“Think all you like,” Andy said. “You’ve set the relay and delay mode. It’s all your work.”
“While you monitored me, and never even provided me access to the whole system. It says ‘Chief Technology Officer’ on my door, yet you used my work and froze me out.” He glared at Susie. Her cool hazel eyes met his for a moment, but she had the grace to look down. “You had me do the dirty work.”
“Check this out, René,” Andy said, handing him the business page of the San Jose Mercury. “Detained corporate French spy awaiting trial. Just last month. Caught at the airport. Terrible. Looks like San Quentin for him.”
San Quentin, the prison?
“You’ve set me up.”
“More like we took out insurance, René,” Susie said, her voice thin. “We bought you, now finish delivering. Make nice.”
He had to figure out how to blow the whistle on them. And get out alive. “Give me some time,” he said. “I’ve got to think.”
“What’s to think about?” Susie said, edging forward.
“You engineered the back door, René,” Andy said. “If you talk, we deny all allegations. Report you to immigration. They’ll be watching for you at the airport. Detain you.”
“What?” Fear flooded him.
“Just another foreign corporate spy detained for questioning at immigration.”
Andy lifted his phone and checked a message. “Hurry up, René. The meeting’s starting.”
“Front running’s illegal,” he said, hating how weak he sounded.
“Don’t want to play? Think you’ll blow the whistle on us?” Susie said. “But no one understands all the technical jargon, René. Of course, if you try we’ll tell them it was you, some idea you wanted to show us on our platform. How we had no clue you tried to sabotage us.”
Andy flicked off his phone. Jerked his thumb at the guard, who put a cardboard box on the floor. Inside was René’s coffee cup, the brass plate with his name, a blank memo pad, and his own laptop. The motherboard open and exposed.
“You’re out of here, René.”
René realized that was Andy’s plan all along.
Susie opened the supply room door, glanced down the corridor. “All clear. The guard will escort you out.”
In shock, René picked up the box. Threatened and now fired—what could he do? They’d covered their tail. Shut him up for good.
But he had an idea. They’d be preoccupied with the looming investor meeting—if he hurried he could do it.
“Dude, I’m so sorry. I wanted us to work together. You know, be friends,” Andy said, that rocket-bright smile back on his face. At the door he paused, turned to the guard. “One more thing, empty his pockets.”
The guard took René’s token and office key.
“YOU’RE WALKING FUNNY, René,” Bob said from his Cadillac window. “Did they beat you up?”
René ducked out of the El Camino Real bus shelter and slid into the passenger seat. “This car’s got eight cylinders. Use them, Bob.”
Bob hit the gas. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Not right now. Just get me to the motel before they discover what I stole and change the passwords.”
He reached down in his shoe. The token he’d cloned using Susie’s ID bit into the ball of his foot. He unlaced his shoe, moved it to the side. Safest place for now.
They wouldn’t be able to change the pass codes for a while. René figured that, given all the reconfigurations that would be required once they did realize what he’d done, it would take a minimum of twelve hours. Bare minimum. But if they didn’t catch on to his cloning the remote access token, he’d have twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
“Bob, I need to get out of the country.”
“I can drop you at SFO, no problem.”
Bluff or not, he wouldn’t chance them tipping off immigration. Ruining his chance of ever working in this country again.
“No commercial airport, Bob. Ever hear of Mexicali?”
“That bad?”
Bob pulled up in front of the motel.
“Keep the engine running,” René said. “Call me if.…”
“I see suspicious people? Sure, René. Never knew about your flair for the dramatic.”
René slammed the car door, slid the key card into his room door. He threw everything in his bag. Reached for his laptop and backup drive. His phone rang. Bob.
He ran into the bathroom near the pink hot tub, found the plastic Aéroports de Paris duty-free bag and stuffed the laptop and backup drive inside. From the bathroom window overlooking the back door of a Mexican restaurant came the smell of refried beans.
The phone rang again. René hurried back to the front window and peered out a chink in the drapes. Bob’s big-finned, baby-blue Cadillac was nowhere in sight. Only two big men at the door with baseball bats.
Tuesday Night, Paris
AIMéE HEARD THE sea, the lapping water. Her mind went to white sand, the pine scrub near the shore at Cassis. Was she on holiday? Dreaming?
A wave of dizziness overtook her. She blinked and realized she couldn’t see because a blindfold was covering her eyes. Nausea rose in her stomach. She gagged, but her mouth was taped shut.
Panicked, she tried to kick but a sharp cord cut into her ankles. Tight bands on her wrist tied her to something flat and hard. She struggled for air through her nose, terrified she’d choke on her own vomit.
A loud rip and the tape came off. Stinging needles tore her face. She gasped for air. Gagged again.
Hot and cold rippled over her. The smells around her took over her senses—pine, and leather. She realized she must be bound to the armrests of her office chair. With luck, she’d be near her desk and the drawer containing her Beretta.
Fat lot of good that did with her hands tied up. More nausea; she gulped for air. What did the sea sounds mean? Through her own choking and coughing, she heard footsteps, the fluttering of papers.
“Mademoiselle, we need to talk,” said a man’s voice, distorted by the telephone line. It must be coming from the speakerphone on her desk.
“Who are you?”