One from Without

by Jack Fuller

  “You can’t be too cautious,” said Diamond.

  “Actually you can,” said Sabby, “but I don’t see much risk of that here.”

  “May I suggest that we adjourn so that my team can get to work?” said Joyce.

  Pages rustled. Good-byes were swallowed. Beeps signaled directors ringing off.

  “Thank you for making a place in your schedule for this,” Joyce said.

  Someone on the line said, “It’s our—” but Joyce punched out, cutting off the last words—perhaps “pleasure,” perhaps “fiduciary duty.”

  The members of the Secret Committee tilted back in their chairs, so close to unison that an observer might have thought the conference room was accelerating. That went well, they said. Got the order. Look out, Niko!

  It rarely hurt to ask, so Harms did: “How about you, Brian? Were you satisfied?”

  Still sitting erect, Joyce stared down the table, his fingers bracketing its edge.

  “One step at a time,” he said.

  Everyone acceded to the wisdom of that. Then Marcia came in and handed him a message slip.

  “Teddy Diamond,” he read aloud.

  “Wimping out,” said Sebold.

  “Better come along, Tom,” Joyce said. “He’ll end up being your burden.”

  It was a short distance from the conference room to the round table in Joyce’s office. The private hallway between was unlike any other corridor in the Dome. The walnut walls had a depth that suggested the wood had come from some ancient chamber where great lords once had walked. The ceiling was vaulted and carved in something that looked like ivory. It was said that the Founder had imagined the space as his burial chamber. The door to the office went all the way to the ceiling and appeared to be as heavy as stone, though Marcia was able to open it easily. She stayed on the sarcophagal side when she let it close.

  Joyce dialed the call himself.

  “Teddy,” said Joyce into the speaker. “I was hoping you would still be there.”

  “It wasn’t a suggestion, you understand,” Diamond said.

  “Of course,” said Joyce.

  “I believe I speak for the Audit Committee,” said Diamond. “And anyway, we might as well get ahead of the heavy weather.”

  “Always good seamanship,” said Joyce.

  “I didn’t mean to blindside you,” said Diamond. “But you surprised us, too.”

  “I understand your concern and respect it, Teddy,” said Joyce. “You’ve had experience.”

  “This is a different situation, of course,” said Diamond. “Ours was just a bad apple. But take it from me—”

  “I have to,” Joyce said. “You’re the audit chair.”

  “Good then,” said Diamond.

  “Are we done?” said Joyce.

  “I’ve said what I needed to say,” said Diamond.

  “Calm seas and prosperous voyage,” said Joyce.

  He punched out and said, “Prick!” Then he pulled out his clippers.

  “How do you want me to handle it?” said Rosten.

  “Limit the inquiry to the financials,” said Joyce. “We don’t need any forensic auditor mucking around in the consumer database.”

  “And Gunderman?” said Rosten.

  “He’s the last person,” said Joyce. “He wanted this shit.”

  “Foresaw it, I think is fairer,” said Rosten.

  “Don’t put it to Poole that we’re excluding Gunderman,” said Joyce.

  “This simply isn’t relevant to his tasks,” said Rosten.

  “To the director of Internal Audit, anytime you say no, it’s a red flag,” said Joyce.

  “Are we feeling urgency?”

  “Not nearly as much as Teddy is,” said Joyce.

  How much less became apparent later that day when he called Rosten to announce that despite the courtship of Gnomon, he was going to be taking some R&R. “You don’t want the object of your desire to think you are too eager,” he said.

  Rosten immediately consulted Sebold and Poole on candidates for the forensic audit.

  “What’s wrong with Cooper-Jones? We’ve worked with them for years,” said Poole.

  “That’s the problem,” said Rosten. “Diamond won’t see them as independent.”

  “How about Jake Theobald?” said Sebold. “He’s of counsel at Winston & Strawn. I’m sure he’s available.”

  “He’s got to be pushing eighty,” said Rosten.

