Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16)

  TAHOE

  SKYDROP

  by

  Todd Borg

  Published by Thriller Press at Smashwords Copyright 2018 by Todd Borg Thank you for purchasing this book.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  PROLOGUE

  As Yardley LaMotte looked out the open door of the helicopter, he knew he wasn’t a natural predator. But Yardley was smart. He could, with simple mental study, figure out how to kill.

  Yardley was the majority owner of Tahoe Robotics, a new tech company. He was, at his core, not the least bit like a murderer. He was a software engineer. Brilliant. Innovative. He wrote computer code. Yardley almost couldn’t believe what he was about to do. But even a squirrel fights back when a fox grabs it. And if the squirrel is particularly wily and can bite the fox’s throat, the fox can die.

  Yardley was the opposite of an athlete. But because he weighed over 300 pounds, he had some advantage when it came to grappling with anyone in the small space of a helicopter. If he could pull a man down, get his weight on him...

  Yardley had already used a series of carefully worded emails - an offer proposed, an enticement formulated - that convinced the man to come along in the helicopter.

  After they lifted off, the man, Isak Henriksson, spoke in imperfect English. “I have never taken the ride on the helicopter.”

  Because all their communication had been by email, LaMotte had never spoken to him in person. LaMotte was surprised by Henriksson’s accent.

  “Anders had much less accent,” LaMotte said.

  “He is from Stockholm years ago,” Isak said. “I only have come since he is died. To finish his things.”

  “And call in the debt I had with him,” Yardley said, his voice bitter. “Yes, the note had an acceleration clause. And yes, I’m behind on payments. But I’m trying to adjust to Anders’ sudden death. To also have to pay back the loan in thirty days, it’s too much. That’s why I’ve made you such a generous offer.”

  “The fast payment on the loan is correct, ja? You miss the payments, the loan is due. Because your debt is now to belong to me, I am to get payment. It isn’t personal. It is just business. In the contract.”

  Yardley realized he shouldn’t be surprised at how much Isak Henriksson was unlike Anders Henriksson. Brothers are often very different.

  Anders Henriksson’s business was investing in new tech companies. He’d made huge profits by identifying promising startups and providing them with seed money. The attraction to new entrepreneurs was that they needn’t prepare a complex presentation to pitch to venture capitalists. Anders Henricksson made it easy. He sat down with the young software wizards, talked about their goals over coffee, had them sign some papers, and then wrote them a huge check, often at their very first meeting. It was the bold, impulsive, and large loan that got them to agree to extreme interest rates.

  Of course, Anders asked for every conceivable kind of collateral: houses, cars, stock, whatever the borrower had. That, combined with his great skill in identifying and approaching potential borrowers, ensured that he didn’t lose too big a percentage of his loans.

  Anders’ financial and people skills had served him well.

  In contrast, his brother Isak Henriksson’s mistake had been to move too fast. First, he emailed Yardley to tell him about Anders’ sudden death. Then, without giving Yardley even a day to absorb the news, he told Yardley LaMotte that he was going to call Yardley’s loan because of late payments.

  It was just business.

  But to Yardley, it was personal. In making a full payment demand, Isak Henriksson said that if Yardley LaMotte didn’t repay the entire loan according to the terms in the contract, Isak would come after all the collateral Yardley had put up. Isak intended to foreclose on Yardley’s house in Truckee and on his cars. He even threatened to take Yardley’s personal belongings.

  Fortunately, Yardley had put much of the money from Anders’ loan into a piece of real estate using a limited liability company for ownership. Not only couldn’t Isak touch that, he didn’t even know it existed. It was Yardley’s secret nest egg and getaway.

  “The open door is big danger, ja?” Isak said.

  The man’s headset mic was sensitive enough that Yardley heard Henriksson’s voice wavering. Yardley looked up as the man gestured toward the open door on the port side of the helicopter. It was a slider that made a large opening.

