Search for the Phoenix: Phoenix Series Book 2 (10 page)

“Lunch is served,” Miguel said as he placed two large bowls of pasta and stew on the table.

“I’m sorry, Miguel, I failed to introduce you two. This is Megan. She’s a friend of Nolan’s.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Megan. If you need anything during your visit, just let me know,” Miguel said.

“Thank you, Miguel. It’s nice to meet you, too,” she said.

Miguel prepared a bowl for himself and then left the kitchen. When he had gone, Megan asked, “Will Kaleb be eating on the porch, too?”

Ethan shook his head. “Kaleb and the other hands don’t live here. They pack their own lunch and eat in the office in the stable. Miguel lives here, and normally takes his meals at the table.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve put him out,” Megan said.

“Not at all. Miguel is my employee, and he likes it that way. He always eats alone when I have company.”

* * * *

It was mid-morning the following day when Megan and Ethan stepped out under a clear, blue sky. Kaleb came from the barn, leading two horses.

“I’ll let you have Ginger. She’s very gentle and even tempered. She’s just the horse for someone who hasn’t ridden in two decades,” Ethan said.

“What is the other horse’s name?” she asked.

“This is Molly,” he said as he took the reins.

Kaleb gave her Ginger’s reins and said, “She’s a sweet beast. She’ll be good to you.”

“Thank you, Kaleb,” she said.

“Mount up, and we’ll be off,” Ethan said as he put a foot in a stirrup and sprang up onto the saddle.

Megan tossed the reins over Ginger’s head and mounted up. It felt good to be astride a horse again. This was something she really had missed all these years. Ethan gave Molly a gentle nudge with a heel and she began to walk. Megan followed as he guided Molly toward a wide path through the orchard to the south. They rode in silence for a while as Megan acclimated herself to being on a horse again. It was all coming back to her. Well, most of it, anyway. Ginger was walking now, and Megan couldn’t remember if a trot or a canter was the next gait. She laughed at herself, realizing that Ginger knew what gait to use next, and she didn’t know the name either.

After a while, Megan relaxed, feeling comfortable that Ginger would not do anything she couldn’t handle. She looked at the trees for the first time. “Plansons,” she said. “Is the whole orchard plansons?”

“This patch is. I’ve got a patch of peach trees over the hill to the north, and several varieties of apples to the east,” Ethan said.

“Yesterday, you were going to tell me a bit about Nolan,” she reminded him.

Ethan smiled. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know… what was he like as a child?” she asked.

Ethan sighed. “You may not believe this, but Nolan was a wild child, out of control, you might say.”

“No way!” she said.

“Nolan is special. He has an IQ of 167. As a child, he was bored in school. By the third grade, it was pretty clear that he wasn’t connecting with the other kids in his class. He tried to get their attention by being disruptive. It worked, and that fueled more disruptive behavior. By the fifth grade, he had to be pulled out of public school and transferred to an accelerated private school. That was when his education took off. His behavior settled down, mostly, and he flew through the curriculum. He was fourteen when he started college. Had his master’s by twenty, and his PhD by twenty-three.”

“I didn’t know he was Doctor Peters,” Megan said.

Ethan nodded. “He earned his second PhD when he was twenty-six.”

“Two? What fields?” she asked.

“His first is in physics, the second in aerospace engineering,” he said.

“All the crew members said he was brilliant with the ship’s systems, but nobody ever mentioned his degrees,” she said.

“They probably didn’t know. I doubt he ever told them.”

“What about Carl? He must have known,” she said.

“Of course, he knew. He also knew that Nolan didn’t want the crew to know.”

Megan turned to him, her forehead deeply creased. “Why not?”

