Paranoia (41 page)

“Yeah,” I said. “He was a funny guy, wasn’t he?” By now I wanted him to stop the stories, and fortunately he did.

At the funeral the next morning, Seth sat on one side of me in the pew, Antwoine on the other. The priest, a distinguished, silver-haired fellow who looked like a TV minister, was named Father Joseph Iannucci. Before the mass he took me aside and asked me a few questions about Dad—his “faith,” what he was like, what he did for a living, did he have any hobbies, that sort of thing. I was pretty much stumped.

There were maybe twenty people in the church, some of them regular parishioners who’d come for the mass and didn’t know Dad. The others were friends of mine from high school and college, a couple of friends from the neighborhood, an old lady who lived next door. There was one of Dad’s “friends,” some guy who’d been in Kiwanis with Dad years ago before Dad quit in a rage over something minor. He didn’t even know Dad had been sick. There were a couple of elderly cousins I vaguely recognized.

Seth and I were pallbearers along with some other guys from the church and the funeral home. There were a bunch of flowers at the front of the church—I had no idea how they got there, whether someone sent them or they were provided by the funeral home.

The mass was one of those incredibly long services that involve a lot of getting up and sitting down and kneeling, probably so you don’t fall asleep. I felt depleted, fogged in, still sort of shell-shocked. Father Iannucci called Dad “Francis” and several times said his full name, “Francis Xavier,” as if that indicated that Dad was a devout Catholic instead of a faithless guy whose only connection to the Lord was in taking His name in vain. He said, “We are sad at Francis’s parting, we grieve his passing, but we believe that he has gone to God, that he is in a better place, that he is sharing now in Jesus’ resurrection by living a new life.” He said, “Francis’s death is not the end. We can still be united with him.” He asked, “Why did Francis have to suffer so much in his last months?” and answered something about Jesus’ suffering and said that “Jesus was not conquered or defeated by his suffering.” I didn’t quite follow what he was trying to say, but I wasn’t really listening. I was zoning out.

When it was over, Seth gave me a hug, and then Antwoine gave me a crushing handshake and hug, and I was surprised to see a single tear rolling down the giant’s face. I hadn’t cried during the whole service; I hadn’t cried at all the whole day. I felt anesthetized. Maybe I was past it.

Aunt Irene tottered up to me and held my hand in both of her soft age-spotted hands. Her bright red lipstick had been applied with a shaky hand. Her perfume was so strong I had to hold my breath. “Your father was a good man,” she said. She seemed to read something in my face, some skepticism I hadn’t meant to show, and she said, “He wasn’t a comfortable man with his feelings, I know. He wasn’t at ease expressing them. But I know he loved you.”

Okay, if you insist, I thought, and I smiled and thanked her. Dad’s Kiwanis friend, a hulking guy who was around Dad’s age but looked twenty years younger, took my hand and said, “Sorry for your loss.” Even Jonesie, the loading dock guy from Wyatt Telecom, showed up with his wife, Esther. They both said they were sorry for my loss.

I was leaving the church, about to get in the limousine to follow the hearse to the graveyard, when I saw a man sitting in the back row of the church. He’d come in some time after the mass had started, but I couldn’t make out his face at such a distance, in the dark light of the church’s interior.

The man turned around and caught my eye.

It was Goddard.

I couldn’t believe it. Astonished, and moved, I walked up to him slowly. I smiled, thanked him for coming. He shook his head, waved away my thanks.

“I thought you were in Tokyo,” I said.

“Oh, hell, it’s not as if the Asia Pacific division hasn’t kept me waiting time and time again.”

“I don’t . . .” I fumbled, incredulous. “You rescheduled your trip?”

“One of the very few things I’ve learned in life is the importance of getting your priorities straight.”

For a moment I was speechless. “I’ll be back in tomorrow,” I said. “It might be on the later side, because I’ll probably have some business to take care of—”

“No,” he said. “Take your time. Go slow.”

“I’ll be fine, really.”

“Be good to yourself, Adam. Somehow we’ll manage without you for a little while.”

“It’s not like—not at all like your son, Jock. I mean, my dad was pretty sick with emphysema for a long time, and . . . it’s really better this way. He wanted to go.”

“I know the feeling,” he said quietly.

