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 14 of Silicon Gulch … They discover a new mystery player!
Wednesday, 3:27 PM: A Mystery Player
They take Jeff up to his room where he tries to recuperate. They decide to plan a dinner with the Frenchman and Mikl tonight to spring that Jeff's still alive. Then they discover there is a mystery player!
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- Chris Lamela
Author contact: chris@chrislamela.com, 707-566-8790 PST
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Wednesday,
3:27 PM:
A Mystery Player
She started to pull him up, "Look, the police are going to come.
We'll get that all straightened out, but we need to get you up to your room."
She pulled him up to a wobbly stand. "Come on, we need to go."
They came around to the door only a few feet away, Ted cautiously
pushing the door open, gun peering through the opening ahead of him. "Ted?
It's Nancy, I have Jeff here, come in here!"
Ted appeared through the door, sheaving his gun reaching up to put
Jeff's left arm over his shoulders, "Is he shot?"
"No, but there was a hell of a ruckus in there, we need to get him
up to his room." They turned to the left walking away from the horror
behind them. Jeff could now hear voices clearly, the sounds of sirens outside.
The ringing ears subsiding.
Soon they were in the lobby walking slowly toward the elevators, Jeff
becoming conscious of people watching them, pulling himself away from Nancy and
Ted with his hands up toward them. "I'm okay, really, I can make it up to
my room."
Nancy turned to Ted, "Look, I've got to go back, take him up, get
some beers in him, see if you can find Sierra Nevada, he deserves whatever he
wants." She put her hands on his shoulders trying to get eye contact,
"Jeff oh Jeff. How you managed to help us get these guys when we've been
trying for ten years…" She stood shaking her head slowly looking back to
Ted, "Take him up, hang out, okay? I'll be up in a couple hours."
Jeff nodded reaching to her, "Thank you Nancy."
"I didn't do anything," she gave him a quick hug. He smiled
weak, thankful.
He smiled at Ted turning toward the elevators with Ted at his side, in a
few seconds was in the quiet hum of the ride up to his room, a minute later
they were pushing through Jeff's hotel door. Jeff looked down seeing a note
with Jeff written neatly in blue ink,
a blue heart next to his name. He leaned over picking it up, didn't have the
energy to open it. He walked up to his nightstand tossing the note down, turned
sitting in the corner chair of his room, Ted negotiating what it would take to
get Sierra Nevada beers sent up. "Six, please. Now!" He turned back
to Jeff, "Damn, I didn't mean to sound so demanding."
"Listen man, you can be demanding as you want, I need some
beer!" they both laughed.
Ted sat on the bed facing Jeff, "So are you okay?"
"You'd think I'd be used to killing people by shooting through
doors by now."
Ted's eyes widened, "Used to? Wait, are you up to it? I've gotta
know what happened down there."
"I will, but I really need to calm down. Give me a minute."
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Jeff walked through the events of
only a few minutes ago when there was a knock on the door. Ted stood, turning
to the door, Jeff could hear some mumbling. Ted returned holding a silver ice
bucket overflowing with dark brown beer bottles, a bottle opener in his hand.
Setting the bucket down Ted popped a bottle handing it to Jeff. "They
didn't have the brand here so they ran across the freeway to the Pepper
Mill."
Jeff took a long drink, half the bottle disappearing into him in a
single gulp.
He sat back in the chair, "Better," raising the bottle again,
setting the empty down with a clank on the dresser signaling Ted for another. A
second later another Sierra Nevada was passed to Jeff.
"I don't know what to say. It's just like we planned. The dummy was
set up. Wig with my hair color, wearing my jacket. I thought it was me! I went
into the other room, thank god I locked the door." He took a half-drink of
ale. "Then I heard the automatic gun fire. That's a freaky sound. Well you
remember! The bathroom at the Smithsonian!"
Ted laughed out loud, "I will never forget coming around that
stall, you all covered with dust from the mortar. Jesus, it's like Arnie said,
you are a trouble magnet!" He
laughed again, "A trouble chick
magnet!"
Jeff laughed raising his bottle to that, "Yeah, what do you know, all
rolled up into one!"
He finished the second beer, setting the empty down, not signaling for
another. "So I was in the other room in a chair facing the door when I
heard them trying to get in, so I just stood and shot five times through the
door. The one started screaming that I shot his brother then I remembered
Atlanta so I shot the last bullet and I must have hit the other one because he
screamed that I shot him."
