The name of the most expensive and most influential law firm in Washington made John smile a little. “I’ve already got them working on your behalf. Maybe they can persuade the SEC in advance that they’re acting recklessly.”
Cole instructed his secretary to cancel the call. Satisfied that a combination of expensive legal talent and lack of proof would cause the SEC to drop the whole thing, he leaned back in his chair again and subjected Nederly to a thoughtful scrutiny.
“Anything else you want to talk about?” the lawyer asked.
“Your tie,” Cole said blandly.
Nederly seemed to be as alarmed by the potential slur on his perfect appearance as he’d been by the various threats to Cole and Unified that they’d just discussed. “What’s wrong with my tie?”
“It’s very conservative.”
“You always wear conservative ties, too.”
“Not anymore,” Cole said, amused by the discovery that the immaculately groomed lawyer had apparently been imitating him.
Chapter 42
ALTHOUGH IT WAS NEARLY SEVEN-THIRTY, several of unified’s executives were working late, and Cole could hear them moving around outside his office door. He still had another hour’s work, and he wanted to call Diana, but from his house, where he could talk to her at leisure. He’d left her less than eight hours ago and he was already looking forward to talking to her again. The fact that he reminded himself of an infatuated teenager was amusing to him, rather than disturbing.
Cal had called early that afternoon, when he heard about Cole’s marriage on the news, and demanded that Cole’s secretary get him out of a meeting to talk to him. Instead of being thrilled, Cal had been furious that Cole had “actually gone right out and married just anybody” so he could get Cal’s signature on the stock transfer. To Cole’s amused astonishment, the elderly man had announced that such an act was a violation of their agreement, since the intent of it—in his mind—was to see Cole settle down with a mate. It had taken several minutes to calm him down and make him understand who Diana actually was.
On the coming Wednesday morning, Cal had an appointment with his heart specialist in Austin, and Cole intended to fly him there and hear what the doctor had to say himself. He’d hoped to be able to pick Diana up in Houston after the appointment, but she had an impossible schedule that day and couldn’t leave until Thursday, which meant he had to wait another day to see her—another day before they could be together. In bed. Thinking of taking her to bed—sober and willing—was enough to make him rigid, and he forced his attention back to the contract he was reading.
He’d just signed his name on the bottom line when Travis walked into his office wearing a polo shirt and a pair of casual pants. “You’re here!” Travis burst out, closing Cole’s door. “Thank God!”
In his early forties, Travis had a face that was pleasant when he didn’t look worried—which was not often—and the athletic body of a man who exorcised his anxieties by running six miles every morning before dawn. He was a hard worker, and although he wasn’t the intellectual giant that many of the scientists who reported to him were, he was a good choice for head of research and development. He had common sense and a tight fist, usually at appropriate times, when it came to spending the corporation’s assets, and he was extremely loyal. For that reason, Cole trusted him more than anyone else who worked at Unified.
“I’m here,” Cole agreed with a wry smile and watched Travis walk restlessly over to the bar. “But if you have to thank something for that fact, then thank the preparer of this contract, because it’s taken me nearly an hour to wade through it.”
Travis stared blankly at him as he splashed bourbon into a glass. “Oh, that’s a joke, right?”
“Evidently not a good one,” Cole replied dryly, tossing his pen aside. “Now, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I’m having a drink.”
Even for Travis, this degree of uneasiness was unusual. “I thought maybe you were celebrating my marriage.”
Travis turned with the glass in his hand and walked over to Cole’s desk looking like he’d been punched. “You got married and you didn’t even tell Elaine and me? You didn’t even invite us?”
Touched that Travis was actually hurt by that, Cole shook his head. “It was completely unplanned. We decided to do it on Saturday evening, and we flew to Las Vegas—before she could change her mind,” he added truthfully. “Now, what has driven you to drink?”
He took two deep swallows of the bourbon. “I’m being followed.”
Even though logic told Cole that was extremely unlikely, he couldn’t suppress the vague feeling of disquiet that trickled through him. “What makes you think such a thing?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. I noticed the guy yesterday when I left the house. He was parked down the street in a black Chevrolet, and he followed me all the way here. When I left tonight to go home for dinner, I spotted the car parked on the side of the highway outside our main gates. He followed me home. So I changed clothes tonight and ran over here on foot, cross-country, so he couldn’t follow me. He tried, though. I saw him.”
Cole studied him closely. “You aren’t, by any wild chance, having an affair, are you?”
“I don’t have the time or inclination for one, and besides, Elaine would kill me.”
The last part of that was essentially true, so Cole accepted it. “Is it possible thieves are planning to break into your house and trying to learn your habits first?”
Travis finished his drink in two more gulps. “Not unless they’re looking for a challenge instead of loot. We have two guard dogs, a state-of-the-art security system with cameras watching the place, electric gates—the works.”
“Then why else would anyone be following you?”
Travis sank into a chair. “Could it have anything to do with the investigation by the NYSE?”
The feeling of dread Cole had felt earlier solidified into anger. “If that’s the case, they’re wasting their time.”
* * *
Cole watched the rearview mirror when he left the office that night. A dark blue, late-model Ford followed him almost to the gates of his estate; then it disappeared around a curve.
Cole’s phone was ringing when he walked into the house. The voice on the other end was a trembling whisper, scarcely recognizable as Travis’s. “We’ve got trouble, Cole. Something’s going on.”
“What are you talking about?” Cole said, frowning. “Where are you? Why are you whispering?”
“I’m in my office, but I’m not sure I’m alone up here.”
Frustrated, Cole shrugged out of his suit coat. “What do you mean, you aren’t sure?” Travis’s office was in the research and development building, on the same floor as the main laboratory, and he had a clear view of the area.
On the other end of the line, Travis drew a long, audible breath, and his voice sounded a little more normal, though still panicky. “After I left you, I was too keyed up to go home, so I decided to come over here and do some paperwork. I turned on the main ceiling lights in the lab, and while they were coming on, I thought I saw a shadow moving around the corner; then it disappeared. I ran to my office and out into the hall behind it, but I didn’t see anyone. He must have gone down the exit stairs on the south end of the building.”
Cole paused in the act of loosening the tie Diana had given him. “Are you sure you actually saw someone?”
“No.”
Relieved, Cole started to reach for the messages his housekeeper had left for him beside the telephone.
“—But I’m damned sure I locked my file cabinets, and one of them is open.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Cole said shortly. Corporate espionage was always a possibility, but Unified had considerable security precautions in place as a safeguard. “Was there anything in the cabinet that a competitor would find especially enlightening?”
“No, not really.”
“Good. Th
en go on home. I’ll handle it.”
When Travis hung up, Cole called Unified’s chief of security, Joe Murray, and waited impatiently while Murray’s wife called him away from the ball game on television. In his mid-fifties, Murray was a balding ex-marine and built like a halfback, with a deep gravelly voice that suited his physical image perfectly. He chewed gum and guffawed over his own jokes while he ambled around peering over everyone’s shoulder, managing to give the impression of being an ordinary ex-security guard who’d somehow been promoted to a desk job that was way beyond his capabilities.
In truth, he was a former FBI undercover agent with a list of major criminal arrests that were owed to his ability to look innocuous and not too bright while he insinuated himself into the inner circles of his prey. His salary was $225,000 a year, plus stock options and a benefits package.
When he answered Cole’s call, the deceptive jocularity was absent from his manner. “Do we have a problem?”