PrivateSector sd-4

by Brian Haig

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was 11:30 A.M., my first day, when the Gods sent a messenger to save my ass. The headquarters of Morris Networks, incidentally, is situated in a tower that resembles a thirty-story scotch bottle, one block off Route 123 in a Virginia suburb known as Tysons Corner.

  Some thirty years ago, a gang of farsighted investors built a big shopping mall on this spot because it was twelve miles from the city, all farmland, and the acreage was cheap. A few years later, a few business towers went up beside that mall, then a second mall, then hotels, and more glass towers shot up, and pretty soon everybody went berserk, and what began as a mall turned into a full-fledged city with every urban inconvenience that a stunning lack of planning and idiotic growth can bring. It was a real nice place when it was farm country.

  Anyway, I was trapped inside a huge conference room at a long table crowded with geeks and geekesses who mostly wore thick glasses and spoke in some strange foreign tongue. They were all fiercely pounding keys on calculators, tossing spreadsheets around like confetti, chattering about write-downs and hedged sales and amortizing assets, and if I had had a gun I would’ve popped every last one of them.

  If I had only one bullet, I would’ve shot myself.

  The door swung open and a young lady stepped inside, smiled brightly, and said, “Could somebody please help me? I’m looking for Sean Drummond.”

  I actually felt a little insulted that she had to ask. But somebody pointed a finger at the miserable idiot seated in the corner with his right finger pointed at his forehead, practicing Russian roulette.

  Regarding her, she was around twenty-five, blond, blue-eyed, in fact was so absurdly perfect, I wondered if she breathed.

  She and I stepped out into the hallway, and she held out her hand. “I’m Tiffany Allison, Jason’s executive assistant.”

  “Right. And I’m Sean Drummond.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I guessed that. Jason was wondering if you had time to join him for lunch.”

  Her hair and eyes I already covered; she was about my height, dark blue business suit, tight at the hips, tight at the bust, and I was sure she was on page 33 of the most recent Victoria’s Secret catalog. So the rest of her was coming back to me…

  “Major Drummond?”

  “What?”

  “Lunch?”

  “Uh… sure.”

  “Good. Then let me show you the way.”

  As we walked, I asked, “What’s the occasion?”

  “Occasion?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh… you mean, why does Jason wish to dine with you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He mentioned that he met you at his Florida home. You made a good impression.”

  I recalled that I had made anything but a good impression, and replied, “No kidding?”

  “Oh, he was quite impressed with you. He called you a straight shooter. Jason places a high premium on honesty and character.”

  “I see.” Actually, I didn’t see. But I was determined to be congenial, because I wanted Miss Allison to see I was a perfect gentleman.

  She said, “It’s only three floors to Jason’s office. Would you prefer the stairs or the elevator?”

  “Stairs. Keeps you fit, right?”

  “I prefer stairs, too.” She smiled.

  So I opened the door and, being a gentleman, said, “After you.” I prefer elevators actually. But I really wanted to check out her butt, and that’s hard to do in an elevator.

  Over her shoulder, she said, “‘Refreshing’was the word Jason used to describe you.” She paused before she confided, “Allow me to let you in on a secret. The bane of Jason’s existence is that people are always telling him what they think he wants to hear.”

  “You mean kissing his ass because he’s worth three or four billion dollars?”

  “That’s a way of putting it, yes.” In addition to her more apparent perfections, Tiffany appeared to be highly educated, had great elocution and diction, was impressively well-mannered and -behaved. She was like the human version of a French poodle. Her butt, incidentally, was definitely worth three flights of stairs. She added, “The truth is, Jason Morris is a very normal guy. People don’t think of a billionaire being just a regular Joe, but he is.”

  “Boy, life’s really unfair, isn’t it?” I shook my head and she shook her head. I said, “Hey, what’s Jason’s favorite football team?”

  “I… well, I’m not sure he has… Actually, Jason doesn’t watch sports on TV.”

