Sabotage (12 page)

She took him past a theater room, where a student was practicing Liszt's third
Liebestraum.
The notes were technically perfect, the tempo strict—too perfect, too strict, like a pneumatic player fed by paper. Victoria's fingers twitched, perhaps at the sound of mechanized Romanticism. She moved on, continuing up a small flight of stairs that led into a hallway.

“How'd you end up in an undergrad dorm?” Austin asked.

“Housing mix-up. This is temporary.”

She sounded indifferent, though he guessed the situation was one that regularly tested her patience. He hid his smile. There was something funny about this girl as a fish out of water.

“You must be the life of the party,” he said.

“Look out!” a male voice exclaimed.

A disc sped toward them, and they ducked in time to avoid impact. Then a soccer ball whooshed past, bouncing off a drinking fountain and rebounding through the hall.

“Sorry about that,” said the freshman who caught the Frisbee. “Two games in one hallway means bad news for pedestrians without helmets.”

“You guys wanna play some Ultimate?” asked the thrower, a beach-blond sophomore with hair below his shoulders.

“Any other night,” Austin said.

“Live a little!”

“Big paper due tomorrow.”

“That's like twelve hours from now.”

“A fifteen-pager.”

“Yeah, so do the math.”

“Sleep would also be nice.”

“Boring,” said the freshman. “Good luck, though!”

Following Victoria around a corner at the end of the hall, Austin heard the whistles and catcalls of the boys, presumably under the impression they'd left earshot. Nothing registered on Victoria's face, though Austin was certain she'd heard them.

They came to her room, a modest rectangular space on the third floor. She had decorated the walls with oil paintings—one of a red 1929 Model J Duesenberg motorcar, one of tango dancers embraced in a fiery Corte, and one of a Mardi Gras headpiece, and all of them red, black, and white in theme.

“Nice artwork,” Austin said. “Did you paint those?”

“A long time ago. My dad owns the Duesy,” Victoria explained. “We call it our Cardinal car. I'd like to learn to tango, and my Brazilian mother loved the Rio Carnival.”

“That says a lot about you, I'm sure.” He gestured toward one of her shelves, packed full of colorful booklets. He couldn't make out the series. “Wouldn't have pegged you for a comic book nerd.”

She dismissed the comment and pulled up a spare chair. “What is it you came to tell me?”

“It's been quite an evening. Better brace yourself.”

Austin recounted the story in detail. He explained how he'd broken into Clare's office and snooped for evidence her father might have left behind, and finally how he'd scrambled into the closet when the intruder had entered, rummaged, and pilfered Clare's briefcase. He was struck by her remarkable calm. She listened intently but showed no sign of agitation. Instead, she took in the details as if she had expected that something like this might happen, and had spent years preparing.

He concluded. “I watched the man pull away in a black sedan. Using your father's telescope, I tried to read the license plate, but the letters were covered by duct tape.”

“It probably wouldn't have made a difference,” she said. “No way we're going to see that car again. If he has my dad's briefcase, the prowler won't be back.”

“Victoria, there's another thing I haven't told you.” Austin took in a deep breath, contemplating whether he should expound upon his meeting with Dr. Clare, and in how much detail. It might shed further light, and she'd be the only one he'd tell. Given the circumstances, it felt like a necessary breach in confidence. Nonetheless, he felt a deep-seated guilt. “Yesterday, I didn't just see your dad for extra tutoring. He asked
me
to come in. To offer me a job.”

Again, her cool confounded him.

“I'm guessing it wasn't to TA his class.”

“He didn't explain exactly what I'd be doing, but it definitely wasn't that. He said I'd learn national secrets, build things, and travel frequently. He didn't reveal much more.”

“Did he reference any connection to the military?”

“He said I'd be working closely with the Pentagon.”

“Pay grade?”

“As a starter, beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Privacy?”

“He said I'd have to be fairly discreet. My family couldn't know any details of the work.”

