Micro - Michael Crichton [89]
He put on his sunglasses and walked back to police headquarters, taking his time, running his tongue over his teeth, trying to work out a Spam knot from between his molars. By the time he got back to his office, Watanabe had made up his mind.
He had decided to open an investigation into Nanigen.
Do it quietly.
The matter was sensitive. Nanigen was a rich company, with a high-profile CEO. The company might have political connections, who knows. The Nanigen matter would take time away from his investigation into the bizarre case involving the three dead men—the lawyer Willy Fong, the PI Marcos Rodriguez, and the unidentified Asian male. The victims had bled to death from numerous cuts while they’d been inside Fong’s locked office. The Willy Fong Mess, as he liked to call it, would have to go on hold. He wasn’t getting anywhere with the Willy Fong Mess anyway.
At headquarters, Watanabe dropped by the office of his boss, Marty Kalama. “I want to look into these disappearances at Nanigen.”
“Why, Dan?” Kalama said, sitting back and blinking rapidly.
Watanabe knew Kalama wasn’t questioning his methods. Kalama just wanted to hear what he had in mind, his reasoning. Watanabe said, “First I want to wait a short while and see if the missing people turn up. If they don’t, I’ll assemble a squad. But right now, I just want to do a little poking around on my own. Low-pro.”
“You suspect criminal activity?”
“I don’t have probable cause. But things don’t add up.”
“Okay,” Kalama said. “Explain.”
“Peter Jansen. When I showed him a video of his brother, Eric, drowning, he seemed to recognize a female in the video who was a witness to the drowning. But then he, like, covers it up, says he doesn’t know the woman. I think he was lying. Then I had a couple of my people visiting Nanigen to get info on Eric Jansen, the executive who drowned. My guys met the CEO, named Drake. Drake was polite, but. My guys said it was like a traffic stop when the subject is visibly nervous but there’s no obvious reason for him to be nervous.”
“Maybe Mr., uh—”
“Drake.”
“—Drake was upset about losing his executive.”
Watanabe said, “It was more like he had a body in the trunk of his car.”
Marty Kalama squinted behind his rimless spectacles. “Dan, I’m not hearing about evidence.”
Watanabe patted his stomach. “Gut. My Spam is talking to me.”
Kalama nodded. “Be careful.”
“About what?”
“You know what Nanigen does, right?”
Watanabe grinned. Oops. He hadn’t yet looked into Nanigen’s business.
“They make small robots,” Kalama went on. “Really small.”
“Okay, so?”
“A company like that could have contracts with the government. That’s trouble.”
“You know something about Nanigen?” Watanabe asked his boss.
“I’m just a cop. Cops don’t know shit.”
Watanabe grinned. “I’ll keep you out of it.”
“The hell you will,” Kalama snapped. “Get out of here.” He took off his glasses and polished them with a Kleenex, watching Dan Watanabe leave. The guy was quiet and smart, one of his best detectives. Those were the ones who created the worst trouble. The thing about trouble was that Marty Kalama kind of enjoyed it.
Chapter 25
Fern Gully
30 October, 7:00 a.m.
Morning came, and the six survivors stirred inside a pocket of moss on the trunk of a tree somewhere on a rain-forested mountainside in the Ko‘olau Pali. The birds were singing, slow and deep. They sounded like whales calling to one another in the deep sea.
Peter Jansen stuck his head out of the hiding place in the moss on the side of the ohia tree and looked around. He could see the remains of the fort on the ground below, trashed by the centipede. Nearby lay the dead centipede. Ants had already begun butchering it, and had removed large portions of the carcass.
They were near the bottom of a sea,