Ark Storm (9 page)

Nodding to the security guards, Jacobsen walked up the stairs, swung through the glass doors, and headed up to the corner office on the first floor. He paused outside, next to the desk of a harassed-looking woman with glasses and a deep worry frown, gazing unblinkingly at her screen.

“Delivery,” he said with a smile.

The woman looked up, beamed as Dan handed over the takeout coffee and Danish.

“Hey Dan. Thank you! I
needed
this!” She took off the lid, inhaled, swigged with the thinly concealed urgency of an addict. She always did need her coffee. Her boss took the view that lunch was for wimps. And for networking, which of course exempted him from his own adage.

“Go right on in. He’s on the phone. He’s always on the phone so what the hell…”

Dan smiled. “Thanks, Maisie.”

Without knocking, he pushed open the door, walked in, nodded to the man on the phone, made himself comfortable on the sofa. While the other man paced and talked, he took out his cell, played a game.

After two minutes, having made his point, the other man finished the call, edged back onto his large desk, stretched out his spindly legs, and regarded Jacobsen with a look of arch speculation.

“What have you got for me, Jacobsen?” he asked in a clipped, tight voice.

Mack Stackridge, the editor, universally known as MackStack, was not liked by his staff, but he was respected, grudgingly. He was lauded in the profession as a man who got the stories, the scoops, and the back stories that no one had thought to get. He was creative, he was devious, and he was ruthless. It was all about the story. He was tall, thin, avian with his hooked nose and quick, predatory eyes, always probing, always seeking the angle.

“Let’s just say I’ve laid the foundations,” replied Dan. “Now we wait.”

“I’m not a patient man.”

Dan gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve noticed.”

“Do what you have to. This is what you were trained for. Don’t disappoint me, will you Jacobsen?” the man asked softly.

20

THE LAB, THURSDAY MORNING

At five after nine, Peter Weiss sidled into Gwen’s office. Gwen smelled the waft of the exotic cigar smoke that seemed to impregnate his being before she saw him. She was head down, scribbling some figures on a notepad.

“How’s it going, Surfer Girl?”

Gwen regarded him quizzically. After a day to cool down, he’d apparently forgiven her. “Radical, Techie Boy! What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Messenger requires your presence.”

Messenger was sitting behind his desk as Gwen walked into his office. He leaned back in his chair and studied her as if there was something he could not quite figure out, something that wasn’t quite conforming to his expectations.

“It’s our resident supercomputer,” he said, breaking his slightly uncomfortable silence. “Please,” he gestured grandly, “have a seat.”

Gwen gave a brief smile, took her indicated seat at the round table where Kevin Barclay sat, flicking glances at his BlackBerry, fingering it briefly, now joined by Peter Weiss.

“Something puzzles me,” Gwen said, twiddling her jade ring round her finger.

Messenger sat forward. “I like puzzles, ones I can solve anyway.”

“How can you make thirty-eight million dollars in a few weeks doing venture capital?” she asked. “I thought the payback was years.”

“It’s not ven cap, that’s why. I play the markets. Peter and Kevin are tasked to help me. We seek out value, aberrations. Sometimes we get lucky.”

“I’d rather call it smart,” chipped in Barclay, laying his BlackBerry on the desk with a clatter.

“And I’d call that hubris,” retorted Messenger. “Smart still needs luck for the timing to work if you’re running short-term positions, which we were.”

Barclay shrugged an elegant Brooks Brothers’ shoulder. The man was like a walking fashion plate.

“Close the blinds, would you, Kevin,” said Messenger.

A flash of irritation swept Barclay’s features, quickly replaced by his customary, bulletproof Harvard charm. He got to his feet.

“Sure. Happy to.”

Quickly, efficiently, he let down the blinds on the two large windows.

Gwen watched, puzzled.

“What’s with the blinds?” she asked.

“Protection,” supplied Barclay.

Gwen raised an eyebrow.

Messenger bridged his arms on his desk and leaned toward Gwen. “Against a low-tech attack. Used to be the case that one of the most effective ways of stealing information was to record a view of a meeting from a covert place or safe room across the street focusing on the lips of the speaker, then taking the recording to a reliable lip reader in order to transcript the detail. It’s still done, according to Randy. It’s cheap and effective, so now we normally shut blinds and remove conference phones from meeting rooms.”

