Sawyer bit his lip and tensed his shoulders, then decided against taking
the bait. He looked over at Lucas. “When did you first suspect
Archer?”
Lucas shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Obviously, the security man
felt particularly humbled by recent events. “The first definitive event
was the videotape of Archer making the exchange in Seattle.”
“The one Frank’s people obtained?” Sawyer eyed Lucas for confirmation.
Lucas’s sullen expression spoke volumes. “That’s right. Although I had
my own suspicions of Archer before the video was taken.”
Gamble spoke up. “Is that so? I don’t recall your ever voicing those
suspicions before. I don’t pay you all that money to keep your mouth
shut.”
Sawyer eyed Lucas closely. The guy had said too much with probably
nothing to back it up. But Sawyer was duty-bound to follow through.
“What sort of suspicions?”
Lucas’s face was still frozen on his boss, the fierce reprimand still
resonating. Lucas looked dully at Sawyer. “Well, perhaps they were
more hunches than anything else. Nothing concrete to go on. Just my
gut. Sometimes that’s more important, you know what I mean?”
“I do.”
“He worked a lot. Irregular hours. His computer log-in times made for
some interesting reading, I can tell you that.”
Gamble stirred. “I only hire hard workers. Eighty percent of the
people here pull seventy-five to ninety hours per week, every week of
the year.”
“I take it you don’t believe in idle hands,” Sawyer said.
“I work my people hard, but they’re well compensated. Every
senior-level manager on up to the executive level at my company is a
millionaire. And most of them are under forty.” He nodded at Quentin
Rowe. “I won’t tell you how much he got when I bought him out, but if
he wanted to go buy an island somewhere, build himself a mansion, bring
in a harem and a private jet, he could do it all without borrowing a
dime and have enough left over to keep his great-grandchildren in Ivy
League and limos. Of course, I wouldn’t expect a federal bureaucrat to
understand the nuances of free enterprise.
You now have forty-seven minutes left.”
Sawyer promised himself he would never allow Gamble an opening of that
size again. “Have you confirmed the facts of the bank account scam?”
Sawyer eyed Hardy.
His friend nodded. “I’ll hook you up with bureau agents handling it.”
Gamble erupted, slamming his fist on the table and glaring at Sawyer as
though he had personally ripped off the Triton chief. “Two hundred and
fifty million dollars!” Gamble was shaking with fury.
An awkward moment of silence was broken by Sawyer. “I understand Archer
had some additional protective measures put on his office door.”
Lucas answered, his face a shade paler. “That’s right, he did.”
“I’ll need to look over his office later. What sort of things did he
have installed?”
Everyone in the room looked at Richard Lucas. Sawyer could almost see
the sweat glistening on the security chief’s palms.
“A few months ago he ordered a digital numeric pad and smart card entry
system wired to an alarm for his office door.”
“Was that unusual or necessary?” Sawyer asked. He couldn’t imagine it
was necessary, considering how many damn hoops one had to jump through
just to get in the place.
“I didn’t think it was necessary at all. We have the most secure shop
in the industry.” Lucas cringed when this response was met by a loud
grunt from Gamble. “But I’m not sure I could say it was unusual; other
people here had similar setups on their office doors.”
Quentin Rowe joined in. “Not that you could have missed it, Mr. Sawyer,
but everyone at Triton is terribly security conscious. It’s beaten into
the head of every employee here that paranoia is the proper mind-set to
have when it comes to protecting proprietary technology. In fact, Frank
comes in each quarter and lectures the employees on that very subject.
If an employee had a problem or security concern, he or she could go
either to Richard or one of his staff, or Frank. My employees all knew
of Frank’s illustrious career at the FBI. I feel confident that anyone
with a concern about security would have had no hesitation about going