by Bryan Devore
“Weeping for the men, whom they may never see again.”
“Very good. Michael Chapman, I presume?”
“Yes,” Michael said, extending his arm in the same direction as the Horatii in the painting. “Jerry Diamond?”
The man nodded. “Please follow me and I’ll introduce you around.”
They walked to the elevators, and Diamond pushed the button, then turned to look back at the corridor. “One more question, Mr. Chapman: why do you think X-Tronic has that painting in its lobby?”
Michael looked at the man’s dark eyes. “I thought it was X-Tronic’s way of saying this is an extremely competitive software company.”
Diamond smiled. “Good, Mr. Chapman. Very good indeed. By the way, that painting is the original. Mr. Seaton purchased it from the Louvre for fifteen million dollars when he was in Paris last year, and insisted that it be placed in the front lobby so that everyone would see it when they first enter the building.” He stepped aside and gestured for Michael to take the first step into the elevator. “Welcome to X-Tronic, Mr. Chapman.”
5
THE TWENTIETH FLOOR of X-Tronic was a warren of cubicles surrounding large, open work areas in what was essentially a very high-end sweatshop. Diamond showed Michael through the main accounting department before they moved around the corner wing of the top floor. An immense glass-walled conference room stretched twenty feet along the hallway, looking isolated from the rest of the corporation’s activities. Piles of documents two feet high lined the inside wall and covered much of the long cherrywood conference table.
“This conference room has been reserved for external auditors,” Diamond said. He glanced at his watch. “As you meet with people today, please keep in mind that everyone’s pretty swamped right now. Tensions are high because of the visit from the board of the directors.”
“They’re having a board meeting today?” Michael said, shifting the heavy computer bag’s strap on his shoulder.
“Mm-hm. They all jumped on flights to Denver for an emergency session as soon as we got word of Cygnus’s takeover bid.”
Seeing Michael’s astonished look, he said, “Ah, you haven’t heard yet? I guess the public only got this information a few hours ago. Yesterday Cygnus International made an informal takeover bid for X-Tronic. The potential merger would create the third-largest software company in the U.S., just behind Microsoft and Oracle. Some members of management and the board are in favor of the offer; others aren’t. I’m afraid things are starting to heat up around here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Michael said. He wondered why Falcon hadn’t mentioned anything to him—surely the partner would have been privy to the information before it was announced to the public.
“Well, if you want to just throw your things in here, we can continue our tour.”
Michael set his computer bag next to the conference table, and the two proceeded down the hallway. He had never seen such extravagant corporate offices. The rounded metal cubicles looked straight out of the latest science fiction film, and the break rooms felt like eclectic bars.
Having circled most of the floor, they entered the final corridor. To Michael’s surprise, the environment here was even more lavish. The carpet was finer, and the chestnut-paneled hallway was hung with enormous scenic photographs capturing the isolated beauty of deep mountain ranges covered in snow.
“This is the executive wing,” Diamond said, anticipating Michael’s question. “My office is at the end of the hallway. That’s Don Seaton’s office.” He pointed to a large corner suite.
Inside the glass walls, Michael could see a classic mahogany desk worthy of the Oval Office. Two chairs sat facing the desk for the occasional business formalities, but in the other half of the office were two leather sofas, implying that at least some of Mr. Seaton’s meetings took place in a more leisurely setting.
“Mr. Seaton won’t be here until tomorrow,” Diamond continued. “He’s usually here only one or two days a week. Sometime he’s traveling for business, but he works pretty light hours these days.”
“What does he do when he’s not here?”
Diamond stopped and turned to look at him. “The mountains got some good snow earlier this week, so he’s probably out heli-skiing today.”
“He heli-skis?” Michael didn’t try to conceal his astonishment. “But he must be, what, seventy?”
“I know—crazy, isn’t it?” Diamond said. “But then, Mr. Seaton isn’t your average seventy-year-old. His helicopter flies him to the summits of the most remote mountains. There are no other people around, and he and his friends are free to ski down fresh, untouched powder.” As they stood in the middle of the executive hallway, he leaned in toward Michael, then tensed for just a beat, as if realizing that he was revealing more about the billionaire than was prudent. “He also has a mansion in Aspen, where he spends most of his time. Since it’s three hours into the mountains, he often just stays there for the entire week.”
“It’s good to be king,” Michael said. “But . . . who’s in charge of running things if he’s gone so much?”
Diamond nodded toward an office a few doors down. “Mr. Seaton has twin sons: Lance and Lucas. They both finished their MBAs at Harvard Business School four years ago, and Mr. Seaton has been priming them for the top executive jobs ever since. As copresidents, they’re mostly responsible for X-Tronic’s day-to-day operations, but they also play the role of CEO when Mr. Seaton is unavailable.”
Suddenly, a wave of shouting exploded from a nearby doorway. Neither of them could make out what was being said, but it was clear that an argument had just erupted. Diamond tried to get Michael to move back the other direction, but Michael easily sidestepped him to get a better view of the office. He could see two men arguing. One, obviously enraged, was flailing his arms in a way that suggested physical threat. The other man stood with arms crossed, shaking his head from side to side.
