by Reece Hirsch
Will printed the draft stock purchase agreement. He could hear the pages of the document shuffling as they filled the tray of the laser printer outside his office. Next, Will opened his Internet browser and commenced a Google search on Farallon Consulting, looking for news of the transaction.
Will’s concentration was interrupted when he saw movement reflected in his monitor screen. He turned to see that Don Rubinowski and Kevin Kaczmarek, the firm’s information technology director, were standing behind him, peering over his shoulder at the contents of his screen. Don was holding a sheaf of paper, which Will immediately knew was the stock purchase agreement that he had just printed.
“Will, I’d like you to come with me. Please remove your hands from the keyboard.”
“What’s up, Don?” Will asked, trying not to sound rattled. “Have we been hit with another virus?”
“We’re going to discuss this in private,” Don said, in his most ominous managerial tone. “Come with me.”
Will followed Don, who was still carrying the agreement, down the hallway to his corner office. He decided it was best not to ask questions until they were behind closed doors because he suspected that the answers would be profoundly embarrassing.
Will took a seat across from Don’s desk. His office was ostentatiously simple, adorned with little more than photos of his wife and two children, one of those burbling electric fountains, and a panoramic view of the bay on one side and Telegraph Hill on the other. There were no papers on the desk, which sent the message that he was now more akin to a CEO than a common lawyer.
“So what’s up, Don?” Will said, still attempting nonchalance.
“You’re fired, Will.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Will did not sound as shocked as he would have liked.
“It’s a little too late for that. This firm and its clients trusted you, and you betrayed that trust. But I need you to tell me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to know how many transactions you’ve compromised.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Don.” Sick with self-loathing, Will knew just how halfhearted that statement sounded.
“Okay. I thought so. You had a bright future here, but you just pissed all over it. You have a half hour to get out of this office. A security guard will accompany you while you gather your things.”
Will had known that he was risking his career with every step he had taken since the night he met Katya at the Whiskey Bar. But when Don Rubinowski spoke the words that ended his more than six years with Reynolds Fincher, and perhaps his entire legal career, it still came as a physical shock. His pulse raced and blood pounded in his ears, drowning out all sound. The only thing he heard was his own voice in his head saying over and over again, Fucked.
After what could have been fifteen seconds or five minutes, Will’s pulse began to slow and his eyes refocused on what was before him: the implacable, dual-chinned face of Don Rubinowski, watching him with morbid fascination. Fuck you, Will thought. The fact that Will happened to be wrong did not make Don any less of an asshole, and he was not about to give him the satisfaction of losing his composure.
“The agents from the SEC and DOJ spoke with me at the end of the day yesterday about their evidence that you leaked insider information on the Jupiter deal,” Don said. “Frankly, I couldn’t believe it. They suggested that we track your activities this morning, so Kevin set up a pen register on your computer to capture every keystroke you made.” Don waved the stock purchase agreement. “It was quite clear what you were doing.”
Will considered saying that he was just searching for a form document that he needed, which was a semiplausible story. But Don would have known that was a lie, and saying it might limit his options later. “I think I’d better not say anything until I have a lawyer,” he said. Will could muster no enthusiasm for defending himself.
“Then you’d better go. But first, I’ll need your office key, access card, parking pass, and BlackBerry.”
Will removed the plastic cardkeys from his wallet and placed them on Don’s desk. “I’ll have to get the BlackBerry from my office.”
“You can give it to the guard as you leave.” Don paused, then added, “I’ve got to admit I can’t figure out why you did this.”
“I don’t think I should say anything else until I’ve spoken with an attorney.”
Don simply turned his back on Will and began examining his e-mails. Once, Will had overheard Don grousing about what it was like to be the managing partner of a large law firm. Even in a relatively placid workplace, there was an endless series of employee altercations, personality conflicts, and employment-related lawsuits, actual and threatened, and many of those unpleasant matters were ultimately resolved in Don’s office. Even the other partners didn’t hear about most of the incidents. Will recognized that he was now just one more potential liability for the firm that had to be managed, lawyered, and eradicated.
When Will left Don’s office, a security guard was indeed waiting for him. Will had seen the guard patrolling the Reynolds Fincher building for the past few years, although Will could never quite tell where his official rounds ended and his search for nooks where he could smoke cigarettes began. He thought his name was Jeff, but he wasn’t sure. He was a stocky young man in his midtwenties with close-cropped black hair who filled his blue, slightly-too-small guard’s uniform like it had been inflated.
“I’m supposed to stick with you until you’re out of the building,” Jeff said.
“Okay. It’s Jeff, right?”
“Yeah. Jeff Wilson.”
“How long you been here?”
“Four years.”
“Almost as long as me. Sorry we didn’t get more of a chance to talk.” Will wondered why he had started this conversation, which was making him feel like even more of a jerk.
“Yeah,” Jeff said, thankfully choosing not to kick him while he was down.
