Skeleton Coast - Cussler Clive. Страница 21

He took a sip of rich Kona coffee, noted the service set, and smiled.

Two of the things that enabled him to recruit and keep some of the best from America’s armed forces and intelligence services were he paid well and spared no expense on his crew, be it pricey china in the mess hall and Le Cordon Bleu–trained chefs in the galley or the decorating allowance he gave each new team member to redo their private cabins. Mark Murphy had used up most of his budget on a sound system that could shake barnacles off the hull. Linda Ross had engaged a New York City decorator in her cabin, while Linc’s was as Spartan as a Navy barracks—the money instead going toward the Harley-Davidson he kept in the hold.

TheOregon sported a large fitness facility with saunas, and when not on an assignment one of her ballast wants could be half filled and turned into an Olympic-length swimming pool. The men and women of the Corporation lived well, but as exemplified in this most recent mission, they also lived dangerously. Every member of the crew was a stockholder and while the officers enjoyed the lion’s share of the profits, Juan’s favorite task at the end of an operation was signing bonus checks for the technicians and auxiliary personnel. That would total some $500,000 for the job they’d just pulled off.

He was just about to start typing his report to Langston Overholt, his old friend at the CIA who brought the Corporation a great deal of business, when someone knocked on his door.

“Come.”

Linda Ross and Mark Murphy stepped into his cabin. Where Linda was perky and petite, Murph was gangly and awkward with shaggy dark hair, a goatee that a single swipe with a razor would erase, and a habit of wearing nothing but black. One of the few on the ship without a military background, Mark was a certified genius who had earned his Ph.D. by the time he was twenty. He’d gone into R&D for a defense contractor where he’d met Eric Stone, who was in the Navy then, but a short-timer with a contract to come and work for Juan. Eric had convinced Cabrillo that the young weapons expert would be a perfect fit for the Corporation, and in the three years since, and despite Murph’s taste for punk music and how he would turn the ship’s deck into a skateboard park, Juan couldn’t have agreed more.

Cabrillo glanced at the antique chronograph across from his desk. “Either you two completely struck out or you hit a home run to get back to me this quickly.”

“Let’s say we’re on third,” Murph said, adjusting the bundle of papers in his arms. “And for the record I don’t like sports metaphors because I don’t get them half the time.”

“So this was a slam dunk more than a Hail Mary.” Juan grinned.

“If you say so.”

They took seats opposite Juan who cleared a bunch of papers off his desk. “Okay, what do you have?”

“Where do you want to start?” Linda asked. “The kidnapping or the company?”

“Let’s start with the background first so I know who we’re dealing with.” Juan laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling while Linda began her report. It might have been rude not to look her in the eye but it was one of his quirks when concentrating.

“Geoffrey Merrick, age fifty-one. Divorced with two grown children, both of whom spend their time blowing through their father’s money by chasing paparazzi so they can end up in tabloids. The wife is an artist living in New Mexico and keeps a low profile.

“Merrick graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT exactly one day younger than Mark was when he received his, and partnered up with another alum, Daniel Singer, to form Merrick/Singer, a materials research company. The firm has applied for and received eighty patents in the past twenty-five-odd years and the company has grown from the two of them in a rented space outside Boston to a campus near Geneva, Switzerland, with a staff of a hundred and sixty.

“As you may know, their biggest patent is for an organic-based system to filter up to ninety percent of the sulfur out of the smoke emitted by coal-fired power plants. A year after it was issued Merrick/Singer went public and both men became billionaires. That isn’t to say there wasn’t a lot of controversy at the time, which still echoes today. Environmental groups say that even with the scrubbers, coal plants are too dirty and should be shut down. Numerous lawsuits are still pending and new ones are being filed every year.”

“Could ecoterrorists have abducted Merrick?” Juan interrupted.

“The Swiss police are looking into that possibility,” Linda said. “But it doesn’t seem likely. What would be the point? Getting back to the story: Ten years after they hit it big with their IPO, a rift developed between Merrick and his partner. Up until this time the two had been as close as brothers. They always appeared together at press conferences. Their families even vacationed together. Then, in the span of a couple of months, Singer seemed to have gone through a personality change. He started siding with the environmentalists in the suits brought against his own company and eventually forced Merrick to buy him out entirely. His shares were valued at two point four billion and Merrick had to scramble to come up with that kind of cash. To make it happen he had to personally buy back all the shares of Merrick/Singer.

It nearly bankrupted him.”

“Real Cain and Abel type stuff,” Mark Murphy interjected.

“At the time it was front-page news in all the financial papers.”

“What’s Singer been doing since?”

“After his wife left him he’s been living on the coast of Maine near where he grew up. Up until about five years ago he was using his wealth to support all kinds of environmental causes, some on the extreme side of things. Then he suddenly filed fraud claims against a number of environmental groups saying they had bilked him. Said the whole movement was just a way for the people in charge of the various charities to make money for themselves and that they did nothing to really help the planet. The suits are still pending, though Singer himself has pretty much dropped out of sight.”

“So he’s some kind of hermit now?”

“No. Just real low-key. While doing the research I got the sense that Merrick was the front man and Singer the brains, even though they shared the podium. Merrick glad-handed everyone and really knew his way around Capitol Hill and later in the halls of power in Bern when they moved the company to Switzerland. He wore the thousand-dollar suits while Singer sported jeans and a poorly knotted tie.

Merrick loved the limelight and Singer the shadows. I think since leaving the company he’s just reverted back to his introverted self.”

“Doesn’t sound like a criminal mastermind to me,” Juan said.

“I don’t think so, either. He’s just a scientist with a fat wallet.”

“Okay, so we’re stuck with a kidnapping for ransom—or is there anyone else out there gunning for Merrick?”

“Since the showdown with Singer, the company’s been running smoothly.”

“What exactly do they do?”

“Now that they’re privately held, it’s mostly pure research funded by Merrick. They still receive a few patents a year, nothing earth-shattering, just a better molecular glue for some esoteric application or a foam that can withstand a few tenths of a degree more than something else already on the market.”

“Anything someone would try to steal through industrial espionage?”

“Nothing we could find, but they could be working on something in secret.”

“Okay, we’ll keep that in mind. Tell me about the kidnapping itself.”

Mark straightened in his chair. “Merrick and a researcher named Susan Donleavy were seen by the security guard at the main building on their campus at seven last night chatting on their way out the door.

Merrick had a dinner date with reservations for eight o’clock. Donleavy lives alone and apparently didn’t have plans.