Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Page 4

  “I know, Jackson. You explained that on the plane. I just don’t know why this can’t be done long distance.”

  “I explained that too. He needs to feel our fear. I need him to think he’s been dropped right into the middle of this. I meet him face to face and that works. A phone call or an email doesn’t cut it.”

  “He’ll only blab to Sir Spencer.”

  “I don’t care if he does. In fact, it may be helpful if Sir Spencer thinks he knows what we’re up to.”

  “Maybe,” she sighs.

  “Trust me on this, Bella. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I do trust you, Jackson.” She turns back to the window. “I always do.” Though she doesn’t sound convinced, even her tacit complicity will do until I prove to her this will work.

  Houston was my home for a short time years ago. I remembered it gleaming, a city with a half dozen skylines and infinite promise. One of those towers houses Nanergetix, the techno-energy company founded by Bella’s late father and led by her until we had to jump headfirst off of the grid.

  Bella cranes her neck to look at the glass and steel of her former home. There’s a sadness glistening in her eyes that she can’t hide. She folds her arms and presses them against her chest.

  Home is no longer home for her either.

  The car slows and the driver takes the exit, merging into the traffic that’s building at a traffic light a hundred yards ahead.

  “Sorry about the delay,” he says, gesturing at the parade of brake lights ahead of us. “Can’t help Houston traffic.”

  “No problem,” I say. “We get there when we get there.”

  “How far is it from here?” Bella asks.

  “We’ll take a left,” I reply. “Then a few blocks to the right.”

  “He’s going to be surprised, isn’t he?”

  I chuckle. “Yeah. He won’t be expecting me. In fact, the last time we talked, I gave him the distinct impression he’d never hear from me again. Not after what he did.”

  ***

  The KCLA television studios were headquartered in an area known as The Montrose. It’s as close to an Austin vibe as Houston gets: a vibrant neighborhood offering a mix of tattoo parlors, secondhand shops, and international cuisine. A lot of the older, larger homes double as offices for architects and lawyers.

  “No need to wait for us,” I tell the driver. “Could you just pop the trunk please so we can grab our bags?”

  “Sure thing,” he says. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

  “We’re good,” I hand him a hundred dollar bill. “That cover it?”

  “You need change?” he asks, his eyes wide at the possibility of a large tip.

  “Keep it.”

  I’m already out of the car when he thanks me. Bella and I meet at the trunk, each of us grabbing our large backpacks.

  “You want me to get yours?” I ask, reaching for her bag.

  She smiles. “That’s sweet. I got it. You have more than enough heavy lifting to do.” She slings the heavy bag onto her shoulder and leads me to the front of the building, leaving me to wonder if that was a back handed compliment or not a compliment at all.

  The large glass frontage was etched with the News 4 logo, a modern looking number four connected to a circle surrounding it. I pull open the brushed chrome handle and follow Bella into the large, mid-century modern lobby.

  With its high ceiling and stained concrete flooring, the lobby has a Mad Men feel to it. I half expect to see Don Draper traipse through, cigarette dripping from his lips, his pencil-skirted secretary swooning by his side with a legal pad.

  Instead, it’s a uniformed security guard sitting behind the wood veneer desk, a ledger and a newspaper in front of him, a bank of flat panel monitors and a phone to his side.

  “May I help you?” he asks flatly, then curls his nose to sniff loudly.

  I smile as broadly as my cheeks allow. “Yes. I’m here to see George Townsend.”

  “Is he expecting you?” He glances down at what I assume is a phone extension list and runs his fingers down to T.

  “No, but he knows me.”

  “Does he?” The guard glances up with doubt and without moving his finger from the directory. “And how does he know you?” His eyes narrow. He glances at Bella and back at me.

  “I’ve done some work with him in past.”

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Spencer Thomas.”

  “And your name, ma’am?”

  “Bella Quick,” she says, slipping her fingers through mine.

  The guard, whose brass nameplate affixed to his white uniform shirt reads HARNAGE, pushes a button on the phone without taking his eyes off of me, and then pulls the receiver to cradle it between his ear and neck. He punches another series of numbers and offers a wet sniff.

  “Allergies?” I ask. “I never had them until I moved to Houston.”

  Harnage nods and sniffs again. “Ragweed,” he says. “Gets me every time. That and the oak pollen.”

  “The oak pollen is the worst.” I don’t have allergies, but everyone else in Houston does or claims to suffer from them. It’s like a badge of honor or something. Asking someone about their allergies in Houston is akin to talking about the Yankees in New York City or the surf on the North Shore.

  “Tell me about it,” Harnage says, rolling his eyes. “It’s always—” he holds up a finger with one hand and pulls the receiver to his mouth with the other. “Mr. Townsend, you have two guests in the lobby. A Mr. Spencer Thomas and a Ms. Bella Quick. Do you know them?”

  George’s muffled voice responds with what I imagine is a mix of recognition, confusion, and fear. Harnage nods a couple of times and then hangs up.

  “He’s on his way to greet you,” Harnage says and clears his throat of the ragweed.

