The Ties That Bind

by T. Starnes

  We used the lull in activities to start planning our summer vacation. Emily was still out, so it looked like right now it would be the girls, Megan, Sarah, Tina, Mom and me all heading out for a summer vacation together. We had decided to go on one of the big cruise lines that were based out of Galveston. It was close enough to drive so all we needed were the tickets for the cruise itself, making logistics pretty easy. Tami was working on getting her parents to bend and let Judy come along, so Tina would have someone to pal around with. Mom was footing the bill, couching it as one of my birthday presents. We were all pretty excited about it, although I wished that Emily were coming with us.

  Since I returned from D.C., Emily hadn't been around much and I was starting to get a little worried. Even when she was around, she had started to pull away from me, retreating back into her shell a little, which I took as a bad sign. I had made a few trips to her house, and didn't see anything overt. There were no new marks of abuse to hint at things starting up again. Her dad had made himself scarce the times I had visited, so it was hard to read the dynamic, but the hairs on the back of my neck were telling me something wasn't quite right.

  Sadly, there was nothing I could really do. I had already taken a risk once meddling in her family affairs and still didn't know what the full effects of that would be. I didn't want to go wading into her family dynamics again unless I absolutely had to.

  Thankfully I finally managed to find something to ease my worrying over Emily, and my guilt over Margret. In the early evening a week after we got back from D.C., I got a call from Jonathan to turn on the TV to the national news. Tina and the girls were all watching some show and I got a chorus of discontent when I grabbed the controller from them and switched the channel. Once the words of the broadcast sunk in, they all became as focused as I was.

  … rteen employees were taken out of the offices of MilTech Limited today in handcuffs. Agents from the FBI and Department of Defense were seen taking computers, files, and boxes of documents… along with the men… shortly after a mid-morning raid on the company's offices.

  The video showed men in shirts and ties with suit jackets draped over their heads being escorted out by agents with windbreakers that declared the government agency they worked for on the back. In the background other agents could be seen hauling box and other supplies out of the building.

  The scene on the TV then switched to a man I didn't recognize standing in front of several microphones. The newscaster explained that he was the head of marketing for the company, and that he had made a statement moments after the arrest. They then proceeded to air part of that statement.

  "The arrests today of members of MilTech's management staff are part of an ongoing investigation that MilTech has been cooperating with. We recently learned of a manifold of crimes by some of our employees, including extortion, bribery, and attempted murder. As soon as we learned of these crimes MilTech took proactive steps to ensure the culprits were brought to justice, and has worked hand in hand with Federal agents to achieve this goal. We want to make it clear that the actions of these men and women arrested are not indicative of the type of behavior we at MilTech condone. In addition to working with the authorities we are also reaching out to the parties wronged by these individuals. While we cannot name the parties affected by an ongoing investigation, we make a promise today that MilTech will take responsibility and corrective action for our employee’s wrong doing. We are also opening our books to the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense, for a total audit of our company. It is our hope that this proves that we are operating, and will continue to operate, in good faith. It is the goal of everyone at MilTech to supply the equipment needed by our brave soldiers around the world. We will take every step available to put this episode behind us and focus on what really matters. The men and women in uniform. Thank you.”

  I handed the controller back to Tami and called Jonathan back.

  "Holy cow," I said as soon as he picked up.

  "Yeah, I know. Aaron called me personally to let me know what was happening, and said that this was the part of an offer he wanted to make us. He already talked to Ted and Marcus as well, and is flying here. We have a meeting scheduled in the morning.”

  "So this is serious? He is going to make a legitimate offer on our patents?" I asked.

  "It seems so," Jonathan said. "Even Ted is convinced. I know we haven't been bugging you with the details of the negotiations, but this could be serious. So far it has all been preliminary, going over what the sale would cover and what they would need from us. Charles told them we wouldn't sell for less than five hundred million, which I thought was a stretch. But he swears that when you figure in the sales to NATO allies, it could be worth a lot more that that.”

  "Wow, that is a lot of money," I said, stunned. "That would really open up things for us.”

  "Without a doubt. It is clear he is going to make his offer tomorrow, so we should all be there.”

  "Count me in. See you in the morning.”

  I walked back into the living room like a zombie, completely stunned.

  "Cas, are you ok?" Zoe asked, looking over at me concerned.

  "I really don't know," I said.

  "What happened?" Tami asked.

  "I think tomorrow MilTech is going to offer us five hundred million dollars for our patents.”

  The room went dead silent for a moment, then exploded in loud noises. Some of it was questions directed at me, questions I couldn't hear because of the squealing and jumping up and down Tina and Vicki were doing.

  Eventually everyone calmed down enough for Zoe to ask, "Is this for real?”

  "Yeah, we think so. But I guess we'll know for sure in the morning.”

  I could barely sleep that night and was at the office a full hour before the meeting. So early in fact that Zoe, who had driven me, and I were the first ones there.

  "Is this for real?" I asked Ted when he came in, echoing Zoe's question from the night before.

