Chapter Twenty-Two
It was a relief to be in out of the rain even if they were stuck in a small square room with another locked door. The second door had a handle identical to the first, but when he tried it, it didn’t budge.
“Um, Diego?” he asked. Sam was checking the room out with care, one hand still at his holster. It made him uneasy.
“Consider this a sort of airlock. The second door won’t open if the first isn’t closed.”
He went to shut it but Sam’s hand clamped down on his arm. “We don’t know that won’t lock us in here. I don’t like it.”
“Your friend is a little paranoid,” Diego said, sounding bored now. “You could do with taking a leaf or two out of his book. Don’t worry, Sam. The front door will open with Drew’s thumbprint as long as the inner door is closed. You’ll have to trust me on that.”
“I trust you,” Drew said immediately, shrugging his shoulders as Sam shook his head. “Sam, please. We came all this way. We need his help.
“Fine,” Sam said at length, shutting the door, and turning to face the second.
“The keypad on the side,” Diego’s disembodied voice called. “It’s a number code keyed to your thumbprint. The date of our second meeting.”
Drew would have groaned, except he knew Diego would hear. “Enough of the cloak and dagger stuff, Di.” Still, he stepped up to it, keyed in the numbers. Six, four, sixteen, and pressed his thumb on the handle.
There was another click, and the handle moved when he pressed down, the door opening inward.
“You’ll need to close the door before anything works,” Diego pointed out. “Lights, heat. The door completes a circuit of sorts.”
“When you said holed up in a bunker, you weren’t joking,” Sam said in an undertone, but he closed the door this time and the room began to light up slowly.
It was an ordinary looking living room with a couch, television, fireplace, and bookshelves. Even a chess board set up on a table with a game in progress.
“Diego, we need to talk to you about…”
“No.” The refusal silenced him for a moment.
“But, Diego…”
“There is no we, Drew. You’ve brought a stranger into my home. If you want to talk, we will, but one-on-one.”
“I trust Sam.” He needed Sam.
“Well, I don’t. If you want to talk, we’ll talk, but in private.”
“So you, what? Want me to go wait outside?” Sam questioned, looking peeved.
“I’m not inhospitable enough to kick you out into the rain just yet. You can relax here in the living room while I talk to Drew. Watch tv, read a book, play a game of chess. Plenty to keep you entertained.”
Drew turned to Sam.
“We should stick together.” Sam looked uneasy still, watching the doors and cameras.
“I’ll be okay. I told you, I trust Diego. And right now, we need him.”
Sam agreed, with clear reluctance.
“The door to the left of the bookshelf, Drew.” It didn’t have a handle, but it did have a keypad.
“Five digits. The first, third, fourth, seventh and eighth of your social security number.”
“Come on, Diego.” Even as he grumbled, he keyed them in. The door clicked open, the light turning on inside. Sam was standing just behind him, his sharp eyes scanning the room.
“You only over the threshold, Drew. Or we don’t have this conversation.”
Drew glanced over his shoulder at Sam.
“Be careful,” was all he said.
“I will,” Drew promised.
The room inside was more Diego’s style, containing a custom-built PC with two tower banks, five screens in two layers, an independent server, and a backup power supply. He closed the door before Diego could ask, catching one last glimpse of Sam’s concerned expression.
Three of the screens turned on as he took a seat, the first, on the left, showing his own image from the web camera directly in front of him. The second, on the right, was from the camera in the next room, showing Sam outside the door. The center screen was blank at first, then he was looking at Diego’s face through another webcam.
“Hey, Di.”
“Drew.” Diego was his usual distracted self, working on something else while he spoke. “I was expecting you to get in contact sooner.”
“It wasn’t so easy as all that.”
“Under Russell’s thumb, or Sam’s?” he queried.
“Russell’s. Sam’s not like that.”
“You brought him with you.”
“I need his help. Russell isn’t letting me go. I ran, and he tracked me down. Twice. There won’t be a third time.”
“What does Sam know about me?”
“That we’re old friends. That you used to be a hacker and now you’re legit.”
“So you didn’t tell him who I actually am?”
“A promise is a promise, Di. But he’s a cop, so he’s naturally suspicious and asks lots of questions.”
Diego choked at that, before smiling wryly. “Trust you to bring an officer of the law to my hideout.”
Drew made a face. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“That’s pushing the bonds of friendship, Drew.” It was hard to tell how serious Diego was.
“Needs must.”
“Well, as long as you remember the important tenets of lying. Stick to the truth as much as humanly possible. You’ve done a good job so far. What can I help you with today?”
“The information I sent you.”
“It made for fascinating reading. And turned me off scuba-diving for life when I read the autopsy report. He was down at a hundred and twenty feet when his oxygen ran out. Massive equipment failure, no alarms going off. Between one breath and the next he just found himself running on empty.”
Drew shuddered at the words but they weren’t new to him. He’d read every newspaper article and tormented himself with the details, feeling guilty that somehow he hadn’t known what Russell was planning and put a stop to it.
“The information isn’t where you are, I’m afraid. I can get copies to you by tomorrow. What do you plan to do with it?”
