'll probably just shoot your kneecap off."

I picked up the glass again, as if it had magically refilled with Stoli. "I want Legal to go down. And I want Ridgeline. The business stuff you can handle however you see fit."

"You've got a long row to hoe."

"That's why I need your help. The only benefit to being stalked by a global defense and technology company is that their rivals are also global defense and technology companies."

"That we are. Fire with fire and all that, sure. But what do you expect us to do?"

"They stitched a tracking device into my wife's raincoat. They don't know we know about it. My wife managed to grab her raincoat as they snatched her."

"Resourceful woman."

"Yes, you two would get along just fine. Is there any way to track that device?"