Terminal Value

by Thomas Waite

  Dylan noted that the normally stern Christine was struggling with the accusation he knew she would make. The sound of silence echoed around the room, reverberating off the walls as Dylan took a calculated risk. He finally spoke. “Let me make sure I understand this. You steal millions, and, when I find the evidence of it, you have the audacity to call me incompetent?”

  Art stepped back and took a deep breath. “Yes. Because you’re the one that got caught.”

  “Oh, really? What proof do you have of anything I may have done?” Dylan asked, throwing right back at them the words he’d heard them exchange in Art’s office.

  Christine shot him a look that ranged from curiosity to wonder; she hadn’t expected this response. She recovered quickly and stepped up to his desk. “Here are your choices, Dylan. We can fire you for committing libel and gross negligence and willful misconduct in the performance of your duties. You will be escorted off the premises right now, and then we’ll sue you.” She paused, wanting that threat to sink in. “Or,” she continued, “you can go back to those websites and admit to leaking false information, contact CNBC and make a public retraction, and we’ll make sure you get the medical help you need.”

  Dylan recognized the first step in their game of “chicken.” “So you expect me to contact a bunch of websites and go on CNBC and admit to something I didn’t do?”

  “Yes—and don’t think we don’t know you were responsible.” Christine snarled.

  Art had taken a back seat; the game being played was now between Dylan and Christine. He looked up in defiance at Art and Christine. “So the story is, I made it all up and don’t really have any proof?”

  “Exactly. We’ll give you a six-month payout. Enough to tide you over,” Christine said with a shrug. She pulled herself up straight and stared into his eyes. Dylan saw defiance with just a tinge of fear in her body language. He found her a most daunting competitor. Art had become weak and pathetic, but Christine stood strong.

  “Tide me over until what? Till I forget how you bought my company under false pretenses, then fired my staff and sold out my clients? Even murdered my friend?”

  At the word “murder” Christine stalled for just a moment, then recovered. “Just realize if you don’t take it, we’ll destroy you both financially and professionally. You won’t be able to work again. You’ll lose everything. And you’ll rack up a fortune in legal bills.”

  Dylan watched her closely. He thought she spoke just a bit too fast. He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. The room fell into silence.

  “You don’t want to do this, Dylan,” Christine continued, her tone changing to a dangerous purr. “If you try and bring us down, you’ll bring yourself down too. You’ll lose everything.”

  Dylan just leaned back and smiled a knowing smile.

  With a worried look on his face, Art took a step towards Dylan and broke his silence. “Okay, look. We can make a deal. We’ll cut you in,” he said. “One third.”

  Dylan recognized the second level of “chicken,” and he watched as Christine flinched at Art’s offer. They both fell silent for too long. Dylan smiled again: his turn. “I’m more concerned with Tony’s murder than I am with money.” He turned to the weakened Art and used his ace. “Where, exactly, were you on May 2nd?” Dylan watched as Christine stepped backward, her eyes looking around as her mind raced at this new tack. Art choked.

  “I was in New York. You might recall having had a conversation with me.”

  Dylan smiled. “See Art, that’s the thing about technology. It’s great because we can see and hear each other from anywhere on the planet. But the truth is we don’t necessarily actually know where the other person is. Yes, I spoke to you, but no, I don’t know you were in New York.” He leaned forward and glared at them. “I’m sure one of you killed Tony.” Dylan’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “And you’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”

  Art’s eyes opened wide. “What?” he screamed.

  Christine stiffened, then snorted. “Why the hell do you think we killed Tony?”

  Dylan reached another level of the game. “Because he found out about your scams and about Schedule B and you wanted to shut him up.”

  Christine’s face changed in a way Dylan had never seen before.

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Art, rolling his eyes.

  “I am convinced one of you did it. Probably you, Art.”

  “Jesus, Dylan. We’ve been through this. I was in New York at the time.”

  “Even if you were, you had plenty of time to fly up to Boston after you left the floor. You used the IPO as a cover.”

