Undercover Genius (29 page)

“If I’d really wanted to be mean, I’d have used the radio-controlled
airplane,” I said from my hiding place. “I could have taken out your head.”

“Dammit, Ana, did you steal back your inheritance so you can
sue me out of this house or are you ready to get kicked out?”

I heard a muffled shot and a thump, presumably the squeaking
bat hitting the floor. With more bravado than I felt after he’d dealt a mortal
blow to my weak spot, I sauntered into his cyber-universe to survey the damage.

One of the bats was tangled in some wires near the ceiling.
Since the only light in here was from the bank of monitors, I couldn’t really
detect what he’d done to that one. Looked like all the screens were intact, so
mostly, I’d just annoyed him. What a pity.

“I’m ready to be treated like someone who has more
intelligence than the average spook and who is as capable of protecting her
family as you are,” I told him, finally letting my anger emerge. “Patra is
my
family, not yours. If I want to fry
the puppet-masters who pulled zombie strings yesterday, you have no right to
interfere. Now, do I risk getting arrested to go after that phone on my own or
will you help me?”

“Bill Bloom’s personal effects are still in police custody,”
he intoned, actually turning to glare at me.

If he knew what his voice did to me, he’d use it more often.
I just propped my fists on my hips and glared back. “You think I don’t know
that? That’s why I politely asked if you could have them released. I didn’t
want you going all lionesque if I did it myself.”

“Lionesque?” he asked with what almost sounded like
amusement. “What in hell is that?”

“That’s not the point. The point is that you’re treating me
like EG. If I want Bill’s phone, it’s because I have a very good reason for it.
You
might prefer hiding in this attic
pulling strings, but it’s not healthy, and I don’t intend to fall into the same
trap. If you can’t provide what I need, have the courtesy to explain why, and I’ll
do it myself. Until now, I’ve done
all
the
outside work on my own. I stupidly hoped maybe we could work together on some
projects.”

Wow, that hurt to admit, but sometimes my tongue flaps
faster than my brain. I probably needed to make an appointment with my
therapist, after I found one.

Amadeus Graham rose from his chair, towering over me. I
refused to cower or scamper back down the stairs. My heart pounded erratically —
more because this man and his abilities turned me on than because I was
frightened.

“I am not hiding,” he said reasonably enough. “I simply work
better off the radar.”

“No, you are regretting that you kissed me, you are
regretting that you let us into your life, and you’re trying to make me mad and
drive us off,” I retaliated.

Okay, I’d been harboring a
lot
of pent-up frustration.

“What I do is
dangerous,
Ana. If you can’t keep your head down and stay out of trouble, go back to your
Atlanta basement and send your family somewhere safe. I do not want to be
responsible for their lives.”

“Yeah, I got that already. Tough cookies. We can’t all be
that irresponsible. Hide behind your stupid excuses, but you know we were
raised to be what we are. That’s not going to change.” Possibly to my regret,
but I couldn’t ignore the obvious any longer. “We accept full blame for our
actions. Let me be your front. You can’t do everything from here.” This was not
precisely how I’d meant this encounter to go, but my tongue had a mind of its
own. So did my hormones, and they were just plumb insane.

Graham wore his shirtsleeves rolled up today. He crossed his
muscled — bare — arms and took a step closer, aiming for intimidation.
“You don’t really think I’ll put you in danger in place of myself, do you? I
deal in information, not stupid mouse tricks. Until you figure out how to make
information work for you, I’m not aiding and abetting your self-destructive
tendencies.”

“Information is worthless unless someone is prepared to act
on it.” I bunched my hands into fists and took a step closer so we were nearly
toe-to-toe. He had me vibrating with far more than fury. “Living isn’t for
cowards. We have to be prepared to die at any moment. I’d prefer to die for a
good cause.”

“You’re not good to anyone dead,” he said in a voice
dripping with scorn.

“You’re not good to anyone, period,” I retorted. “Spiders
trapped in attics have a very self-centered universe.”

