“Ah!” said a man sipping an iced tea in one of the library’s wing-backed chairs. “You’re right on time as usual, David.” The man stood up, stretching to a height four inches taller than Kevin. He walked over to Kevin with his hand outstretched. “Kevin Hamilton, I’m Clayton Tarnwell,” he said with a clipped Texas twang.
Kevin ignored the hand. “So you’re Clay. What do you want?”
With a bemused look, Tarnwell dropped his hand and returned to his chair. “Please sit down while we talk, Kevin. Would you like an iced tea?”
Kevin didn’t move. “I said, what do you want, Tarnwell, if that’s your real name?”
Tarnwell looked at Lobec. “A little like me, wouldn’t you say David?” To Kevin, he said, “That’s good. I’m not much for pleasantries unless it’s to get what I want. And I think you know what I want.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Last Sunday, your goon here tried to kill me and my girlfriend, and we’ve been on the run ever since.”
“By the way, Clayton Tarnwell is my name. Have you ever heard of Tarnwell Mining and Chemicals?” Kevin shrugged. “No? That’s understandable. Our annual revenue is about $1 billion, small potatoes in the mining and chemicals industry. But in three days, my company’s value will quadruple. Everyone in America will know my company’s name because of something I bought from your professor.”
Kevin remained impassive. Tarnwell arched an eyebrow and continued.
“I know that Erica Jensen paid over $10,000 for a new laser, which could definitely be used in the process I bought. You see, like you, I’m a chemist.”
“Oh, you’re like me, huh? I don’t seem to recall ever killing someone because I didn’t get what I wanted.”
“If you mean Dr. Ward, he was trying to steal from me. I saw the risks and the possibilities of his process, and I was willing to invest in it, to make it work, to put my company and reputation on the line. As thanks for my willingness to take these risks, Michael Ward stole ten million dollars from me, which by the way, I don’t think I’ll ever see again. Not only that, but the money wasn’t enough for Michael. He had to take the Adamas process, too. It was, sad to say, a tragic situation, his wife and him dying in a fire like that.”
“That was fire was no accident.”
“That’s what the news reports said.”
“Give me a break. What about Herbert Stein? What about my father?”
“Yes, Michael did think I had Herbert Stein killed, but murders are very common in Houston. As for your father, his death was tragically unnecessary, but as I understand, David and Richard were only defending themselves. You shot at them first. That’s why they had to apprehend you the way they did.”
Kevin ground his teeth. “You can’t explain it all away that easily.”
“I just did,” Tarnwell said with a wicked smile. “Very easy, wasn’t it? It’s exactly what I’ll tell anyone who asks if your girlfriend goes to the authorities with that notebook. What do I want? I want what I paid for. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Lobec spoke up. “And the videotape.”
Kevin tried to hide his surprised reaction, but it was too late. Lobec smiled.
Damn, Kevin thought. How did he know about that?
“Ah,” Tarnwell said. “So Michael wasn’t bluffing. Yes then. The videotape too.”
“And I suppose you’ll let me go free if she gives them to you.”
“Of course.”
“Bullshit.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Once I have Adamas, who do you think anyone will believe? A wealthy business man who is a pillar in the community, who has donated over a million dollars to charities and political causes around the state? Or a struggling student and his girlfriend who have recently had trouble with the police?”
Kevin walked over to the window and looked out at the lush green lawn. “And once you get the Adamas Blueprint, you’ll be satisfied?”
“The Adamas Blueprint? You mean the notebook?”
“That’s what Ward called it. He liked thinking up names for patents and new research methods. It got him more recognition in publications.”
“It sounds like Michael.”
“All you want is the blueprint?”
“It’s all I’ve wanted from the first day Michael contacted me. In a way, Michael was trying to cheat both of us. If I had known you were one of the coinventors, I wouldn’t have left you out of the deal. In fact, I’m willing to pay you the balance of what I was going to pay Michael. How does $5 million sound to you?”
Erica turned off the Chevy’s engine. She was stopped at the gas pump island of a Philips 66 truck stop just outside of Front Royal, Virginia, about an hour and a half west of Washington’s Beltway. She opened the door to the smell of diesel fuel and truck exhaust. The Philips 66’s parking lot was packed. It was 6:00 on Saturday night, and Erica wasn’t surprised at the congestion considering the heavy truck traffic she’d seen on I-81 for the past three hours.
When Kevin had been abducted, Erica immediately ran back to the lab and began gathering her belongings, including the notebook, videotape, and the diamond specimen, all the while terrified that Barnett and Kaplan would burst into the lab at any moment and kidnap her as well. The specimen had been difficult for her to dislodge without Kevin’s help, but after 10 minutes she worked it free. Then she ran to the truck, stopping only to pick up Ted Ishio’s cellular phone, the one Kevin had dropped during the chase.
On her way out of town, she hadn’t gone anywhere near Ted and Janice’s house, afraid that they would be waiting there for her. She headed west, away from the interstate, and then worked her way toward Roanoke over the back roads, getting lost several times on the twisting one-and-a-half-lane highways.
After filling up the enormous tank, Erica went into the convenience store and bought some coffee and a Hershey bar to tide her over until she got supper in Washington. She didn’t know when or even if the kidnappers would try to contact her. She had called her apartment several times during the drive, hoping they had left a message for her on the answering machine, but all that was on it were four messages: a call from one of her friends, one from the hospital asking when she’d be in again, and two marketing calls. If she didn’t hear from them by Sunday night, she had to conclude that they were torturing information out of Kevin. But she had no idea where to find him or who it was that had abducted him, leaving her with only one option. Given the situation, there was no alternative but to go to Congressman Sutter on her own and get his help in trying to find Kevin.
As she walked back to the truck, Erica heard a faint but distinctive sound, a periodic high-pitched bleat. She looked around to see if it came from someone else’s vehicle, but it grew louder as she approached the Chevy. It was the ringing of a cellular phone.
As she got into the truck, the phone bleated again. It couldn’t be Murray Hamilton’s phone; they’d turned it off after the first time one of his business clients had called. Which meant it was Ted’s cellular phone, the one Kevin had used to call her from the Virginia Tech parking lot. Erica tried not to get excited. It could very well be one of Ted’s friends calling.
She waited through another ring, hesitant to pick it up. But the ringing was insistent. She flipped open the phone and clicked the TALK button to answer it.
“Hello?” she said.
“Erica Jensen,” said an unmistakable Texas drawl, “I’m so glad we were able to contact you this way.”
“Who is this?”
“As you might guess, I’m sort of reluctant to give my name out over the phone. I believe we both have something the other wants.”
“What have you done with Kevin?”