“What about bugs then?” asked Gwen, feeling like she was stepping into a new and not altogether appealing world.

“Randy sweeps for them. Rest assured. We aren’t bugged, though there’re many who would like to.” Messenger snapped back in his chair. “Let’s move on. You’ll have met Kevin Barclay by now,” he said.

Gwen nodded. She’d seen him preening in his Porsche, checking his hair in the mirror before he went into the Lab, and eyeing himself in the gym when he bench-pressed, in her view, a desultory weight. And losing at backgammon. She suppressed a grin.

“We’ve lunched at the Cupcake,” she said. “But not talked business.”

“Time you did. There are synergies between your work and his, and Peter’s.”

Gwen raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Why don’t you explain, Kevin,” said Messenger, folding his hands in his lap and sitting back.

“I play the markets. I’m a mini hedge fund,” said Barclay, a tad grandly, thought Gwen.

“Dr. Messenger’s told me a bit about Oracle and your Niño predictions. I want to know more,” added Barclay.

How many people know about Oracle now, thought Gwen. The risk expanded exponentially with each additional person who knew. She glanced at Messenger. “This is confidential information.”

Messenger nodded. “We all know when to keep our mouth shut, Dr. Gwen. Why are you so protective? Mel told me you don’t want any publicity.”

Gwen felt the tension knit her shoulders, then magnify within the room. She paused, considered her answer, tried, and failed to resist the temptation to attack. She eyed the three men before her.

“We wouldn’t want to be premature, now would we, guys,” she drawled.

Messenger blinked. Peter Weiss coughed out a laugh. Barclay mimed a poker face. “Never happened yet,” he said.

Gwen breathed out a low sigh as the tension evaporated.

Messenger eyed Gwen coolly but with a hint of reluctant admiration, as if to say
Round One to you
.

“You can speak freely here, Dr. Gwen. We all know when to talk and when to keep our mouths shut. You’re protective of Oracle. I can see that, but you need to share now. Oracle isn’t just yours alone anymore.”

No, and that was the hell of it, thought Gwen. Time to play for the team. She had no choice but to trust them. Liking the other players didn’t come into it. Weiss she liked for his gentleness and a hinted-at vulnerability. She didn’t know yet if she liked Messenger or not. He made her wary. He was a spectacle, a force of nature like a hurricane, best admired from a distance. Barclay was a jock and a poser, and Gwen had the feeling that under the charm lay a jerk, and a ruthless one. She put aside her latent dislike, for now.

“OK. Everyone knows we’re moving into a Niño cycle right now,” started Gwen. “But where I differ from the market is that I think this Niño will become much more powerful. I’m predicting a Mega Niño. That in turn could incubate an ARk Storm.”

“Goddamn!” exclaimed Barclay. “So you’re saying there’s an ARk Storm coming sometime soon.”

Gwen shook her head. She’d have them running in the streets if she weren’t careful.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. The likelihood of one hitting has gone up because of where I think this Niño is going, but I don’t think the current conditions together are enough.” They could well go that way, thought Gwen, but she didn’t want to say it until she was certain.

“So, financially speaking, you’re saying that it’s not the time to short California property casualty insurance companies?” asked Barclay. “Or to go long wheat and orange juice futures?”

“Not unless something else kicks in to gee the system up even more,” answered Gwen.

Barclay nodded, gave a pained look.

“This is
good
news,” said Gwen, puzzled.

“Barclay, you are such a troll,” said Weiss. He turned to Gwen. “He’s getting greedy. He wants to set up a monster trade, short the prop casualty companies, make a killing.”

Barclay laughed. “You innocent. I’d buy put options, get me a massacre!”

21

CARMEL VALLEY VILLAGE

Gwen needed a change of scene, a break from a world of dubious metrics where disasters were a commodity to be parlayed into a fortune. She headed for her car and drove to Carmel Valley Village in search of lunch. She found to her delight something called Roy’s Deli and came out hugging a brown paper bag of supplies: a huge BLT on crisp french white, dripping with mayo; pink lemonade to wash it down; a coffee and brownie for dessert.

She walked back to Carmel Valley Road, crossed over, and found herself the perfect spot. She was far enough away from the road to hear only a dim roar of traffic, she was shaded by an enormous sycamore, and she had the panorama of the valley stretching out before her to the hills shimmering blue in the distance. Nearby, a swath of wild oregano baked in the midday sun, releasing its tangy scent into the slight breeze.

