Jeff finds himself in Silicon Valley where he is asked to investigate claims by a gregarious Frenchman that his neural network electronic technology actually works. He meets up again with the enchanting Nancy, the FBI agent he had worked with in Atlanta where they fell in love while he was still married, and again in Washington DC Kathy puts romance back into Jeff’s life as he finds himself hounded by financially-desperate Europeans so determined to push their questionable technology―men so desperate that they will stop at nothing, even Jeff’s murder. The excitement will make the reader gasp, tragedy will make the reader cry, romance will make the reader sigh.
Chapter 11 of Silicon Gulch … Jeff discovers they hired murderers to kill him!
Tuesday, 7:26 PM: The Target
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- Chris Lamela
Author contact: chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST
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Tuesday, 7:26 PM: The Target
Jeff
pulled away, circling the block finding his way back to the freeway, turning
north on Highway Seventeen trying to do the math in his head about how he can
still see Kathy tonight. If he got
Nancy at, say five forty-five to give her time to get her luggage, he could get
her to her hotel at, say, by six. If the crazy Frenchman wants to meet at nine,
that would give him at least two hours with Kathy ,
right?
Less than ten minutes later he saw his exit, merged right crossing back
over the freeway, the tall rusty tower of the county administration building
rising above the low buildings on his right. Three minutes later he pulled into
the airport curving left toward the long low building of Terminal A. Driving
slowly Jeff saw the United sign
pulling over glancing at the car's dash clock saying it was five twenty-two. He
pulled along the white curb expecting a policeman to come chase him away like
up at San Francisco airport, but there wasn't a uniform in sight.
Jeff sat back in thought about the day.
Another wild one for the books! All
he had to do was to figure out how to arrange his schedule to see Kathy . He suddenly felt a strange yearning for her,
wondering if Arnie wasn't trying to wave him away from Nancy. But somehow
reflecting on his words with Arnie he felt himself slowly discovering doubts
about Nancy. Their relationship had an intensity that was almost scary,
alarming. What would happen when she had to get up at six to take his kids to soccer? He wondered if that
lifestyle could make her happy. Maybe it was the pedestal that held Nancy captive on in his mind.
And what about Kathy ? How was it that he felt so comfortable with
her? How was it that he felt like he had known her his whole life? How was it
he found himself yearning so much for the woman he doesn't even know?
He glanced at the sliding glass door under
the United sign when suddenly he saw
a familiar face.
It was Gerard Pallot!
He was walking slowly with two men, one in a trench coat, the other in a
heavy down jacket, like a ski coat. Jeff reached over to the back seat grabbing
his coat pulling out the disposable camera he had bought in the hotel gift
shop, twisted the knob until it locked, pointing and clicked. The light was
perfect, he twisted the knob again clicking and again and again until finally
they walked away not looking around them once, engaged in a very serious conversation. Jeff looked
at his watch making a mental note, five twenty-eight.
Jeff turned to watch them walk
away to the parking lot in front of the terminal until they were lost among the
cars. He turned around, Nancy was just pulling open the car door, "Hi! You
made it on time! Wait," she turned, walking around to the back of the van opening
the back tail gate door that swung up with the hissing sound of the lifts. He
heard the clunk of her heavy luggage, the big door closing with a thump, he was
glad her door was open so his ears didn't pop.
A few seconds later she was sitting down leaning over, they exchanged a
quick peck on the lips, she looked to her right pulling the seatbelt over with
a click.
"Good, let's go."
"Where to?"
"My hotel so I can drop my bag. We have a little meeting there at
six thirty and I'm hungry."
The van pulled away from the curb, "How was your flight?"
"Fast, they managed to shave fifteen minutes off."
"Yeah, I was expecting to wait."
"How was your meeting with Arnie?"
Jeff smiled to himself at all the love
intrigue he had just witnessed in Los Gatos, saying simply, "Good,
exchanged lots of information. Not much of a plan."
"Well things are really starting to―"
"Wait!" Jeff exclaimed, "I forgot to tell you. While I
was waiting for you the crazy Frenchman came out of the terminal, the same door
you just came out of. There were two men with him."
"Did you recognize them?"
"I
did better than that!" Jeff reached for the disposable camera, "Got
pictures!"
She took the camera holding it
up, "Pictures?" she laughed, "how did you happen to have this in
your car to take pictures?"
Jeff decided not to say why he had the
camera, "There were two guys, looked funny because one was wearing a
trench coat, the other a big ski jacket. I mean, it's eighty degrees, right?
