No One Lives Twice (A Lexi Carmichael Mystery) (7 page)

I stood up. There was no more information I could get here. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr….”

“Anderson,” he supplied, standing and walking around the desk.

“Oh, as in Anderson’s Karate Academy,” I said.
Stupid.
I was really an amazing detective. “I guess that makes sense.”

He smiled and I realized just how big he was. He towered above me, every inch solid muscle. “You must call me Lars.”

“Okay, Lars.”

He stood next to me, studying my form. “Have you ever considered trying the martial arts, Miss Carmichael?”

“Me?” The word came out as a snort. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not? You have the body of a martial arts expert, you know. Long legs, long arms and a graceful way of carrying yourself.”

Graceful? Me?
My cheeks warmed. “Well, no…I—I couldn’t…” I stammered. Did he really think I was graceful?

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, leaning close to my face. “Come in for a couple of free lessons. It won’t cost you a thing, and you can see if you like the challenge.”

I was still amazed that he thought I was capable of coordinating my body movements. I had never been much of an athlete and stamina was a word that didn’t exist in my vocabulary.

“Are you serious?”

“Tomorrow night, eight o’clock,” he said in a firm voice. “It’s Basia’s class, too. Maybe you’ll see her here. Wear a soft T-shirt, sweat pants and no socks. I think you’ll enjoy yourself.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and I could feel the heat emanate all the way down to my toes. “Okay,” I said. I just kind of hoped he would never move his hand.

Before I knew it, he had propelled me to the door. I took a step outside and Lars locked up behind me. I blinked in the sunlight, pulled my sunglasses back down on my nose and walked to the car.

Graceful, I thought, adding a spring to my step. Maybe after a few karate lessons, I could even be dangerous.

“I’m Lexi Carmichael, black belt in karate,” I said to the Miata. “My hands and legs are licensed killing weapons.”

I slid behind the wheel, liking the feeling of being in control—especially after what had happened to me yesterday. Maybe a couple of lessons in self-defense wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Feeling better, I pulled into a nearby McDonald’s drive-thru, ordering a Diet Coke and a large order of hash browns. I ate the crunchy potatoes in the car, sitting in the parking lot. After the last one was gone, I wiped the grease from my hands with a napkin and got out to use a pay phone in front of the building.

I called the main number of the NSA and rattled off Paul Wilks’s extension. After two rings, he picked up.

“Hi, Paul,” I said. “You got that translation for me yet?”

“Sure do,” he said, his voice cheerful. “You ready for this?”

“Fire away,” I said. An ambulance screamed down the road, so I pressed a finger to my ear to hear him.

“Hey, I thought you had a doctor’s appointment,” he said.

“I do,” I lied. “I’m on my way there now. What’s the translation?”

He paused. “Look, you’re not going to back out of our date Friday night after I give you this info, are you? I already told half the office.”

I groaned. “For God’s sake, Paul. Why did you do that?”

“Insurance. You gave me your word, Lexi. Friday night and all the trimmings. I’m looking forward to it.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know what I promised. I’m good for my word. The company name, please.”

“Okay. I’m pretty sure it’s Bright Horizons. I considered a couple of other combinations, but this one seems right to me. Just in case, I checked out the address on the contract for you and it fits. A company with the same name is registered there in Warsaw.”

“Bright Horizons? It’s a Polish company?”

“No. American.”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“Why? There are hundreds of American companies operating in Poland.”

I supposed that was true. “Where is their home base in the States?”

“Richmond, Virginia.”

Rather close to home. “What kind of company are they?” I asked. “Technology?”

“Sorry, I don’t know.”

“Did you check the internet?”

“Do I look like your personal secretary?”

I sighed. “Guess not. Well, I gotta go. Just tell me you were discreet.”

“It’s my middle name.”

“Thanks, Paul. I mean it.”

“Thank me on Friday,” he said and hung up.

I replaced the receiver and headed back to my car. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to piece together all the strange pieces of information I had gathered. I thought I was pretty darn good at finding threads and putting them together to form something that made sense. But I just didn’t have enough information to get a big picture here. More input was needed.