“When Carl hired him, Nolan didn’t know how to interact with strangers. He kept to himself, and didn’t want anyone hanging around, asking him questions about his work. Carl knew how brilliant Nolan was, and he needed his skills. Over time, he taught Nolan how to interact with people. He had a connection with Nolan from the beginning, right from the job interview.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Carl had a younger brother named Jeremy. He had a personality disorder. His parents ignored it, insisting he would outgrow it. By the time he was in the third grade, he was causing all sorts of trouble at school, just like Nolan. Carl desperately wanted to help Jeremy, and he studied and learned how to connect with him. Carl was the only person who could calm Jeremy down when he got wound up and out of control. When Carl went away to college, Jeremy became progressively harder for his parents to manage. In the middle of Carl’s second year, his parents sent Jeremy to a boarding school. After a month, he ran away. He was never found. Carl was heartbroken.”

“He must have known it wasn’t his fault,” Megan said.

“Oh, he knew. That didn’t make the loss any easier to take.”

“So he saw a bit of Jeremy in Nolan,” she said.

“I think so. But it wasn’t like Nolan was some sort of surrogate for Jeremy. Rather, Carl saw a brilliant young man who he knew he could help to grow as a person, and he knew that Nolan could help him grow his fledgling business. They needed each other, you might say. That’s why they’re so close,” Ethan said.

“I never would have guessed Nolan had social issues. I mean, now that you tell me, a few things make more sense. He worked all the time, always alone. In the early days, John used to tell me that Nolan would practically hide from everyone in the engine room. Then, when everyone but Carl had left, he’d work through the night in other parts of the ship. But now… I mean, he’s quiet and shy, but he’s approachable and sociable when engaged,” she said.

“He’s a very different person these days,” Ethan agreed.

“You seem to know Carl well. How is that?” she asked.

“As you said, in the early days, Nolan would work all day and all night, mostly catching naps here and there when he couldn’t stay awake any longer. Carl asked him about his family and friends. He had no friends, but he told him about me. So Carl contacted me and made arrangements to come here with Nolan for visits. He needed to get him away from work and teach him how to relax and how to relate to people on a purely personal level. Back then, they’d both come and stay for weeks at a time whenever they were between contracts.” Suddenly, Ethan laughed. “Once, Carl and Nolan came in the Independence! Landed it over there in the cow pasture.” He shook his head. “You should have seen Nolan. He was beaming with pride when he showed me around the ship and told me about all of his inventions and custom systems. I didn’t understand much of it, but that didn’t matter to either of us.”

Megan smiled. “I didn’t get to know Nolan until about five years ago. That’s when Carl started throwing holiday parties for the crew and their families, you know, after the business was doing really well financially. I assumed Nolan was just shy, but I kept working on him, peeling away layers until he finally started talking to me.”

“He’s like that. Once you earn his trust, he opens up, little by little,” Ethan said. “I was hoping to see you two together, to see what he was like around you. It would tell me a great deal about how he feels about you.”

Megan smiled. “He’s opening up to me. He trusts me. A few days ago, he split his forehead open, and he called and asked me to come over to his apartment to stitch him up.”

Ethan turned to her and stared for a moment, wearing a look of pure amazement. “Nolan hates doctors. A few years ago, he got a big splinter lodged in his hand while he was visiting me. Carl wasn’t with him on that particular trip. He refused to go to the doctor, and he wouldn’t let me touch it. By the time he left here, it was red, swollen, and oozing. He went back home and had Carl remove it. If you were his first call to stitch him up, he trusts you more than he trusts me.”

Now they were walking out from the edge of the orchard, and Megan realized she hadn’t paid any attention to the trees or the trail for most of the trip. “Where do we go now?” she asked.

“Are you up to some horsemanship lessons?”

“I suppose so,” she said.

“Now that we’re in the open pasture, let’s get these girls up to a trot. Then, maybe we’ll move up to a canter,” he said.

She smiled. “I was trying to remember which was which.” She gave Ginger a gentle kick, and she broke into a trot. Ethan followed close behind her.

“You’re doing fine, young lady,” Ethan said.

“Thank you,” she answered.

“I was talking to Ginger,” he said with a laugh. “Your form needs a lot of work.”

* * * *

More than two hours later, they rode to the gate of the paddock outside the barn. Ethan dismounted and opened the gate, leading his horse through. Megan urged Ginger to follow, and then dismounted.

