The Clock

by Kathryn Wise

  “Exactly.”

  “Grayson, you’ve got something swirling. I can tell. Come on. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s just a hunch, but I suspect the man is somehow connected with the group of four. That’s it. I know this doesn’t make any sense, but they’re always referring to others. Not by name, but by position. Here…here’s an example. Remember when you asked Mr. Randal if he was in charge and his response what that he’s not ‘the highest’?”

  “Yes, I absolutely do. It was an interesting way of putting it.”

  “That’s what I mean, Mr. Randal’s and Ms. Florentine’s ways are different; a little obscure. They speak in word pictures and use analogies that I don’t always understand. It’s like that phrase I heard somewhere…looking through a glass darkly where you can see something, but it’s not yet clear enough to make out the details.”

  “Yeah, like now.”

  Grayson chuckled. “I know. I’m being really vague right now. I just have a hunch there’s a connection, but I don’t know what it is exactly. Sometimes the understanding comes to me later, usually when I’m not thinking about it.”

  Rachel was about to say something when Grayson interrupted. He leaned across the table and whispered.

  “But I will tell you this. As I listened to you describe what happened today, I had a strong sense that we were not alone.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  An Unexpected Visitor

  Knock knock knock

  Startled, they both turned to look at the door. “Who could that be?” Rachel whispered.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Does anyone else know this is your apartment?”

  “It’s a corporate lease. A Virtual Life lease. I just moved in a week ago.”

  Rachel thought that was actually a good thing. Given they’d discussed their plans to prepare a list of candidates, it wouldn’t be considered out of the ordinary for her to be there. Still, she felt the need to be cautious. Rachel gave Grayson the quiet sign and got up to get her bag from the chair. She pulled her weapon and then found a good spot just inside the entry to the den and out of sight. She quickly double-checked that the key case was still secure in her jacket pocket.

  As Rachel took position, Grayson looked through the apartment door’s peep hole. He turned to Rachel with eyes wide and mouthed, “It’s Calista Lawrence.”

  She motioned him to come over. He yelled, “Just a minute!” as he walked to where Rachel was hiding.

  “How do you want to play this?” Rachel asked.

  “Let’s see what she wants. You stay here and I’ll see what’s going on. I trust your judgment, so move when you think you need to.”

  Rachel nodded. Grayson walked back over to the door. “Coming!” He put on his best easy going Michael Raphael persona and opened the door.

  “Calista! To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from you?” Grayson asked. “Please come in.”

  “Thank you, Michael. Ahh…I always loved this apartment. I stayed here when I first started with Virtual Life. If these walls could talk…Oh, am I interrupting anything?” Calista had noticed the two cups of tea on the table.

  “Well, actually, Ms. Wheaton and I are in the throes of preparing a candidate list for her team. Is there something you need?”

  “And she is…?” Calista began to ask.

  “She’s freshening up. What can I do for you, Calista?” Grayson’s voice had definitely shifted into professional Michael mode. Very commanding.

  “Well, uh…gee, I’m sorry to barge in on you. I was hoping to speak with you about Syed Haddad. Confidentially of course.” Calista’s voice changed ever so slightly. She looked tense.

  “Okay. I’m listening,” Grayson said.

  “May I sit down? It won’t take long. I’m feeling a little woozy…probably the altitude.”

  “Certainly, by all means,” Grayson said. Rachel slipped her weapon in her back waist band and emerged from the den.

  “Oh, hello Ms. Lawrence. I wasn’t expecting you to be here today,” Rachel said. She gave her a half smile, not wanting Calista to think it was acceptable to interrupt their meeting. She had a reputation to build.

  “Hello, Ms. Wheaton. I wasn’t expecting to be here either, but my earlier efforts to contact you didn’t work out,” Calista said. She tried to hide her irritation, but Rachel saw through Calista’s facade.

  “So, Calista, Ms. Wheaton and I have a great deal of work to do. Forgive me for being direct, but why are you here?”

