Primitive Weapons, page 5
“Huh,” Gary said. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“Me either.”
The door opened and Tye flipped the book closed and put it on the shelf with the speed of a teenage boy caught looking at something he shouldn’t. Wescomb and Harold Aria entered, followed by Owen Gaunt.
“Mr. Caine.” Adrienne Wescomb nodded at him but made no effort to shake hands. She ignored Gary completely.
“Howdy,” Tye said.
“Let’s be seated. Claudia will join us shortly.”
Wescomb took a seat at the head of the table. Servers put small plates in front of everyone, setting an extra place for Claudia. The salad consisted of greens in a pile the size of Tye’s palm, covered with a little oil. His stomach rumbled, and he hoped nobody heard it.
“Do you pay attention to your diet, Mr. Caine?” Wescomb asked.
“Uh… yes.”
“How so?”
“I try not to eat too much junk food.”
Wescomb sneered. “That’s a start. At WELL!, we eat in alignment with our chakras. It purifies the blood, aligns the body and mind, and allows for peak productivity.”
“That sounds nice. WELL! is your other company?”
She looked at him like he’d said something rude. “I don’t see divisions in my work. They are all different facets of the same diamond.”
He had no idea how to reply to that but was saved by Claudia’s arrival. She looked like she’d been crying. She took a seat across from Tye, not making eye contact with anyone.
The servers came around with wine. Tye declined. He still felt fuzzy and not quite awake after dozing off during Adrienne’s speech.
Claudia took a sip of her wine and looked at Gary. “I liked your homemade wine better.”
Gary lifted his glass and an eyebrow in her direction.
“Tye, how about you tell us of your plan to find my husband?”
Claudia’s words were a little slurred, and Tye wondered if this wasn’t her first glass of wine, or if she’d been taking something else to help manage her anxiety.
“I need some more information. When were Kenning and Mercer last seen?”
“You’ve been here for hours,” Claudia said. “You still don’t know these things?” She looked at Wescomb instead of Tye.
“I still have a company to run,” Wescomb said. “It’s even harder with two of the principles gone.”
Owen Gaunt had been toying with his salad. Tye didn’t think the man had eaten a bite. He put his fork down and looked at Wescomb. “Maybe a little compassion is in order.” He said it with a smirk. Tye got the feeling he was sitting down to dinner with a dysfunctional family instead of a bunch of people who ran a business together.
“The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get back to work,” Wescomb said. “Send in Eric Holm.”
Tye wasn’t sure who she was talking to, but apparently someone was listening, because maybe thirty seconds later there was a knock on the door.
“Let him in,” Wescomb said.
The door clicked and a man in his thirties walked in. He was athletic, with a shaved head. He wore what was apparently the standard Ovate security uniform: black cargo pants with a red polo shirt. He didn’t carry any weapons that Tye could see. The only things attached to his belt were an oversized phone and a folding multi-tool.
Wescomb gestured at Tye with her fork. “Tell him about Stefan and Clay.”
Holm nodded. “Two nights ago, Mr. Kenning and Mr. Mercer shut off their enhancement devices, exited the compound, and haven’t been seen since.”
“What’s an enhancement device?” Tye asked.
Claudia answered for him. “That’s what Adrienne likes to call your cellphone after she loads her little bundle of software onto it that monitors your every move.”
“We use technology to relieve ourselves of the inane details of ordinary life,” Wescomb said. “Most people move through life like cattle, using technology to numb and entertain. We use it to achieve greatness.”
Claudia opened her mouth, but Tye cut her off. He was finally hearing some details about the case, and he didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Exited the compound how?”
“They have to have exited via the main gate,” Holm said. “One transporter is missing.”
“I’m guessing transporter is what you call one of those golf cart things I’ve seen you guys driving.”
Holm sniffed. “It’s much more advanced than a golf cart, but yes.”
“Wait a minute,” Gary said. “This place has video cameras all over the place. What do they show?”
