Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island (12 page)

As always, Richard marveled at Mick's hairiness. How old was he—forty-five, fifty? Didn't look like he'd lost a hair since it'd grown in. But at 2:00
PM
his five-o'clock shadow could do with a shave. Richard rubbed his own chin. Mick carried his weight well, like a bear. Richard stood a lanky six feet, but Mick was inches taller and broader. A rounded face, full lips. Mick slipped into the chair across from him. They exchanged pleasantries of weather, the Mariners, family.

At last Mick said, “What may I do for you, Richard?”

Richard let out a puff of breath. “We have a bit of a problem.”

Mick raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“It's this damn recession. Morsely's finances have taken a beating.”

“Like most institutions.”

“But we can see a solution. Some of the licensing fees Dr. Rossini's invention should soon bring in.”

“Licensing fees?”

“Come on. Sure, you've been funding the research and the salaries. But our overhead costs are rising way faster than our income.”

“How does that involve FI?”

“Rossini wants to throw the results of his project into never-never land, not charge anything, give it away like some idealistic teenager. Surely FI can see that's wrong.”

Mick glanced toward the window and drummed his fingers lightly on his chair arm. He looked back. “Richard. You know the Foundation doesn't get involved in the results of the projects we fund. So how Rossini disposes of his findings and discoveries and inventions neither affects us nor includes us.”

Richard sat forward. “But surely you see our problem. The man is on our faculty, we had to buy him from Duke, he's been using our laboratory for years, he's not been teaching, he's 100-percent research.”

“That's the deal you and we made with him, Richard.”

“But at least the research should belong to Morsely.”

Mick raised his eyebrows and resumed the absentminded drumming. “Have you talked to Rossini?”

Richard sat back and crossed his legs. “Of course. Briefly. He's adamant as hell that his project's results belong in the public domain. Charging only his costs. Not figuring in
our
costs, how much we've supported over the years. We've got to change that. You fund him; surely you can control him.” He leaned forward across the coffee table, scowling at Dubic. “Right?”

Mick sat back in his chair. He didn't enjoy being crowded. It was a tactic his mother had deployed, in fact, one that many in his family used, bringing their faces to within inches as if to impart some terribly intimate piece of information when all that came out was a comment on some twenty-year-old insult and a puff of garlicky breath. “The Foundation funds innovative projects. We're not involved in how results are brought to the larger community.”

“Surely you care?”

“We take great pleasure in the many successful projects we've funded.”

Richard pushed himself up. “So you won't do anything about Rossini.”

Dubic stood also. “There's nothing we can do.”

“I doubt that. But if you don't help, you'll be responsible for the university foundering.” He turned, pushed the door open, exited and resisted slamming it shut.

Foundering.
Hmm. Dubic sighed. Richard had seemed like one of the more progressive university administrators. Likely it was true, the recession had played havoc with Morsely's finances. He never had understood why a place like that had even searched out someone of Rossini's quality. After all, the man's strength was research, while Morsely embraced teaching. Glory, Mick figured. Rossini's work hinted of—glowed with the possibility of—great laurels. When this project became known, Morsely University would be purring with prestige. Sure there was a cost, but Richard must have known that. He should have factored in economic downturns, though. Mick felt sympathetic. But he would never let the Foundation intrude on the intentions of one of their grantees.

He returned to his desk. Four more grant applications before dinner.

The moment Kyra awoke, she felt irritated, again, that there was no morning flight from Bellingham to San Juan. She decided right then to cancel the afternoon reservation and take the ferry instead. She ate breakfast while she packed. Friday Harbor social life was surely casual, all the more so in August. So, jeans, shorts, into the suitcase. Bathing suit? Why not. Two skirts, blouses, a dress, sneakers, low heels. She'd wear her sandals—

An association rising. Summer clothes meant this was summer, right? And-in-summer-you-need-a-ferry-reservation-for-your-car, right? Right. She called. Too late for the 8:30, the 10:35 went only as far as Orcas Island, the 12:35 stopped at Lopez and turned around, and the 2:40, which wouldn't get her in till 3:45, was fully booked anyway. At least she hadn't canceled her flight.

So. An extra morning. How to fill the time. Noel always used his time so damn well. What would he do with a morning in Bellingham? In Nanaimo, while he waited? She could go shopping, buy a wispy new dress so she'd look good for Noel and convince him to give her the sperm she needed to make a baby.

Not effing likely. He'd remain obdurate. What could she do. Time to think of another donor? Yeah, but who? This business of finding a father, way more complicated than it should be. Some man she'd known in the past? She didn't want any casual ex-partner, someone she'd given up on—or worse, who'd given up on her. But better those than one of her ex-husbands; gawd! Vance the wife-beater, no way. Even more no way, Simon; he'd killed himself. And Sam, way too much of a moralist; she wouldn't want a kid with those genes. An anonymous donor found for her by the Perlman Institute? Somehow that grossed her out. Like plagiarized sperm? She giggled. Aha! Did that mean she'd started thinking about their case? A case at a university. And at least academic misdoings wouldn't put them in danger. But who'd have thought any of their other cases would have either?

