Gauguin Connection, The (3 page)

Change had never been easy for me and Phillip’s cantankerous friend was about to throw my safe routine completely off its tracks. I liked coming into the office every day at the same time, spending exactly eight hours in my viewing room and then reversing my morning commute home. The predictability of working with contested insurance claims was safe. Guns, murders and Russians were different. Interesting, but different, and therefore unsettling.

The secured wooden door to my viewing room whooshed silently open when it recognised the swipe of my key card. I entered the safe familiarity of the air-conditioned room.

I wasted no time walking to my viewing station and sat down in my chair. My handbag still hung on my shoulder and I awkwardly pulled my arm from the sling before I placed the bag on the floor next to me. I knew that I only had a few minutes before the door would open and Phillip would follow me in. There was no mistaking the nose-flare, narrowed eyes and other intention cues when I had left. He was going to come into my haven and disrupt my life by demanding my co-operation.

Even though I did not want to work on this case, it wouldn’t take much to convince me otherwise. Phillip was very good at convincing me to do things I didn’t want to do. So, what I needed now was a moment to determine how I was going to do this on my terms. Especially if I was to work with Manny and all the complications his personality type would pose to my uncomplicated life.

For a short while I allowed myself the calming feel of my hands rubbing my upper arms. No sooner had I straightened my shoulders and composed myself when the door silently whooshed open. Phillip walked in, shoulders back, chin lifted and eyes focussed solely on me. Behind him Manny followed, contempt warring with doubt on his face.

“How long have you been working for me?”

“Six years.”

“Have I ever demanded anything from you?”

“All the time.”

Phillip’s eyebrows lifted and then formed a frown in a silent question.

“The positioning of your feet demands that I hurry up and finish when you’re in a rush and I’m explaining something. Your inner and outer frontalis, your orbicularis oculi—”

“My what?”

“The muscles on your forehead and around your eyes demand that I explain more, that I stop talking, that I—”

“You’ve made your point, Genevieve.” Phillip ignored Manny’s snort behind him and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What I meant was, have I ever demanded you to do any kind of work, any specific work here?”

“No.”

“You’ve given her carte blanche?” Manny glared at both of us.

“I told you that I trust her.” He turned his narrowed eyes to me again. “Do you think I would ask you to do something that would put your life in danger?”

I took a moment to seriously consider this. “No.”

“You had to think about this?”

“Of course. Why would I give you an answer if I am not sure of the truthfulness of it?”

“We’re digressing.” Phillip put his hands on his hips. “I’ve never demanded anything from you, giving you the freedom to do things your way. You’ve proved yourself over and over to be very responsible with that freedom. So much so that I am now reluctant to be this insistent, but I do insist.”

“Okay.”

“Really, Genevi—” Phillip’s argument broke off and he tilted his head to one side. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s an interesting case. A challenge.” I looked at Manny. “I have conditions, though.”

“No. Really?” Manny sounded disbelieving.

“Yes, really. Why would I say this if it’s not real?”

“He was being sarcastic.” Phillip glanced at Manny. “She doesn’t get sarcasm or jokes. What are your conditions, Genevieve?”

“I need full access to all the files.”

Manny started shaking his head even before he spoke. “You can’t have full access to the files.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“You don’t understand. To view these files you need to have a very high security clearance.”

“So get it for me.”

“It’s not that easy. Ask me what you would like to know and I will give you as much as possible.”

It was simply not an acceptable option, but I knew that I would have to prove it. “How many weapons were stolen?”

“So far the count has reached eight hundred and thirty-seven.”

My eyebrows lifted and Phillip whistled softly.

“Were there any unique, out-of-the-ordinary weapons taken? What about very common weapons?”

Manny looked very unhappy being on the receiving end of so many questions. “About three hundred SIG 226 nine-millimetre pistols were taken.”

“What exactly are those?” I was going to have to learn more, much more, about weapons.

“It’s a service pistol very popular with special forces in many countries, from the US army to
Polish special forces to a counter-terrorist unit in Greece.”

