Terminal Value Part 19

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 Hyperfn 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 compet.i.tion 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 Hyperfn 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 Hyperfn. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sword, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 antic.i.p.ation 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. Bypa.s.sing 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 a.s.sured 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 that 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.

"s.h.i.t, 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 compa.s.sion 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 doc.u.ment. 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."

"I sent them an e-mail."

"A personal meeting would have been better, don't you think?"

She said nothing.

"So?" Art asked, exasperation in his voice.

"I told them it was purely an isolated performance issue. And, while I didn't like doing it, I had to have him escorted out for security reasons. I think they understood. I don't think any of them are going to miss him, anyway. He was never a part of our team."

"Anyone send you any questions we should be concerned with?"

"Nope. It was pretty straightforward."

"I suppose," Art said. "But you should have told me you were going to give Rich two years' severance. That was way too f.u.c.king generous. And it raises too many questions."

"Questions no one will ask," said Christine.

"I just wished you'd told me first, that's all."

"I was planning on telling you tonight. So tell me about your meeting with Dylan."

"Well, that's the real reason I wanted to see you. Dylan told me. Seems he spoke to Rich this afternoon."

"What?" asked Christine, with apprehension. "What did he say?"

"He was p.i.s.sed. He wanted to know why I didn't tell him first, why we had Rich escorted out of the building. And why we couldn't find him another job here."

"But you handled it-right?" asked Christine. "Now we can get on with our plan?"

Art cleared his throat. "Not quite. I think we may have other problems with Dylan."

"Really? What kind of problems?"

"Founder problems. He used to run his own company. Now he's beginning to feel cut out as a member of our senior management team."

Christine laughed. "I wonder why!"

"Yeah. I handled it. Told him Rich was wrong for the position and we decided he couldn't be trusted."

"So that's that."

"I'm afraid not. Dylan's suddenly taken an interest in getting a closer look at our financials and demanded to see them."

"What are we going to do about that?"

"Like I said over the phone, I told him I'd consider it, but it would be a board decision, that they insisted we keep our financial data held as tightly as possible."

"Did he believe it?" asked Christine.

"I don't know. He clearly wasn't happy about it. First the road show, now this. I think he's getting suspicious."

"Yeah. We should have seen this coming."

"Great. Just great," said Art. "So what are we going to do?"

"Let's keep an eye on him. Maybe it'll pa.s.s. But, just in case it doesn't, we need to create something that'll scare him. Something that could put his job and his stock at risk."

"You mean like a performance problem?"

"Yeah. One we can doc.u.ment."

"That could be troublesome. He's doing well against his plan right now," said Art. "But remember, we hold a few cards that can change that in a hurry."

"That's right," said Christine. "We do, don't we?"

Art nodded. "Let's play the first one."