  “You get used to it,” Yardley said. “We have to have it open for the scanner.” That wasn’t true. With luck, Henriksson wouldn’t figure it out.

  So far, Yardley’s plan was working. Bringing the scanner and his laptop with the robotics software was part of the enticement.

  Anders had put up $4 million. Half of that was to purchase 10% of the company’s stock. The other half was a loan. Yardley’s offer to Isak was to roll the $2 million loan over into an additional 20% equity in Tahoe Robotics. That would bring Isak’s ownership of the company to 30%.

  Isak Henriksson had already said by email that he went along with Yardley’s offer. He followed up his approval with what was called an Agreement in Principle.

  Yardley knew that such agreements were not legally binding. But that didn’t matter. All he wanted was to get Isak out of the way. Signing the Agreement in Principle provided a smokescreen to make Isak think he was serious. It was the same as offering to take Henriksson for the helicopter ride to show him the details of their digital scanning technique. It worked. Henriksson was now in the helicopter.

  “Do you have other siblings?” Yardley asked. As soon as he did, he realized that the question was too revealing. Isak might suspect Yardley’s intentions.

  Isak shook his head. “Anders and I had each other only. No children. Now I am to be all alone.”

  Yardley relaxed. Isak didn’t suspect anything. Yardley was a good judge of character. He could tell that Isak was the lazy brother, the man with no plan, no past successes. An opportunistic scammer who saw a chance to hustle a fast buck by calling in this loan.

  After Isak Henriksson was gone, Yardley would be free from the loan. And if Isak Henriksson had named heirs - which Yardley doubted - who tried to enforce the loan, Yardley would shut down his company and declare bankruptcy. It was done all the time. You can walk away from most kinds of debt with a simple court action. Legal theft.

  It was just business.

  Yardley could move across the street and start another company with a slightly different mission that would, nevertheless, make use of Yardley’s software. A tech startup was always about the founder’s genius, nothing else. People who invested were merely backing the founder’s vision.

  The helicopter headed south from the Truckee airport and went over Brockway Summit into the Tahoe Basin. The chopper crossed the length of Lake Tahoe, making a slow climb the entire way. The helicopter door was still wide open. Isak shivered. Yardley had enough body mass to stay warm.

  Yardley knew the importance of impressions. Looking at a scanner in the lab did nothing. But looking at it from inside a chopper flying with an open door next to Sierra cliffs above 10,000 feet… that was impressive.

  Yardley’s goal was to get Isak Henriksson to focus en
ough on the scanning process to unlatch his seat belt and look out the helicopter door.

  The helicopter flew over the town of South Lake Tahoe to where Freel Peak and Job’s Sister rise up, the highest mountains in Tahoe. Following Yardley’s instructions to the pilot, the big bird started tracking across the northeast slopes of Job’s Sister at 10,500 feet of altitude. Directly out the open door were the ice-coated, jagged outcroppings rising like the teeth of a saw toward the mountain’s summit. The cliffs stretched 400 feet above and 400 feet below the chopper.

  The air rushing in the open door was cold, the result of high altitude and the fact that the surrounding mountains were still caked in snow and ice at the end of June. They created a giant air cooling effect. Down in town, 4000 feet below and away from the snow, the day was typical for late June. Sunny skies and high temps in the low 70s. Tourists were beginning to flood into the basin and head to Tahoe’s beaches and hiking trails, lake shore restaurants, and out onto boats. But at 10,000 feet, the temperature was in the upper 40s and low 50s.

  Yardley was pleased when Isak Henriksson looked away from the open helicopter door as if to concentrate on something less scary. His eyes focused on Yardley’s laptop computer.

  With that single glance from Isak, Yardley realized the man had bought in psychologically as well as financially.

  “You fit the data and software on the laptop in total?” Isak Henriksson said.

