Petrichor Read online

  The Twelve Stones:

  Petrichor

  By

  R.J. Johnson

  Published by Rick Johnson at Amazon.com

  Copyright 2014

  R.J. Johnson

  First Edition

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  R.J. Johnson

  P.S. If you liked the book, why not leave a review on Amazon.com??? Indie authors like myself live and die by the amount of five star reviews we get, so I’d love it if you stopped by and told me what you thought!

  R.J. Johnson

  Other Books by this Author

  The Twelve Stones

  The Twelve Stones: SkyFire

  The Twelve Stones: Petrichor

  The Twelve Stones: Orenda

  From the Files of Jim Meade: Martian P.I.

  Change in Management (A Jim Meade, Martian PI Novel)

  Rosetta (A Jim Meade, Martian PI Novel)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Thank you

  Change in Management: A Jim Meade Martian PI novel

  For everyone who believed in me…

  Chapter One

  “Your family is in incredible debt Mr. Halprin.”

  “We’ve been in debt before.

  “Not like this. Do you understand the amount of danger your company is in at the moment?”

  “Run through it again for me then.

  The lawyer looked annoyed, but indulged the man sitting across from him. He was after all, paying him $500 an hour to be there.

  “The elephant in the room…”

  “Yes, I know… the pipeline project.”

  “Canceled without a dime recovered in costs so far. That expedition in tomfoolery was a 20 billion dollar mistake, as I warned you it would be.”

  “I know the numbers. Tell me what I have left.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ridiculous,” JT Halprin scoffed at his lawyer. He pushed the papers in front of him aside and leaned forward on his elbows, searching the man for any weaknesses. “Forbes rated our company as being worth just over fifty billion.”

  “That was last year’s list Mr. Halprin. After the pipeline project fell through, your stock took a huge hit. Your research and development department has been nothing but setbacks. Your defense contracting firm? It couldn’t secure a strip mall with the resources it has left. Put simply Mr. Halprin, you’re broke. Your company is broke and unless you listen to me and immediately declare Auburn Industries bankrupt and resign as CEO you’ll be facing charges from the SEC. The only thing to do now is liquidate your stock.”

  Halprin’s eyes narrowed as he examined the figures the lawyer had given him. The paper swam with numbers, and he set them down in a huff. If he was being honest, he stopped paying attention to the numbers long ago. It wasn’t that he was bothered by the idea that his family was broke on paper. Those weren’t problems. Those were merely minor annoyances, all of which could be dealt with in time.

  But to give up his company? That was unthinkable.

  Auburn Industries meant everything to him. Twenty years ago, he and his brother Charles started the defense contracting firm with a few contacts, and a better way of making the meals soldiers ate out in the field. With just a few simple recipes, Charles and JT Halprin had built an empire.

  As their business grew, so did the things they sold. From MREs, to body armor, to weapons, private security and even construction in hotly contested areas of the world, Auburn Industries had grown into an international behemoth. It had been second only to MARS Security in its reach.

  But now, this lawyer was telling him it was all gone and if he was being honest with himself, he had seen it coming. He had even tried his best to anticipate the changing markets. But peace was breaking out all over the Middle East and that had left them exposed.

  With treaties and stronger regional governments finally keeping the local Al Queda warlords in check, demand for his company’s products and services had plummeted. They’d managed to weather the recession fairly enough (war was always good for business) but as the economy had improved, paradoxically his own company’s fortunes diminished.

  The final blow to his family’s net worth had been the cancelation of a natural gas pipeline that was supposed to run from the oil rich fields of the Middle East into Europe. During the Great Recession, JT had been desperate to diversify his company away from the industry of war. In his haste, he’d failed to properly research the pipeline project and foolishly invested a large part of his company’s resources in the project.

  Unfortunately for him, a rival company had been better at the local politicking and had been able to have route of the pipeline changed to go through Iran instead of Romania. That had been the final blow to his company’s financial situation. Stockholders demanded answers, and if what this lawyer was telling him was true, he would have none for them.

  JT remained certain all that could be fixed within a few years if he just had the chance. He could even suffer the indignity of bankruptcy - that didn’t matter when an empire was at stake. A token shuffling of VPs and CEOs could be the thing to show his stockholders they were serious about fixing their problems. But to resign himself?

