Rock Killer by S. Evan Townsend Page A

alive,” Mitchel asked in his office.
    “Apparently he’s on the Rock Skipper ,” Rodriguez said on the Moon.
“Okay, what do you know about these people?”
In San Francisco a man named Joe Murda looked off screen. “Our data on the GA identifies all but the Cole woman.”
“From their visas,” Rodriguez said, “Cole lives in a town called Gilroy. Knecht lives in L.A.”
    “I have more bad news,” Murda added. “Knecht was trained in space navigation. She’s undoubtedly operating the Rock Skipper .”
“Who trained her, where?” Mitchel demanded.
Murda hesitated. “We did. She’s an ex-employee/trainee.”
“Damn,” Mitchel spat. “And she was living in L.A.?”
    “According to her visa. L.A. is where the GA operates a safe house,” Murda said. “Gilroy’s a suburb of San Jose and not too far from here. Let me try something.
    “Computer, directory, Gilroy. Cole, C-O-L-E. List all Cole, M.” He looked at the computer display just visible to Mitchel. “I’ve got a Madalyn Cole in Gilroy. Computer, call Madalyn Cole. To my screen only.” A short wait.
    “Hello?” a female voice queried. The new screen read NO VIDEO.
    “Hi,” Murda said in friendly tones. “Is Madalyn there?”
    “No,” the voice replied. Everyone heard her suspicious tone. “She quit her job and moved out a few weeks ago. I’m her roommate; or I was.”
“She quit her job?” Murda exclaimed with mock shock. “I thought she liked that job.”
“Are you kidding?” the girl said as if she considered Murda an idiot. “She hated it, but it paid good. Who is this anyway?”
“A friend from school,” Murda said. “Do you know where she went?”
“No,” the voice replied. “She just left. I came home from work and she was gone.” Bitterness in that statement.
“Did you work where she worked?”
“No. I tried but they wouldn’t hire me. Not enough school.”
“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” Murda tried.
This is going nowhere, Mitchel thought.
“Yeah,” the girl bemoaned. “They’re really jerks at WCMS.”
“WCMS?” Murda asked.
“Yeah, you know. West Coast Missile Systems.”
    Oh, damn , Mitchel thought. West Coast was the subcontractor for the missile systems on the Rock Skipper -class ships.
“Well, I got to go,” Murda said and tapped a button on his computer disconnecting the call.
“Get over to West Coast and find out what she did,” Mitchel ordered.
“I sure will.”
Meyoung broke in just then. “Mr. Mitchel,” she said. “I’ve got a call from Ms. Morgan, Tel Aviv.”
“Put it in the conference,” Mitchel barked, still unhappy about the news he’d just received.
    Elisa Morgan’s pretty face appeared. “Mitch—oh hi, Rod, Murda. Mitch, the Syrians bought space-to-space missiles from the Frenchman, Philippe Thorez.”
    “How do you know?”
    “One of our contacts in Mirbat sent us some interesting photos. We think they’re Puma space-to-space; the quality was pretty poor. I’m trying to get information from the French but you know how tight lipped they are.
    “But,” she continued, “Thorez, the French arms dealer I told you about, visited Damascus two days ago. We have his computer records. The Syrians are paying him 20million euros to an SRI account. You want the number?”
“Send it in your report.”
“Okay. Three months ago he paid eleven and a half million to the Chinese.”
“And the Chinese,” Mitchel finished for her, “buy Pumas from the French.”
“Yes,” Morgan said. “He even noted the expenditure as ‘Inventory, space-to-space missiles.’“
“Good work, Elisa,” Mitchel said with more enthusiasm than he felt. This was adding up in ways he didn’t like.
    ***
    Cole was in the bottom of the Rock Killer , née Rock Skipper .
    Griffin was glad. When Cole was around, she and Knecht heterodyned on each other and Griffin and Trudeau were left watching the escalating pitch of their conversations.
    Griffin walked up behind Knecht as she peered out the large