“I mean, we weren’t all that close, really.” I looked around the dim church interior, the rows of wooden pews, the gold and crimson paint on the walls. A couple of my friends were standing near the door waiting to talk to me. “I probably shouldn’t say it, especially in here, you know?” I smiled sadly. “But he was kind of a difficult guy, a tough old bird, which makes it easier, his passing. It’s not like I’m totally devastated or anything.”

“Oh, no, that makes it even harder, Adam. You’ll see. When your feelings are that complicated.”

I sighed. “I don’t think my feelings for him are—were—all that complicated.”

“It hits you later. The wasted opportunities. The things that could have been. But I want you to keep something in mind: Your dad was fortunate to have you.”

“I don’t think he considered himself—”

“Really. He was a lucky man, your father.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, and all of a sudden, without warning, the shut-off valve in me gave way, the dam broke, and the tears welled up. I flushed with shame as the tears started streaming down my face, and I blurted out, “I’m sorry, Jock.”

He reached both of his hands up and placed them on my shoulders. “If you can’t cry, you’re not alive,” Goddard said. His eyes were moist.

Now I was weeping like a baby, and I was mortified and somehow relieved at the same time. Goddard put his arms around me, clasped me in a big hug as I blubbered like an idiot.

“I want you to know something, son,” he said, very quietly. “You’re not alone.”

73

The day after the funeral I returned to work. What was I going to do, mope around the apartment? I wasn’t really depressed, though I felt raw, like a layer of skin had been peeled off. I needed to be around people. And maybe, now that Dad was dead, there’d be some comfort in being around Goddard, who was beginning to look like the closest thing I ever had to a father. Not to put myself on a shrink’s couch or anything, but something changed, for me, after he showed up at the funeral. I wasn’t conflicted or ambivalent anymore about my so-called real mission at Trion, the ‘real reason’ I was there—because that was no longer the real reason I was there.

At least by my reckoning, I’d done my service, paid my debt, and I deserved a clean slate. I wasn’t working for Nick Wyatt any longer. I’d stopped returning Meacham’s phone calls or e-mails. Once I even got a message, on my cell phone voice mail, from Judith Bolton. She didn’t leave her name, but her voice was instantly recognizable. “Adam,” she said, “I know you’re going through such a difficult time. We all feel terrible about the death of your father, and please know you have our deepest condolences.”

I could just imagine the strategy session with Judith and Meacham and Wyatt, all desperate and angry about their kite who’d slipped his string. Judith would say something about how they should go easy on the guy, he’s just lost a parent, and Wyatt would say something foulmouthed and say he didn’t give a shit, the clock was ticking, and Meacham would be trying to out-tough-guy his boss about how they were going to hold my feet to the fire and they were going to fuck me over; and then Judith would say no, we have to take a more sensitive approach, let me try to reach out to him. . . .

Her message went on, “But it’s extremely important, even in this time of turmoil, for you to remain in constant contact. I want us all to keep everything positive and cordial, Adam, but I need you to make contact today.”

I deleted her message as well as Meacham’s. They would get the point. In time I’d send Meacham an e-mail officially severing the relationship, but for the time being I thought I’d just keep them dangling while the reality of the situation sank in. I wasn’t Nick Wyatt’s kite anymore.

I’d given them what they needed. They’d realize that it wasn’t worth their while to hang tough.

They might threaten, but they couldn’t force me to go on working for them. As long as I kept in mind that there really was nothing they could do, I could just walk away.

I just had to keep that in mind. I could just walk away.

74

My cell phone was ringing even before I pulled into the Trion garage the next morning. It was Flo.

“Jock wants to see you,” she said, sounding urgent. “Right now.”

Goddard was in his back room with Camilletti, Colvin, and Stuart Lurie, the senior VP for Corporate Development I’d met at Jock’s barbecue.

Camilletti was talking as I entered.

“. . . No, from what I hear the S.O.B. just flew into Palo Alto yesterday with a term sheet already drawn up. He had lunch with Hillman, the CEO, and by dinner they’d inked the deal. He matched our offer dollar for dollar—I mean, to the
penny
—but in cash!”

“How the
hell
could this happen!” Goddard exploded. I’d never seen him so angry. “Delphos signed a no-shop provision, for Christ’s sake!”

