case of the most persistent troublemakers.
Somehow, Sam Watson had slipped through their carefully crafted vetting procedures. That’s why Garrett had been forced to buttress his flock’s loyalty with the lab demonstration. One way or the other, they would obey when the time came.
A knock came at his office door. He casually flicked off the feed from Deal’s room with the knowledge that his indoctrination team was almost finished.
“Come!”
Dan Cutter entered and came to a rigid halt in front of Garrett’s desk. He was careful not to glance at Svetlana, who was now lounging in a chair to the side of the desk.
“Sir, Olsen was unsuccessful,” Cutter said.
“What happened?” Garrett asked without inflection. No need to betray his fury.
“There was a shootout at the Space Needle. Both he and Cates are dead, and the Seattle police and the FBI are now involved.”
Garrett didn’t bother to ask if his men had been captured and interrogated before they died. Neither of them would have let that happen.
“Was either of our targets killed or injured?”
“No, sir. Locke and Kenner are still alive. Should I have another team sent to take them out?”
Just like Cutter. Always a man of action. But sometimes inaction was the best course.
“No, it’s too late now. They’ll be protected. At this point, any future assassination attempts would be counterproductive. Besides, we have our contingency plan in place.”
Locke was more resourceful than Garrett gave him credit for, already surviving two attempts on his life. Still, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Locke was also a man of action.
“What about Friday?” Cutter asked. “Maybe we should change…”
“Nothing will be changed!” Garrett said, sharper than he intended. He calmed his voice. “We will not allow some errors in execution to alter our long-developed and well-conceived plan. And we won’t let Tyler Locke dictate how we proceed. However, we can’t allow him to find the device used in Hayden’s plane and decipher its contents. Is your operation ready?”
“Yes, sir. I will be conducting the mission myself along with my top man. Our intelligence suggests that a large number of pieces have already been transferred from the wreckage site to Gordian’s TEC facility in Phoenix. We should be able to find the device there. We’ll begin the search tomorrow morning.”
“Good. Once we have it back in our possession, destroy it. Then, they will have nothing to suggest what our ultimate plans are.”
Cutter nodded, again studiously avoiding Svetlana’s stare, and exited.
“I like him,” she said. “He’s a tough guy. Like a Rambo. So is it really true what I’ve heard about him?”
“About his injury?” Even though Cutter had been his security chief for years, this was the first time she’d asked.
She nodded.
“It is,” Garrett said. “That’s one reason he’s such a valued asset. Why do you ask?”
She arched an eyebrow and rose from the chair. She slinked over to Garrett and settled on his lap. “You don’t have to worry about the competition.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek, then the forehead. “Now, tell me about your plans for this evening.” She kissed him on the lips.
Garrett knew he had perfectly chosen the woman to accompany him into the New World.
TWENTY-FOUR
Julia Coleman sat in the Starbucks at the base of the building where Coleman Engineering’s offices were located. Her shift at Harborview Medical Center had just ended, and she still wore scrubs. Locke knew she was a medical resident, but little else. As he entered the store, he could see her bloodshot eyes behind her tortoise-shell glasses, and her hair was tied back in a pony tail. Her expressionless face told him everything he needed to know about the long hours she’d just pulled.
When Locke called her, she had agreed to meet with them, but she wanted to hear why they wanted access to her father’s records before she gave permission to go through them. Locke suggested they discuss it over coffee near Coleman’s office so he could get into the files as soon as he had her agreement.
The two guards from the security firm observed Locke and Dilara from a car parked outside. Locke felt sure that another attack wouldn’t be coming tonight, but their presence calmed Dilara.
Locke introduced himself and Dilara to Julia Coleman, but the doctor didn’t stand as she wearily shook their hands. They took seats opposite her.
“Thank you for meeting us,” Locke said. “I know you must be exhausted.”
“You got my attention when you said this was about my father.”
“Yes, I’m very sorry for your loss. We have come across some information that may shed new light on your father’s death.”
“Are you with the ATF?”
“No, I’m an engineer with Gordian Engineering. I knew your father, but I never worked with him.”
“That’s right. I remember now. My father spoke highly of you, even though you were a competitor.” That surprised Locke. Gordian and Coleman had always had a friendly competition for contracts, but he didn’t know Coleman had talked about him to Julia. “Are you with Gordian, too?” she asked Dilara.
“No, I’m an archaeologist.”
“Why would an archaeologist know anything about my father’s death? Did you know him?”
“No,” Dilara said, “but I may have known someone who did. Do you know a man named Sam Watson?”
Julia shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Did he have something to do with the accident?”
“We don’t think it was an accident,” Locke said.
“But the ATF investigation said that they had improperly connected the wiring for the explosives. It was triggered prematurely. Are you saying it was done deliberately?”
“Was your father the kind of man who would make that kind of mistake?” Locke knew that working with explosives was not something you played around with. If you got careless, you got killed. John Coleman had been in the business for a long time.
“He was a perfectionist,” Julia said. “That’s why I always assumed it was one of the other engineers who made the mistake.”
“Do you know what sort of project he was working on at the time?”
“It was a new tunnel in the Cascades. They were going through the placement of the explosives the night before the first blast was to be made. Then the accident…It was horrible. All of the top engineers in his firm were killed.”
“Who’s operating the company now?”
“No one. I’m not an engineer, and I certainly don’t have time to run a business. It was a consulting firm, so nobody wanted to buy it. I didn’t want to go through years of litigation from the other engineers’ families, so I just settled wrongful death suits with all of them and shut it down. I haven’t had time to figure out what to do with everything in the office. It’s still there, but I was going to close it down next month.”
“What was he working on before the tunnel?”
“Some huge project for the government. Top secret. Worked on it for three years. He couldn’t tell me anything about it.” Julia looked at both of them. “Are you saying my father was murdered?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Why? Who would want to kill him?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, and we need your help.”
Julia sat back and stared into space as the idea that her father had been murdered sunk in.
“My mother died when I was 20,” she finally said. “He was the only family I had left. I’ll let you have anything in his office if you can tell me who killed him.”
They threw away their coffees and followed Julia into the building. The offices were on the third floor. Julia