“I’ll get two of the hands to take care of them, and then we’ll go into the house,” Ethan said as they left the paddock. He turned and went into the barn. “Kaleb! Are you here?”

A moment later, Kaleb came through the door at the other end of the barn. “Yes, boss. Do you need me?”

“Would you and Daniel take care of Ginger and Molly? We’ve just come back from a ride. They’re in the paddock,” Ethan said.

Kaleb nodded. “Sure thing, boss. We’ll take care of them right away.”

“Thank you, Kaleb,” Ethan said. Turning to Megan, he said, “Let’s go into the house. I could use a cold drink. I’m sure you could, too.”

“Yes. Next time we go out, we’ll have to take some cold water with us,” she said.

“Nope,” he said. “The way I see it, the horses need water, too. I won’t drink if they can’t. I never take them farther than they can manage.”

She nodded. “You’re a good man, Ethan.”

“Well, I love my horses, if that means anything,” he said with a smile.

“It means a great deal,” she replied.

Captain Jiorgenson walked into the operations room where his team of investigators was assembled and waiting for their morning briefing. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have just received word from Vice Admiral Tompkins that we now have complete access to both stored and real-time tracking data from the civilian system. Team A, I want you to comb through all the stored data on Lansing. I want a detailed timeline of his entire life on Caldon. Team B, you will do the same for Carl Wilkins going back three months. Team C, I want you to track Nolan Peters in real time. I want a list of every place he visits and every person he encounters. That is all.”

The room filled with the sound of many people talking in hushed tones as the teams went to work on their assigned tasks.

* * * *

Clarice Jones was watching network traffic loads on her screen when she saw what she had been waiting for. A sudden flurry of activity on the hub leading to SACOM Central Command in Dawson. With a few deft keystrokes, she activated a segment of code she had loaded into the system last night. She turned to Dan and winked. He looked at his screen and his mouth fell open. “What did you do?” he whispered. “The data’s all jumbled. You’re going to cause chaos out there.”

She leaned closer to him and whispered, “I haven’t done anything to the GPS satellites. Everyone’s data unit is still working correctly. All I’ve done is to screw with the data going into and out of the database. But that’s just the beginning.”

* * * *

“What the hell is going on?” asked Ensign James Baker, a member of Team C.

“What are you talking about?” Jiorgenson asked as he rushed over to Baker’s workstation.

“The data’s going haywire! A minute ago, Nolan Peters was in Zebulon. Then he vanished. A moment later, he was in Fairview! Then he popped up in Dawson.”

Ensign Michael Franks of Team B overheard the conversation and said, “The same thing’s happening to the stored data—it’s all jumbled. It looks like Wilkins was hopping all over the planet.”

Jiorgenson ran to his office and opened a comm link to Satellite Command. “Bruce! Something’s gone wrong with the tracking data. It’s been sabotaged.”

* * * *

Clarice figured that SACOM should have noticed the scrambled tracking data by now. It was time to bring the system down. She typed a command string and executed it. Within seconds, every workstation in the room crashed.

“What the hell?” Dan asked. He looked at his screen, and then looked at Clarice’s and saw that hers was blank, too. He looked at her. She winked and began banging on her keyboard.

“Hey, my workstation just died!” she yelled.

Five SACOM security team members rushed into the room. The team leader, Sergeant Wallace, yelled, “Everyone, stand up and step away from your workstation
now!
” The data technicians hesitated, and then slowly stood and moved away from their stations. “Someone
deliberately
sabotaged our data system. I want to know who it was, and I want to know now.” People looked around at each other, but they said nothing. “Who did it?” he screamed, spittle flying from his beet-red face. After a moment, a technician raised his hand. Another raised her hand. A ripple went around the room, and within seconds, every hand was raised. “I suppose you all think you’re amusing,” Sergeant Wallace said. “If you think this is a game, I can cure that illusion quickly. Why don’t I just pick one of you at random and shoot you?”

Clarice stepped forward. “I did it.”

“What are you doing?” Dan asked through clenched teeth.