For half an hour, Gwen lost herself in the pure pleasure of eating, uninterrupted, and just letting her eyes close.…

She opened them abruptly, aware of scrutiny. She leapt to her feet. She felt the sweat of fear and adrenaline break out. She turned three-sixty, doing a rapid inventory. Behind her, no one. In front, perhaps twenty meters away, an old man walking up the path toward her, eyes on hers.

It was the same man who had confronted Messenger at the Lab. He stopped ten feet away. Gwen stood, hands loose by her sides, calculating. From this close she could see his gray stubble, the deep grooves in his face, the unkempt hair, the weary eyes. He was disturbing, but nothing about him spelled
threat
.

“You work at Falcon,” he said in his raspy voice.

“How would you know that?” asked Gwen. Had he noticed her that day? He had seemed so focused on Messenger, as if seeing only him and Sieber.

“I’ve seen you, driving that old Mustang.”

“
You’ve
been following me!” exclaimed Gwen. So she hadn’t been imagining it. She gave a brief, mirthless laugh of relief. This guy, whatever his strange agenda, was no threat to her, wasn’t even in the league of the others.

“What of it? You should know something about the people you work for.”

“So you’re doing me a favor, are you?” asked Gwen, narrowing her eyes.

“I’ve tried to tell the others. Those new kids. They wouldn’t listen.”

I’ll bet, thought Gwen. Wouldn’t look good on their record.

“What have you tried to tell them?”

The man paused, glanced at his feet, uncertain now that he had found someone willing to listen.

“Messenger,” he whispered, looking up to meet Gwen’s eyes. “He’s a murderer.”

Gwen studied him, gauging him. Was he mad? Should she walk away, or was there just a kernel of something she should listen to? Pity and instinct and her own inveterate curiosity made her stay.

“Did you used to work there?” she asked.

“My son,” the man replied, his face gentling as he sensed the sympathy in his listener. “My son, Al, worked there. Until four months ago. Then Messenger killed him.”

Gwen blew out a breath.

“How did he die? Your son?” she asked softly.

“Road accident,” said the man bitterly. “That’s the word the police used.
Accident
.”

Gwen froze. The man didn’t notice. He was locked in his own personal agony.

“Was a hit ’n’ run. He was cycling back home from the Lab. Messenger ran him down. He took that Ferrari of his and he ran down my boy.”

Gwen could feel her heart pounding. So the Ferrari owner was Messenger. He certainly drove like a maniac. She could attest to that.

“But why would Messenger
do
that?” she asked.

“Have they told you about Paparuda?”

“
Paparuda
?” Gwen shook her head. “There’s a lot of secrecy in the Lab.”

The man barked out a bitter laugh. “They have a lot to hide.”

“So what is Paparuda?” asked Gwen. “And what does it have to do with the death of your son?”

“It is something people would kill for. Have killed for.”

Gwen felt questions bubbling up. “And? Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Not here. I don’t want anyone to see us together. For your sake and mine.” He seemed quite sane now. Scarily so. He fished a tattered business card out of his pocket, handed it to Gwen.

“If you want answers, ring me, we’ll meet up somewhere we won’t be seen, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Gwen took the card, watched the man hurry off into the trees and out of sight. Her t-shirt stuck to her sweating chest and her heart still felt as if it were racing as she walked down the path and back to her car.

22

THE LAB

Gwen gave a little gasp when she swung round the corner and saw Messenger in her office, sitting at her desk. He was spinning his wedding ring on the polished wood, staring at it contemplatively.

“You look startled, Dr. Gwen.” He caught his ring mid-spin and slipped it back on his finger.

“Just coming back down to earth,” said Gwen breathily. “I was miles away.”

“Thinking of Oracle?”

“As always,” replied Gwen, summoning a smile to gild her lie.

“Know any of the government techs involved in Project ARk Storm?” Messenger asked, getting up from Gwen’s desk, taking his time. He moved past Gwen so close she could feel the heat from his body. She let out her breath, sank into her chair. She found herself hugging her handbag to her chest like a security blanket. She dropped it on the floor, swiveled in her chair to look up at Messenger, who was leaning against her doorjamb in his casual and wholly proprietorial way.