Terminated

by Ray Daniel

  Her eyebrow notched up. I probably was crazy.

  I had made a fool of myself. I stood, waiting for this hard woman to leave. She wouldn’t. She just kept looking at me with her gray eyes as scummy water slapped around our legs.

  “I miss my wife,” I said. “I want to find out who killed her. I want revenge.”

  The woman put out her hand.

  She said, “Mr. Tucker, I am Jael Navas. I will help you. We will get your revenge.”

  I shook her hand and said, “Please call me Tucker.”

  tuesday

  thirty-two

  My BlackBerry’s ringer dragged me awake, its shrill voice creating a sparkle of lights across my closed eyelids. I sat bolt upright in a strange room. Then I lurched out of bed, tripped over my shoes, and landed heavily on my elbows at the desk. I fumbled for the BlackBerry as the dull pain from my garrote bruises reasserted itself.

  “Yeah,” I croaked, too tired to look at the caller ID.

  Nate said, “What the hell did you do? Jack wants you fired.”

  “Huh?” It was too early for this.

  “Jack wants me to dump you. He says you’ve been a loose cannon.”

  “Jesus, Nate, what time is it?”

  “It’s seven o’clock. Did I wake you?”

  “Of course you woke me.” I couldn’t focus.

  “Well, get down here. We need to talk.”

  I made a slow circle, looking at the room. That’s when I remembered that I was in the Marriott in Newton. Jael had insisted that I sleep in a hotel and wait for her to return. I had no idea when she was coming back.

  “I’ll call you when I get there.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

  “Really? What is it, a girl or something?”

  I hung up and looked around the room, which was perfumed with French fries. The room service tray sat on the desk. The sheets were rumpled. I was lonely. I lay back in the bed and hoped that Carol would make an appearance. No such luck. The room remained quiet, and I fell back asleep until someone knocked at the door. It was Jael.

  She held out a Whole Foods shopping bag and said, “I have brought you fresh clothes from your apartment.”

  I asked, “How did you get into my apartment?”

  “You have a very poor lock. It is no wonder you were almost killed.”

  I took the bag of clothes into the bathroom, showered, dressed, and followed Jael downstairs to her car: an Acura MDX SUV.

  The day was already humid and it was going to be hot. I plunked myself down in the front seat. Jael started the car and drove to the Mass Pike, where she accelerated though the Fast Lane. Jael drove with simple economy, her long legs resting on the leather seats.

  She said, “There are three rules you must follow for us to work together.”

  “OK …”

  “First, you must accept that I am not trained as a bodyguard. I will not stand beside you. I will not take a bullet for you. If this man means to kill you with a rifle from a distance, he will succeed. However, we have an advantage.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He has pushed you down a staircase and tried to kill you with a garrote. He seems to enjoy a personal connection. That will give us time to see him coming and to respond.”

  Running away was starting to look better and better.

  “There are two other rules,” said Jael. “The next rule is that you will carry your cell phone always. You will not see me, but I will be watching. If your cell phone rings, you will look at the caller ID. If it is I, you will answer it. I do not care what you are doing at the time. You will always answer the cell phone. If I call and you do not answer, we will not work together.”

  “Understood. Now, can I ask you something?” I said, “You said that you were not trained to be a bodyguard. Why should I trust you to do this?”

  “You have no choice but to trust me. But your question about my training is fair. I am not trained as a bodyguard, but I am trained to defeat bodyguards. I am very good at this.”

  “Then why aren’t you out doing it?”

  “I am retired.”

  “Why?”

  “It is none of your concern.”

  “Do you carry a gun?” I asked.

  “Yes. I carry a Glock 17.”

  “Do you have it now? I don’t see it.”

  “The day that you see my weapon will be a very bad day for you.”

  I looked out the window. Fenway Park slid past behind the wall of nightclubs that made up Lansdowne Street. I had season tickets to the Red Sox. I thought about how much more fun it would be to be at a ball game, where my biggest concern was the bullpen. It beat getting strangled. I turned back to Jael.