“Come on, we should go,” Diamond said forcefully, putting his hand on Michael’s shoulder.
“Those are the twins?”
“Right.” He patted Michael’s shoulder with his palm, all but shooing him away from the office.
“They’re not identical.”
“I never said they were. Come on. We’re leaving.”
Michael ignored him for a few seconds, eyes riveted on the two brothers. Finally, the one who had been waving his arms and shouting looked over and saw him gaping at them. Taking two quick steps to the window, the man stabbed a button on the wall and stared at him as the glass fogged with translucent white crystals. Though Michael could no longer see inside the office, he could still hear the argument raging on.
Diamond stepped in front of him. “They are obviously discussing a sensitive matter. Now, please, come with me back to the audit room.”
Michael forced a weak smile and nodded, and they turned and walked back the way they had come.
“Well, I’ll let you get set up,” said Diamond. “The stacks of papers over there are the last things Kurt was working on earlier this week.” He started away, then turned in the doorway. “Oh! When do you expect the rest of your people?”
“There will be two more staff coming out tomorrow. They’ll be here four weeks. I believe Falcon is planning to come out next week to review some of the workpapers.”
Diamond nodded. “Well, just let me know if you need anything.” And he left.
Michael pulled out his laptop, plugged it into the network connection, and booted it up. He looked around the silent room, and an eerie feeling sank in as he faced the reality that he was his dead friend’s successor. He looked over at the stack of papers that had occupied his friend’s thoughts only a day before his death. Perhaps he was even sitting in Kurt’s chair.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he opened an e-mail from Falcon. It had all the files for X-Tronic that the IT department had taken from Kurt’s computer. He tried to rein his thoughts in. This was a big audit engagement, and he neede
d to focus if he was going to get it completed with no delays. But even as he began opening the various files on his screen, his thoughts kept wandering back to the Seaton twins. What had them arguing so violently? But more important, why was the legendary Don Seaton off heli-skiing in the mountains instead of attending the emergency board meeting to discuss the threatened takeover of X-Tronic, the company he had built over the past thirty years?
6
WALKING INTO THE Red Room Tavern, Sarah Matthews stood against the wall and searched for a few seconds until her eyes found a familiar face at a table in the back. The bar, only a block from the State Capitol Building, was a favorite watering hole for seasoned and aspiring politicians alike. She moved through the tightly packed tables in her long, leather coat and bouncing red tresses. Her emerald eyes seemed to smile, but her mouth had a serious set. She reached the back booth and slid in across from the man seated there.
“I thought we were never going to do this again,” he said to her. He leaned forward, raising his shoulders as if trying to hide.
“What made you think that?”
“You told me we wouldn’t.”
“And you believed me?” She gave him a disarming smile.
He sighed. “No, I guess not. But I didn’t think we’d be doing it again so soon.”
“You’re just too good, Andy—a girl can’t live without you.”
He laughed. “Apparently not.” He glanced over his left shoulder at a group of senate pages gossipping over their beers a few tables away. “Well, all right, I’m here. What do you need this time?”
“You have any friends at Cooley and White?”
“Cooley? Sure, I know some people. But you don’t need me for that. Hell, you have as good a contact in there as anyone. If you need something about Cooley, just ask Kurt—he can’t say no to you . . . unless you’re afraid it could hurt his career.”
Her eyes fell to the table. “Then you haven’t heard,” she said with a fading whisper that was almost lost to the chatter from the four pages drinking behind them.
“Heard what? Sarah, you okay?”
“Kurt died,” she said. She slouched back in the booth and stared at her feet under the table. Every time she said those two words, she got a little more used to the idea that seemed so alien to her. And she hated herself for that. She hated herself for accepting the facts that everyone had given her, for giving up on Kurt without screaming out that everyone was lying. She wanted to pretend that he was just pulling another prank and was probably drinking a beer in a Breckenridge hot tub, surrounded by girls. But she did believe them—believed every damn thing they had told her. Kurt was dead.
“What!” Andy asked. “How?”
“Skiing.”
“Oh, my God, Sarah. Are you serious? Kurt . . . ? I’m so sorry.”
She sat up and wiped away a welling tear before it could escape and betray her vulnerability. “Thanks, Andy. I appreciate it, I really do, but I didn’t come here for that. Now, can you help me out at Cooley and White?”
“Sure, of course, I’ll do what I can. Just tell me what you need.”
“Here,” she said, pulling a folded piece of lined yellow notepaper from her purse. “I wrote it all down on this. That’s what I’ll need to start with.”
Andy reached out for the paper without taking his piercing blue eyes off her face. His fingers drummed on the table, as if he sensed that she wasn’t telling him everything.
“To start what? What kind of story could you possibly be doing on this?” he asked, unfolding the sheet of paper. “This isn’t some corrupt project manager stealing from Public Works. I had access to those files directly—a fringe benefit of working for the attorney general. But now you’re talking about outside the government. I’ll talk with the people I know at Cooley, but I can’t promise anything.”
