“He was running surveillance too.” Shaw then told them what Lenny and Mack had discovered about the man.
Nilsson said, “GRU? Soviet apparatus... He could surface again. Phoenix from the ashes. They do that.”
Shaw said, “He got rebuffed. If he’s freelance, he might move on.If he’s on payroll, the failure won’t sit well with his bosses. That means he’ll try again.”
Nilsson nodded. Her blond tresses were down, cascading over her shoulders and ending in a severe cut about twelve inches below the nape. Shaw had noticed that her nostrils had flared slightly when she’d joined them. She knew about the camo smoke he’d concocted but now her face registered familiarity with the scent, which supported his deduction about her time in the military.
Shaw glanced at the S.I.T. “Check it. We need to make sure it’s real.”
“You mean the prick might be a double agent or something? Selling the Saudis a fake? And then the real one to someone else?”
Nilsson lifted an eyebrow. “Foolish. But he’s got those debts. The gambling.”
Harmon rose and walked to his desk. Among the clutter he found an electric screwdriver and undid the dozen tiny Phillips-head screws and removed the housing. He examined the guts. “It’s real.” The CEO set the unit aside.
He asked how Shaw would like the check made out and Shaw said to himself. Harmon wrote it, tore it from the book and handed it to him. “You should get yourself a corporation. Limited liability. You know, legally, a good idea.”
He believed he had one. He’d have to find out. Shaw took the check, stashed it in his wallet, next to another one he’d received for a reward job from a month ago. He’d forgotten to deposit it.
Shaw glanced Nilsson’s way. And what was with those eyes? So intensely green. Contact lenses? He’d been trying to decide.
“Now. LeClaire. What do we do? Call the prosecutor? Write out affidavits? And I want a civil suit too. Let’s break him.”
But Shaw said, “Might have a better idea. You have a payroll office here?”
“We do,” Harmon said.
“I need a thousand singles and four hundred-dollar bills. Temporarily.”
“Done. What for?” With a nose scratch, Harmon leaned in. His cherubic look gave way to the focused one.
“I’m going to find LeClaire and offer to buy the S.I.T. back. I’ll flash what looks like a hundred K.”
Harmon said, “But it’s already on that private jet. Halfway to Mexico or the Caribbean by now.”
Nilsson, though, was smiling. She got it. “Ah, but that’ll convince him and his buyers that it’s the real item. Maybe there was some splinter of doubt that Colter swapped it out when the smoke bomb went off.”
“What if LeClaire accepts?”
“He won’t.” Shaw and Nilsson said this simultaneously.
Harmon muttered, “Andthenjail?”
Nilsson said, “I don’t think we want a trial, Marty. Details of the technology’ll come out.”
Shaw said, “Trade secrets aren’t very secret once you get into court.”
Nilsson said, “And let’s not telegraph to customers we had a security breach.”
“I suppose,” he griped. This remedy clearly went against Harmon’s take-no-prisoners philosophy.
Shaw said, “Fire him. And then don’t do anything. He’ll keep waiting for the police to come knocking. Every time he hears a siren or sees a dark sedan parked nearby he’ll have a very bad day.”
This was a good second-place alternative and Harmon was laughing. “Love it! The other-shoe punishment!” He turned to Nilsson. “Why don’t we hire Colter? Put him on our security staff?”
She looked Shaw’s way with a smile. “I wouldn’t mind that.” A brief pause. “But I don’t think it’s the sort of job that would appeal.”
“Not for me.”