The Green Trap (33 page)

“I—I'll wait until you're finished.”

She stared at him.

He stared back.

“Paul, I'm not a whore.”

“I never said you were, did I?”

“The thing with Gould—”

“You did it to protect me, I know.”

“I did it to protect myself, too. I was in a tough situation, with Kensington there and all.”

“Kensington's dead.”

“And we're alive.”

“So?” He knew what he wanted her to say. She wasn't saying it.

“So where do we go from here, Paul?”

“I wish I knew.”

“It's up to you,” she said, without moving a millimeter closer to him.

He looked into her unfathomable green eyes, his mind spinning. Then he heard himself say, “Elena… I don't want to lose you.”

“I know,” she answered softly.

“I don't have anybody else! There's no one else in my life, nobody at all!”

And it was the truth. He didn't want to lose her. Without her he was alone. Utterly alone. He loved her. Despite everything, he loved her.

She reached out and touched his cheek. He realized that tears were leaking from his eyes.

“I don't want to lose you,” he repeated, sliding both hands around her waist, pulling her to him.

“You won't,” she whispered to him. “I'm here, Paul. I'm with you. Always.”

He held her and she rested her head on his shoulder and they were both sobbing softly.

After a long while she lifted her head slightly and suggested, “How about that shower?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Right.”

 

T
hat night, long afterward, they lay in bed together, warm and musky from lovemaking. Sandoval's bedroom was dark, although a faint misty light came from the curtained window. Cochrane could make out the plastered ceiling overhead.

“You ought to have a mirror up there,” he murmured. “It'd be fun.”

“Can't,” she replied drowsily. “Earthquakes.”

“Oh.”

A silence. Then, “Paul, where do we go from here?”

“Gould wants those hard drives.”

“I don't care what Gould wants,” she said. “He's never going to pay us, no matter what we do.”

“You think not?”

“Paul, you hit him. You threatened his life.”

“I had to.”

“I know. But you
humiliated
him. He's never going to forget that.”

“So now he's out to get me?”

“You've made it a personal thing. He won't rest until you're dead.”

Cochrane lay there in the queen-sized bed next to her, the reality of it sinking into his mind. “Christ,” he whispered, “where the hell can we go?”

F
reshly dressed in a pale blue silk sports shirt and darker slacks, Lionel Gould sat down in the comfortable upholstered armchair by the window of his bedroom. Morning sunshine streamed through the opened curtains as he tapped out a number on the keyboard of his computer phone.

The phone rang once, twice. On the third ring a muffled voice muttered, “Hello?” The little screen stayed blank; apparently Dr. Tulius did not have a vidcam link on his bedroom telephone.

“Dr. Tulius,” Gould said grandly, “this is Lionel Gould. Am I calling too early in the day?”

He heard some fumbling as he glanced at the ornate diamond-circled French Imperial clock on his night table. It would be 5:45
A.M
. in California. Gould smiled to himself.

“Mr. Gould?” Tulius half whispered.

“I apologize for calling so early,” Gould said, running a finger around
the collar of his shirt. “I realize there's a three-hour difference out where you are.”

“My wife's asleep,” Tulius said softly. “Let me get to my desk. Just a moment “

The line went dead. Gould figured that Tulius had put him on hold. He counted mentally, one-one thousand, two–one thousand, three…

Suddenly his phone screen came to life and he saw a pouchy-eyed Jason Tulius blinking sleepily at him, wearing blue-and-white-striped pajamas. He was evidently in a different room, an office adjoining his bedroom, Gould presumed.

“Again,” said Gould, “I'm sorry if this is an inconvenient time for you, but my assistant told me you've been trying to reach me since Tuesday.”

“That's all right,” Tulius said, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “I'm glad you called.”

“Indeed.”

Tulius looked disheveled, his beard uncombed, his pajamas wrinkled. But he said, “I have the, uh… packages you're interested in.”

“The computers?” Gould blurted.

“I don't think we should talk about this over an unsecured line, Mr. Gould.”