And come to think of it, they didn't have any luggage. At least that I saw. No
luggage, come to think of it, but they were both carrying sports bags. I do
that sometimes when I'm only staying overnight." He paused remembering
what he had seen, speaking almost to himself, "So they must be planning to
go back tomorrow."
He glanced to her seeing she had her phone raised to her ear, "Yes,
need fast photo developing…I don't know…" she turned the camera over in
her hand, "ASA 80…Kodak…disposable camera…yes, we'll be there in ten
minutes…yes, main entry…green mini-van," smiling glancing at Jeff, "by
six thirty?...good see you in ten." She pushed a button on the phone with
the same hand holding it.
"Excellent!" they have a photo lab close by that can get us
pictures quickly. "We definitely need to take a look to see if we know those
guys."
Jeff turned to her to say something but the phone was back at her ear, "Arnie,
Nancy here…yes good…okay, we might have gotten a break…lucky…yeah,"
laughing, glancing at Jeff, "who else?...okay right…we'll see you in the
ops room upstairs…I need a minute but we'll be up there by six thirty…good,
bye."
She turned to back to Jeff. They were
exiting the freeway at Great America Parkway. They turned left, Jeff drove the
car over the freeway, turning right toward the Embassy Suites hotel. Pulling up,
a man walked up to Nancy's side, she pushed a button to roll down her window
handing the camera out. The window was rolled back up, Jeff finding a parking place
right next to the hotel's front door.
"We have a suite on the top floor for our ops room, but I need to
go to my room to get a shower, want to come up?"
Jeff smiled opening his door grabbing his coat, "Absolutely!"
A couple minutes later he was sitting in the classic stuffed corner chair.
Nancy called down to room service. She ordered for herself, "Do you want
something to eat?"
He still had hope that he would be eating at Kathy's, but he didn't have
any lunch so he asked for a sandwich and fries. She hung up glancing a smile to
him, stepping into the bathroom. The shower started. He couldn't hear her
pissing over the shower's noise, but the door was open!
A few minutes later Jeff heard two knocks, stepped to the door opening
it. The server stepped in holding a tray with two domed dishes in his left
hand. Making a snapping motion with his right hand a little stand appeared as he
set the tray down. He handed Jeff the bill, Jeff scribbled Nancy's name with a
five-dollar tip.
Nancy soon emerged from the bathroom in a hotel robe, toweling her hair.
"God I'm starved. The food on the plane did not smell appetizing, so I haven't eaten since breakfast!"
"Me too," they both sat on the
bed reaching to pull the tray between them, uncovering their food, eating
quietly, Nancy gobbling food quickly glancing at the clock that said six twenty
one. "Jesus, it's late!" She stood holding what was left of her pita
sandwich walking back into the bathroom.
Ten minutes later she emerged from the
bathroom leaning over to heft her massive suitcase onto the bed, unsnapping it,
pulling clothes out. Without batting an eye she pulled the robe off exposing
her lithe naked body, poor Jeff nearly choking on the last of his sandwich
turning to watch her nakedness. "Okay, then, almost ready," she
walked back into the bathroom running the hair dryer for only a couple minutes,
back out dressed. "Okay, let's go!"
Two minutes after that Jeff followed Nancy into an enormous suite on the
top floor of the hotel. There were only a half-dozen people in what looked like
the ops rooms he had seen before, the room filled with rows of tables loaded
with equipment.
Jeff paused looking around, "What's
all this for? How long has this been here?"
"We've been working this case actively for three months."
"Three months?"
"We've been unraveling Mikl Denot's money laundering empire using
wire taps, looking into the claims by the Frenchman about his technology. There
are lots of loose strings and every time we pull on one, two more loose ends
pop out."
"I thought it was just a case of the Frenchman making wild claims
about his technology."
"That guy has been trying to hawk his stuff all over the world,
including to some very bad guys who
are beginning to get very unhappy with him because of his wild claims. It seems
that he is very quick to take people's money but very slow to deliver gear that
actually does what he claims. He's left a lot of people holding the bag and
some of them are very unhappy about
it."
"So that means that my endorsement would hardly make any
difference. If it doesn't work it doesn't work, right?"
"Some of their dealings are very complicated, and it's beginning to
raise some serious alarms with the agency, the DOD, and the CIA. I actually have a ton of resources, not just here. We've
got NSA all over this."
"I don't get it, this is a lot bigger than I thought." He
turned to her, "People are going to get hurt with all this going on."