  "It seems to be. Trust me, I was as skeptical as anyone, but everything seems on the up and up. As he promised, we saw his first real gesture, yesterday," Ted said, putting his stuff away.

  Ted was the last one to arrive, as we had all agreed to arrive early for a pre-meeting pow-wow.

  "So you think the five hundred million is a fair price," I asked Charles.

  "I do. Stealth is the big thing in military technology right now. The innovations that Marcus made can be used as a stepping stone outside of drones. Once you consider it's long range value, in addition to the actual sales of drones to both the US government and allies that we would be allowed to sell this kind of material to, I think it's fair.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing, "Actually it's a little under what I think the real value of this is, but I think it was the smart play. It's high enough that they know it's a real number, but a bargain that hopefully MilTech will want to jump at.”

  "It sounds like you think we should sell this off, even if we get less than full market value for our tech," I asked.

  "We all talked about that in the earlier meetings, and I do. You guys just aren't set up for this kind of thing. Contracting to the government is a very specific specialty, and honestly you lucked into what you originally got. The odds of your selling a second product are not good. No, you want to get out of the military contracting business.”

  "Ok, that makes sense. I have been wanting to move us to more humanitarian projects, or at least humanitarian adjacent. I just didn't want to leave money on the table.”

  "Trust me," Charles said, "I think it's worth leaving forty cents out of every dollar on the table if you can step away. Besides the infrastructure, there are political aspects you haven't had to deal with yet, that you will really want to avoid. It's worth the loss of some money upfront, to keep from dropping money down rabbit holes later.”

  "Ok, so we are all agreed, as long as he is in the ballpark, we take the deal," I said to the room in general.


  Everyone gave their agreement, which was good since that was the moment Mr. Baxter showed up. Mary Ann announced him over the intercom in Ted's phone, who told her to send Mr. Baxter back.

  He shook everyone's hand when he entered the room saying, "Was that proof enough to our commitment to make this right with you?”

  "It was an excellent first step," Jonathan said.

  Always the negotiator. Maybe it's my youthful naïveté or the fact that I wasn't part of the negotiations over the last week, but I was blown away by their proof of commitment. Wisely, I held my tongue.

  "Excellent," Baxter said, unfazed by Jonathan's wording. "So let's make this quick, since we have already gone over the details for what you would be willing to sell. We are talking about the drone patents, along with the accompanying patents for the internal mountings and electronics. Also the design schematics, and all ancillary work product connected to the patents in question”

  Jonathan looked in Ted's direction, who gave a single assenting nod.

  "Correct," Jonathan said.

  "Excellent. I have spoken with my board of directors and we are prepared to offer you this in return," Baxter said as he handed a folded piece of paper to Ted.

  Ted opened it, and his jaw dropped. I was surprised. Normally, Ted holds a pretty tight poker face in meetings. He handed the paper to Jonathan, who showed no reaction at all, at least none that I could see. Next the paper moved to me and I unfolded it.

  Seven-Hundred and Fifty Million!

  I couldn't believe it. We were prepared to take anything in the ballpark of Charles's estimate, and they instead added half again the value. Sadly, I followed Ted's example, rather than Jonathan's. I am sure the look of surprise on my face was readily apparent.

  I handed the paper onto Charles who, after opening it, said, "This should work. I am curious how you arrived at this figure?”

  "You mean you are curious why I just offered to pay you significantly more than you asked for, and why my board would do something as crazy as agree with this?”

  "Something like that," Charles replied.

  "Three reasons," Baxter said holding three fingers up, and ticking them off as he explained. " One, I believe even at this price we can make a handsome profit in the long run. I wanted a tangible expression of the company, and by extension, my feelings towards what happened to you. Two, this is part of the remuneration we are making in the wake of our former employee's actions. Sadly, you weren't the only people who were treated this way, only the most recent.”

  "And three, because of the buzz," he said pointing at me.

  "The buzz?" I asked, confused.

  "Yes. I know you guys are a little isolated out here. But there is a buzz in the engineering community. First it was Marcus's idea you were key to making a reality. You allotted a set amount of every engineer's time, to allow them to work on their dream projects. You took an engineer that, prior to working for you, had shopped his desalination project to five companies, all of whom turned him down, and found a way to fund him. Without any history of government contracts you managed to get a project picked up by the DOD. No one does that!

  "Engineers are talking about this small start-up in Texas and how they are going to do big things. Maybe next year, maybe in five years, you guys are going to stumble across something else where we may intersect, and I want to be the first guy you think of calling, to make a deal or a partnership. So I will admit that this is a mercenary tactic on my part, but one that I hope works.

  "There will be a chance for us to work together in the future. I am greasing the wheels, now, to ensure that it happens.”

  I looked at each of my partners, unsure of what to say, and they all looked back to me equally as stunned.

  Baxter stood and said, "I know it's a lot to digest, but I am betting you still take the deal. I will have my legal team get with you and work out the contracts for the sale. I have already told them I want this to happen quickly. I have to catch a plane back to D.C., but it was good meeting with you all.”

  We each dumbly shook his hand, and then stared at his wake as he walked out.

