A Billion Ways to Die

by Chris Knopf

  “He was a muckety-muck in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh,” said Manfred, with a shake of his head. “I don’t think he’s reconciled yet the higher pay with the diminished prestige.”

  “He’s an honorable man,” said Imogene. “It isn’t easy being Nepali.”

  “Is everyone here an anthropologist?” I asked, hoping to get off Gyawali as a subject.

  Imogene chuckled. Though it sounded more like a clucking chicken.

  “The worker bees are hardened geeks,” she said. “Computer science one and all. Data crunchers. The analysts are from all over hell,” she flicked her long finger at Manfred and herself. “I’m microbiology. We have an electrical engineer, a few chemists, a guy from an advertising agency, and I think at least one lion tamer. Ansell is a former undersecretary in the State Department. I don’t know what his degree is in. Probably satanic studies. Manfred’s a chess prodigy and professional fuckup, as far as I can determine.”

  “Fucking up is a highly underrated career path,” he said, exaggerating his German accent.

  “Why do you think they hired me?” I asked, I hoped innocently, though who could be innocent about a question like that. Imogene took the ball without hesitation.

  “Some people are frustrated with Rajendra. Most of the people here are go-go, rule-the-world, wham bam thank you ma’am. He’s deliberate. Cautious. Meticulous.”

  “Fucking academic,” said Manfred.

  “Unlike Charles Andalusky,” I said.

  The room chilled off a few degrees.

  “So you met Chuck,” said Imogene.

  I shook my head.

  “No. Just tried to read up on him when I applied for the job.”

  Imogene’s near white skin took on a faint pink flush.

  “Chuck freaks her out,” said Manfred, enjoying her discomfort.

  “Manfred likes to say that, but I have nothing against the man,” she said, moving a piece of pizza crust around on her paper plate.

  “Without Chuck, none of us would be here,” said Manfred. “He’s the man with the money.”

  “He protects our funding,” she said. “It’s very admirable. And he likes Rajendra, despite pressure from the C suite for greater productivity.”

  “He likes you, too,” said Manfred, folding his arms and leaning close to her.

  She snapped off a piece of crust and tossed it at him.

  “Cut it out. He likes Kallie better,” she said, referring to the other woman on the analyst team.

  “Right,” said Manfred, looking me in the eye.

  “Well, I think I’ll get a chance to meet him,” I said. “Gyawali wants me to give the presentation at the big building. I assume that means department management.”

  That brightened up the room again.

  “That’s great, Martin,” said Imogene. “Well done. That’s good for all of us.”

  Imogene dropped the rest of her leftover crust into his lap, and stood up, signaling the end of lunch. He took it well, and we wandered back to our workstations. I’d slid my chair back in front of the computer and was trying to locate where I’d left off when Imogene stuck her face around the corner.

  “You wouldn’t say anything to Rajendra about me and Chuck,” she said. “What Manfred was saying, that I have a problem with him. I really don’t. Rajendra might say something to the wrong person. He’s so unaware of things.”

  “What things?”

  She watched herself slide her fingers down the doorjamb, an odd gesture obviously meant to buy time. When she looked back at me, she appeared puzzled, as if responding to a rhetorical question.

  “Good and evil,” she said. “What else?”

  THAT NIGHT, I checked in on the monitoring software I’d installed on Chuck’s home computer. It was designed to capture information tied to certain keywords, like “mercenary,” “British Virgin Islands” and “break-in.” Only the last showed up. Apparently the effects of that trauma still lingered even after installing a security system. The contractor sent an order confirmation that specified the equipment and system configuration. Not a bad choice, I thought, though easily disabled at the site if you knew what you were doing. They also considered getting a dog, though Okayo’s worries about allergies and the cost of daily dog walkers trumped Chuck’s romantic vision of fishing with a loyal retriever at his side.

  It made me think of our dog, Omni, with her head stuck over the side of the boat, snapping her jaws at flying fish. I wanted to tell the Andaluskys that another hazard of bringing a dog into your lives was the potential for long, painful separations.

  Although Chuck occasionally conducted business through his personal e-mail, most of it was friendly, innocuous correspondence with associates and peers. Never with Rajendra Gyawali or anyone else I knew from our research office. The real meat of his operation was obviously conducted through his corporate e-mail, which I couldn’t access from his home computer or smartphone.

  And no sign of Alberta. I paid particular attention to any e-mail to or from women, but nothing remotely suggested knowledge of the events aboard the fishing boat off the BVI, no matter who Chuck was corresponding with. If I hadn’t seen Chuck Andalusky face-to-face, I’d doubt we were dealing with the same person.

  “I’m wondering how we could know so much about this guy without learning anything connected to our experience,” I said to Natsumi, when she sat down next to me at the computer.

  “How would you know it was connected?”

  “I don’t know. Something would jump out. It usually does.”

  “But if you don’t know what you know, what good is all the information?” she asked.

  “Now that we can capture more information than we know what to do with, the world is full of geniuses trying to figure out exactly that.”

  “They probably won’t figure it out in time to help us.”

  “Another thing I don’t know is how much better off we’d be if I had my old brain back,” I said. “The computational part that got sprayed across my living room.”

