She didn’t mention that to Zero. What was the point? OPRR would be locked in court with SimGen for the foreseeable future and she probably wouldn’t see Luca Portero again for a long time, if ever.
But just thinking about that man only added to her edginess.
Zero said, “We’ll let the courts deal with the basic research issue for now. The good news is that after many man-hours of effort by a number a people, we’ve finally hit pay dirt on that license plate number you so wisely recorded—a number we wouldn’t know had you not thrown them a curve by showing up early. A lucky day for us when you joined the organization.”
She could feel his praise mellowing her—a little. Always nice to be appreciated, but how sincere was he? Was it that he had sensed her mood and was simply trying to placate her? So damn hard to read him without a glimpse of his face or his eyes. Almost as bad as email. Worse—even email had those annoying little smilies.
But she remembered his excitement when she’d told him about the plate. He hadn’t been faking that.
“About time something paid off,” she said.
“Not a big payday, I’m afraid, but who knows where it will lead. The truck was leased from a firm in Gooding, Idaho, by a private individual named Harold Golden.”
“Really.” She drew out the word. “What’s a private individual from Idaho doing on SimGen’s campus?”
“It gets better: Harold Golden’s MasterCard is sound, so the leasing company never checked him out. But we did, and guess what? Harold Golden doesn’t exist. He’s just a name on a credit card account.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Can’t be one hundred percent sure unless we find something like his Social Security number belonging to a soldier who died in Afghanistan or Iraq. That’s not the case here. The provenance of his Social Security number appears sound, but can you imagine a man who’s doing some sort of business with SimGen who has never taken out a loan of any kind? Who has one credit card on which he charges only one thing: the lease of three trucks?”
“Unlikely…but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.”
“I can tell you that he doesn’t live at the Boise address he gave the leasing company. And that his MasterCard bill goes to an entirely different address: a mail drop in Hicksville.”
“Long Island?”
“At the risk of sounding like an infomerciaclass="underline" But wait—there’s more. The investigator I sent to Idaho turned up something else: Harold Golden began leasing these trucks four years ago. The man who runs the company remembers him because Golden wanted the exact same trucks that had been returned that very day from another lessee. Guess who that lessee was?”
Romy shrugged. “Mercer Sinclair?”
“Close. Manassas Ventures.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“Manassas Ventures was the source of the start-up capital that allowed the brothers Sinclair to get SimGen rolling. Consequently it controls a huge block of SimGen stock.”
“And the connection to Harold Golden?”
“At this point, nothing beyond the trucks. But guess where Manassas Ventures has its office.”
“Hicksville?”
“Exactly. And it has a strange way of doing business. The company rents space in a small out-of-the-way office building but doesn’t seem to have any employees. Manassas Ventures is on the door, but it’s a door that remains locked all day, every day, week after week. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it.”
“A man who doesn’t exist and a business that doesn’t do any business.”
Romy felt a tingle along the nape of her neck. “Am I detecting a pattern here?”
“I think so. Ironically, we’ve been aware of Manassas Ventures all along but never paid any attention to it. I’d assumed it was simply another of the countless venture capital groups that have popped up since the early nineties—one that happened to get lucky and strike it very rich. But I should have known never to assume anything where SimGen is concerned.”
“If Manassas owns a lot of company stock, then it’s logical for it to be involved in SimGen doings.”
“But logic seems to be taking a breather here. For instance, if you were an investment group with SimGen on your list and flush with capital, what would you be doing?”
“I’d be crowing. I’d have impressive offices to attract new ventures to underwrite.”
“Exactly. Yet Manassas Ventures’s only address is a deserted space in a nowhere building.”
“Almost as if they’re hiding.”
“They are. Behind Harold Golden. I believe Manassas invented him as a layer of insulation between itself and the truck rentals. And it almost worked. We were just lucky that our investigator asked the right questions on a day when someone at the leasing company was in a talkative mood. Otherwise, we’d never know the Manassas connection.”
“But why insulate itself?”
The tingle in Romy’s neck moved across her shoulders and down her spine. She sensed the situation moving beyond simply wrong…something sinister at work here.
Zero said, “Because I’m betting that Manassas Ventures has ongoing involvement with SimGen’s day-to-day workings that it doesn’t want anyone to know about. And the most likely reason for keeping an activity secret is that it’s illegal.”
“But SimGen is one of the richest corporations in the world, with a lock on a unique product”—she hated when sims were referred to as “product,” but this time it fit—“in high demand. They’re practicallyminting money. They’ve got it all. Why risk a connection to something illegal? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if whoever is behind Manassas Ventures is pulling strings inside SimGen. Pulling strings that lead to the basic research facility, perhaps?”
That struck a nerve…might explain the company’s adamant refusal to let OPRR near the building, even with a court order.
Zero went on and Romy could sense him fairly vibrating with anticipation. “If something illegal or even quasi-legal is going on, we may have found the lever to crack open SimGen’s wall of secrecy. All because you showed up earlier than expected.”
“And caught a worm.”
“Maybe a snake. I’d say Manassas Ventures is long overdue for an in-depth probe of its workings and personnel, wouldn’t you.”
“Anything I can do?”
“In regard to Manassas, no. But as for our friend, Patrick Sullivan—”
“Oh? So he’s ‘our friend’ now, is he?”
Romy sensed a smile behind Zero’s ski mask. “Not a close friend, not a bosom buddy, but…” His voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“I don’t know…there’s something about him. Maybe I’m feeling a little sorry for him because he’s going through the worst time of his life.”
“Really?”
“His girlfriend dumped him, his house is a charred ruin, he’s been living in a motel room for weeks, and SimGen is putting the screws to his career.”
Romy felt her interest growing. “How so?”
“They’re pressuring Sullivan’s clients to drop him.”
She shook her head in amazement. “How do youknow all this?”
“I have my sources.”
“You’re a SimGen insider. You’ve got to be.”
“Back to Mr. Sullivan?”
Romy tore her mind away from the tantalizing possibilities of Zero’s identity. Sullivan…his predicament did sound pretty awful, but the shyster deserved it.
“Don’t expect me to shed tears for any lawyer, especially one of the headline hunting variety who’s been taking those sims for a ride.”
“You’re assessment of him might be accurate, but I’ve got to hand it to him: He’s lost a number of big clients and he’s still hanging tough.”