I turned on my heel and stalked out — the normal way,
through the hall door. I was steaming. I’d stupidly hoped to somehow convince
him to get Bill’s phone for me. I really didn’t want to break into a police
station, and I knew Graham had contacts. Now all I’d done was make him curious.
And furious, but that was a bonus.

I hurried back to my office and left my door open so I could
hear Mallard return. Both of them really ought to give my deviousness some
credit.

While I waited, I emailed Nick asking him to run a
background check on all the personnel at the British embassy who’d interviewed
him. If any of them had been in war zones with Whitehead and Smedbetter, I
wanted their names. And their voices.

Seattle finally came through, with a hefty invoice for the
rush job but also the identification I’d requested. They’d matched Smedbetter’s
voice on tape #2844 to the voice on Patrick’s recording insisting that “escalation
is the only solution,” and “You have a wild card in your deck who needs to be
dealt with. He’s been snooping where he shouldn’t.”

Nailed him.

I did a little jig of triumph. We had no proof that the
general might have murdered Patra’s father, but chances were good that we had
an instigator.

The unaccented American voice declaring that his
party
was prepared to support Smedbetter’s
request for escalation of the war, and that they’d acquired newspapers across
Europe was still unidentified. That could be almost anyone on Broderick’s
staff, or even Paul Rose’s. The smooth politician’s voice and the use of the
word “party” would indicate the latter.

As a bonus, Seattle had also matched the ungrammatical
American voice on Patrick’s recording with an unidentified interviewer on the Smedbetter
tape. I played tape #2844 with General Smedbetter speaking to a reporter —
it sounded like a newspaper interview about the general’s interest in military
weapons. Patra had sent me an article with Ernest Bloom interviewing the
general on that topic.

Excitement blossomed.

If this interviewer was Ernest Bloom, he had been in the
room when an American general and a media rep discussed starting a revolution
to protect oil interests — and worried about a spy in their midst. Patrick?

Bill Bloom would have recognized his father’s voice on
Patra’s tape — and called his mother, as well as Patra. It was beginning
to look like the tape really had been the cause of Bill’s death. One of the men
on it must have learned of the tape’s existence from Bill’s mother or by
tapping Bill’s phone. That man would most likely be his killer.

Or had hired Bill’s killer. Generals were accustomed to
giving orders, not running over men with stolen cars. And I had a hard time
believing media executives had the guts it took to run a man over in broad
daylight. That had been a practiced maneuver by hired killers.

I heard Mallard coming in the kitchen door. I grabbed the
army coat I’d brought down earlier and hurried to greet him. The corner of a
plastic baggie stuck out of his jacket pocket. He looked startled to see me as
he removed his hat and hung it on the rack beside the door.

“I think we need to throw a Halloween party for EG,” I said
cheerfully. “Funky lights, weird music, ugly cupcakes, the works. Dry ice,
maybe? Do they bob for apples on Halloween? We can invite her class.”

Disconcerted by this unexpected approach, Mallard
straightened his tie and appeared to consider it. “Perhaps a professional party
planner?” he suggested.

“You’re so not up with the times,” I said, brushing past him
to head out the door. “All that stuff is available at the mall. I’ll take a
look. See you later.”

I was up the stairs before he realized I’d picked his
pocket. He’d made it so very easy, possibly intentionally. One never knew with
Mallard.

Leaving our portly butler shouting futilely, I jogged down
to the Metro and hopped on the next train going anywhere.

Patra’s perspective

Patra lingered in the ladies’ restroom on the executive
floor. There were so very few women on this level that she was fairly confident
no one would intrude. She waited until she heard General Smedbetter in the
corridor. She was pretty certain that was Broderick Jr.’s voice joining him.
They didn’t sound pleased.

She whistled a happy tune.

She had hoped her lovely wire story would lure the culprits
from their lairs. From the rising anger in the hall, she gathered her story had
hit the fan.

She couldn’t wait to leave this hell hole and see how the
news of Broderick’s perfidy was hitting the real world, but she had one more
task on her list before she left.

She turned on the microphone in her pen, edged open the restroom
door, and recorded their voices.

The men entered an office and closed the door.
Bollocks
. She’d love to be a bug on the
wall, but she hadn’t had time to gather that kind of sophisticated equipment.
Still, maybe . . .

