“Milestones?” Chloe murmured.
“Oh, come on. I know you’refieldagents, but you do know how to use computers! Milestones is a huge corporation. The company is the next massive step in user-friendly computing and in computers doing just about everything for you, including—according to one ad—brushing your teeth. At any rate, the company is having an employee gratitude trip to celebrate their tenth anniversary on the shipSilver and Sapphire Seas,the newest luxury offering from Surf of the Seven Seas.”
“That’s the company that has luxury restaurants in every state—all offering several different surf and turf options, right?” Wesley asked. “In the cruise business, they’re young, only being around about a decade or so.”
Alonzo smiled. “That is true. And if nothing else, you’ll eat well.”
“So, you believe this killer is specifically after those who are exceptionally talented with computing, or those who—”
“Those who have the money or the management skills to keep the right people working, yes,” Alonzo said. “And why this ship, you ask? It’s not just the fact that it will be hosting so many computer nerds, but then there was this.”
He clicked a key on the computer.
On the screen, they saw two of the bodies from the multi-death incident again, more closely pictured than they had been before.
Near one was a briefcase.
And sticking out of the briefcase was a folder.
Chloe couldn’t see the entire folder, but she could see enough.
It advertised the free computer sessions that would be held onboard, offering classes to other passengers for those who were newbies to more experienced nerds.
Proof. Proof was what they needed.
How many people were supposed to die in this—and yes, the big question, why?
“The conference room is empty. You may take your computers and read everything we have in the police reports, from witnesses and from Myra Templeton—we have her on video when she first came into the local field office. You have a couple of hours. There’s a blue sedan out there for you to take to the cruise port—no official drop-offs or the like. You’re on the cruise as Chloe and Wesley Douglas. You’re on vacation from your specialized tutoring jobs in NYC—the bigger the city, the harder for anyone to discover you’re not who you say you are.”
“And two hours to remember our names and our histories,” Wesley said.
“Sorry, this all came up quickly,” Alonzo said. “And you’ll be given ghost guns, no metal so that they’ll pass through any metal-detecting security, though there are bureau members and offices where your purpose is known—asyouknow, Wes, there are sixty-two legal attaché offices around the world with another thirty-six sub offices. There are those in each port that you can contact, numbers are in your burner phones under assumed names, but the names won’t matter—emergency only. Got it? Go study your identities—as always, info was kept as close to what’s real so that you’re natural in any conversation—and study up on what you’re looking for.”
Study up?
People were dead. They were all involved in computer and internet expertise in one way or another.
But they had all been staged to look like suicide or murder-suicide.
Chloe looked at her new partner whom she’d just met, Wesley Law. He looked at her in turn, grimacing and arching a brow in question.
She nodded. “Oh, hell. We should go study up.”
“Well, once we know about ourselves and what has been discovered regarding the victims, we should be fine. I know how to make contact if needed, though it’s easy. Then I’ll follow you. You’ll know what we should and shouldn’t do as just folks out on a cruise having a good time, where we should hang out. You are the cruise expert,” he reminded her.
She wasn’t sure why she needed to defend the fact that she was as familiar as she was with cruising—she just did.
“I grew up here—there were always specials out of Miami or Fort Lauderdale. My parents loved the water, my dad was once a navy SEAL. He loved any place where one could go diving and he made sure that his kids could swim—in Florida there’s water everywhere.”
“And alligators.”
“Yeah, well, he taught us not to swim in canals and to always watch out—waterways connect, and the creatures can run faster than most humans, too. But I don’t think that the abilities of alligators are going to be our problem. Thecreatureswe’re looking for will be of the human variety. But! Cruises offer cool cities, history—and lots of great dives and snorkel trips—though whether we’ll be following anyone suspicious around such places or events remains to be seen, I imagine. Then again,” she said, and paused, looking at Alonzo, “I still don’t even know where we’re going. I’ve never been on this ship.”
“Go find out about your ports of call—but don’t forget that you’re pleased as can be you’ve chosen a cruise with computer classes,” Alonzo said, indicating that they should go to work with the few hours they had to get up to speed on the case.
As they headed out of Alonzo’s office and into their workroom, Wesley murmured, “So, we’re undercover but almost as ourselves. I’ve closed a number of cases as different people, butit’s been a while now since I’ve worked undercover. I looked you up—I know you’ve done a lot of really good work.”
She smiled. “Only undercover once, so I’ll be in charge of cruising—and you can help me out with the undercover.”