  He sent them away to come up with bolder names. The next morning Rosten told Joyce that they were still mulling. Joyce stood there in a shirt with epaulets and multiple pockets, even on the sleeves.

  “I’ll call with a short list within thirty-six hours,” said Rosten. “I assume there is cell coverage where you’re going.”

  “I kind of hope Niko tries to get in touch with me,” said Joyce. “I’ll have Marcia tell him I’m out of range on a freestone river. Make him Google to find out what that is.”

  He came out from behind the big desk that had been an antique when Thomas Woods Peterson had bought it at auction in London.

  “Just in case of emergency,” said Rosten.

  “You’ll man the bridge,” said Joyce. “I’ve just sent out an e-mail to that effect. Pick the forensic auditor yourself. It won’t hurt to be able to tell Teddy that I recused myself.”

  “Hope you catch a lot of fish,” said Rosten.

  “That’s a jinx,” said Joyce.

  He had begun to fiddle with one of two large, leather duffels that looked as though they could hold him for a month.

  “Doesn’t it get awfully cold in the water at this time of year?” Rosten said.

  “You’ve never had a steelhead on your rod.”

  “Always an acquisition,” Rosten said.

  He did not like the sound of being left alone on the bridge. As he returned to his office, a couple of lower-level people along the way congratulated him. Getting up from her desk, Gail said, “I’ll have to remember to try to be nice to you.”

  “Not you, too,” he said.

  “Whatever happened to the happy face?” she said.

  “Heavy is the crown,” said Rosten.

  “Don’t let it mess up your head,” she said.

  Ordinarily auditors did not raise their voices. Taxonomy was the limit of their passion: Where should this number go in the columns and rows? Is it this or is it that? Though auditors were black-and-white, they did come in different sizes. Many were sharp pencils, drawing fine lines. Poole was a squat eraser in search of error. Auditors’ nails were neatly pared, though they never used clippers in meetings or gave any other sign of boredom, even as half the room nodded off. But when an auditor let go, it was a thing to see, unless you could avoid it.

  “Diamond is on the attack,” Max Poole said. “It’s war.”

  “He’s just afraid,” said Rosten.

  “I think we should call in Morrie Berry,” said Poole.

  “Remind me never to use the word timid around you again,” said Rosten.

  “I’m that confident,” said Poole.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Max,” said Rosten. “What do you think, Bill?”

  “If you like tough guys,” said Sebold.

  “No harm in having him in for an interview,” Rosten said.

  Berry had been United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, surviving two presidential transitions. He did not achieve this longevity by ingratiation. He did it by putting so many politicians from both parties in prison that firing him would have looked felonious. Eventually he left office “under my own power,” as he put it. Ever since, it was said, his edge had only sharpened.

  He arrived at the Dome with his former first assistant Lev Szilard, a distant relative of the great atomic scientist. The lawyers made an odd pair. In court Berry tended to run cool; Szilard was a reactor going critical. Berry was slight; Szilard overflowed his clothes. To the Tribune’s acerbic lead columnist, they were Little Boy and Fat Man.

  After the two
lawyers read and signed a nondisclosure agreement, Rosten explained that D&D wanted a hard frisk, but financial only—not operations, not HR. The confidential consumer database was strictly out of bounds.

  “What do you suspect?” said Berry.

  “We make a practice of kicking our own tires very hard,” said Poole.

  “Are you aware of my hourly rate?” said Berry.

  “I can only imagine,” said Sebold.

  “My point is, you should be sure the job is worth it,” said Berry. “I can’t see how it would be unless you’ve either gotten a subpoena or you’re girding for corporate battle.”

  “We are a punctilious organization,” Rosten said.

  “You obviously feel you need our reputation,” said Berry.

  “Your brains first,” said Rosten. “Then your name.”

  “Refreshing if true,” said Berry. “What kind of frisk would you like? Pat-down or strip? I have to warn you: We sometimes leave bruises.”

