Polar Quest

38

‘What do you have for me?’ Kilkenny asked.

Inside the MARC computer center, Tao was seated beside Grin at a long worktable covered with printouts. Kilkenny pulled up a chair and sat down.

‘Couple of things,’ Grin replied. ‘I did as you asked and poked around inside Vielogic’s network for shipping and receiving records. Did you know they move a lot of stuff around?’

‘It’s a big company. Anything else?’

‘Yeah. Looking at just the receiving side of things, I found that they just recently took delivery on a bunch of equipment in New Jersey. I checked their latest press releases and that’s where they put their first U.S. research facility. Most of the stuff going there is from vendors in North America or Europe. All of them look like legitimate scientific supply companies, the kind I can pull a Dunn and Bradstreet on, except this one.’

Grin handed Kilkenny a printout. A single shipment of security equipment was sent to the New Jersey lab by Cerberus Sécurité, NA.

‘That’s Duroc’s company,’ Kilkenny said.

‘Actually,’ Tao offered, ‘it’s the American subsidiary of Duroc’s company.’

‘Knowing what we now know about Duroc,’ Grin continued, ‘I thought anything touched by his hands was worth a look. This place Vielogic built in New Jersey is pretty wild — lots of sharp angles and rippling walls like that rock ‘n’ roll museum in Seattle. Well, I remember when we put this place together, and all the security equipment came through the general contractor. Sure, we told him what we wanted where, but the contractor bought the gear and put it in. I figure the same is probably true for this Taj Ma-Lab, and sure enough, it is. All their security was roughed in last summer and finished off in November.’

‘So if the contractor put in the security system, what’s Duroc shipping there in February?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘It gets better,’ Tao replied.

‘I don’t know what’s in the box,’ Grin admitted, ‘but I do know where it came from. Going backward from Vielogic’s new lab, this shipment came by truck from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where it was off-loaded from a cargo ship; the Angelina. According to the ship’s records filed with the port authority, the Angelina was docked in Rio Gallegos on February first. She took on cargo from Cerberus that day and set sail the following morning.’

‘We know that Agabashian shipped the launcher to Rio Gallegos,’ Tao said. ‘So I think it’s safe to assume that Duroc used this as his jump point to and from Antarctica.’

‘It’d keep the logistics simple,’ Kilkenny agreed, ‘and this certainly fits the timeline. Grin, get whatever you can on this lab in New Jersey — layouts, security, anything that’ll help Roxanne and me get in and out.’

‘I think I can pull something together.’

‘Don’t forget about the other thing,’ Tao said.

‘What other thing?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘Those disks you brought back from the Caymans,’ Grin replied. ‘Methinks I found your smoking gun.’

‘All right, walk me through it.’

‘The stack of Zip disks you brought back were encrypted, but with an older, low-level commercial program. Nothing that a little brute force couldn’t crack. As you hoped, it’s bank data and not the guy’s personal stash of Web porn. When I got through decrypting all the disks, I thought what I had were two identical sets of backups.’

‘Did you check them both anyway?’ Kilkenny asked.

Grin smiled. ‘You know me too well, man. Yeah, I checked and on the bottom line, they matched up. It’s in the details where things get interesting.’

Grin laid out side-by-side reports of the Sterling Private Bank’s stock transactions during the first two months of the year. In the first report, the short trades on UGene stock were placed by dozens of Cayman Island holding companies. The UGene trades in the second were all made by just one holding company: Pont Neuf.

‘So, Harley was keeping two sets of books,’ Kilkenny said.

‘Pont Neuf wasn’t the only company Harley’s bank was shielding.’ Tao pointed to a report with highlighted entries. ‘The churn of money through these accounts looks like a laundering operation to me.’

‘Let’s pass that piece back to Barnett; he can route it to any interested parties. Anything more on this Pont Neuf?’

‘It’s a Cayman Island holding company that was formed by Sumner Duroc,’ Tao replied. ‘Now I’m certain that he tried to kill us because of this stock deal.’

‘It sure looks that way,’ Kilkenny agreed. ‘But how the hell did he know UGene was going to crash?’

‘Doesn’t this show a motive?’ Tao asked. ‘We’re looking at a lot of money here.’

‘This shows a possible motive, but there is no evidence Duroc had anything to do with the murders,’ Kilkenny replied, frustrated. ‘The police found Eames’s semen in his ex-wife’s body. Unless Duroc took semen from Eames or has some other way to make it, only Eames could have committed the murders.’

‘Well, what if he does have another way to make it?’ Grin asked.

‘What?’ Kilkenny said.

‘Just suppose for a minute this guy Duroc has a way to make semen in a lab? I mean, he’s hooked up with one of the biggest biotech firms in the world,’ Grin explained. ‘I’ve been working with Eames and Sutton for little over a year now, and the way I see it, DNA is just a long string of data. Instead of bits, you’ve got four molecules, repeated over and over. Maybe someone at Vielogic has figured out a way to make DNA.’