Protocol 7 by Armen Gharabegian Page B

breast pocket and laid it on the table.
    Andrew cocked an eye at him. “We all good in the big ears department?” he asked obscurely.
    Simon tapped the same breast pocket, where he held Andrew’s device. “Never leave home without it,” he said, smiling grimly. A roiling black cube appeared above the end table as the data from the card loaded. “I could try and explain all this to you,” he said. “And I will. But I need to show this to you first. Just…watch.” He tapped the card, muttered, “Play,” and his father’s eerily smiling face appeared.
    No one spoke while the message played through, and no one spoke for a long time after.
    Samantha, who had heard the story already, was still having a hard time taking it all in. “That…that doesn’t seem like him at all.”
    “What was with that laugh?” Andrew said, strangely subdued for the moment. “I never heard Oliver Fitzpatrick laugh like that.”
    Ryan had worked with father and son for years. He knew both of them exceedingly well. Now he just shook his head. “He was lying,” he said bitterly. “Clearly. Obviously. Anyone who had ever worked with the man would know that.”
    “Absolutely,” Hayden said. He was leaning against the bookcase, arms folded, a look of outrage and deep concern on his lined face.
    Simon felt the tension flow from his body. “Then it’s not just me,” he said.
    “Not at all,” Sammy said, utterly in shock from what she had witnessed.
    Ryan turned and faced his old friend with an unaccustomed intensity. “Simon, listen to me. We have to get to the bottom of this. Whatever you need—connections, media, bribes, I don’t care—it’s yours. All of it. We have to locate Oliver and bring him home.”
    Simon looked at the others. “The rest of you?”
    “I’m there,” Andrew said, his voice uncharacteristically rough. “Whatever you need.”
    Hayden snorted. “What do you think?” he said.
    Sam gave him the ghost of a smile. “You already know my answer, Simon.”
    Simon took a breath. The relief that flowed through him was a palpable, physical sensation. He smiled completely, sincerely, for the first time in days. “That is exactly what I wanted to hear,” he said.
    Ryan frowned, thinking furiously. “Have you contacted the authorities?”
    “No. What would I tell them? ‘Good lord, Inspector, I received a message from my father and he’s alive and well and seems quite happy! Help me!’”
    Andrew snorted. “Besides, the ‘authorities’ have been lying to you all along, haven’t they? They’re the ones who told you he was dead. ‘Oh, ever so sorry, do forgive us, b’bye now.’”
    Simon nodded. “Exactly.” He reached into the other pocket of his jacket. “And there’s more.”
    “More?” Andrew crowed.
    “Good,” Ryan said.
    Simon pulled out the hand-bound book and put it on the end table where his father’s head had appeared moments before. “I was given this at the same time I was given the message from my father. It’s a diary of chess games.”
    “Oh, come now,” Ryan scoffed. “The man never kept notes of any kind; the last thing in the world he’d do is keep a chess diary.”
    “Exactly what I said,” Hayden told them. He crossed the room and held out his hand. “Let me take a look at that again.”
    Simon gave it to him. “I’ve already played through all these games; I think there are some general…ideas? He was trying to convey to me with them, but I think there’s more. I think there is specific, important information hidden in here somehow, and I want your help to find it.”
    Ryan also started leafing through the journal, concentrating hard. “Who gave this to you?” he said.
    “I did,” said a new voice from across the room.
    All of them in a single movement whirled around to look at the double doors that Sabrina had closed almost an hour earlier.
    Jonathan Weiss, still in his tailored raincoat, was standing just in front of the closed doors, his hands in