“ Nooo! ” he shrieked. “Where are my files? He’s taken my files!”
Everyone in the room turned, startled by the raging scientist’s angst and loss of composure.
Lieutenant Morris rushed to his side, fearing he might need restraint. “Easy, Dr. Conrad…I’m sure there’s an explanation. Let Sal back in there. Give us the password so he can see what happened. He’ll find something…I promise you.”
Conrad stood awkwardly after scribbling his password on the notepad next to his desk. He was shaking his head, mumbling softly to himself: “I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch…I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch…” Finally, he slumped onto the leather sofa at the center of the office, burying his face in his hands, totally dejected.
“Dr. Conrad, is there something we can do for you?” Morris asked, looking for anything that might quell his despair.
“Yes,” Conrad replied, without lifting his face from his hands. “You can bring me Ryan Marshall’s head on a silver platter.”
“Holloway,” he snapped, answering the call. His PDA phone scrambled the transmission to protect his voice from identification and prevent tracing the call. “A mite eager, are we?” he asked, recognizing the caller’s incoming number from the Quantum Building.
“Just wanted to confirm you’ve received the data and that everything is in order,” the caller said. “You assured me no one would be hurt. Apparently, you overestimated your men getting safely out of the building. Any more surprises I need to know about?”
“Don’t lecture me,” Holloway spit back. “It’s none of your concern. I’ve already handled it. Why are you calling?”
“I want to know when to expect my money,” the man replied. “The death of the security guard changes everything. Under the circumstances…I’ll expect your full payment immediately.”
“I don’t give a damn what you expect. You’ll get your thirty pieces of silver as soon as I verify that the contraption you sold me works this time…not a moment before. Is that clear enough for you, or do you need more forceful convincing?” The threat sounded much more menacing through the scrambled, computer-generated voice.
“Threaten all you like, Mr. Holloway,” the man replied. “You seem to forget, however, that I can identify you as the mastermind of this crime. You would be wise not to bully me, sir. That would be foolish.”
“I do not repeat myself,” Holloway replied, infuriated by the caller’s insolence. “Our terms have not changed a whit. And for your edification, Doctor, no one has ever threatened me and lived to tell the tale.”
The phone line went dead.
SIX
Jarrod Conrad had hurried from the Quantum Building in the early morning hours following the burglary of his office. He was exhausted but too amped up to sleep, an overdose of adrenaline still coursed through his system. He was stunned by his cousin’s audacity in actually stealing the equations he had spent his career developing. He knew that Ryan was no stranger to vindictiveness, but he never thought in his wildest dreams he had the balls to actually break the law. It was clear he had grossly underestimated his cousin’s resolve-he meant to settle the score for losing his wife, after all. Jarrod thought the divorce from Sarah had finally broken his spirit; there had been no hint of retaliation after the New York City scam. This misjudgment aside, he would now have to deal with the consequences of Ryan’s foolhardy actions. The renewed escalation of their embittered rivalry would not go unchallenged.
Jarrod wasn’t at all worried about losing his research data. He had every theorem, equation, and technical drawing for his gravity research backed up on multiple computers for just such a contingency; he was never comfortable keeping all his data in one basket. What did bother him was that his antigravity equations were in the hands of another engineer prior to the publication of his breakthrough discovery. Anyone involved at this level of corporate espionage was unscrupulous enough to capitalize on the discovery, without hesitation. This, he could not abide.
Jarrod was relieved he had the foresight to imagine this worstcase scenario. He never kept all the information for the machine in one location; the construction design was kept separate from the operational equations. Neither were the schematics kept on the same computer with the equations to produce a flow of gravitrons. And, finally, the system equations triggered a termination sequence for anyone who tried to use them without his personal laptop computer. Niles Penburton was the only other person who knew where everything was stored.
Any proficient researcher could easily build the device from his schematics, right down to the detail of the microwave dish required to focus the gravitron beam. But without the laptop to synchronize the current with the nuclear core, the machine couldn’t levitate a walnut. Not even Niles knew about this little detail. These built-in safeguards should protect his invention until he uncovered what Ryan had planned for the machine.
Jarrod imagined his cousin was feeling pretty smug after pilfering his research, but Ryan had another thing in store if he thought this was the end of anything. The fool just doesn’t get it. He can’t beat me.
Following the questioning from Detective Morris, Jarrod immediately returned to his home at the campus and retrieved the data backup he kept on his personal computer. Even though he was confident the IBM laptop was secure in the hidden wall-safe, he was in no position to take anything for granted. The laptop didn’t have the computing power of the Quantum mainframe, but it did have sufficient memory to store the various complex equations to make the gravity machine functional.
Thankfully, the laptop was secure. No one had been in his house. He would simply upload this data back at the lab and continue to complete his research for publication before Ryan could capitalize on his discovery. There was no possible way anyone could operate the machine without the critical information that he still possessed. Whoever Ryan was working with would be pissed when they discovered that the information they robbed was incomplete. The laptop equations were still the key to operating his antigravity device, and the stolen data didn’t even hint that something else was needed.
Screw Ryan, Jarrod thought. I’d love to see the bastard’s face when he realizes he doesn’t have squat. This isn’t over by a long shot, Cuz.
SEVEN
Taos, New Mexico
06:00 HOURS
Ryan Marshall sat in his work truck overlooking the yawning canyon below. This was his favorite time of day-visualizing the day ahead while sipping coffee from his ever-present turquoise-colored thermos. Living from motels along the road didn’t always accommodate his daily caffeine fix; a top priority when starting a new job was to scope out a cantina that served the strongest cup of java. When home in Bernalillo, he used a Delonghi espresso maker to craft the perfect cup, but today his coffee came fresh from the diner in Pilar, a small town near the Rio Grande Gorge. Pilar was a Mecca to thrill-seeking white-water rafters who coveted the class-four water in this part of the gorge.
Alone in the early morning, Ryan would meditate and pray about the coming day. He visualized each element of the task ahead, evaluating the equipment and personnel at hand, trusting his intuition to discern potential problems. Ryan Marshall loved his job. He was widely recognized as one of the premier crane contractors in America. I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Grandpa, he thought, remembering Rusty, his beloved mentor.
Ryan looked across the canyon and could just barely make out the job site. The sun was peeking over the eastern rim of the gorge. The emerging sunlight sparkled off the dew layering the canyon from the night before. The rush of the mighty Rio Grande was barely audible from his vantage point, the river bottom ever deepening as the water plowed inexorably toward the Mexican border. The centuries-old Pinon trees stood like dutiful sentinels protecting the enormous canyon.