  Yardley grinned. “Not just on the laptop. It’s all on this flash drive, too. Fourteen million lines of code. That way, I can do analysis and make adjustments as we gather data.” Yardley touched the tip of his finger to the flash drive and made a nervous chuckle, a laugh calculated to make Isak think that Yardley was just an innocent geek, so taken with his software that he could be easily manipulated by a loan shark. “This computer, hell, just this little red memory stick, is probably worth a billion dollars to the right company. Of course, we’re that company, and we’re not interested in selling. After Tahoe Robotics finishes developing the software, and we launch our IPO, we’ll end up with a market cap of a billion dollars. Maybe more. And you will have thirty percent. Imagine where it can go from there.”

  “What about the situation of the security?” Isak asked. “It is to be completely safe from the hacking?”

  Yardley LaMotte slid his finger tip along the flash drive as if caressing it. “Yeah. But I suppose I should be more careful with this little baby, ha ha.”

  Isak looked alarmed.

  Yardley said, “Of course, this stick is only for use while we’re scanning. As soon as we’re back on the ground, I’ll upload the data. Total security there. Two-part verification with an unbreakable password. After the upload, I’ll reformat the stick, which erases it completely. You don’t need to worry about security.” Yardley almost laughed out loud at the irony of that statement.

  The helicopter was a Bell 430, large enough for up to eight passengers in the standard configuration. But this helicopter had been substantially modified for search-and-rescue operations, with sliding cabin doors that could be opened during flight. A special bulkhead wall had been installed behind the cockpit to insulate it from the cold of flying at altitude and in winter. It had been easy to mount the scanner on the bulkhead wall so it could point out the open door.

  Next to the scanner was one rear-facing passenger seat. Isak Henriksson sat there, his hand locked, white-knuckled, onto the chair arm for security. Opposite the scanner and Isak’s seat was a pair of forward-facing seats. Yardley occupied the one closest to the open door. At the center of the configuration was a table just big enough for Yardley’s laptop and the two cans of Coke that always accompanied him like little red pets.

  Yardley pointed to the scanner. “This is a combination lidar/radar scanner. In lidar mode, it works very much like radar,” Yardley said. “Only, instead of bouncing radio waves off of objects, it uses laser light. Unlike radar, lidar can’t see through fog. But when the weather is clear, lidar is way more accurate than radar. With the lidar, we can scan the cliff face and get an extremely detailed, three-dimensional picture of the rocks.” Yardley tapped a few times on his laptop keyboard, then turned it so his guest could see the graphic representation on the screen.

  “Ursäkta mig,” Isak Henriksson said. “I mean to say, excuse me. But the pilot can maybe hear what we... vi ska prata. What we are to speaking? This is your company’s proprietär… ?”

  “What I’m telling you is confidential, yes,” Yardley said. “The pilot can’t hear us. He’s a good guy and very discreet. But we don’t want him telling stories at the bar after work. If I need to, I can press a button and broadcast to him over his headset. And he can do the same to me if he has an important question. But otherwise, our headsets are disconnected.”

  Isak Henriksson seemed to relax a bit. He made a nervous glance toward the open door, then looked back to the laptop screen.

  Yardley continued. “Using this data, our robot will eventually be able to analyze the cliff the way a human climber would, deciding in advance the best route for climbing. It will even take into account the weather forecast, and the current snowfields and ice falls. At some point in the not-too-distant future, our robot will be able to climb the cliff better and faster than a human.” Yardley paused and studied his guest’s face as if to see whether he was properly impressed.

  The helicopter reached the side of the cliff, then arced away in a banking curve, accelerating enough that the men were pulled down into their seats. Isak Henriksson stifled a gasp, but it was audible in Yardley’s headset.

  The pilot made a loop, and approached the cliff again, this time seventy-five feet higher. The chopper slowed to its former crawl so the lidar scanner could begin recording another pass across the rock face.