Holm shifted from one foot to the other. “At the same time Mr. Kenning and Mr. Mercer left the compound, we experienced a system-wide outage that lasted almost an hour.”
Gaunt speared a tomato with his fork and held it up in front of him like he was inspecting a rare specimen. “What dear Eric is trying to tell you is everything went off-line. Electricity. Cameras. The security system.”
“You don’t have back-up power?” Tye asked.
“We have a fantasy of powering this entire operation with guilt-free solar, but the reality is we rely on a pair of backup diesel generators,” Gaunt said. “They’re fine. The master system that controls everything had a minor hiccup there for a while.”
“So what have you done to find the two of them?” Tye asked.
“Our drones have been flying a pre-programmed search pattern over the island. The image-recognition software hasn’t detected either them or the vehicle.”
“Drones. Did you actually go look?”
Again, that shift from foot to foot. “No. The drones are more efficient.”
“How about tracks?”
“Tracks?” Holm asked.
“You know, marks on the ground. Footprints. Tire impressions. That sort of thing.”
He wouldn’t meet Tye’s gaze. “We’ve relied on the drones.”
“No one has even checked outside the fence? They could be hurt fifty yards away in the tall grass and you’d never know it.”
“Oh, let’s cut the shit.” Claudia slammed her wineglass down, slopping some over the side onto the immaculate tablecloth. “We all know you haven’t been looking because Adrienne told you not to.”
Holm opened his mouth, looked at Wescomb, then shut it.
“What gives you that idea?” Wescomb said.
“He told me, Adrienne. My husband told me it’s all a lie. Your software doesn’t work. It’s a fake. You’ve raised billions of venture capital for a product that doesn’t work.”
9
Wescomb was preternaturally still for a moment. Tye watched her, fascinated at how long she could go without blinking. Ostensibly, she was an attractive woman, despite the monochromatic clothes and the severe ponytail. Tye had realized he had subconscious recognition for her face. He couldn’t say exactly when or where, but he knew he’d seen her on the covers of magazines as he waited in grocery store lines and such. But there was something off about her. The word that kept coming to mind was “reptilian.”
“Eric, please leave the room.”
The head of security spun on his heel and left.
Wescomb looked up at the corner of the room. “Delete recording, last sixty seconds. Stop recording until I say otherwise.”
She waited until a soft chime sounded from a hidden speaker, then nodded and looked at Tye and Gary.
“I’d like to remind both of you of the non-disclosure agreements you signed. Our lawyers can leave you penniless.”
“Wouldn’t be much of a change,” Gary said under his breath.
Tye didn’t like being threatened. His default response was to look the person in the eye and dare them to carry through on the threat. But he thought of losing the property and that made him take a deep breath and slow down.
“I don’t care about your trade secrets and your technology,” Tye said. “Until an hour ago, I’d never even used a smart phone. I’ve made it this far in life without one, and I figure I’ll just keep going. I’m happy to sit up on my mountain, and the rest of you people can screw around on your screens and drive yourselves crazy.”
At his mention of not owning a smart phone, Wescomb’s head cocked to one side like a dog who’d heard something it didn’t understand.
“The thing is,” Tye continued, “Claudia here hired me to find her husband, and that’s what I aim to do. I’m getting damned tired of being jerked around, attending motivational seminars and being threatened. I need pictures of both of the missing men, an honest assessment of their outdoor skills and habits, and any maps you might have of the island. I think there’s a pretty good chance they left for their own reasons, but if they’re out there hurt somewhere, we need to quit screwing around and find them.”
The room was silent for a few seconds, except for the whir of a ventilation fan hidden somewhere in the ceiling.
“Mr. Caine’s requests seem reasonable,” Aria said. “His work will take him outside the fence. He can hardly secure any sensitive information out there among the wildebeests, or whatever it is running around out there.”