  “His favorite beer?”

  “Jason’s quite health conscious and abstains from beer.” She peered back over her shoulder and said, “But if you’re implying he’s a stuffed shirt, he’s not.”

  “No?”

  “He is actually a fairly well-known wine aficionado. Wine and Cheese magazine did a recent spread on his collection… Perhaps you saw it?”

  “No. But thanks for reminding me to renew my subscription.”

  She was shaking her head and chuckling as we left the stair-well and crossed a hallway. Then we were passing through a complex with seven or eight desks manned by secretaries, most of whom had two or three computer screens positioned in front of them, and all of whom were talking into phones or furiously tapping on keyboards. One couldn’t help but be astonished by any guy who kept a whole squad of secretaries and twenty or thirty computers busy. I have one legal assistant, and she spends half her time chatting on the phone with her buddies. I haven’t got a clue what she does the rest of the time.

  We walked down a short hall that led to a pair of shiny black doors. Tiffany shoved them open and shoved me inside.

  The room was mammoth. Jason Morris was seated at the far, far end behind a huge, huge circular white desk. Ten computer monitors cluttered the surface. He glanced in my direction, shot a finger in the air, then went back to typing and talking at a staccato pace into a speakerphone, saying something about derivatives being overpriced, market curves being off, and so forth. I got dizzy watching him. Everything in the room was high tech. The chairs looked like carved bowls. The three or four large paintings hung on the walls looked like an elephant puked colors on a canvas. The carpet was striped black and white in a swirling pattern, matching the colors of the furniture, like some monster zebra crawled in here and died.

  My personal tastes run toward the traditional, but the room made a statement in a sort of hyper-modernist way that I guess was appropriate for a leading-edge company. Jason hung up and popped out from around his desk. He wore jeans and a sweater over a white undershirt. I wore my brand-new navy blue Brooks Brothers suit. I felt like an idiot. Again.

  “Sean, good to see you again,” he said, thrusting out a hand. “I’m glad you could cut loose and join me.”

  “Well, it was a tough choice. I was really anticipating another box lunch with a roomful of accountants.”

  “Really?

  “They promised we could discuss debentures and currency indexing.”

  He laughed. “Rough down there, huh?”

  “They’re leaving no number unturned.”

  Even as we were chatting he was swiftly guiding me toward a glass table at the other end of the room. In fact, my ass was just hitting the seat when the black doors blew open and two waiters raced in shoving a cart. Amazing.

  Jason said to me, “I hope you don’t mind, I ordered for you. You strike me as a meat-and-potatoes guy.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take that.

  Anyway, we sat and studied each other as the waiters swiftly threw down placemats and silverware and dishes and condiments. It struck me that Jason was a time freak; one of those guys born with an amphetamine stuffed up his ass. It further struck me I wasn’t really here because Jason thought I was a jolly good fellow he wanted to get to know better. His notion of deep, long-lasting friendships was probably an exchange of business cards.

  Before the waiters could even back away from the table, Jason was cutting up his meat. Chop, chop, like in one of those Japanese steak houses. Inc
redible.

  He glanced up and said, “I like your idea for dealing with this Nash thing, incidentally. It’ll drive Sprint and AT amp;T nuts.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “Let’s do. A lot’s riding on it.” He pointed his fork at me and added, “Funny that nobody else thought of it. Must be your background in criminal law.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Make the prosecutor prove everything… isn’t that how you guys think?”

  “Sometimes… unless you suspect he can.”

  He regarded me a moment and then chuckled. He said, “Nash was completely out of the picture. But you can’t prove a negative, right?” Before I could respond to that, he added, “Actually I didn’t ask you up here to talk about Nash.”

  “Then what are we here to discuss?”

  “You.” He paused a moment, then said, “You impress me.”

  “Then I wish you’d put a word in with my boss. He hates me.”

  He chuckled again. “I’ll do better.”

  “How’s that?”