“All three of them?” Gould asked anyway.

“Their hard drives.”

“That is good! Very good!”

“But there's a complication,” said Tulius.

Gould made a little grunt. “Isn't there always?”

“It's very serious.”

“What's the problem?”

“We shouldn't discuss this over the phone.”

“Don't be melodramatic,” Gould snapped. “No one's tapping your phone and certainly no one is tapping mine.”

“But…”

Gould sucked in a deep breath. “My dear Dr. Tulius, how much do you want for those three hard drives?”

“It… there's more than money involved. I need protection.”

“Protection from whom?”

Tulius replied, “Would it be possible for me to call you from my office at the center? I have a secure line there.”

Gould saw that the scientist looked frightened. “How long will it take you to get there?”

“I can be there in an hour. Less, at this time of the morning.”

Gould sank back in the yielding chair, thinking hard. Tulius has the computer drives. Whoever took them from Kensington has brought them to him. Why him? Who else is involved in this? Whoever it is, they killed Kensington and they've got Dr. Tulius thoroughly scared.

“Perhaps you'd better bring the, uh, packages to me here in New York. I can send a plane—”

“No!” Tulius snapped. “That would tip them off that I'm working with you.”

“Them? Who?”

“Let me call you from my office,” Tulius pleaded. “We can talk much more freely then.”

Gould felt a gnawing anger rising in him. But he said mildly, “Very well, Dr. Tulius. In one hour.”

“Right.”

Gould's computer screen went dark. Reaching for a tissue from the box on the table beside him, he dabbed at his chin and his beaded upper lip as he thought hard. Someone took those hard drives from Kensington and delivered them to Tulius. Someone who has frightened the bejeesus out of him. He wants to sell the drives to me, but more than that he needs my protection.

Nodding to himself, Gould relaxed in the upholstered chair. Then he phoned his assistant and told him to get his private jet ready for a flight to California.

 

I
n San Francisco, Cochrane and Sandoval were already at breakfast in the spacious kitchen of her home on Russian Hill.

“Do you really think that Gould wants to kill me?” he asked, a spoonful of Rice Krispies halfway to his mouth.

She nodded solemnly from across the white-painted table. “It's a personal vendetta with him now. His ego is at stake.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Before she could reply, Cochrane corrected himself. “No, not us. It's me he's sore at, not you.”

“Us,” Sandoval said firmly. “We're in this together.”

“But—”

“What happens to you happens to me, Paul.”

He shook his head, but said nothing. After a few more crunching mouthfuls of the cereal, he asked, “Does Gould know about this house?”

“Nobody knows about it,” Sandoval replied. “You're the first person ever to be here, besides me.”

“I guess we can lay low here for a couple of days.”

Nodding, she said, “I have credit cards we can use, a California driver's license. The house is listed under a false name, too.”

“Good enough, I guess.”

“For a few days.”

“Then what?” he asked.

“I don't know. Not yet.”

Cochrane took a deep, sighing breath. He stared at her lovely face, so dead serious. Her sea-green eyes, so somber.

An idea struck him. “Listen,” he said, “can you call Fiona, back in Boston?”

“We shouldn't go back there, Paul. Fiona's—”

“No, no. I don't want to go back there. But she's got my laptop. I left it with her. I gave Mike's CDs to Gould, but his data is still on my laptop's hard drive.”

She looked horrified. “If Gould knew…”

“Call Fiona. Ask her to FedEx my laptop to my apartment in Tucson. It'll be there by tomorrow morning!”

Sandoval started for the phone, but hesitated. “Then what, Paul? Once you have the laptop, then what?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “Not yet. But at least we'll have a bargaining chip to deal with Gould.”

She looked doubtful, but went to the telephone.

I'll leave Elena here and zip back to Tucson to pick up the laptop, Cochrane said to himself, the plan forming in his mind. Gould's people will be looking for the two of us together. It'll be easier for me to get in and out without her. And then I'll slip out of Tucson, by myself. I'll get out and go away somewhere. Elena will be safe as long as she's not with me. Gould's after me, not her.