  “Of course. I’m probably making a huge mistake, but I felt compelled to find you. After watching Ms. Wheaton’s performance in the meeting today, I felt there might be some hope.”

  “Hope? Hope for what?” Grayson asked. Rachel wasn’t buying it. She saw how crafty she’d been with Charles earlier. She figured Calista was there to pursue an alliance against Priestly.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’m as ambitious as the next person, but things have gotten out of hand.” Calista stopped, seemingly hesitant to speak. “Veronica is leading us down a dangerous path. I wouldn’t normally break protocol, but I and the rest of the executive team have become very uncomfortable. We’ve lost our voices, which means we’ve lost our power to effect a change in course.”

  Rachel knew it was best to let Grayson take the lead. For all Calista knew, Grayson was Michael Raphael, one of the other executives. Without missing a beat, Grayson said, “Yes, I’ve noticed that too, but I decided to become better acclimated to the corporate culture before asking any questions.”

  “You played it well, Michael. It’s a tough environment. Trader and Priestly paint an impressive picture, but their management style…well, let’s just say it leaves a lot to be desired. There’s very little openness; people are afraid to be candid. And for good reason.”

  “Really. I haven’t felt that myself, but I see what you’re saying. There’s certainly a tension in the room. Have there been repercussions?”

  “You saw what happened with Mr. Haddad,” Calista said.

  Grayson glanced at Rachel. She wasn’t buying it, giving him a nearly imperceptible shake of the head.

  Calista continued. “I’m sorry. I came here because I thought you might better prepare for tomorrow if you know what’s going on. Things are heating up. My access to Mr. Haddad has been cut off and after yesterday’s incident, I’m a little worried about him.”

  Rachel saw her opportunity. “Ms. Lawrence, is there a reason you should be worried about Mr. Haddad? Has he done something wrong?”

  Calista looked at Grayson. “Michael, I’m dancing on some boundaries here. I’m not sure what I should disclose.”

  “Calista, the only way I’m going to consider helping you is if you tell us what you know. And then we’ll forget that this meeting ever happened,” Grayson said. “You need to answer Ms. Wheaton’s question.”

  Calista looked nervous, as if she’d been caught unprepared. Rachel sensed that Calista had come to the 20th floor without a plan: a bush league mistake.

  Calista cleared her throat. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know. Mr. Haddad, like many of the other former CEOs, was pressured by Virtual Life to sell. Most of the others eventually acquiesced to Virtual Life’s lead because of the money. But Mr. Haddad hasn’t been as easy to manipulate. On the contrary, he’s become increasingly resistant to working with my engineering group.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Lawrence. Would you remind me which organization you manage?” Rachel asked.

  “My organization is responsible for developing new technologies that improve Virtual Life’s competitive advantage,” Calista said, her voice fading as she spoke.

  “I see. And does your organization have anything to do with the recent catastrophic increases in social media service outages…like the one impacting the UK at this very moment?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s possible our work has something to do with that.”

  “Ms. Lawrence, don’t be coy. Are you runn
ing a project that aims to disrupt the global social media space?” Rachel asked. Calista wouldn’t be going anywhere until she spilled what she knew.

  “We’re working on projects that lead us to have greater competitive advantage,” Calista said.

  “So basically ‘yes’,” Grayson said.

  Calista didn’t respond.

  “So, what does Mr. Haddad have to do with this project?” Grayson asked.

  “Priestly placed him on our team as the senior engineer. We haven’t yet been able to produce the results Priestly is demanding. Until Virtual Life implements a fully operational solution, the other companies can still recover and quickly restore service. Even now, the average recovery time of our competitors is shortening incrementally with each outage. Eventually, their recovery algorithms will restore service with no perceptible interruption to the customer unless we can permanently terminate their capacity for service delivery. Priestly thinks that Haddad can get us there.”

  “And you support this?” Rachel asked.

