Undercover Genius (11 page)

“Broderick Media,” he coughed up, giving me a cross-eyed
scowl. “Patra Llewellyn. Who the hell are you?”

I leaned on the two-by-four and studied the cretin. He
didn’t look like an arsonist out to burn Patra and her papers. Even if he did,
I couldn’t heave him out a window without evidence. There were drawbacks to
living in civilization. “Broderick sent you to spy on Patra? I ought to whack
you upside the head just for that alone. What kind of creepy company is that?”

He looked alarmed at my tone. “We’re very cautious in our
new hires. The world is full of terrorists who would love to bring down one of
the most powerful pillars of the free press.”

I’m not sure how he said that with a straight face. I
couldn’t keep the smirk off mine. “Free press? Is that what you call spinning
propaganda these days?” So, if I couldn’t whack him physically, my suppressed
anger issues went verbal. Who knew?

He indignantly dusted himself off. “All patriots must be
cautious in these troubled times. I don’t need to stand here and argue. I’m
here legitimately and can leave anytime I wish.”

I bowed and indicated the stairs. “Please do. And don’t come
back or I won’t be so polite.”

He scampered. I watched out the window as he appeared in the
side yard, followed by another man who looked more like the thug I’d been
expecting. Interesting.

I was more accustomed to taking out bad guys with trickery
than using toys. So I was a little late in remembering to pull out my phone. By
the time I found the camera app, I had to really zoom in to snap a couple of pathetic
pics.

Since EG’s little kidnapping episode, I was wary of thugs in
alleys, even if they called themselves reporters. I watched this pair head for
the Metro and out of sight before studying our house across the street from
this fresh perspective. Mallard kept all the downstairs draperies closed. I
liked my second-floor windows open except at night. Nick and Patra’s rooms
overlooked the back yard. The other bedrooms on that floor were closed up. EG’s
turret was draped in heavy black. The kid wasn’t dumb.

I checked Graham’s third floor lair, but he existed in a
dark computer room at the back. The front rooms had shutters. They could have
spy holes for all I could tell. Trying not to think about Graham over there,
staring back, I hurried down the stairs, no longer trying for silence. If the
workmen allowed in nerdy birdwatchers, then I was the neighborhood pigeon lady.

I slipped out through the cellar but directly crossed the
street without taking my earlier roundabout circuit. Since it was a crisp,
sunny October day, I cut through the side walkway to admire the garden and descend
into Mallard’s domain. He was busily whacking up a naked chicken with a
short-handled ax.

“Thank you for looking out for EG,” I said, proving I had no
fear of angry men with sharp instruments. “I’ll try to meet her from now on.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said stiffly. “I will continue to
meet her. Your grandfather would have wanted it that way.”

“We can’t pay you,” I pointed out. “Unless you want us to
pay your tab at the pub. We could do that.”

He almost smiled. “You’re more like him than you realize.”

“Probably not in a good way.” I clicked my camera roll so he
could see the photos I’d taken. “The trespasser claimed to be from Broderick,
but I’m not certain about his pal in the alley. Living with my family is a
twenty-four-hour security problem.”

Mallard studied the photos, then nodded. “Dinner will be at
six, as usual.”

I didn’t know if we’d ever earn his respect, but I was
satisfied with his dinners.

I returned to my office to put faces to the names on
Broderick’s employee list. Let’s see how Birdwatcher took to being cyber-stalked.

I put on my blazer and pretended to look normal when I
went upstairs for dinner.

Waiting for the rest of us, Nick gazed admiringly on the
resplendent meal Mallard had laid out. Once I arrived, Nick took his chair at
the head of the table. No one had nominated him as master of the household. He
simply assumed the position as his birthright, just as I took the other end as
eldest.

EG propped a textbook next to her plate. No one objected. We
knew she could listen and read at the same time.

Patra stacked crisp new file folders next to her place, but
she was happily filling her plate with lemon chicken and risotto and not
inclined to part with any findings as yet.

“I mentioned to the senator this afternoon that Patra is
applying at Broderick,” Nick said after sampling the chardonnay. “Tex is a conservative,
so I thought he’d approve.”

