The client thought so, too. That’s why Rodriguez had been hired in the first place. Truth be told, investigating high-tech corporations wasn’t his usual line of work. Mostly he got calls from lawyers, asking him to photograph visiting husbands on Waikiki cheating on their wives. And in this case, too, he had been hired by a local lawyer, Willy Fong. But Willy wasn’t the client, and he wouldn’t say who was.

Rodriguez had his suspicions. Nanigen had supposedly spent millions of dollars on electronics from Shanghai and Osaka. Some of those suppliers probably wanted to know what was being done with their products. “Is that who it is, Willy? The Chinese or the Japanese?”

Willy Fong shrugged. “You know I can’t say, Marcos.”

“But it makes no sense,” Rodriguez had said. “The place got no security, your clients can pick the lock and walk in any night and see for themselves. They don’t need me.”

“You talking yourself out of a job?”

“I just want to know what this is about.”

“They want you to go and find out what’s in that building, and bring them some pictures. That’s all.”

“I don’t like it. I think it’s a scam.”

“Probably is.”

Willy gave him a tired look as if to say, But what do you care? “At least nobody’s going to get up from the dinner table and hit you in the mouth.”

“True.”

Willy pushed back his chair, folded his arms over his ample belly. “So tell me, Marcos. Are you going, or what?”

Now, walking toward the front door at midnight, Rodriguez felt suddenly nervous. They don’t need any security. What the hell did that mean? In this day and age, everybody had security-lots of security-especially around Honolulu. You had no choice.

There were no windows on the building, just a single metal door. Next to it, a sign: NANIGEN MICROTECHNOLOGIES, INC. And beneath it, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.