by Mike Hartman
As the van pulled away both mothers were crying and Red’s dad, Rocky, was beaming with pride. Red and Mickey were excited, anxious, thrilled, scared, apprehensive, enthusiastic, and nervous all at the same time. It was pretty much an alphabet soup of emotions. Mickey had thought it would bother him to see Rocky there to send Red off. It turned out that he wasn’t bothered by the scene at all. He had already left that life emotionally and was totally looking forward at this point in time to the new life ahead of him.
The van took them to the San Jose Federal Building where they were processed in. They underwent final physical exams, signed their official enlistment contracts and were sworn in. They were now officially navy recruits although they didn’t look any different than they had the day before. They spent most of the day sitting around waiting their way through the process. At two o’clock that afternoon they loaded up in the van and headed to San Jose International to catch their plane to Chicago.
A navy bus picked them up at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago along with about 25 other guys from various parts of the United States and took them on the 35 minute drive north to Great Lakes Naval Training Center. It was midnight by the time they drove through the gates. It had been a long day already and they were just arriving.
The young men looked around nervously as they disembarked from the bus. They didn’t have any idea what to expect. A man in a navy uniform barked orders at the recruits as they got off the bus. He had them line up in two rows, then sent them into a nearby building and told them to take a seat.
Inside the building they found a large room with what appeared to be school desks. Each recruit took a seat at a desk. They spent the next 30 minutes filling out paperwork, and then they were sent to the barracks next door and told to go to sleep. The barracks consisted of two rows of bunk beds lined up on opposite walls of the room. Mickey grabbed a top bunk and Red took the one below him. Sleep came quickly for the new recruits. It had been a long day of sitting around and travelling.
**********
For the first time in a year Red didn’t dream about his family tragedy. He slept soundly and peacefully.
He awoke with a start to the sound of banging and yelling. Some fool had thrown a trashcan down the aisle-way and was yelling, “Reveille, reveille! Get your butts out of those racks! You’ve got 10 minutes to shower, get dressed and assemble outside on the grinder.
Ten minutes later Red and Mickey were standing outside on the grinder. It was really just a large section of asphalt, but apparently this was called a grinder in the navy. It was still dark outside. Dawn was just beginning to break and Red could see the first hint of daylight starting to transform the darkness ever so slightly. Two men in uniform were standing in front of them lining them up in a single file row. Mickey looked around at the other recruits. There were guys with long hair, guys with short hair, guys with scraggly beards, guys with tattoos. It pretty much looked like guys from all walks of life were assembled here with him. One guy had even shaved the left half of his head and still sported a full head of hair on the right side. Mickey guessed this was probably done on a bet with this buddies, knowing it wouldn’t matter because he would be losing his hair anyway.
One of the men in uniform introduced himself as their Company Commander. He told them he owned their asses for the next 8 weeks. He introduced the other man in uniform as the Assistant Company Commander. After the introduction he had them march about a quarter mile to the chow hall for breakfast. They didn’t know how to march yet, so it could hardly be called marching. They looked more like they belonged in one of those old movies like Private Benjamin or Stripes.
At the chow hall they went through a cafeteria style line where food was slopped on their trays. The Company Commander made them scrunch together tightly in line leaving no room in between them. He kept yelling, “Nut to butt. Nut to butt.” As the first of them got their food and sat down at the table to eat, the Company Commander yelled, “You’ve got 2 minutes to eat your food and assemble back out on the grinder. Don’t be late. Two minutes!”
Two minutes later they were back outside standing in a sloppy formation. The sun was almost visible on the horizon now. Daylight was almost here. The recruits marched over to another building where they were issued sea bags and uniforms. Next was the barber shop where they got a 40 second haircut. It didn’t take long to whack it all off and the barber wasn’t concerned about anything but giving them a good buzz.
Assembled out on the grinder once more Mickey observed how the group had transformed. Just a few minutes ago they had all looked so diverse and different. Now they all looked like navy recruits. They were all dressed the same, they all had the same haircut, they all looked nervous as hell, and they were all trying desperately to act like they had no fear.
It was official. Red and Mickey were in the navy.
Chapter 14
June, year 1.
Dr. Michael Bowles sat at the head of the luxurious conference table at BioTech. He was a savvy business man in his mid 60’s, but he looked much younger. He had run this company for the past 40 years and had poured lots of sweat equity into building the empire it had become. It was no longer about the money. He had more money than anyone could ever want. There was nothing he wanted that he could not buy. No, this was no longer about the money. It had come to be about the challenge. He wanted to go where no man had gone before and make a real contribution to technology. He knew what he wanted and he had an idea of how to get there. He wasn’t entirely sure the goal was obtainable, but wasn’t that really what made this game of business worth playing? It was about the challenge and he thrived on the thrill of the challenge. The tragedy that struck seven of his employees several months ago was still fresh in his mind, but he was attempting to move forward. He had to keep a purpose in his life and BioTech was that purpose.