  “Uh…no. Of course not. I mean…I didn’t know. No one knew…at first. My team was asked to investigate the code embedded in a key provided to our team. We all thought it was a little strange, but we discovered that the key contained an internal storage drive, and the drive contained several encrypted files. We began working on the decryption process and managed, without Mr. Haddad’s assistance, to operationalize some of the key’s functionality. When we reported our findings to Trader and Priestly, they insisted we test it in a live environment.”

  “What do you mean, ‘without Mr. Haddad’s assistance?’” Rachel asked.

  “Like I told you. He’s resistant, so Priestly has ordered heavy hands on him. I suspect he knows more about this technology than what I was told.”

  “So, you’re saying you’ve been in the dark about this?” Grayson asked.

  “Like I said, only at first. It didn’t take long to see the implications. And based upon Priestly’s insistence on Mr. Haddad’s cooperation, I think she knew all along that he’s essential to us making any real progress. And he wants out.”

  Grayson stood up and put his hands together as if readying himself to make a speech. “Calista, you were there today when Trader made the commitment to make Mr. Haddad available. We’re going to take him at his word.”

  Calista stopped short of rolling her eyes. “Yes, I understand.”

  Grayson paused, giving Calista a stern once-over.

  “Uh huh.” Grayson appeared to be in no rush to reassure her. “You may be telling us the truth, and then again, you may not. I’ve noticed some pretty regular sparks flying between you and Priestly. You can be sure that Ms. Wheaton and I will be checking out your story. If it checks out, I’ll be in contact.”

  Calista looked down for a moment as if to consider whether she should say anything more. She cleared her throat. Looking up at Grayson, she said, “Let me offer a good faith gesture with some information. First, there is no such thing as ‘private’ in the Virtual Life building. And second, I have a question. Have you wondered why Virtual Life is making such an aggressive play for Ms. Wheaton?”

  Grayson seemed to recognize Calista was trying to pull him in. “I think that’s probably enough for tonight. Ms. Wheaton and I still have a lot of work to do. I’ll show you out,” Grayson said.

  “Yes, I suppose it is. Ms. Wheaton? Mr. Raphael? Good evening.”

  Calista left. Grayson and Rachel stood quiet as the door clicked closed behind her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dinner and Data

  The table had been cleared of working materials and re-set with dinnerware. Rachel chopped vegetables for roasting while Grayson worked on a fifteen minute marinade for the halibut.

  “So you don’t believe her?” Grayson asked.

  “It’s not that I don’t believe her. It’s that I think she’s up to something. I don’t trust her. What she told us may be true, but I’m not so sure why she told us. We need to think carefully about aligning with her. Especially given that little shot at the end where she tried to rattle me with the question about why Virtual Life is making such a strong play for me.”

  “I agree. A wise woman you are,” Grayson said, taking a bow in her direction.

  “Thank you. Thank you very much,” Rachel said in her best Elvis Presley voice.

  “She did give us some good information, especially about the lack of privacy in the Virtual Life building. We need to request an off-site with Mr. Haddad,” Grayson said.

  Rachel’s wheels began turning. If they succeeded in arranging an off-site, Syed could be sequestered in a secret place. If Calista’s story were true, it wouldn’t be improbable for him to attempt an escape. If he’s really being held against his will, he might cooperate. Even Amir could help, securing a place for Syed to hide out.

  “Grayson, how difficult do you think it’ll be to arrange for an off-site?”

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult. After all, you’re in the power position right now. For whatever reason, as Calista alluded, they’re putting the major moves on you. I’ll be surprised if they don’t agree. But the meeting place has to be kept secret, and with these guys it means turning off all social media accounts, location services, etc. Anything that might allow them to trace our movements.”

  “Good thinking. I don’t have a personal cell, but you never know.”

