The Adamas Blueprint (6 page)

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

52

CHAPTER 7

After shaving and changing into more presentable clothes, Kevin tried calling Erica again.

Busy. He laid the receiver in the cradle, put his slippers back on, and walked back to the living room, plopping himself on the couch. Headline News was into the next half hour, but he switched it to the local channel to see if he could find out anything about this Stein. Damn, he wished he got the paper.

Kevin was still confused by the events of the last two hours, and he played them over in his mind to see if any of it made sense, to try to put it together into some rational explanation. No.

First, he needed to start with the facts. One, his professor and the professor’s wife were dead, supposedly from a house fire. Two, he received e-mail from Dr. Ward claiming--wait, change that--from Dr. Ward’s e-mail
address
claiming that someone was trying to kill him, and that same someone had already killed a man named Herbert Stein. Not only that, but they wanted to kill him for an experiment that was a failure, and one of these people was named Clay. Three, Herbert Stein, a person he had never heard of until today, was murdered.

Which left him with what? He looked at the printout again. He wished he could believe that this was all an elaborate hoax, that somebody owed him for a joke he had pulled at one time, but MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

53

he was too much of a realist to believe it. Even the nerds in his chemistry department wouldn’t stoop to something like this.

That left a high probability that the message really was from Dr. Ward. Three dead people.

Maybe all of them murdered. He was glad he had called the police.

A sharp knock on the door startled him, and Kevin accidentally tore the printout in half. He stuffed the pieces of paper into his pocket as he rose and walked over to the front door.

Normally, during the day he would just open the door, although at night he always checked who it was first. Today was not normal. He looked through the foggy peephole and could make out two men in suits. He recognized neither of them.

“Who is it?” he said loudly.

“Detectives Barnett and Kaplan,” a well-spoken voice said. “Guy Robley radioed us and asked us to stop by since we were in the neighborhood. He said he couldn’t get to the phone right now to call you. If you’ll crack the door, you can see our identification.”

At the mention of Detective Robley’s name, Kevin calmed. Even so, he kept the chain on and gave the IDs presented a thorough inspection. They seemed all right to him, not that he’d know what fake badges looked like. Satisfied, he removed the chain and asked the officers to come in.

“Man, am I glad you’re here.” The officer named Barnett looked to be in his late thirties and was neatly dressed in a gray suit and paisley tie. He looked more like a businessman than a cop.

His matching gray eyes examined Kevin thoroughly, but he gave Kevin a friendly smile. The other officer, Kaplan, was younger and more rumpled in his navy suit. Both were shorter than Kevin by about four inches. “You guys must be hot. Can I get you something to drink?”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

54

Barnett glanced at Kaplan and then shook his head. “No, thank you. We just had a late breakfast, and I think we drank a pot of coffee between us.” As they sat down in the living room, his smile changed to a concerned frown. “We are working on the Stein case with Guy. He said you called with some information concerning Mr. Stein.”

“Actually, I was calling about a professor, Dr. Michael Ward.”

“The professor from STU who died in the fire last night?” Barnett said.

“Yes, I go to STU. I worked with him for year and a half until last May.”

Barnett concerned expression deepened. “This must be difficult for you. I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

“I wasn’t very close to Dr. Ward. I just worked for him.” Kevin told them everything that had happened to him since he woke up. During the story, Barnett asked a few questions for clarification, but Kaplan just scribbled on a notepad and said nothing. When Kevin got to the part about the message from Ward, Barnett stopped him.

“Do you know what the message means? This could be very important in our investigation into Mr. Stein’s death.”

“No, I don’t. Maybe if Dr. Ward had been able to finish it, I would have understood. The last sentence was cut off, as if he’d stopped typing abruptly.”

“Could I see this e-mail message?” said Barnett.

“Sure,” Kevin said, “I can even give you a copy.” He went to the Mac and typed the commands to print them a fresh copy instead of giving them the torn one in his pocket. “Do you really think it’s from Dr. Ward?”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

55

“As you said yourself, this could have been typed by anyone and merely sent from his account.

But I don’t think we can rule out the possibility.”

Kevin gave them the note. Both officers read it intently.

For the first time, Kaplan spoke. His voice was surprisingly high for his size. “What is NV117?”

“It was an experiment we were conducting right before I stopped working with Dr. Ward. It was research I was conducting for the Department of Energy, fairly harmless stuff.”

“Why would someone be interested in research in superconductivity?” Kaplan said.

Kevin gave Kaplan a puzzled look. “I have no idea. How did you...”

