Terminal Value Part 5

The room dropped into a stony silence as Dylan realized he had stooped to shouting at his friends. He didn't know why he was suddenly so angry with Rob. "Listen, I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I'm angrier about this than I realized. Of course you're right. There are going to be changes, and this is just the beginning."

Rob nodded his head but said nothing more.

"I don't know, guys," Heather said, breaking the mood. "This doesn't seem right at all."

"Maybe," said Rob, "but it isn't the end of the world. Look at how many people Art's made wealthy. Our employees are going to be ecstatic when we go out."

"Unless Art f.u.c.ks up," Dylan added, allowing his anger to reappear.

"Just keep telling yourself that becoming famous and getting rich in the process is the best revenge," said Rob.

"It's not all about the money, Rob!" Heather raised her voice. "It's about changing how people interact and making our employees happy." She paused. "Look, Dylan, they're completely wrong, that's all. Don't let these guys get to you."

Dylan sat back against his chair and sighed. "I know." He looked at Heather. She said nothing more, just slowly shook her head.

"You know the old saying, Dylan," said Tony. "You can't fight City Hall." He glanced at his watch. "I have a few things I have to clean up, and then I'm heading home."

"Yeah, me too. I'm on call for any last-minute questions from Art." Dylan turned to Rob and Heather. "I suppose you two have plans for this weekend?"

"I'm going to a friend's art opening," said Heather. She glanced at her watch. "And I'd better be on my way. See you all Monday." She grabbed her jacket and rushed out the door.

"I'm out of here too," Rob said. "I've got to see Rich before he leaves."

Tony strolled over to the door and waited for a moment, then turned back to Dylan. "Why do you really think Art and Christine cut you out of the road show?"

Dylan considered the question. "I think they just don't like having any compet.i.tion. Maybe Art wants to be the big shot-you know? Doesn't want one of the new kids around showing him up."

"Well, maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe there are other forces at play here."

"What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?" Dylan asked.

"Hey, forget it. I've just got a lot on my mind. Shouldn't have said anything." Tony turned and walked out the door without further comment.

Dylan returned to his desk and flopped down into his chair. Jesus. So many cryptic comments. Why doesn't he just speak so I can understand him? Dylan stared at the door, wondering exactly what message Tony was really delivering.

April 19, 4:45 p.m. Boston Tony's rubber-soled shoes trod silently across the thick carpet as he approached his office. The technology team had departed, except for the young man with the orange hair, who was settled in a cubicle at the other end of the building. Tony tossed a wad of paper in the air and, as he caught it, his attention was drawn to the closed door of his office. A thin strip of light oozed out under the door. Tony stopped. He never closed the door of his office, even when he left for a prolonged length of time. The few personal items that he considered his own never left his possession, so there was no reason to close the office door.

He approached quietly and placed his ear against the door. Inside he heard the sound of papers being shuffled. He placed his fingers on the doork.n.o.b and turned it, very slowly. As it opened, he saw a man bending over the desk, rifling through the right-hand drawer. Tony opened the door wider until he stood in the office.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

The man shot up straight and spun around. Sandeep Nigam stood facing Tony, unable to speak.

"Did you hear me? What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Tony demanded.

"I-I, was looking for some paper clips." Sandeep's eyes darted around the room, perhaps searching for an escape.

"That is the worst excuse I have ever heard." He pointed to a small dish on the desk. "What do you think those silver things in the ashtray are? Staples?"

"I'm sorry, Tony. I didn't see them." He picked up two paper clips and placed them in his pocket.

"What's this really about, Sandeep? You're no more looking for paper clips than I am!"

Sandeep stood up. "No, no! Really, I just needed some paper clips. Thank you very much." He backed against the wall and sidled like a crab until he got to the door, where he spun around and hurried away.

Tony watched Sandeep scramble down the hall and then turned and looked back at his desk. He moved his hands across the papers that lay scattered in every direction until he found a crumpled yellow sheet of paper, which he thrust into his pocket. He reached into the right-hand drawer and retrieved a key that he tossed in the air and caught. A deep frown furrowed Tony's forehead. This is so wrong, he thought. This was the first time he ever even considered locking his office, much less actually doing it. He turned off the light and walked into the hallway, turned around and locked the door. Yeah, this is so wrong, he thought again.

April 19, 5:00 p.m. Boston Sandeep reached his office and slammed the door shut. He leaned against it and raised his head, staring at the ceiling. As the embarra.s.sment and fear subsided, anger began a slow climb up his spine. He paced from the door to the windows, then made a large circle around the room, ending up at his desk. He yanked the chair out from under the desk and flopped down.

