Chasing the Dime

33

The immediate urge was to curl up on the floor in the same position as the body in the freezer, but Pierce knew that to collapse under the pressure of the moment would be to ensure his demise. He unlocked the door and went into his apartment, shaking with fear and anger and the true knowledge that he was the only one he could rely on to find his way out of this dark tunnel. He promised himself that he would rise up off the floor. And he would get up fighting.

As if to underscore this avowal, he balled a fist and took a swing at the five-day-old standing lamp Monica Purl had ordered and then positioned next to the couch. His punch sent it crashing into the wall, where its delicate beige shade collapsed and the bulb shattered. The lamp slid down the wall to the floor like a punch-drunk boxer.

"There, goddamnit!"

He sat down on the couch but then immediately stood up. All his pistons were firing. He had just moved and hidden a body -a murder victim. Somehow sitting down seemed like the least wise thing to do.

Yet he knew he had to. He had to sit down and look at this. He had to think like a scientist, not a detective. Detectives move on a linear plane. They move from clue to clue and then put together the picture. But sometimes the clues added up to the wrong picture.

Pierce was a scientist. He knew he had to go with what had always worked for him. He had to approach this the way he had approached and solved the question of the car search.

From the bottom. Find the logic gateways, the places where the wires crossed. Take apart the frame and study the design, the architecture. Throw out linear thinking and approach the subject from all new angles. Look at the subject matter and then turn it and look at it again. Grind it down to a powder and look at it under the glass. Life was an experiment conducted under uncontrolled conditions. It was one long chemical reaction that was as unpredictable as it was vibrant. But this setup was different. It had occurred under controlled circumstances. The reactions were predicted and expected. In that he knew was the key. That meant it was something that could be taken apart.

He sat back down and from his backpack he pulled his notebook. He was ready to write, ready to attack. The first object of his scrutiny was Wentz. A man he did not know and had never met before the day he was assaulted. A man that in the initial view was the linchpin of the frame. The question was, Why would Wentz choose Pierce to hang a murder on?

After a few minutes of turning it and grinding it and looking at it from opposite angles, Pierce came to some basic case logic.

Conclusion 1: Wentz had not chosen Pierce. There was no logical connection or link that would allow for this. While animosities existed now, the two men had never met before the setup was already in play. Pierce was sure of it. And so this conclusion led in turn to the supposition that Pierce therefore had to have been chosen for Wentz by someone other than Wentz.

Conclusion 2: There was a third party in the setup. Wentz and the muscle man he called Six-Eight were only tools. They were cogs in the wheels of the setup. Someone else's hand was behind this.

The third party.

Now Pierce considered this. What did the third party need to build the frame? The setup was complex and relied on Pierce's predictable movements in a fluid environment. He knew that under controlled circumstances the movement of molecules could be relied upon. What about himself? He turned the question and looked at it again. He then came to a basic realization about himself and the third party.

Conclusion 3: Isabelle. His sister. The setup was orchestrated by a third party with knowledge of his personal history, which led to an understanding of how he would most likely react under certain controlled circumstances. The customer phone calls to Lilly were the inciting element of the experiment. The third party understood how Pierce would likely react, that he would investigate and pursue. That he would chase his sister's ghost. Therefore, the third party knew about his ghosts. The third party knew about Isabelle.

Conclusion 4: The wrong number was the right number. He had not been randomly assigned Lilly Quinlan's old number. It was intentional. It was part of the setup.

Conclusion 5: Monica Purl. She was part of it. She had set up his phone service. She had to have specifically requested the phone number that would trip the chase.

Pierce got up and started pacing. This last conclusion changed everything. If the setup was tied to Monica, then it was tied to Amedeo. It meant the frame was part of a conspiracy of a higher order. It wasn't about hanging a murder on Pierce. It was about something else. In this respect Lilly Quinlan was like Wentz. A tool in the setup, a cog in the wheel. Her murder was simply a way to get to Pierce.

Putting the horror of this aside for the moment, he sat back down and considered the most basic question. The one for which the answer would explain all. Why?

Why was Pierce the target of the frame? What did they want?

He turned it and looked at it from another angle. What would happen if the setup succeeded? In the long run he would be arrested, tried and possibly -likely -convicted.

He would be imprisoned, possibly even put to death. In the short run there would be media focus and scandal, disgrace. Maurice Goddard and his money would go away.

Amedeo Technologies would crash and burn.

He turned it again and the question became one of means to an end. Why go to the trouble? Why the elaborate plot? Why kill Lilly Quinlan and set up a vast scheme that could fall apart at any step along the way? Why not simply target Pierce? Kill Pierce instead of Lilly and achieve the same end with much simpler means. He would be out of the picture again, Goddard still walks and Amedeo still crashes and burns.

Conclusion 6: The target is different. It is not Pierce and it is not Amedeo. It is something else.

As a scientist Pierce enjoyed most the moments of clarity in the vision field of a microscope, the moment things came together, when molecules combined in a natural order, in a way he knew they would. It was the magic he found in his daily life.

A moment of similar clarity struck him then as he stared out at the ocean. It was a moment in which he glimpsed the big picture and knew the natural order of things.

"Proteus," he whispered.

They wanted Proteus.

Conclusion 7: The setup was designed to push Pierce so hard into a corner that he would have no choice but to give up what they wanted. The Proteus project. He would trade Proteus for his freedom, for the return of his life.

Pierce backed up. He had to be sure. He ran it all through his mind again and once more came up with Proteus. He leaned forward and ran his fingers through his hair. He felt sick to his stomach. Not because of his conclusion that Proteus was the ultimate target. But because he had jumped quickly ahead of that. He had ridden the wave of clarity all the way into shore. He had put it together. He finally had the big picture and in the middle of it stood the third party. She was smiling at him, her eyes bright and beautiful.