  He stuffed two slices of steak between his lips and I’ve seen pythons chew longer. He said, “We’d like you to consider joining us.”

  “Us?”

  “Us… Morris Networks. Jessica’s been looking for a hotshot attorney for a year. She thinks you’re perfect.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s simple. Jessica has never been completely satisfied with your firm. They do some things well, but she thinks their lack of criminal experience makes them myopic.”

  “If you live in the tropics, don’t buy winter coats. What makes you think you need a criminal lawyer?”

  He put down his knife and fork. His plate was completely empty. I was chewing my third bite.

  He said, “Isn’t it true criminal lawyers have a different mindset?”

  “I suppose.”

  Before he could say another word the black doors blew open and a waiter raced in, shoving another cart. A huge chocolate cake was on top.

  Jason pointed at the cake. “Dark Side of the Moon. It’s made by a bakery up in New Jersey called Classic Desserts. The guy who runs it’s a genius. Genuine Belgian chocolate they make themselves. Try some. I have them fly down two a week.”

  As I mentioned, the rich do indeed have queer ways. How the waiter knew to enter at the precise instant when Jason put down his fork was mystifying. I searched for a hidden camera as the waiter swiftly cleared the table of dishes and threw a slice of cake in front of each of us. The world was rotating at 78 RPM inside this room. I dug into the cake, trying to get something in my stomach before Jason threw me out on my ass. He was right, incidentally- the cake was terrific.

  He said, “Sean, it’s your mindset we want. In house, we sometimes have to investigate criminal matters, embezzlement, petty theft, that sort of thing. You’d handle all that.”

  “And you need a full-time lawyer for that?”

  “Jessica thinks it would be helpful.” He tossed two more forkfuls into the furnace, and added, “What I want is your perspective on corporate matters and negotiations.”

  “I know nothing about either, and they don’t interest me.”

  “You’re doing fine so far. If your idea for handling this protest works, you will have helped make the company up to three billion a year.”

  The cake was history and he pushed away from the table. He said, “So, here’s the deal. A thousand shares as a signing bonus. At today’s market price, that’s a hundred and thirty grand. Salary of five hundred grand, with a possibility of a fifty percent bonus. A three-year contract, and if I breach you get full pay, without bonuses, for the remainder.”

  My head was spinning. This was ten times what I made, unless you threw in the bonus, which took it up to fifteen times my salary.

  He grinned and studied my face. He said, “In a few years you’ll be a very wealthy man, Sean. You’d be a fool to turn it down.”

  I replied, somewhat lamely, “Law’s not all about making money. I’ll have to think about it.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “You know, it’s exactly that kind of values and principles I’m looking for.” He glanced at his watch, and added, “Hey, I have to run. I’m supposed to meet with some customers, otherwise I’d love to spend a few more minutes chatting about this. I’m offering you a great deal… do think about it.”

  He was out of his seat and already headed back to the fleet of computer screens sprawled across his desk. Lunch, such as it was, had obviously ended, and I obediently got up and headed for the door. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw him pacing along the line of screens, surveying each of them, looking at… God knows what.

  I walked out the door and discovered Tiffany awaiting me. She said, “Wow… five minutes. You two really hit it off. It’s usually three minutes and you’re out.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe you’d like to join me for lunch.”

  “Oh my God.” She slapped her perfect hand on her perfect forehead. “I forgot to warn you to eat fast, didn’t I?”

  “Forget it. I never stood a chance.”

  “Nobody ever does.” She laughed. Then she said, “Jason asked me to give you a tour. He said you might be joining us, and I should make sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  I pinched myself. I mean, the almost surreal Miss Tiffany Allison shows up wiggling her extraordinary fanny, I speed-eat with a billionaire, get thrown an astounding offer, and now a guided tour by this wind-up Barbie doll. Days like this are why Sean Drummond gets out of bed in the morning.

  As we headed back to the elevator bank, I asked her, “So Tiffany, what’s with all those computer screens on his desk?”

