Xan, Part Two

I held out my business card. “Tom Jurgen to see Arnold Hawke? I have a 4:30 appointment.”

            The young blond man looked at the printing, then picked up a phone. “Arnie? It’s Tyler. Mr. Jurgen to see you?”

            After a moment he nodded and stood up. “Back there. Corner office.”

            “Thanks.” I left my card with him. You never know when someone’s going to need a P.I.

            Cubicles lined the walls, and inside people tapped their keyboards or talked on their phones. Desks crowded the center of the workplace, with more employees talking to each other as they pointed at screens and others wore noise-canceling headphones so they could concentrate. A few looked up at me. Most ignored me.

            Hawke sat behind a wide desk. Younger than me—maybe in his mid-30s. His coppery hair was cut shown, his shirtsleeves pulled up to reveal thin, hairy arms. He didn’t stand up. He barely looked up from the screen in front of his eyes. “Jurgen.” He didn’t tell me to sit down.

            I sat down anyway. “It’s about Brent O’Connor. Your employee.”

            “I know.” He shoved the keyboard away. “Look, we’ve been talking to the cops since yesterday. Brent was a good guy. One of our best programmers. No one here would have wanted to see him dead.”

            I leaned back. “He was in contact with Jamie Silvano. A UFO researcher. Did the police ask you about that?”

            Hawke blinked. “UFOs? I’m running a business, not watching the Syfy channel all day.”

            “What about XN-12?” I straightened up, watching for his reaction.

            He scowled. “That’s confidential. I will say that Brent was involved in developing the first generation of XN, and he’s been a big part of all the upgrades. Aside from that . . .” He ran a hand over his scalp. “There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

            I stood up. “Can I talk to your IT people?”

            “No.” Hawke pushed his chair back. “Like I said, we’ve had police in here since yesterday. They have work to do. I’m only seeing you as a courtesy. You can leave now.”

            I know when I’m not wanted. But I had a hunch to follow. “One more question?”

            He leaned forward, hands gripping his chair’s armrests.

            “Where did XN come from?”

            Hawke shook his head. “We developed it. Together. What do you mean?”

            I shrugged. “Just wondering. It seems pretty sophisticated.”

            “It’s the best. In a few years we’ll be bigger than Microsoft.” He kicked his chair back to his desk. “If that’s all?”

            “Thanks for your time.” I left.

Rachel was working at my laptop when I came home. “I brought down the leftovers. You can heat them up.”

            “Great, thanks.” I tossed my jacket on the couch. “Find anything?”

            “Not much.” She stretched her arms. “I can’t get at the XN code at all, but it’s a shared app, not the whole platform. Not unless I try to hack their server. Which I can do with my mad hacking skills. Maybe.” She dropped her arms. “What are you looking at?”

            “You just . . . look nice.” I smiled and kissed her. “I’ll heat up dinner—”

            My phone buzzed. Damn it. Unknown number. “Hello, Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Mr. Jurgen?” The voice was a whisper. “It’s Tyler Finley. I worked at Hawke?”

            The guy at the front desk. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

            “I’ve got information. About Brent and the XN-12. Can we meet?”

            I dropped into a chair. “What do you have in mind?”

            “There’s a parking garage near the office. Ninth floor? In an hour?”

            I rolled my eyes. “What about Jamie Silvano?”

            “I can tell you about him too. But this is dangerous for me. You can’t tell anyone.”

            Right. “Look, Tyler, your co-worker got shot and killed in a garage. There is no way I’m meeting with you that’s not in a public place. So if you’ve got something to share with me, there’s a coffee shop where we can talk.” I gave him an address—a local neighborhood joint a few blocks from my apartment. “Two hours. I need to eat dinner.”

            “Okay, okay—” But I hung up.

            Rachel glared at me. “What was that?”

            “I’m not sure. Let’s eat.” I stood and headed for the kitchen. “You still have your stun gun?”

            “Fully charged.” She grinned. “We going to see some action?”

            I shuddered. “I hope not.”

Rachel sipped her latté, a small purse slung over her shoulder. “This doesn’t count as a date.”    

We sat in a corner, an espresso in front of me, watching the door. Rachel had her stun gun. I had . . . my wits? My taser was broken. Someday I’d have to get a sword cane or something.

            The door opened. Two young women, giggling. They staggered to the counter and flirted with the barista.

            The shop was half empty. “Could you move to a different table? Pretend you don’t know me? That would—I mean, you could protect me better.”

            Rachel snorted. “That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard from you.” She stood up with her latté.

            “Oh, come on, that’s not fair. I’ve had lots of good—”

            “Shush.” She sat down two tables away from me.

            The door opened again. This time it was Tyler.

            I sat up. Tyler looked around. Rachel grabbed a magazine from the nearby rack.

            Tyler sat down. “This is a bad idea. Anyone could see us.”

            “That’s the idea. No one saw Brent get shot, and I don’t want to end up like him. What can you tell me?”

            He sighed. “This guy Silvano had some crazy idea that the XN software is alien tech. He was pestering everybody in the company, so Arnie told everyone not to talk to him. If Brent was talking to him—”

            “Hawke would have killed him?” That seemed extreme.

            Tyler shook his head. “No, hell, no. But he was pretty adamant about nobody talking to Silvano. I can’t blame him—he called me, and he sounded like a total nutjob.”

