Chapter 28 - The Home Stretch

Using de Chateau's back door we entered Togiwara and headed for the main datastore. Once there we blended in using a Masking program and pulled up the Main Master list to see if we could find what we were looking for. Using the same key words we did in Aztech we found much larger files this time. Again we made a copy of the Main Master listing as well. From there we peeked into the R&D section to see if we could get inside using the information we had garnered from de Chateau. This was Nogumi's empire. If he were playing dirty tricks then we should find out about it here. Again we blended in and were able to pull up the master listing here also. Here again we made a copy of the master list and the key word files before we escaped.

We knew that Project Chiron had started eighteen months before so we went back nineteen months before eliminating any listings, giving us a one month cushion. We then printed up a listing of all files that had been started since them. Bringing up the key word files from the Main master listing we didn't learn much but bringing up the R&D files we learned a good bit.

Blake and his suspicious mind were correct, Nogumi had hired Gruber for this job. Gruber was supposedly on Holiday somewhere in Italy right now. It was going to be a long Holiday! He had been hired to go into Aztech and look around as if he were there on an inspection tour for S-K. He was not to do anything but then it wasn't necessary. Everyone would assume that he was there representing S-K and the word would soon get upstairs. Why Nogumi put all of this into the file I didn't understand but I saw a way that we could use it. I made a copy of the Gruber file, called the same number Blake had called the day before and fed the information to them for Mr. Ramirez from Mr. Chiron.

There was a lock on the de Chateau file. I made a copy to be on the safe side and then tried to unlock the file. It only took about three minutes with Smokey and I both working on it. Nogumi was getting suspicious of de Chateau and was starting to keep tabs on him. He had a list of several of the residences that de Chateau had been using but not all of them.

They were the ones who hit the three houses before we could get to them. In the file was an inventory of what he had found at each of the locations. The main thing I was interested in were the chips that were listed. There were a number of duplicates just like we had found. There were of course several that we didn't have and we had many that they didn't. Only the general subject matter was listed, not a transcript of the chips but it was enough to give me a good idea of what they had. They didn't have the chips on Nogumi, Togiwara, the back door, the R&D breakdown that de Chateau had put together and several more that would have let them know just how deeply they had been compromised.

We continued to work on the files and listings until lunchtime. We had them pretty well whipped into shape when we took them with us to lunch. Sitting around the table we discussed what we had found, the lists we had made and the call and data transfer that I had made.

"Blake, would you like to get filthy rich? Call Ramirez again and show him a list of the projects that Togiwara R&D is working on and ask him which ones he would like to purchase and for how much? I'll bet he will have fits and buy several, especially after he sees how Nogumi set him and his company up in the Gruber matter."

"In fact if you know anyone at S-K itself we could do the same thing with them. I think a Dragon would see the humor in something like that, Poetic don't you think?"

"You have a death wish don't you? Don't you know that you never deal with a Dragon? You always lose, no matter what else happens, you lose. I just might go along with the call to Ramirez though. I think he would like that a lot, especially if we could make it appear that Nogumi is the one who is selling the data."

I looked at Smokey, "Do you think we could get his Password? If we did we could pull all that stuff using his Password and it would look like he pulled it up. Then when it shows up on the outside all indications would be that he sold the stuff himself. If they do any further checking they will then find a few more little surprises that I have already left with his footprints all over them."