Sitting to his left was Dr. Sally Coltrane. She didn’t much like the formality of being called doctor. Sally suited her much better. She had joined his company 10 years ago as a research scientist and had done very well for herself. She had become a trusted member of his staff and he had given her more and more responsibility over the years. She was now his ‘right-hand-man’ so to speak. As his senior project manager, Sally oversaw all projects the company undertook. She took a more active roll in some projects than others, but she had ultimate authority over all BioTech projects.
Sitting across the table from Sally was Dr. Edward McCoskey. Dr. McCoskey had joined the team at BioTech 12 years ago as a research scientist. He had a knack for this kind of work and had produced good results. Some of the more important projects in BioTech’s history were successful because of Dr. McCoskey’s efforts. Along with his skills came a healthy dose of ego. Dr. Bowles had found that tolerating the ego was worth the rewards that Dr. McCoskey’s skills brought to the table. As BioTech’s senior research scientist, Dr. McCoskey had similar status to Sally. Technically she was his boss. But on any given day he knew 100 ways to get around her and obtain whatever he wanted.
In the seat to the right of Dr. McCoskey sat Daniel Williams. He was known as Dan Isaacs, Dan Singleton, and Dan Bentley among other names at the various companies he ran. Dan had a certain skill for dealing with people. People just naturally liked him. His knowledge of business and people complemented each other nicely. He was extremely intelligent, but he contained that intelligence in such a way that it was not threatening to those around him. In many ways he was even more powerful than Sally or Dr. McCoskey. It was true, they were in charge of the decisions for the major projects, but he was the interface to the various shell companies that implemented the results.
Dr. Bowles had put these shell companies in place over the years for a good reason. The technology industry was a cutthroat business and corporate espionage was a serious problem in Silicon Valley. He believed in synergy, which basically meant the sum of the parts was more va
luable than each individual part. Dr. Bowles, however, was using this synergy concept in reverse. He liked to have pieces and parts of the puzzle developed at various seemingly unrelated companies. This way only a select few people had knowledge of the synergy created by the big picture. In this way, he was able to create new products without the people doing the work having full knowledge of what they were working on. This strategy had pretty well squelched the problems associated with other companies stealing his ideas and products. Very few people even had knowledge that any of these companies were owned by BioTech.
“Well it seems everything is coming together rather nicely,” Dr. Bowles started out. “Where do we stand Daniel?”
“Our new employees are in place. They started work about 3 weeks ago. Gabe was easy because he already lived with his mother in Palo Alto. He did not have any of the usual problems with relocating. His depression is virtually gone and he is already thriving. I started him off with a project to design a latch mechanism for our new line of door locks. I purposely put a few obstacles in his way to see how he deals with them. We’ll see how he does on that and then consider moving him to something a bit more complicated.”
“Monica had a fairly easy transition,” Daniel continued. “She moved into an apartment in Cupertino within walking distance to Brainstorm Center. She doesn’t seem to be interested in a social life. She spends all her time at work or in her apartment; mostly at work. So far I’ve just had her reviewing our past efforts. I think it will take her a few months to thoroughly familiarize herself with the project. I don’t really expect any results out of her for at least six months.”
“What about Jamie?” asked Dr. Bowles.
Daniel thought for a minute and said, “Jamie is doing fine. It took him a little longer to find an apartment and get moved. He brought his girlfriend with him. I’m a bit concerned she might distract him from his work.”
Sally chimed in, “One of the reasons we decided to pick students straight out of college was because they are more likely to be unmarried and have no children. This will allow them to focus on our project with minimal distractions.”
“Yes, I know,” Daniel agreed. “I made a rare miscalculation with this one. From my research I knew about Jillian, but I didn’t peg her as a girlfriend. They have been friends for a long time, but they’re not romantic. I didn’t count on her moving here with him.”
Dr. McCoskey wasn’t pleased with this development. “How could you have missed this Daniel? We can’t afford these kinds of mistakes. Tell me about the girl.”
Daniel said, “Her name is Jillian Andrews, 22 years old, redhead, outgoing personality, and super smart. She just graduated from Harvard with a degree in biochemistry. She and Jamie have been friends for the better part of their life. For the past year they have been seeing each other on average about twice each week. Their favorite hangout was a restaurant named Kasy’s in Cambridge. The manager at Kasy’s knows them, but doesn’t know much about them. They usually order a beer, but usually not two. As far as I can tell they don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t stay out late, and don’t date other people. What threw me is that it doesn’t appear they are dating each other either.”
Sally looked thoughtful, “You say she has a degree in biochemistry?”
“Yes.”
“Is she any good?”
Dan didn’t have to think about this one. “She’s very good! She graduated number two in her class at Harvard. She got beat out by a girl named Missy Hughes. It about killed her. The girl has a very competitive nature about her.”
Sally considered this. “We aren’t slated to bring a biochemist into the fold until November. There might be an advantage to move up the timeline a bit.”
Dr. Bowles challenged her on this. “I’m not following you.”
