LITMIR.BIZ

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stiffened as the man backed him into the cold gray wall of the handball court. “Questions about my college plans?”

      “About Agrimax.”

      “It’s a food company. A conglomerate.” Was this some kind of a test? Why did Princeton want to know about his research on feeding the hungry? How had they found out what he was doing?

      “Agrimax is one of the world’s top three suppliers of food,” Matt rattled off, breathless and nervous, feeling like he was at a Scholar Bowl competition. “They have a global network of growers, processors and retailers. They own hundreds of smaller companies, and they—”

      “Who gave you access to the Agrimax mainframe?” The beefy man’s grip tightened on Matt’s shoulder. “Was it Jim Banyon?”

      This wasn’t what he had expected at all. Recruiters were supposed to lure you with nice offers, weren’t they? Suddenly tongue-tied, Matt swallowed hard.

      “Did Jim Banyon give you those e-mail addresses?” The blond man shoved him hard into the wall. His shoulders hit the concrete, and he gasped. “Answer me, kid.”

      “Addresses for the Agrimax executives? No, I—I got those myself. I opened a database. But not the mainframe. I don’t hack, sir. I would never break into anyone’s private computer system. You can tell Princeton that I—”

      “You’re writing a term paper. Where did you get your information?”

      “How do you know that? Did you hack me?”

      “We’re doing the asking! Who told you about Agrimax? The genetic developments. The terminator genes. The cloning.”

      “It’s all on the Internet. Anybody can—”

      “Do you know Jim Banyon?”

      “Yes, sir. He has a ranch near Hope. He used to work for Agrimax before he retired.”

      “What information did he give you?”

      Matt stared down at the cone in his hand. The vanilla ice cream was oozing between the cracks in the chocolate shell and running onto his fingers. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “You’re from Princeton, right?”

      “Yeah, right.” The blond man smirked at his companion. “Maybe he’s not so bright after all. Look, kid, somebody downloaded a lot of data from the Agrimax mainframe. Technology. Patented information. Secret formulas. Was that you?”

      “I told you I would never—”

      “Shut up and answer the questions.” The beefy guy grabbed a handful of Matt’s hair and yanked his head to one side. Matt jerked in pain, and his cone fell to the ground. “Who has the information?”

      Matt’s mouth went dry. Think. Think.

      “Answer me, kid!”

      “I don’t have it,” he mumbled.

      “Who does?” The scarred face came closer. “Does Banyon have it?”

      “I don’t have it! I promise.”

      “Who’s got it?”

      The man slammed Matt’s head against the concrete. Bright lights swam before his eyes. He thought he was going to vomit. Or pass out. He tried to breathe.

      “Search him!” the blond barked.

      The beefy man grabbed Matt’s arm, swung him around and pushed him up against the wall. With one foot, he kicked Matt’s legs apart.

      Like a policeman. Like someone trained.

      The man was going through his pockets now, taking out the keys to his pickup and then shoving them back. His wallet. They thumbed through it. Thieves? The men studied his driver’s license, credit card, student ID. Then they jammed the wallet into his pocket.

      “He’s clean.” The beefy man turned Matt again, one hand pinning his chest to the wall. “Somebody in this armpit town stole our data. Did you take it, boy? Or was it Banyon? Did he give it to you? Answer me!”

      “No,” Matt managed.

      “No, what?”

      “I don’t have it!”

      “Where is it?”

      Matt couldn’t breathe. He was going to die. “I—I don’t have it.”

      With a roar of anger, the man grabbed Matt’s shirt, swung him away from the wall, and then hurled him full force into it. His head smashed against the concrete. The sky flashed a brilliant white. His knees buckled, and the shining light faded to blackness.

      “I’m starving.”

      The familiar bulk of a teenager leaning into Cole Strong’s refrigerator could be only one person.

      “Hey, Billy,” Cole said as the kitchen door banged shut behind him. “Josefina made tamales yesterday. Zap yourself a few of those.”

      “Thanks, Mr. Strong.” A celery stick in his mouth, Billy Younger straightened with the plateful of tamales and a jug of milk. He nudged the refrigerator door shut with his heel as he headed for the microwave oven. “You should have seen what they tried to pass off as lunch today at school. A pretzel with cheese sauce! Can you believe that? Matt and I talked about ditching trig and driving over to the Bell, but we didn’t do it.”

      “You guys better not ditch trig.” Cole set his Stetson on the counter and reached for an apple from the bowl. He had been plowing since lunch. The spring had been unusually wet for Southeastern New Mexico, and now, in early May, he was behind. “You both have your sights on Harvard, MIT or Stanford. Can’t get into those places if you ditch your high school classes.”

      “Yeah, Mr. Strong, but you know Matt. He’s gonna get in wherever he wants to go.” Billy took the steaming tamales out of the microwave. “A couple of college bigwigs were at school today wanting to talk to him. Probably trying to convince him to skip his senior year.” He shook his head. “So where is Matt, anyhow? We were gonna meet after school and go to Dairy Queen to talk about the mission trip to Guatemala. My dad doesn’t want me to go. I waited for Matt, but he never showed.”

      Cole glanced down the long hall in the direction of his son’s bedroom. It was unlike Matt to back out on anything he’d planned with Billy. The two sixteen-year-olds had been best friends since kindergarten, and nothing could separate them—not peer pressure, girls, sports or even their increasingly divergent interests in life.

      “Hey, Matt!” Cole barked down the hall. “Billy’s here. You better come get a tamale—they’re going fast.”

      Billy paused in wolfing down his snack and gave a wide grin. “Yeah, Matt,” he shouted, his mouth full, “you stood me up, dude! What’s with that?”

      When his son didn’t answer, Cole headed toward the bedroom. In the rambling adobe house that sat at the center of his large ranching and farming operation, terra-cotta Saltillo tiles kept the floors cool in summer and warm in winter. He trailed one hand along the undulating whitewashed wall.

      “Matthew?” The door was open, and Cole stuck his head in. As always, his eyes took in a jumble of comic books, telescopes, computer equipment, dirty clothes, athletic shoes and empty pizza boxes spread over every square inch of his son’s large bedroom. Matt claimed that he alone fueled the orange soda industry. As evidence, empty cans lay scattered around the room. Trails of ants scurried into and out of the open tab holes.

      Josefina had flatly refused to continue cleaning Matt’s room. She even made a half-serious vow to quit her job if Cole ordered her to set foot in his son’s domain. She adored the boy and had worked for Cole since his wife died eight years earlier. But as she liked to say, “I got my limits, Mr. Strong.”

      Scanning the room to make sure he could distinguish boy from junk, Cole shook his head. “He’s not here, Billy,” he called. “You sure you just didn’t miss

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