Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(112)

Oliver didn’t seem overly worried. “You made things awkward, yes, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Anyway, this isn’t recording, now, and”—he nodded at Joseph’s body—“I’m starting to learn that dead people make excellent scapegoats. As far as the fallout, I have friends who understand how crucial it is that we be allowed to go live unimpeded. Starting tomorrow, our network will provide U.S. intelligence services an invaluable window into the world. You think that will go unappreciated? Even the FBI backs off with national security at stake.” He ran a hand across his nose, which was still trickling blood. “This is as vulnerable as we’ll ever be. After tomorrow we’ll never be threatened like this again.”

“There was one part that really had me stuck,” I said.

He sounded only mildly curious. “Oh yeah? What was that?”

“You.”

“Me? What about me?”

“Who you are, Oliver—or Martin Gilman, I should say.”

He was startled. “How do you know my name?”

“Missing a Clipper card?”

His eyes narrowed, remembering the ferry ride. “That was you? You resorted to that kind of cheap pickpocketing? I’d think that was beneath you.”

“I wanted your name. Even in Silicon Valley, low-tech solutions still work.” Each Clipper card was marked with an individual number so it could be reloaded electronically from a personal account. Finding Oliver’s personal information had taken Charles Miller less time than it took me to finish a cup of coffee.

He shrugged. “Fine. So you have my name. So what?”

“I couldn’t figure out why you were mixed up in everything if you were just a salaried employee at Care4. It didn’t make sense to take the kind of chances you took. Look at you. You’re more committed than Gunn ever was, and he was the damn CEO. I guessed at all kinds of things: blackmail, maybe you two were jockeying for power and working at cross-purposes, but none of it quite added up.”

“And what did you conclude?”

“I kept coming back to the only answer that worked. Care4 wasn’t actually Gunn’s company at all, was it?”

Oliver looked at me without answering for a long moment. “What do you mean?” he finally asked.

“On paper, Gregg Gunn seemed like the classic Valley success story—Stanford dropout, gets a taste of finance on Wall Street, gets into trouble, fresh beginning in the start-up world. But there was something wrong with that narrative that I kept coming back to. He didn’t seem to be very good at any of it. He didn’t drop out; he flunked out for bad grades. In New York he almost ended up in jail for insider trading. I’m sure the fines eclipsed any profit he made. And every company he started out here lost money and folded. Three of them, I think it was.”

Oliver’s face stayed neutral. “Interesting assessment.”

“Interesting? Sure. What I found interesting was that I’m not the only one who made it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You did.” I said. “Years ago. I arrived at a conclusion recently that you’d reached long before we ever met. Gunn was broke. He’d lost money for investors every time at bat. No one was about to trust him with more money. Care4 was your idea, not his. But you were already thinking ahead. Maybe you just didn’t like the spotlight or found it distracting. Maybe you wanted someone who could be the face of the company, and, if necessary, a lightning rod, while you quietly ran things from behind. Even someone you could send all over the globe on your behalf—or, for that matter, someone you could send to hire a private detective while you played both sides, buddying up in case she found out too much. Assigning yourself to a boring division like the security department was clever. You could plausibly know what was going on without attracting interest. And Gunn was perfect for you. A charismatic, extroverted stooge. Someone greedy enough to skirt the law, smart enough to act the part, and dumb or shortsighted enough to go along with everything you wanted without asking too many questions.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to have met this perfect person, at a bus stop?”

“No.” I thought of the transcript Charles Miller had given me on the Berkeley fishing pier. “Gregg Gunn was your freshman-year roommate at Stanford. Then he flunked out. Maybe you stayed in touch, maybe not. But later on—long after you graduated and decided to found Care4—you had the perfect person for your purposes. You tracked down your old down-on-his-luck college roommate and made him an irresistible offer. To do what he’d always wanted: lead a successful company.”

Martin Gilman stared at me, then nodded slowly. “In retrospect, we could have made our lives much easier by finding someone less good at her job,” he said. “Live and learn, I suppose. A shame I have to kill you. If I didn’t, I’d hire you for real.” There was a beeping sound from his pocket. His eyes flicked down as he used one hand to reach into his pocket and silence his cell phone.

This time my hand found its way all the way down to my boot.

“Anyhow,” he said, “we don’t want to be out here all night.” He held his pistol again with both hands. “Care4 is a company with limitless potential, Nikki. We’ve been cultivating many important relationships, not just around the world but also in D.C. Next time something like this happens, we’ll be untouchable.”