I drove home, trying to figure out what to do next. Upon my arrival, I did a thorough search of the apartment to make certain no unauthorized persons had entered while I was gone. The place was clean of lurkers, but still a disaster area. Even more depressing, I knew I had to do laundry today or I’d have nothing to wear to work tomorrow. But first things first. I needed to check the internet.

I sat down at my desk and booted up the system. I may have a tiny apartment and not much in the way of furnishings, but I was damn proud of my computer. My laptop was considered “geek chic” among most computer aficionados, myself included. I liked it because it was sleek, elegant and lightweight. Next to Basia, it was my best friend.

I Googled “Bright Horizons” and “Richmond, Virginia” and came up with one hit.

Bingo.

I clicked on the link and the Bright Horizons website appeared with a pretty logo of a sun rising over the horizon while a happy couple held a smiling infant in their arms.

“Well, lookie here,” I murmured. “A fertility clinic.”

The Bright Horizons clinic was actually part of a larger medical research company called CGM, Inc. CGM had been founded in 1952 in Richmond as a medical clinic and expanded into a research facility in 1964. In 1984 Dr. Geoff Sandberg launched the Bright Horizons fertility clinic in Richmond, using various techniques of in vitro fertilization. It appeared that Bright Horizons had been quite profitable for CGM, boasting a sixty-five percent pregnancy rate per embryo transfer over the past two years, which must be good if they bragged about it online.

In 1990 CGM expanded into biotechnology, receiving a slew of prestigious academic grants and attracting top medical names in the field. The company had expanded internationally and currently had offices in London, Morocco, Genoa, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Paris. They currently employed over twenty thousand people worldwide.

I sat back and linked my fingers behind my neck. Okay, there was nothing necessarily sinister here. Bright Horizons had apparently contracted Basia to translate some documents for their international clients. No biggie, right? Except why had she sent the documents to me, why were two guys with guns ready to kill to get them, and what did the word Acheron written in code at the bottom of page three mean? Just thinking of Acheron prompted me to do another search of that word, but I came up with nothing more interesting than what the twins had told me.

It was clear I needed further expert assistance.

I drove over to the Zimmermans’ and knocked on the door. Elvis answered this time and smiled when he saw me. He still wore the same clothes he had on last night and I wondered if he had slept. In fact, I wondered if he ever slept. Maybe geniuses didn’t need sleep. Funny how he didn’t look the worse for wear, whereas I was sure I looked like death warmed over.

“Hey, Lexi. Long time, no see. Come in.”

“Sorry to keep bugging you guys,” I said, stepping across the threshold. “But things are getting weird.”

“Yeah?” said Xavier, coming out of the command room. “What kind of weird?”

I went to the couch, picked up the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I decided to be straight with the twins and told them everything that had happened to me since yesterday evening.

They listened with their usual intense focus, and when I finished, Elvis leaned back against the cushions, stroking his chin. “Bright Horizons is the name of the company, you say?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“You know anything about the people who work there?” he asked.

“Only what’s in their bios on the website.”

“Was the name of their IT guy listed?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, feeling as though I’d failed a homework assignment. “I didn’t check it.”

But I instantly knew why they wanted to know. Elvis and Xavier would check to see how good the IT guy was—possibly tracing him to his home, finding out what kind of broadband service he was running and what kind of firewall and routers he had in place. It’s much easier to break into someone’s home computer, steal a password and then log on to the company’s server using that method. If not, they wanted to know if they’d heard of this guy and how capable he was. They would look and exploit any vulnerability, including personnel, without being detected. It’s what they did best.

I liked the fact that the twins were careful and thorough; they did their homework first. I guess that’s what made them the best in the country, perhaps the world.

“You say that the parent company CGM, Inc. is big,” Xavier murmured, speaking more to himself than to us. “And international. They’ve likely got lots of money. My bet is they’ve got a good IDS system.”

Any company worth their salt had a good intrusion detection system, but some systems were better than others.

“Unless they outsource for their protection,” Elvis said.