  “You said there were three rules. What is the last one?”

  “I am Jewish. I don’t work Saturdays. It is the Sabbath.”

  “You observe the Sabbath and carry a Glock 17? What kind of Jew does that make you?”

  Jael looked at me and smiled for the first time. “A dangerous one,” she said.

  thirty-three

  “Damn it, Tucker. I finally get you back into the company and the first thing you do is give Jack an excuse to fire you,” Nate said, spearing a breakfast sausage as if it were trying to escape.

  We were sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Boylston Suites Hotel. The atrium reflected the sounds of kids zooming around the place, hopped up on a combination of maple syrup and breakfast cereal. Parents sat wearily at their tables, wearing brand-new Boston T-shirts and telling their kids to stop throwing Cheerios at the koi. I was wearing one of my business shirts and a tie that Jael had brought me. The tie hid my garrote mark. Somewhere in the hotel, she was watching over me as I drank coffee and ate a bagel.

  I sipped my coffee and asked, “What did Jack say?”

  “He said that you were harassing Roland and that Roland wanted you gone.”

  “Roland can kiss my ass.”

  “That’s not a helpful attitude.”

  “Well, it’s the only one I’ve got.” I took a bite of my bagel. It was a generic white-bread toroid covered in an inch of Philadelphia cream cheese. I scraped extra cream cheese off the bagel, made a model of the Matterhorn on my plate.

  Nate said, “You’re going to get yourself fired again. Roland has a lot of political juice.”

  I poked at my cream cheese sculpture, focusing my attention away from Nate. I asked, “Whose side are you on?”

  “What? What do you mean ‘whose side’?”

  “I mean that there are sides in this thing. Not bullshit political sides. Not stupid power game sides. Real good and evil sides. People are getting murdered, and you’re worried about Roland’s political juice.”

  “Let’s not be melodramatic,” said Nate.

  I pointed to my forehead and said, “You never even asked me about my stitches.”

  “I figured there was some embarrassing story behind them.”

  “The embarrassing story is that some guy pushed me down a glass staircase and told me to mind my own business.”

  Nate put down his fork and peered at my stitches. He said, “You’re kidding.”

  “Yeah. I’m kidding, Nate. I’m also kidding about Carol, Alice, and Kevin being murdered. Do you still believe that Carol was killed in a random home invasion?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well, she wasn’t. I’m sure of it. She was murdered and all you’re worried about is Roland’s political juice.”

  “I don’t know if she was murdered randomly or not, but getting yourself fired isn’t going to help anything.”

  “So don’t fire me.”

  “I need you to keep a lower profile.”

  “And I need you to grow a spine.” I hadn’t reali
zed that I was still so angry at Nate.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I’m tired of you rolling over and firing me every time there’s a little pressure. Carol and Jack wanted me gone, and I was gone. Now Roland wants me gone, and you’re making noises like I’ll be gone. I’m risking my frigging life here and you don’t have the balls to tell Roland, who works for you by the way, to shove his political juice up his ass.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, Nate, it is exactly that simple. It’s time for you to put up or shut up. If you’re going to fire me, fire me now. If you’re not going to fire me, then stand up for me.”

  I leaned back in my chair, drank some coffee, and took a nibble of bagel.

  Nate sipped his coffee and looked up into the atrium balconies. He said, “You know, Jack can fire you without asking me.”

  I said, “That’s true.”

  “This is what I mean about it not being as simple as me standing up for you. I can’t protect you from the CEO, and Roland is Jack’s golden boy. It doesn’t matter if Roland works for me, and he knows it.”

  I sighed and pursed my lips. I hate office politics, perhaps because I suck at it.

  Nate continued. “So, if we’re going to save you, we need to force Jack to ignore Roland.”

  I said, “I’m fired, aren’t I?”