Conclusion 8: Nicole.

She was the link. She was the one who connected all the dots. She had secret knowledge of the Proteus project because he had given it to her -he had goddamn demonstrated it to her! And she knew his most secret history, the true and full story about Isabelle he had never told anyone but her.

Pierce shook his head. He couldn't believe it, yet he did. He knew it worked. He figured she had gone to Elliot Bronson or maybe Gil Franks, head man at Midas Molecular.

Maybe she had gone to DARPA. It didn't matter. What was clear was that she had sold him out, told of the project, agreed to steal it or maybe just delay it enough until it could be replicated and taken to the patent office by a competitor first.

He folded his arms tightly across his chest and the moment of nausea passed.

He knew he needed a plan. He needed to test his conclusions somehow and then react to the findings. It was time for some AE, time to experiment.

There was only one way to do that, he decided. He would go see her, confront her, get the truth.

He remembered his vow to fight. He decided to take his first shot. He picked up the phone and called Jacob Kaz's office. It was late in the day but the patent lawyer was still there and picked up the transfer quickly.

"Henry, you were fantastic today," he said by way of greeting.

"You were pretty good yourself, Jacob."

"Thank you. What can I do for you?"

"Is the package ready to go?"

"Yep. It has been. I finished with it last night. Only thing left to do is file it. I'm going to fly out Saturday, visit my brother in southern Maryland, maybe some friends I have in Baileys Crossroads in Virginia, and then be there first thing Monday morning to file. Like I told Maurice today. That's still the plan."

Pierce cleared his throat.

"We have to change the plan."

"Really? How so?"

"Jacob, I want you to take a red-eye tonight. I want you to file it first thing tomorrow morning. As soon as they open."

"Henry, I… that's going to be a bit expensive to get a flight tonight on such short notice.

I usually fly business class and that's -"

"I don't care what it costs. I don't care where you sit. I want you on a plane tonight. In the morning call me as soon as it's filed."

"Is something wrong, Henry? You seem a bit -"

"Yes, something's wrong, Jacob, that's why I'm sending you tonight."

"Well, do you want to talk about it? Maybe I can help."

"You can help by getting on that plane and getting it filed first thing tomorrow. Other than that, I can't talk about it yet. But just get over there and get the thing filed and then call me. I don't care how early it is out here. Call me."

"Okay, Henry, I will. I'll make the arrangements right now."

"When does the filing office open?"

"Nine."

"Okay, then I will talk to you shortly after six my time. And Jacob?"

"Yes, Henry?"

"Don't tell anyone other than your wife and kids that you're going tonight. Okay?"

"Uh… what about Charlie? He said today that he might call me tonight to go over lastminute -"

"If Charlie calls you, don't tell him you're going tonight. If he calls after you leave, tell your wife to tell him you had to go out with another client. An emergency or something."

Kaz was silent for a long moment.

"Are you all right with this, Jacob? I'm not saying anything about Charlie. It's just that at the moment I can't trust anybody. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Okay, I'll let you go so you can call the airline. Thank you, Jacob. Call me from D.C."

Pierce clicked off. He felt bad about possibly impugning Charlie Condon in Kaz's eyes.

But Pierce knew he could take no chances. He opened a fresh line and called Condon's direct line. He was still there.

"It's Henry."

"I just went down to your office to look for you."

"I'm at home. What's up?"

"I thought maybe you'd want to say good-bye to Maurice. But you missed him. He left.

He heads back to New York tomorrow but said he wants to talk to you before he leaves.

He'll call in the morning."

"Fine. Did you make the deal?"

"We came to an agreement in principle. We'll have contracts the end of next week."

"How did it come out?"

"I got the twenty, but over three years. The breakdown is a two-million bump on the front end and then one million bimonthly. He becomes the chairman of the board and gets his ten points. The points will vest on a schedule. He gets a point for the up-front payment and then a point every four months. If something happens and he bails early, he leaves with the points he's accumulated only. We retain the option to buy them back within one year at eighty percent."

"Okay."

"Just okay? Aren't you happy?"

"It's a good deal, Charlie. For us and him."

"I'm very happy. So is he."

"When do we get the up-front money?"

"The escrow period is thirty days. One month, then everybody gets a raise, right?"

"Yeah, right."

Pierce knew Condon was looking for excitement if not jocularity over the deal. But he couldn't give it. He wondered if he'd even be around at the end of a month.

"So where did you disappear to?" Condon asked.

"Uh, home."

"Home? Why? I thought we'd -"

"I had things to do. Listen, did Maurice or Justine ask you anything about me? Anything more about the accident?"

There was a silence while Condon evidently thought about this. "No. In fact, I thought they might bring up that thing about wanting the accident report again but they didn't. I think they were so blown away by what they saw in the lab that they don't care anymore about what happened to your face."

Pierce remembered the blood red color of Goddard's face in the vision field of the heat resonance goggles.

"I hope so."

"You ever going to tell me what happened to you?"

Pierce hesitated. He was feeling guilty over hiding things from Condon. But he had to remain cautious.

"Not right now, Charlie. The time's not right."

This put a pause in Condon's reply, and in the silence Pierce could feel the injury he was inflicting on their relationship. If there was only a way for him to be sure about Condon.

If there was a question he could ask. His social engineering skills had deserted him and that left only silence.

"Well," Condon said. "I'm going to go. Congratulations, Henry. Today was a good day."

"Congratulations, Charlie."

After hanging up, Pierce pulled out his key ring to check for something. Not the padlock keys. He had left them behind at the storage facility, hidden on the top of an exit sign on the third floor. He checked the ring once more to make sure he still had the key to the house on Amalfi Drive. If Nicole wasn't home, he was going to go in anyway. And he would wait for her.