  Christine frowned at Dylan, the furrows of her pinched face even deeper. She had been silent for several moments. She glanced sideways at Art, then focused back on Dylan. She moved closer and leaned in toward him. He noticed her lips quivered slightly. “Listen, Dylan. I can help you, if that’s what you want. We’ll hire the best detectives to find out who killed Tony.” Her speech took on a quiet panic. “As for this scandal? That was Art. I didn’t have anything to do with it. You’ll never prove it.”

  Dylan had not expected Christine to throw Art under the bus.

  “What the hell—?” Art clearly hadn’t expected it either. He stepped forward and glared at Christine.

  “The records are on his computer, not mine,” she continued. “I’ll deny everything, Dylan.” She shook her head. “I’ll say I thought what Art said about you was true, that you were crazy with grief and afraid to lose your job. I’ll say I didn’t know he was trying to squeeze you out.”

  “You fucking bitch,” said Art. “If I—”

  Dylan’s mind ignored their squabbling. He heard their muffled conversation as if through a fog: Christine working on her story, Art furious at her betrayal, both of them squirming to find a way out of their predicament and neither of them the slightest bit worried about being tagged for Tony’s murder. They didn’t do it, he thought, realizing the truth.

  Christine refocused her laser attention on Dylan. “Dylan, I’ll back you all the way. I’ll help you. I’m a good friend to have.”

  “I think you’re going to be busy, Christine.” Dylan looked at his watch. It was almost four o’clock. He punched the intercom on his phone. “Rachel, have those people from the SEC arrived? Good, send them in.”

  Chapter 31

  May 18, 8:00 p.m. Boston

  Stars flickered in the deep purple sky of the late May evening as Dylan dragged himself up the stairs of his condo. He had e-mailed Heather, Rich, and Matt that he would take the seven o’clock shuttle and to meet him at his place in Boston by nine p.m. He knew Heather would let herself and the others in with the key he had given her. When he opened the door, he smiled—a tired, lackluster smile, but a smile nonetheless.

  They all pounced on him at once. “Well?”

  Dylan poured himself a drink, sat down, and relayed the events of the day up to the point where the SEC left with Art and Christine. “I don’t know if they will be able to use these files.”

  “Why in the world not?” Rich asked.

  “Well, I did literally steal them from Art’s computer. They may be damning evidence, but obtained illegally. I probably need to start looking for a lawyer, just in case. But that’s not why I asked you guys to meet me.”

  He placed his laptop on the dining room table and booted it up. While they waited, he excused himself and went into the bedroom to change his clothes. Heather’s suitcase was on his bed, open. He smiled.

  He returned to the dining room and winked at Heather. “OK, guys. I looked over this file just casually, but we need to give it a detailed review. I mean, item by item. We don’t want to miss a thing.”

  The four of them gathered around the screen as Rich began scrolling through the file. They studied the numbers carefully and realized that the numbers at the top, the numbers given to Wall Street, were bogus. He scrolled down to see what they were doing to artificially inflate them.

  �
�Jeez,” Rich said, pointing to three lines of information. “They were doing a lot. They booked some of the revenues from clients when the work was sold, not delivered. That’s illegal. And look here,” he continued, his voice taking on an air of excitement. “They actually did take a reserve of three million for the MobiCelus acquisition without disclosing it. It looks like they used it to bolster the firm’s financials right before the IPO.”

  Rich became like a man driven to find water in the desert. Dylan, Heather, and Matt all moved back and let him take over.

  “He’s a lot better than Christine said he was,” Heather whispered to Dylan.

  “Yes, and he might just be our savior in interpreting this information.” Dylan breathed a heavy sigh. “But there’s more.”

  “What do you mean?” Heather asked.

  “You’ll find out in a few minutes.” He said nothing more, but sat back and let Rich do his work.

  “Hmm,” Rich said under his breath. Everyone closed in.

  “What is it?” Matt asked.

