They passed under some low-hanging, pungent eucalyptus branches. Paige looked back at him. “Craig, I’ve got a printout of all the Lab salaries in case you need actual proof — but trust me, we’re University of California employees. Even important people here don’t scratch the salaries they could be making as consultants on the outside. The highest paid person in the Livermore Lab doesn’t pull in much more than a hundred thousand a year, and I guarantee you Lesserec doesn’t make that much. At least he’s not supposed to be.”
“Well,” Craig said pondering as they pedaled past fenced-in softball fields the employees used at lunch. “What about the girlfriend. Could she be rich? Maybe she’s the one with money?”
Paige pursed her lips. “I asked about that. It seems Tansy Beaumont has a great deal to say on the subject. Tansy thinks Lesserec’s girlfriend has been sponging off him for about two years now. In her own words, ‘you can see what he gets out of that girl.’“ Paige laughed. “If she was rich, why would she be with someone like him? You’ve got to admit Gary Lesserec is no prize specimen.”
Craig cracked a smile. “I’ll agree with that.”
“According to Tansy,” Paige continued, “the girlfriend doesn’t even have a job, claims to be ‘an aspiring poet’ who sits at home all day and spends Lesserec’s money. No, Lesserec’s the one with the cash — but where did he get it? That’s what I want to know.”
“Couldn’t he be a consultant or something?” Craig asked. “Don’t a lot of people here do that sort of thing on the side?”
Paige agreed. “You’re right. But I do have a little pull around here, you know. I called up our Lab Counsel Department and had them run a check. Anybody who does outside work beyond their regular employment has to file a form every year stating their consulting activities. That’s to prevent conflict of interest. Guess what I found?”
Craig answered. “No paperwork on file for Lesserec.”
“Bingo,” Paige said.
“So, he’s not openly declared that he’s engaging in consulting activities. His girlfriend doesn’t have any money. His Lab salary is decent, but not enough for the kind of lifestyle he’s living. These are the classic signs of espionage involvement.”
Paige looked at him with her blue, blue eyes. “Just like that Ames spy case with the CIA. Everybody saw the signs and nobody paid attention. I’m just amazed nobody’s caught it before this. We’re all supposed to be watching out for exactly those things. I’ve given the Security lecture myself to some of our new employees.”
“It was a good idea to discuss this out here, away from the crowds,” Craig said. “Let’s keep quiet about it while we make some discreet inquiries. The best thing we can do is get hold of Lesserec’s phone records, both for home and at the office. I’ll have to call the Bureau and get the appropriate subpoenas issued — but that shouldn’t be a problem. They’re hot to solve Michaelson’s murder.”
Paige kept pedaling as they turned the corner onto another path heading back toward T Program.
“I can get his Lab phone records for you,” Paige volunteered. “They’re open access. I just need to contact the Lab telephone systems.”
“Good,” Craig said, “And thanks for keeping your eyes peeled while I was gone.”
She smiled at him, and as he looked back at her his foot slipped from the pedal of the bike. He wobbled before he could catch his balance.
“Just happy to help,” Paige said. “My civic duty.”
“The more we find out, the more complicated it gets,” Craig said, knocking the kickstand down on his bike as they parked outside the T Program trailers again. The sun was warm and the exercise had felt good to him.
“I wish we’d stop digging up more questions though,” he said. “I want to start finding some answers soon.”
CHAPTER 35
Craig and Paige sat in the back of the T Program conference room as if they belonged there; they were the only two to show up on time for the briefing they had accidentally heard about, thanks to Tansy Beaumont.
The other team members came bustling in at least five minutes late. Craig watched the motley group of young geniuses hurry in. Some of the programmers carried personal mugs of coffee, but most held the ubiquitous cans of Diet Coke, as if signifying membership in a club. Craig marveled at their casual clothes, their disregard for basic personal hygiene. He couldn’t imagine how people could consider themselves professionals, and yet dress so sloppily.
Paige, on the other hand, sat next to him wearing a bright teal dress with a subtle floral pattern marked out in lighter blue. Her scent carried just a hint of perfume, enough to make Craig notice, though he was unable to identify the brand.
The people lounging in the room chatted in low voices, fidgeting with the obvious distaste for meetings that so many of the scientists seemed to have.
Breathless, Gary Lesserec plowed through the door, his red hair unkempt. He headed straight for the overhead projector resting at the head of the long table, dodging chairs and glancing at his watch. He slapped a manila folder filled with plastic transparencies on the table, looked up at the gathered coworkers, and froze for just an instant when he saw Craig.
Then Lesserec ignored him entirely and addressed his team. “I’ll keep this short,” he said. “I promise. We’ve got to get back to work, but I figured it’s best if we all know where we stand. I’m going to give you a summary of everything to expect for tomorrow’s high-explosive demonstration out at the Nevada Test Site.”
“Awww, high explosives,” a thin black woman said with a frown. “Why don’t we just use a nuke ourselves to test things out?”
Lesserec sighed. “Believe me, we would if we could, Danielle — but the testing moratorium has screwed up all the timing at NTS. The President has only cleared one device out of the stockpile, and we’ve got to save that one for the big bells and whistles when the foreigners are watching.”
Lesserec shot a cold glance at Craig and cleared his throat. “I take it I don’t need to introduce our uninvited visitors. Mr. Kreident here with the FBI is investigating Hal’s death. I suggest we give him our full cooperation”—Lesserec’s tone said exactly the opposite—“so he can be on his way and off bothering somebody else as soon as possible.
“Meanwhile,” Lesserec turned back to the projector and flipped on the bright bulb, “our counterparts out at Frenchman Flat in Nevada have set up a nice little practice bang for us. Five hundred tons of high explosive laced with our special detectors and high-speed fiberoptic data-transmission cables. Kaboom! to the sixth power.
“One lucky volunteer is going to get to sit inside the VR chamber hooked up and watching the explosion realtime — but don’t worry,” Lesserec said, pushing down with his hand as if to quell imaginary grumbling, though no one in T Program had said a word. “It’s recorded of course, so you’ll all get to watch it, one by one, after the test. It won’t make any difference.”
Lesserec slapped a transparent viewgraph on the glass of the overhead projector. Photos of the barren desert flat out in Nevada where nuclear tests had been conducted blurred across the white screen as Lesserec cranked the focus knob.
He put up a diagram explaining the type of explosive and the configuration for the test blast, but Craig paid little attention. Instead, he studied the laser-printed list clipped to a yellow legal pad on which he jotted detailed notes. The Bureau had obtained the telephone numbers dialed and the duration of calls made from Gary Lesserec’s home line. Paige had given him a printout of calls made from the office phone in Lesserec’s cubicle on site.