  Behind us a door swings open and into the lobby walks investigative reporter George Townsend. His ashen complexion finds another shade of pallid when he realizes it’s me and not Sir Spencer awaiting him.

  I turn to offer my hand. “Hello, George. That was fast. Good to see you buddy.”

  He takes my hand with a limp grip and stammers to say hello. Bella stands next to me and crosses her arms in front of her. She’s not playing the game with him.

  “Jackson,” he whispers, “what are you…”

  “I need your help, George. And seeing as how you owe me one…”

  He nods vacantly and then steps back toward the door leading from the lobby to the rest of the building. “Let’s talk in the conference room,” he says. “Better than out here.”

  Bella and I grab our bags and start to follow him into the bowels of the station. He stops and looks past us to talk to Harnage.

  “Mike,” he says to the guard, “I’ll have them with me. They’re good to go.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Townsend,” Harnage says and pushes a button under his desk to release the lock on the door.

  “This way.” George holds the door for us and I notice sweat beading on his forehead when we walk past him.

  ***

  The newsroom is a hive of activity at four-thirty in the afternoon. Bathed in the unforgiving light of overhead halogens, the cavernous space is honeycombed with a couple dozen cubicles to one side. On the other end of the newsroom is what resembles the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. There are six or seven wide desks, each adorned with triplets of computer monitors. The worker bees, wearing headphones, clack away at their keyboards, producing content for the two hours of news KCLA is in the midst of producing.

  “The reporters’ desks are over there,” George points to the honeycomb. Most of the desks are empty, aside from the occasional potted pothos plant or regional Emmy statue.

  “And over here,” he references the command center as we walk past it, “is where all of the producers and writers sit.
They edit the video at their computer terminals. That’s why they have the three monitors. One is for script writing, a second for web browsing, and a third for video viewing and editing.”

  “It’s changed since I was in the business,” I mumble.

  “It’s still changing,” George laments. “Every day it’s more and more about digital content and satisfying the growing mobile audience.”

  “Where’s the assignment desk?” I ask as we shuffle out of the newsroom and into a narrow hallway lined with a pair of doors on either side.

  “We don’t have one,” he says, shouldering open one of the doors to the right. He walks in and a motion sensitive light flickers to life. “The producers and associate producers answer the phones. The assignment manager handles dispatch and fields story pitches from the producer pods. Interns also field calls.”

  “Interns?” asks Bella.

  We find ourselves in a comfortable room furnished with Kandinsky imitations on the wall and a large, round wooden table. Around the table are a dozen high-backed, chrome and cream-colored leather chairs.

  “They’re paid,” says George, offering us seats. “It’s a competitive process. They’re smart kids who are stupid enough to want to get into local television. I have one who works for my investigative team. She’s helpful.” George pulls out a chair and then sits down, leaning back and taking a deep breath.

  “So how have you been, George?” Bella starts, despite never having met the intrepid reporter.

  “Bella Quick?” he responds without answering the question. “I guess best wishes are in order. Where are you registered?” His hands are clasped, resting on his belly. His 120 thread-count shirt is straining against the expanse, revealing the exact spot of his naval. He’s gained a few since I saw him last. I’m not judging him. It’s merely an observation.

  “That’s sweet,” Bella says, “but we’re just trying on the name for size. Nothing official yet.”

  “Okay then. What do you want?” George turns to me. “Why are you here? And why did you say you were Sir Spencer?”

  “I wanted to see the look on your face, first of all. Secondly, I don’t go around using my real name much anymore. And third, I’m here because, as I said in the lobby, I need your help.”

  “Because I owe you,” he says.

  “Yep,” Bella says.

  “All right,” he says, rocking back and forth in the chair, studying both of us. “I’ll bite. How may I be of service?”

  In an instant, he has morphed from nervous to overly confident. His attitude is surprising to me. Even though I’m visiting him out of the blue, zapping the blood from his brain and the feeling from his toes, he shouldn’t be mad at me.

  He’s the one who betrayed me. After I gave him the goods to help put a governor in prison, and went to him seeking information about Liho Blogis, he turns around and pitches a tent with Sir Spencer.

  “Don’t have an attitude with us,” Bella says. “When Jackson reached out to you for your expertise, you turned around and gave everything to Sir Spencer.” She leans in to the desk. “Do you know how many times we almost died because of him?”

  George stops rocking, aware of the sudden chill in the room. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But you gotta look at it from my standpoint.”

  “What standpoint is that?” Bella asks, in boardroom mode now.

  “I knew that you employed Jackson to look for some formula—”

  “A process,” she cuts in.

  “Process…formula…” he waves his hands to shake her off, “whatever. What I knew was that Jackson was flying around the world to help you find something having to do with solar neutrinos. He needed information about neutrinos, he needed information about Liho Blogis, and, come to think of it, he wanted information about you too.” His eyes dart from Bella’s to mine. There’s a sudden glint of satisfaction in his eyes, like a kid who blurts out an admission of guilt to an angry parent while simultaneously implicating an older, unsuspecting sibling.

  Uh oh.

  Without missing a beat, Bella shoots back, “Like I don’t know that. What are you, a narc now?”