Patra merely lifted an elegantly arched eyebrow and
continued chewing. I was the only one considering the implications of Nick
speaking to the senator about a war-mongering media conglomerate. Tex had been
a reluctant part of Top Hat for a while. Nick was thinking conspiracy.

“Did Tex offer to call Broderick and personally recommend
Patra?” I asked, just to prevent Nick from dropping the topic to dig into his repast.

“
Au contraire
, he
recommended the CNN position in Atlanta. Our prosy senator ranted about BM being
a dangerous collusion of oil magnates and the military industry hiding behind
the social reform of Righteous and Proud. EG may have inherited some of her
pessimism from him.”

“It’s called intelligence, dumquat,” EG said from behind her
book.

“Intelligence that predicts doom and gloom creates a society
motivated by fear,” Nick warned her. “No positive action comes from fear.”

“Military industry?” I derailed EG’s derailment of the
topic. “I thought he was into oil.”

“Makers of guns, tanks, and military equipment,” he clarified.
“Broderick likes
all
rich men.”

“Old news,” Patra said with an airy wave. “Broderick would
be emperor and own gladiators if he could. Soldiers are nothing more to him
than avatars in a video war game with bigger and better booms. Irrelevant to my
position.”

“But not irrelevant if your father was against war and had
evidence to prove Broddy was corrupting news to foment revolution in order to
enrich his military and oil buddies,” I corrected. “Motive is half the puzzle.
The men on that recording are just the sort to support Broderick Media. It’s a
lead of sorts.”

“I met David Smedbetter today. I’m pretty sure he’s in my
father’s files. I listened in on their boys’ club but heard nothing conclusive
and haven’t found anything else interesting,” Patra said in disgust. “I’m still
looking.”

The name Smedbetter meant nothing to any of us, but I added
it to my to-do list. I needed to get back to the de-coding software and find
another speech analyst, but unless I uncovered something, I saw no reason in raising
her hopes. “You do realize your new boss is spying on you, don’t you?”

Patra shrugged. “That’s to be expected. I spent the
afternoon at the library, so they must have been bored.”

I produced the cell phone images and showed them to her. “Broderick
has to know who your father is. You’d better play total innocent or you’ll end
up like Bill,” I warned.

“Now who’s a pessimist?” EG asked, not lifting her gaze from
her reading material.

Patra studied the images and shook her head in non-recognition.
“These creeps are way off base. I’m providing entertainment like the
gladiators,” she said mockingly. “I have an interview with Rhianna.”

I tried not to let my eyebrows soar off my face. Patra was
damned good if she’d wormed her way through the actress’s security in one day.

Patra blithely continued as if she hadn’t accomplished the
impossible. “She remembers daddy with fondness and has promised to help his
little girl contact any other entertainers looking for a little publicity. Why
should the poopmeisters suspect me of anything?”

“Because you’re a Maximillian, and Broderick hated your
grandfather as well as your father,” the candelabra said.

I sighed and resumed eating. Even though he made my hormones
sing hosannas, Graham still had a way of dampening any convivial conversation.

“Keep your enemies close works both ways,” Nick said
cheerily.

Perspicacious, Nick,
I realized. Graham was doing a damned good job of keeping us close. I studied
the expensive dinner on the fancy dinnerware that we’d simply accepted as our
birthright, just as Nick had taken the head of the table. Technically, none of
this was ours.

“I’m working for Graham to cover the costs of our rent,” I
said, derailing the topic even better than EG rather than discuss enemies. She
even glanced up from her book to watch me with interest. “I think we need to
start paying for our food. Maybe the two of you could throw a hundred each a
week from your salaries into the kitchen kitty.”

“Socialism,” Nick muttered ungratefully, but he cast a
considering look at the silent candelabra as he said it.

“Fair enough,” Patra conceded, “but if I’m staying in D.C.,
I’m finding my own place.”

“Good luck with that,” Nick and I both said in concert.

