Better Off Dead. Meryl Sawyer

forever?

      He’d fallen in love with someone else. How could that happen in just a year? They’d been together almost three years. They’d spoken of marriage, but he hadn’t actually proposed.

      “Is he marrying anyone I know?”

      Again Derek hesitated. “Skyler Holmes.”

      Her stomach rose, then plummeted in a sickening lurch. He’d always called Skyler the blond bimbo. It was true. Her bra size was bigger than her IQ.

      Holding back tears, she quelled her emotions. Nothing was ever gained by crying, her father used to say. She deliberately directed her thoughts to the months ahead. Like a mirage, her future shimmered in the distance. Out of focus—out of reach.

      CHAPTER THREE

      BROCK WALKED INTO HIS OFFICE. He’d spent the morning attending a seminar conducted by the FBI. Combating Computer Assisted Crimes. What a joke! They’d shown him a few new tricks, but most of it he knew.

      Booooring.

      He shivered as he shrugged into the microfiber jacket in the room, hyper cooled to protect the sensitive equipment. He pulled on tight-fitting microfiber gloves with the fingers cut out.

      What Brock wore didn’t matter to him. Most days, no one saw him. He worked alone by choice. The company would fund all the staff he needed. He had fifty-three people working for him, but he kept them in the field. That way no one at Obelisk but him knew how to use the sophisticated equipment.

      Some of the arrogant pricks he worked with, like CEO Kilmer Cassidy, thought they did, but should they try to use his equipment, they would destroy everything. Without an authorized laser fingerprint and the top secret password, on the fourth try his computers would assume unauthorized entry mode, self-format, and devour the hard drive.

      He had a backup no one knew about—his personal laptop that he kept with him at all times. He’d downloaded all of Obelisk’s top secret data onto it and had several of his own special programs installed, as well. It was against company rules for any of the secured info to be removed from the premises. But who was to know? He was head of security.

      Brock smiled and glanced around his office to see what was happening in his domain—the world. He had six state-of-the-art computers with twenty-seven inch flat-screen monitors evenly spaced around the U-shaped room, but he didn’t rely on them the way he did his personal laptop.

      Wall mounted televisions—currently on mute—were tuned to CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. A fourth television was on Al Jazeera, the Arab news channel. The other wall was dominated by a map of the world on a liquid-plasma television screen. It was raining in California, he noticed. So who cared? Let the nuts and fruits on the West Coast drown. All the satellites were still orbiting normally, he observed, but one of Russia’s wasn’t functioning.

      “Par for the course.”

      The end of the Cold War had been the death knell for Russian science. The state no longer funded research the way it once had. The Russian Mafia now ran the country, and they had no use for scientists.

      The satellites and news channels helped Brock keep track of Obelisk’s myriad interests overseas. They required intensive monitoring. A conflict—no matter how small—anywhere on earth was a potential for Obelisk to profit.

      Normally staff would have been needed, but Brock had shown the higher-ups how security could be mastered by a single—talented—person and modern technology. Naturally they’d gone along. It was in their best interests for as few men as possible to know the truth about Obelisk’s dealings.

      He heard line seven ring. It was the number only his operatives in the field used. Attached to all his private lines was a special mechanism that chopped words into minute sound bites, then jumbled them so that even a state-of-the-art computer would have to spend months unscrambling the garbled noise.

      He had no reason to think there was a tap on a line no one—not even the telephone company—knew existed. But various incidents at Obelisk had taught him to be extraordinarily careful. That’s why he had insisted his office be in an underground bunker beneath Obelisk—away from prying eyes.

      “Numero Uno,” he answered.

      “We’re in place. Everything’s set,” said Operative 111.

      His agents had numbers, not names. That way only Brock knew who they were. Their names weren’t written down anywhere except in his mind. They were paid in cash, not by the payroll department.

      They never knew his name. He was the number one operative. He always answered the special operative line with “Numero Uno.”

      He told Number 111, “Call me when you’ve made contact.”

      “Roger that.”

      Brock glanced at his Brietling. “If it’s after six EST, call me on my cell.”

      He recited the number. He didn’t like talking on cell phones. The message went out over the airwaves, and anyone listening could hear every word. But he had a life beyond this underground bunker. Tonight he was showing his ’52 Gull Wing Mercedes in the Bethesda Classic Car show. To stay in contact he had to use a cell phone.

      Every third day a con he knew brought him a stolen cell phone. Brock gave the man his phone, and the con resold the phone again. That way none of his cell calls could be traced back to him.

      “It looks like a go for tonight,” Operative 111 told him.

      They hung up without another word.

      “She’s as good as dead,” Brock said out loud.

      Of course, before Samantha Robbins died, she would have to deal with him in person.

      BY SEVEN-THIRTY DARKNESS had fallen on Santa Fe’s historic district and customers had slowed to a trickle. Since returning from lunch with Derek, Lindsey had sold several more pieces of jewelry—including her most expensive piece.

      “Lookin’ good,” she said to Zach before she remembered the retriever had trotted off with Romero when he’d left earlier to make enchiladas.

      She knew the tourist season was relatively short. It began in late June and went full throttle through the opera season and Indian Market, but after Labor Day, the buying slowed. She needed to make money in the summer months to tide her over during slower times. Miraculously, the way things were going, she would make a profit her first season.

      Lindsey tried not to let Derek’s departure bother her. Making friends was probably good advice. She didn’t want to rely too much on Romero.

      For a moment, her mind wandered to Houston. Tyler and Skyler. Their names even rhymed. It was probably meant to be, but that didn’t make her feel any better.

      “Get over it,” she told herself.

      Easier said than done. She’d been in love and during these long, lonely months in isolation, she’d replayed every moment she’d spent with Tyler, becoming more in love with him as each memory replayed in her mind. How could he marry—Skyler of all people—within a year after she’d last seen him?

      The thought tore at something raw inside her. She’d been living with a nagging, constant anxiety, wondering if she would be killed. The whole time she’d assumed Tyler was missing her, and in time, they would be together again.

      WITSEC had refused to allow her to telephone him. Masterson claimed that since they weren’t officially engaged it was too dangerous. Now, she wondered if her interview with the risk assessment psychologist had somehow indicated she might try to see Tyler again while she was in protection and that was why Masterson insisted on cutting off contact.

      “What does it matter?” she muttered under her breath. “It’s over. Forget him.”

      She picked up the phone and hit autodial for Ben Tallchief’s number. While it rang, she gazed at one of her cell phones concealed