“That would keep me from having my lawyer release my package of information to the media,” Claudia said. She turned to look at Tye and Gary. “Adrienne thinks if we feed the system enough data, she can predict everything. Not just what people will buy. Where they will go. Who they will marry. How they will vote. She is going nuts attracting venture capital. She bats her eyes at rich men, talks to them in that fake husky voice of hers, and they throw millions of dollars at her. But it’s all fake. She calls the software Next Level, but it doesn’t work. It can’t predict anything important better than random chance.”
Wescomb’s head swiveled slowly, and she fixed her gaze on Claudia, who returned it without blinking. Tye would have expected Wescomb to display some sign of anger, but her gaze was coolly calculating. Once again, Tye thought of a reptile sizing up its prey.
“Your husband is divorcing you,” Wescomb said. “He talked to a lawyer right before he came to the island. It’s hard to have secrets here at Ovate. Or maybe you already knew that? If he dies before the divorce is final, all the issues around money would be far less complicated, wouldn’t they?”
Claudia’s face drained of color. Tye was sometimes not good at the finer points of human emotion, but even he could see that she hadn’t known that. Without another word, she stood and walked to the door. When she tried to turn the handle, it didn’t budge.
Wescomb let her stand there for a moment before saying, “Let her out.”
There was a faint buzz. Claudia opened the door and walked out. For a brief second the burble of conversation drifted in, then the door shut with a thud and it was quiet again.
Tye turned to Aria. He seemed like the most reasonable one.
“If Kenning and Mercer have rooms here on the island, it would be helpful if I could look around,” Tye said. It often helped to examine a subject’s living quarters to give him a sense of what the person was like.
Aria looked at Wescomb.
She waved a hand. “Fine. Make sure Eric is with them at all times so they don’t make off with something shiny.”
With that, she got up and stalked out of the room. Gaunt followed her, flipping them all a sardonic wave on the way out. The servers appeared and started clearing plates. Apparently, if Wescomb wasn’t eating, nobody else was either.
Eric Holm appeared in the doorway again. Tye thought it was creepy how people popped in and out of view like that. He wondered if all rich people lived this way.
“If you two gentlemen will follow me, we’ll find you an unoccupied conference room to work in. My staff is putting together a briefing for you right now.”
Dinner was being served in the main dining room. More servers were walking around, distributing what Tye figured must be the main course. He wasn’t exactly sure what was on the plates, but the portions looked almighty small.
“Is there food fit for a man to eat?” Gary asked. “We were a little underwhelmed by the salad.”
It might have been Tye’s imagination, but he thought the corners of Holm’s mouth quirked up. “All of Ovate’s regular employees follow the WELL! dietary regime while they are on the island. If you’d like, I can have food delivered from the contract staff kitchen. I believe Inez made carne asada tonight.”
“That sounds like just the ticket,” Gary said.
Holm led them around the perimeter of the dining hall. Inspirational slogans like “Be Your Best!” and “You Have the Power!” were projected on the ceiling, along with pictures of Wescomb speaking in front of crowds. Each table sat exactly four people, and they all seemed to attempt not to see Tye, Gary, and Holm as they walked past.
In the conference room, Holm gave them two tablets loaded with files. Before they looked at the tablets, a fellow holding two appetizing plates of food came in the room.
“That’s more like it,” Gary said. “If you’d just plop those down, my friend, we’ll make sure they come to good use.”
The young man obliged, then brought them some water. Both men ate in silence for a while. During a search, they were accustomed to enjoying cooked food when it was available, since they didn’t know when they would have their next chance.
“If a fellow leaves here hungry, it’s his fault,” Gary said after pushing his plate away. “That was good.”
“I agree. Let’s check out these tablets.”
They were mostly pictures of Kenning and Mercer. It included their height and weight, which were useful, and some pictures of both of them out on various expeditions. Tye studied them carefully, noting gear—boots in particular—that each man wore.
