Page 3 of Insidious Threats
She shrugged and strolled off. He stared down at his hands. It was the logical conclusion—obvious, even. Despite zero evidence that it had been coded to predict crime, Mjölnir predicted crime—consistently, and regardless of what Gar tweaked in an effort to make it stop.
If Petra was right, and Mjölnir was functioning as intended, that raised an even bigger question: Why would a commercial advertising algorithm be designed to predict crime?
He needed to talk to Pinpoint Partners and get some clarity. He checked the time. It wasn’t even seven-thirty on the West Coast. Too early to call Silicon Valley. He doubted anyone was even awake yet.
3
Another nine hundred or so miles to the west, Amanda Teale-James exited the driverless car, smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles out of her custom-made suit, and strode purposefully into the sleepy private airport nestled on a cliff near the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
Silicon Valley Aviation Center exclusively served a roster of well-known tech titans. A dozen disrupters and innovators had pooled their pocket change to build the facility so they could jet off to Wall Street for finance meetings or to Capitol Hill to be raked over the coals for televised congressional hearings without having to negotiate the inefficiencies and inconveniences of mass air travel—not to mention the indignity of sharing space with the occasional belligerent drunk or racist soccer mom who got on the wrong side of a flight attendant and caused a stink that would inevitably result in the police being called and the interaction going viral.
Flying out of SVAC was a different experience altogether. The bad boys of the industry—a group known for moving fast and breaking things, asking forgiveness and not permission, and throwing money at their problems—had effectively built themselves a time machine. It was a portal back to an era when air travel was civilized, men wore suits and hats, and leggy would-be models prowled the aisles of jets plying booze and fancy meals. At least that’s what Amanda assumed. Her knowledge of the 1960s and its aviation experience was formed entirely by old movies and reruns of “Mad Men.” But it surefeltlike a blast from the past.
The waiting area for Leith Delone’s private jet was a far cry from the crowded, noisy terminal of a commercial airport. The area managed to be somehow both small and intimate, and airy and spacious. The wall-sized windows overlooked the gray-green ocean and the fog rolling over the water, and a small fire was lit in the free-standing glass fireplace in the middle of the room, taking the early-morning chill out of the air. She made a beeline for one of the white club chairs in front of the fireplace.
As if to prove Amanda’s point, Stasia, the six-foot-tall platinum blonde who was Leith’s favorite attendant, beamed at her from behind the small bar that was tucked away in one corner. A moment later, the hostess was standing in front of her with a Bloody Mary festooned with three olives, just the way Amanda liked it.
“Good morning, Ms. Teale-James,” she practically purred.
Amanda eyed the cocktail with a mixture of temptation and disdain, then gave her head a mournful shake. “Morning, Stasia. I’ll have to pass on the drink. I’m on my way to a mediation meeting.”
“Of course. Double espresso, then?”
“Please.”
“Perhaps you’ll have a glass of champagne to celebrate a positive outcome on your way back from Pittsburgh?” Stasia suggested before heading off to make the coffee.
“From your lips to Lady Justice’s ears,” Amanda murmured more to herself than to the hostess as she slipped her laptop out of its case and began to review the electronic file.
Mediation was not her strong suit as a lawyer. It involved too much negotiation and cooperation. She was a trial shark, not a consensus builder. Her nose for weakness and, more importantly, her willingness to exploit it made her a sharp litigator. But she loathed settlement talks.
She’d tried to dump the meeting off on one of her junior attorneys or one of the innumerable associates employed by the high-priced outside law firms that Leith had on retainer. But he didn’t want to hear it. He’d shown a rare flash of impatience with her.
She could still hear the irritation in his tone as she replayed his words. “Blast it, Amanda. You’re my general counsel. I want the other side to realize how seriously I’m taking this. I want you there. Get them to agree to my terms. End of discussion.” And then he’d chopped his hand through the air to let her know she was dismissed.
It was clear he meant it: Leith Delone, eccentric billionaire and one-time wunderkind, had a major bug up his butt over the employment dispute. Less clear was why. As far as Amanda could tell, the case was trivial. Some local news anchor had criticized Leith on the air after he bought the station where she worked. Word got back to Leith, and he had her fired.
Despite her age and gender, the anchor—a woman with the improbable name of Maisy Farley—hadn’t bothered suing to allege age or sex discrimination. She was content to take the golden parachute offered by her contract—a meager million dollars—and walk away. But for reasons that Leith wouldn’t explain and Amanda couldn’t fathom, he was dragging his feet. The Farley woman had been fired at the end of July, and, here Amanda was, six months later, flying to freaking Pittsburgh in the middle of winter to make a series of bad-faith arguments to justify the delay and to try to extract a completely unenforceable concession out of the woman.
The only question was why?
“Why, Leith?” she said aloud in a low voice as she scrolled through the case notes her assistant had prepared.
Stasia returned with the espresso. Amanda thanked her, closed her laptop, and leaned back in her chair to savor her first sip of the hot, robust drink. She rolled the strong coffee around on her tongue like a wine sommelier, then sighed with contentment.
Her reverie was interrupted by her buzzing phone. She reluctantly set down the cup and dug the device out of her calfskin bag.
“ATJ,” she answered briskly, saving precious seconds by forgoing a greeting and abbreviating her five-syllable name to three letters.
“Um, hi, Ms. Teale-James. It’s Oliver. I hope I’m not calling too early? I have that background on the Pittsburgh lawyers you wanted.”
She rolled her eyes at Oliver’s wholly unnecessary sucking up. Of all her obsequious associates, he was the worst. And that was saying something.
“I told you I have a seven-thirty flight. I’m already at the airport. Did you email me a report?”
“Yes, ma’am. But I wanted to call, too,” he stammered.
“Why? Do you think I don’t know how to read?”