  “I don’t either, but interestingly enough, today of all days the company issued a corporate cell to me. Fortunately so far I haven’t been anywhere Michael Raphael ought not be. I’ll need to remember to turn everything off…or better yet, just leave the phone here.”

  Rachel thought about running her idea by Grayson, but decided to wait to see how things unfolded with Syed. Everything would have to be just right to pull something like that off. After all, it could be painted as a kidnapping.

  “How are you doing with that marinade? Do I have time to bring you up to date on one other thing?” Rachel asked.

  “Of course, go ahead. We’ve got time. I can serve dinner whenever you’re ready to eat.”

  “I had another interesting epiphany today,” Rachel said.

  “Do tell.”

  “I took a look at the data readout screen before I left the hotel.” She waited for a reaction. He looked puzzled, but waited for her to continue. She liked that about him; he was an excellent listener.

  “I had a ’duh’ moment.”

  “For some reason you don’t strike me as a ‘duh’ moment kind of person,” Grayson said, flashing a twinkling-eye smile.

  “Believe me, I’ve had my share. I just hide it well.” She looked away, feeling a little embarrassed by her flirtatious tone. “But that’s neither here nor there. The first day I was here, the day I met you, I did some analysis of the data readouts you gave me. I detected a low level of transient anomalies across the various networks; anomalies causing a number of aborted transmissions. After watching it for a while, I noticed the anomalies started as a legitimate transmission but then morphed. They went ‘rogue’ for lack of a better term, and became hostile, causing a small percentage of the other transmissions to abruptly terminate mid-transaction. I think this is what’s causing all the outages.”

  “You always make things seem reasonable even though a lot of the technical stuff sounds like a lot of gobbledygook to me. And I’m not seeing the ‘duh’ moment.” Grayson said.

  “The ‘duh’ moment happened today. I took another look at the data readouts to see if there’d been any change. Sure enough, the rogue transmissions had increased. But here’s the thing. The data readout system itself…” Rachel found herself at a loss for words.

  “What? Tell me.” Grayson asked.

  Rachel took a deep breath. “I hate to be wrong. It’s a thing with me. But as I watched the screen, I realized that what I was seeing…can’t be seen.” Grayson looked quizzical. “As far as I know, the scope of data displayed on the screen can’t be captured and aggregated like that, not even with
satellites. The technology doesn’t exist. It means that whoever created the data readout system is…” She stopped.

  “What? Don’t leave me wondering. What do you think it means?”

  “Okay. It’s possible I’m behind on the latest tech breakthroughs, so I’m not absolutely sure. But to build a system like that, you’d have to be all-seeing…somehow transcendent.” Rachel wondered if Grayson was following her. “Grayson, you’re the one who provided the URL of the data readout system. Who gave it to you?”

  “Rachel, I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’m tracking with you. Are you talking about the recipe I printed out when we were at Zabars?” Grayson asked.

  “Yes. Who gave that to you?”

  “Uh…Google?”

  “You didn’t know what that was? That URL took me to a data readout display exactly like the displays in the room where we met with the group of four. I thought you knew that.” Rachel had assumed too much. “You knew about the algorithm…the Vaughn Algorithm, so I assumed you knew about the data readouts.”

  “No. No, I didn’t. I mean, I noticed the row of display panels in the meeting, of course, but to my eyes they showed just a bunch of pretty screen savers. I probably didn’t need to see the data. You’re the data geek on this team, not me. That’s how things seem to work. I get what I need when I need it.”

  “So you’re telling me that no-one gave it to you. You just randomly did a search for a recipe and that’s what came up on a screen?” Rachel asked.

  “Yep. You remember. I read the list of ingredients to you.”

  “I do remember, but at that point I wasn’t sure who you were or what was going on, so I didn’t ask you about the disconnect.”

  “Wow. A big disconnect,” Grayson said.

  “Yeah. It seems that way. But maybe not. You said it yourself that we only get the information we need when we need it. I needed it and, obviously, you didn’t. But now we both do.”