Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Are You Afraid of the Dark? Page 33

THE MEMORIAL SERVICE was being held in KIG Park, an area that had been set aside in back of the Kingsley International Group complex, as a recreation facility for its employees. There were a hundred people gathered in the park, which was accessible only through two gated paths leading in and out.

In the center of the grounds, a dais had been erected, and half a dozen KIG executives were seated there. At the end of the row sat Richard Stevens's secretary, Betty Barker. She was an attractive patrician-looking woman in her thirties.

Tanner was at the microphone. "?and this company was built by the dedication and loyalty of its employees. We appreciate and salute them. I have always liked to think of our company as a family, all working together toward the same objective." As Tanner spoke, he was scanning the crowd.

"Here, at KIG, we have solved problems and executed ideas that have made the world a better place to live in, and there is no greater satisfaction than-" At the far end of the park, Diane and Kelly had entered. Tanner glanced at his watch. It was eleven-forty. There was a satisfied smile on his face. He continued speaking:

"?knowing that whatever success this company has had is due to you." Diane looked up at the platform and nudged Kelly, excitedly. "There's Betty Barker. I have to get to her." "Be careful." Diane glanced around and said uneasily, "This is too simple. I have a feeling we've been-" She turned to look back and gasped. Harry Flint and two of his men had appeared at one of the gates.

Diane's eyes turned toward the second gate. It was blocked by Carballo and two more men.

"Look!" Diane's throat was dry.

Kelly turned to see the six men blocking the exits. "Is there any other way out of here?" "I don't think so." Tanner was saying, "Regrettably, recent misfortunes have come to several members of our family.

And when a tragedy befalls someone in the family, it affects us all. KIG is offering a five-million-dollar reward to anyone who can prove who or what is behind all of this." "Five million dollars from one of his pockets into the other," Kelly said softly.

Tanner looked out over the crowd at Kelly and Diane, and his eyes were cold. "We have two bereaved members here today, Mrs. Mark Harris and Mrs. Richard Stevens.

I'm going to ask them to please come up here on the podium." "We can't let him get us up there," Kelly said, horrified. "We have to stay with the crowd. What do we do now?" Diane looked at Kelly, surprised. "What do you mean? You're the one who's going to get us out of here, remember? Start your plan." Kelly swallowed. "It didn't work." Diane said nervously, "Then go to plan B." "Diane? "Yes?" "There is no plan B." Diane's eyes widened. "You mean you-you got us here with no way to get us out?" "I thought-" Tanner's voice boomed over the loudspeaker. "Would Mrs. Stevens and Mrs. Harris come up here now, please?" Kelly turned to Diane and said miserably, "I'm-I'm so sorry." "It's my fault. I should never have let us come." The people in the crowd were turning to watch them. They were trapped.

"Mrs. Stevens and Mrs. Harris? Kelly whispered, "What are we going to do?" Diane said, "We have no choice. We're going up there." She took a deep breath.

"Let's go." Reluctantly, the two women started slowly toward the podium.

Diane was looking up at Betty Barker, whose eyes were fastened on her, a panicky look on her face.

Diane and Kelly neared the podium, their hearts pounding.

Diane was thinking, Richard, darling, I tried. No matter what happens, I want you to know that IThere was a sudden loud commotion at the back of the park. People were craning their necks to see what was happening.

Ben Roberts was making an entrance, accompanied by a large crew of cameramen and assistants.

The two women turned to look. Kelly grabbed Diane's arm, beaming. "Plan A has arrived!

Ben is here." And Diane looked up and said softly, "Thank you, Richard." Kelly said, "What?" She suddenly realized what Diane meant. She said cynically,

"Right. Come on.

Ben is waiting for us."

TANNER WAS WATCHING the scene, his face stiff. He called out, "Excuse me. I'm sorry, Mr. Roberts. This is a private memorial ceremony. I will have to ask you and your crew to leave." Ben Roberts said, "Good morning, Mr. Kingsley. My show is doing a television segment with Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Stevens at the studio, but while we were here, I thought you might like to have us do a piece on the memorial service." Tanner shook his head. "No, I can't permit you to stay here." "Too bad. Then I'll just take Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Stevens over to the studio now." "You can't," Tanner said harshly.

Ben looked at him. "I can't what?" Tanner was almost trembling with fury. "I-I mean-you?nothing." The women had reached Ben.

He said softly, "Sorry I'm late. There was a breaking news story about a murder and-" "There was almost a breaking news story about two more," Kelly said. "Let's get out of here." Tanner watched, frustrated, as Kelly, Diane, Ben Roberts, and his crew pushed past Tanner's men and walked out of the park.

