"You could say that. We spend over ten billion dollars per year on R&D."
Sawyer whistled. "You're talking numbers I can't even begin to contemplate. Of course, I'm just a working-stiff bureaucrat who sits around picking his nose on the public dole."
Rowe smiled. "Nathan 'Gamble delights in making other people squirm. I think he met his match in you, though. For obvious reasons I didn't applaud your performance, but I was seriously thinking about a standing ovation."
"Hardy said you had your own company, hot stock. If you don't mind my asking, how come you hooked up with Gamble?"
"Money." Rowe waved his arm around the facility they were in.
"This all costs billions of dollars. My company was doing well, but lots of tech companies were doing well in the stock market. What people don't seem to understand is that while my company's stock price went from nineteen dollars a share on the day it hit the market to a hundred sixty per share less than six months later, we didn't see any of that enormous markup. That went to the people who bought the s rock."
"You had to keep a chunk of the company's stock, though."
"I did, but with the securities laws being what they are, and our underwriter's requirements, I couldn't really sell any of it. On paper I was worth a fortune. However, my company was still struggling, R&D was eating us up, we had no earnings," he said bitterly.
"So enter Nathan Gamble?"
"Actually he was a very early investor in the company, before we went public. He gave us some seed capital. He also gave us something else we didn't have but desperately needed: respectability on Wall Street, with the capital markets. A good solid business background.
A penchant for making money. When my company went public, he held on to his shares as well. Later, Gamble and I discussed the future and decided to take the company back private."
"In retrospect a good decision?"
"From a dollar perspective, an incredibly good decision."
"But money ain't everything, right, Quentin?"
"Sometimes I wonder."
Sawyer leaned up against the wall, folded his beefy arms across his chest and looked directly at Rowe. "The tour is real interesting, but I hope that wasn't all you had in mind."
"It wasn't." Rowe swiped his card through the reader on a nearby door and motioned for Sawyer to follow him in. They sat down at a small table. Rowe spent a moment collecting his thoughts before he started speaking. "You know, if you had asked me before this all happened who I would suspect of having stolen from us, Jason Archer's name would never have entered my mind." Rowe took off his glasses and rubbed them with a handkerchief pulled from his shirt pocket.
"So you trusted him?"
"Absolutely."
"And now?"
"And now I think I was wrong. I feel betrayed, in fact."
"I could see how you might feel that way. You think anybody else at the company might be involved?"
"My God, I hope not." Rowe seemed stricken by the suggestion.
"I would certainly rather believe it was Jason on his own or a competitor working with him. That, to me, makes a lot more sense. Besides, Jason would have been perfectly capable of hacking into BankTrust's computer system by himself. It's really nor all that hard to do."
"You sound like you speak from experience."
Rowe's face reddened. "Let's just say that I have an insatiable curiosity.
Poking around databases was a favorite pastime in college.
My classmates and I had quite a good time doing it, although the local authorities, on more than one occasion, voiced their displeasure.
However, we never stole anything. I actually helped train some of the police technicians in methods to detect and prevent computer-related crimes."
"Any of those people working on your security detail?"
"You mean Richard Lucas? No, he's been with Gamble it seems like forever now. Again, he's very good at what he does, but not the most pleasant company to have around. However, it's not his job to be pleasant."
"But Archer still fooled him."
"He fooled all of us. I'm certainly in no position to point fingers."
"Did you notice anything about Jason Archer that in retrospect looked suspicious?"
"Most things look different in retrospect. I know that better than most. I've given it some thought and Jason did seem to take a very active interest in the CyberCom deal."
"He was working on it."
"I don't mean just that. Even on the segments of the deal he wasn't involved in he asked a lot of questions."
"Like what?"
"Like did I think the terms were fair. Did I think the deal was going to get done. What would be his role once it was done. That sort of thing."
"He ever ask you about any confidential records you kept regarding the deal?"
"Not directly, no."
"He apparently got everything he needed off the computer system?"
"So it would seem."
The two men sat staring off into space for a few moments.
"You have any inkling where Archer might be?"
Rowe shook his head. "I visited his wife, Sidney."
"We've met."
"It's hard to believe he would just up and leave them like that. He has a daughter too. A beautiful little girl."
