Terminal Value

by Thomas Waite

  “Right.”

  “So then I did an analysis of our New York revenues last quarter.”

  “How’d you do that?” Dylan said, surprised. “You don’t have access to those numbers any more than I do.”

  She laughed. “You know, you’re a brilliant guy, but sometimes you’re just too damn logical. It was easy. I just chatted with people working on the projects based out of the New York office. Every team knows what they are billing their own client. They just don’t compare notes and add up a whole office’s worth. They love to brag about their individual successes. They never questioned why I needed the information. They just gave it to me. So I quietly gathered up that information and then totaled it up myself.”

  Dylan certainly hoped she’d done it quietly. Having them both in trouble wouldn’t help anyone. “What’d you find?”

  “My estimate is the New York office only billed thirty-two million dollars last quarter, not forty-five million.” Heather tapped a highly polished finger on the tabletop for emphasis.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I suppose I could be off by a million or two, but not fifteen.”

  Dylan took a long drink of his water. “Well, it’s not exactly hard evidence, but it certainly is suspicious.”

  “You are the master of the understatement. And if Tony found out. . . .” She let her statement dissipate, unanswered.

  Dylan sat back and slowly responded, “I guess anything’s possible.”

  “If Tony found out about this and maybe approached Art or Christine, would that be a big enough reason for murder?”

  “It very well could be, and that’s a good reason to hack into the secure server. Honestly, Heather, I think we have to—”

  “I know.” She licked her lips—a reflexive gesture Dylan knew she made whenever her thoughts overwhelmed her. He had seen her do it at the poker table and at the conference table. It had always endeared her to him. “So you really think Tony was killed because he found out something bad about Mantric?”

  “Yeah.”

  “By whom?”

  “Ivan, maybe ordered by Art or Christine. The trio seems to have a tight relationship, though Ivan is certainly under the other two’s thumbs.”

  She nodded slowly. “Can’t say I’d put it past the bastard.”

  He watched her face, knowing her creative mind was churning as she looked for flaws in his theory.

  “Okay, we need to do this. Here’s how it’s going to be, no questions.” She looked from side to side, ensuring their conversation would not be overheard.

  Dylan drew a deep breath. “I don’t like this.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “I’m better at sifting through obscure directories than you are, which is why I’m going in.”

  Dylan shook his head. “It’s a big risk. What if you get caught?”

  “I like risk. Your job is to keep an eye on Ivan while I’m hacking into the server. Because, in the end, I’d rather you were the one keeping Ivan occupied while I deal with the nice friendly server.”

  Dylan realized he really had no choice. Heather was right about his methodical, detail-oriented mind versus her intuition. “OK, I’ll keep him occupied for you,” he finally said, grimly.

  Their eyes met. Heather raised her glass, and Dylan did the same.

  “For Tony.”

  Chapter 23

  May 13, 7:30 a.m. New York

  The next morning Dylan arrived at Mantric before most of the staff. He sat at his desk and began to prepare a folder, his heart thumping as he considered the multiple ways the plan could go wrong. If they were caught, could they be arrested? He was an officer of the company, but what about Heather? What jeopardy had he placed her in? They had reviewed every minute of their timetable over and over until they could recite it backwards. Dylan shook his head to dispel the questions. It was too late to go back now. He reached out to the keyboard and called the Boston office a few minutes before eight-thirty and spoke with Sarah.

  “So I take it you haven’t been able to fix the Hyperfōn problem?”

  Dylan felt his heart sink. “Sarah, how many people know about that?”

  “Pretty much everyone here, I’m afraid. You can’t expect the whole team to keep it a secret when they are suddenly yanked out of a client and told to go back home.”

  It wasn’t what Dylan wanted to hear, but it was certainly understandable. “So where are they?”

  “In the main conference room. Ready and waiting for your call.”

  “Organized as always. Thanks, Sarah.”

  “No problem. Dylan, is there anything else I can do?”

  He sighed. “No. But thanks for asking.” Dylan linked to the conference room, where he had a view of the entire Hyperfōn project personnel sitting around the long table. The room fell silent as he came online, and everyone’s eyes focused on him.

  “Good morning,” he said, trying to sound calm and relaxed. He looked around the room and saw Rob seated at the far end of the table. “Hi, Rob. Thanks for coming.”

  “Hey, I want to help as much as possible.”

  “I appreciate that, especially since you have your own clients to worry about.”

  “No worries,” Rob said with a smile.

  “Matt? What have you guys come up with so far?”

  Matt glanced around the room at his colleagues. He looked exhausted. “I’m sorry, Dylan, but we really haven’t come up with anything that would explain how we missed the LC move.”

  Dylan frowned. “Nothing? No clues? Not even a theory?”

  “No. Not yet.” He looked down at his hands.

  Dylan sighed. “So tell me what you’ve done so far.”

  “Well, yesterday we made a lot of calls to pretty much everyone we could think of. But we didn’t come up with any insights.”

  “What about the original project plan?” Dylan asked. “Did you review it to see if we missed any important steps or maybe weren’t thorough enough?”