“I’d just like to stop by my office and pick up a few things and I’ll be out of here.”
“Okay, but you know I’ll have to inspect everything when you leave.”
“Sure.”
As Will walked with the security guard down the hallway, which was flanked on one side by attorneys’ offices and on the other side by secretarial cubicles, he could tell that news of his firing had already spread. The faces of the secretaries displayed variations on the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I look that Maggie had given him earlier that morning. No one was even making a pretense of working. They didn’t want to miss the spectacle of his downfall, a cautionary tale that would be recounted in the firm’s lunchroom for years to come.
At the other end of the hallway, but closing fast, was Jay Spencer. Jay was the last person Will wanted to see. He hoped that Jay hadn’t heard the news yet, but the smarmy smile on his face told him otherwise.
“I couldn’t believe what I just heard,” Jay said as they stepped around each other in the hallway. “Say it ain’t so.”
“I’m a little busy right now, Jay.”
“Whatever you say. But I know you can do the time. Stay hard in there, man,” Jay added, tapping a closed fist to his chest in a gesture probably cribbed from an Eminem video.
Will was too dispirited to even attempt a comeback. Jeff nodded, urging Will to keep moving.
When they were out of Jay’s earshot, Jeff whispered, “I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, but if being a dick was a crime, they’d lock that guy up and throw away the key.” Will smiled a bit at that.
Sam Bowen, who was hovering over his secretary as she worked on a document, looked up as they approached. “Will, buddy, we need to talk. Come on in here.” His manner was simultaneously solemn and agitated.
Will looked at Jeff, who shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll wait out here for you,” he said.
As soon as the door was closed, Sam said, “What the hell is going on here, buddy? I just heard that you got canned. I couldn’t believe it.”
>
Will went to the window to buy himself a few seconds to think. “Sam, you’ve always looked out for me here at the firm, but there’s nothing you can do for me on this one. If I talked to you about it, my lawyer would kill me.”
“You retained anybody yet?”
“No. I just found out.”
“I know some of the best white-collar defense attorneys in the city. I could make a few calls. . . .”
“Sam, you know you can’t help me with this. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. You’re a partner here, and I don’t want to create a conflict for you. If I tell you anything, you’re going to be forced to testify against me or lie about this conversation. Everyone knows that we’re in here talking.”
“Can’t I even line up a referral for you?”
“You know I should get my own attorney. I’ll find a good one.”
“Do you know what they’re saying around here? That you may have something to do with the Russian mob! They’re even saying that there’s some connection to Ben Fisher’s death! If it weren’t so damn serious, I’d think it was funny.”
“Sam, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I got myself into this and I have to get myself out.”
Sam walked to the window and looked down at the traffic on Sacramento Street. “You know, that didn’t sound like an innocent man talking there a minute ago,” he said. “The part about me having to lie if you told me what was going on.”
“Is there such a thing as an innocent lawyer?”
“True enough, but that’s no answer.”
“I really can’t say more than that, Sam.”
“I stood up for you and recommended you for partnership just a week ago,” Sam said. “You’ve made me look like a fool.”
There was a knock at the door, and Will gratefully opened it. It was Jeff, tapping his watch.
“I’ve got to go,” Will said.
Sam, who was now distractedly fingering a stack of papers on his desk, didn’t look up. “You watch yourself, Will,” he said.
When Will reached his office, he found that a couple of empty boxes had helpfully been placed on the floor in front of his desk. They wanted him out fast.
Will cleared the collection of toys from his desk. The centerpiece was Atomic Robot Man, a 1950s tin windup with Frankenstein-like bolts jutting from his neck. In ten minutes, he had removed all personal belongings from his desk and walls. He was surprised to see that the items hardly filled a single cardboard box. Inside were his framed law school diploma, a Black’s Law Dictionary, some laminated offering memoranda tombstones commemorating deal closings, a few CDs, and a Waterman pen. He left the NO SHARKS sticker affixed to his monitor, a caution for the next attorney who occupied the office. Reviewing the meager contents of the box, Will realized just how rigorously he had segregated his personal life from his work.
“I was told to collect the BlackBerry, too,” Jeff said.
Will opened his satchel and handed it over.
“You ready to go?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, that should do it.”
“You can take all the time you need to pack up. All I’m going to do is walk around the building for the rest of the day.”
“Nah, I’m done.”
They rode in the elevator in silence. As he pushed through the revolving door in the lobby, Jeff offered, “Hey, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you back here in a few months.”
“Maybe, but if I don’t have an access card, you’ll throw me out on my ass again, right?”
“Fuckin’ A.” Jeff gave a small nod and left Will standing on the sidewalk.