  “No. I—I just—” George stammers.

  “Just what? Thought you could deflect? This is about you, George, and what you did. Not about Jackson. Not about me. Get to the stuff that matters.”

  George shrinks into his seat, the leather squeaking against his back, his spare tire deflating. “I knew that Jackson was on a scavenger hunt. Your people were working on some fantastic use for solar neutrinos. The ingredients went missing. You wanted him to help find them. Sir Spencer was in the mix too, somehow. Jackson wanted to know what the neutrinos might be used for.”

  “And what did you tell him?” Bella’s interrogating him like I’m not even in the room. “What did you learn about solar neutrinos, George?”

  “I knew they were so-called ‘ghost particles,’” he says. “They were a product of nuclear fusion and billions of them pass through the Earth every second.”

  “That estimate is low,” Bella corrects.

  “Whatever. They’re tiny and they’re nuclear, and they’re invisible.”

  “What else?” Bella prods.

  “There’s research going on all over the planet. There was your place in South Dakota, Illinois, Canada, India, Switzerland…”

  “And?”

  “From what I could tell, there are a couple of possible applications for these things,” George says. “The most obvious is using them for underwater communication. The other has to do with nuclear fission, maybe the detection of nuclear facilities.” He leans forward on the conference table, planting his elbows shoulder-width apart.

  “That it?” Bella raises a dubious eyebrow.

  George shrugs. “Yeah.”

  Bella drops her hands onto the table, rubbing her palms back and forth on the shellacked wood, “What did Sir Spencer tell you about them?”

  “What do you mean?” George’s brow furrows with apparent confusion.

  “You did your cursory research on neutrinos,” she explains. “You told Jackson what you knew. But then Sir Spencer got involved.”

  “Well,” George’s eyes roll with his recall, “that’s not really what happened.”

  Bella sits silently, awaiting the rest of George’s confession.

  “Jackson here,” he nods at me with his chin, “told me that Nanergetix had come up with a way to detect nuclear reactors. He told me the pieces to that process were missing. He promised me additional details and confirmation from you, Bella Quick, if I helped him gain intelligence on Liho Blogis.”

  “That’s not—” I try to interrupt to protect myself from this blindsiding.

  “That’s exactly what happened Jackson,” he says. “I’ve got notes.”

  “Ohhhh,” Bella mocks. “You’ve got notes.” She waves her fingers above her head as though she’s frightened by the prospect of notes.

  “I do,” George sits up straight in his leather seat. “And I gave him the info on Blogis.”

  “Where did you get that information?” I ask, knowing the answer already.

  “Sir Spencer.”

  “Why did you go to him?” Bella asks.

  “I wanted the story,” George shrugs, eyeing Bella as if she’s asked the most idiotic question in the history of idiotic questions. “I knew Sir Spencer had far reaching hands. And, actually, I didn’t go to him. He came to me.”

  “If I recall,” I interject, “all of the information you gave me came from Sir Spencer. No sooner Bella and I were on the run and he was on the phone with you.”

  His silence is agreement.

  “So,” I look over at Bella while talking to George, “we need you to flip the script this time.”

  “What do you mean?” He shakes his head.

  “He made you promises about network jobs, r
ight?” I ask.

  George nods, his eyes at the floor now.

  “They didn’t happen, right?” I ask the second most idiotic question ever.

  “No.”

  “So he owes you,” I reason.

  “Riiight,” George laughs. “Sir Spencer owes nobody. You know that more than anybody.”

  “Reach out to him,” I instruct. “Get him interested in what we’re doing. Tell him we came to see you today, that you can help him again if he follows through on his unfulfilled promise. Then get back to me at the number on this card and tell me what how he reacts.” I slide a business card across the table. It’s blank except for the burner number scribbled in black ink.

  George says exactly what I knew he would say. “What’s in it for me?”

  “A story,” Bella says. “The whole story. When this is over, and it will be with your help, you’ll get everything you didn’t get after Germany happened.”

  George slides the card off the edge of the table to grip it. He flips it over and looks at the number. He purses his lips in contemplation, feigning true consideration of his options.

  “Okay,” he pretends to relent. “I’m in.”

  I knew he would be.

  CHAPTER 4

  “You never mentioned your lack of trust in me,” Bella says mildly, sipping from a grande Americano from one of three Starbucks on the corner of South Shepherd Drive and West Gray Street.

  Really. There are three of the ubiquitous coffee shops on one corner. Two of them are freestanding and one is inside a Barnes and Noble. How many coffee sirens does one corner need? The irony that Bella and I are perilously stuck between our own Scylla and Charybdis is not lost on me.

  We’re sitting in the back corner, both of us with our backs to the wall. We’ve gotten into the unfortunate habit of not letting down our collective guard, except with each other.

  “It wasn’t that…” I hedge before she grabs my hand.

  “C’mon, Jackson,” she interrupts. “Don’t be coy. It’s okay. I’m not upset.”

  “I’m not being coy. It’s just that when I was unsure of you and what your endgame was, I wasn’t going to tell you that I was suspicious.”