Diamond Solitaire

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

He had swallowed a bellyful of foul-tasting liquid. His eyes were smarting and his nose was blocked. Repeatedly he spluttered and vomited and felt no better for it. Once or twice he opened his eyes and saw nothing. He was aware only of an occasional nudge against his right arm and shoulder. And that he was cold, indescribably cold. Parts of his body must have ached, but the cold subdued every other sensation.

He was face up, most of him submerged.

He remembered nothing. For all he knew, he could be lying in a primeval swamp.

Waiting to die.

A stronger jolt forced his arm across his chest, turning him almost on his side. More of the liquid washed over his face, filling his mouth and nostrils again.

If this was drowning, he wouldn't recommend it as a way to go.

He turned his head and emptied his mouth.

Coughed.

Gasped for air.

Whimpered.

Your strength is going, Diamond. If you don't do something to help yourself, this is where you go under forever.

He flung out his right arm. His hand slapped against a surface slimy to the touch, but solid. He'd hardly begun to examine it when he felt the structure being moved out of reach. He groped for whatever it was and missed, realizing as this occurred that the surface hadn't moved, but he had. As he was towed back to the right, he tried again, made contact and felt for the texture under the slime. Maddeningly, the action of the water rocked him away again.

His brain was beginning to function now. He realized that what he had taken to be nudging was the action of a current pressing him against some kind of obstruction. He pressed his hand hopefully towards it, grasped an object strange to the touch that he let go when he recognized its shape and texture as that of a large, dead bird. Then felt his knuckles come into contact with something smoother, some kind of container, a beer can, perhaps. Mentally he was back in the twentieth century. He was part of the floating rubbish that collects along the banks and shores of waterways.

But there was some reason why the rubbish was trapped here. The current should have carried it downstream. Presumably he was caught against some obstruction.

As his thinking process sharpened, so did the cold-penetrating, demanding to be recognized, persuading him mat it was futile to struggle. Feebly, he reached out again.

His fingers found something that didn't move, about the shape and thickness of a prison bar, only this was horizontal. He held on.

It was securely anchored. Without releasing his grip, he explored the shape, discovering a ninety-degree angle, a shorter length and then, coated with waterweed, the masonry from which it projected. He had found an iron rung attached to a stone structure.

He flexed his arm to draw closer. Then reached over and upwards with his left hand to see if a similar rung was located above the one he was holding.

The hand scrabbled against weed and stone.

Yes. His fingers curled around a second rung.

There was a ladder set into the wall.

But had he the strength to drag himself out of the water? Such an exercise would require an exceptional effort anytime, and he was weak.

Try, or die, he told himself. One rung at a time.

He released his hold on the first and reached up with his right hand. Gripped and pulled. Found himself too feeble. Got both hands on the rung and slackened his body. His shoulders were out of the water, and now one of them was giving him pain he hadn't felt before. From the chest down he was submerged, and he just hung there, cursing his size, unable to achieve any more.

Then he was aware that his thighs were in contact with something. There was distinct pressure above bis knees.

He'd found a lower rung. The ladder extended below the waterline. Not so far down as his feet, unfortunately, but if he could raise his legs high enough to get a foothold on this rung, he'd have a chance of making progress.

He raised his knees to the required level but found that, being pudgy, his knees wouldn't give him any purchase. The only way was to hoist himself up a couple of rungs by using his arms alone.

He breathed deeply and reached up. Got his fingers around the next rung and immediately felt such a searing pain in the shoulder that he let go. Now he knew he was injured. The right arm was virtually useless.

With the imminent prospect of sinking back into the filthy water, he braced himself for one more effort to go higher, reaching up with the left hand while holding on agonizingly with the right.

He made fingertip contact, got a grip and hauled himself higher one-handed, immediately releasing the right arm from its painful duty. The sense of achievement set the adrenaline flowing. Without pause, he forced the right hand into use again and held on, while jackknifing his body in an attempt to get a foothold on the lowest rung.

He managed it

Now it was a matter of leverage rather than brute strength and stoicism. With both feet securely positioned, he heaved himself upwards, raising his torso clear of the water. Clawing at the higher rungs, he began a steady ascent up the side of what he now perceived as a stone pier.