“With Sam’s help, I’m going to get it to the right people, who can investigate Russ and put a stop to what he’s doing.”
“And you believe his influence won’t be enough for him to buy his way out?”
“A man is dead. Millions of dollars have been defrauded, his business practices are way out of line.”
“You haven’t answered my question. And what’s to stop him putting the full blame on you?”
“I didn’t have a hand in any of that.”
“You were his live-in IT specialist. You shared his penthouse, shared his bed. Do you really think they’ll believe you were ignorant of what he was doing?”
“Maybe not. But I can’t live like this. I can’t live with what I know. And Russell isn’t about to let me live my life in peace.”
Diego finally gave Drew his full attention.
“If you’re sure. I can send the additional information I’ve gathered alongside what you managed to pull from his computer. What will help your case is that his activities predate the two of you ever meeting. I would advise you to avail yourself of a lawyer and try to cut a deal. Immunity from prosecution in exchange for the information you’ve gathered. You need to protect yourself, Drew. Not even Sam will be able to save you from an overzealous prosecutor, not even with his extensive military record.”
It didn’t surprise Drew that Diego had done a background check on Sam in the space of a few minutes. He liked to know who he was interacting with. Speaking of Sam, the other man was pacing around the living room, like a caged bear.
“Is the information enough to take Russell down?” he wondered.
“Too hard to say,” Diego replied. “It will depend on how much they can verify. I do have one piece of good news. The diving equipment used by that unfortunate gentleman was preserved after the accident pending the coroner's report. I believe it had a technical examination to determine the fault but not a full forensic screen. It may shed some light on things.”
Diego didn’t sound optimistic and Drew wasn't feeling it either. The odds seemed stacked against him.
“If I have to throw myself on my sword to take Russell down, I will,” he said finally. “I need to do this. I can’t live in his shadow anymore.”
“Men like him cast long shadows, Drew. It won’t be easy.”
“Nothing ever is.” His wry smile covered his growing fears, but he knew Diego saw through it, the other man pausing in his work to really look at him once more.
“All of life feels like a battle when you’re young.” He glanced back at another screen. “I’ll have the information couriered to the town of Materdale, about fifty miles south of your location. It will be there by ten am tomorrow morning. The courier will meet you outside the old mill. You and Sam are welcome to stay the night. The kitchen is stocked, the bed is made. Oh, to have young love back again.”
Drew blushed at Diego’s words. “It’s not like that.”
“He hasn’t stopped pacing since you stepped through the door. He’s ready to put himself in harm’s way to protect you.”
“He’s a cop, it’s his job.”
“Perhaps. Goodbye, Drew. I’ll be in touch.” The screens went dark, and he sat there a moment, just thinking. Did he really have options? Russell had closed in on him, and would do so again. It was only a matter of time. At least one person was dead already. What if there were more? What other skeletons did Russ have in his closet, hanging amongst his expensive suits and ties?
Deciding it wasn’t fair to leave Sam alone any longer, he stumbled to the door and out. Sam crossed the room in two strides, catching hold of his arm. “Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine,” he replied weakly, letting Sam help him to the couch. “Diego said the information isn’t here. He’s sending it to us, by courier. Not here but to a town fifty miles away. It’ll be there tomorrow morning. He said we can stay here for the night. There’s food in the kitchen and a bedroom for us to get some sleep.”
It was only as he sat and spoke to Sam that he realized that not only was he still drenched from the rain but he was chilled, right down to the bone.
“Alright. But we have to get out priorities straight. Right now, that's getting out of these wet clothes and getting warm,” Sam said before glancing up at the camera in the corner. “He’s not still watching, is he?”
“Knowing Diego, all his cameras are still recording but I doubt he’s watching. Voyeurism isn’t his thing. Privacy and security are.”
Sam stood got to his feet. “Let’s see if we can’t get this place a bit warmer.” He approached the fireplace and flicked a switched. The hearth began to glow. “Electric fire. That’s a start.” He tried one of the other doors, surprised to find it opened easily. “This was locked before you came out. I tried it twice.”
“Diego must have opened it. He did say we could have access to the house. What’s through there?”
“A kitchen and dining area. Not what we’re looking for.”
Sam tried the next door. “Corridor with more doors. You hang here for a minute while I check it out.”
He was back not five minutes later.
“There’s a bathroom, bedroom, and a utility room. I propose we throw our clothes in the dryer, shower to warm up, and borrow some towels and clothes until ours dry.” Reaching out, he tugged Drew to his feet.
“Warm and dry sounds good,” Drew said with a sigh.
By the time he reached the bathroom, he was out-and-out shivering. Sam had already turned on the shower with its blessedly hot water and the room was filling with steam.
“Here, give me your clothes and get in. I’ll stick them in the wash.”
Drew’s fingers were numb as he tried in vain to shrug off his T-shirt. Sam had to intervene, batting his hands away gently before quickly and efficiently helping T-strip it from his body. It clung to his skin, damp all the way through. His pants and boxers were next, the material sticking painfully to him. That done, Sam turned him around and gave him a push towards the heat of the shower.