She connected the pen to her phone and sent the small audio
file to Ana and Sean with notes of the participants’ names in hopes they could
match the voices to her father’s tape. Then with wickedness aforethought, she
checked to be certain the coast was clear and entered the men’s restroom. She
left the pen behind a trash can. It was set to record with the sound of a
voice. She wasn’t certain how she’d get back in here to retrieve it, but it was
just a wild chance anyway.

With the exposé she’d written
working its way out on the AP wires, she figured it was time to make her exit.
She took the elevator down.

Security met her in the lobby as the elevator door opened.
The long tile floor to the glass door exit stretched past their burly shoulders
like a barbed-wire no man’s land.

* * *

After ascertaining that Mallard, Riley, or no one else
followed me, I changed trains and headed for Bill’s neighborhood. I’d prefer to
experiment in a safer location, but the apartment would be the first place the
thugs would look once I sent my message. If Graham wouldn’t descend into the
mucky world, I would.

Using my own phone, I texted Nick, Sean, and Patra to let
them know where I was so they could collect my body if necessary. That’s not
what I told them, of course. I just said I was investigating a new clue at
Bill’s place.

The discovery of the spyware in Patra’s phone increased the
probability that it really had been her audio file that had cost Bill his life.
The thugs had zeroed in on Bill within an hour of his calling Patra to say he
had information. It was possible Patra’s phone had already been hacked, but
she’d just arrived in the States. My assumption was that Bill’s phone had been
hacked first. By whom was the question I meant to answer today. I expected that
answer to lead me to Bill’s killer.

Bill’s apartment house had no security. I walked in without
anyone paying a bit of attention, not just because I was wearing my grubbies
and looking harmless but because no one cared. I wore leggings tucked into the
cowboy boots I’d found at Goodwill. The boots were more comfortable than the
fancy spike heels Nick had made me buy, but a little noisy on the stairs. I
stopped on Bill’s floor, ascertained his place was empty, and opened the flimsy
lock with a credit card.

Inside, in the light of Bill’s dirty window, I examined the
outdated cell phone I’d retrieved from Mallard. Bill’s contact list didn’t hold
many names, but I didn’t need many if the spyware was in this phone. I’d done a
little research and was utterly appalled at how easy phone spyware was to
install. As a result, my phone was now loaded up with every anti-bugging
software known to mankind.

Bill’s didn’t even have a password, poor trusting guy.

I figured his mother wouldn’t know how to receive text
messages, so I sent mine to all Bill’s media contacts, including Carla at
Intrepid.
Found Bill Bloom’s files,
I
wrote.
Hidden door in closet. Treasure
trove!

What better way to bait a hook for phone-tapping criminals,
right? As well as notifying half the news media in town as to where the
treasure — and by default — Bill’s phone was. If they knew Bill was
dead, they’d probably wonder about the message sender, but that would just
arouse more curiosity. I’d had a hankering all along to throw all the bad guys
into one room. Throwing in the media as well might be even more fun.

I tucked my own wireless bug into a dusty corner and checked
the speaker by tapping my toe and listening to my earbuds. Seemed to be
working.

The day was unseasonably warm for this late in October. By
the time I reached the roof, the sun beamed down, and my army coat was
stifling. I kept it on anyway. I sat down in the shadows on the roof with my
spyglass and my earbuds and waited to see who was ambitious — or desperate —
enough to show up first.

Patra’s perspective

Patra assessed the two security goons blocking her exit,
the crowd of employees surging onto the elevators, and chose the path of least
resistance. She stepped back into the elevator with the crowd.

If Poo Media was really good, they’d have security standing
in front of the elevator on every floor. This wasn’t looking pretty. If they
wanted to maim her yesterday, they’d probably want to slice and dice her today if
they knew about her lovely prank.

Her best bet was to be surrounded by witnesses. She texted
Sam that she was trapped, figuring he was closest. Not that she expected him to
do much, but both Magda and Ana had taught her to stay in contact with friends
and family at all times. Kidnapping had been their main concern in third world
countries. Patra hadn’t really considered it in civilization.