But then he remembered that Gould wanted Elena. For himself.

 

G
ould was in his limousine, on his way to La Guardia Airport, when Tulius phoned him back. The image on the little screen built into the limo's side panel was a trifle grainy, but Gould could see clearly the worry—the fright—on the scientist's face. He's scared, almost in a panic, Gould thought. And he's looking to me for help. That puts me in a strong position, Gould told himself. Which is good.

He could see that Tulius was in a spacious, well-appointed office. The Calvin Research Center, he thought. It was not yet seven
A.M
. in California,
so the man must be alone in the building, except for whatever security guards he might have there. At any rate, Tulius was talking much more freely now.

“And this man you've been dealing with,” Gould asked, “is an official at the United Nations?”

“UNESCO,” Tulius replied.

“He's a Chechen?”

“From Chechnya, yes, that's right. He hates the Russians, wants to do whatever he can to hurt them.”

“He's a terrorist, then?”

“No, no, no,” Tulius corrected. “He's not the type to throw bombs. He's not suicidal. He wants to cripple Russia's oil industry.”

“And how does he plan to accomplish that, may I ask?”

“With Cochrane's hydrogen process! Shifting from petroleum to hydrogen will knock the bottom out of oil prices. Just an announcement that the process works will send oil prices spiraling downward.”

Gould nodded at the grainy image in the small screen. He's perfectly right about that, he said to himself. That's why there must be no announcement, no shift to hydrogen. Not until the time is exactly right.

“If I turn these hard drives over to you, Shamil's people will be furious. I'll need protection from them.”

“These are the men who killed Kensington?”

“Of course! You told me that Kensington had the hard drives in his possession. Then these four thugs show up in my office and hand them to me. And your man Kensington was found dead.”

“Without the hard drives,” Gould muttered.

“I have them here. Locked in my desk.”

The limo was pulling off the main road and onto the ramp that led to the private aviation sector of La Guardia, where Gould's Cessna jet was waiting for him.

“Very well,” Gould said. “I shall fly to your center this morning. Expect me there by”—he calculated mentally—”eleven o'clock your time.”

“No!” Tulius yelped. “If they see you here they'll know I've crossed them! They'll know I'm working for you!”

Gould held back a snappish reply. Instead he answered patiently, “My dear Dr. Tulius, it's common knowledge that the Gould Trust has made an offer to buy your Calvin laboratories. It would be quite natural for me to make an impromptu visit to your labs, unannounced, to see what I'm paying for. Nothing to alarm anyone.”

“They're very touchy, suspicious—”

“Yes, I understand. While I'm in flight I will make arrangements to have a security team provide protection for you and your wife,” Gould said. “You have children?”

“A son. He's at Berkeley.”

“Then we'll provide protection for him, too. I'll also have my publicity people leak a story about this man Shamir in the UN—”

“Shamil,” Tulius corrected.

“Shamil,” said Gould. “And the FBI should be interested in the ruffians who murdered Kensington, I should think. They probably also killed your Dr. Cochrane in the first place.”

Tulius looked shocked. “I never thought of that.”

“We'll have them all rounded up pretty quickly, never fear,” said Gould.

“That would be wonderful.”

The limousine pulled up before a large hangar. Gould saw that his Cessna was on the apron, apparently ready to go.

“I'll see you in about four hours,” he said to Tulius, then leaned forward in the limo's rear seat to turn off the phone connection before Tulius could reply.

Yes, he said to himself as the chauffeur opened the limo door for him, the FBI can take care of the Chechen gorillas; it will be good publicity for the Bureau to round up a gang of Muslim terrorists. And they'll lead straight to this Shamil character at the UN. Wonderfal headlines:
Chechen terrorist cell headed by corrupt United Nations official.
My publicity people can use their contacts to make certain the story receives attention on all the networks. Meanwhile, I will acquire the Calvin lab and Tulius along with it.