Craig Kreident #1: Virtual Destruction (9 page)

CHAPTER 8

Tuesday

Forrestal Building, Department of Energy Headquarters

Washington, D.C.

The tinny HOLD music on the phone was meant to be soothing, but it had exactly the opposite effect on Diana Unteling.
 
She tapped away at the computer keyboard on her desk as she listened, counting the seconds.
 
She recognized the insipid music: an acid rock piece three decades old, deconvoluted and recomposed with a bouncy beat.
 
It made her want to cringe.

While on hold, Diana put the time to good use, tapping away on the Department of Energy’s e-mail system, zipping off messages tagged URGENT to her staff.
 
Others worked into the evening hours, but the offices around her had fallen quiet for the night.
 
Having sent her assistant home late before calling Michaelson, Diana was on her own, delegating tasks.

After years of practice, she found that parceling out the paperwork for a two-day trip took little time, but it demanded intense consideration.
 
When assigning one of her staff members the job of tackling important agenda items, she couldn’t make a bad call.
 
Luckily, she had a lot of good people to depend on.

That seemed to define her job nowadays—the higher she rose in the DOE hierarchy, the more her staff ran the show, coordinating meetings, preparing background papers, setting up appointments.
 
She was merely the showpiece, the figurehead, bombarded with requests every minute; but by the time the problems got to her, it was only a matter of selecting options.

She zipped off her seventh message before the phone clicked and a live human being spoke.
 
“Thank you for waiting.
 
This is Sabrina at United Airlines, may I help you?”

Diana immediately switched gears, turning away from the e-mail message and focusing on her small personal calendar.
 
“I need to make a reservation for tonight’s nonstop flight from Dulles to San Francisco International.
 
One of my co-workers, Hal Michaelson, is on the flight and I’d like to sit next to him if there’s a seat available.”

“I’m sorry, but I am not authorized to release any personal information about passengers without their prior approval,” Sabrina said, as if relating a major tragedy.
 
“If he made his reservation through your travel agent, you could contact them and arrange for the seating request.”

Damn
, thought Diana.
 
“It’s getting late.
 
I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.”

“Then may I take your reservation if you still want to leave on tonight’s flight?
 
You could always ask the flight attendant to exchange seats.”

Diana raced through the possibilities.
 
Hal always sat in an aisle seat, first class, as far to the front as he could manage, both because of his long legs and because he couldn’t stand to wait for others to disembark.

Diana said, “Yes, I need an open-ended round-trip flight—and I’ve got a Premier Card for First Class.
 
I have a Government transportation request I’ll exchange at the airport for the ticket.”

“Thank you.
 
It’ll be just a minute.”

Once she had finished arranging the ticket, Diana terminated the call and pressed the speed-dial button.
 
The phone chittered dial tones, rang once, and a voice answered.
 
“National Coalition for Family Values.
 
May I help you?”

“This is Mrs. Unteling.
 
Could I speak to Mr. Unteling, please.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.
 
The director is in a meeting with the board for the start of our pledge drive activities.
 
May I take a message?”

Diana’s let out a silent sigh of relief.
 
This would make things easier.
 
“Yes, could you tell him I was called back to Livermore on an urgent matter?
 
I shouldn’t be gone for more than a few days, but I’ll call him when I arrive in California.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll let him know.
 
And please have a safe trip—with the amount of traveling you two have been doing lately, your marriage is a real example for all of us.”

Diana tightened her mouth, but tried not to allow any sarcasm to show.
 
“Thank you.”

Hanging up the phone, she eyed the clock.
 
An hour and forty five minutes before the red-eye was due to leave.
 
No time to waste: even with a government driver, she would be pressed to make it out to Dulles in time.
 
She could see the D.C. traffic from her office high on the fourth floor of the DOE’s Forrestal building; although rush hour was officially over, cars still inched along the wide downtown streets.

A call to the DOE transportation office confirmed that a government sedan would be waiting within minutes to rush her to the airport.
 
Rank had its privileges.

She kept a nylon travel bag with a change of clothes in the closet by her private bathroom; she barely had time on the way out to snatch a brush through her hair and check that her makeup wasn’t smeared.
 
As she reached to turn off the lights, she caught a glimpse of the picture of her and her husband Fred and son James, taken ten years ago while they were still back in Livermore.
 
Her blond hair had not yet taken to silver highlights, but her ice-blue eyes still dominated her features.
 
Dark eyebrows, short, tousled haircut . . . that was even before James had decided to go to seminary, and Fred hadn’t dreamed of making his coalition go national from its modest beginnings in a mid-sized California town. . . .

 
But times changed, and so did people, even though the majority of people never realized it.

#

Diana glanced from side to side, pacing the waiting area, looking for a big man with steel-gray hair and pencil moustache.
 
But Hal Michaelson was nowhere to be found.
 
Just like him, waiting until the last minute, grandstanding even in this little manner, expecting the world to get out of his way.
 
Diana searched the faces as baggage-laden crowds stepped off the shuttle from the main terminal.

It seemed that every man was dressed in a business suit, carrying a briefcase, holding an umbrella in anticipation of the rain, and a folded copy of the
Washington Post
tucked under his arm; a line of lemmings, streaming from the nation’s capital to infiltrate America.