She continued, “Well, for one, we’ve been unable to overcome the obstacles in the Brainstorm project. It’s possible the missing link is biological in nature. By waiting until November, we could set the project back another six months. For another thing, we just happen to have a Harvard genius right under our noses. They don’t fall in your lap every day. Thirdly, if we wait until November, we aren’t going to have any recent grads to choose from. One of the reasons for choosing fresh graduates is because they don’t come with any preconceived notions on how things are supposed to work within the company. And last but not least, right now she is a potential distraction to our new prized electronics engineer. If we give her something to keep herself busy, maybe she will leave our boy alone.”
Dr. Bowles considered each of these points. “Does anyone see any other advantages or disadvantages?” When nobody objected he said, “You make a good argument Sally. How should we go about soliciting her help?”
“I can get to her,” Dr. McCoskey spoke up first. He actually believed he could get to any woman.
Sally rolled her eyes. That was the last thing they needed; horny Eddie pissing away any chance of recruiting Jillian. No, that wasn’t a good idea.
Fortunately she didn’t have to object and start a fight because Dr. Bowles interjected, “I don’t think we’ll go that route Ed. This could be a delicate situation. Since Dan will be the hiring official, we can’t very well send him out to recruit her. This might even require a woman’s touch. I think this is a job for Sally.”
They spent the next 30 minutes discussing strategy and then called it a day.
Chapter 15
June, year 1.
Jamie parked his car in the parking lot of the Palm Haven Apartments where he and Jilly lived. He looked around for a few seconds before getting out of the car. Everything was so different from what he was used to back east. He loved the palm trees and the general landscape. Their apartment complex was nothing to brag about, but it was theirs and it was comfortable. Not bad for a couple of kids straight out of school. He walked up the stairs to the second floor and put his key in the door of apartment 215.
“Honey, I’m home,” he said as he walked through the door. A pleasant aroma attacked his senses even as he was saying it. Jillian was standing at the stove in the kitchen stirring the spaghetti sauce.
“Here, see what you think,” she said, holding out a spoon with a bit of sauce.
He blew to cool it so it wouldn’t burn his tongue and then carefully tasted the sauce. “Umm, now that’s Italian!” he praised. “Meatballs too, I see.”
“Nothing but the best for you baby!” She gave him a smile that stopped him dead in his tracks. “Are you getting spoiled by all this home cooking?”
“I just can’t figure out where you learned to cook,” he answered.
“I used to help mom quite a bit. I like to cook. When you like something, it tends to come easy. Go get washed up for dinner. I want to hear all about your day while we eat.”
They sat down for a candlelit dinner at their dining room table. Actually it was a card table set up in the dining room with three folding chairs. They had picked it up at a yard sale last week. Most people would scoff at it, but to them it was perfect. Jillian had pulled out all the stops by picking up a bottle of wine to go along with dinner. Neither of them minded that they had to drink it out of regular glasses. They were living life and enjoying every minute of it.
“So tell me about your day,” she prodded.
“Well, as I’ve been telling you all along, everyone is very helpful. I worked with Greg again today. He introduced me to the new line of surveillance cameras they just developed. You wouldn’t believe how small these things are. He gave a demonstration to give me a little taste of the reality of it all.”
“We stood in front of a video monitor and I could see myself standing in front of the desk. Greg asked me to find the camera without touching anything. From the angle of the picture I knew approximately where the camera had to be, but I wasn’t able to find it. It turned out to be mounted above a ceiling tile. There
was a hole in the tile not much bigger than a pinhole that the camera used as a viewport. Because of the texture of the tile, the pinhole was nearly invisible. Like I said, I was looking at the monitor and knew the camera had to be there, but I still couldn’t see it. Very impressive! When he removed the ceiling tile it revealed a camera about the size of 3 quarters stacked on top of each other.”
“Sounds pretty exciting,” Jillian said. “Was Mr. Singleton there today?”
“No, he really hasn’t been around much. Greg has sort of taken me under his wing. Each day he shows me a different product line. We get out the drawings and discuss the circuits and technology of each device. I’m starting to get a pretty broad view of what they do.”
Jillian just sat there and smiled at him with those pretty blue eyes. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have her in his life. How perfect had it been that she moved to California with him. It was times like this that he wished their relationship was a bit more…he searched for the word. He wasn’t really sure what he wished for. The wine was beginning to have its effect on him. If they didn’t have their own separate bedrooms, he would be sweeping her off her feet right about now and they would finish dinner later.
He put that thought out of his mind and said, “Tell me about your day.”
“Well, let’s see,” she began. “I spent the morning on-line looking for job opportunities. This afternoon I drove around just hoping I might stumble across something interesting. It is amazing how many businesses there are in the Silicon Valley! I went to the video store and rented a movie for us to watch tonight, hit the grocery store to buy stuff for supper, and came home to cook for my favorite man.”
Jillian liked the way he watched her closely as she told of her day. He seemed so interested in what she was saying. How did she ever get so lucky? Who would have ever thought she would move to California with no job? The wine was beginning to have its effect on her as well. She thought about taking his hand and leading him back to her bedroom. It wasn’t as if they had never ended up there before. No, be a good girl now Jillian.
