Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
"At least I know where I stand," Beth told Stanley, speaking into her iPhone as she approached Ross and Jack's townhouse. "The police, or at least some of them, are the enemy. So I need to do this on my own and stop wasting time with them."
"You're not on your own," Stanley replied. "I salvaged some data from the partial download I got from Eric's laptop."
Beth's heart fluttered at the news as she opened the front door of the townhouse and stepped inside. Ross and Jack sat at the kitchen table and rose from their seats when they saw her.
"Stanley, I'm back. Jack and Ross are here. I'm going to put you on speakerphone."
She set the phone on the table as the three friends lowered themselves into their chairs.
"Okay, Stanley," she said. "Go ahead. In basic terms."
"I download only part of the data from the laptop before the mystery man stole it," Stanley began. "And what I got was encrypted. But the encryption was a type with some known vulnerabilities, so I've been able to reconstruct some of it so far. I'll mention the most important part first — I found out who Eric was working for."
"You did?" Jack asked, rising from his chair. "He wouldn't even tell us."
"I did," Stanley replied, as everyone leaned in closer over the phone. "He was working for WarTech, right there in your backyard."
"Wow," Ross murmured. "I always assumed he did remote jobs for companies around the country."
"Oh, he's done that, too," Stanley answered. "One file I restored was a log of the handful of jobs he's worked since graduation. Most were very brief, single issue contracts, and most were for Silicon Valley tech companies. But the WarTech job was the current one."
"Do you know what he was doing for them?" Beth asked.
"No, I don't. That wasn't in the file, or in anything else I could get into."
"WarTech," Beth mused, tapping her fingers on the table. "It's at least something worth looking into. Anything else?"
"I found something else that sounds promising. I've had no luck with his email account, but I accessed an email message he saved as a separate file."
"Why would he save one message?" Beth asked.
"Probably to archive it," Ross interjected. "I do that sometimes, if I don't want to hunt it down among all my other messages."
"It must have been from his Sent items," Stanley continued. "It was from Eric to Senator Socrates Chappelle. I'll send it over so you can see it for yourself. In the email, Eric was telling the senator he had something important he needed to share."
Beth thought back to Eric's book about Senator Chappelle on the coffee table.
"He loved the Senator," Ross said again. "He went to a fundraiser for him once."
"Did the message say what he wanted to share?" she asked.
"He wanted to talk about something called the Enigma Project."
"The Enigma Project?" Beth said, wrinkling her nose. "Any idea what that means?"
"No. I haven't been able to find any reference to it anywhere else in the computer. But the term is pretty general and has been used before."
"So no help there," Beth pondered.
"Sorry I couldn't be more help," Stanley said. "I'll keep trying to salvage more, but don't get your hopes up."
"You're been a big help, Stanley," Beth replied. "It's at least something. Please keep working on the data. Ross and Jack can do some research on WarTech and the senator."
"And what will you be doing?" Ross asked.
"I'm reaching out to someone who might be able to provide me some insight on the senator," Beth said with a thin smile.
Sapphire Angel looked down from the rooftop, watching Officer Lindsay Jennings in the alley below, leaning against the wall of the building. She wasn't in her police uniform, wearing instead a pair of jeans and a white button-down shirt.
Jennings had responded when Sapphire Angel reached out to her, telling the heroine this would be a private location, but Sapphire Angel wanted to make sure for herself. Her rooftop vantage point allowed her to peer down the alley to the main road, and if she moved to different sides of the roof, she could view adjacent streets.
Satisfied they were alone, Sapphire Angel leapt from the roof. She held her cylinder in one hand, from which a thin cable extended. She had secured the other end of the cable around a thick pipe on the roof. As she descended, the cable extended from the cylinder in her hand, controlling her descent.
Jennings spotted the heroine when Sapphire Angel was almost to the ground. The police officer looked up, mouth agape, and gawked in amazement as the costumed woman touched down. The officer's nonchalant demeanor was gone, replaced by the nervous energy of a rock band's groupie.
"Officer Jennings," Sapphire Angel said with a nod, noticing the look of wonder in the other woman's eyes.
"Sapphire Angel," Jennings replied with a slow, wide-eyed nod. "You make quite the entrance."
"I've had enough public strolls for a while."
"I understand. I imagine you draw quite a crowd."
