Ridley Pearson - Chain of Evidence

INCORRECT SIGN-ON INFORMATION-ACCESS DENIED-PLEASE CONTACT THE SECURITY DESK-THANK YOU.

“We’re toast,” Dart announced.

“Unidentified individual is seventy yards and closing,” reported the lookout.

“The gate?” Ginny asked, panicked.

Dart looked over his shoulder. The entrance gate rose and fell.

“You got it.”

“Hold the phone,” she said.

The guard approached, now less than fifty yards away. The man waved, still too far for his face to be seen, and conversely, Dart’s could not be seen by him.

“We’re running out of headroom,” Dart warned.

Another few yards, and Dart’s face would be identifiable. How many Roxin employees would a security guard recognize?

“Joe?” she asked.

Dart read:

WELCOME: DR. JANET JORGENSON

The door clicked. Dart pulled on the handle. It opened.

The guard was twenty yards away. They could clearly see each other. You’ve got to think on your feet , Zeller had once schooled him. He’s an outside guard , Dart thought. Disarm his suspicion. Dart raised his voice and offered, “You want me to hold the door for you?”

The guard shook his head. “No, thanks,” he answered.

Dart stepped inside, his armpits soaked, his throat dry. The elevator was straight ahead; a door marked the stairs to his right. Not wanting to wait for an elevator car, and recalling from his earlier trip to Roxin that elevators also required security access, Dart chose to use the stairs. The door thumped shut behind him.

“Janet Jorgenson?” he complained into the microphone, climbing the stairs. His new identity had given him a sex change.

In his left ear he heard, “The name was immediately above Nealy’s on the list. What can I tell you?”

“Who am I?” Dart asked, although it didn’t matter-he couldn’t very well pose as Jorgenson.

“The thing is,” she explained, “the way the system works-the reason Nealy would not work back there-you have to be a certain security clearance to have access to all doors. Otherwise you’re supposed to take a particular door at a certain time of day. Nealy wasn’t being allowed in. Jorgenson’s got the run of the place-clearance five,” she told him.

“Who am I?” Dart repeated, feeling uneasy about this.

“Vice president and deputy director of R and D,” she said.

“You made me Martinson’s assistant?” Dart queried angrily. Security might notify Proctor of an unexpected late-night visit-if Proctor had any sense, he had his team on alert. Proctor was likely to know Martinson’s next-in-command, and it seemed to Dart he might question a visit by her at this wee hour of the morning, might see Dart’s ruse for what it was. It pushed him to hurry.

“This is seat-of-the-pants, Dartelli.” she sounded bitter.

He wondered what Haite was thinking as he heard two ex-lovers argue during a sting. He charged up the stairs as quickly as his bad ankle would carry him.

The lookout atop the phone pole reported, “The unidentified individual is inspecting the Lexus. He appears to be using a handheld communications device.”

“Scanning,” returned the voice of the dispatcher.

Dart continued up at a run, passing the door marked with a large “2.”

“We’ve intercepted the radio transmission,” the calm voice of the dispatcher said. “The individual called in the vehicle registration number and is awaiting callback. The sergeant is recommending that you abort operations at once. Repeat: Recommending you abort. Do you copy?” After a brief hesitation the dispatcher said, “Evacuation plan A as in Alpha. Do you copy?”

Plan A called for Dart to head on foot toward the ERT’s position, where the elite team would help him over the perimeter fence and to safety. All this was said not for Dart’s benefit but for that of whoever might be listening in to the unsecured frequency they were using. If Proctor’s people were in fact monitoring police radio transmissions-something Haite and Dart hoped was happening-then perhaps Dart’s arrival at Roxin would act as an invitation.

“I’m on the third floor,” Dart announced. Are you listening? he wondered. “A blue rectangle, a yellow triangle, and green circle,” he announced to Ginny.

“Blue, yellow, green,” she repeated. “Box, triangle, circle. Stand by.”

This office door, like every other, housed an ID reader to the right of the jamb. The cryptic code on the doors was playing to Roxin’s advantage. Ginny had to locate the specific door in the database. He waited impatiently. Finally he heard her say, “Try it.”

Dart pushed down on the door lever, and the locked door came open. “Got it!” he said brightly. “I’m in.”

Access to the office was certain to show on the security screens in the lobby. Ginny had been schooled not to attempt to shield Dart’s activities from these screens. Although it risked Dart’s getting caught, it also allowed security to inform Proctor, or other superiors, of Dart’s movements-something critical to the sting working.

The clock was now running and the trap set: the cheese was there for the taking. Dart slipped into a chair in front of a computer monitor, where a screen saver drew geometric patterns on the screen. He tapped the shift key, and the screen saver vanished, replaced by dozens of computer software icons.

“I’m at a terminal,” Dart announced softly.

“Well done, people,” Haite said for the benefit of anyone eavesdropping.

Joe Dart was on-line.

If Dart was right about Martinson’s scientific ego, then she had stored copies of the earlier clinical trial reports somewhere in the mainframe’s memory, and only Martinson herself could retrieve them. Ginny could not gain entrance to the password-protected file without the cooperation of Martinson herself.

By 2:00 AM, under the authority of a wire surveillance warrant, Martinson’s two unpublished home phone lines were being monitored. Under separate warrant, Terry Proctor’s residential lines were under tap-and-trace surveillance, forbidding recording but allowing the identification of phone numbers coming and going over the lines.

Since the inception of the surveillance, no traffic had been reported at Martinson’s. Records would later show that Proctor’s lines had been incredibly active that night.

“I’m logged on,” Dart announced for Ginny’s benefit. His hope was that, if not immediately, within minutes this radio traffic would be overheard by Proctor’s people and passed up to both Proctor and Martinson.

Dart therefore had to slip up, making believable mistakes as he went. The Lexus-a car not registered to any Roxin employee-was part of that fiction; use of the police radio frequencies-impossible to scramble with so many participants involved-was also part of the ruse. Proctor had to be led to believe that Dart was close to uncovering Martinson’s files.

But so what? Dart doubted that Terry Proctor was aware of the existence of any such evidence. It seemed likely that once Zeller had blown open Martinston’s scam, Proctor would have advised her to destroy all evidence-he would have accepted Martinson’s word that she had done so. Only Martinson-and intuitively, Dart-knew the truth: No way would she destroy eleven years of research. Dart would have to enlighten Proctor, without it seeming intentional, and to sting him into panicking Martinson to finally destroy the evidence she held so dearly.

By necessity, Ginny was also part of the ruse, manipulating and monitoring and preparing to trap Martinson.

Most important was that Dart not allow himself to be discovered or abducted before completing the sting. To be caught was to fail.

“Logged on and awaiting instructions,” Dart repeated.