Diana was sure she hadn’t missed Hal.
 
He would have stood out like a basketball player at a midget’s convention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re ready to start boarding families with small children and those needing assistance.
 
Main cabin passengers will board momentarily.
 
First Class passengers may board at their leisure.”

Diana took one last glance around the boarding area.
 
Still nothing.
 
Firmly grasping her ticket, she turned her portable baggage carrier around on its wheels and stepped to the head of the line.
 
She wasn’t going to wait any longer for Hal to make his grandiose entrance, not when she could relax and prepare herself for the five-hour trip that lay ahead.
 
She had to rehearse the things she needed to say to Hal.
 
They had to clear the air, get things straight.

Sitting in her spacious, padded seat in the DC-10 First Class cabin and sipping a glass of white wine—her husband would have disapproved, of course—Diana watched the cattle-car class passengers struggle onboard.
 
One by one they filed past, some of them staring, a few flashing her a dirty look for having so much room to herself.

Before takeoff, she finished her second glass of wine, gulping nervously as the seconds ticked past.
 
The flow of passengers ebbed and ceased.
 
The flight attendants worked the door mechanism, and Diana leaned forward, expecting to see Hal barreling his way down the jetway at the very last moment.
 
But the door was sealed and she found herself stranded on a plane, going somewhere she didn’t want to go, with no sign of Michaelson.

“Damn you, Hal,” she muttered.

Ignoring the work she had brought with her, Diana ordered a double scotch—on the rocks—once they were airborne.
 
She settled back in her seat, going over and over in her mind just what she would say and do to Hal Michaelson the next time she saw him.

CHAPTER 9

Tuesday

San Francisco International Airport

San Francisco, California

Rather than make a scene, Craig Kreident and Agent Goldfarb stood discreetly in the non-smoking waiting area of Gate 24; Jackson waited outside at the curb with the car.
 
A kaleidoscope of people flowed around them, making it easy to become invisible among the friends and family members greeting those disembarking from TWA flight 2922 arriving from Bermuda.

Goldfarb looked again at the photo of Miles Skraling, but Craig knew he would recognize the executive the moment he saw him: close-set indigo eyes, wispy reddish-blond hair thinning at the top, jowly cheeks, medium build but thick at the waist, and pale skin—by now probably sunburned from his week in the tropical sunshine.

“Bingo,” Goldfarb said nodding toward a man emerging alone from the airplane—one of the first off, naturally, because Miles Skraling, CEO of NanoWare, Inc., would always fly First Class.

Intercom announcements droned as the crowd buzzed around them.
 
Skraling seemed intent on setting his course straight for the baggage-claim area.
 
Craig was afraid that Ms. Ompadhe would try to page him at the airport, give the CEO a heads-up—if she hadn’t somehow contacted him on the flight.
 
If that happened, Craig and Goldfarb would have no choice but to close around the man as he answered the white courtesy telephone.

It would still work out, Craig knew, but the search and arrest wouldn’t be as . . . smooth that way.

“Okay, clean and easy,” Craig said.
 
“We’ll be back home in time for the eleven o’clock news.”

They approached from behind, on either side.
 
“Good evening, sir,” Craig said, “Mr. Miles Skraling?”

Skraling looked startled.
 
“Yes—”

Craig snapped open his badge wallet and held his ID with a firm hand.
 
“FBI.
 
We’d like to ask you some questions.”

He looked at Craig, stared at the out-thrust badge and photo ID card.
 
Skraling’s close-set indigo eyes screwed open wider and wider as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.
 
His face crumpled like a car windshield hit with a rock; a network of spiderweb cracks spread throughout his composure as his carry-on bag dropped to the floor with a dull rustle.

“We have a search warrant for your home,” Craig said withdrawing the appropriate paper.
 
Goldfarb stood motionless beside him.
 
“We’ll need to search your premises and confiscate your personal home computer equipment, and we will have to go through all of your private files.”

Skraling staggered backward as if Craig had punched him in the gut.
 
“My . . . personal—“

“We’ll escort you home, sir,” Craig said, slipping his hand around Skraling’s forearm, steering the man away from the flow of people.
 
“Mr. Goldfarb, would you read Mr. Skraling his Miranda rights, just in case he decides to say something to us?”

Goldfarb did so in a low voice, saying the memorized words in rapid-fire succession.
 
No one stopped and gawked, the exchange was kept that quiet.

“I . . . I need to call my attorney,” said Skraling.

“You’re perfectly welcome to as soon as we reach a phone,” Craig answered.
 
“But you’ll find that everything is completely in order.”
 
He brought out the papers again.
 
“Would you like to make the call here, or would you rather wait until you reach your home, where you can have more privacy?”

Skraling shuddered in panic.
 
Craig wondered what the man’s blood pressure was right then.
 
“I want to go home.
 
I want to think about this.”
 
He looked from side to side.
 
His right hand kept twitching convulsively in a strange tic.

“This way, please, sir.”
 
Goldfarb picked up Skraling’s carry-on bag as they walked down the concourse.
 
Craig kept Skraling close beside him, directing him down the escalator and out to the busy front where Jackson waited with the car.
 
Craig opened the door and motioned Skraling in the back; he and Goldfarb sat on either side of the man.