Cabrillo glanced at the antique chronograph across from his desk. “Either you two completely struck out or you hit a home run to get back to me this quickly.”

“Let’s say we’re on third,” Murph said, adjusting the bundle of papers in his arms. “And for the record I don’t like sports metaphors because I don’t get them half the time.”

“So this was a slam dunk more than a Hail Mary.” Juan grinned.

“If you say so.”

They took seats opposite Juan who cleared a bunch of papers off his desk. “Okay, what do you have?”

“Where do you want to start?” Linda asked. “The kidnapping or the company?”

“Let’s start with the background first so I know who we’re dealing with.” Juan laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling while Linda began her report. It might have been rude not to look her in the eye but it was one of his quirks when concentrating.

“Geoffrey Merrick, age fifty-one. Divorced with two grown children, both of whom spend their time blowing through their father’s money by chasing paparazzi so they can end up in tabloids. The wife is an artist living in New Mexico and keeps a low profile.

“Merrick graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT exactly one day younger than Mark was when he received his, and partnered up with another alum, Daniel Singer, to form Merrick/Singer, a materials research company. The firm has applied for and received eighty patents in the past twenty-five-odd years and the company has grown from the two of them in a rented space outside Boston to a campus near Geneva, Switzerland, with a staff of a hundred and sixty.

“As you may know, their biggest patent is for an organic-based system to filter up to ninety percent of the sulfur out of the smoke emitted by coal-fired power plants. A year after it was issued Merrick/Singer went public and both men became billionaires. That isn’t to say there wasn’t a lot of controversy at the time, which still echoes today. Environmental groups say that even with the scrubbers, coal plants are too dirty and should be shut down. Numerous lawsuits are still pending and new ones are being filed every year.”

“Could ecoterrorists have abducted Merrick?” Juan interrupted.

“The Swiss police are looking into that possibility,” Linda said. “But it doesn’t seem likely. What would be the point? Getting back to the story: Ten years after they hit it big with their IPO, a rift developed between Merrick and his partner. Up until this time the two had been as close as brothers. They always appeared together at press conferences. Their families even vacationed together. Then, in the span of a couple of months, Singer seemed to have gone through a personality change. He started siding with the environmentalists in the suits brought against his own company and eventually forced Merrick to buy him out entirely. His shares were valued at two point four billion and Merrick had to scramble to come up with that kind of cash. To make it happen he had to personally buy back all the shares of Merrick/Singer. It nearly bankrupted him.”