"d.a.m.n!" he said out loud. "How stupid am I? I should have waited until I knew he was definitely gone. I know he wants my job. He wants to be in the driver's seat and see me out in the cold. I am not going to have that happen to me. I don't care what I have to do to prevent him from taking over. I have not worked this long to lose out at this point." Sandeep looked at his watch. Six p.m. He grabbed his jacket and walked out the door, considering his options.

Chapter 8.

April 20, 7:00 a.m. New York Art and Christine met at the New York office early on that Wednesday, getting ready to start the road show. They reviewed their schedule: first London, where most American companies went to warm up, before returning to America at the end of the week. They hoped to attract a few European investors and were confident their presentations would be well received by the investment banks. They would then continue with the second half of the road show, beginning with San Francisco and Los Angeles, then Chicago and Dallas, and finally working their way east to Boston and New York. Satisfied they had not discounted any important stops, Art called the airport for their private jet.

"Do you have everything?" Christine asked him, as though he were an errant child.

"Of course I do," Art snapped. As he closed the office door, his cell phone rang. "Yes?" He stopped and motioned to Christine, who had walked ahead of him toward the elevator. "Yes, it's all taken care of. Are you sure the security is in place? We don't want this going wrong, especially while Christine and I are out of town. Okay, stay on it. We'll be back late on Friday."

"What was that about?" she asked, tapping her foot.

"Just an update on that other little issue we discussed. Everything is in place. At some point that's going to be big news, and we need to distance ourselves when it happens."

"We don't have time for that right now, Art. We'll deal with any blowback when we get home. Let's hope there won't be any. I a.s.sume you made arrangements for the money?"

"All taken care of."

April 20, 7:15 a.m. Boston The halls of the Boston office were quiet. Employees didn't begin to arrive until around eight o'clock, so the trip down the hall went un.o.bserved. The tall man shut his cell phone and turned the corner at Tony's office. He retrieved a small leather case from his inside breast pocket and removed a thin, bladed instrument, which he inserted delicately into the lock, twisting it until he heard the lock click open.

He slid into Tony's office, where his first reaction was that it was the epitome of disorganized clutter-the area around the computer seemed to be the worst. Papers lay across the top of the desk in no particular order.

"How can he work in such disarray?" the man whispered to himself.

He quickly removed the back of the computer and inserted a small device. "Okay. That was simple," he mumbled. A cursory glance down the quiet hall confirmed that the fourth floor, home of the nerd herd, was still vacant, and the intruder departed in silence, locking the door behind him and moving on silent steps toward the front door and the trip back to New York.

An hour later, Tony arrived in his office, preparing for a meeting with Dylan and Matt to discuss the Hyperfn launch. As he approached his desk, he knew something was out of order. Others may have seen his own personal version of organization as unsystematic, but he could locate every paper, every pencil, every clip on his desk blindfolded. When asked, he could find an errant note within ten seconds-it was his filing system, and although others might not see it, he certainly did. So he knew when something was out of place, and as his glance roved over the desk, he definitely knew someone had been there.

"Hey, Tony!" Dylan called as he walked into the office. Dylan clucked his tongue against his teeth and shook his head. "How in the world do you live with this mess?" he asked, laughing through his own curiosity. "You ready to talk Hyperfn?"

"You notice anything out of order here?" Tony asked, ignoring Dylan's question. His eyes scanned the top of the desk.

Dylan laughed. "You're kidding-right? I don't see anything in order here." Dylan realized the joke was lost on Tony, whose eyes now roamed around the room in search of something out of order.

"What do you think is wrong?" Dylan asked.

Tony turned to his friend. "An odd thing happened last night after we all met in your office. I came back here and found Sandeep rummaging through my desk."

Dylan turned and stared at Tony. "Sandeep? I didn't even know he was in Boston. What did he say?"

"I didn't know he was here either, although he doesn't exactly give me his schedule. He said he was looking for paper clips. When I pointed to the dish on top of the desk, he grabbed a few, threw them into his pocket, and then high-tailed it out of here."

Dylan remained silent for a few moments before continuing. "Do you have any idea what he may have been looking for?"

"Not a clue. I was really angry about it." Tony turned to Dylan. "You don't think this acquisition was a mistake, do you? There just seem to be lots of strange things going on these days, not like when we were just a small business."

Dylan took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure there is an explanation for this." He did not answer Tony's question.

Tony stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and said, "Okay. Let's go do this meeting."

Tony followed Dylan out the door and then turned and locked it. Dylan stared at Tony, asking himself: What in the h.e.l.l is going on here? But he followed Tony to the meeting.

Chapter 9.

May 2, 9:15 a.m. New York The warm spring air of Tuesday morning wafted through the conference room windows. The initial public offering of Mantric, following on the tail of the outrageously successful road show, was slated to open on the NASDAQ stock market in fifteen minutes. Fortunately, emerging technology sectors-including mobile computing, cloud-based technologies, and social media-were still hot despite the turbulence of the overall market.