  "What just happened," I asked the room in general.

  "I would say I felt like we just got mugged, except the mugger rarely leaves your wallet behind, especially with a giant check in it," Ted says.

  "Hell, who cares," Charles said, his face breaking into a grin. "'Take the money and run.'“

  We all laughed as the idea of three quarters of a billion dollars started to sink in. Jonathan headed out with Charles in tow to start getting our ducks in a row for when the contract with MilTech showed up. Now we had to get Charles to agree and come on full time as our CFO. With that big a bankroll, we all agreed we needed someone to watch over it.

  We also agreed that everyone, down to the janitor, would be seeing a nice payday once the deal closed. We all agreed that we wanted our employees to share in our windfall, in recognition of their hard work. Of course, I knew I would be seeing a nice check soon, and that meant all kinds of good things for my plans for the future.

  I asked Marcus to give me a ride and if he could drop me at Emily's house, since I wanted to try once more to convince her to go on the cruise with us. I also wanted to share the news about the sale with her before I went home to tell everyone else. We hadn't brought her all the way into the mysteries of our lives yet, but she knew about this at least.

  I was in a great mood, naturally, and chatted with Marcus on the drive. Sometimes he liked to bounce ideas off me, mostly because I was good at pushing his new ideas back at him, challenging him. He said he originally thought this was because I was a smart kid without any formal training. The revelation about my real abilities put things in a new light for him, and the others.

  Each had seen an opportunity in this and assigned me all kinds of reading. Jonathan had me reading books on contract law, Ted had assigned reading covering a range of business and finance books, and Marcus had a large stack of engineering, physics and related materials for me to read. Even with the incredible speed I was now reading at, it was a daunting list. While the books Marcus had me reading were mostly so I could better identify and understand potential projects for the company in the future, they had the added benefit of making me a better sounding board.

  We were just getting into a discussion on some of his new ideas when we rounded the corner onto Emily's street and the flashing blue strobes of police cars stopped the conversation cold. I could see the police cars parked in front of her house, and was out the car door the second Marcus pulled in front of her house.

  "Emily!" I shouted, as one of the police officers outside grabbed me and kept me from entering the house.

  I was about to knock him to the ground so I could get inside and check on her when she came through the front door. Another officer kept her from getting to close to me. The front of her shirt was covered in blood.

  "What happened?" I asked. "Are you ok?”

  She started to respond when the officer next to her stopped her from speaking.

  "I'm sorry, but she can't speak to you right now. We are still sorting out the facts of what happened. If you could go over by the curb, and talk to my partner for a moment?" the officer said after waving her to silence.

  I numbly followed the man holding me away from the house. He had a few rudimentary questions, mostly to insure I wasn't involved with whatever had happened inside. He wouldn't tell me anything, except that she was being taken to the police station shortly for questioning.

  Marcus was standing by the car looking anxious.

  "Take me home," I told him when the officer told me I could leave. "I need to call Jonathan.”

  Marcus nodded and we hurried away from her house. As soon as I was through the door I called Jonathan and told him what happened. He said he would find out what was happening and would make sure she was represented.

  "What's going on," a confused Zoe asked.

  "Something happened at Emily's house. The police were there an
d her shirt was covered in blood. I don't think she was hurt, but they wouldn't let me talk to her. I just asked Jonathan to get her a lawyer and find out what happened," I told her.

  Everyone just looked at me stunned, mirroring what I was feeling at the moment. We all sat down, waiting for a call to tell us what was happening. It struck me as odd that this was happening so much. Here I had these amazing abilities and yet I kept having to sit and wait for someone else to tell me what was happening. I guess there's a lesson there … no man's an island and all that … but still, it was insanely frustrating.

  No one knew what to say. With so little to go on, we didn't even know what to be worried about. Had her dad done something? Had she done something? Had some third party done something? It was all a mystery. Marcus had headed home, seeing that this was a family thing.

  "So, I think we made seven hundred and fifty million dollars today," I said breaking the silence.

  Not that this was the time to be breaking this news, but I couldn't take the just waiting. I needed to do something to distract myself while I waited.

  "What?" Mom said, more confused by the randomness of the statement than by it's contents.

  "We made a deal with that guy from MilTech. He wants to pay us three-quarters of a Billion dollars for our drone patents.”

  "Are they even worth that much?" Zoe asked.

  "Maybe. Charles seems to think it’s possible, although he wanted us to sell the patents no matter what the price offered. That they were more of a liability to us than an asset. Aaron Baxter, their CEO, seemed to have an explanation on why they were going to pay that much.”

  "And do you believe it?" Mom asked.

  "Who cares. I am going to 'take the money and run.' Do you know what this means?" I asked.

  "That you guys can fund other projects," Vicki said.

  "More than that, this will allow us to fund the charitable works I talked about. This big of a sale, we are going to be on the hook for a huge tax bill. I bet I can talk Charles into funding my non-profit ideas. We won't get the money until near the end of summer, at the earliest, since these kind of deals take time to work out, but it is something for us to discuss when we do.”