"Atlanta?"
"Yeah, can you believe it? I was in another situation, another
case, with Nancy and Arnie about two-and-a-half years ago. She left me in a
room with two dead guys and another guy who had been shot, I was supposed to
guard Antonio, the one who was still alive. I heard voices in the hall, they
started to come in so I stood up like I did here just now and shot through the
door. But I only shot five times. Don't know why. They both got away, but one
of them took three shots, he died later. The other one ended up trying to
murder me and Nancy the next day."
"Okay, I thought that was enough, but can I get another beer?"
Ted popped another, handing it to Jeff. "So just now downstairs this guy
starts screaming that I shot his brother, that I shot him so I knew he was
going to shoot through the door, I knew better so I ran to the front
corner." He took a long drink. "So he totally blew the door out,
sprays the frigging wall with bullets, then kicks the door in. Next thing I
know his face is through the door and he sees me but he is right handed so he
couldn't get the gun around facing me. Then I hear more shots and he falls
back."
He finished the third beer slapping the empty next to the others.
"Then Nancy came in, and well, I saw you a couple minutes later."
"Wow man, that's a hell of a story! And you've done that before?
That's even more amazing!"
"Give me a second," Jeff stood walking into the bathroom
coming back out a minute later signaling toward the bed, "do you mind? I
could use a few minutes to lay down."
Ted stood, "No, go ahead. I'll just sit here," they traded
places.
Jeff reached into his pocket pulling out his cell phone, smiling that it
was still off. He pushed the power button, coming to life with no messages. He
reached over plugging it in.
Jeff lay down. In an instant he was out.
Suddenly Jeff sat up. Ted jumped, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, don't know what that was." He looked at the clock
reading one-fourteen. "Wow, that was almost three hours."
"Do you want lunch up here?"
Jeff sat up, standing to walk to the window. "No, if it's safe I'd
rather go eat. Maybe the Pepper Mill, what do you think?"
"Yeah, they have a nice steak sandwich. Listen, if you're up to it
they want a meeting at the other hotel at three. Will that work?"
"Get some food in me, then we'll see. But first," Jeff reached
into the ice bucket that was now just cold water pulling out a beer, popping
it. "I hope you don't mind."
"Dude, you can do whatever
you want, I promise you that nobody will bat an eye."
Jeff sat on the bed, savoring this beer rather than chugging it like he
did the last three. A few minutes later he stood, reached to grab his phone off
the charger, turned to get his coat, making their way to the lobby. He was
amazed that it all looked normal, though he could hear the sounds of
construction, saws and hammering coming through the doorway leading to the
conference rooms entry which was blocked by orange cones and yellow tape
stretched across.
A minute later they were in Ted's rental car heading back to the other
hotel, to the Pepper Mill to have lunch.
When Jeff finally looked at his watch he wondered how it got to be five
minutes to three, a few minutes later he walked through the door of the same
room he had sat in when they made the Empty
House Plan that worked so flawlessly.
He entered the room, everyone standing turning to him in applause, the
room roared with clapping and cheers. He looked around the room flushing at
this accolade until Arnie finally waved everyone back into their seats.
Arnie turned to Jeff, "So how's our hero doing this
afternoon?"
"Fine," Jeff looked down at his chest, "no holes,
right?" the room laughed.
"I'll tell you what mister Jeff, your plan was flawless. We got the
bad guys. I mean we have been throwing everything at those two for ten years!
The post offices just won't be the same without them!" the room laughed
again.
Turning toward the room Arnie's serious expression became the segue to
an urgent tone, "Okay guys, so we got our shooters. Now we need to look at
all the crimes we have here to straighten them out, then let's start putting
some names to them." Turning to Yvonne who already had her pen point on
her numbered-page book, "Thanks Yvonne."
Nancy spoke up, "Okay let's make the list. First we have hit-men,
target Jeff here. Second we have payola, target Jeff here again and Paula
Johnson with General Avatonics. Next we have fraud with what we believe to be
faked test results of Neurotek equipment trying to defraud the government in
the image recognition technology. We may have extortion for the threat to go to
Jeff's boss." She paused in thought, "No Yvonne, put parenthesis
around that or something. Then we have the other faked test results for the
voice recognition, nothing to do directly with this case but if we are trying
to build a prosecution then let's get that, too." She looked around the
room, "Anything else?"
Heads nodded with satisfied faces at the list.
