Polar Quest

40

Kilkenny sat in the narrow booth adjacent to the courthouse holding cell. On the other side of the Plexiglas window, Eames paced the floor of the large gray concrete room. He was the only person in the cell. When Kilkenny rapped his knuckles on the window, Eames looked up and walked over.

‘That certainly didn’t go well,’ Eames said as he sat down opposite Kilkenny.

‘Balogh didn’t expect it to, but he had to file the motions anyway.’

‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’

‘I’m working on something. I don’t know if it means anything yet, but it just might. What do you know about a company called Vielogic?’

‘They’re French and one of the biggest of the new biotech pharmaceutical companies. About a week before the murders, Lloyd and I had dinner with Charles Lafitte, the CEO of Vielogic.’

‘You’re kidding. Where?’

‘At his home in Manhattan. Lloyd and I were there attending a conference, as was Lafitte. It was a social thing, but Lloyd and I did have a brief business conversation with Lafitte. He wanted to buy UGene.’

‘Did he make an offer?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘No, just put out a feeler. I turned him down because I really don’t want to work for the guy.’

‘What do you know about Lafitte?’

‘Not much, really,’ Eames replied. ‘The guy is very bright and worth a ton of money. If that dinner’s any indication, he’s got great taste in food and wine. Lafitte understands science as well as business, and he is very aggressive in both arenas.’

‘You ever hear of a guy named Sumner Duroc? He runs all the security for Vielogic.’

Eames thought carefully for a moment, then looked at Kilkenny. ‘No, not that I remember.’

‘How about a little company in the Cayman Islands called Pont Neuf?’

‘Again, no. Why do you ask?’

‘Duroc owns Pont Neuf,’ Kilkenny replied. ‘It’s just a holding company. He’s using it to make stock trades. So far, the only trades he’s made were for shares of UGene.’

‘Then he got screwed like all the rest of my shareholders.’

Kilkenny shook his head. ‘Duroc made a bundle. He shorted your stock, and when it fell he cashed out and netted about twenty-six million dollars.’

Eames let out a long whistle.

‘Yeah. Either Duroc is the luckiest man alive or he knew your stock was going to take a hit. And the only way he could have known was if he had something to do with the murders.’

‘Jesus!’ Eames was on his feet. ‘Jesus! We gotta tell Tiv!’

‘Oz, listen! We got nothing hard on this, nothing that’s going to get you out of here, but I’m working on it.’