Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

Sabrina smiled thinly. “Not at all,” she lied.

“Are there snacks?” Andrew asked, peering into the sitting room to one side.

Simon stepped forward and kissed Sabrina briefly on each cheek. “Thanks for the hospitality.”

“It’s nothing. May I ask why you didn’t use the intercom at the gate? If it’s broken…”

“No,” Hayden said. “It’s fine, I’m sure. We just…we didn’t use it, that’s all.”

The truth is, Simon said to himself, you don’t have a super-secret spy-phone that’s safe from eavesdropping, and we don’t want anyone to even know we’re here, so…god, this is getting complicated.

Sabrina slipped away to prepare the sitting room, and the rest of the group followed down the corridor, gradually taking off their topcoats and scarves as they went. It was an imposing place-all polished wood, mullioned windows and ancient, heavy furniture. Simon half-expected a wizened retainer in a tux to step out from behind the array.

The library was almost a parody of the book-lined studies seen in a thousand BBC dramas, stacked floor to ceiling with shelves completely filled with dusty tomes no one had opened in a generation, overcrowded with comfy chairs and discreet reading lamps. As he peeled off his coat, he said, “Ryan, we’re in a bit of a situation here. We need to talk.” He leaned close to his friend and spoke so no one else could hear, “And we don’t want to alarm Sabrina.”

Simon had to give Ryan credit: he didn’t gape at the mere mention of a crisis. He cast a guarded, concerned look at his impeccable bride-to-be, who-to her credit-noticed the expression and read it perfectly.

“Well, all,” she said with a little smile, “I know this is important, and I’m quite sure I won’t understand a word of it. So, I think I will leave you to it for the evening.” She paused briefly, as if searching for words. “Whatever it is…I wish you the best of luck.”

With that, she stepped backwards through the double doors and slid them shut, leaving the rest of them alone.

The silence in the room was deep and deafening. Simon was the first to break it. “Do you have an AI active in here?”

Ryan, who was staring distractedly at the door where his fiancee had disappeared, shook himself awake. “Of course.” Simon looked over to Andrew who was already playing with his gadgets to scramble and confuse the AI in the room. Simon pulled the memory card with Oliver’s message imprinted on it from his breast pocket and laid it on the table.

Andrew cocked an eye at him. “We all good in the big ears department?” he asked obscurely.

Simon tapped the same breast pocket, where he held Andrew’s device. “Never leave home without it,” he said, smiling grimly. A roiling black cube appeared above the end table as the data from the card loaded. “I could try and explain all this to you,” he said. “And I will. But I need to show this to you first. Just…watch.” He tapped the card, muttered, “Play,” and his father’s eerily smiling face appeared.

No one spoke while the message played through, and no one spoke for a long time after.

Samantha, who had heard the story already, was still having a hard time taking it all in. “That…that doesn’t seem like him at all.”

“What was with that laugh?” Andrew said, strangely subdued for the moment. “I never heard Oliver Fitzpatrick laugh like that.”

Ryan had worked with father and son for years. He knew both of them exceedingly well. Now he just shook his head. “He was lying,” he said bitterly. “Clearly. Obviously. Anyone who had ever worked with the man would know that.”

“Absolutely,” Hayden said. He was leaning against the bookcase, arms folded, a look of outrage and deep concern on his lined face.

Simon felt the tension flow from his body. “Then it’s not just me,” he said.

“Not at all,” Sammy said, utterly in shock from what she had witnessed.

Ryan turned and faced his old friend with an unaccustomed intensity. “Simon, listen to me. We have to get to the bottom of this. Whatever you need-connections, media, bribes, I don’t care-it’s yours. All of it. We have to locate Oliver and bring him home.”

Simon looked at the others. “The rest of you?”

“I’m there,” Andrew said, his voice uncharacteristically rough. “Whatever you need.”

Hayden snorted. “What do you think?” he said.

Sam gave him the ghost of a smile. “You already know my answer, Simon.”

Simon took a breath. The relief that flowed through him was a palpable, physical sensation. He smiled completely, sincerely, for the first time in days. “That is exactly what I wanted to hear,” he said.

Ryan frowned, thinking furiously. “Have you contacted the authorities?”

“No. What would I tell them? ‘Good lord, Inspector, I received a message from my father and he’s alive and well and seems quite happy! Help me!’”

Andrew snorted. “Besides, the ‘authorities’ have been lying to you all along, haven’t they? They’re the ones who told you he was dead. ‘Oh, ever so sorry, do forgive us, b’bye now.’”

Simon nodded. “Exactly.” He reached into the other pocket of his jacket. “And there’s more.”

“More?” Andrew crowed.

“Good,” Ryan said.

Simon pulled out the hand-bound book and put it on the end table where his father’s head had appeared moments before. “I was given this at the same time I was given the message from my father. It’s a diary of chess games.”

“Oh, come now,” Ryan scoffed. “The man never kept notes of any kind; the last thing in the world he’d do is keep a chess diary.”

“Exactly what I said,” Hayden told them. He crossed the room and held out his hand. “Let me take a look at that again.”

Simon gave it to him. “I’ve already played through all these games; I think there are some general…ideas? He was trying to convey to me with them, but I think there’s more. I think there is specific, important information hidden in here somehow, and I want your help to find it.”

Ryan also started leafing through the journal, concentrating hard. “Who gave this to you?” he said.

“I did,” said a new voice from across the room.

All of them in a single movement whirled around to look at the double doors that Sabrina had closed almost an hour earlier.

Jonathan Weiss, still in his tailored raincoat, was standing just in front of the closed doors, his hands in front of him, gently holding his sopping hat. “If you’re trying to be secretive, the first thing you need to do is to lock the doors.”

Simon was the first to move. He rose and walked over to Jonathan, overwhelmingly glad to see him. Samantha, who had never much cared for Jonathan, held back, her arms crossed, her expression skeptical.

Ryan had met Jonathan only a few times in the past, at holiday parties and large gatherings, and even those had been many months ago-now he sat quietly, wondering how he had managed to get in without a peep. Andrew, meanwhile, had no idea who he was at all. Once introductions had been exchanged, and assurances that Jonathan knew everything about Oliver’s disappearance-and probably more-had been made, he was welcomed as part of the group and given a place to sit.

“So what do we do next?” Andrew asked.

Hayden had lost interest in the social niceties almost immediately. He was concentrating on the diary instead. Now he looked up at Simon, his eyes glittering sharply. “You say you’ve played through these games?” he said.

Simon nodded, as he and Jonathan walked closer to the others. “First night I got it, yes.” He briefly described what he’d learned from playing through his father’s chess journal. He’d found that each of the matches had a message-a “moral,” so to speak-but he had to admit that none of it amounted to much. He showed the scientist a hand-written list where he’d recorded what he learned.