And as he climbed, his brain began to deal with his bizarre situation. Dimly at first, but with increasing clarity, he recalled where he was and why. He understood the reason for the pain that afflicted him, not just in the shoulder, but-as bis circulation was restored-in his head and lower back. It had been a savage beating, and his attackers had assumed he would drown. Maybe the extra poundage that he was finding such a handicap while climbing the rungs had saved him. The body blows-apart from those to his skull-had been cushioned. In the water, his built-in insulation had kept him alive for longer.

But he still felt grim.

Not to say unsafe. He hesitated on the higher rungs, wondering whether anyone would spot him and throw him back again. A mere push in the chest would be enough. He wouldn't survive another ducking.

The darkness was an ally. He put his head above the wall, satisfied himself that no one was near and then climbed up the remaining rungs and flopped like a beached whale.

With no choice but to lie still, he waited for his pulse and breathing to reduce to rates he could cope with. He was getting messages from parts of his body that had suffered injuries he hadn't registered. Now his face was smarting. He put his hand to his left eye and felt a large swelling. There was a cut across the center of his nose.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been in the water. There had certainly been an interval while he was unconscious. Presumably the shock of immersion had revived him.

In the open, darkness is never total. He rolled over and peered across the expanse of open ground between the pier and the warehouse from which his attackers must have come. The limousine had gone, maybe-he told himself optimistically-with the men as passengers. The instinct of killers is to leave the scene.

What now?

Clearly, he needed to get to the police. It was vital that they were informed what had happened, for the Manflex connection was no longer tenuous. Those people were revealed as willing to kill, and he wanted them interrogated as soon as possible. He wanted to hear David Flexner's explanation.

He just hoped he was capable of staying on his feet long enough.

Staying? He realized that he had yet to get to his feet, and now he was about to try. The effort required was immense. He achieved the standing position by a process of crouching for a while, then stooping, propped with hands on knees, and finally trying unsuccessfully to straighten and groaning at the effort. Movement was going to be a painful, shuffling process that made him think how useful a zimmer-frame would have been. Even the light shore breeze threatened to bowl him over.

Obviously he needed to find a way back to the streets, but getting there would be like finishing a marathon. To be positive, he still had both shoes on. All he seemed to have lost was his hat.

In the next twenty minutes he made it across the waterfront, over a no-man's-land cluttered with rubbish, and down a slope to where one of the West Side streets terminated. The nearest block of tenement buildings didn't really have the look of a haven for a half-drowned, badly-beaten Brit, but he staggered to the first door he could find, and looked for a doorbell-a facility the household lacked. He rapped the woodwork with his knuckles. Nobody came. He could hear nothing from inside.

He tried two more houses before anyone appeared, and this was a small, black boy who stared. Anyone would have "Hi," said Diamond with an effort of the imagination.

The stare persisted.

"Are your parents about?"

A blink, and then a resumption of the stare.

"Your Mum and Dad? Sonny, I need help."

The boy frowned and said, "Where you from?"

He didn't want to go through that again, not in the state he was in, but the kid had broken his silence, so: "From England."

"England?" The kid raised a hand as if to strike him.

Just in time, Diamond saw what was intended and let his own right hand come in a sweeping movement to slap against the boy's in salute.

A short time after, wrapped in a blanket, he was seated in a wicker armchair in the living room of the basement apartment, surrounded by a large Afro-Caribbean family. They brought him coffee laced with rum and they put a Band-Aid on his nose.

Twenty minutes or so of this treatment revived him remarkably. He was ready to move on. They wanted to know where he was going and he named the police at the 26th Precinct.

When the amusement had subsided, the boy's father offered to drive him there.

Thus it was that towards ten P.M., Sergeant Stein of the 26th, passing the front counter, was confronted by the disturbing spectacle of a grinning man, notorious across New York for the terms he'd served for armed robbery, carrying a heap of wet clothes, accompanied by Superintendent Diamond dressed in a blanket, a Band-Aid on his nose, his left eye black and closed.

The explanation had to be given twice over, because Lieutenant Eastland, who was off duty, was called in to make decisions. He didn't go so far as to smile at Diamond's state, but he wasn't sympathetic. "So what we have," he summed up, "is a link with Manflex through the child's mother. You set out to investigate, and you were beaten up and dumped in the river. By who?"