  “You seem to be doing pretty well despite all that.”

  “Maybe now that I’m not so obsessed with the numbers, I might better see the big picture. Who knows.”

  She put her arms around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze.

  “I know, Arthur. I have faith in you. Of that I am 100 percent certain.”

  GYAWALI’S MOOD on the drive over to the big building was almost ceremonial in its gravity and portentousness. He drove us in his Toyota Sienna minivan, both hands firmly gripping the wheel. I sat shotgun, Imogene and Manfred were in the rear seats.

  They were there because I told Rajendra about their keen interest in the project and desire to see how it played out with management. It wasn’t a hard sell; he seemed pleased to have them along.

  I wore a tie and sport jacket, even though I was told it was unnecessary, even counterproductive. But I couldn’t help myself, as I tried to explain to Natsumi that morning.

  “When you go before management, you wear a tie,” I said. “It’s all I can do to resist the grey suit.”

  “Is this the ghost of Arthur Cathcart past?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it strange for you, sort of being back in your old life, though not really?”

  “Very disorienting. I find myself forgetting how I ended up at that desk at work, though it’s helpful for sustaining the act. I really don’t have to act. The work comes easily, though I forget I’m an employee and not a hired gun. That’s more difficult. I used to fly over the sharks, now I’m swimming around in the same tank.”

  “You’d think it was enough to just do their jobs,” she said.

  “For a lot of corporate people, self-service is their job. Mostly at the expense of others. Their responsibilities toward the company’s actual business is a sideline.”

  “Do you think your recent experience with professional killers and terrorists gives you a leg up with the corporate politics?”

  I tol
d her it might have been the other way around.

  THE BIG building was in the middle of a large tract of land, a mix of forest and open fields. It was built in the seventies when corporate planners thought marooning their employees on a so-called campus away from other commercial activity would produce a more docile, focused workforce. Since the vogue was now to tear down these isolated behemoths and move everyone back into the city, the planners must have gotten it wrong. Fontaine bought it for a song when they absorbed the American company Consolidated Global Energies, so they likely didn’t care being out of step with architectural fashion.

  The security people at the employee entrance were friendly with Gyawali, Manfred and Imogene, and mildly suspicious of me. They took a second look at my employee badge after letting me through the turnstile. The moment was also captured by a security camera up on the ceiling. I forced myself not to look at it directly.

  A woman who worked in Andalusky’s office met us inside. She was a spare, ageless person wearing a hair band and black sneakers. She did a quick head count, then turned and we followed her in silence down a series of hallways. I thought I heard Manfred whistling “We’re Off To See The Wizard” under his breath.

  The first stage of the journey ended at another reception room where our escort left us off with the words, “Wait here.”

  Manfred muttered something in Russian, which I didn’t understand, though I made out “Colonel Klebb.” Imogene gave him a gentle elbow in the ribs. Gyawali busied himself examining a piece of insipid art hanging beside an empty fish tank. I experienced a sudden craving for a cup of coffee. When the stern woman reappeared, she led us through another warren of offices, these a few clicks up in pay grade with solid walls and doors, and little kitchens with coffee machines thus far denied to our traveling band.

  We came to a single elevator that the woman called to our floor with a key. We rode it up to the best address in the building, where the reception area was paneled in stainless steel and the receptionist an attractive young woman whose welcome involved the barest arch of her penciled-on eyebrows. Following a hushed exchange with our guide, she pushed a button on a console hidden behind her desk and spoke a few words into a nearly invisible black headset.

  There were no chairs in the waiting room, so we stood. I was grateful no one tried to make small talk. I kept my eyes averted toward the floor, occupying myself admiring Gyawali’s handmade, two-tone Oxford brogues, and wondering if Imogene knew how to polish the pointy-toed slip-ons that likely represented her finest footwear.

  Another woman emerged from a door neatly blended into the room’s gleaming walls. Our guide handed us off without a word and went over to the elevator, pushing the down button. Our new escort was very tall, angular and late middle-aged, with a hairdo so tightly held together I felt you could lift it like a helmet off her head. She introduced herself as Patricia Cheerborg and looked each of us closely in the eye when she shook our hands. She wore a thin sweater over her shoulders and her glasses hung around her neck on a beaded necklace.

  “Mrs. Cheerborg handles communications for Chuck,” said Gyawali. “She’s the voice of Fontaine Cultural and Economic Development.”

  “Patricia, please,” she said, though she allowed the grand characterization to stand.

  Slightly stooped, she loped down a long carpeted hallway and we followed, eventually arriving at a conference room anchored by a massive mahogany table. At each seating was a high-backed leather chair, a leather blotter, personal electrical and electronic connections that popped straight up from the table, and a black puck protected by a wire mesh I assumed was a microphone.

  I gave her the flash drive with my presentation and she disappeared for a few minutes. She came back holding a remote, which she pointed at one end of the room. A screen descended out of the ceiling and the first page of my presentation appeared immediately after it stopped in place. She handed me the remote.

  “Forward arrow makes it go forward, back arrow back,” she said, helpfully.

  Manfred nodded, as if pondering the wonder of it all.

