Run the Numbers

Chapter Three

Devlin Jacobs sat at a desk in the bedroom of an old Victorian house on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The palm pilot with the stolen data sat on the desk connected to a lap top. On the dresser in the corner there was a six inch square mirror with a small pile of white powder and a razor blade. Devlin sat typing furiously at the computer scanning the complex algebraic equations on the screen. After a few minutes he pounded both fists on the desk and shouted in frustration clenching his fists rhythmically making the snake tattoo on his forearm ripple.

He stood up abruptly and moved over to the dresser picking up the razor blade and with slightly shaking hands cut into the pile of powder forming it into two thick lines. He picked up a small plastic straw and snorted each line in quick succession then stood up with his eyes closed for a moment. When he opened his eyes he had a manic look and he shook his head as if to clear it.

Out side the window next to the dresser his attention was drawn to an argument between Trevor Baker and Michael Reed. Michael slapped his hand on the top of a black SUV parked in the dirt driveway leading up to an old garage on the property.

"Devlin has been working on that encryption for three days and has made no progress in decoding it!"

Trevor put a hand on Michael's shoulder to calm him.

"Well unless you can break the code we have to give him time."

Michael looked up at the window of the bedroom where Devlin sat working and said, "He's nothing more than a coke head with a degree! We need to find another mathematician."

"Where would you suggest we look! The buyers will be here on Friday and they do not take no or sorry for an answer!"

Trevor who was normally calm and collected started to feel almost as frustrated about this situation as Michael. He took a deep breath to bring his emotions under control.

"OK, look, Devlin has been at it all day; lets go see how he is doing. If he hasn't made any further progress we will give him better motivation."

Michael looked slightly perplexed by this statement.

"Everyone can be motivated as long as you know the key to what drives them."

Michael was sure that Trevor was planning on depriving Devlin of his vice but he wasn't sure that this was such a good idea. If he went into withdrawal then he would be useless to them and as Trevor had pointed out, their buyers were unlikely to be sympathetic, especially with the amount of money that they were paying for this formula.

When Michael opened the door to the bedroom where Devlin was working it was to find him lying on the floor unconscious.

"Trevor! Get in here!"

Michael looked to the dresser and saw the mirror with traces of the cocaine still spread over it and the razor blade. "Damn it!" he knelt down to feel for a pulse and found one but it was week and fast. "Damn it, get him up. We need to get him to the hospital!"

The two men lifted Devlin by the arms and dragged him out of the house to the car. They drove him to the California Medical Hospital off Interstate 110 while they decided on a plan to find a replacement if necessary.

"The hospital is near Cal Sci. I could hack into the university computers and look for their top mathematic faculty."

Trevor pursed his lips thinking.

"Abducting a professor will bring the FBI down on us. I don't know about that kind of heat. Let's see what happens at the hospital with Devlin. How is he doing?"

Michael turned in his seat and felt for a pulse on the man's neck lying on the back seat of the car.

"Still weak and thready. Look Trevor we have to crack that code before Friday. I say we dump this loser and get ourselves a clean geek from Cal Sci or UCLA."

"We may have no other choice but let's see how this plays out first."


A small child was standing over the limp form of Charlie Eppes looking at the man on the ground next to a bench in Grant Park.

"Mommy, come here."

The boy's mother, who was struggling with a precocious two year old trying to strap her into a stroller, took a few steps closer to the bench and saw the man lying on the ground.

"Oh my God! Benjie come away from him!"

The woman ran over to her four year old son and took him by the hand

"Why's that man sleeping on the ground mommy?"

The woman saw the blood covering the back of the prone man's shirt and the blood on his hand and reached for her cell phone to call the police.

Charlie was roused slightly by the voices around him. Someone pulled open his left eye and a bright light shone into it making him wince.

"His pupils are equal and reactive but he has a serious concussion and a fractured skull."

Another voice said "No wallet, no ID. This fellow was probably mugged."

He felt himself being lifted onto a stretcher and he slowly opened his eyes. A policeman was standing near the stretcher and leaned over to him.

"What's your name son?"

Charlie didn't seem to understand the question. The man's voice was muffled and his ears were ringing.

"What happened to you? Were you attacked?"

A man in a white and red jacket with a stethoscope hanging around his neck said, "This will have to wait. We are ready to transport him." This man looked down at Charlie and said "Hang in there friend, your going to be OK now."

At this reassurance Charlie started to drift off again. The next thing that he was aware of, were lights on the ceiling as he was wheeled along a noisy corridor.

"Put him in curtain 2."

A doctor in a long white lab coat stepped into the cubicle that Charlie was in and started speaking very quickly to the man in the red and white jacket. He knew that they were talking about him but everything seemed so foggy. He had to get to the bottom of this and he mustered his strength and opened his eyes.

"Where am I?"

The doctor looked at him closely and said, "You are at California Medical Hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?"

Charlie frowned in concentration for a moment. The policeman who had asked him his name stepped close to the bed with a pad in his hand and a pencil.

"I don't know how I got here. I don't remember what happened."

The policeman looked disappointed and the doctor said, "That is alright. You have a bad head injury. Can you tell me your name?"

Charlie looked up at the doctor and a creeping fear came over his face. He didn't know how to answer this question. He knew he must have a name, but why couldn't he remember it? His head was pounding so fiercely that he was having trouble seeing and hearing.

"I… I… …Why don't I know my name?"

There was a distinct edge of panic in Charlie's voice and the doctor looked at him with concern.

"Relax, I'm sure that you do know your name, but you have had a nasty bump on your head and things seem a little out of focus just at the moment. Let's get a few X-Rays and see how much swelling there is and I am sure that everything will clear up for you in a couple of hours."

The doctor turned to the nurse and said, "Let's get a skull series and a head CT."

The nurse took down the order and left for the front desk. The officer stepped aside and gave the doctor a card.

"Call me as soon as he remembers anything. I'll be in the lounge filling out the paperwork on this case but the sooner we can get a description of his attacker the better chance we have of tracking him down."

The doctor took the card and said "What makes you think that he was attacked?"

"Well he was found in a public park with his head bashed in and no wallet or identification. It looks to me like someone hit him on the head and stole his money so that is how I am writing it up."

The doctor pocketed the card but said "I suppose that is a possibility but he wasn't just hit from behind. That welt over his left eye looks a lot like he was hit with something small and round. I have seen quite a few welts like that being so close to Dodger Stadium"

"Are you saying he was hit with a baseball doc?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and said "That seems fairly likely but until our friend remembers what happened we won't know for sure."

The doctor turned his attention back to Charlie and examined him carefully then cleaned his wounds before stitching and bandaging his bleeding scalp. The process actually helped Charlie to feel a little more awake and alert because it was somewhat painful. The pressure bandage around his head was quite bulky and a little tight but it offered some support and that helped to calm the pounding that he had been experiencing since he woke up.

A few minutes after the doctor left a tall black orderly came into the cubicle that Charlie was in.

"Hello, I'm Jerome and it's time for a ride to X-Ray."

The orderly unlocked the bed which jerked uncomfortably making Charlie wince slightly.

"Yo buddy, sorry 'bout that. I promise I won't bounce you into any walls on the way down to the elevator."

Charlie smiled weakly at the man and tried to relax. His head was buzzing with questions that he had no answers for. What had happened to him? He had a vague memory of something wet and close to his face. That image made him feel uncomfortable and inexplicably nervous. Prior to that he didn't seem to have any memory at all of what had happened to him or indeed even who he was.