No Way to Die (18 page)

The group applauded.

“Now there are four of us—we were joined by two other guys who also share the same commitment to the job—Doc Kiahtel and Kenny Hale.” I nodded to both guys, and the people at the table applauded.

Kenny was sharply turned out in a very nice suit. A particularly fetching brunette sat by his side. Doc, as is his custom, came by himself.

“So with that,” I raised my glass of Mac &Jack’s African Amber solemnly, “let me say—from all of us to all of you—thank you, and here’s to many more great years!”

Everyone clapped again. “Hear! Hear!” Gus called once more. Somebody—I think it was Doc—whistled.

I sat down. “Well said,” Toni said quietly, for only me to hear.

“You think?”

“Absolutely. You had ’em eatin’ out of the palm of your hand.”

I smiled. “Good.” I looked at the people at the table. Everyone seemed to be happy, to be enjoying themselves. “We’ve done pretty well so far, haven’t we?”

“We have,” she said. “You’re a good boss. You’ve taken good care of us.”

I looked at her. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

* * * *

After dinner, we were still seated at the table, waiting for the servers to clear the dishes and bring dessert. I was talking to Richard when Toni yanked on my arm from the other side.

“Danny . . . look,” she said.

I followed her eyes across the room and saw two men walking toward us.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“That’s none other than Nicholas Madoc himself,” she said. “I recognize him from the brochure John Ogden gave us.”

No shit. I checked Madoc out as he crossed the restaurant floor. He was medium height, thin, with a full head of silver-gray hair. He was dressed impeccably in a dark charcoal suit with a dark tie. He looked to be in his mid-sixties.

“Do you know who that is with him?” I asked.

“I think it must be Cameron Patel,” she said.

The other man was younger, but the same height and build. His hair was darker and, even from across the room, I could see that he had piercing blue eyes. He carried a package with him.

The two men walked directly toward our table. Madoc scanned the table and when he saw me, we locked gazes for a second. Then, he smiled broadly and approached.

“Mr. Logan,” he said as he approached, extending his hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nicholas Madoc. This is my associate Cameron Patel.” He had a pronounced English accent.

I stood and shook their hands.

“How do you do. This is my partner, Toni Blair,” I said as Toni stood.

Madoc looked at Toni and smiled broadly. “Charming. Is that your real name, my dear?”

“Antoinette,” Toni said. Her smile was polite, but not friendly.

“Indeed,” Madoc said. Watching the two of them, Toni and Madoc reminded me of two strange cats meeting in an alley—both outwardly polite, both barely able to hide their edginess.

He turned back to me. “I understand congratulations are in order this evening.”Before I could respond, he continued. “Allow us to present this small token in honor of your company’s achievement.” He turned and Patel handed him the package. Reaching inside, Madoc drew out two bottles of Dom Pérignon and set them on the table.

“Wow,” I said, scrambling for the right words. “Thank you very much.”

“Our pleasure,” he said. “I was able to locate a couple of bottles of the ’96 vintage. It was a particularly good year. I hope you’ll find it to your liking.”

“I’m sure we will,” I said.

He looked at me with his dark gray eyes. “It’s come to my attention that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot yesterday morning with that little . . . unpleasantness in your parking lot,” he said. “I’m here to present our sincerest apologies and to make amends.”

“Well, that’s a pretty impressive way to do it,” I said, nodding toward the champagne.

He smiled. “We find that it’s better for all concerned if there are no misunderstandings between us.”

I’ll bet.
“Good policy,” I agreed.

“Toward that end,” he said, “I was hoping that you’d be free to stop by our office in Bellevue sometime in the next few days for a chat.I fly out on Sunday for business.” He handed me his card.

A free, no-harm, no-foul look inside the lion’s den—who could resist?

“How’s tomorrow morning?” I asked.

He stared at me for a second, apparently surprised by my quick response. “Tomorrow morning would be perfect. Say eleven o’clock?”

“Toni and I will be there,” I said.

“Wonderful. With that, we’ll take no more of your time. We’ll simply wish you a good evening and leave you to your party. Congratulations once again, and do enjoy the champagne.” The two men turned and walked away.

* * * *

Toni and I watched them until they disappeared around the corner. Neither of us spoke—I think we were both a little too shocked. Finally, we sat down.

“That was pretty bizarre,” I said quietly to her. “That guy may be behind the murder of Thomas Rasmussen.”

“That’s the truth,” she answered. Then she looked at the champagne. “He oozes sleaze. The gift’s pretty stylish, though, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah—you taste it first.”

“Who was that?” Kenny said, leaning over from across the table.

“That was Nicholas Madoc in the flesh—Madoc Secured Technologies,” I said.

“Really? What’d he want?”

“He came by to congratulate us,” I said, nodding toward the champagne.

At that moment, two waiters approached the table, each carrying a tray with a dozen champagne flutes. Madoc must have instructed them on the way out.

“Wow,” Kenny said. “Works for me.”

We stared at the champagne for a few seconds. “Well,” Toni said, “it looks like it’s up to me, then.”

“Really?” I asked. “I don’t think so. I was just kidding.”

“Come on, Danny. The champagne’s from Madoc—a guy we don’t trust as far as we can throw him, right?”

“Right.”

“So that means we can’t trust his champagne either, right?”

I looked at her without answering.

“I volunteer,” she said. “I’ll be the official taster.”

I grinned. “Taster. Nice try. I don’t think we need an official taster. The champagne’s sealed. Look, you can see it right here.”

“True, but these are dangerous guys, right? You don’t believe these guys could poison the champagne and reseal it so you couldn’t tell? These guys are pros, remember.”