Victoria exhaled sharply. “Can't say exactly what position my dad had in mind, because I don't know. But I can say with ninety-nine percent certainty what line of work it would be.” She looked suddenly distraught. “I can't tell you.”

“It may be important in finding your dad, Victoria.”

“It's one of his best-kept secrets.”

“Maybe this will change your mind.” Austin tossed the folder from Clare's cabinet onto her bed, then reached into his pocket and dangled the flash drive.

“What are those?” she asked.

“That's for us to figure out together. The man skulking around your dad's office was looking for this drive. He got angry when he couldn't find it. As for trying to understand the diagrams in the folder, I'd have better luck proving the Hodge conjecture. Now, if you please, I'd like to hear your interpretation of Professor Clare's proposal.” When Victoria reached for the flash drive, Austin snatched it back. She looked mildly annoyed.

“If you're going to play cat-and-mouse with information, I could have you arrested for breaking into a professor's office.”

“That won't get us anywhere. Look, I understand your paranoia. You hardly know me. But we're both concerned, and curious. I'll show you mine if you tell me yours.”

“I know you better than you think, Austin Hardy, born February second at the Long Beach Miller Children's Hospital. Father Derek Cadman Hardy, former U.S. Ambassador to Portugal, Italy, and San Marino, and currently Greece; attended Wesleyan University with a degree in public administration. Mother Sophia Madison Hardy, senior research biologist at the Malibu Aquaculture Research Institute, studied microbiology at UCLA. I wouldn't be sharing
anything
without a background check. Want to hear your favorite ice cream flavor?”

Austin backed off a little. “All right, I'm spooked. You know this how?”

“Part network, part nepotism.” She remained withholding and opaque.

“You have my attention. I assume your ‘network' relates to your father's secret?”

“In a way. You know my dad as a scientist. He's also…” She looked as if she were still deciding whether this was a good idea. “He's a philosopher, deeply concerned with the protection of individual rights. In 1994, he chose a new way to apply his scientific knowledge to protect American lives.” Her lips tightened, indicating remorse for what she was about to disclose. “My dad founded an aerospace and special projects corporation called Glitnir Defense. Its goal is to fortify homeland defenses with innovative warfare technologies. There are two main headquarters. One's just outside Harrisonburg, Virginia. That's the operations and administrative center, with a number of task forces: counterintelligence, logistics, counterterror, geospatial surveillance, the list goes on. They interface with the Pentagon. The other's in Mojave, used for testing and prototyping alongside ClareCraft.”

“So back in the nineties, when the media slammed your dad and called him all kinds of crazy over his ‘reclusiveness,' he was actually working to protect the very critics disparaging him.”

“Yes. Dad's last decade has been his most productive. He's designed breakthrough ground weapons used by Special Forces, ballistics, navigation systems, stealth microbots, reconnaissance devices, new programming methodologies, missiles—you name it.”

“Missiles, what kind of missiles?”

“In that arena he focuses mostly on refining the next generation of guidance systems. He works with infrared optics, accelerometers, global positioning systems, and gyroscopes—all the things that help guide the missile toward its target.”

“Why so secret?”

“What's the alternative? Become a walking target? Terrorists could cut off a major source of progress in American military technology. A bullet to the head would do the trick. Worse, they might try to steal Glitnir technology. Besides, lots of his projects are geared for one-time use in operations the CIA wouldn't call newsworthy.”

“Black ops?”

“Right.”

“Glitnir Defense,” Austin repeated. “Your dad's private defense contractor. Must be hard for him to find time to teach.”

“Time's never an obstacle for him. He designs and researches, and delegates the administrative and contractual work to the Virginia branch. His friendly college rival from MIT is president of the company. Dad minimizes personal contact with bureaucrats and does what he loves. My guess is, he wanted to hire you as a projects engineer, or as a liaison between Glitnir and the Defense Department.”

“Now I see why he couldn't explain my role. At the risk I'd turn away the job, it would have meant compromising his own safety, and the secrecy of his company.”