  “You know what we do, right?”

  “Basically.”

  “Three of those screens are from the Bloomberg service. Jason is intensely concerned with what’s happening on Wall Street. Our mergers are done with stock, and our employees are heavily vested, so Jason keeps a careful eye on the price.”

  “And would most of Jason’s money be in company stock also?”

  “Yes, there’s that.”

  “Of course there’s that. What’s with the other screens?”

  “Five of them track the traffic flow across our networks. Two are for Internet traffic, and the other three monitor special networks, like the Defense Department contract we got last year.”

  “Why would he care about that?”

  “We’re like road managers. We need to know where the traffic is coming from and where it’s going. Watching those monitors we can divert buildups to other fiber-optic lines to prevent traffic jams.”

  “What is he, the Wizard of Oz?”

  “Oh God, Jason doesn’t do it.” She laughed. “It’s all done through routers and switches. He just likes to see that they’re functioning efficiently. The last two screens are for video-teleconferencing. That’s our big bread-earner and the future of our corporation, so he uses it for all internal business.”

  We had proceeded down ten floors and the elevator opened into a huge, darkened room. The temperature dropped about twenty degrees and about a hundred people were seated attentively behind consoles. Three large screens were on walls with lines of data blinking across them. Another wall was nothing but big gray metal boxes with wires coiling out the backs. Any second I expected Darth Vader to come waltzing out, ordering them all to destroy the universe.

  “Operations room six,” Tiffany explained, “where we handle our aviation contracts. Nine of the top airlines use us as their Internet and data backbone.” She pointed at the machines against the wall. “Throw a bomb in this room and the entire U. S. air industry would stop running.” I suddenly wished I’d brought a bomb.

  She approached a console. “Mark here is a customer service rep. If American Airlines wants to know why a message they sent to a parts vendor was never answered, Mark traces the problem.”

  “You can read everybody’s traffic?”

  “Of course. Every customer and every m
essage is coded, so Mark recalls it from the server. Usually, the message was sent to the wrong address, or the airline operator coded it incoherently.”

  I said, “How much business do you do?”

  “Three billion last quarter. The same quarter last year we did two point six billion. Not bad considering the rotten economy. We have the best technology on the planet, and the most motivated people.”

  “Why are your people the most motivated?”

  “Because we believe in Jason.”

  “I see.” I asked her, “Why do you believe in Jason?”

  “Well… he’s just… extraordinary. For the past four years the entire telecommunications industry has been crashing. Dozens of companies have folded into bankruptcy. It’s survival of the fittest, and we’re not only the fittest, we’ve actually stayed profitable and growing. Jason’s a genius.” She studied my expression and said, “But you’re skeptical, aren’t you?”

  “Reserving judgment.”

  “I have no problem with that. I’ll have a packet delivered that contains our annual statement and a few articles about the company. Read them. If you’re still ‘reserving judgment, ’ or have questions, call me. We’ll talk about it… perhaps over lunch tomorrow?”

  It would be discourteous to not at least come up with a few questions to discuss with Miss Tiffany.

  But we continued our tour, waltzing through more operations rooms and offices, and ended up at a product display that Tiffany explained was a revolutionary video compression and decompression system. This was a way of crushing billions of bits of information, like voices, or pictures, or whatever, a sort of digital trash compactor, converting it all into light and zapping it down a fiber-optic line, and then yanking all those crushed bits out of the compactor and restoring them all to their former, wrinkleless glory.

  This was how I understood the lecture, anyway, but I ordinarily am bored to tears by these sorts of discussions. This whole digital age schmiel-I mean, it’s a wonderful thing, right? Without it, I wouldn’t get all those football games piped into my TV on Sunday afternoons. But spare me the frigging details, you know? But that offer of three-quarters of a million a year in salary and bonus did stiffen my interest in matters technological. Tiffany’s presence sort of stiffened something else.