“How many of the total guns taken were handguns?”

“I don’t have the exact numbers on me right now. The weapons stored at headquarters are mostly light weapons. The majority of those stolen would be handguns, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” I infused a healthy amount of annoyance into my voice. “How many stolen were assault rifles? How many sniper rifles? If there were sniper rifles stolen, when were they stolen? In the beginning, the middle or were they the last to disappear? These rifles, are there many people who would be able to effectively put them to use?”

“Genevieve,” warned Phillip.

“Oh, but I’m not done. If most of the weapons were handguns, was there a specific gun favoured? Or were most the SIG’s? Are these guns popular with certain groups like gangs or more organised groups? Once I have some of these answers I would need to check into lists of names associated with these guns and groups. Then I would have to compile a list of artefacts being stolen in areas targeted by these—”

“Stop.” Manny lifted his hands in a gesture both of surrender and resistance. “We’ve already had our best guys look into some of these questions.”

“But they didn’t get anywhere?”

“No.”

“Since you don’t trust them to look into it any further and come up with unbiased information, not influenced or corrupted by those you suspect, you’d do a lot better giving me access.”

Manny closed his eyes and shook his head, undoubtedly waging another internal war.

“Maybe Genevieve can tell you a little more about how she does things here. To set your mind at ease.” Phillip looked pointedly at all the monitors and equipment he had installed for me without questioning a single request. The room was completely soundproofed, not allowing the top of the range sound system to reach beyond the room. Against the wall facing me were ten of the highest definition monitors on the market, arranged in an almost semi-circle for easier viewing.

Usually I had at least six of the large monitors running at the same time, each isolating a certain feature of the person being read. I liked having the other monitors available in case I needed to bring up another clip for comparison or have a document open for viewing. Now they were all dark.

In front of these monitors was a long wooden table running the length of the wall with three keyboards, three carefully placed notepads and three pencils neatly aligned to the notepads. Three antique-looking filing cabinets covered one wall and carefully chosen paintings decorated the remaining space. I was fully aware that anyone looking at my workspace would be able to see my need for organised surroundings. One might even go as far as wondering if I suffered from obsessive compulsive behaviour. I knew that I was only a few obsessions short of OCB and was thankful that I had missed out on that particular oddity. As it was, I had enough to deal with, including the two men in my viewing room.

The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was explain to Manny the complex process of reading someone’s non-verbal cues. Or how I went about looking for patterns in seemingly innocuous data. Everything in me rebelled against Phillip’s suggestion. But the knowledge of how important a high profile case like this was to him held me in check.

“She can show me another time.” Manny broke the silence and turned to me. “I’ll give you a copy of all the files that Phillip and I went through earlier.”

A small shiver ran down my back with the memory of the photo of the dead girl. I stiffened my spine and strengthened my resolve. There had been many difficult situations in my life that I had never thought I would overcome. This was going to be an opportunity for me to prove to myself that I could cope with a challenge as dark as this one. “What about the rest?”

“The rest?”

“You know very well that those files alone would not suffice. I will need more.”

“I have an EDA computer in my car. I’ll give you a password and make sure that the IT guys set it up for you to have enough access to EDA files.”

“What do you mean ‘enough’?” My question caused a deep frown between Manny’s eyes.

Phillip jumped in quickly. “Why don’t we start with the files and the computer? Manny, you can give Genevieve enough access for her to start. Genevieve, when you find that you need more information than is available, we can revisit this issue.”

“Agreed.” That sounded like a logical solution. “Where would you like me to start?”

“I’m familiar with the weapons theft, so I’ll continue working on that.”

“On your own?”

“No. I’m co-operating with Leon. There are also still a few people I know I can trust. Together we will look into the theft. For now I would like for you to focus on the artefact. I really want to know why it was so important that a girl got killed over it. But more than that, I would truly like to know what the connection is between the girl, the artefact, the Russian killer and the Eurocorps weapons. I hope that the connection between them will point us to the insiders.”