"Okay then, names and some votes." Jeff remembered them doing
this in Atlanta when they were trying to get their arms around the who-dunnit
of that case. "First, the hit-men. I vote the Swiss guy, Mikl Denot."
All hands raised. "Payola, Denot again." All hands raised again.
"Fraud, that would be a techie, I vote Gerard Pallot." Hands raised
once more. "Then the faked voice recognition, can only be Pallot again,
right?" Hands were half-raised with small nods.
"So we need a plan to get these guys." She turned to the two
eves-dropping spy guys, Tim, any news?"
He reached to a stack of neatly piled papers in front of him. "We
are continuing to monitor their calls, it's been real quiet since this morning.
But it's just a matter of time before they start chatting it up again."
"Any chance these guys are going to split the country?"
"Who knows, that's not our department."
"No, they won't." Jeff's voice just appeared, wondering at the
words that came from his mouth.
Arnie turned to him, "You sound really sure."
"These guys are too arrogant. First, they probably don't know what
happened to the shooters, right? They will only figure it out when the shooters
don't call to get the other half of their money. But knowing this guy,
especially Mikl, he will figure that there's no way we can trace him to the shooters.
I also believe that he is so financially desperate that he will make up a
monolog in his thick brain that changes the facts to fit his story. His little
story to himself is that he is still in control."
"Okay, so you have a meeting planned with them on Friday. What's
going to happen when you actually show
up?"
"I don't think we should wait so long, we should act like
everything is par, that nothing has happened. He may decide that we paid the
shooters more, or that they just up and went home keeping his half-million down
payment."
The room was very quiet.
"This is good," Jeff sat back smiling.
"Why is this good," came from the room.
"This little Swiss man likes things in nice tight order. Look at
him. His clothes were beyond neat, they were fastidious. He likes order."
"Confusion," Nancy said almost to herself, "disorder.
Like Atlanta," she turned to Jeff excited, "just like with
Perkins!"
"And the mayor, the city council, everyone, get them off
balance!" Arnie chimed in.
Jeff thought they were going to jump up to begin singing like children
dancing in a circle with the spirits of the room shooting sky high!
"Okay, okay," Arnie pulled the maypole out from under the
high-flying aura around Jeff and Nancy, he looked to them, "So what is our
next move?"
Nancy turned to Jeff, "So what do you think. Should you have a
friendly little call with Mikl to say hi?"
"Better yet, the Frenchman is so fond of late dinners, maybe we can
invite them both out. I remember a good little French restaurant on the other
side of Santa Clara, up by 280."
"Le Papillon," a voice came, "good food, but I'm not sure
how authentic."
"It doesn't matter, we just need to let them see that everything is
status quo. We'll make up some reason…I don't know…maybe that Nancy wants a cut
to promote them to DOD?"
Nancy's eyes widened, "Yeah, that's good! That will get me into
your little club. What do you think Arnie?"
"This is good, this will keep you guys up close to those clowns
while we try to figure out how to shape the noose." He glanced back and
forth between their faces, "Yeah, go do it. Nancy you should make the
call, let's see what you can read in their faces when Jeff is there. God I wish
I was a fly on the wall to see that!"
"Okay people, anything more? Let's wrap this―"
"Arnie, there is one thing."
Faces turned to Tim, the eves-dropping spy guy.
"You know that we tapped the cell phones of Mikl and Gerard, right?
Well when they talked to the hit-men we got their numbers to trace, so we
followed those. And well…it's just that…" he glanced to his sidekick who
nodded to continue. "We can listen to voicemail messages. This afternoon
one of the shooters received three messages in a row from someone with a New
Jersey area code."
"And?" Arnie wanted them to hurry up, get to the point!
"Well, the messages were trying to find out how the project went. The next two messages were
kind of elevated in tone, like the guy was getting a little desperate to hear
from these guys, who are of course dead." He rummaged through the papers,
"Here, here's a transcript of the last call." Reading out loud,
"This is your Uncle Mondo."
"Uncle Mondo?" Jeff shouted out. "Mondo was the name of
one of the shooters, the one I killed!"
Tim started again, "This is your Uncle Mondo. I've already left you
two messages and you haven't called me back. I'm sure it's nothing, but your
mother is starting to get worried. You have my number, call me. If I don't hear
from you by tomorrow morning I'm getting on a plane to come make sure
everything is okay. Call me."
"Wow," Nancy marveled.
"A mystery player!"
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SILICON GULCH!
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