  “Yeah,” Matt said. The somber faces around the table nodded in agreement. “We went through every little detail. We followed the plan just the way we always do.”

  “How about researching the Internet? Did you find anything to indicate LC had ever even mentioned considering starting a business like Hyperfōn?”

  Matt shook his head. “We pretty much pulled an all-nighter on that. Didn’t find anything.”

  “Not even rumors of anyone else doing it?”

  “No.”

  “What about the research firms? Did you check with them?”

  “Yes. We didn’t find anything there, either.”

  Rob looked at Dylan and shook his head. Dylan could tell he didn't think this was leading anywhere.

  “So, no one here has any idea how this could have happened then. Is that right?”

  The room went silent for a moment, and then Matt sighed. “No idea at all.” He was clearly frustrated.

  “So where does this leave us with Hyperfōn?” asked Hailey Parker, one of the young web designers on the team.

  “Well, I’m afraid the project is on hold for now,” said Dylan. No one said anything, but their faces reflected their opinion that he was sugarcoating the situation. “The truth is,” he added, “it’s pretty unlikely we will be working with Hyperfōn anymore.”

  The team exchanged disappointed glances.

  “So what happens to us?” Hailey asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Dylan said, trying to reassure the group. “We have plenty of other work for you. The good news is we’ll be able to speed up some of that. I expect you all to be assigned to new projects within the next couple of weeks.”

  He watched Rob and Matt exchange glances. There was other work for the team to do, but they both knew Dylan would need to quickly land another client or two to make up for the financial loss in his own division.

  “In the meantime,” he continued, “you should keep working on trying to figure out what happened here so we can prevent it from
happening again.” They all nodded.

  “Anything else?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah. Until it’s official, please don’t tell anyone outside this room our work with Hyperfōn is finished. Okay?”

  “Okay,” they all said.

  “All right everyone. Thanks for all of your help. We’ll talk again soon.” Dylan cut the conference call and sat back in his chair, his mind a blank slate.

  For the next five hours, Dylan and Rob video-conferenced with the project managers of every Mantric mobile computing client. Dylan wanted to be absolutely sure this didn't happen again. He informed them Mantric was conducting a normal security review and told them to personally perform thorough project reviews looking for anything out of the ordinary. He and Rob asked a litany of questions; in particular, he wanted them to redouble their research on the competition and make sure their clients wouldn’t be blindsided by any of them.

  At two-thirty, Dylan put an end to the calls. “That’s it for today, Rob. Thanks.”

  “Don’t worry. This thing will blow over.”

  “I don’t think Art’s going to forget it.”

  “He’s just rattling your cage, Dylan.”

  “I know. But that doesn’t make me like it any better.” He glanced at his watch. Two thirty-five. “Sorry, Rob, I’ve got to go.”

  Dylan rushed back to his office and took one more quick look at the folder on his desk. The spring air had warmed the day, and the sun beat through his window. Too cold for air conditioning, too hot for comfort, he thought. He rose and walked over to the window, took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his neck.

  “Rachel?” he called.

  “Yes, Dylan?” Rachel said, poking her head around the corner.

  “I need some help with some financials that I’m trying to work out on this Hyperfōn mess. Could you call your friend Patty Dowes, over in accounting, and see if she could come down here about three o’clock and try to organize this for me?”

  “Sure. I know she’ll be happy to help.”

  Rachel returned to her desk and dialed the number. From his office, Dylan heard Rachel’s side of the conversation as she confirmed the meeting. He looked at his watch. Two-fifty p.m. Dylan nudged the envelope square in the middle of his desk, locked the drawers, and walked out of the office.

  “I just realized I have to conference with Matt again about Hyperfōn. Just tell Patty the folder on the desk has all the data and I’ve left some instructions. I would prefer she not take anything out of the office—you know—security and all. I’ll be back as quickly as I can in case she has any questions.”

  “Not a problem. Patty is very reliable and very accurate.”

  The plan was simple. Dylan hurried through the hallway to the elevator. He speed-dialed Heather’s number.

  “Okay. Patty Dowes’s office will be empty as of three o’clock. I’ve left enough work to keep her busy for about an hour.”

  “I’m standing outside of accounting. She just passed by me. There aren’t very many people here, and Patty’s office is somewhat remote from the others. What luck!” Heather responded.

  They ended the call, and Dylan went over the next steps in his mind. With Patty out of her office, Heather would go in, input the password, gain access to the network, run the Prometheus script, and hunt down any suspicious files as per Brandon’s directions. In the meantime, Dylan would keep an eye on Ivan and make sure he stayed in his office. If he failed, he would ring Heather’s cell, set on vibrate, to warn her. Heather would ring Dylan twice, once when she was five minutes from finishing, and again when she was clear. Under no circumstances would she stay more than half an hour.

  Dylan placed the phone in his pocket and stopped just outside of Ivan’s office. He took a deep breath and approached Ivan’s secretary with an air of confidence.

  “Hey, Naomi,” said Dylan, adopting his most charming smile. “How’s it going?”

  The always-anxious secretary looked up, apologetic in anticipation of having to deliver unwelcome news. “I’m sorry, Dylan, he’s busy with a salesman.” She glanced unhappily at Ivan’s closed office door.

