The Thought Readers (Mind Dimensions #1)(9)

“Eventful,” he says. “How about you?”

I try to beat his laconic response. “Interesting.”

“Great.” Like me, Bill doesn’t seem interested in probing beyond that. “I have something for you. We’re thinking about building a position in FBTI.”

That’s the ticker for Future Biotechnology and Innovation Corp; I’ve heard of them before. “Sure. We need a position in biotech,” I say without blinking. In truth, I haven’t bothered to look at our portfolio in a while. I just can’t recall having biotech-related assignments recently—so I figure there can’t be that many biotech stocks in there.

“Right,” he says. “But this isn’t just to diversify.”

I nod, while trying to look my most serious and thoughtful. That’s easier to do with Bill than with most other people. Sometimes I genuinely find what he says interesting.

“FBTI is going to unveil something three weeks from now,” he explains. “The stock is up just based on speculation on the Street. It could be a nice short if FBTI disappoints—” he pauses for emphasis, “—but I personally have a hunch that things will go in the other direction.”

“Well, to my knowledge, your hunches have never been wrong,” I say. I know it sounds like I’m ass-kissing, but it’s the truth.

“You know I never act on hunch alone,” he says, doing this weird quirking thing he often does with his eyebrow. “In this case, maybe a hunch is understating things. I had some of FBTI’s patents analyzed. Plenty of them are for very promising developments.”

I’m convinced that I know where this is leading.

“Why don’t you poke around?” he suggests, proving my conviction right. “Speak with them and see if the news is indeed bigger than what people are expecting. If that’s the case, we need to start building the position.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I say.

This generates a smile from Bill. “Was that humility? That would be a first,” he says, seemingly amused. “I need you to do your usual magic. You’re up for the challenge, right?”

“Of course. Whatever the news is, you’ll know by the end of the week. I guarantee it.” I don’t add ‘or your money back.’ That would be too much. What if I get nothing? Bill is the type of person who would hold me to the claim.

“The sooner the better, but we definitely need it before the official news in three weeks,” Bill says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Knowing that I’m dismissed, I leave him with his computer and go to my cube to make a few phone calls.

As soon as they hear the name Pierce, FBTI is happy to talk to me. I make an appointment with their CTO and am mentally planning the subway trip to their Manhattan office in SoHo when Bert pings me on Instant Messenger.

“Got it,” the message says.

“Walk out with me?” I IM back.

He agrees, and we meet by the elevator.

“This chick is crazy,” Bert says as I press the button for the lobby. “She leads a very strange life.”

Outside his card tricks, Bert knows how to build suspense. I have to give him that. I don’t rush him, or else this will take longer. So I just say, “Oh?”

“For starters, you’re lucky you have me,” he says, his voice brimming with excitement. “She’s long gone from that address you found ‘by chance.’ From what I can puzzle out, that name—Mira—is her real one. Only that name disappeared from the face of the planet a little over a year ago. No electronic trail at all. Same thing with some of those aliases.”

“Hmm,” I say, giving him the encouragement I know he needs to keep going.

“Well, to get around that, I hacked into some Vegas casino databases, going on the assumption that she would play there as well as in Atlantic City, and sure enough, they had files on some of the other aliases that you mentioned. They also had additional names for her.”

“Wow,” is all I can say.

“Yeah,” Bert agrees. “At first, only one led to any recently occupied address. She’s clearly hiding. Anyway, that one alias, Alina something, had a membership at a gym on Kings Highway and Nostrand Avenue, in Brooklyn. Hacking into their system, I found out that the membership is still used sometimes. Once I had that, I set a radius around that gym. People don’t usually go far to get workouts.”

“Impressive,” I say, and mean it. At times like this, I wonder if the business about him being a contractor for some intelligence agency is true after all.

“Anyway, at first there was nothing,” he continues. “None of the aliases rent or own any apartments or condos nearby. But then I tried combining first names of some of these aliases with the last names of others.” He pauses and looks at me—to get a pat on the back, I think.

“That’s diabolical,” I say, wishing he would get to the point already.

“Yes,” he says, looking pleased. “I am, indeed . . . She, on the other hand, isn’t very imaginative. One of the combinations worked. She’s partial to the first name of Ilona. Combining Ilona with a last name of Derkovitch, from the Yulia Derkovitch alias, yielded the result I was looking for.”

I nod, urging him on.

“Here’s that address,” he says, grinning as he hands me a piece of paper. Then he asks more seriously, “Are you really going there?”