Excerpt: Logic Bomb

Paul Falken stared out the arched window of his office at the at the row of motorcycles parked at the base of the Transamerica pyramid, trying each one out in his mind. Although he carefully considered the merits of each one in turn he had already chosen the yellow Yahama and was just taking his time working his way to it slowly. He’d noticed that bike early this morning. He was stepping out of the Starbucks next to his building with his coffee in one hand and a muffin in a bag dangling from the other when it growled past him, going slow as it turned into the tight space. He had hardly paid attention to the rider, but instead stood frozen on the sidewalk as morning commuters bumped around him, mesmerized by the morning light glancing off the handle bars. Now, looking at it again from the perspective of his second floor window he was sure it was a sign to him. Run. Run away now and don’t look back.
And Paul considered doing just that. He was a free man. He could tell Janet he had an emergency, a client meeting across town—anything. Or he could tell her nothing. The truth was no one at Sectec cared whether or not he came into the office at all, much less when he left. As long as he made sales and got the job done he was a free man. Freedom could be as beautiful as his daydream of feeling the road rolling away beneath him and the warmth of Natalia pressed against his back, her chin resting on his shoulder. Or freedom could be as simple as walking out the door, heading east to the Embarcadero and sitting under a palm tree thinking of nothing, doing nothing until the morning ebbed away with the tide. Paul looked at his watch: 10:18. Three minutes had passed since the last time he looked. Twelve more to go. He saw the white cardboard cup perched on the edge of his desk and realized he’d forgotten to drink his coffee. He took a swallow. It was cold.
He’d been a few minutes late to the scheduling meeting. Dan liked to start it promptly at nine every Monday morning to make an example of his own punctuality. Everyone else in the office liked to make a point of showing up late. But Paul had been later than usual this morning. The coffee line had been long and slow. He’d spent too much time staring at the bike. By the time he got to the conference room the door was closed and the meeting was in full swing. He took the first open chair and placed his muffin on the table and took a quick sip of his coffee. It was too hot to drink, and he set it aside and turned his attention to the meeting, trying to get up to speed. Dan was talking about going to Oakland to meet a client in the afternoon. Not a big deal, but Dan was managing to make it sound like the main event of the day. No one was buying it. Jason was up next. As Jason shuffled through his notes, Paul turned the muffin out of the bag and took a bite.
“Tintagel Software…” Jason began.
The muffin turned to sand in Paul’s mouth and his throat tightened. He grabbed his coffee and took a gulp. It burned all the way down his throat and left a tight ache around his heart.
“Are you okay?” Jason asked.
“Sure,” said Paul, surprised that he was able to speak, that his voice sounded normal, calm. “Why?”
“You looked like you were having a heart attack or something.”
“The muffin’s a little dry.” Paul’s reply set off five minutes of discussion on the merits of various breakfast pastry choices within a ten block area of the office and Paul was glad for the distraction. He tried to will his heart to beat slower and he forced a smile that he hoped looked natural.
“Can we get back to business?” Dan drummed his fingers on the wood veneer as Jason cleared his throat.
This time Paul was prepared. He remained motionless and let his eyes wander casually around the room. The red marker stains on the whiteboard, Janet’s hair clip, the crease in the front of Jim’s shirt. All of these details were much more interesting than anything Jason had to say.
“Tintagel Software wants to talk to us about a job. Something around networking, I think. I spoke to…” Jason glanced down at his notes.
Let it be someone else. Paul closed his eyes, but already he could hear the name ringing through his brain before Jason said it.
“…Evan Swager, their CEO.”
Jason continued with a description of the opportunity their company had to do business with Tintagel but all Paul could hear was Natalia’s voice in his ear whispering to him to be careful, the consonants rolling off her tongue, the faint smell of the black tobacco on her breath from the French cigarettes she smoked. “He is a very bad man, this Evan Swager. You must know this and not forget it.”
They were walking barefoot in the sand. Paul had taken her to see the sea lions sunning themselves by the pier and she’d insisted on walking to the park to look at the water. “It is very much like Odessa,” she said as they watched a cargo ship pass slip under the bridge heading toward one of the piers. Paul doubted Odessa was anything like San Francisco, but he took Natalia’s word for it. No matter what she said to him she had a way of making it sound true, indisputable. She believed strongly in everything she said, as if the force of her passion could change the world to her liking.
“Yuri is bad also, of course,” she conceded. “But he still has a heart. I have seen him at night when he thinks I sleep. He does not rest. His heart is troubled. I think he will change.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Natalia shrugged and tossed her head as if it was of no importance to her either way. “I have plans of my own just in case,” she said.
“In case he decides he loves money more than he loves you?”
She ignored his remark and continued.
“You will take this for me.” She reached into the massive leather shoulder bag she always carried and pulled out a portable hard drive. She handed it to Paul.
“What’s this?”
“This is my protection plan.”
“Okay. What do you want me to do with it?”
“Please just keep it safe for me. It will not be not be necessary for you to look at what is on this disk. You understand that, no?”
“No. I mean yes,” Paul slid the drive into his jacket pocket. “You’re giving it to me to hold until you want it back, by you don’t want me to look at what is on it.”
“That is correct.”
“Can you at least give me a general idea? I think I deserve to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”
“It is nothing and it is everything.”
“That’s helpful.”
Natalia looked perplexed. “It could be. Yuri must not know that I have taken this or he will be very angry and he is not nice when he is angry.” She adjusted her sunglasses and continued. “I have a plan to talk to him. I will convince him to change his business. I will make him choose me. And if, as you suggest, he doesn’t want to change then I will make the choice for him. I will put an end to his plans.”
