Results from last chapter:

Last chapter, I asked you all whether you would drink the darkest beer in the worst bar in Ireland. 2/5 said they would, which I respect. 2/5 said they would drink whiskey or vodka, which I must find myself regretting. Without a bar tender, it’s way harder for people to get whiskey. Especially if they’re in a rush.

Chapter 3:

Leon, ignoring the suggestion to continue his explanation, gaped at the scene before him. He took in the scattered wreckage of the tourist’s dinner, broken glass mixed with shapeless meat topped with slowly spreading beer. He turned to the bar, still devoid of bartender or any noise emanating from the kitchen. When he saw the door, a hint of fear crossed his features as though he expected the police to arrive that very second. When the second passed, he turned on Rob, confusion replaced with expanding rage.

He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off, “29 minutes.”

Leon closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath before attempting to continue. He opened them and said, “There is no way you’re getting away with this. The authorities will be here any minute. How are we possibly going to catch our flight from an Irish jail? They all saw our faces. Oh God, everything is going wrong and we haven’t even arrived at Oceanus yet.”

Rob looked up from his drink and smiled, “Ah, so we are going to Oceanus. That’s a start. Please continue. You have 27 minutes.”

“How can you be so calm? After what you just did, you could at least be worried about the consequences of…”

“Eh, no big deal. All the cops are going to have are fake names and the words ‘Irish Republican Army.’ Nobody got hurt and I’m sure those kids will be laughing about it in no time. In fact, I think I just did that family a favor. You see how bored they were? Besides, this is no place for them. They could get hurt in a bar like this.”

“What? No. You don’t understand. Those people don’t matter. I don’t care if that little brat is terrified of everybody in a suit for the rest of his life. What matters is that you and I can do our jobs.”

Rob laughed bitterly and, quietly, said “Of course you don’t.” Before the other man could wonder, he continued, “And what, Mr. Evans, are our jobs?”

“Over the past several months, there have been a number of unexplained events on and related to our research at that station. I was hoping to have more time to give you the details…”

“17 minutes,” Rob pointed out.

“…but that is out of the question, given recent events. For now, all you need to know is that we’ve been tasked to travel out to Oceanus …

“You mind taking a minute to explain Oceanus. All I’m going off of are rumors”

“I’d hoped somebody would have briefed you about this before now. The Oceanus offshore research platform is among the world’s foremost research laboratories. The Company built it off the coast of Ireland to avoid intrusive governments.”

“Seems a bit overkill to me, couldn’t they just use a normal lab like everybody else?”

“The research being conducted at Oceanus is both highly sensitive and potentially dangerous. Management decided it was worth the investment to locate it far enough away from government restrictions to avoid any messy entanglements.”

“Ah, interesting. Well, I can certainly appreciate wanting to avoid getting caught.” Rob glanced over his shoulder at the floor.

“As I was saying, we are going to Oceanus to discover whoever is sabotaging our recent research initiatives. I’m going to find the traitor,” Leon spit the word out, “and you’re going to deal with him.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I wasn’t expecting,” Rob stopped to sip his beer and grimace, “something so easy, that’s all.”

After glancing once more around the bar, Leon turned a calm gaze on Rob, “I guess nothing is easy with you, is it? At any rate, I need to give you some info about the employees we’ve come to suspect.”

“You’d better hurry. We only have 13 minutes left.”

“Pardon me for asking, but how do you know so exactly when we’ll need to flee the scene of your crime?”

“Well, between you and me, this place has something of a reputation,” Rob waved his hand, gesturing around the bar, “It’s not hard to find police response times.”

“Hm, clever.” Leon paused a moment, giving Rob a searching look, “Anyway, I have full employee profiles of our suspected moles. Again, due to our lack of time, I’ll have to just give you the brief versions.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and, after a moment of fiddling, continued, “On the helicopter, you will meet Paul Shannon, Susan Coleman, and Dr. Eric Carr. Mr. Shannon is one of our Offshore Installation Managers. We know he gambles regularly and suspect he has a sizable debt but none of the casinos he visits have any credit with his name on them and his credit cards are clear. Ms. Coleman is one of our lab techs onboard Oceanus. A number of her coworkers have reported unexplained absences and a change in appearance. We have a strict health policy for anybody working at Oceanus and I suspect a violation of our substance abuse policy. Normally, I would just have her replaced, but she has also been having secretive meetings ashore and we need to know if she is trading in Company secrets.”

“5 minutes.”

“Dr. Carr is one of our Senior Research Scientists. He takes less shore time than anybody else aboard the station until a month ago when he left for an extended vacation and promptly vanished. We don’t know what he did during that month, but the information he has access to is highly sensitive. When we arrive at Oceanus, we will be briefed on the current research being performed by Dr. Louis Williams, the Chief Research Scientist. He is known to be territorial of what he considers his station, so we’ll have to tread lightly or he will attempt to make our work more difficult.”

“2 minutes.”

“That’s everybody of significance. I’ll fill you in on any other details as they come up. I’m leaving before anything else goes amiss.”

Leon was starting to rise out of his seat when Rob motioned him to remain seated. “Hold up, let me finish my drink.” He raised his glass in his left hand and quickly drained the remaining black liquid in one gulp. “Now, allow me to correct you on a few points before we finish. First off, you aren’t going anywhere.”

In one smooth motion, Rob reached into his jacket, drew a small, suppressed pistol and shot Mr. Evans in the shoulder. The small cough of the gun bled into a shocked moment of silence which was eventually broken by a pained shriek. The scream was quickly followed by several more coughs and the loud crashing of a dying man falling to the ground.

Rob crouched by the side of the dying man, “Your second mistake was that we’ve discussed ‘everybody of significance.’ We haven’t talked about you.” Leon tried to open his mouth but Rob quietly shushed him, “We don’t have time. Just listen. You’ve been a Company man for quite a few years now. You have more than a little clout with management. Now, we both know that The Company has some seedier connections. So when you suggested the Company double-check those connections, like the mob, by hiring private investigators to check out corruption charges and killing them when they finished, management loved your idea. It seemed so foolproof. Find your weak links and then kill the messenger. It was quite clever. I’m sure you got a handsome raise for it.”

“Of course, you didn’t expect one of them to escape. And you certainly didn’t expect one of them to get a job with the Company. And you most certainly didn’t expect one of them to be me.” Rob stood up again, pointing the gun down at the terrified face lying before him, “And how could you possibly have expected that one to be pissed you killed his partner and best friend just to further your career. So when you said you had a traitor in the Company, you were mostly right. You have at least one.” He pulled the trigger once more.

Rob took a deep, ragged breath. He grabbed Leon’s phone and pocketed it before reaching under the table and pulling out his black bag. He reached in and removed the homemade bomb located inside. He set the small timer for two minutes and calmly walked through the kitchen and out the back entrance. The first police sirens could be heard on the air when the bomb went off.

Your question:

Between Paul Shannon, Dr. Eric Carr, Susan Coleman, and Dr. Louis Williams, how many ‘traitors’ do you expect to find?