"Maybe he didn't plan to leave them."
Rowe looked at him oddly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean maybe he intends to come back for them."
"He's a fugitive from justice now. Why would he come back? Be sides, Sidney wouldn't go with him."
"Why not?"
"Because he's a criminal. She's an attorney."
"This may come as a big surprise to you, Quentin, but some lawyers aren't honest."
"You mean... you mean you suspect Sidney Archer of being involved in this whole thing?"
"I mean I haven't ruled her or anyone else out right now as a suspect.
She's an attorney for Triton. She was working on the CyberCom deal. Seems like a perfect position to cherry-pick secrets and sell them to RTG. Who the hell knows? I intend to find out."
Rowe put his glasses back on and rubbed his hand nervously across the glass tabletop. "It's so hard to believe Sidney would be involved in all this." Rowe's tone betrayed the conviction of his words.
Sawyer studied him closely. "Quentin, do you want to tell me something? Maybe about Sidney Archer?"
Rowe finally sighed and looked at Sawyer. "I'm convinced that Sidney was in Jason's office at Triton after the plane crash."
Sawyer's eyes narrowed. "What proof do you have?"
"The night before Jason supposedly left for L.A. he and I were working late on a project in his office. We left together. He secured his office door behind me. His office remained locked from that moment until we had the company come to deactivate the alarm and remove the door."
"So?"
"When we entered the office, I noticed immediately that the microphone on Jason's computer was bent almost in half. Like someone had hit it and then tried to straighten it."
"Why would you think that someone was Sidney Archer? Maybe Jason came back later that night."
"If he had there would be a record of it, both electronically and with the on-site security guard." Rowe paused, dwelling on the memory of the night of Sidney's visit. Finally he threw up his hands.
"! know of no other way to put it. She was sneaking around. She claimed she was not in the restricted area, and yet I'm sure she was.
I think the security guard was covering for her. And Sidney told me some bogus story about meeting Jason's secretary there to get some of Jason's personal things."
"Doesn't that sound plausible?"
"It would have, except I casually asked Kay Vincent, Jason's secretary, if she had spoken to Sidney recently. And she had, from her home, on the very night Sidney went down to the office. She knew Kay wasn't there."
Sawyer sat back in his chair. Rowe continued. "You need a special chip card even to begin the de
activation process on Jason's office door.
In addition, you need to know a four-digit password or the alarm will go off. It happened, in fact, when we initially tried to enter his office.
That's when we found out Jason had changed the password. I even considered attempting it the night Sidney came by, only I knew it would be futile. I had a master security card, but without the password, the alarm would've just gone off again." He paused to take a breath. "Sidney could've have had access to Jason's security cam and he could've told her the password. I can't believe I'm saying this, but she's involved in something, I just don't know what."
"I just looked through Archer's office and I didn't see any microphone.
What did it look like?"
"About five inches long, the thickness of a pencil, small speaker at one end. It was mounted directly on the computer's CPU on the bottom left-hand side. It's for voice-activated commands. One day it'll replace the keyboard entirely. It's a godsend for people who can't type well."
"I didn't see anything like that."
"Probably not. I'm sure it was removed from the office because it was so damaged."
Sawyer took a few minutes to jot down notes and asked Rowe a few follow-up questions. Then Rowe escorted him back to the exit.
"You think of anything else, Quentin, you let me know." He handed Rowe a business card.
"I wish I knew what the hell was going on, Agent Sawyer. I have my hands full with CyberCom, and now this."
"I'm doing what I can, Quentin. Hang in there."
Rowe slowly went back inside, Sawyer's card clutched in his hand. Sawyer walked to his car; he could hear his cellular phone buzzing. Ray Jackson's voice was agitated. "You were right."
"About what?"
"Sidney Archer's on the move."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A half block behind the airport cab were the two FBI tail cars.
Two other sedans were running on parallel streets and would cross over at strategic points to take over the chase so as not to alert the person they were tracking. That person swept the hair from her eyes, took a deep breath and stared out the window of the cab. Sidney Archer swiftly ran through the details of her trip once more and wondered if she had just exchanged one nightmare for another.