  Poole’s shoulders were rising. Berry finally smiled.

  “Don’t worry. We aren’t desperados,” he said. “We ride for the brand.”

  Gunderman clicked out of the window where he kept his algorithm looping on endless sentry duty. All indicators showed the system running pure to six sigma—99.99966 percent error-free. When he got around to his e-mail, the first in the queue was from Sara Simons.

  —How are the shirts?

  —Very comfortable. Thanks again.

  —If you ever need to talk, just ping.

  —Likewise if you have any computer trouble.

  —Good to know I can count on you, Sam.

  He clicked that chain shut and went at his backlog. Junk. Delete. Routine. Delete. Routine. Delete. Routine. Delete. He cursed the man who had thought up the Reply All function. People wanted you to live their lives. Maybe one of them would like to lead his.

  When Maggie had returned from her mystery trip, she had done nothing but complain. The spa was too crowded; you could barely get time in the sauna, let alone with a masseuse. The flight out was forty minutes late leaving; the one back was so bumpy she thought she would need the barf bag.

  He told her he’d had an interesting conversation with Betty Cadwalader. She said that Betty was a piece of work. He asked if she had happened to cross paths with Bill Cadwalader lately.

  “What does he have to do with anything?” she said.

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “‘Welcome home, Maggie,’” she said. “‘I really missed you.’”

  “By coincidence it turns out that Bill was on a weekend with friends, too,” he said. “Betty was worried about him. I told her that I didn’t know what friends you were with either.”

  “Well, I hope he enjoyed it,” she said.

  They sat at opposing ends of the kitchen table without so much as a fabric runner between them.

  “Turns out he’s been going away a lot over weekends,” he said.

  “You have no right to question me,” she said.

  “I haven’t gotten to a question,” he said. “I don’t quite know how to ask it.”

  “Good,” she said and left him looking deep into the eyes of her empty chair.

  Move on. Work to be done. Things he actually knew how to do. The next message was from one of the younger accountants.

  —Did you give any thought to the proposed project plan I forwarded?

  —Let me put it in the overnight processor and get back to you, OK?

  Junk. Delete. Routine. Delete. Junk. Delete. No need even to open most of them, offers from every company he’d ever ordered from online, plus the spam and phishing expeditions. Hey, check out this great photo. Maybe he’d click on one of the links sometime, just to give his algorithm something to do.

  The next message he did not delete, much as he would have liked to. The accounting firm that did D&D’s annual routine audits provided monthly regulatory updates. It did not believe in executive summaries, so every member of the Internal Audit staff had to go through screen after screen: new Securities and Exchange Commission decisions, court cases millimetering their way through the system, IRS rulings. Almost never did any of this touch on computer issues, but he had to read the whole thing to be sure nobody had slipped something relevant into the middle, the way Maggie hid cash in books on the shelf. Excerpts from professional publications and learned journals. SEC advisory letters. Congressional committee actions. Suddenly he was caught by a barb.

  Disclosure responsibilities in unauthorized database entries

  The Commission has given guidance that all unauthorized third-party entry into financial systems must be considered material for purposes of quarterly disclosure under Section M, Topic 1 of the Staff Accounting Bulletin Series.

  Gunderman was no lawyer, and he would certainly bring this to Sebold’s attention, but it seemed to him pretty clear that this did not technically apply to D&D’s incident, which did not involve the financial system and which he had determined, at least to his own satisfaction, did not involve a “third party.”

  He saved the document with a click, then opened it again and pasted the pertinent part into a new document so he could find it when he talked to Sebold. Then he went back to delete, delete, deleting, his wrist growing numb, until Chase came barging in, with Gail in pursuit. Her face said, “I could not stop him.” Of course she couldn’t. Nobody could.

  “You fucked me,” said Chase.

  “I think I would remember that.”

  “Don’t get smart.”

  “Basically you are or you aren’t,” said Gunderman. “It isn’t something you get.”