He shook his head doubtfully, "I'm really not sure about this. Maybe I should be the one going home, not
Paula."
She reached out putting her hand on his shoulder, "We don't need Paula,
remember they think that everything is through you. You're the one that matters
here."
"I know, that's what worries me. Did I tell you that prick Mikl
told me that he wanted to go around me and go straight to my CEO? What were his
words…" Jeff looked to the ceiling, back to Nancy, "Yeah, that maybe
my CEO would be more reasonable."
"Those words cast a little different light on this, doesn't it? Really
paints him up as desperate." She dawned a determined smile, "But
Jeff, we've been up against tough cases together, there's no reason why this
should be any different, right?"
"Yeah, I guess not."
"Just stick close by, come on we're late," he followed her
across the large room to a double door that was closed. She gave the four quick
knocks hearing a response, the door opened from the inside.
Jeff followed Nancy inside. Standing beside her he looked around at the
collection of ten or so people around a long table. Everyone stood as they
walked in with a murmur of expecting them.
Arnie was sitting at the head of
the table motioning for everyone to sit down. Lin was sitting on his left,
Nancy on his right, Jeff on her right. Everyone sat down Jeff looked around the
table seeing only Yvonne and a couple other familiar faces.
"Okay everyone, settle down. Gentlemen?" Arnie pointed toward
two men sitting on the end talking to each other, "can we get started?"
They nodded turning their attention to him.
Arnie made introductions, Jeff was quickly impressed with the host
before him. There were two specialists in money laundering, two anti-terrorist
men who specialize in hit squads, eves-dropping specialists, a NASA engineer
who Lin had found, asking him to assist in the Neurotek evaluation.
Arnie made a point to introduce Lin, then Nancy, Jeff last. "I want
everyone to pay attention to this gentleman. I know you all have your
specialties, but this man," pointing to Jeff, "has two things that we
have come to rely on in past cases. First he is a damned magnet for trouble,"
Jeff frowned at Arnie, the room murmured laughter, "and second he has an
intuition that I have come to trust. He is a civie, but everyone in the agency
and at DOD who has worked with him have tremendous respect for this guy."
Jeff gave a timid wave around the table.
"Now the first order of business. Yvonne," turning to the
woman who had done such excellent scribing in Atlanta and DC before, "I'd
like to task you as our historian here." Waving around the room, "This
is our for-the-record gal who has better ears than I do." Yvonne gave
almost the identical shy wave that Jeff had just performed.
"We have two hours, guys, by the clock."
Jeff looked at his watch, it
said a quarter to six, he leaned to Nancy, "I need to make a call."
"Wait ten minutes, let us get started okay?"
He leaned back attentively when his phone rang. He fumbled around his
coat remembering his cell phone was in his pants pocket. "Can I?" He
looked at Arnie who waved him away.
Jeff stood up, turned to the door pushing through into the ops room pressing
TALK.
"Jeff here."
"Jeff? This is Kathy ."
"Hey, what's going on?"
"Listen, I'm stuck in the city tonight. I'm sooooo sorry. I know
you were really looking forward to tonight, but I'm working on something that I
think you'll really like. Do you mind?"
Jeff couldn't believe what he was hearing, all right?
"Wow, well sure I'm a little disappointed, but you've got to do
what you've got to do. You couldn't be down here much before seven thirty even
if you left right now, right?"
"Yeah, but when I have to stay here they let me hotel-up. They put
me up at the Palace Hotel right off Market. It's nice."
"That's good, it's a long drive."
"So you don't mind. God you are so sweet!"
"No…I mean yes,"
laughing, "you know what I mean!"
"Okay, well I know I will be back for sure tomorrow night. Can we
try same bat time tomorrow night?"
"I don't know my schedule, can we talk in the morning? You know I
really want to see you."
"Yes, I'll call you. What time?"
"Make it early, before eight-thirty, but not too early!" he
laughed.
"Okay, sweetie, thank you for being so understanding, I'll call you
in the morning."
"Goodnight then, I'll talk to you in the morning."
"Okay, goodnight honey," the line went quiet, he felt honey wash over him.
"YES!" Jeff shouted with a two-fisted pump in the air, people
in the ops room turning to him smiling, back to their work.
He looked at his watch, figured he was already out of the room so he
dialed home to talk to the kids. The phone started ringing in his ear, a man
rushed into the ops room with a large envelope, pushing through the door Jeff
just came out.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Donna, it's me."
"Jeff, hi! How's San Jose?"