I smiled at her. I nodded my head. “I think we’re probably safe, but . . . all right, you win.”

So I popped open the champagne. Toni conducted an extensive taste test and, thankfully, survived. So we spent the next couple of hours toasting Logan PI with Nicholas Madoc’s expensive champagne.

* * * *

When the party broke up later in the evening, I’d hoped to be able to get Toni alone. It seems our relationship was trying to return to normal, but there were unsaid things that needed to be said.I thought it might be a good time to get together and talk things through. Unfortunately, Gus, chivalrous teetotaler that he is, got to her first and offered to drive her home. She happily accepted.

When I got back to my apartment just after ten o’clock, I was too keyed up to go straight to bed. I turned the TV on to the news and muted the sound. I felt pretty strange. I don’t usually have a problem being alone. I was always a pretty solitary kid. I like to hit the running trails by myself. I like to sit by myself and play the guitar. I like to go camping by myself.

But tonight, my feelings were different.I actually felt lonely. Jen was three thousand miles away, but as I examined my feelings, I came to the conclusion that Jen’s absence wasn’t why I felt lonely. I wanted to talk to Toni—to spend time with her. I missed my best friend.I don’t know, maybe talking about the history of the company made me reflect on my history with her. Whatever, I know I missed her. I went to the stereo to search for some music that matched my mood. I put on “Someone Like You” by Adele, the same song that had gotten Toni all ruffled in the car. I listened carefully to the lyrics. I wanted to know why Toni had reacted the way she had. When Adele reached the chorus, I found out. I was surprised to find that I had tears in my eyes. I walked over and turned it off.

I WAS STILL tired the next morning when I hit the road—I’d tossed and turned all night. At six thirty, the sun was just about to come up. It was cool but not raining—not for the moment, anyway. Friday’s workout schedule calls for a short, easy run—runners call it active recovery. Sandwiched as they are between Thursday’s schedule of hard intervals and Saturday’s long-distance runs, Friday’s six mile workouts are—well, they’re easy. I find that it’s a good time to run things through my mind.

I thought about Nicholas Madoc as I jogged north along Dexter Avenue. Was that why I didn’t sleep well? I don’t remember dreaming about him—maybe I did—but I think that something about him must have been getting to me. I mean, why would the guy walk right up to us in the middle of dinner? Was he trying to send me some sort of subliminal message? I’m not always the best at catching and interpreting subtle signals—I’m working on it, but I admit it’s an issue. Maybe I overthink things. Whatever. Anyway, was this some sort of signal?

And how did he even know where we were? Granted, we hadn’t made any efforts to keep our anniversary dinner a secret, but then again, we didn’t broadcast it, either. But he damn sure had all the details, didn’t he? Who told him?

And along those lines, how’d MST find out about Logan PI being involved in the first place? I saw a puddle ahead, so I jumped over it without slowing down. If MST had some involvement in this—and it seems like they might—then who was working with them? And to what end?

One thing was for sure: I had more questions than answers. That needed to change.

* * * *

When I got home thirty minutes later, I showered and got dressed and grabbed my laptop. I Googled Nicholas Madoc and found a half-dozen people in the United States with that name, but no foreigners. Also, there was no listing for Madoc Secured Technologies, no MST—at least none that fit. I was coming up with a whole lot of nothing, so I decided to shorten the process. I grabbed my phone and punched in a number. After a couple of rings, the call was answered.

“Special Agent Thomas.”

“Good morning,” I said.

“Hey, you!” Jennifer said, sounding happy to hear from me.

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a meeting in half an hour, but I’m free for the moment. How’re you doing?”

“I’m good,” I said. “How’s your trip so far?”

“It’s good,” she said. “What’s going on there?”

“Want to hear an interesting story?”

“Sure.”

I walked her through the whole story of ACS and Thomas Rasmussen and how we’d been hired to look into his death.

“So do you think Thomas Rasmussen was murdered?” she asked when I was finished.

“I don’t know. It’s possible. Even though all the physical evidence points to suicide, we have a very credible expert who says that it’s possible for a skilled group to murder someone with a gun and disguise it to make it look like suicide. And Thomas was working with sensitive technology that could have been worth a lot of money.”

“That’s a pretty strong motive,” she said, “particularly if someone believed there was a pathway to the money and that Thomas Rasmussen was standing right in the middle of the path, blocking the way.”

I told her about how Madoc Secured Technologies had made an offer for Starfire and how they’d been rejected by the Commerce Department.

“That’d be the Bureau of Industry and Security,” she said. “The BIS. Those guys are hard-nosed, but I suppose they need to be. We conduct some of their investigations for them—usually the ones involving criminal issues.”

“Madoc Secured Technologies sounds a little suspicious to me,” I said, “based on the way they’ve been acting.”

“How’s that?”

“You tell me. Why would a legitimate tech company feel the need to start spying on us?”

“On whom? On you guys?”

“Hell yeah, on us. They had guys scoping out our office a couple of days ago. We caught ’em red-handed and ran them out.”

“That must have been interesting.”

“Yeah, it was. And last night, Nicholas Madoc himself suddenly shows up right in the middle of our company anniversary dinner.”

“Really? What’d he want?”

“He brought a couple bottles of champagne.”

She laughed. “I wonder what he
really
wants. Was it good champagne, at least?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Dom Pérignon ’96. Good to the last drop.”

“Excellent. Did you save me some?”

“Uh, well . . .”

“You didn’t, did you?” she said. “You’re busted. So do you want me to check this guy out for you or what? Is that why you’re calling?”

Perfect. I wouldn’t have to ask. “No,” I said, trying to sound as if I’d been insulted. “Why would you think that? But . . . since you’re offering, that’d be great.”