Barnett interrupted. “Do you know what the code means?”

Kevin shrugged as he completed the commands to print the message. “I keep thinking I’ve seen it before, but nothing comes to mind. Like I said, the message wasn’t finished.”

Kevin turned back toward Barnett, and for a split second, caught Barnett glaring at Kaplan.

The look vanished quickly and smoothly, as if Kevin wasn’t meant to see it.

“Did you know Herbert Stein?” asked Barnett.

“Never heard of him before. Who was he?” Kevin plucked the note from the printer and handed it to Barnett. “Some drug dealer?” The drug wave had hit Houston as hard as any city.

“Well,” Barnett said, “of course, you understand that I can’t reveal everything we know about the case, but I can tell you that he was a respectable attorney with a small practice in the Village.

And no, drugs don’t seem to be involved.”

“A lawyer, huh? Was Dr. Ward a client of his?”

“I don’t recall that name from his records,” Kaplan said.

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

56

“I don’t either,” Barnett said. “We’ll check that out later. Have you seen a photo of Mr.

Stein?”

“No. I’ve been watching the news off and on, but I haven’t seen the story. I didn’t even know he was a real person until I talked to Detective Chambers.”

“Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said, “I wonder if we could ask you to come down to the station and look at a picture of Mr. Stein.”

“Why?”

“If he and Dr. Ward had some clandestine meetings--say at the university?--a student such as yourself may have seen him. We also have some photos of other suspects. They may have been intermediaries between Mr. Stein and Dr. Ward, and we’d like you to take a look at them.”

Kevin nodded. “I thought you might want me to do something like this. Sure. I’ll do it.” He looked down at his slippers. “I have to put my shoes on.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said. “Go right ahead. We’ll just wait out here.”

Kevin ducked into the bedroom. His eyes felt better, so he took his glasses off and put his contact lenses back in. Just then the phone rang. He picked it up and started putting on his tennis shoes.

“Hello.”

“It’s me,” Erica said.

“There you are. I tried calling you four or five times.”

“Somebody called right after you hung up, and I couldn’t get him off the phone.”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

57

“Never mind that. You are never going to believe what’s going on. There really is a Stein.

Herbert Stein. Actually, I should say there was. He was murdered two days ago.” Erica gasped.

“Now the cops are here, and they want me to go down to the station with them.”

“To look at a lineup?”

“No, just some pictures. It shouldn’t take too long.”

The sound of a gas motor steadily grew as a man on a lawnmower neared Kevin’s apartment.

He raised his voice.

“You still interested in lunch?”

There was a pause on the other end. “All right, but no McDonald’s.”

A click in the phone interrupted Erica’s voice. He could barely make out the tell-tale beeping of the call waiting signal over the din of the lawnmower. “That’s another call. Can you hang on?”

“Yes.”

Kevin depressed the switch.

“Hello?” He was practically yelling over the sound of the lawnmower.

“Mr. Hamilton, this is Detective Guy Robley of the HPD Homicide Division. Detective Chambers said you called about Herbert Stein.”

“Yes. Barnett and Kaplan are here. They explained about you not being able to get back to me.”

“Who?”

Kevin frowned. “Detectives Barnett and Kaplan. They said you asked them to stop by my apartment. I was just about to leave with them to come down to the station.”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

58

“What do you mean, Mr. Hamilton? I didn’t send anyone to your apartment.”

Kevin looked at the closed bedroom door. “There must be some misunderstanding. Their names are Detectives Barnett and Kaplan.”

“Look, Mr. Hamilton” Robley said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t know anyone by the name of Barnett or Kaplan.”

* * *

Lobec leaned against the wall by the bedroom door. He had moved over there to hear the phone conversation, but the noise of the lawnmower was drowning out Kevin’s voice. No matter.

He had heard most of the conversation he had had with his girlfriend, and it didn’t sound as if he had told her anything of importance. Besides, her home was going to be their next stop. So much easier to make their deaths appear as an accident.

He couldn’t hear Kevin hang up the phone, but his voice called from the bedroom.

“I just have to go to the bathroom, and then I’ll be ready to go.”

Lobec heard a door shut. After waiting a minute, he peered into the bedroom. Seeing that it was clear, he walked in. The obese man with the lawnmower turned his machine off. Lobec listened at the door of the bathroom. The fan was on. He heard nothing.

He waited a few seconds. Still nothing.

He knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right. No response. He drew his pistol and tried the knob. Locked. He hit the flimsy door with his shoulder and rushed into the bathroom.