In every Mantric office, employees stared at the scrolling ticker on the wall and waited and watched as the offering numbers scrolled across the large screens before them.

The night before, WMR Capital, the primary investment bank that was taking the firm public, had priced the offering at fifteen dollars per share, above the twelve-dollar price the bank had originally expected shares to sell for on opening day.

Now the moment of truth had arrived. Art paced the sleek, computerized NASDAQ trading floor near the WMR Capital station. Christine stood nearby, undeterred and cool. Art stopped pacing for a moment, then turned to Malcolm Pierce, a top executive with WMR Capital. "Talk to me."

Malcolm shot a quick glance at Christine and then said to Art, "I think today's going to be your lucky day. The futures are up." He pointed at his computer screen. "It's a good day to go public."

"And the orders?" asked Christine.

Malcolm peered at the bids showing up on his computer. He read the numbers aloud. "Seventeen dollars for 15,000 shares. Eighteen dollars for 50,000 shares."

The prices continued to rise. The group stared at the computer console next to Malcolm. The computer clock read nine twenty-nine.

Malcolm turned to Bob Gianno, a trader who mastered the art of picking the right opening price that made their best customers happy, while allowing the stock to sustain itself during the day. Bob entered a number on his keyboard.

"And the answer is?" Malcolm asked.

"Twenty and a half," Bob replied.

"We're opening at twenty dollars and fifty cents a share?" said Christine, showing surprise for the first time.

Before Malcolm could answer, the opening bell went off and Bob rose to his feet. The trading floor sprang into action. Traders jumped up and down, waved their arms and shouted out orders.

"Twenty-three for fifty," one trader shouted.

"No way," Bob responded. "But I'll take twenty-three for a hundred."

A hundred thousand shares at twenty-three dollars a share. "Jesus!" Christine cried out loud, looking at Art, just the hint of a smile crossing her lips.

"What did I tell you?" Art said, gripping Christine tightly by the shoulder.

She nodded, her heart pounding. It was working. The stock was definitely moving in the right direction.

Malcolm turned to Art. "Congratulations, Art. It looks like you've done it again. This is a great sign!"

Art wandered around, shaking hands and accepting congratulations.

May 2, 9:15 a.m. Boston Dylan had spent the previous week working with Matt Smith and his team on the Hyperfn marketing launch. Now he hovered over his computer, reviewing information on the project.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?" Heather cried, marching into his office. "Don't you know we go public in fifteen minutes?" She grabbed him by the arm, gently but firmly, and led him out of his office to the main conference room, where the entire office staff had gathered to enjoy breakfast and watch the real-time ticker.

Dylan sensed the excitement that filled the air. Employees laughed and called to each other about the emerging technology sector performance, their predictions on how Mantric's IPO would go, what they thought it would be worth by the time the first 25 percent of their stock options were vested, and how they would spend their newfound fortunes.

As nine-thirty approached, the crowd quieted down and gathered around the screen that displayed two lines. On one was the overall number for the NASDAQ; the other line simply said MNTR. The group watched and waited for the opening price to scroll before them.

Nine-thirty came and went. A ripple of concern ran through the room, and then, suddenly, the MNTR symbol started flashing.

"Here we go," someone shouted out. There was a pause as MNTR momentarily disappeared. Then it reappeared, reading "MNTR ...20.50."

"Jesus," someone else muttered.

I'll say, Dylan thought. They had opened at twenty dollars and fifty cents a share, and the room erupted into loud cheers and whistles. "MNTR ...20.50" started flashing again, and the room quickly quieted down as the ticker scrolled from right to left, as if chasing the NASDAQ number above it. Everyone leaned forward at the same time in antic.i.p.ation.

The numbers began to race across the screen. "MNTR ...21.00 ...MNTR ...21.64 ...MNTR ...22.24 ...MNTR ...23.50." The room burst into deafening cheers, and then a steady chant emerged. "Go! Go! Go!" "MNTR ...24.75 ...MNTR ...25.00 ...MNTR ...26.33," the ticker continued.

This is unbelievable, Dylan thought. He looked around the room at Heather, and their eyes locked for an awkward moment. They smiled, then quickly looked away. They both knew what this meant. From a risky idea born at a party on Beacon Hill to a crazy vision for revolutionizing the mobile computing world, they now were about to realize their dreams.

"Holy s.h.i.t!" someone yelled out from behind. Dylan spun around and looked at the ticker again. "MNTR ...35.50" Silence crept through the room. Some people covered their mouths with their hands; others spoke silent words of encouragement to the screen as they watched the price continue to climb. "MNTR ...36.25 ...MNTR ...37.50."