“I scrambled the data and crashed the servers,” Clarice said, ignoring Dan.

Wallace made a hand gesture, and two of his team members ran to Clarice and grabbed her. She was silent as they dragged her toward the door.

“Where are you taking her?” Dan asked.

“Shut up!” yelled the sergeant. He gave another gesture, and the other two members of his team ran across the room, grabbed Dan, and dragged him toward the door. In an instant, all hell broke loose. A data technician rushed forward and tackled one of the guards dragging Clarice away. The sergeant ran toward the fallen pair, but three data technicians gang tackled him and began beating and kicking him. The three remaining guards drew their neurodart pistols and began firing, but by now, all the technicians were rushing them. A few fell, having been hit with darts, but the guards had no chance against an angry mob in close quarters. Within moments, all the SACOM guards were on the floor being savagely beaten.

“Stop!” Clarice screamed. Several of the technicians stopped and looked at her. Others were too angry, riding a high of adrenaline and juvenile fantasy. “Stop!” she screamed again. Several of the calmer technicians grabbed the ones still beating the guards and pulled them away. They all looked at the bloody, unconscious men on the floor. “Did you have a plan for what to do after you killed them?” she sarcastically asked.

“We weren’t just going to stand here while they dragged you and Dan away,” Greg Miller, another tech, said.

“Fine,” Clarice said. “And thank you. But what do we do now? These men need medical attention.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Greg said. He pointed to the camera in the back of the room. “They know what has happened. They’ll be rushing in here with ten times as many guards any minute. We need to barricade the doors.”

“I disabled the video and audio system right after they took the place. They’ve been watching a loop of us quietly working at our stations. As far as they know, we’re all still working,” Clarice said.

“They must have noticed the loop by now,” Dan said.

“I doubt it. It’s a twenty-hour loop. Nobody sees the same segment twice in the same shift. They’ll catch on, sooner or later,” she said.

“If the people watching know these five were sent in here, they’ll know something is wrong,” Dan said.

“That’s why we need to work quickly,” Clarice said.

“What do we do with these guys?” Greg asked.

Clarice thought for a moment. “I want you all to leave in small groups, no more than three or four at a time. Do not come back. When you are all gone, I’ll call for medical technicians and then I’ll leave.” She ran to her workstation, grabbed her bag, and removed something that looked like a small pistol.

“What is that?” asked Dan.

“It’s an injection device filled with a stimulant to counteract the sedative in the neurodarts. I need to get our guys on their feet and out of here. They’ll have a headache for a few hours, but nothing worse.”

She looked around and realized everyone was standing there watching her. Pointing to three people, she said, “You, you, and you, leave. Get your stuff and go. Be casual.” The stunned technicians rushed to their stations, grabbed their personal belongings, and ran to the door. “Be casual!” Clarice yelled. The group stopped inside the door, straightened their clothes, fixed stray locks in each other’s hair, and then walked out into the corridor.

“You, you, and you are next,” Clarice said, pointing to three more. By now, everyone was gathering their things. The next three walked to the door and then stepped out.

She injected the fallen technicians, and then turned back to the group. “You and you, go next”

When the others had gone, Clarice left the building. A few blocks up the street, she looked back to see if she was being followed, and then pulled out her data unit and typed a message.

General Nelson,

Things are escalating faster than expected. She is out of control. I’ve done what I can to hinder her, but things at the data center have come to violence. Something needs to be done.

Clarice

She slipped her data unit back into her pocket and continued on her way. It would be a long walk, but she didn’t want to leave a trail of any kind, not even a cab driver who recognized her picture. On foot, she would have to keep watch for followers.

It was nearly an hour later when she turned onto Planson Drive and walked along the sidewalk looking at house numbers. Stopping in front of number 214, she casually turned a full circle. Satisfied that nobody had followed her, she pushed open the gate and hurried to the front door. After a few sharp knocks, she stepped back and waited. The door opened.

“Clarice, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”

“This is urgent!” she said as she pushed her way inside and closed the door.