"Good, weather's nice. How's it there?"
"Been raining all day. Wait Scott wants to talk to you."
His son came on the line telling him about a Boy Scouts project he was
working, that he figured out that he can do a double-dip like his dad had told him about.
"Double dip?" Jeff laughed.
"Yeah, what you tell me when I can do one project and get credit
two places for it," he went on to tell him about a paleontology project
that he devised that can earn credit in Scouts and school, Jeff got to tell his
son how efficient that was.
His daughter came on the line with no news in particular but wished it
would stop raining before the weekend because she and some of her friends
wanted to take a ferry to an island they heard about.
"Well maybe I can pack up some of the sunshine here and bring it
with me!" they laughed together.
He went to say goodnight but his daughter said to hold on that her mom
wanted to talk to him again.
He waited for thirty seconds when his wife's voice came back on the
line. "I just wanted to say goodnight. Your trip's going okay?"
"Yeah, everything's fine. Should be coming back up on Friday night."
"I wish I could get away from here, all this rain to come see you."
"That'd be nice, but maybe next time. Let's plan for it, okay?"
"Jeff?" He listened without responding, "Your going away
so much drives me crazy. When you're gone I really miss you. After all the
craziness in Washington I worry about you. Then when you're here I want to see
you."
"But you don't see me when I'm there, at least not just the two of
us. You don't seem all that interested."
"I know…and when you're gone…well I don't know."
"Listen, let's get lunch on Saturday, okay? No kids. Will that
work?"
"Yeah. You drive me crazy, this situation is driving me crazy. I
feel lonely."
"I doubt you feel lonelier than I do stuck down here."
"You're probably right. Anyway, go have a good evening, get some dinner
and take it easy. Call us tomorrow night, okay? And be safe, okay?"
"I will. Goodnight," he pushed the button on his cell phone to
end the call.
He sat down in the chair next to him, looked to the ceiling, took a deep
breath, stood up stepping back through the door without knocking.
He sat down, suddenly realizing that he must have taken a wrong turn and
ended up at a funeral. The room was dank with…what was it? He looked around the
darkened faces when he noticed five eight-by-ten photographs spread around the
middle of the table. He stood up to look at them realizing they were the photos
he took with his little throw-away camera at the airport. The quality wasn't
that great, but the images were clear.
"Those are the pictures I took," he looked around, glancing at
Arnie's hardened expression. "So why is everybody so glum?"
The man who had been introduced as the hit-squad expert spoke up, "We
ID'd the guys in the photos." Jeff looked to him expectantly, the man
spoke in a seriously dour voice, "These are really bad men."
Arnie turned to Jeff speaking slowly, "These guys are a nightmare,
Jeff."
"Who are they?"
The man who spoke before reached out picking up the photo that showed
only the two men, "We call these guys the Greek brothers."
"The Greek brothers?" Jeff shrugged at the insignificance of
the name to him.
"They are notoriously bad hit-men. They give hit-men a bad name."
Jeff didn't respond wondering if this meant that there were hit-men with good names. "Usually a hit-man
walks up to his target and BOOM he's out of there. But these guys don't care.
They have killed so many innocents. Women, children. These are the worst of the
worst."
The gravity of the downcast faces was sinking into Jeff, he moaned, "So
what does that mean?"
Arnie spoke up, "It means that the Frenchman and his crony Swiss
dude are getting ready to play some serious
hard ball, things are about to get very very dangerous."
The hit-squad man spoke again. "It used to be three brothers, now
they are just two."
"What happened to the other one?"
"Me."
"So these guys have been brought here by the crazy Frenchman to
kill someone or maybe more than just someone, right?" An affirmative nod. "And
let me guess, you would like to catch these guys while they're here." A big affirmative nod.
Turning to Arnie, Jeff continued, "So how are we going to know who
they are trying to kill and protect them, then how are you guys going to catch
these guys? Who are they going after?"
Arnie motioned to a man who had been introduced as an eves-dropping spy.
"We're ahead of the curve here, we got onto the Frenchman's and Denot's
cell phones. We have ears on every phone they touch. We have the Neurotek
offices wired, their hotel rooms. So we know a lot about what they are up to."
"So who is their target, who did they bring these bad hit-men here
to kill?"
He looked around the room, the desperation in the eyes around him
percolating into his spirit. He felt like a hole was opening before him, the
ground falling away at his feet, "Who's the target?"
All eyes in the room drew to Jeff, he suddenly regretting his question
as the answer came.
"You."
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