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

59

It took him only a second to scan the tiny room. Before his eyes reached it, he could feel the heat flowing through an open window, large enough for a man to fit through easily. He looked through. Hamilton’s car was still in the lot, but the student was nowhere to be seen.

“Something must have tipped him,” Bern said. “He didn’t take the car?”

Lobec turned and saw Bern looking through the window, his pistol already drawn. He slapped Bern’s right cheek, leaving an angry red mark.

“You fool. Of course he was tipped off. You did it by mentioning the word superconductivity before he told it to us.”

“I heard him say superconductivity.”

“He said he was conducting an experiment. He made no mention of the word

‘superconductivity.’”

“But I...”

“This is not a debate. His keys are in the kitchen and his wallet is on the coffee table. Get them in case he decides to come back. He must be in the apartment complex.”

Lobec heard talking coming from the bedroom. He and Bern rushed out of the bathroom to find Hamilton’s greeting playing on the answering machine. When the machine beeped and started recording, Lobec recognized the voice. The girl named Erica.

“Kevin? Kevin, are you there? It’s Erica. We got cut off. Kevin? If you’ve left for the police station, let me know when you get back.” After a few more seconds calling his name, she hung up.

Bern looked at Lobec. “What do we do now? Same plan? Interrogation?”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

60

Lobec gave Bern a cold stare, twisting the silencer onto his pistol. “No. Hamilton obviously didn’t know what the code meant. Therefore, he is of no further use to us. When you find him, kill him.”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

61

CHAPTER 8

As he heard Barnett and Kaplan, or whoever they were, leave the bedroom, Kevin felt the air rush from his lungs. He hadn’t even realized he had been holding his breath. Now he was breathing in huge gulps. His hiding place under the pile of laundry in the bedroom closet was tenuous at best. They would be back as soon as they realized he wasn’t anywhere in the apartment complex. He needed to move.

His hands were shaking as he eased open the closet door. These guys were impersonating police officers and spoke about killing him as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.

Once the lawnmower had stopped, he’d been able to hear everything they said in the bathroom.

When Detective Robley said that he had never heard of Barnett and Kaplan, Kevin had put the phone down without another word, knowing he’d never be able to convince Robley of his situation before the two impostors got suspicious. He also turned off the ringer, so the other line with Erica wouldn’t suddenly start ringing the phone. But in his hurry he’d forgotten about the answering machine. Now Erica might be in just as much danger.

The conversation with Robley made everything suddenly click. There was the misplaced remote control and the incorrectly filed folders. At first glance, those inconsistencies were MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

62

nothing more than a curiosity. Given what just happened, though, the conclusion was obvious.

Someone had been in his apartment last night. They had been very careful, but not perfect.

But the real clincher was Kaplan’s off-hand question about NV117. Kevin had never mentioned to Barnett and Kaplan that the experiment involved superconductivity. He was sure of it. Meaning the phone was tapped and they had heard him talking about it on the phone with Erica. That’s why they had come now. The phone call to the police. They had heard it and were afraid he’d tell them about the message from Ward. And because the phone was tapped, they almost certainly knew who Erica was and where she lived.

When Kevin realized Barnett and Kaplan’s deception, his choices became limited.

Overpowering them was out of the question, not when one of them looked liked a linebacker for the Cowboys. And if they had guns, which Kevin was almost sure of, running wouldn’t have done much good either. That’s why he had opened the bathroom window, pushed the button locking the bathroom door, and closed it before hiding in the closet. Sneaking out was the only way. Luckily, the trick seemed to have worked. For now.

Kevin crept out of the closet. The apartment was quiet. He kept his steps soft as he moved into the living room.

As Barnett had ordered, Kaplan had taken Kevin’s wallet and keys. Kevin opened the right desk drawer and flipped through the files he kept in there. Even though he was meticulous with his research files, his personal files were a mess. He didn’t even label all of them. His stomach dropped when he didn’t find what he was looking for on the first pass. As he more carefully went through the files a second time, his hands shook, and several times he glanced at the door.

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

63

Finally, he found it in the tenth file and breathed a sigh of relief. The valet key he had gotten with the car, but never used.

He snatched the key from the file and ran to the door. He poked his head through. No one was in sight. There was no choice. He had to go for it.

Kevin sprinted to the Mustang, all the while expecting a bullet in the back. He crammed the key into the door, his head swiveling as he quietly opened it. Still no sign of them. He got in and kept his head down as he eased the door shut.

He jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. The Mustang wheezed and coughed, struggling to turn over. It cranked and cranked, but the engine wouldn’t catch. Shit! He let go and tried again. Same result.

“Not now,” he muttered to himself, glancing in the rearview mirror. He opened the window to let out some of the stifling heat. “Come on. Come on.”

He turned the key again.

* * *

To the left of the apartment complex entrance, Lobec saw no sign of Hamilton. It was unlikely their target had scaled one of the ten-foot high fences encircling the apartment property.

The chain link was topped with razor wire to keep out intruders. That left the front gate as the only route out of the complex.

Lobec returned to the gate, where Bern was waiting.

“I assume there was no sign of him,” Lobec said.

“No. But there’s no way we wouldn’t have seen him. The street’s clear, and there’s nowhere to hide.”

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

64

“It’s the same on my side. He must still be in the complex.”

“You want me to wait here in case he tries to get out?” Bern said.

“No, we need to find him immediately. He might try to call someone. We’ll make one pass through the complex. If we can’t find him, we must assume that he found refuge with a neighbor.”

Lobec and Bern skirted the edges of the complex, each taking a side looking under bushes, behind cars, and inside shadowed alcoves. Both of the pool areas were crowded with sun-worshippers. Lobec kept his distance, not wanting to present a face that residents might remember should he have to shoot Hamilton. No sign of their target. As he finished at the last courtyard, the one directly outside Hamilton’s apartment, Bern came towards him.

“No luck. I’ve searched every inch of this place between here and the entrance. If he’s here, I don’t...”

Lobec raised his hand, cutting Bern off. Somewhere nearby an engine was turning over, struggling to start. It sounded like the rumble of a V8 engine. It seemed to catch and roar to life, but then abruptly died. He ran toward the end of the building and Bern followed.

As he rounded the corner, he saw the Mustang at the far end of the lot. Someone was inside.

Lobec started running toward it.

He motioned for Bern to get the car and pulled the SIG Sauer from his jacket.

* * *

Kevin nervously searched the parking lot as he let the engine pause before trying again. He was just about to reach for the key when he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. To his right he saw a man sprinting from the opposite side of the parking lot. His hand fumbled for the MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

65

ignition. The engine had almost started the last time, and it looked like he’d only get one more chance. He frantically turned the key.

The engine caught on the first crank. Kevin mashed his foot on the accelerator, but he was now surging with adrenaline and was almost unaware of how fast he released the clutch. The car lurched forward, coughed, and then roared back to life, the needle on the tachometer leaping toward the redline. The rear wheels emitted an ear-piercing screech, and Kevin could smell the tires burning on the hot cement.

He twirled the steering wheel to the left, the Mustang gyrating wildly on the spinning wheel.

Kevin tried to get it headed in the direction of the apartment complex exit. As he completed the 180 degree turn, he quickly glanced out of the window.

The man, who he now recognized as the fake officer calling himself Barnett, stopped only fifty yards away and raised his arm, pointing it at Kevin. Kevin realized what was happening almost too late and ducked down as the passenger’s window disintegrated. He yelled “Shit!” and raised his arm to shield himself from the bits of glass ricocheting around the car’s interior. He heard another bullet smash the driver’s side mirror and others pepper the door. The tires finally gripped the pavement, and the Mustang shot past the end of the building and out of Barnett’s sight.

Kevin saw the front gate growing quickly and only then remembered he would need to stop and wait for its sensor to detect the car’s weight before opening. As the Mustang skidded to a halt within inches of the gate, he looked in the mirror. Barnett came to a stop 200 yards back and a large Pontiac rounded the corner. It stopped barely long enough to let Barnett yank the door open and jump in. The car leapt towards him and would close the distance in seconds.

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

66

Kevin gunned the engine as the gate crawled along its track, still only three-quarters open. It had always seemed slow, but now the wait was agonizing. He looked in the mirror again. His pursuers were now only 100 yards back. He couldn’t wait.

The engine roared as the Mustang sprang forward, and Kevin winced as he heard the tearing of metal from the passenger side, the mirror ripped from its mounting. For a second the car seemed to be hung up on something, as if a piece of metal was caught on the gate, but then whatever it was tore loose and he was free. Turning right onto Gulfton, Kevin floored it.

As he rocketed past a puttering Honda, he suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was going. He knew he had to get to the police, but until this moment, it had never crossed his mind that he didn’t actually know the location of a police station. The only contact he’d had with the police was a few tickets, but he’d always paid them through the mail. His only hope was to get caught in a speed trap. He’d cheerfully accept another citation if they would stop him.