"She came back to the house after the memorial service, stayed a little while and then the cab came and picked her up. The direction they're heading, my call is Dulles Airport," Ray Jackson said into the car phone. "She made one stop. At a bank. Probably withdrawing some cash."
Lee Sawyer pressed the phone against his ear and fought through rush-hour traffic. "Where are you now?"
Jackson relayed his position. "You shouldn't have trouble, Lee, we're crawling through traffic here."
Sawyer started looking at cross streets. "I can be up with you in about ten minutes. How many pieces of luggage she carrying?"
"One medium suitcase."
"Short trip, then."
"Probably." Jackson eyed the cab. "Oh, shit!"
"What?" Sawyer almost yelled into the phone.
In dismay Jackson watched as the cab abruptly pulled into the Vienna metro subway station. "Looks like the lady just had a change in travel arrangements. She's hopping on the subway." Jackson watched Sidney Archer step out of the cab.
"Get a couple of guys in there right now, Ray."
"Roger that, double-quick."
Sawyer turned on his grille lights and cut around the stalled traffic.
When his phone buzzed again, he snatched it up. "Talk to me, Ray, only good news."
His partner's breathing was a little more normal. "Okay, we got two guys on with her."
"I'm one minute from the station. Which way she headed? Wait a minute, Vienna's the end of the orange line. She must be headed into town."
"Maybe, Lee, unless she's gonna double back on us and grab another cab when she exits the subway. Dulles is the other way. And we got a potential problem with our lines of communication. The walkie-talkies don't always work so well on the metro. If she changes trains inside the metro and our guys lose her, she's gone."
Sawyer thought for a moment. "Did she take her luggage, Ray?"
"What? Damn. No, she didn't."
"Get two cars glued to that cab, Ray. I doubt Mrs. Archer is leaving behind her clean undies and her makeup kit."
"I'm on it myself. You want to pair with me?"
Sawyer was about to agree, then abruptly changed his mind. He streaked through a red light. "You hang on it, Ray, I'm gonna cover another angle. Check in every five minutes and let's hope she doesn't give us the slip."
Sawyer did a U-turn and hurtled east.
Sidney had changed trains at the Rosslyn substation and boarded a blue-line train heading south. At the Pentagon metro station, the doors on the subway opened and approximately one thousand people careened off the train cars. Sidney was carrying the white coat she had been wearing. She didn't want to stand out from the crowd.
The blue sweater she wore was swiftly lost in the thickening crowds of similarly attired military personnel.
The two FBI agents pushed through the masses as they desperately tried to relocate Sidney Archer. Neither one noticed Sidney re-board the same train several cars down, and she continued on to National Airport. She looked behind her several times, but the train now held no obvious pursuers.
Sawyer pulled to a halt in front of the main terminal at National Airport, flashed his credentials to a surprised parking lot attendant and raced into the building. A few seconds later he stopped dead and his shoulders sagged in frustration as he scanned the wall-to-wall people. "Shit!" The next second he flattened himself against the wall as Sidney Archer passed barely ten feet in front of him.
As soon as Sidney was safely ahead of him, Sawyer started tracking her. The short journey ended in the line at the United Airlines ticket desk, which stood twenty deep.
Out of sight of both Sawyer and Sidney, Paul Brophy rolled his luggage carrier toward an American Airlines departure gate. Inside Brophy's inner suit pocket was Sidney's entire travel itinerary gleaned from her conversation with Jason Archer. He continued on unhurriedly. He could afford that luxury as chaos swirled around him. He would even have time to check in with Goldman.
After forty-five minutes Sidney finally received her ticket and boarding pass. Sawyer watched from a distance and noted the large wad of bills she used for the purchase. As soon as she had disappeared around the corner, Sawyer swiftly sliced through the line, his FBI badge prominently held in his hand as the first wave of angry travelers quickly parted for him.
The ticket person stared at the badge and then Sawyer.
"The woman you just sold a ticket to, Sidney Archer. Tall, good-looking blond, dressed in blue with a white coat over her arm,"
Sawyer added just in case his prey had used an alias. "What flight is she on? Quick."
The woman froze for an instant and then started punching keys.
"Flight 715 to New Orleans. It leaves in twenty minutes."
"New Orleans?" said Sawyer, more to himself than to the woman.