"You could say that," Sapphire Angel said as a smirk crept onto her face. "Thanks for responding and agreeing to meet with me."
Sapphire Angel's easy tone seemed to put Jennings at ease. "Certainly," Jennings replied. "Like I said earlier, I'm willing to help. I just don't know how. What do you need?"
"Information. What can you tell me about Socrates Chapelle? You mentioned you work security for him?"
"I do," Jennings replied, her voice curious. "What sort of information do you want?"
"What's he like?"
"My dealings with him are superficial," Jennings said with a shrug. "He treats his security detail with respect, unlike other politicians I've worked for."
"So nothing to suggest he's a bad apple?"
"No. Actually, just the opposite. He's known as one of the good guys in politics. He's also got a bit of a charm to him. Not in a phony way. He's one of those people who knows how to make people feel good about themselves. And he seems to be on the right side of most issues, although I guess that depends on your position on those issues."
"Are there any projects he's known for? Maybe bills he's pushed through, or that he was working on?" Sapphire Angel asked. If Eric wanted to see the senator, perhaps it was about a bill or other project.
Jennings shook her head. "Not that I'm aware, but I don't follow that stuff. I see the blurbs in the news, and that's it. And the local stories talk about how he's very good to businesses around here, ArangoSoft and WarTech in particular. He works to make the business climate better for them, both nationally and internationally. No different than what most politicians do for businesses in their home districts."
Sapphire Angel nodded and tapped her lips with a gloved hand as she pondered this information. Jennings continued.
"Can I ask why you're interested in him?" Jennings asked. "Does this have to do with that man's disappearance? Does Chappelle have info about it?"
"I'm not sure." Sapphire Angel said. "But he knows the players around here, right? Like WarTech?"
"Yes, he does. Quite well, actually. It goes with the job."
"How well do you know him? Well enough to set up a meeting for me? I'd like to sit down with him."
Jennings raised an eyebrow. "Something tells me you don't need me to get an audience with him, but sure. Any politician would drop anything for a chance to be seen with you. That would be an instant twenty point bump in the polls for anybody running for office."
"Speaking of which, he is running for office, right?"
"Yes," Jennings said with a nod. "He's usually a shoo-in, but he's running against a self-made billionaire who has a huge war chest to fund his campaign. Chappelle is ahead in the polls, but it's close."
"Anything else you can tell me about the man?"
Jennings shrugged. "Sorry. I wish I could give you more. Politics isn't my thing."
Sapphire Angel nodded. "You've been great. If you can keep your ears open for anything about the senator and WarTech, that would help. And if you can set up a meeting, even better."
"How will I get in touch with you?"
Sapphire Angel rattled off a phone number. It was a virtual number, relayed through several encrypted servers before reaching her device. "I rarely answer when it rings, but I get voicemails and text messages and can call you back. Please keep the number private."
Jennings nodded. "Certainly," she said, just as Sapphire Angel rose from the ground. The superheroine had grabbed the end of the cylinder, and the retracting cable shot her up through the air, until she disappeared over the rooftop. The police woman's look of awe returned.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
Oh, cool! Just when we think Mark Devlin and the rest of WarTech were our only worry, in comes Chappelle. We briefly saw him near the beginning when entering Colorado, and I suspected we were going to learn more about him later; guess I was right.
I’m genuinely worried about what’ll happen if Clark learns that Jennings has been aiding Sapphire Angel’s investigation on WarTech. Better hope he turns around quick---or gets taken care of somehow---otherwise it’s probably not going to look good for her.
I’m wondering if we’ll find out more about ArangoSoft later. We know that someone got kidnapped from there as well, and that’s it’s practically an already-failed company in comparison to the bigger establishments such as WarTech. Both companies seem to be treated fairly by Chappelle, so at least that’s something good about him. Part of me wants to think he’s corrupt, part of me wants to think he’s good, and part of me wants to think that he does mean the best for Colorado but just has weird ways of going about it. It’s worth noting that we already had a terrible U.S. Senator in the last novel (Mark Bishop.....freaking creep); I wouldn’t be surprised if Chappelle turns out to be just as bad, though if he’s actually good, that would be a nice change of pace, too.
Just think about what Mantis, Devlin, and the rest of WarTech are currently doing with that laptop......(shudder)