  “Here, look at February. It shows a mysterious infusion of ten million dollars in cash that was spread across February and March to inflate our numbers. Another mysterious infusion of fifteen million dollars in cash was scheduled to dramatically inflate our numbers in April.”

  Everyone remained silent, unsure of what they were seeing, but afraid to break the spell.

  Rich continued, “Looks like from the very beginning, Art and Christine set up Mantric as a way to make themselves extremely rich. This is a classic pump-and-dump scheme. They are deliberately hyping the firm’s stock and falsifying its financials to drive up the price of the stock so they can then sell it at a huge premium.”

  “Anything else?” said Matt.

  “Hell, yeah! This shows they orchestrated a massive spamming campaign with the media and investors. Oh, and look—there’s a list of payoffs to their law firm Daley and Hahn and their accounting firm Hickman and Ross to make everything look legitimate. Jesus! Everyone was in on this scam.”

  He scrolled further down and saw that large amounts of Mantric shares were scheduled to be sold every month, starting with the IPO. “Aha! So that’s how Art and Christine were planning to get their money out! Through the corrupt bankers and into offshore accounts.”

  Dylan moved further back, away from the table, while Heather and Matt had closed in toward Rich, reading over his shoulder. Rich moved to the next page of the spreadsheet to see an infusion of ten million dollars in February attributed to LC. Then he saw that another infusion of fifteen million dollars in cash had been scheduled to happen in March. It was attributed to Bendeta Corporation, a direct competitor of another one of Dylan’s mobile computing clients. Rich stopped and lifted his hands off the keyboard as if it were on fire. Everyone stared at the screen then slowly turned toward Dylan.

  “That’s why Tony was murdered.”

  * * *

  Later that evening, Dylan sent Matt and Rich home with specific directions not to speak to anyone about the contents of Schedule B. They knew the SEC would want to talk to all of them, and it was important that they present a unified front as to what they knew and what it meant. Matt and Rich would each spend the rest of the next day once again going over the details, while Heather and Dylan undertook an unpleasant task of a different sort.

  Chapter 32

  May 19, 8:30 a.m. Boston

  Dylan rose early and put the coffee pot on, then returned to the bedroom. Heather mumbled in a state of half-sleep, and Dylan remained still, watching her. The discoveries of the night before seemed to fuel their desire to find comfort in each other. Dylan replayed the passion of the previous night over and over, trying to capture the intensity of Heather’s love. Dylan’s life had revolved around the thrill of establishing his own business. Until recent weeks, Heather was an unreachable star, and not until last night did Dylan awaken to the full sense of her passion. She cried in his arms as they talked about the day and closing the final chapter—confronting Tony’s murderer. They shared the sadness of remembering Tony, his childish pranks and his adult brilliance. And she fell asleep in his arms, a tear wandering down her cheek.

  Dylan looked at the clock. They’d slept late and had not set an alarm. The clock turned over 8:35. He lay down next to Heather and kissed her eyes.

  “Mmmf,” she mumbled as she stretched and lifted her head, her eyes still closed, awaiting a kiss.

  “Morning,” he said, kissing her lips.

  “Umm—hmm,” she returned. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, a look between fear and anger washed across her face. “Oh, what time is it?” Then she looked into his eyes, her glance deteriorating to a dark sadness. “We have to do this thing, don’t we?”

  “Yep. Coffee’s on. I don’t think we should let this go any further. Let’s get it over with.”

  “Shower?”

  Dylan smiled. “We’ll never get this done if we follow that routine!”

  “I know,” she answered. “But just a quick shower?”

  * * *

  May 19, 10:00 a.m. Boston

  The Mantric office was quiet; all employees were away for the day and would not return until after the investigation was completed. Dylan sat at his desk and keyed in a number at his computer. He moved close to the screen when Rob’s face materialized in front of him.

  “Dylan, sorry I couldn’t meet with you guys last night. Are you okay?” Rob asked.

  Dylan shook his head slowly. “No, Rob, I’m not.”