            “So what makes Hawke so worried? Why are you so nervous?”

            “I just don’t want to lose my job. I’ve still got student loans and—”

            I looked over his shoulder as the door opened. A short man in a gray windbreaker stepped inside, looked around the shop, and then seemed to settle his eyes on the back of Tyler’s head.

            I tensed. I’d seen him in the Hawke offices today.

            He unzipped his jacket and reached down toward his belt. I saw a handgun, and thick fingers reaching for it. It was like a scene from The Sopranos.

            I lurched up and pointed. “Rachel! Get down!”

            Tyler immediately leaned down over the table, hands on top of his head.

            But Rachel was already on her feet, yanking her her stun gun from her purse. She lunged forward and jabbed it at the guy’s neck, pushing down on the stud.

            I grabbed my coffee and hurled it. The cup hit the guy’s chest as he dropped the handgun on the parquet. Rachel hit the stud a second time. He collapsed to his knees and then dropped to the floor twitching and flailing his arms.

            I fought the urge to throw up.

            Someone screamed. Customers scrambled to the doors. I saw the barista holding a phone to her cheek, her brown face shaking.

            Tyler rose up. “See? See? I told you! I’ve got to get out—”

            “Hang on a minute.” My voice was raspy from fear. I grabbed his arm. “He works with you. I saw him today.”

            “What?” he twisted around. “That’s—I don’t know. Maybe. Could be—”

            “And he wasn’t here for you.” My legs started to shake. “He was here to shoot me.”

            “W-what?” Tyler tried to pull free. “Come on, man—”

            “You didn’t look up, you didn’t turn around—you just put your hands over your head. You knew it was coming.” I shook him, the room spinning around me. “Did you set me up?”

            “Tom?” It was Rachel, her hand on my shoulder. “You all right?”

            “I’m fine. Just . . .” My legs gave up. Fortunately, my chair was close enough that I didn’t hit the floor. Instead I just leaned over the table and bit my lip, trying not to pass out.

            Bruce Willis I’m not.

            I managed to lift my head when two uniformed police officers charged through the door. “Okay, what’s going on?”

            “He’s got a gun.” Rachel pointed. “He tried to kill my boyfriend.”

            Tyler was gone.

It took a while to sort everything out.

            At first the cops thought it was a robbery attempt. But the barista and the few remaining patrons had seen the handgun and reported that the guy—whose name turned out to be Kurt Rowe, although he wouldn’t say anything else—hadn’t gone anywhere near the counter, which was in another part of the shop.

            They confiscated Rachel’s stun gun. She didn’t argue. Smart girl.

            I told them everything. The cops thought I was crazy, an occupational hazard in my job—especially when it comes to dealing with UFOs and aliens—but a call to Hendricks confirmed that my story was at least consistent with what I’d told him.

            So in the end they let us go home. I was banned from the coffee shop for life, but at least the cops arrested Rowe. He kept his mouth so tight I thought his lips would bleed.

            Rachel drove home. “There was something wrong with him,” she said, turning left. “I could feel it. The other guy too, but I thought that was just nerves.”

            Back in my apartment I got beers for us. I’m not supposed to drink because of my anti-anxiety medication, but I figured a beer would be better than a double dose of the medicine after the anxiety of having a handgun pulled on me.

We slouched on the sofa. I tapped my bottle to hers. “Thanks for saving me.”

            She shrugged and drank. “You always find the fun.”

            “Sorry about your stun gun.”

            “They gave me a receipt. I’ll get it back. In the meantime . . .” She yawned and stretched. “There’s always pepper spray.”

            “Yeah.” I sipped my beer cautiously. I hadn’t had one in a few weeks. I didn’t want to overdo it.

            “So what do you think?” Rachel leaned back and kicked off her shoes.

            “I think I’m no closer to finding Jamie Silvano than I was two days ago.” I’d have to call Rikki. Maybe tomorrow.

            “But Hawke is sure going over the top about something. I mean . . .” She set down her beer. “If this is his strategy? Killing one employee, sending another employee to set you up so a third employee can kill you? How is that a business plan?”

            She was right. “Maybe it’s not Hawke. Someone else in the company? Or . . .”

            Oh, no.

            I staggered to my laptop. My knees were shaky. Not because of the beer, but because of the leftover stress of almost getting killed. “Let me check something.”

            “Mind if I watch TV?” Rachel picked up the remote.

            “Knock your socks off. Except Westworld. I’m not caught up.”

            “Friends it is.” She hit a button.

            I went back to Silvano’s Hawke file, and brought up the folder with documents and images. “Hey, can you take a look at this?”

            Rachel groaned. “I’m not even through the theme song! And this is the one with Joey’s Porsche.” But she got up and walked around the table. “What is that?”

            “Some kind of code?” I wasn’t a programmer.

            “No code I’ve ever seen.” She tapped down. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m just a poor starving graphic designer with an idiot boyfriend, but this looks like . . . I don’t know, English translated into ancient Etruscan and then translated back into English. Except, you know, in some kind of programming language I’ve never seen.”

            “Alien code?”

            She punched my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

            I leaned back and reached for my beer. “Tyler said Silvano thought Xan was based on alien technology. He expected me to be killed. Like you said, it doesn’t make sense for Hawke to start killing people. So what if . . .”

            “XN is an alien?”

            I nodded. “Yeah.”