Back to it, Kyra. The donor. Only Noel will do.

No, not only Noel. He was smart, good-looking, healthy. So were plenty of other men. But she trusted Noel. Did she not trust other men? No one she could think of, right now. So what was it? Afraid of an unknown man's sperm? Having suddenly thought this, it felt like a real explanation to her. Afraid. Knowing this, did it make her feel better? That she didn't know.

Distraction. She needed to be distracted. Four hours before her flight. Her juggling balls lay beside the suitcase: take them? But right now she had no choices to make, so no decisions to juggle into existence. The balls had helped her often in the past: keep three or four in the air, each labeled with a possible option. The one she held at the end guided the way. Sure, why not. But why this bit of reluctance? Was she outgrowing juggling? Hope not.

She made space for her toilet kit in the suitcase, hairbrushes, threw in two more T-shirts, a sleeveless top, two blouses. Her pistol, in a white plastic bag, she wrapped into her pajamas for protection. Couple of extra bras. The mace she enfolded in a light camisole—criminal to carry, but the law was blurrier about its role in a suitcase. A few pads and tampons, just in case her timing was off—since she'd lost the fetus, hard to tell. Now she knew she'd have kept it, even though it had been the result of a speed-dating affair. Anyway, it'd all be moot if she could convince Noel what his role had to be.

The phone rang. She glanced at the screen. Northwest Sky Ferry? She picked it up, listened. “Damn!” she said, and then, “Okay, nothing I can do, right?” and slammed the phone down. Leaving half an hour late. She'd have preferred to learn that when she got to the airport. Wrong.

Okay, really. What would Noel do? She knew the answer without much reflection. He'd find out what he could about San Juan Island.

She remembered a state tourist office a block from her favorite Seattle's Best coffee bar. Noel would just start up his computer and get online; she saw herself as a field person. She drove, the morning already too hot to walk. At the office a pleasant crew-cut young man who had never been to San Juan gave her a handful of brochures, a stylized map, and a copy of the
San Juan County News
. At the coffee bar she ordered a double latte and opened the newspaper. The fall hazardous waste roundup had been rescheduled. Report from the ferry advisory committee. A Council meeting scheduled, once again not in Friday Harbor. Earthquake and tsunami preparedness information was now available at the Council office. Right. She'd save the brochures for the airport.

She did buy a new dress, less than wispy but long and draping, cream with coral piping on the low-cut bodice. At home it went into the suitcase, further protection for pistol and mace. No need for the computer; Noel never left home without his. She had her phone and iPad.

On the way to the airport she picked up a sandwich. She parked in the long-term lot. At the Northwest Sky Ferry desk, a woman told her the pilot had a tail wind, they could leave on time, they'd been holding the plane for her, hurry and get on please, she shouldn't keep everyone waiting. None of which contributed any lightness to Kyra's mood.

She needed to wind down. So she spent the time not looking down at the play of gray-green islands and the sparkling white-flecked strait but reading about San Juan. She wondered if Noel had researched the Pig War between the English and the Americans. The propeller-powered twenty-two-seater landed softly after an uneventful ride. Arriving informed, she was.

Joseph Martin, director of EST-K-Sum, waited for the phone call. He had founded EST-K-Sum only six years ago, but already they were the third largest supplier of information technologies, first and foremost for the CIA, but also for the DoD and the Department of Homeland Security, the DHS. These three organizations together annually invested twenty-six billion dollars in EST-K-Sum. As a venture capital firm, they produced no technologies of their own but sought out information technology created by others. They focused on software.

Martin stared out his office window. In the distance rose the powerful thin tower of the Washington Monument. Below him, humans scrambled like insects. It was essential that he acquire the rights to this piece of technology the like of which the world had not seen before. It depended on this telephone call.

The negotiations had begun weeks earlier. The contact had explained the nature of the Rossini Project. Yes, Joseph Martin was extremely interested. Excited, though nothing of this entered his voice. How Rossini had come to produce this complex of technologies Martin didn't ask—he'd purchase the package as it came. But no deal had yet been made. Martin had consulted with his market representatives. He needed to be confident the buyers were in place, how much they would offer, and over what period of time. These issues were now close to settled. On that end.

The similarity of the Rossini Project to another, brought to him by a distorted phone voice two weeks ago by someone calling himself Edgar Vaillancourt—the details arrived the next day by courier—astounded Martin. Whatever, he wanted the rights to both these projects. The project Vaillancourt represented would soon be available, he'd been told. As for Rossini, he claimed he was uninterested. His lack of a sense of the consequences bordered on the obscene. Even after the mention of a sum of money far larger than any Rossini could dream of. Martin would have to try again. More forcefully.

Martin's telephone rang, the direct line. Name and number of source blocked. He had already given instructions to one of his experts: when the call came in, it must be traced. Though he desperately wanted this product, he had an aversion to dealing with people he didn't know. He picked it up. A mechanical voice said, “Hello.”

He recognized the voice by its alteration: Vaillancourt. “Hello again. I hope you are well.”

“I am prepared to tell you that I'll have the carbon structures and the algorithms in place for you in less than a week.”

“We'll look forward to that,” Martin said.