“The no-shop’s dated tomorrow—it hasn’t been signed yet. That’s why he flew out there so fast, so he could do the deal before we locked it in.”

“Who are we talking about?” I asked softly, as I sat down.

“Nicholas Wyatt,” Stuart Lurie said. “He just bought Delphos right out from under us for five hundred million in cash.”

My stomach sank. I recognized the name Delphos but remembered I wasn’t supposed to.
Wyatt bought Delphos?
I thought, astonished.

I turned to Goddard with a questioning look.

“That’s the company we were in the process of acquiring—I told you about them,” he said impatiently. “Our lawyers were just about finished drawing up the definitive purchase agreement. . . .” His voice trailed off, then grew louder. “I didn’t even think Wyatt had that kind of cash on their balance sheet!”

“They had just under a billion in cash,” said Jim Colvin. “Eight hundred million, actually. So five hundred million pretty much empties out the piggy bank, because they’ve got three billion dollars of debt, and the service on that debt’s gotta be two hundred million a year easy.”

Goddard smacked his hand down on the round table. “God
damn
it to hell!” he thundered. “What the hell
use
does Wyatt have for a company like Delphos? He doesn’t have AURORA. . . . For Wyatt to put his own company on the line like that makes no goddamned sense at all unless he’s just trying to screw us over.”

“Which he just succeeded in doing,” Camilletti said.

“For heaven’s sake, without AURORA, Delphos is worthless!” Goddard said.

“Without Delphos, AURORA is fucked,” said Camilletti.

“Maybe he knows about AURORA,” said Colvin.

“Impossible!” said Goddard. “And even if he knows about it, he doesn’t
have
it!”

“What if he does?” suggested Stuart Lurie.

There was a long silence.

Camilletti spoke slowly, intensely. “We’re protecting AURORA with the exact same federal security regulations the Defense Department mandates for government contractors dealing in sensitive compartmented information.” He stared fiercely at Goddard. “I’m talking firewalls, security clearances, network protection, multilevel secure access—every goddamned safeguard known to man. It’s in the goddamned cone of silence. There’s just no fucking way.”

“Well,” Goddard said, “Wyatt somehow found out the details of our negotiations—”

“Unless,” Camilletti interrupted, “he had someone inside.” An idea seemed to occur to him, and he looked at me. “You used to work for Wyatt, didn’t you?”

I could feel the blood rushing to my head, and to mask it, I faked outrage “I used to work
at
Wyatt,” I snapped at him.

“Are you in touch with him?” he asked, his eyes drilling into me.

“What are you trying to suggest?” I stood up.

“I’m asking you a simple yes-or-no question—are you in touch with Wyatt?” Camilletti shot back. “You had dinner with him at the Auberge not so long ago, correct?”

“Paul, that’s enough,” said Goddard. “Adam, you sit down this goddamned instant. Adam had no access whatsoever to AURORA. Or to the details of the Delphos negotiation. I believe today’s the first time he’s even heard the name of the company.”

I nodded.

“Let’s move on,” Goddard said. He seemed to have cooled off a little. “Paul, I want you to talk to our lawyers, see what recourse we have. See if we can stop Wyatt. Now, AURORA’s scheduled launch is in four days. As soon as the world knows what we’ve just done, there’ll be a mad scramble to buy up materials and manufacturers up and down the whole damned supply chain. Either we delay the launch, or . . . I do
not
want to be part of that scramble. We’re going to have to put our heads together and look around for some other comparable acquisition—”

“—
No one
has that technology but Delphos!” Camilletti said.

“We’re all smart people,” Goddard said. “There are always other possibilities.” He put his hands on the arms of his chair and got to his feet. “You know, there’s a story Ronald Reagan used to tell about the kid who found a huge pile of manure and said, ‘There must be a pony around here somewhere.’” He laughed, and the others laughed as well, politely. They seemed to appreciate his feeble attempt to defuse the tension. “Let’s all get to work. Find the pony.”

75

I knew what had happened.

I thought things through as I drove home that night, and the more I did the angrier I got, and the angrier I got the faster and more erratically I drove.

If it weren’t for the term sheet I’d gotten from Camilletti’s files, Wyatt wouldn’t have known about Delphos, the company Trion was about to buy. The more I reminded myself of this, the worse I felt.