Will gazed up at the white tower of Embarcadero Four, trying to locate the offices of Reynolds Fincher. Up until that moment, he had been able to tell himself that his work as an attorney was his real life and that everything else that had happened in the past week was a bad dream, a fantasy concocted from too many viewings of the films of Scorsese and Coppola. Will stared up at the building with his box of office furnishings in one arm, CD boom box in the other. It would take a minute or two to turn his back and walk away from his old life to meet his uncertain future. His arms began to ache. He felt like a shipwreck victim clinging to a scrap of wreckage that was slowly going under. As pedestrians flowed around him on the sidewalk, the realization sank in that he was on the outside now. Any protection his relationship with Reynolds Fincher had afforded him was now gone. He and Claire were no longer of any value to the Russians and, in fact, what they knew about their plans posed a threat.
If the Russians had an inside connection at Reynolds Fincher, they probably already knew that he had been fired. Nikolai and Yuri were probably already on their way to kill Will . . . and Claire. He needed to call Claire immediately to warn her.
Will crossed the street and entered a sandwich shop so that he could put down his belongings and try again to call Claire. The phone rang and rang.
Finally, Claire answered. “Hello?”
“It’s Will. We need to talk. You’re in danger.”
“No kidding!” Claire sounded upset. “There’s a lot that you didn’t tell me, isn’t there? I just got back from the emergency room. Nikolai and Yuri came to see me.”
“What did they do to you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to be okay. Just get over here.”
“Tell me what’s going on!”
Claire banged the phone against something as she shifted it from one hand to the other. “We probably shouldn’t be talking about this on the cell.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have that thing they’re looking for.”
Will was growing exasperated. “What thing?”
“The keys. I’ll be waiting for you.” Claire hung up.
TWENTY-ONE
Will hailed a cab on Sacramento Street, rushing to get to Claire’s apartment. He could not imagine how Claire had penetrated Jupiter’s elaborate security to obtain a copy of the encryption keys. But if she really had them, then he could only hope that Nikolai and Yuri didn’t know that yet. The keys were enormously valuable to the Russians and their bosses, and they would have no qualms about killing to get them. The Clipper Chip keys were also valuable to Will because they served as concrete proof of the hidden relationship between Jupiter and the NSA. With the keys in his possession, Will had some much-needed leverage—leverage that could be used to stop the Jupiter merger or prevent Nikolai and Yuri from killing them.
Will emerged from the taxi into a din of street noise, still carrying the stereo and cardboard box, at the Transbay Terminal on Fremont Street. He needed to make one quick stop to ditch his belongings. The bus station, a gray concrete edifice that straddled Fremont, seemed to have been built from pressed and molded grime. Will knew that his boom box made for an attractive target, so he walked quickly inside, past an array of portable toilets (the rest-rooms inside were boarded shut). The bus station was a large, barren room of gray tile floors and wooden benches the color of old bones. There were no fixtures of any kind, except for trash cans. The place seemed designed to facilitate regular hose-downs with disinfectant. He purchased a locker and dumped the contents of his cardboard box inside, along with the stereo.
After another short cab ride, Will arrived at the redbrick apartment in Jackson Square where Claire lived. Jackson Square was an upscale neighborhood with good restaurants and bars and small, expensive apartments for workaholics who couldn’t bear to be far from their financial district offices.
Claire buzzed him up, peering at him through the peep-hole before opening the door. Her face was pale and tense and her eyes were bloodshot.
“Are you okay?” Will looked her over for signs of injury. “What were you doing in the emergency room?”
Claire held up her left hand to display a splint on the little finger.
“Is it broken?”
“Shattered was the word that the doctor used. Nikolai found the hammer that I keep under the kitchen sink. At least he let me pick the finger.”
> “Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you involved in all this.” Will rolled up his sleeve to reveal his razor wounds. “Look what they did to me.”
With a sickened expression, Claire examined the scars, which were still red and swollen. “This isn’t supposed to happen to people like us, right?”
Claire’s apartment was small, but pleasantly furnished with Oriental rugs and overflowing bookcases that occupied nearly every available inch of wall space. On a desk in the corner of the room was a photo of Claire with the staff of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, her pre-law school job. On the kitchen counter were several pill bottles with the caps off.
“What are those?”
“Oh, I’m just trying to figure out the best cocktail for my particular mix of pain and anxiety.” She picked up an oval, pale orange pill from the counter and examined it appreciatively. “I’m thinking Xanax for anxiety. Nothing too heavy to mix with the Vicodin.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Don’t worry. I know my meds. But enough about me. Why don’t you start by catching me up on what’s been happening in your life, Will? Because now it’s happening to my life, too.”
Will told Claire the entire story, beginning with the morning of Ben’s death, through his various encounters with Katya, Yuri, and Nikolai. He even told her of his suspicion that Grogan was involved with the Russians and had gotten her fired because of her discovery of Jupiter’s connection to the NSA. Claire listened quietly, shaking her head occasionally.
When he finished, Claire smiled a little self-mocking smile. “I thought that seeing you was about the safest thing I could do,” she said. “But you’re not the safe guy at all, are you? Turns out, you’re the dangerous guy.”