“Oh, say, somebody from Neurodyne, maybe really high up in the company. Or very close to my dad. . . . Maybe both.”
There was a short silence. Three girls were standing a short distance away, giving him dirty looks. One of them held up a quarter and jabbed a finger at her watch, telling him that they wanted to use the phone before classes restarted. Then Michelle’s voice said, “Are we talking about Vanessa?”
Kevin nodded, looking away from the girls. “Yes,” he said, getting the word out with difficulty.
“But Kevin, she did work at Microbotics for a long time. I’m sure she still knows people there. That doesn’t really say a lot.”
“This is different. We’re talking about the president—I think his name is Martin Payne. And it isn’t just to do with DNC and technology and that kind of thing. It gets more . . . kinda personal, you know. I wasn’t sure what to do.” He didn’t want to get into a protracted question-and-answer session just then. Before Michelle could interrogate him further, he went on, “Don’t ask me how right now, because it would take longer than I’ve got. But I can show you it all on tape.” The video input to the monitor on which Taki had followed the events aboard Payne’s yacht had also been recorded automatically. Kevin shrugged. “Or maybe getting involved in that side of it wouldn’t be your business. I don’t know.”
“Hey, Heber, tell your life story some other time,” one of the girls called over. “We need to find out what’s on at the movies.”
“Where are you calling from?” Michelle’s voice asked.
“I’m at the school. We’re on break, but I have to go real soon.”
“Leave it with me for a while. I have to think about this and look into a few things. Have you told Doug Corfe or anyone else?”
“No.”
“So nobody else knows right now except you?”
“Only Taki. He was with me when the tape got made. It’s a transmission from a mec that ended up in the wrong place. I only found out yesterday who the guy on it is.”
“Where is this tape at the moment?” Michelle asked.
“At the house. I’ve got it in my room. It’ll be okay there.”
“Will you be there this evening?”
“Either there or at Taki’s.”
“Leave it with me. I’m not sure at this point what would be the best way to play this. But I’ll get back to you, either by this evening somehow, or tomorrow.”
Michelle was hired to look after the business affairs of Theme Worlds Inc., not to go getting involved in the personal lives of Mr. and Mrs. Heber. Although the situation contained what could have been considered simply an unavoidable element of overlap, she knew from experience how easily this kind of terrain could turn into quicksand for the unwary. She decided that she needed to consult with Ohira. It turned out that he had left that morning on an overnight business trip to Los Angeles. Michelle’s secretary managed to raise him on his personal phone, in the departure lounge at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“If it were just a case of her involvement in an operation to discredit the technology, it would be straightforward,” Michelle said when she had outlined what she had learned from Kevin. “But this other side to it makes it messy. I didn’t want to start figuring out an angle till I’d talked to you.”
There was no pause for deliberating. One of the qualities that made Ohira a good businessman was a knack for cutting straight through to the essentials. “Why should she want to sabotage her own company?” he said. “Selling Neurodyne’s secrets for money? That makes no sense. She’s got money already.”
“Then it has to be for the guy,” Michelle answered. “See my problem now? This is starting to turn into a seven-figure divorce case already. That’s getting away from what you pay me to do. I’m going to need your thoughts on it.”
“If DNC dies, then we don’t have any deal, anyway,” Ohira said. “This woman could do it more damage than anybody. How can you find out what she’s capable of if we don’t follow up on the information we’ve got?”