Harry Flint looked over to Tanner for instructions. As Tanner slowly shook his head no, he was thinking, It's not over yet, bitches.

DIANE AND KELLY got into the car with Ben Roberts. His crew was following in two vans.

Roberts looked at Kelly. "Now, can you tell me what that was all about?" "I wish I could, Ben. But not yet. I will when I know what I'm talking about. I promise." "Kelly, I'm a reporter. I need to know-" "Today you came as a friend." Roberts sighed. "Right. Where would you like me to take you?" Diane said, "Would you drop us off at Forty-second Street and Times Square?" "You ve got it."

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Kelly and Diane were getting out of the car.

Kelly kissed Ben Roberts on the cheek. "Thanks, Ben. I won't forget this. We'll stay in touch." "Be safe." They turned to wave as they walked away.

Kelly said, "I feel naked."

"Why?" "Diane, we don't have any weapons. Nothing. I wish we had a gun." "We have our brains." "I wish we had a gun. Why are we here? What are we going to do now?" "We're going to stop running. From now on, we're on the offensive.

Kelly looked at her curiously. "What does that mean?" "It means I'm sick and tired of us being the target of the day. We're going after them, Kelly." Kelly looked at Diane a moment. "We're going after KIG?" "That's right." "You've been reading too many mysteries. How do you think the two of us can bring down the biggest think tank in the world?" "We're going to start by getting the names of all their employees who have died in the past few weeks." "What makes you think there were more than Mark and Richard?" "Because the newspaper announcement said all their employees, so there were more than two people." "Oh. And who's going to give us those names?" "I'll show you," Diane said.

THE EASY ACCESS Internet Cafe was a vast computer hall containing more than a dozen rows of cubicles equipped with four hundred personal computers, nearly all of them in use. It was part of a chain that was springing up all over the world.

When they walked in, Diane went to the card vending machine, to purchase an hour of Internet access.

When she came back, Kelly said, "Where do we start?" "Let's ask the computer." They found an empty cubicle and sat down.

Kelly watched as Diane logged on to the Internet. "What happens now?" "First we do a Google search to find the names of the other victims who were employees of KIG." Diane typed "

www.google.com"

and then typed in her search criteria: "obituary" and "KIG." A long list of search hits appeared. Diane looked specifically for items in newspapers that were available online and found several. She clicked on those links, which led her to a series of recent obituaries and other articles. One article led her to KIG Berlin, and she accessed its Web site.

"This is interesting?Franz Verbrugge."

"Who's he?" "The question is, where is he? He seems to have disappeared. He worked for KIG in Berlin, and his wife, Sonja, died mysteriously." Diane clicked onto another link. She hesitated and looked up at Kelly. "In France-Mark Harris." Kelly took a deep breath and nodded. "Go on." Diane pressed more keys. "Denver, Gary Reynolds, and in Manhattan"-Diane's voice broke-"Richard." Diane stood up.

"That's it."

Kelly said, "What now?" "We're going to figure out how to put all this together. Let's go."

HALFWAY DOWN THE block, Kelly and Diane passed a computer store.

"Just a minute," Kelly said.

Diane followed as Kelly walked into the store and approached the manager.

"Excuse me. My name is Kelly Harris. I'm Tanner Kingsley's assistant. We need three dozen of your very best and most expensive computers by this afternoon. Is that possible?" The manager beamed. "Why-why certainly, Mrs. Harris. For Mr. Kingsley, anything.

We don't have them all here, of course, but we'll get them from our warehouses. I'll take care of it personally.

Will that be cash or charge?"

"COD," Kelly said.

As the manager hurried away, Diane said, "I wish I had thought of that." Kelly grinned. "You will."

"I THOUGHT YOU would like to see these, Mr. Kingsley." Kathy Ordonez handed him several newspapers. The headlines told the story:

AUSTRALIA HAS FREAK TORNADO?

THE FIRST TORNADO TO EVER HIT AUSTRALIA HAS?

DESTROYED A DOZEN VILLAGES. DEATH TOLL IS�UNKNOWN.?

METEOROLOGISTS ARE BAFFLED BY NEW

WORLD WEATHER PATTERNS. OZONE LAYER�BLAMED.

Tanner said, "Send these to Senator Van Luven with a note: 'Dear Senator Van Luven, I think time is running out. Best wishes, Tanner Kingsley." "Yes, sir." Tanner looked up at a computer screen when he heard the sound telling him he had received an alert from the security division of his Information Technology department.