Sarah looked at him with deep, sad eyes. “You were the best law student at Columbia, Andy. And some day you’re going to be a great U.S. senator for Colorado. I know you’ll do your best to help me—you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Just tell me it’s not something personal, okay? Just tell me it has nothing to do with Kurt.”
She didn’t respond. Getting up from the table, she leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Andy, you’re a sweetie. I’ll talk to you soon.” Then she turned and walked back to the double doors and the glaring sun outside.
7
AT SIX O’CLOCK Friday morning, Michael walked through the eerie shadows of X-Tronic’s twentieth floor. Automatic motion sensors turned on a flood of lights in small sections ahead of him, twenty feet at a time, as if the building itself were an ominous life form watching his every move. He glanced at one of the many security cameras peering out of small black spheres in the ceiling and wondered if, somewhere in a gloomy security room, human eyes were even now watching him.
After only one day of work with his new client, he had already read through most of the documentation in the audit file. So far, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual with X-Tronic’s numbers other than the impressive increase in revenue over the past few years. Cooley and White had kept clean workpapers, so he found no red flags in the audit files. It appeared that Kurt was performing the audit tests in an unusual order. It probably meant nothing, but Michael made a mental note to look into it further.
He went in the closest break room. Filling the coffeemaker, he heard a quiet shuffling behind him. He couldn’t believe that someone else had shown up for work this early. He had always prided himself on being the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave in the evening, but here was this old guy across the room, getting a tea bag out of the cabinet.
“Good morning,” the man said, half glancing over his shoulder. He was in his sixties perhaps, but with an athlete’s strong posture. His silver hair was cropped close, and his impeccably tailored suit and gold cufflinks made a statement of quiet elegance.
“Good morning,” Michael replied.
“Not many people in this early,” the old man said with a warm smile. “In fact, I think it may be just us.”
“I’m sure others will be in before long,” Michael said, turning back to the coffeepot. He was still thinking about the unusual nature of Kurt’s work and wasn’t really looking for small talk.
“Mm,” the man mumbled to Michael’s back. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you around. Are you new?”
“I’m one of the auditors. Yesterday was my first day here.”
“Oh, you’re with Cooley and White. What’s your name?”
“Michael Chapman,” he said, finally turning from the coffeemaker to face the older man.
“Welcome to X-Tronic, Michael. My name’s Don Seaton. I hope everyone is being helpful in getting you what you need.”
“Yes, everyone’s been great,” Michael said, mentally kicking himself for not recognizing the man. Looking more closely at the famous billionaire, he now noticed the same features he had seen in so many press photos: the youthful sparkle, the serious intelligence, the glow of confidence.
“Good. Well, we’ve got some terrific people working here, so I’m sure they’ll help you however they can.”
Seaton finished brewing his green tea and left, no doubt already wrapping that brilliant mind around the many weighty problems he must juggle today.
Returning to the conference room with his coffee, Michael was soon immersed in a pile of work. He had been at it for more than an hour when he heard two voices approaching. His two young audit staffers walked into the conference room. “Morning,” he said.
“Morning,” they replied in unison.
Dustin had thick, dark hair and even thicker, darker eyebrows. Shorter than his female coworker, he had a quizzical look on his face, as if he were perpetually contemplating a problem he would never solve.
Andrea’s long dirty-blond hair hung straight as wet string. She looked as if she had just stepped out of the shower, and Michael realized that she probably h
ad. He smiled wryly to himself. Only a few weeks into the firm’s busy season, and already the perky college grads were feeling the grind.
He thought about asking them if they had any idea why Kurt was testing things out of order, but he decided instead to keep it to himself for now.
Andy Ferguson left the senate subcommittee meeting and hustled down the marble staircase that circled the rotunda of the State Capitol Building. Ever since he took the job of assistant attorney general six months ago, his life had become a constant, harrying race against time. The cold hallway on the first floor echoed with the click of heels on the marble floor as a steady flow of buttoned-down professionals moved quickly past.
Andy saw the familiar face coming down the legislative hallway. He ambled toward the staircase under the white glow of the rotunda. Glancing around and seeing no one suspicious, he approached the short, wide man with a flat nose, now standing at the base of the stairs.
“Any trouble?” he asked quietly, reaching out to shake hands. Feeling the data storage thumb drive in the man’s palm, Andy curled his fingers around it and slipped it into his pocket while his free hand idly patted the brass banister.
“So, any trouble?” Andy asked again. Something in the man’s expression bothered him—something he wasn’t saying.
“Come on, Wes,” he persisted. “What is it?”
The question seemed to make the guy more nervous than ever. He lowered his eyebrows and glanced nervously at the two men and a woman moving past them, and leaned in a little.
“You know I don’t like doing this,” Wes Garland finally said, the barest quaver in his voice. “Doesn’t feel right.”
“But it is right,” Andy replied. “You know I wouldn’t have asked you if it wasn’t important.”
“Important for what?” Garland said. “What could you possibly need that information for?”
“It’s not for me . . . Listen, Wes, how long have we known each other—twelve, thirteen years? I think by now you know you can trust me. If I tell you it’s for something important, that’s all you need to know. You haven’t done anything illegal.”