  “You gave me your word that you would keep Greener in the loop.”

  “And so long as there was a loop, he was in it.”

  Chase tried to engage him in a battle of stares, but Gunderman would not play.

  “Don’t shit me,” said Chase.

  “Maybe you know something I don’t,” said Gunderman. “I suppose that goes without saying.”

  When Chase’s face curled, it was like some weird topological simulation.

  “They’ve brought in heat,” Chase said. “Major heat. Morrie Berry.”

  “The federal guy?”

  “A forensic audit. You’d better worry about whether he’s auditing your ass.”

  “You want to sit down?” Gunderman said. “Gail, could you do me a big favor and bring Dick some coffee?”

  “Is she still here?” Chase said, turning to look at her.

  “Some people freeze and hope the lion won’t notice them.”

  Chase lowered himself into a chair.

  “Those must be some dumb fucking animals,” he said. “By the way, this conversation never happened, Gail.”

  “I’m not only invisible,” said Gail, “I’m deaf. Don’t tell me I’m not, because I won’t hear.”

  Chase watched her leave.

  “She’s got a mouth on her,” he said.

  “She knows what to say and what not to.”

  “You better keep your mouth shut, too.”

  “Smart? Not smart?” said Gunderman. “That’s the question.”

  Chase was looking past him, as if there were something to see on the credenza other than the leaning towers of technical manuals, scatter of printouts, and the remains of lunch. Given all the things Gunderman had to worry about, being audited—even by Morrie Berry—was not material under Section M, Topic 1.

  “You really don’t know, do you?” Chase said.

  “Smart,” said Gunderman.

  “And you don’t care,” said Chase.

  “Not smart,” said Gunderman. “But I doubt it’s about me. Most things aren’t.”

  “Then who?” said Chase.

  “Somebody shaving nickels off bank deposits or giving contracts to relatives,” said Gunderman. “It could be one of a thousand little hustles. But here’s the thing. I actually have nothing to hide.”

  “You covered up the hacking,” said Chase.

&nb
sp; “No need to disclose,” said Gunderman. “Look at the latest guidance from the SEC.”

  “I want Greener involved in the audit,” said Chase. “Eyes and ears.”

  “Maybe it’s about him,” said Gunderman.

  “Not smart,” said Chase.

  If it hadn’t been for the recital, Donna would have gone north with Brian. He had told her to get him a ticket, but she had learned not to count on his presence until he was actually there. He had a very demanding job. He needed relief from the pressure, and she wasn’t able to provide that so well anymore. She wished he had waited a day for her, but his schedule was so crowded. It wasn’t that she wanted to fish. She really didn’t understand the appeal, but it was worth the bugs and bats and smoky fireplaces just to be with him when he was relaxed. He would clomp into the mudroom in those chest-high boots that made him look like a sausage. If it was as cold as it was now, he would be wearing layer after layer that he had to molt. Hair a mess. Stubble on his face. Up in the woods he could have been a guy on a bus or a caveman in a diorama at the Field Museum, and she loved him that way.

  In cold weather the dryness was hard on a viola, so she would bring the one she kept for students who broke a string. This made practicing less useful, because every instrument had its eccentricities. You got used to one, she told him, made accommodations to it if it was good enough.

  “Like five-weight rods,” he said.

  “And the people waving them,” she said.

  When Sara encountered Sam in the halls, he always looked as though he had just turned the wrong corner. He would say hello but never risk eye contact. You often found the really brilliant ones somewhere along the autism spectrum. Forget about training them for sales. Maybe it had been a mistake to take him by the arm and bodily drag him out of himself, but he was just too good a person to be hurting so.

  —Hey. You interested in lunch?

  —Already ate.

  —Another time.

  She kept checking, but nothing came back.

  “Morrie Berry!” Joyce said when Rosten reached him at the river.

  “He’ll satisfy Diamond,” said Rosten.