Tanner had arranged for his IT department to have "spiders" installed-high-tech software that constantly combed the Internet, searching for information. Tanner had privately set the spiders to look for people searching for sensitive information relating to the deaths of Richard Stevens and Mark Harris, and he now stared with interest at the alert on the computer monitor.

He pressed a buzzer. "Andrew, get in here." Andrew was in his office, daydreaming about his accident, and remembering. He was in the wardrobe room to get his spacesuit that the army had sent. He started to take one from the rack, but Tanner was there, and Tanner handed him a suit and gas mask. Wear this one. It will bring you luck.

Tanner was-

"Andrew! Get in here!"

ANDREW HEARD THE command, got up, and slowly walked into Tanner's office.

"Sit down."

"Yes, Tanner." He took a seat.

"The bitches just hit our Web site in Berlin. Do you know what that means?" "Yes?I-no." Tanner's secretary buzzed. "The computers are here, Mr. Kingsley." "What computers?" "The ones you ordered." Puzzled, Tanner rose and walked out the door into the reception room. Three dozen computers were piled up on dollies. The store manager and three men in overalls were standing next to them.

The manager's face lit up when he saw Tanner approaching. "I have just what you asked for, Mr. Kingsley. State of the art. And we'll be happy to help you with any more-" Tanner was staring at the pile of computers. "Who ordered these?" "Your assistant, Kelly Harris. She said you needed them right away, so-" "Take them back," Tanner said softly. "Where she's going, they won't be needed." He turned and walked back into his office. "Andrew, do you have any idea why they accessed our Web site? Well, I'll tell you. They're going to try to track down the victims and look for the motives behind their deaths." Tanner sat down. "To do that, they would have to go to Europe. Only they're not going to get there." Andrew said sleepily, "No? "How are we going to stop them, Andrew?" Andrew nodded. "Stop them? Tanner looked at his brother and said contemptuously, "I wish there was someone with a brain that I could talk to." Andrew watched as Tanner walked over to a computer and sat at the keyboard.

"We're going to start by wiping out all their assets. We have their Social Security numbers." He kept typing as he talked. "Diane Stevens?" he mused as he used the back-door software KIG installed when they were hired to make Experian's systems Y2K-compliant. This back-door software gave Tanner access that not even the highest of Experian management could have.

"Look. Experian has all her bank account information, an IRA retirement account, her line of credit at the bank. See?" Andrew swallowed. "Yes, Tanner. Yes." Tanner turned back to the computer. "We'll enter her credit cards as stolen?. Now we're going to do the same with Kelly Harris?Our next step is going to Diane's bank's Web site." He accessed the bank's Web site and then clicked onto a link that said "Manage Your Accounts." Next, Tanner entered Diane Stevens's account number and the last four digits of her Social Security number and was granted access. Once inside, he transferred all her balances to the line of credit, then returned to Experian's credit data base and canceled her line of credit under "In Collection." "Andrew-" "Yes, Tanner?" "Do you see what I've done? I've transferred all of Diane Stevens's assets as debts to be collected by their collection department." His tone filled with self-satisfaction. "Now we'll do the same thing for Kelly Harris." When Tanner was through, he got up and walked over to Andrew. "It's done. They have no money and no credit. There's no way they can get out of the country. We have them trapped. What do you think of your kid brother?" Andrew nodded. "On television last night, I saw a movie about a-" Furious, Tanner clenched his fist and slammed it into his brother's face so hard that Andrew fell out of the chair and crashed into a wall, making a loud racket. "You son of a bitch!

Listen to me when

I'm talking to you." The door flew open and Tanner's secretary, Kathy Ordonez, rushed in. "Is everything all right, Mr. Kingsley?" Tanner turned to her. "Yes. Poor Andrew fell down." "Oh, dear." The two of them lifted Andrew to his feet.

"Did I fall down?" Tanner said gently, "Yes, Andrew, but you're all right now." Kathy Ordonez whispered, "Mr. Kingsley, don't you think your brother might be better off in a home?" "Of course he would," Tanner answered. "But it would break his heart. This is his real home, and I can take care of him here." Kathy Ordonez looked at Tanner admiringly. "You're a wonderful man, Mr.

Kingsley." He shrugged modestly. "We all have to do what we can."

TEN MINUTES LATER, Tanner's secretary was back.

"Good news, Mr. Kingsley. This fax just came in from Senator Van Luven's office." "Let me see it." Tanner snatched it from her hand.

Dear Mr. Kingsley:

This is to inform you that the Senate Select Committee on the Environment has decided to appropriate funds to immediately increase our investigation of global warming and how to combat it.

Sincerely, Senator Van Luven