She grew somber. “As well as my safety, and the safety of our country. See why I was so cautious at the Axe and Palm? I had no idea whose camp you were in. You might have been hired to kidnap me. There have been attempts before. Imagine the ransom opportunities. ‘This instrument for your daughter, Malcolm Clare.' I have to live with that fear.”

“You were smart.” He glanced at the folder on the bed. “You've clarified a lot. Thanks. Guess I better hold up my end of the deal and show you what I found. Let's start with this.” He opened the folder and spread the thin sheaf of papers on the floor.

“What are they?”

“Blueprints. Maybe for your dad's latest development. I don't know.”

“What does the tab say?”

“B-A-L-D-R. Baldr.”

“These diagrams look like schematics for a new technology.”

“How do you know?”

“He names all his inventions after people and places in Norse mythology. Glitnir, for example, was the hall belonging to Forseti, the god of law and justice. As a young girl, I adored mythology. Dad read stories to me before bedtime. The Norse tales were my favorite.”

“What's the Baldr project?”

She shrugged. “You know as much as I do. He doesn't share classified information with me. Let's have a look at the diagrams.” She studied the drawings, absorbing the scribbled words, making a first attempt at deciphering the formulas. “I'm a math student, and these symbols don't mean a thing to me.”

“I'm just as baffled,” Austin said. “My roommate's a whiz with codes and numbers. If only I could show him.”

“No one else can know about Glitnir.”

Austin gave her a severe look. “I understand.”

Judging by her expression, his severity gave her relief.

He went back to the items in front of them, running a hand along the edge of a penciled outline. “Look at this linear form. Based on the slopes of the edges and his mention of RP-1 in the sidelines, I'd say these shapes are thrusters.”

“You think it could be a propulsion system?”

“Best guess.”

“Why do you say that?”

“RP stands for ‘refined petroleum.' It's a particular kerosene used as rocket fuel. As to what the propellant is intended for, I could only speculate. Notice this. The diagrams are marked in stages. Like they describe an evolving process. Whatever these blueprints map out has several rotation points. You can tell by the arrows which parts are meant to revolve.”

“There seem to be vectors drawn in,” she said. “The spinning of the arms seems to be linked to speed and direction.”

Austin frowned. “What confuses me are those stages. With each stage, the diagrams take on a smaller shape. And in stage three, the lines disperse. They seem to be in two places, like something dropped away from the main frame.”

“A casing?”

“Maybe. That would explain the changing size. But stage three is different. That separate body doesn't look like a shell.”

Victoria studied the images under a magnifying glass, then narrowed her eyes. “I don't think this is the right approach.”

“What isn't?”

“Trying to crack these diagrams. In his rougher designs, my dad includes only very basic elements, and in his own notation.”

“Why not make them more universal?”

“To prevent what we're trying to do. He'll modify them eventually, but this sketch is probably chock-full of red herrings.”

“So we'll have to track him another way. I assume Glitnir has no website.”

“Of course not. It's a secret company.”

“Then let's see what's on this flash drive.”

He handed her the device. She plugged it in and waited for it to load. After a few seconds, a prompt appeared asking for a password to open the contents. She tried some of her father's regulars, and got through after a few tries.

A single folder popped up, titled
Baldr.
She double-clicked it.

“The Baldr folder contains one Word document,” she said. “It's called
Maritime Radio Transmission.
”

“Open it.”

The file came up. “It's a short document. Quarter of a page.”

She began reading the text out loud:

The way is off my ship!
[Static]
I am altering my course to port, over …
[Muffled noise]
Man overboard!
[Static]
Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty, over …
[Muddled voices]
I am now altering course to starboard, over …
[Shouts]
 … My ship is on fire, and I have dangerous cargo onboard—a naval mine shipment. Keep well clear …
[Static]
I have a diver down to assess propeller damage; keep well clear at low speed, over.
[More shrieks]
Negative! I am altering my course to starboard. I already tried altering my course to port. I repeat, the way is off my ship. You may feel your way past me. Man overboard!
[Overpowering static. End transmission.]