  “He’s always busy. I’ll just wait here,” Dylan said, taking a seat across from her.

  “Oh, well, sure, please make yourself comfortable.”

  * * *

  May 13, 3:05 p.m. New York.

  Heather slid forward on the leather chair. With each key-tap, she became acutely aware of the fact that she was leaving fingerprints across the keyboard. She would have to remember to wipe it down when she was done. When she gained access to the root directory of the server, she removed Brandon’s coded CD from her briefcase and slid it into the drive.

  The root hierarchy filled the monitor to her left. The high hum of the machinery and the clicking of the keys seemed to reverberate throughout the room.

  She glanced at the four columns of numbers displayed across the monitor. Every secure computer on the LAN was listed with the corresponding IP addresses of every computer that had visited every location in the past hour—a handy tool for any security director and perfectly justified to ensure a network’s security. She recognized that this made it possible for an unscrupulous person to use the system in reverse and find a way into the personal computers of Mantric employees. Heather’s eyes flickered as she watched the progress of Brandon’s script; using a different address every time, she changed directories and was confident her penetration would not be discovered—not unless anyone was looking right at that moment.

  She wandered through a dozen hierarchies looking for Ivan’s directories and found them fairly quickly. Bypassing the security directories, she uncovered a string of directories labeled ARCH and four numbers. She glanced inside each one. The file names were coded, but the extensions told the tale: .docx, .txt, .pdf, .bmp, .tiff, .jpg. How much personal information was stored here, she wondered? What e-mails, what transcripts of phone calls, what photos? Her fingers itched to know, but that wasn’t her mission.

  And yet how was she to find Tony’s e-mail, the file he referenced, or any other evidence when all the names were coded? She went through every archive directory but spotted nothing that looked like her prey. Time was ticking by. She backtracked. Maybe she had missed something. She started over, this time looking in directories with any alphanumeric names, when she came across something interesting: a folder labeled SAVE2012. Inside, more columns of files with alphanumeric coded names: .txt, .pdf, .avi.

  She stopped. Avi. That was a video extension. What could those be? Her forefinger twitched, then double-clicked on the mouse.

  A small window appeared on the screen as the movie player booted and an image appeared—a generic office with green walls and a wooden table disappearing into the bottom of the window. Heather’s eyes widened as Christine walked into view and sat at the visible end of the table.

  “So Art,” said Christine. “How are we doing?”

  Art’s voice came from off-camera. “Well, we cut things awfully close with the MobiCelus acquisition. We closed that puppy just in the nick of time to play up the mobile computing capabilities in our prospectus. And add in their second quarter revenues.”

  Christine nodded. “Right. What else?” she asked with cold indifference.

  “The SEC was satisfied with Hickman and Ross signing off on our financials and officially stating we followed generally accepted accounting principles,” Art said.

  “Uh-huh. And what about the investors and brokers?”

  “I’ve taken care of them, too. Everything’s set with WMR Capital and their broker friends. They’ll know what to do when the time comes. So, Christine, I guess that means I only have to worry about you, then. Do you have everything in order with your buddies at Daley and Hahn?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about them. It’s all set. They’ve assured me from a legal standpoint everything’s in order.”

  The video ended.

  Heather pushed back from the desk, staring at the blank screen. What was tha
t all about? And where had the meeting been? Heather hadn’t recognized the room. She looked at the file names again and realized that the last four characters of each name could refer to the date. She saved the .avi, returned to the script, and ran down the column of files till she found the days immediately following Tony’s death. Then she hesitated, glancing nervously at the monitor. Her proxy IP address had shown up in the SAVE directory. She knew she would be detected if someone were monitoring the directory at that precise time. But, with Ivan safely preoccupied, what were the chances of that? She clicked the next file.

  It was the same green room, the same table, but this time there was no one in the picture.

  “So is he gone?” came Christine’s voice.

  “Shit, Christine,” came Art’s voice. “Close the door!”

  There was the sound of a door closing, and Christine came into view.

  “Take a seat. So did you let Rich go?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “How’d he react?” Art asked.

  “I don’t know. Shocked. He shouldn’t have been. He brought it on himself.”

  “Christine, have you ever had an ounce of compassion about anyone in your life?”

  “I had a dog once when I was a kid. Got sick. My parents had to put it down. I didn’t feel too good about that.”

  “Sorry I asked. So how exactly did you handle it?”

  “I told him we would say his position was eliminated.”

  “Why bother? It just complicates things further to lie.”

  “Look, you can’t just fire someone without reason. They could sue. Things could get messy. Plus, having him sign a release and letting him go this way makes it much less likely he’ll create any problems for us later.”

  “I suppose,” said Art. He didn’t sound convinced.

  “Anyway, we escorted him out of the office and shut down all of his access to our telephone and computer systems. And I gave him severance in exchange for the release. He didn’t even read the document. He just signed it.”

  “Did you meet with them yet?”

  “Who?” asked Christine.

  “The finance group. When you thin the herd, it’s usually a good idea to explain why you did it to the ones left standing.”