They walked together in silence watching the gulls circling at the water’s edge. After a few minutes, Natalia continued as if she’d only stopped to take a breath. “But the man who belongs in jail is Evan Swager. He is the thought behind the actions. He is… what do you call it?”
“The mastermind?”
“Precisely. He is the master and Yuri is just a puppet. So I will help Yuri to stand on his own legs.”
“Tell me about Evan Swager. What is he doing that’s so awful?”
“He is building an army of spies. He will send them out and they will take over the world.”
“Seriously, Natalia. What is he doing?”
She stopped and stomped the sand with he foot like a petulant child. “What I have just said! That is what he is doing.”
“Where is he keeping his army? Here in San Francisco?” Paul laughed and stopped in a pose of mock thoughtfulness. “You know, I think you might be right. That would explain why apartments are so scarce.”
“You make jokes. Okay. Have your jokes. It makes no difference that you believe me or not. But we still have agreement, yes? You keep the disk and you show it to no one, yes?”
“Yes. I’ll keep it totally private.”
A wave of relief swept over Natalia and her eyebrows relaxed and she smiled again. “When I ask you to give it back to me you will know that everything is working out okay.”
Paul couldn’t remember where they went after that or what they did. His mind was on the files on the hard drive, wondering what they contained that could make a man like Yuri Lokshin change his plans. If he’d known that day would be the last happy moment the two of them would ever spend together he would have focused all of his attention on her. He would have kept his promise and forgotten about the files. He would have taken her away—someplace safe. He would have forced her to come with him. But at that moment, walking together on that perfect day with this beautiful woman, he couldn’t think of anything but the hard drive sitting like a rock in his pocket. He knew even as he as was promising Natalie that he would not look at its contents that he was lying. He would look as soon as he possibly could.
The next time he saw Natalia she was in a coma, her bruised and broken body looking as small as a child’s, the sheets tucked tightly around her. He would have given anything to turn back time and hear her voice just once more. He could’nt save her, but he promised himself he would punish the man responsible: Evan Swager.
“…will be here at 10:30 this morning.” Jason continued. “I know it doesn’t leave a lot of time to prepare, but since you’re not on an active project at the moment I figured you’d be the best choice.” Jason was looking at Paul now waiting for an answer.
Paul snapped himself back to the present. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make that meeting. I’ve got a scheduling conflict. Maybe Dan, you could take it for me?”
“No chance. I just told you I’m going to Oakland.”
“You said that was in the afternoon.”
“Yeah, but I need time to get out there. And I’ve still got to write up the rest of the proposal. What are you doing this morning that’s so damn important?”
Paul had nothing scheduled until the following day, and he suspected Dan made a habit of checking. He didn’t want to risk a lie. “I suppose I could rearrange my day and fit them in,” he said with an air of resignation. “Can you just give me a written list of who’s coming and a quick CV on them, Jason, so I know who I’m talking to?”
“I guess so,” said Jason, and he made a note on his legal pad.
“Anything else?” said Dan as he closed his pad folio and headed for the door.
A few minutes before ten Jason dropped off the list Paul had requested. Paul waited until Jason was on his way back down the hall to close the door and look at it. He didn’t even have time to hope; Evan’s name jumped off the paper in a preemptive attack.
Maybe Natalia had got it wrong. She could have mixed Evan up with someone else. She wasn’t always the most reliable judge of facts. Paul would judge for himself. He read Jason’s notes word by word, stretching his imagination to bring life to the skeleton of the brief biography. But as he read, Natalia’s voice was in his head, providing the details:
Evan Swager (CEO)
Personal: b.1969 Bakersfield, CA. Attended Stanford ‘88-’90 (degree?). Active in SF area charities. Hobbies: sailing, wine collecting. Not married.
Professional: Founded Tintagel Software in 2006 with VC money.
“He does not put money into investments. He leaves that to others. What he is good at is taking money out of companies.” Paul and Natalia are sitting in the corner of a coffee shop—the worst table in the house, but it is at the back, far enough out of the traffic pattern that they won’t be spotted by anyone who might know them. Far enough from the front windows that Natalia can let her sunglasses slide down the bridge of her nose without anyone staring at the deep yellow shadow around her left eye. Paul has already read all of the files on the hard drive Natalia had given him the day before, and now he is playing a delicate game. He needs to fill in the blanks, but he has to do it without revealing any of the information he’d have no way to know.
“What about Yuri? What does he bring to the deal?”
“You are very curious. What does it matter to you? This is not your affair.” Natalia arched her eyebrow and Paul wished he could see the expression in her pale blue eyes.
“You matter to me. I’m trying to understand all of this. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Tell me please, Paul, how you think you can you help me.”
“I know some people.”
“People who break legs?”
“No. Not thugs. That’s a temporary solution. I know guys who work for the government. If Evan is into something illegal I could have him investigated. He could go to prison.”
“Evan is always doing something illegal but he is smart like the wolf. He will not be that easy to catch. That is why he needs Yuri—to do his dirty work so he can keep his hands clean.”
Responsible for overall strategic growth of the organization. Prior experience in online gaming, adult syndicated content distribution (porn?) and online marketing (spam?). Indicted 2004 for Wire Act violations, money laundering, bank fraud, and racketeering. (No conviction)
Natalia studied her hands carefully. “Evan Swager is not your problem. I should not have gotten you involved. I will find a way to fix this.” She bumped her sunglasses back into place and retreated behind the oversized dark lenses like a blond Audrey Hepburn. “I am hungry. What is good here?”
Janet appeared in the doorway of Paul’s office jolting him from the past back into the present. “Your 10:30 is here.”
Paul dropped his coffee cup into the wastebasket beside his desk and threw the uneaten muffin in on top of it. It was time to meet the wolf.