"Come on," said Diamond angrily. "There were no lights out there except the car headlights. The girl who called herself Joan I'd know. But the point is that David Flexner himself must have given these people their instructions. Something I said must have really upset him."

"You surprise me," said Eastland.

"What did you say?" asked Stein.

"Just that I wanted information about the research Dr. Masuda was doing some years ago in Yokohama on a grant from Manflex."

"I wouldn't have said this was grounds for murder," commented Eastland. "Are we sure of this connection'"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean can we be certain that these people who jumped you were sent by Flexner?"

"It's inescapable. The girl told me she was working for him. She knew about the meeting. She knew where to find me, and when."

"Okay, we'll pull him in and see what this is about."

"One more thing," said Diamond.

"You want to see a doctor?"

"I want to get my clothes to a laundry."

"Okay. How you feeling now?"

"Impatient… to see Flexner."

"You should rest"

"Go to hell."

In fact, he did get almost an hour on the cot he d slept on the previous night They had to wake him when Flexner was brought in, and then he felt worse than ever for the short sleep. Every part of him ached.

It was agreed that he should observe the first interview on closed-circuit TV. Lieutenant Eastland pointed out that Flexner had no reason to believe that Diamond had survived the attack. A first principle of interrogation was to give nothing away.

The young, long-haired man on the screen certainly looked uneasy, revealing in body language how agitated he was at being brought in for questioning. He flicked the tip of his tongue repeatedly around the edges of his mouth and worked his hands around his face like some actor overplaying Hamlet..

Eastland's voice started up, giving the routine information about the taping of interviews. "You give your permission?"

Flexner nodded.

"Would you mind giving a verbal response?"

"I don't mind."

"You agree to us taping the interview?"

"I agree."

"Okay."..

While Eastland went through the preliminaries of establishing Flexner's identity and address, Diamond watched the young man keenly. For a business tycoon, he was pretty unconventional in style, dressed in T-shirt, jeans and wind-cheater with the mane of blond hair extending to his shoulders. It was pretty well the description he'd given of himself over the phone.

"You know a guy called Diamond-a British cop?" Eastland asked. He wasn't in shot. The camera was continuously on Flexner.

"I know the name, that's all. He called me this afternoon."

"He called you? Is that an accurate answer, Mr. Flexner?"

Flexner raked a hand nervously through his hair. "What I mean is, he wrote me a note. I called him at his hotel."

"Let's have the truth, huh?"

"I'm sorry. Was that important?"

"Everything's important. Do you still have the note?"

"Not here."

"Can you tell me the contents, accurately?"

Flexner closed his eyes as he spoke, as if trying to visualize the note. "He wrote that he was an English detective inquiring into a murder and an abduction, the abduction of a child. He wanted to meet me for information about the kid's mother who carried out research sponsored by my firm in Yokohama, Japan, in the 1980s. Her name was Dr. Yuko Masuda. He signed himself Peter Diamond, Detective Superintendent."

"And he gave a number for you to call?"

"The Brightside Hotel. I took it seriously. I looked up the records on this woman. Then I called Mr. Diamond and fixed a meeting at Battery Park, in the ticket office for the ferry."

"Strange place for a meeting."

Flexner gave a shrug. "My circumstances are pretty unusual right now, for reasons unconnected with this. It was simplest to meet him someplace outside the office."

"Battery Park? Why not his hotel?"

"Battery Park is a short taxi ride from my office. It's also a place a stranger to New York could find easily."

"So did you go there?"

"Sure, but I was delayed. He wasn't there." Flexner leaned forward in his chair as if a sudden thought had come to him. "What happened to this guy? Is he okay?"

"You tell me what happened to you," said Eastland.

"I turned up at Battery Park-"

"No," said Eastland, who was letting nothing by. "You tell me what delayed you."

"A smoke alarm."

"What?"

"A smoke alarm went off in a storeroom on the twentieth floor."

"What time?"

"Around six forty-five, just when I was ready to leave. Someone had dumped a cigarette in a trash bin. It ignited some tissues."

"In a storeroom?"

"That's where it was found. The result is I didn't get down to Battery Park until twenty-five after seven, and the guy wasn't around. I looked around, I asked-"

"Okay," said Easdand. "So let's make this very clear. Did you at any point instruct anyone else to meet Detective Diamond?"

"No. I just told you. I went myself."

"Who else knew you made this appointment? Your secretary?"