“And I would like to know why our client didn’t report that piece missing.” Phillip sounded perturbed about this.

“Bring me the files and the computer and I’ll have something for you by—” I closed my eyes to access the calendar in my head. “Today is Tuesday. I’ll have something for you by the end of the week.”

“If you have anything earlier—”

“We’ll let you know,” finished Phillip. “How are we going to work out the agreement between our two entities?”

“Between the EDA and you guys? The Head doesn’t want Rousseau & Rousseau to be officially connected to anything.”

“I don’t know if I can agree to that.”

“Phillip, this is more than just business. This is about catching someone who is abusing his position of power. The Head and Leon have both assured me that once we’ve concluded this, Rousseau & Rousseau will be on the receiving end of a lot of business from the EDA and, with Leon’s influence, Eurocorps.”

“You think I can get that in ink?” Phillip sounded increasingly less impressed with the direction this discussion had taken.

“That would make this official. It would create a paper trail.”

“And that might alert Manny’s insider.” I almost smiled at Phillip’s displeased frown and Manny’s surprise that I agreed with them. “If we want to find the connection between all these things and Manny’s insiders, it makes perfect sense to not announce our co-operation.”

“They are not my insiders.”

“They’re working for your agencies and, for all we know, working directly under you. Of course they’re yours.”

“I’m not going to get into this.” He turned to Phillip. “The Head is as good as her word, Phillip. Since taking over, she’s kept every single promise she’s made.”

“I suppose that will have to be good enough for me. For now.”

“Good. Now, if you give me a few minutes, I’ll go get that computer.”

Phillip called for an assistant to accompany Manny through all the security doors in and out of our offices.

“He’s really one of the good guys.” Phillip rested his hip against the long table once we were alone in the viewing room. It took all my self-control to not physically remove him from invading my space like that. Instead I took a deep breath, reminding myself that he too would leave soon and my viewing room would be my own again.

“It’s evident.”

“You were reading him?”

I just looked at Phillip. After all this time, he should have known that I read everyone.

“What did you see?”

“He’s sincere. He believes in what he does.”

“That would be Manny’s essence.” His eyes lost focus. “I remember a time when we were both young and full of dreams. I used to tell him that one day he would become a superhero.”

“Superheroes don’t exist.”

Phillip’s expression sobered and he gave me a quick smile. “Indeed that is true. So Manny became the next best thing.”

“The Deputy Chief Executive of Strategy at the EDA?”

“Someone fighting for what is right.”

“How does that make it the next best thing to being a superhero?”

Phillip looked relieved when there was a knock at the door before it whooshed open and Manny came through carrying a black leather case.

“Phillip, can I have a moment alone with Ms Lenard?”

“Of course. I have a few phone calls to make.” Phillip gave a slight nod and left me with Manny.

“Well.” He moved around the viewing room trying to look comfortable, but his entire body communicated his discomfort. He lifted his hand to presumably run it over the artful workmanship of the filing cabinets.

“Please don’t touch that.” I hated when people were in my space. They always wanted to touch my things and then I had to clean their oily fingerprints.

Manny withdrew his hand. “Phillip trusts you. He knows you. I don’t. I don’t know anything about this thing that you have.”

“What thing?”

“Your”—he waved his hand towards me and then let it drop limply next to him—“autism.”

“I was never really diagnosed with autism. People just like to label me that way so that I make more sense to them.”

“What were you diagnosed as?”

“Many things.” I was not going to tell him all the tests and psychological probing I had gone through. “You can also choose to believe that I have high functioning autism.”

Manny looked intrigued and moved closer to me. “You don’t believe that you have high functioning autism?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe.”

“To me it does. If we are going to work together, I need to know who it is that I’m trusting.”

“I appreciate that you need to know this, but I’m not going to become your best friend, Colonel Millard. Working together on this case really only requires your trust in my skills and my discretion. Both of which you will have full access to.”