Free Long Way Down by Michael Sears Page A

and I married a beautiful, wealthy woman.”
    “All right. So you have lots of enemies because you married the only remaining heir to a Gold Coast fortune and you live in a castle. But somehow, I don’t see some jealous polo-playing twit running this kind of scam just to put you in your place. Sorry.”
    He almost blew up at me. I could see it coming and he pulled back. He thought for another moment.
    “The Chinese. They’ll do anything to stop me. To keep my product off the market. If they can’t steal it. They’ve sunk trillions into battery power; they can’t afford to have me beat them.”
    That struck me as possible. It was also paranoid, delusional, and racist. But as the Chinese had already hacked into the
New York Times
, the
Wall Street Journal
, and the Pentagon, I supposed that I would have to treat it seriously.
    “What do your IT security people say?”
    He glowered. “I will not use firm assets or personnel in what is essentially a personal matter.”
    “Okay, but they must have given an opinion.”
    “I have not asked.” He was past the slow-rolling boil, but not quite to the point of screaming with released steam.
    “All right,” I said. He was stonewalling, but I wasn’t going to let it get in my way. “I know people who can look into it. Or at least steer me in the right direction.” I had remained in touch with a young computer whiz, now attempting to better himself bystudying law at Yale. If he couldn’t help, he would know someone. “I was thinking someone closer. A family member. Senior staff. A board member. Someone with clout and connections—and money.”
    He cleared his throat a few times as he fought for control. He was again very much in control when he finally answered. “Arinna has a small board. My wife and me; Chuck Penn and Harve Deeter are the moneymen; Helen Ward, from Teachers’ Retirement—our corporate conscience; and Don Kavanagh, our general counsel. Virgil usually sits in with us—the firm owns a large block of nonvoting shares. I get along well with all of them. I respect these people and would want you to treat them as they deserve.”
    Charles Penn was a big fish—a whale. A multibillionaire with interests in everything from start-up tech companies to minerals mining. Harvey Deeter was an oilman and even wealthier. Helen Ward had referred to me in the press as “just another small-time crook” when I had been convicted. I didn’t think she would take my call this time around.
    “I can finesse when need be. I’m multitalented that way.” I would have Virgil make the call to Ward and the lawyer. “Anyone else? Competitors? Jealous family members? Jilted ex-lovers?”
    “I’m quite serious about the Chinese. You should look into that connection.”
    “Okay, but I might start with your wife.”
    He opened his mouth as though to object, then closed it and sat staring at me blankly.
    “Can I reach her here?” I asked.
    He snapped out of whatever reveries had caught him. “At the house? No. She’ll be at our place in the city.” He gave me the number. “Let me walk you out,” he said, standing.
    His mood had changed when I mentioned the wife. He was no longer as confident. He had gone from the assured CEO to the beleaguered husband.
    We were shaking hands in the parking lot when he suddenly shook off the change in mood. “Do you have a minute? Let me show you something. May I?”
    I had plenty of work to do and not much time to do it, but a minute or ten wouldn’t make a difference.
    “Lead on.”
    We walked up through the rhododendrons, the curled brown leaves rattling in the wind and sounding like a wooden waterfall. I was cold already, but Haley didn’t seem to notice it, though he was wearing no more than his suit.
    “I was late getting back this morning. Checking my lobster pots and trolling for whatever fish are still around this time of year.”
    Nothing on the Internet had hinted that he had a hobby of any kind.
    “I’m surprised. I