The elevator attendant wore a blue T-shirt with the Aquadom logo blazoned in yellow across his left pec. Uther scampered up to him and began to chat.
The Atrium bar circled the base of the round aquarium. Forming a generous C, the bar was lit from below with colored lights—pale yellow, then red, then various other hues. Visitors sitting at the bar could look up for an excellent view of the lower levels of the fish tank.
The entire structure looked as if a giant halogen light-bulb with glowing prongs had been set on end, waiting to be pushed into a socket.
“Come on,” Uther said with an urgent gesture. “We’ve got it all to ourselves. But be quick or someone will notice.”
“I don’t know.…” Becca uttered, because to say “It freaks the hell out of me” would have been rude. “Maybe if we just grabbed that coffee and stepped outside for a few minutes?”
“Becca, it’s thirty degrees outside. Come on. The elevator ride only takes a few minutes.”
A few minutes? How slow did the thing go? She could ride from the lobby to the eightieth floor in the Empire State Building in about forty-five seconds.
“Becca,” Uther pleaded. “Please, I need your advice.”
An opportunity that might reveal the entire plot behind the coded diamonds.
Staunching a moan, Becca reluctantly followed.
The base of the tank was suspended one story above her head. She stood below a million gallons of water. A million. That was more than a thousand, or even a hundred thousand.
“No.” Becca stepped back.
Was she willing to compromise the entire mission because of a million gallons of water?
Is your fear rational or irrational?
Logically, she knew it was more irrational.
Did she really want to notch up a negative point in the reliability column?
This is what you do. You push out of your comfort zone and thrive for having done so. You want this. Just…take a step!
Impulsivity streaked through Becca’s system. She wasn’t about to turn away. It was a simple elevator ride, not a wild and crazy roller coaster adventure.
“Hold on.” Becca forced her legs to move.
“There’s no one else,” Uther coaxed. “We’ll have the elevator all to ourselves. You don’t like fish?”
Just as Becca decided to turn and make a run for it, she felt Uther’s fingers thread through hers. Yanked into the elevator, she spun and gripped the stainless steel handrail in the center of the circular glass bullet.
“Come on, let’s go up to the second floor.”
“The second floor?” Becca craned her neck. Yep, there was a spiral staircase in the middle of the elevator that led up to a second observation deck. “What the hell is this, a condo?”
Entombed within an oddly muted blue cylinder of eerie sea life, she drew two quick breaths through her nose. Yes, air, there is air in here…. Becca took the first of the spiraling steps.
There was no reason to be so fearful. She’d never nearly drowned, or anything remotely similar. Just a minor mishap in the hot tub one summer at the Hamptons. Her knee had gotten sucked tight to the drain at the center of the tub. The water level had covered her mouth but not her nose. Her girlfriends, after much silly panic, had had to turn off the tub to free her. Bruised and bloody, her flesh had been shaved raw.
It wasn’t a good excuse. Many people had suffered real disasters in water and at sea. She just did not like water in great abundance.
Halfway up the staircase, Becca glanced to the side. Realization pulsed nervously in her gut. She was inside a huge fish tank.
Uther bent and peered down the staircase from above. “Becca, look at that gorgeous water. God, I love this place. It makes me feel safe.”
Very well. As she’d announced to Dane, she was a big girl. Gripping the handrail tightly, she reached the second floor.
Uther stood at the perimeter, his palms flattened to the clear acrylic as the elevator began to rise.
“You come here a lot, Uther?”
“Whenever I’ve got a difficult formula to work out, or if I’ve overworked and need to relax. See that fish? His name is Sunshine. He’s an Oriental Sweetlips. Isn’t that cool?”
Becca tilted her head and forced herself to look into the tank. She wouldn’t know an Oriental Sweetlips from a trout.
“Relax, Becca, we’re safe now.”
“Really? You feel safe enough to talk to me?”
“Do you? I can feel your tension, Becca. Chill out. Think of it as a return to the womb.” Uther stretched out his arms and then clasped them across his chest.
The womb? Not unless there had been sea creatures swimming around inside the womb with her.
Uther pressed a hand to her shoulder. She stiffened, even though it was not her wounded side. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you were so frightened. I needed a place where I could be sure no one else could hear me.”
“Why do you think you’re being followed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me about it, Uther.”
“She found the stone.”
“What!”
“It’s a flawless ten-carat, heart-shaped diamond. I hid it. Sabrina found it. And now she thinks it’s some kind of wedding gift.”
“Another diamond?” Becca whispered, turning her head quickly so Uther wouldn’t hear.
“She’s in danger, Becca. And it’s entirely my fault. I’ve got to tell you this. I know it won’t help me, but you’re a woman, maybe you can think of something. There must be some way to get Sabrina to ditch the thing before it’s too late.”
“You want her to ditch the diamond?”