Flexner shook his head. "I handled it myself."

"Is your phone system secure?"

"So far as I know."

"You said that you consulted the records on this woman. Did somebody fetch them for you?"

"No, we have them on computer. We keep records of all our sponsorships and research programs. I accessed them on the modem I have in my office."

"Anyone see you?"

"I was alone in there. Look, would you mind telling me what happened?"

"Detective Diamond was met by a woman who said she was sent by you. You know about this?"

Flexner swayed back in his chair, frowning. "Sent by me? No, I don't. I didn't speak to anyone."

'Take your time, Mr. Flexner. Think back. You're quite certain you mentioned this meeting to nobody?"

"Positive."

"Maybe someone overheard you speaking on the phone. Is that possible?"

"I was alone in my office. The door was closed."

"Yet this woman-who called herself Joan, by the way-found Detective Diamond in the ticket office, told him you were unable to get there and drove him in a black limousine to the waterfront area in the West Forties, where some goons were waiting to work him over good and sink him in the Hudson."

"I can't believe this." To his credit, Flexner was looking as if he meant what he said. He'd gone extremely pale.

"You'd better," Eastland told him. "And you'd better start thinking who this woman is, and why it was necessary to do that to a guy you arranged to met. You don't have to answer right off."

"He's dead?" Flexner asked.

"Go over it in your mind, Mr. Flexner. There may be something you forgot. I'll be back."

Flexner was left staring. There was only the sound of the interview room door being closed.

Eastland came into the room where Stein and Diamond had been following the interview. "Well?"

"I'd like to question him," Diamond said. "I still want the information he was going to give me."

"You think he's speaking the truth?"

"He made a pretty good impression."

"Yeah?" said Eastland with heavy irony. "Maybe none of this happened. That's a phantom black eye you have."

"I still want to question him."

"Not yet"

"This is urgent"

"We can break this guy, no problem," Eastland bragged.

"He claims he told nobody he was meeting you. That's got to be horseshiL"

Diamond contained himself, but with difficulty. There was a real danger that Naomi's plight would be overlooked in the eagerness to break David Flexner. Breaking him, as Eastland candidly put it, was not the way to get the crucial information. "Listen, I think we should test the truth of what he's saying this way. He arranged to meet me. That's not in dispute. So he must have had something to pass on about Naomi's mother."

"It was a blind, just to set you up."

"Let's find out Let's ask him what he can tell us. If he is telling the truth, it may lead us to Naomi."

The lieutenant obviously wasn't impressed. He spread his hands as if his point had just been proved. "Peter, my friend, you were asking about research the woman was doing seven, eight years back. That's not going to tell us who's holding the kid tonight."

"It scared someone into wanting me killed. It can't be all that remote," said Diamond. "Let him talk while he still has an interest in cooperating. If you go in there and scare the shit out of him, we may get nothing."

"Keep him sweet, you mean?"

"Play along with him. It won't take long, for God's sake."

Eastland weighed the suggestion. "You could be right."

"I'll do it," Diamond offered.

"You? No way. He thinks you're stashed away in the morgue, and we don't want to disillusion him. Okay, Diamond, we'll play it your way for a while. Just tell me what you would have asked him."

Diamond outlined the strategy. Without going all the way to convincing Eastland, it seemed to mollify him somewhat.

In a few minutes, the questioning started up again. Eastland went straight to the point. "Tell me about Yuko Ma-suda."

"There isn't much. I haven't met her," David Flexner replied. "She's just one of thousands who have carried out postgraduate research funded by Manflex or one of its associate companies."

"She's unimportant?"

"I didn't say that. According to our records, we've been sponsoring her research for ten years or more. She's written some papers on the treatment of drug and alcoholic comas using sympathomimetic drugs."

"Using what?"

"They imitate the effects of the sympathetic nerves. Adrenalin and ephedrine are examples."

"I've heard of Adrenalin."

A sigh from Flexner betrayed some impatience.

"Alcoholic comas, you said?" Eastland continued. "You mean these drugs pull the patients out? Restore them to their senses?"

"Inspector, all my information comes from a file entry on a computer. I am neither a biochemist nor a doctor."

"Okay, okay. And what else does your computer tell you?"

"The usual stuff. Her age, address, qualifications. She isn't one of our employees, you understand, just a postgraduate research student"

"Does the file show that she is married?"

