Swede came up with a concerned frown denting his forehead. “Simon, I heard you and Holly ran into some trouble earlier.”
“We did, but we’re okay for now.” He reached for Holly’s hand and brought her into range of the camera. “What did they find out about the BioEnergen facility?”
“Let me bring up some of the video they sent.” Swede disappeared, and a grainy video of a building appeared on the screen. No lights shone on the corners or over exterior doors.
“As the satellite images indicated, there are people at this site,” Swede said. “If you’ll look closely, you’ll see armed guards standing in the shadows at the corners and doors. At one point, the guards escorted two people into the building. Watch.”
In the video, the shadowy figures of four guards appeared to approach a side entrance with two unarmed men in between. When the door opened, light shone on the faces of the men flanked by the guards.
“They were able to zoom in...”
The images grew larger, trained on the faces of the two men, getting a clear picture of each.
A gasp sounded from the direction of the Gautiers.
Simon tapped the mute button. “We’re on mute,” he said.
“The gray-haired man is Dr. Harlan Jeffries, our old boss,” Mrs. Gautier said. “He worked with us as an employee of BioEnergen.”
Mr. Gautier added, “Though he’s a scientist, he wasn’t in the weeds of our project. His role was more of management, expediting logistics, making sure we had the resources we needed.”
Simon unmuted the mic. “The man with the gray hair is Dr. Harlan Jeffries, a former employee of BioEnergen.”
“Correct,” Swede said. “We were able to find his employee record and photo. The other guy in the photo is more interesting. He didn’t show up in the employee database, so we ran facial recognition software on him. My counterpart, Kyla Russell, thought he looked familiar, and she was right.”
Another image appeared on the screen, showing men in suits at what appeared to be a lavish party, with women dressed in cocktail dresses and expensive jewelry. The man with Dr. Jeffries in the previous picture stood at the elbow of another man Simon recognized. “Isn’t that Marcus Solberg, the billionaire tech giant?”
“That’s him. The man at his elbow is his trusted fixer, Gunnar Reznik.”
“Fixer?” Holly asked.
“Bodyguard, bouncer, enforcer,” Swede said. “What Solberg needs done, he executes. Though some think he’s been responsible for the disappearances of several of Solberg’s corporate spies, no one could get enough evidence to convict him.”
“What’s he doing with BioEnergen?” Simon asked.
“We did some digging into the ownership of BioEnergen. Its corporate stock tanked when the feds shut it down. Several companies swooped in and bought the stock at bargain basement prices. One of those companies was a subsidiary of one of Solberg’s holding companies. Another company that bought a significant number of shares belongs to a private foundation linked to—get this— the U.S. Secretary of State, Edmund Carver.”
Simon glanced toward Bastian and Evangeline Gautier.
Evangeline pressed her hand to her mouth, her eyes widening.
Swede continued. “The Secretary of State recently performed a diplomatic mission to meet with Russia’s Ministry of Energy.”
“BioEnergen was working on an energy alternative to fossil fuels,” Holly said.
“Which tracks with everything we know about the company and its new owners. Some insider trading is going on there. Also note in the photo of Solberg and Reznik. The woman on the other side of Solberg is Lisa Carver, and beside her is her husband, Edmund Carver. The party was thrown by Solberg. He invited numerous CEOs of tech companies, a dozen billionaires, US and foreign, and US politicians to whose campaigns he contributed significant sums of money.”
“Major conflicts of interest all around,” Holly murmured.
“Do we have an address where Dr. Jefferies lives?” Simon asked. “Think we could get him alone long enough to question him?”
“I’ve got an address in Thibodaux where he lives with his wife, Amy Jefferies,” Swede said. An address appeared on the screen.
Holly grabbed a pen and paper and jotted it down.
“Remy? Still with us?” Simon asked.
The photo images disappeared, replaced by Remy’s and Swede’s faces.