  JT’s phone chimed and he glanced down at the display, grimacing at the name popping up on the screen. It was his br
other who was off on one of his ‘hunts.’ He wanted to know when JT might be able to join him.

  His brother Charles often flew out to their expansive Swedish estate to hunt exotic animals he’d import from around the world. Charles would often invite him out to their estate to join him, but JT always refused. Business was how he relaxed.

  It was concerning then to hear that his brother was again spending nearly $500,000 on importing an ‘exotic animal’ for him to hunt on the estate. And now after hearing his company’s financials in stark black and white, he knew it was time to cut his brother off.

  “Are you hearing me Mr. Halprin?” the lawyer’s pencil thin mustache wiggled as he looked up at the CEO sitting across from him. “I need you to understand…”

  “Yes goddammit I heard you,” JT replied sharply. “What I don’t understand is why you haven’t fixed it yet?”

  The lawyer was taken aback by the man’s accusation. “With all due respect Mr. Halprin, this is the type of thing that could take years to unravel in bankruptcy court. Union contracts, outstanding bids over…”

  JT waved the lawyer off, “What of my personal financial situation?”

  The lawyer shrugged, “As I said, for all intents and purposes, you’re broke.”

  “There must be another way - a loan? Extension from the bank perhaps?” JT’s eyes narrowed as he swept his arms across the papers in front of him. “Surely there must be some money somewhere…” Defeat wasn’t an option. His accountants always had some trick to make his books look better than they were.

  “Short of some miracle product that your company’s been holding back and could announce in order to prop up the stock…” the lawyer cleared his throat and looked at JT with his watery blue eyes. He was elderly, but his voice was strong and left no doubt as to who was the smartest person in the room was. “Your only option is to completely shut down and begin the process of selling off assets.”

  JT stood and walked to the window of the conference room. He looked down at the street 27 floors below him. There, hundreds of people scurried through the courtyard, all lost within their own little worlds of problems, dramas and dreams. None of them would know what it was like to hold the fate of thousands in their hands. None of them controlled billions of dollars flowing through the economy. None of them knew the lengths he had to go to secure technologies that kept them safe.

  And now they were telling him that his company had gone broke for the privilege of protecting America. It was patently unfair.

  What they didn’t know, what no one knew, was the ace he held up his sleeve. From what this lawyer was telling him, it was time to play it.

  “Fine,” JT’s voice was brusque as he turned back to face the lawyer. “Send the paperwork to my people and we’ll look it over. We’ll talk about options and go from there.”

  The lawyer raised an eyebrow in surprise, “It’s not for me to tell you your business…”

  “Then don’t,” JT growled.

  The lawyer was taken aback, but instead muttered under his breath and began putting the papers back in his briefcase.

  JT moved out the conference room, heading for the elevator pulling his phone out of his pocket. Dialing a number, he waited as the connection found its way to Switzerland and his brother’s satellite phone.

  Finally, after a few minutes, he heard his brother’s voice.

  “Brother!” Charles cried out. “Does this call mean you’re coming to join me?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” JT said, already feeling annoyed at his brother’s cheery tone. Charles had been the spoiled one growing up, always doing exactly what he pleased. Their parents didn’t even bother trying to control him. They’d just buy him out of whatever trouble his brother had managed to get himself into.

  And that type of life had led Charles to assume everyone else in the world was as free to do what they pleased as he was. JT grimaced and pushed through his brother’s annoying good spirits.

  “Charles, pay attention. This is about business. I’m calling because I need your code to access the special projects vault.”

  There was a pause as Charles absorbed this information, “What is it you’re looking to do?”

  “Have you been watching the news?”

  “Brother, I’m a hundred miles from any sort of television screen, and that’s on purpose.”

  “There was a terrorist attack…”

  “Really?” Charles said eagerly. JT could imagine his brother’s greedy face squished in excitement at the thought of another attack on American soil. No matter what the government did next in response, their company stood to make a lot of money.

  But, only if their company survived the next few weeks.

  “Yes, but that’s not why I’m calling. One of our projects went missing.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Hypertruck.”