After that, we returned to the business of eating. We’d
never really gone without, but we’d shared enough meals of ants and grubs and
porridge to appreciate good food when we had it.

I sat down with EG after supper to order her new Mac. It was
Friday night, so Nick had a hot date. And even Patra, who had just arrived in
this country, was heading out. I was the non-social introvert in our family of
cuckoos, so I got to babysit.

After we completed our order, I let EG play with my Dell in
my basement office while I used Graham’s Whiz to hack into Broderick’s
personnel files, looking for the sneak I’d caught across the street. As I
suspected, company paranoia required photo IDs. They had enough info in their
employee files to order up birth certificates if they suspected someone hadn’t
been born on the right side of the border.

Patra hadn’t. To the best of my recollection, she’d been
born in Algeria, at an American military facility since the country was in the
middle of a civil war at the time. But Magda is a totally American blonde, and
Patrick the Brit had been there to claim his daughter, so her birth certificate
was well documented in Algeria, the UK, and the US. Confusing, but legal.

Patra’s personnel files weren’t recorded in Broderick’s
computer yet. I couldn’t search “middle-aged” or “tubby” or any of those few
things I knew about the spy who’d irritated me. I tried “American” and
“reporter” but the search list was still tremendous. The firm had a
lot
of employees. Too bad I couldn’t do
a photo ID match with my camera images, but if Graham had that kind of
software, he hadn’t given me access to it.

I uploaded my phone images, just in case.

I scanned the files for David Smedbetter, just out of
curiosity. He was a vice president, hired a few years ago. Like many of
Broderick’s employees, he had military credentials. Nothing singled him out as
interesting, including his photo.

Deciding we’d had a long week and had worked hard enough, I
downloaded the old flick of
Fahrenheit
451.
EG and I spent the evening scaring ourselves imagining a world without
books.

After I saw EG into her tower — the bats had apparently
departed to a better home, leaving behind a faint smell I’d rather not identify —
I settled restlessly into my own chamber, closing the window and shutters. I’d
covered up the camera behind the portrait of John Adams weeks ago, after
amusing myself by tantalizing Graham with my bare legs.

At the time, I’d imagined a wheel-chair bound invalid
suffering sex-deprived voyeurism. Now I knew Graham had the ability to come
down here and throw me through a window if he so desired.

I had mixed emotions about that. Torturing an invalid had
been mean-spirited but well-deserved under the circumstances. Tormenting a man
who could throw me up against a wall — that was just plain stupid. But
enticing a man who intrigued me more than any other mortal in the world… that
was pure Magda. I refrained. But I still couldn’t help throwing occasional
looks at John Adams as I worked on my laptop until midnight.

I occasionally peered through the shutters at the house
across the street, just to check if someone was sitting over there, waiting for
Patra to come home. I saw no lights. Patra didn’t come home. Neither did Nick.
I finally gave up and went to bed.

Saturday morning and it was still just me and EG. For years,
it had been just me, and I hadn’t minded at all, but today, I was a bit pissed.
If I couldn’t have sex, I needed action. I’d been debating making a little
visit to Bill’s mom and finding out more about his family and their
connections, but I couldn’t very well take EG with me.

Sitting at the computer running decoding programs didn’t
help my restlessness. Patrick’s papers weren’t responding to anything I’d tried
so far. I located a new speech analyst on the other side of the country. I
needed to email him from an anonymous address using a computer at the library
to prevent anyone from knowing where I was sending Patra’s sound tracks.

I also needed to know that my family was safe from spying
intruders across the street.
That
, I
could do something about. By mid-morning, EG and I were on the Metro heading
for the spy museum. I love D.C. I could indulge EG’s eagerness to learn
everything and pick up a few essentials in a gift shop at the same time.

EG cleaned out the museum’s bookstore. I acquired a few
useful toys. I could have ordered more professional equipment on-line and had
it shipped, but I wanted to monitor movements in the house across the street tonight,
not next week.

Nick and Patra’s doors were closed when we returned, so I
could breathe easier. I made a lousy mother figure, but this sharing the same
roof business dredged up old memories.