  Nate said, “No. Of course not. We just need a new strategy to keep you employed. It’s good that you wore a tie today. It’s the perfect outfit for where we’re going.”

  “Were are we going?”

  “You’re going to attend your first board meeting.”

  thirty-four

  The Boylston Suites Hotel had spared no expense in ensuring that the denizens of the conference room named “The Board Room” felt that they were sitting in a boardroom and not in a hotel. The room contained a long mahogany table with leather writing pads, heavy goblets for water, and high-backed chairs. A large plasma display hung from the front wall, framing Jack’s opening slide.

  Nate and I walked to the back of the room to get coffee. A little sign on the coffee pot said that the Boylston Suites Hotel proudly served Starbucks Coffee. I was happy to see that they had taken a stand on such an important issue.

  Nate said, “Jack is announcing the Bronte deal to the board today. He asked me to come and answer questions. I’m bringing you along as a technical resource.”

  I said, “Great. What do I do?”

  “Nothing. Sit down, be quiet, let me do the talking. When I introduce you, just wave.”

  “You mean I’m like a figurehead?”

  “More like a prop.”

  I looked around the room. The board members weren’t what I had expected. Instead of bald men with stern expressions and sharp pencils, I saw a bunch of guys who looked like they were on vacation.

  One of them, wearing short pants, a blue Hawaiian shirt, and Teva sandals, came over to pump Nate’s hand. “Nate, how you doing? Did you come to watch Jack? He says he’s dropping a bomb on us today.”

  Nate shook Hawaiian Shirt’s hand. He said, “Carl Von Waters, this is Tucker, he’s one of our top engineers. He’s part of Jack’s big announcement.”

  Carl pumped my hand and said, “Hi ya, Tucker. Haven’t I heard of you?”

  “Oh, I doubt that, Carl.”

  “Yeah. You’re the Rosetta guy, right?”

  Nate interrupted my response. “Here comes Jack.”

  “Oops. Gotta go!” said Carl.

  Jack Kennings walked into the boardroom, trailed by Margaret Bronte and Roland. Margaret saw me and smiled. Roland looked at her smile, followed it with his eyes, saw me, and scowled. Jack looked at me, made eye contact, and looked at Nate. Nate shrugged.

  Jack called out, “Let’s get started.” He emptied his pockets onto the conference table between two chairs near the head of the table. Obviously, he was claiming one for himself, but since he had not made it clear which he wanted, nobody sat in either. I had a glimmer of an idea and took one of the chairs, leaving Jack the one closer to the front of the room.

  Jack stood, waiting for people to settle down. He picked up his BlackBerry and said, “Everyone, please mute your phones,” as he muted his own. He placed the BlackBerry on the table next to me. Jack had the same silver, company-issued BlackBerry as mine. The idea that had caused me to grab a seat next to Jack crystallized, and I emptied my pockets onto the table.

  As Jack started his introductions, I took out my wallet, my key, and my silver, company-issued BlackBerry phone. I put mine next to Jack’s, with mine a little closer to Jack’s seat. I looked up at Jack.

  Jack was focused on connecting with his audience and didn’t notice the phones. He made a joke about SecureCon giving him a revolutionary headache. The board laughed politely as he brought up his first slide. It said, “Confidential” and had the MantaSoft logo.

  As Jack talked, I reached over and pressed the space bar on his phone. The phone lit up. It was unlocked. Being a security-minded company, MantaSoft required that all its BlackBerries lock if they were unused for fifteen minutes. I had just reset the timer on Jack’s.

  Jack got into the meat of his presentation.

  “We have been presented the opportunity to capture an insurmountable lead in security software.”

  That got my attention. We already had a pretty good lead in security software, and Rosetta would put us even further in the lead. Jack must have something big.

  “Please allow me to introduce Margaret Bronte, the founder of Bronte Software.”

  Margaret Bronte smiled and nodded toward the assembled group of men. I wondered how she fit into a technological leap forward.