  Isak Henriksson appeared to take a deep breath as if to calm himself. “Do you think you will one day create the robot that can climb as the person climbs?” Isak asked. “Or, how is the word, skidåkning down unfamiliar slopes in the unknown conditions? And the robot is to leap over the moguls and the buried tree logs?”

  “Absolutely,” Yardley said. Although he sounded boastful, his manner was merely supremely confident, a quality many tech wizards possess. Yardley added, “Of course, this is simply about how to develop the technology.”

  Isak Henriksson made a short, nervous laugh. “Ja, the world doesn’t have much the need for robots to climb cliffs. But it will get the attention when people see that the robot can do the work.”

  “Exactly!” Yardley said. His eyes were wide, almost maniacal. “The whole point of this is what I call Presentation Technology. Pretend you are looking up at a steep ski slope, with a huge mogul field like a thousand snow-covered cars. You see three skiers flying down the slope, legs like pistons, hitting and absorbing the bumps, leaping from mogul top to mogul top, periodically flying into the air and doing a three-sixty spin before landing.”

  Yardley’s eyes were afire.

  “Then, as you stare,” he continued, “focusing on each skier as they get closer, you realize one of them is a robot. Its shape is somewhat similar to a person, two legs, two arms. But it has no clothes. It is a machine, a plastic-and-fiberglass housing covering the mechanics inside. The robot is the equal of its champion skier companions.”

  “That would make the real impression to the world,” Isak said. “When people can see this, demand for robots will be an explosion. And the many of them will be a customer to Tahoe Robotics!”

  “Exactly!” Yardley said.

  Yardley looked out the open chopper door then turned to his computer and tapped several keys. “Here, let me show you something cool. Can you see this on the screen?” Yardley turned the laptop to face his guest. Yardley didn’t really care if Isak could see the image. All Yardley wanted was to impress Isak enough that the man would unlatch his seatbelt and lean forward to look out the sliding door.

  “Now look out at that crevasse in the rocks,” Yardley continued. “It’s filled with snow.
But on the screen, I can make an adjustment that shows the crevasse as if there were no snow.”

  The man stared out the open door and shook his head. “I don’t see the crevasse.”

  “Oh, the crevasse is too low for you to see it. If you stand up, you’ll be able to look down.”

  Isak Henriksson looked alarmed. He once again locked his hand into the arm rest for support. “But what if the helicopter is to shake? I could fall out the doorway.”

  “No, you won’t. The weather is calm. No turbulence. And your seat is farthest from the open door. Go ahead. Stand up and look down at the snow-filled crevasse. Then see the image I can produce on the screen.”

  Isak looked very nervous.

  “Watch me,” Yardley said. “I’ll show you how safe this is.” Yardley unbuckled his seatbelt, shifted his bulk forward, and leaned one knee to the floor of the cabin. From there, he was able to look out the door and down at the rocks hundreds of feet below. He looked back and smiled to reassure his guest.

  As if gaining confidence, Isak slowly unbuckled his belt, reached up, and grabbed two of the overhead grips, one in each hand. He pulled on them as if to test their strength. Satisfied they were solid, he slowly stood up. Isak looked nervous, but leaned his head a bit to the side, looking out the open door.

  “I don’t see it,” Isak said.

  Yardley turned again to look out the door. The rocky cliff was just yards away. Yardley leaned farther forward and pointed. “See. Right down there. That long vertical stripe of snow.” He pointed at the rocks just outside the helicopter door. As Yardley shifted his position, he saw movement in his peripheral vision. He looked back toward Isak and saw the man reach down with one hand and pick up the laptop.

  “Hey! What are you doing?!” Yardley shouted. He lunged for the laptop and grabbed its edge.

  Isak pulled back.

  Yardley shifted, got a better grip on the laptop, and jerked it away. It came away from Isak too easily and hit the arm of Yardley’s seat. Yardley lost his grip. The laptop clattered to the floor of the helicopter, and skittered out the open door, falling toward the cliffs below.