"Yes. Masuda is her married name."

"And is her child mentioned?"

"It wouldn't be. That's irrelevant to us."

"She's based in Japan?"

"Yokohama."

"And she's been doing research continuously since when?"

"1979."

"Long time."

"Research sometimes does take a long time."

"Do you get updates on her work?"

"Not personally. The company keeps tabs on all our research programs."

"Did you know mat she's been missing from her home for a couple of months?"

"No, I didn't know mat. It wouldn't necessarily come to our attention for some time unless someone reported it"

There was a pause in the questioning, as if Eastland was reluctant to move on, but couldn't think what else to ask. finally he said, "Is there anything else on this woman's record that you planned to tell Detective Diamond?"

"No," answered Flexner. "Naturally, I wanted to be as helpful as I could, but that's all I could have told him. You've heard it all."

"Forgive me, but it doesn't sound like the secret of the Sphinx," Eastland commented. "Why did you need to meet with Diamond like a couple of CIA agents? Why not simply call him on the phone and tell him what you had?"

Flexner shrugged again. "I guess I wanted to be sure who I was dealing with. We don't give out information about people as a rule."

"You didn't trust him?"

"I thought it right to meet him and make sure. I couldn't invite him to the office. He'd have had to run the gauntlet of the press. They're camped outside my building."

"I've seen them. You're getting plenty of attention," said Eastland. "This is the wonder drug you're about to launch?"

Flexner shifted position in his chair. "Look, this has no bearing on the matter of the Japanese woman."

"How do you know?"

"It's unrelated."

"We'll judge that for ourselves, Mr. Flexner."

"I'd rather not discuss the drug. If any of what I said leaked out prematurely, it could get us suspended on the stock market."

"Everything you tell me stays within these walls," Eastland assured him while the unseen watchers in the room across the corridor continued impassively to follow the interview.

David Flexner passed his hand agitatedly across his mouth. "You're putting me in a difficult position."

"The hot seat."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm putting you in the hot seat."

"Oh." An unhappy smile flickered across the young man's lips. "You appreciate that I only took over as Chairman quite recently, when my father died," he explained. "Frankly, the business hasn't gone too brilliantly for some while. We slipped badly in the pharmaceuticals league table. Our competitors like Merck and Lilly have developed new drugs and gotten away from us. And quite recently our stock market rating took a dive because of a fire at one of our major plants in Italy. The place was gutted."

"And that hit confidence here?"

"Manflex Italia is our main European subsidiary. The investigation is still going on. We could be dealing with a case of arson."

"But you hope to restore confidence with this new drug, is that it?" said Eastland.

David Flexner gave a nod. "One mass-selling product can make a hell of a difference. Without saying more man I have to, I can tell you that Prodermolate-"

"Prodermolate?"

"PDM3. It's one of thousands of compounds that we patented over the years. The great majority never come to anything. Well, it happens that this drug-which was developed getting on twenty years ago-is more effective than anyone suspected."

"For what?"

"Forgive me, but I can't tell you that, Lieutenant We're due to make an announcement in a couple of days and the future of Manflex rests on it. And thousands of jobs. We're under tremendous pressure to leak the information before Tuesday. I can't tell anyone, not even you, not even in this place."

"You can't withhold information," said Eastland in a voice more offended than threatening. "I need to know."

"I'm sorry, but-"

"You think I'm going to rush out tomorrow and buy shares in Manflex?"

"Well, no."

"I have better things to do than gamble on the stock exchange, Mr. Flexner. If I wanted to be a rich man, I wouldn't be in this job."

"But I'm under an obligation."

Eastland lifted his voice a fraction. "You're under an obligation? What about me? I have to find a child, a handicapped child, as a matter of fact, who is in real danger of losing her life. This isn't hide-and-seek, it's child murder unless I find her."

"Murder?"

After a sufficient pause, Eastland added, "We've had one killing already."

The quickness of Flexner's reaction, a spasm of shock that produced a rictuslike baring of the mouth, showed that he was primed for the bad news. Clearly he took the statement to mean that Diamond was the victim. This was the fear most on his mind. In a tone that showed he was about to capitulate, he said, "I wish you'd told me right out."