  Charles inhaled sharply, and JT allowed his brother a moment to absorb the impact of that. The message his contacts at JPL had sent said that the Hypertruck had been missing for three days. What’s worse, the lead engineer in charge, was missing along with it. It had been this, more than anything else that had kept him preoccupied during his meeting with the lawyer. Bankruptcy meant nothing compared to the kind of trouble they were in if this kind of technology got out.

  “The DoD will be furious if they find out it’s missing,” JT said, impatient to finish the conversation and get back to running their company. “They’d be worried Ermy was kidnapped and along with him the camouflage software on the Hypertruck. If this gets out, they’ll have a warrant to seize the whole company.”

  “Leaving us holding the bag,” Charles said, sounding disgusted. “Our people in the Senate Appropriations Committee wouldn’t help us?”

  “They already see blood in the water,” JT said. “They know unless something changes for Auburn, we’re out of money and juice.”

  “What do you hope to do then?” Charles asked.

  “They’re looking for a national security threat,” JT said. “We’ll give them one.”

  “You’re talking about Ermy?”

  “That punk had his chance,” JT said disgusted. “I warned him of the consequences if he didn’t fall in line. He was the only person who had access to the Hypertruck and the software.”

  “But we don’t know…”

  “It doesn’t matter if he did it or if someone put a gun to his head. What we do know is someone stole the Hypertruck and it may as well be him. No one else even knew it existed save for my people at JPL. And they didn’t even know what it was.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “You killed the only other person who knew about the project.”

  There was silence on the line as they implicitly acknowledged the old wound. Charles didn’t like it when his brother reminded him of his weaknesses and what he’d done to protect him. Charles felt the stab in his gut as he sputtered out a desperate defense.

  “But, that program cost us millions in development costs, not to mention the incident at his lab…”

  “I’m well aware of what the project has cost us,” JT snapped at his brother. “All that matters now is the company. We release part of the code out on the open market and blame Mr. Ermy for it getting loose. He was already on the DoD’s radar for his part in the girlfriend’s death. When the code leaks, we tell the DoD we’re the only company who will be able to come up with countermeasures. We make the code secure again. We get another contract. Auburn Industries uses that money to survive another quarter. WE survive another quarter.”

  “Are you nuts?” Charles screamed into the receiver. “The DoD would CANCEL everything they’ve got with us, not to mention that the whole world might find out just how we developed that project. Any reporter worth their salt would reopen the investigation into that girl’s death.”

  “We don’t have any other choice!” JT said firmly. “Our company is broke, no thanks to your spending like a drunken sailor.”

  “There are othe
r ways to make money…” Charles said mysteriously.

  Silence filled the connection between them.

  “Well?” JT snapped.

  “Now, now… don’t be like that. I’m never sure how loud your conscience is speaking to you on a daily basis,” Charles said, sounding insulted. “You know whatever I have to say will be something incredibly illegal and I didn’t think we were doing that sort of thing any longer. Not since…”

  “Yes, I know…” JT said hurriedly. “No need to re-litigate the past. What is your idea?”

  “The pipeline Nebula Mining took from us?”

  “Yes? What of it?” JT snapped. Charles had warned him about the project at the time, and he was sure his brother took a certain pleasure in his failures.

  “They’re about to connect it to the Iran half of the project.”

  “So?” JT snapped. He had very little patience for his brother’s Machiavellian schemes today.

  “So, it’s a simple matter of shorting as much of Nebula’s stock as we can and ordering an attack that would disrupt operations for months. It just so happens that I have the contacts and people in place to execute such an operation.”

  Silence filled the distance between them once again. “You’ve been anticipating this.”

  “Isn’t that what you always say brother? That we must anticipate the market?” Charles asked. “Besides, that was the whole point of my exile, was it not? Doing the things you couldn’t?”

  JT cleared his throat and sighed. They needed the money. It didn’t matter where it came from.

  “Fine, I shall have our accountants short Nebula’s stock.”

  “Excellent,” Charles said, inhaling the fresh air. “Relax my dear brother. Our money troubles will soon be over with.”

  “We still have to deal with that Ermy fellow.”

  “I know, but that seems an awful lot like your problem and not mine.” Charles said, his mood turning darker.

  “You’re the one who killed his blasted fiancé!” JT barked at him. “We could have had them design anything for us, but you had to go and kill the goose that laid the golden egg! Now we don’t even have the camo program because some idiot stole it!”