“It’s a death sentence, Becca. That diamond had all my data for a project I’ve been working on for the government contained within it.”
“You’re…working for the government?”
He’s one of our own.
“Since when did you start working for the government?”
“Since they gave me no option but to do so. Becca, I can’t go into detail, but I’ve developed technology to encode diamonds with crucial field data that can be used by the military for very sensitive missions.”
“Coded diamonds? Like the ion beam branding?”
“Yes, but the beauty of my coding is it can be erased, leaving no trace of evidence to fall into enemy hands.”
Using nothing more than a simple UV light.
“That’s unbelievable, Uther.”
“Fluorescent nanoparticles, Becca. Quantum dots that can be altered with simple light beams. Highly luminescent particles embedded during the branding process. They fluoresce pink!”
“With the use of a single excitation source—an ultraviolet light—those particles can then be erased. In the field! The operative receives instructions for whatever, and then he erases the code and keeps the diamond as payment.”
“Like…spy stuff?”
“Exactly!”
“Clever.”
“Fucking genius is what it is.” A triumphant fist punctuated that declaration.
“But aren’t operatives paid a salary? A diamond, that’s a big payoff.”
“The mercenaries who will be using my technology don’t get salaries.”
“I see.”
“Besides, the diamonds are just the beginning. I’ve plans to use cheaper, less obvious methods of transport. I’ve so many ideas. Well— I can’t tell you. Anyone. Not even Sabrina.”
“And yet you’re hiding out in a hotel in Berlin and now fear for your girlfriend’s life?”
“I sensed something wasn’t right. People were following me. I made a break for it. I had to. But first I copied all my data. Sabrina wasn’t supposed to find that diamond, Becca. It was my backup copy.”
“Backup? There are…more copies?”
“Two—but both are safe. I think they’re looking for anything that will lead to my research.”
“Who are they?”
“I…can’t say.”
He scrubbed the heel of his palm over his left eye. With an exclamatory gesture, he declared, “It might be the Russians, it could be the United States government. Damn CIA agents were checking in with me once a week.”
“The CIA is involved?”
“Yes. No. Oh! Maybe—but you didn’t hear that from me. Hell, you don’t really understand all this stuff, do you?”
With a snotty flip of her hair over her shoulder, Becca momentarily assumed socialite mode. “Of course not.”
So the CIA had known all along what was contained within the diamonds?
“No, I know absolutely nothing beyond galas and fashion week.” She sighed, hating that lie, and finding it strange how the lies she hated most were the ones about her real life. Had the socialite become the mask? “What do you think I can do for you, Uther?”
“Could you talk to Sabrina? Convince her to put the diamond back. Like, pretend she never found it. Say I was feeling bad, that I wanted to surprise her. That’ll give me a chance to hide it again, in a better place.”
“Why would Sabrina listen to me? And wouldn’t she be suspicious?”
Uther pressed his forehead to the curved wall. “I am so screwed.”
And so was Sabrina if Dimitri found her before Becca could send an agent to whisk her off to a safe house. A call to Zeek was in order, but not in front of Uther.
“Who are these Russians you mentioned?”
“You wouldn’t understand, Becca. It’s like spy stuff and covert action going on all around me. Everyone wants the technology I’ve hidden on these diamonds. Fortunately, I stashed two of them safely with my— I can’t tell you.”
With his father.
Obviously, Uther was unaware his father had already sold them. Why had Amandus betrayed his son? As well, Uther had to be completely unaware that MaryEllen Sommerfield had been shot in the head for one of them and that the CIA, MI-6 and even the Russians were tracking the stones across Europe.
“I’m sorry to lay all this on you, Becca. You were always so nice to me. Even held the door for me when your father chased me out of the house.”
“If he would have caught you he would have bent you over his knee for sure.” She smiled to think of that long-ago, lighter moment.
Once again she had been called to help Uther escape. But from whom?
“I want to help, Uther.” Without blowing her cover. “Why don’t you go back to New York, to Sabrina, and I’ll…accompany you.”
“For what reason? Are you going to chase off the bad guys? Ha! Besides, Sabrina said I shouldn’t rush back.”
“But don’t you plan to attend the gala?”
“Of course. But my flight doesn’t leave until later. No sense in rescheduling. So what are you doing here?”
“End of a vacation. We’re leaving today to get back in time for the event.” Oops. Bad lie. Hadn’t she told him they’d just arrived?
But if Uther noticed, he didn’t say anything.
“I should have left as soon as I got off the phone with Sabrina.” He splayed his arms out, then dropped them wearily. “We can go back down.”
“Down? But aren’t we at least halfway up?”
“I think so….”
The elevator had stopped moving. Neither one of them had noticed. Six stories up in the aquarium, Becca and Uther hung suspended in an eerie column of water.
Becca pressed her palms to the thick acrylic and tried to see beyond the dark waters. “What the hell?”