The two were obviously adventure buddies. There were pictures from peaks Tye recognized: Denali, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Shasta. There were also some he suspected were from the Himalayas and the Andes, places Tye had never been able to afford. Kenning was the only one of the pair that hunted. There were a bunch of pictures with deer and elk. He mostly seemed to prefer a tricked-out modern compound bow, although there were some pictures with a Weatherby rifle as well.
Tye studied the pictures with the bow. He hunted with a longbow, a weapon far less complicated than the modern compound, with its pulleys, sights, arrow rests, and various other gadgets, but he knew a little about them from guiding other hunters. He couldn’t puzzle out the intricacies of the bow, but he was more interested in the arrows.
Kenning was using heavy, single-blade broadheads on his arrows. They were a bit of an anachronism on a modern bow. Most modern archery hunters used tricky mechanical broadheads that sprang open on impact. They flew wonderfully but often failed to kill game cleanly. Kenning was choosing to limit his range in favor of using an arrow more likely to penetrate deeply into an animal.
“It looks like these two hike and backpack pretty frequently?” Tye asked.
Holm fidgeted. “I can’t say much about their personal habits.”
“But don’t they stay here all the time?”
Holm took a deep breath.
“I think what he’s trying to tell you is he signed the same non-disclosure agreement you did,” Gary said. “Maybe his is even worse.”
Holm relaxed, and Tye shut off the tablet in disgust. “You’d think they could bend that since the two guys disappeared.”
Holm looked up in the room’s corner. “I’ve received no such instructions,” he said in a tone that was barely above a whisper.
“I guess the next step would be to look at their rooms,” Tye said.
“Adrienne directed me to accompany you.”
The server came in and grabbed their plates. “Can I get you two gentlemen some coffee?”
Tye considered for a minute. “You mean to drink?”
The kid looked at him like he was crazy. “Of course.”
“It’s um… fresh, right?”
Gary looked at him. “I doubt they reuse it after… you know.”
“I guess I’ll have some, then.”
10
Mercer’s room was small and exceedingly messy. It was like a hotel room, a single room with a bed and a desk, and an attached bathroom. Dirty clothes were strewn on the floor and empty soda cans decorated the desk. There was a computer monitor and mess of disconnected cables, but no computer.
Tye hated clutter and disorder. He was used to living in small spaces. His yurt was a big step up from the number of years he’d spent living in the back of his truck. When he was surrounded by a mess like this, he quickly felt claustrophobic.
Several pairs of shoes lay on the floor. They were all loafers or sneakers, not outdoor boots.
“Not seeing a backpack,” Gary said.
“Nope,” Tye said. He looked in the closet. In several photos Mercer had been wearing a distinctive mid-layer jacket from an upscale outdoor clothing manufacturer. It wasn’t in the room.
Kenning’s room was much neater. Three empty hangers hung in the closet, and the shoe rack at the bottom had an open space. In Kenning’s pictures he’d been wearing a pair of Schnee’s boots. Tye wondered if they belonged in the missing spot. Again, there was no backpack or shell layer hanging in the closet.
There was a hard plastic case on the floor. Inside was space for a complete archery hunting rig, with separate compartments in the foam liner. The bow was missing, as were all the arrows but two. The carbon-fiber shaft of one arrow was cracked, the other had a chunk missing from the plastic vane. Tye rooted around in the case and found a plastic box with a pair of broadheads inside.
He handled the arrowheads carefully. He recognized the brand because he used the same kind himself. They were over an inch wide and almost three inches long. They had a single-bevel edge on each side, like a razor blade, and Kenning had sharpened and polished these so they reflected light.
Tye tried one on his arm; the hair popped off. He would have no problems shaving his beard if he wanted to.
Gary whistled. “That took some work.”
“Yeah.” This type of arrowhead was notoriously difficult to sharpen. The steel was so hard it might take hours with successively finer hones to get this kind of edge.