"You haven't been entirely open with me. Tell me about this drag," said Eastland with the timing of a skilled interrogator. Flexner had whitened noticeably. "You give me your word it goes no further?"

"Secrets are my business."

"Okay. I, um, I'm not the best-informed person to talk about the potential of the drug, but I gather it was patented back in 1975 at Cornell. The original research was carried out on a grant from Beaver River Chemicals, who became a subsidiary of ours when my father took them over about 1976. Nobody found much use for the stuff. That's the way things are. You discover thousands of compounds and register them without knowing if they're any use. Not many are chosen for development, which is extremely costly. It can run into millions. Professor Churchward has discovered that PDM3 is effective in regenerating the nerve cells of the brain."

"Is that special?"

He looked pained that such a question had to be asked. "I said regenerating. It's unknown to science. It's a tremendous breakthrough. It means that we can arrest the process of mental aging."

"Alzheimer's?" said Eastland.

"Yes, but more than that, vastly more. PDM3 fosters the production of new cells. We can foresee its being used to sustain the brain at peak efficiency into advanced old age."

"For anyone?"

"Exactly."

"So it's a surefire money-spinner," Eastland said in a swift descent to market economics. "On Tuesday, you're launching this drug?"

Flexner raised his hands like a man looking into a gun barrel. "No, no. That's still at least a year off. We're staging a conference to report on the work so far and announce that we're going into the third stage of testing, which is extensive preclinical trials."

"But the mere fact that you are starting the trials will lead to massive investment in Manflex."

"That is likely."

"You mentioned a professor just now."

"Churchward. He's at Corydon University, in Indianapolis. I flew out there to see him last week. He's leading the teams at work on PDM3."

"Did you form a good estimate?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you like the guy?"

"I didn't have to."

"Trust him, then?"

"My judgment is that he's a good scientist, or I wouldn't be putting our resources into the drug."

"So you see a bright future, Mr. Flexner."

"For mankind, with an advance like this? Certainly."

"For Manflex Pharmaceuticals."

He looked faintly embarrassed. "I expect so."

"You can do without a murder inquiry on your doorstep right now."

'Too damned true."

"And you say you mentioned Detective Diamond to nobody?" "Not a living soul." Impulsively, Flexner said, "Could we keep it out of the papers until after Tuesday?"

Eastland behaved as if the question hadn't been put. "When you called him on the phone, did you dial the number yourself?"

"Yes."

"You didn't ask the switchboard to get the number for you?"

"No."

"Can they listen in to outside calls?"

"I'm pretty sure they can't"

"Let's take another view of this," suggested Eastland. "Who else beside yourself knows what you intend to announce on Tuesday?"

"About PDM3?" He cast his eyes upwards, as if the names were written on the ceiling. "My deputy, Michael Leapman, and Professor Churchward, of course. They'll both be at the conference."

"The professor is in New York?"

"He flew in tonight. He's staying at the Waldorf Astoria."

"No one else knows about PDM3?"

"I can't think of anyone. There are people working on various phases of the project, but only Michael and Professor Churchward know the whole picture."

"Your wife?"

"I'm unmarried."

"Girlfriend?"

Flexner shook his head.

"So who is the opposition?" Eastland asked. "Who has an interest in screwing up your big announcement?"

"Competitors, you mean?"

"If you like. Someone took the child. Who do you suspect, Mr. Flexner?"

"I've no idea. I'd rule out our competitors. They wouldn't get involved in anything criminal. Can't you find out from the mother if anyone has approached her?"

"I told you the mother is missing."

Flexner let out a long breath. "I can't explain any of this."

"It's pretty obvious that someone in Manflex reacted quickly when Diamond got in touch with you. My guess is mat your office is bugged. Have you thought about that?"

His eyes widened.

Eastland added, "I can think of no other way they could have set this thing up, hired the team to take care of him and also set off the smoke alarm in your building. It was an inside job, Mr. Flexner. No question."

The young man shook his head, more as a way of coming to terms with the unthinkable than as a denial.

Eastland said. "Where do I find Michael Leapman?"

"Michael? He has no reason to-"

"Was he in the building this afternoon?"

"Yes, but-"

"His address, please."

"I don't know. He lives in New Jersey."

"You have a phone number?"

"Somewhere." He felt into the back pocket of his jeans.

"But Michael is the last man on earth to want to screw up our plans. PDM3 is his baby."