“True,” Xavier acknowledged. “Only one way to find out.”

“Let’s take a look,” Elvis said, standing.

That’s what I love about these guys. No challenge too big, no company too impenetrable.

The twins sat down at adjacent computer terminals. I hovered behind them, watching with awe as Xavier quickly accessed an account in Singapore, and Elvis one in Budapest. From there they hopped across the country, leaving a trail that would lead nowhere. Then they began their investigation of the computer security of CGM, Inc.

At this point, the twins’ rapid and unconventional maneuvering left me in the dust. I knew theoretically what they were trying to do, but had no understanding how they were going about it. I guess that’s why they get paid the big bucks and I don’t.

During the session, Elvis and Xavier brainstormed constantly in a computer language I didn’t understand, their fingers flying over the keyboard so fast they were a blur. I was afraid to speak in case I interrupted their flow of concentration. So I just stood there uselessly—ready to offer moral support if needed.

After about ten minutes, Xavier suddenly slammed a fist on the keyboard.

“Backspace, backspace!” he shouted to Elvis. “Abort!”

Elvis’s fingers hammered out some rapid-fire commands. Then he swiveled around his chair and looked at me.

“Abort what?” I said nervously. “What happened?”

“Someone was scanning us back.”

“Shoot. I guess that means the company has a good IDS system,” I mourned.

Elvis frowned, looking slightly offended. “Good, yes. But it won’t keep us out.”

I believed that one hundred percent.

“No it won’t,” Xavier agreed, stretching his arms above his head like he had just run a marathon. In a way, I guess he had. “We’ll get in sooner or later. The question is—how much time do we have?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Based on the fact that I’m being chased around by guys with guns and Basia has mysteriously disappeared, I’d say the sooner the better. But truthfully, even if you do break in to CGM, I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“How about a file called Acheron?” Elvis suggested.

I glanced over at Xavier. “Find anything different with that code I gave you?”

He shook his head. “No and it feels amateur, so I’m going with Acheron, as well.”

That had been my feeling exactly. “Okay, then let’s stay with Acheron. Right now, it’s my only clue. I don’t know how it’s connected to what’s going on, but Basia wrote it on those documents for a reason.”

Elvis sat back, thinking. I know he was thinking because he always puts his finger against his chin and taps it while staring into space. Even Xavier didn’t interrupt him, although I suspect he was thinking, too. I guess I was the only one in the room who wasn’t thinking. I was too busy worrying.

“You know, Elvis, we could do this a lot quicker if we brought some help on board.”

“Help? What kind of help?” I asked. I didn’t want to get anyone else involved, or for that matter, in trouble. I was already up to my neck in deep doo-doo for asking the twins to hack into a private company. And frankly I didn’t want to sink under completely and disappear into the dark void of criminal activity, dragging everyone else along with me.

Elvis looked at his brother and shook his head. “No way.”

“Why not?” Xavier said.

“Too risky.”

“I’ve been wanting to meet him.”

“Not under these circumstances.”

“Excuse me,” I broke in, exasperated. “Can someone tell me what the hell you two are talking about?”

“Slash,” Xavier said simply.

“Slash?” I repeated in disbelief. “As in
the
Slash? Come on, you guys really don’t believe this guy exists, do you?”

They both looked at me as if I were a child. “Of course he exists,” Xavier said.

I wasn’t so sure. There was a running legend at the NSA about Slash, who was supposedly a brilliant hacker and computer programmer. The story went that the NSA brought Slash aboard after the Zimmerman twins defected to the public sector. His duty—to modify the government’s security programs enough to protect them from the two young men who essentially created them. Most people believed Slash was really a team of thirty or more computer experts working around the clock on the best equipment money could buy. Others said Slash was a twelve-year-old genius kid who was protected 24/7 by the FBI like some kind of national treasure.

I happened to be among those who didn’t believe this so-called Slash was real and suspected the government had made him up solely to provide an illusion of security to a system that was hopelessly compromised after the twins left. But I suppose that if the government could make the twins believe Slash existed, then half their job was done.