  Jack put up a slide with the Bronte logo—which was the word BRONTE—and the MantaSoft logo side by side. The slide read, “Delivering the future.” I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

  Jack continued. “Margaret Bronte has built a company of unparalleled technical power. Being a startup, her small group of engineers has advanced the technology of software surveillance. She has outclassed us, but we are ready to respond.”

  Bullshit! That was complete bullshit. No way did that idiot Kurt Monroe and his gang of lovable misfits over at Bronte outclass me, Huey, or any of the engineers on my team. I glanced at Roland to see if he was hearing this. He was watching Jack with the adoring eyes of a first lady.

  I pressed the space bar on Jack’s BlackBerry as he continued, “Margaret Bronte has agreed to sell her company to MantaSoft for fifty million dollars in cash. It is an investment that will pay off handsomely as we upgrade Rosetta with Bronte technology.”

  I threw up in my mouth a little. Upgrade Rosetta? My Rosetta? I knew for a fact that Margaret’s company had nothing new. Nothing that would upgrade Rosetta, and sure as hell, nothing that was worth fifty million. I glanced at Nate to get his reaction just as Jack said, “Nate Russo, our vice president of product development, is also part of our merger task force. Nate, say hello.”

  Jack seemed to expect Nate to nod as Margaret had done, and did a tiny double take as Nate said, “Thanks, Jack. Let me introduce Tucker.” Nate gestured to me, and I remembered my role in this meeting. I smiled and waved.

  “Tucker is consulting with us to provide technical due diligence on the Bronte software,” Nate continued.

  Carl said, “Good job, Nate. Given his track record on Rosetta, Tucker’s the right guy for the job.” Apparently, nobody had told Carl that I had been fired.

  Jack’s smile tightened. The corners of his mouth pulled taut against his high cheekbones, while his eyes relaxed into a dead mannequin-like calm. He stood perfectly still, holding the presentation clicker out like a phaser. Margaret looked at me with an appraising eye, and Roland crossed his arms and sulked. Nate had cornered Jack into keeping me.

  Jack reanimated and c
ontinued his presentation. “Let’s get down to the financials.” As he began talking about merging of assets, shares, cash, and other financial stuff, I pressed the spacebar on his BlackBerry. With each press, I moved Jack’s BlackBerry a little closer to me.

  Jack finished his presentation with a flourish that promised unending prosperity and growth as Bronte and MantaSoft forged a new future together. I stood, leaving my wallet and phone on the table, and walked over to Nate. I debated blowing the whistle on Bronte right there. It would save time. But this was a political minefield. The strategy of keeping my mouth shut had rarely failed me.

  I said into Nate’s ear, “Well played, sir.”

  Nate didn’t smile. He said, “You’re locked in as long as you don’t do anything rash. You just need to find out why that company is worth fifty million.”

  “Will do.”

  Nate patted my shoulder. I turned back to collect my things from the table. My plan had worked. Jack had refilled his pockets. Just as I hoped, he had taken his wallet, his room key, and my cell phone.

  In a few minutes I’d be reading Jack’s email.

  thirty-five

  Nothing says luxury like floor-to-ceiling bathroom stalls. I love these little oases of privacy. I was sitting in one with Jack’s BlackBerry, trying to read as many emails as possible before Jack figured out his mistake. The results were disappointing. Jack was a bore.

  The emails were all business. They talked about planning, budgets, and conference calls to Wall Street. One from Jack’s wife asked him to swing by Target and Ace Hardware when he got home from this trip. One was from a PTO committee Jack was heading; apparently his hometown was building a new playground. The battered women’s shelter asked Jack if he’d chair their fundraising committee for another year. A forwarded joke said that studies showed that PMSing women were more attracted to certain types of men: specifically, men with tape over their mouths and a spear through their chest while they were on fire. I chuckled at that one.

  “Laugh it up, baby.” It was Carol. She was in the next stall.