  “Me either. The CNBC report and all of those accusations. It’s all crazy. I can’t believe it!”

  “I can believe anything now.”

  Rob’s expression grew concerned. “Dylan. You look very strange. What’s going on?”

  “The SEC is investigating Art and Christine as we speak, Rob. It’s all over.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I think I just said it, Rob. What you saw in the news. It was true. And the SEC has the proof.”

  “You mean Rich was right about the reserve for MobiCelus?”

  “That’s only the beginning. There’s been massive fraud. It’s all coming out now.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “It gets worse. They’ve been out to bring me down since the day we were acquired.”

  “Dylan, no!”

  “’Fraid so. Turns out they authorized the leak of Hyperfōn to LC.”

  Rob shook his head in amazement. “This is incredible. Why would they do this?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Greedy bastards!”

  “Yeah. Well, at least we’ll catch the guy who ruined Joe’s business by stealing his Hyperfōn model. That’s something.”

  “That’s great. Who was it?”

  “We don’t know yet.” Dylan paused and drew a breath. “Christine finally told the SEC the secret accounts are detailed on her computer in her office in Boston. You said nobody on our staff ever showed signs of unusual income—right?”

  “Right. Nothing. I can’t imagine who it could be, except, well—”

  “Well what?” asked Dylan.

  “Shit. I asked Matt to look into that. He might have buried that information himself or deleted it. Jesus, Dylan. Matt must have been the one responsible for selling out Hyperfōn, and Tony must have discovered him!”

  “That’s a strong possibility. We’ll know for sure tomorrow. The SEC is sending their people up to Boston to investigate.”

  “Right.” Rob swept his hair off his face. “Sorry, Dylan, but this is an awful lot for me to absorb.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When are you coming back from New York?”

  “It’s ten o’clock now. I’ll hop a shuttle around noon. I think we should get together, don’t you? There’s a lot to discuss.”

  “Absolutely. Just call me when you land and we’ll work something out.”

  They ended the connection. Dylan sat back and took a deep breath.

  * * *

  May 19, 1
1:30 a.m. Boston

  Rob closed his laptop and packed it into his bag. He walked through the halls of Mantric’s Boston office. The place looked like a ghost town. The news of the last few days—Tony’s murder, the news about Mantric’s corruption, the plummeting stock price—had emptied the building like a poison gas. He walked through the empty halls to the elevator, but instead of pushing the down button, he continued past it to the corner office: an office once occupied by him, but confiscated by Christine shortly after the acquisition.

  He quietly turned the knob only to find the door locked. Rob reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, one he had not returned when Christine moved in, and opened the door. The blinds, closed tight, allowed only dim light into the room. Rob bypassed the light switch and walked to Christine’s desk.

  Reaching down beneath the desk, he pulled the computer tower out from its space, unscrewed the pins that held the cover on the side, then slid it back. Reaching inside, he pulled the cables off the hard drive and lifted it out of the computer. With a quiet chuckle, he placed the hard drive in his laptop bag and straightened.

  “Don’t go yet,” said a voice.

  Rob jumped backwards, crashing into Christine’s side table, sending a vase of roses tumbling to the floor. A shadowy figure rose from the conference table in the middle of the room and approached him. Rob blinked in the dim light.

  “Dylan?”

  Dylan switched on the light to see Rob standing on a jumble of scattered roses, clutching his laptop bag to his chest in a pair of gloved hands.

  “Yeah.”

  Rob’s glance cascaded around the room. “You were in New York!”

  “It’s easy to fool someone, isn’t?” Dylan strode over to Rob, grabbed his shirt and slammed him against the wall. “You bastard. You fucking bastard! You sold us out.”

  “Dylan, I don’t know—”

  “Don’t!” Dylan said, cutting Rob’s sentence off short. Dylan towered over Rob by almost half a foot and easily carried an additional twenty pounds of muscle. He pushed his left arm against Rob’s throat to hold him in place and pointed a shaking finger in Rob’s face. “Don’t even think of denying it.”