He was coming up on Chimney Rock. The Pontiac was lagging behind, but not as much as Kevin had hoped. Apparently, it had almost as much power as the Mustang’s V8, and the driver was putting it to good use.

Kevin was about to randomly pick a direction when a sign caught his eye. It advertised the wholesome atmosphere at Houston Baptist University. Suddenly Kevin realized that he did know the location of a police station. The campus police station at South Texas University. At the rate he was going, he could be there in ten minutes. And the quickest way was to get on the Southwest Freeway. Which meant turning left onto Chimney Rock.

He bothered to slow long enough to time his entrance into the heavy cross traffic. Then he saw an opening and punched the accelerator. The Mustang blasted through the stop sign and MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

67

swerved sickeningly, missing the front of a pickup by inches. He proceeded to weave past cars, honking the horn whenever someone blocked the way.

The Pontiac tried the same maneuver, but it sideswiped a UPS truck, which knocked the battered car into the median. Kevin was elated until he saw the Pontiac rebound off the median and continue in his direction.

Luckily, there were no lights until the freeway feeder road, and Kevin was able to maintain the separation between him and the Pontiac. Then he saw the freeway rising ahead, and a sign saying

“US 59” flashed by. Once he was on the freeway, he’d be able to open it up and maybe even lose the Pontiac.

During Kevin’s race to school on the same route the day before, the adrenaline had flowed, but now it was a tidal wave pounding through his system. He had always wanted to go to one of those driving schools, the ones where you learn how to slide through a controlled skid or accelerate out of decreasing radius turns without plastering the car on whatever unfortunate objects were around you. He’d even fantasized about being in a car chase just like this one, thinking it would be a blast to tear through the streets at eighty miles an hour with another car hot on his trail. But the reality was nothing like his fantasy; all he felt now was sheer terror.

His fear inched up a notch when he saw the traffic backed up at the feeder road stoplight.

He’d be stopped for thirty seconds, easily long enough for the thugs following him to run up and drag him from the car, probably flashing badges all the way.

There was an entrance into a strip mall on his right. It was a new Wal-Mart, and Kevin was sure it had an outlet onto the feeder road. He wrenched the wheel to the right and flew into and over the steeply inclined parking lot entrance, mashing the nose of the Mustang in the process.

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

68

After speeding down the side of the Wal-Mart, he rounded the corner and almost ran down an employee wheeling an empty shopping cart toward the store front. The startled employee jumped back, pushing the cart directly into the Mustang’s path. The car’s nose hit it low, tossing the cart into the right half of the Mustang’s windshield, creating a maze of cracks in the safety glass.

Kevin turned left and bypassed the crowded store entrance, racing across the empty fringes of the lot and struggling to see through the crazed windshield. He wiped sweat from his forehead, wishing he could use the air conditioner but not wanting to sap any power from the engine. Not that the air conditioner would do much good with the shattered passenger side window.

He took another look in his one remaining mirror. The Pontiac was still there, now a mere seventy-five yards behind. Kevin aimed at the closest exit.

Then Kevin saw the freeway entrance ramp he had taken yesterday. It was a hundred yards to his left. The only problem was the feeder road was one way, with two lanes of dense traffic coming towards him. To get on the freeway on this entrance, he’d have to head into the oncoming traffic and make a 180 degree turn to get onto the ramp. With the cars racing along the feeder at 60 miles an hour, he’d never make it without crashing into another car. He’d just have to make it to the next freeway entrance.

He took the feeder road toward the Loop, the beltway encircling Houston. To his horror, he saw orange cones diverting traffic away from the freeway onto a temporary asphalt macadam.

Houston’s ubiquitous construction strikes again, he thought. The macadam led to an intersection which merged into Westpark. The makeshift light was green, and Kevin made a tight left to keep heading in the direction of downtown Houston.

MORRISON/THE ADAMAS BLUEPRINT

69

He thought about staying on Westpark the whole way and decided against it. Too many lights. He went under the Loop and saw that the feeder road was blocked here as well. He’d have to go up to Newcastle, which was the first road that would lead back to the freeway. He’d been on it just three days before and hoped it was still open.

Kevin looked in the rear view mirror. The Pontiac was now only fifty yards behind him. The traffic was thinning out. Kevin floored it and accelerated up an overpass rising above several railroad tracks. By the time he reached the top, the distance between the two cars had opened to 100 yards.