  Gyawali, after some indecision, assigned us our seats, which he had us claim by putting copies of our report on the leather blotters. In front of the opposite chairs we put our business cards, in neat vertical rows with his on top. Then we waited.

  Andalusky didn’t arrive so much as burst into the room. He wore an open-neck khaki shirt and olive drab Dockers, as if in vague mimicry of an army uniform. His grip was dry and solid and he used our first and last names as he shook our hands.

  “Marty Goldman,” he said to me, then paused before letting go of my hand. “Have we worked together before?”

  “Not that I remember,” I said.

  “I meet a lot of people, but I’m good with faces, thank God, since I suck at names. I can barely remember my own.”

  “I’d remind you, but then you’d miss the chance to practice.”

  I could sense Gyawali stiffen as Andalusky chewed on what I said. Then he grinned.

  “I get it. Pretty funny,” he said, letting go of the handshake gradually, as if releasing me on my own recognizance.

  “Imogene Nikolayevich,” he said, taking her hand in both of his. “I always feel like bowing when I say that. So royal.”

  “Royalty in Russia usually meant getting shot in the head,” she said. “After people bowed.”

  “That would be a terrible crime in your case.”

  “It’s a terrible crime in every case,” she said, gently pulling back her hand.

  “You’re right about that,” he said, moving on to Manfred and Gyawali, then asking if we needed anything. Gyawali started to demur, but I said, “Coffee. Please. Black.”

  He looked over at Patricia, who got the hint and left the room after taking orders from the others, somewhat perturbed by Imogene’s interest in organic tea.

  “I’ll see what they have in the little white cup things.”

  Andalusky sat on our side of the table and put his fists on the polished surface.

  “Rajendra says you’ve got some interesting stuff on the Jordanian de-sal project. I tried to get more out of him, but his lips were sealed.”

  “I wanted you to see how the concept is laid out,” said Gyawali. “It’s better if Martin just takes us through it.”

  Andalusky spun around in his chair and looked up at the title page on the screen.

  “I’ve already read a counterargument from Ansell Andersen,” he said, looking back at me. “Made me even more curious.”

  Gyawali sat bolt upright in the chair he’d assigned himself.

  “Ansell shared the report?” he asked Andalusky, in a hoarse voice.

  “Just the high points as a way of telling me Marty was full of crap. Don’t worry, Rajendra. You know I’ve got an open mind.”

  “I know you do, Chuck. I just wish Ansell would leave it to me to manage things.”

  “He does have a bug up his ass about something, that’s for sure. But some people around here like him.” He moved closer to Gyawali and put his hand on the other man’s forearm. “I got your back, Rajendra. You’re my guy in research, and that’s the way it is. Okay?”

  “Yes, Chuck. Thank you.”

  Patricia came back in the room nervously balancing a tray full of coffee, cream and sugar, and a tiny pot of tea, which she dropped without comment in front of Imogene.

  “Okay, let’s see this thing,” said Andalusky. “We’ve got a lot of expensive talent burning up time in here.”

  I took him through a shorter, duller and less assertive version of what I showed in the peer review, but all the essentials were there. Andalusky concentrated keenly on each point, moving things along quickly by saying “okay,” and “next slide,” and making a clicking pantomime as if he held the remote. I skipped over some of the content I realized was more supportive than central to the case, and drove to the conclusion as rapidly as clarity would allow.

  “Okay, got it,” he said, when I finished. Then he asked s
everal questions that betrayed how well he’d retained the material despite the brisk pace.

  “Andersen thinks Jordanian agriculture could increase productivity dramatically with some fairly simple upgrades in technology and best practices,” he said.

  “Not without a capital infusion or consolidation of the type we experienced here in the States,” I said. “Fewer family farms, more cultural disruption.”

  “But increased productivity will help the country overall,” said Andalusky.

  “Agreed. Which is why they need the desalinization plant,” I said. “They don’t need to revolutionize their farming techniques.”

  “Be a nice new market for American technology,” he said.

  “Does Fontaine sell agricultural machinery?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Just chemical plants for making fertilizer. And we already have all the contracts in the region.”

  “Does our competition sell agricultural machinery?”

  “Some do.”

  “Then why would we kill ourselves to enrich our competition while screwing up a segment of the population that just might not enjoy an American company screwing them up?” I asked. “When instead we can just irrigate the hell out of their fields, sit back and share the love with the Jordanian government, who I bet has more than one major capital project in the pipeline.”

  He pulled back from the table and crossed his legs, slumping slightly in his seat.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” he said to Gyawali. “All upside, no downside for Fontaine. Nice stuff.”

  “I’m pleased you agree,” said Gyawali, though no hint of anything but cautious concern showed on his face.

  “You two haven’t said much,” said Andalusky to Manfred and Imogene. “What do you think?”

  “We agree, too,” said Manfred, then went on for about fifteen minutes, ten minutes longer than Andalusky clearly wanted, reiterating points that had already been made. To his credit, Andalusky waited him out, then spun back around to Gyawali.

  “It’s good to have your people not only sell you on an idea, but tell you why you ought to be sold on it,” he said.