Shattered Legacy (25 page)

“Do you want more?” she asked.

He shook his head.

She carefully set the container on the nightstand. “I’ll be outside,” she said to the others. “Just call if you need anything.”

She quietly left the room. The three guests stared down at the old man. Dorian looked back at them, each waiting for another to speak first.

Finally, Dorian said, “How's business, Ramona?”

“Great.” Her voice cracked on that first word. “I just wanted to stop by and see you before I left for New Mexico.”

Dorian nodded slightly and turned his eyes to Jackson. “You look good, Jacob. Aren’t you retired yet?”

Jackson smiled back warmly. “You first, old man.”

The room fell uncomfortably silent. Ramona glanced over at Tyler, and he looked back. With that exchange, they both silently agreed to keep the problems between them out of the conversation.

Dorian remained oblivious to the grim demeanor of the others. He shifted his shoulders in a vain attempt to sit up. “I wish I could see the ship,” he grunted as he propped himself up on his elbows. “I haven't seen the space center since the ground-breaking ceremony.”

Ramona leaned down to adjust Dorian’s pillow. “We'll get you out there for a visit. You just concentrate on getting better.”

Dorian nodded absently and then shifted his gaze to Tyler. “Samson,” he rasped, “I was sorry to hear about your apartment. If there’s anything I can do for you…”

“I’ll be fine,” Tyler replied. “I’m insured. I’ll patch the place up as good as new.”

Again, for several long moments, no one said a word, but all eyes were on Dorian.

“What is it?” For a moment, that old glimmer returned to Dorian’s eyes. “You’re all looking at me as if I’m on my deathbed or something. Could I have a cover?”

“What?” Ramona asked.

Dorian lifted his arm and pointed across the room. “There are blankets in that closet.”

Ramona found a blanket and brought it over. She flipped it open and laid it over the other thick quilts that covered the bed. As she pulled the corners into place, Dorian wriggled his arms from under the cover.

“They’ll get cold,” Ramona said.

“I’m more comfortable when they’re free,” he said, dropping his arms against his sides. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His head rolled to one side.

No one moved as they listened to Dorian’s breathing. Ramona leaned down and whispered, “Are you tired, Sinclair? Do you want us to leave?”

His eyes opened a fraction.

“Sinclair, about tomorrow…” She hesitated. “With all the coverage and people, it would really help us if you could…”

Dorian rolled his eyes upward and finished her thought. “Make a call to you at the center?”

“Yes.” She exhaled with relief.

“Sure,” he said, licking his lips. “We’ll just do an audio for the media. I don’t want to scare anyone with a satellite uplink. Especially the investors… or the small children that might be watching.”

That brought smiles from the others, especially Jackson. Dorian’s eyes closed again; his breathing became slow and regular.

“We should go,” Tyler whispered. He gazed at Dorian for a moment, and then headed for the door. Ramona followed. Her expression was grim as she left the room.

Only Jackson remained behind. He stood beside the bed, staring down at his old friend.

Then, reluctantly, he turned away.

“Samson.”

Jackson stopped and spun back around expectantly.

“Samson,” Dorian mumbled, his eyes still closed. “Come here, son.”

Jackson’s shoulders slumped. He stepped out into the hallway and called out for Tyler, who was already at the stairway landing.

 “What is it?” he asked as Jackson approached. He looked over at Ramona, who appeared just as puzzled.

“It's Sinclair,” Jackson told him in a low voice. “He wants to speak to you.”

***

Sinclair Dorian was now sitting up against his thick pillows. He looked more alert than before, and Tyler could not help but wonder if the old man had been exaggerating his fatigue earlier. Dorian cleared his throat, and his voice returned to its normal strength. “Shut the door, Samson, and close those damn blinds.”

Tyler walked over to the window and pulled the drapes together, blocking all the sunlight except that which filtered in from the window edges. He pulled up a chair beside the bed, sat down and folded his hands in his lap, patiently waiting for Dorian to speak.

“There are a few things we need to discuss.” Dorian cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Jacob's my closest friend in this world, but right now I don’t have time for his sympathy. We have too much work ahead of us to be caught up in sentiment.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dorian cleared his throat again, and with narrowed eyes and a thin smile, he stared up at the ceiling. “When I was child, Samson, we lived in an era of fear. Fear of war. Fear of disease. Even if you had money, what could it buy you? A million dollars back then could not have bought you a cell phone, or a personal computer, or even a microwave oven.”

Tyler nodded attentively, hands still clasped in his lap.

“Today we can perform miracles. We can split the atom, speed data around the world in seconds, and even restructure the foundations of life itself. But somehow we can’t feed a billion starving people, or raise the standard of living for eighty percent of the world population.” He turned his head, his eyes glinting in the dim light. “Private space industry might not feed the world, but it may very well provide the tools to do so. There are miracles waiting that I will never live to see.”

Tyler had heard this speech before. He wasn’t in the mood to hear it again. “I visited Javier Ristau today,” he said calmly, completely changing the subject.

Dorian’s eyebrows lifted. “Did you, now? How's he doing?”

“We spoke about Templar and the problems we had during our initial public offering. Is there something you want to tell me, Sinclair? I mean, besides the usual crap about how we’re all changing the world for the better and so on.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about when you bought back Templar and retooled it for aerospace. I’m talking about our IPO and the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission a few years back. What was going on that no one wants to talk about today?”

The old man glanced away. He bit his bottom lip.

“Sinclair…”

When Dorian looked back, his voice began to waver. “You’ve always been loyal, Samson. I appreciate that. I think you’ve earned an explanation and, perhaps, the truth.”

In the grim silence that followed, Tyler felt his stomach tighten. “What truth?”

Dorian hesitated. “Our company is not going to see profits in five years.”

Tyler relaxed a bit. “I know. Jacob shared the current numbers with us. It's not pretty.”

The old man grunted. “Did Jacob tell you that we’re probably not going to make a profit in ten years? Or twenty? Or
ever
? Did he tell you that Templar Enterprises will be long out of business before our industry finally takes root?”

Tyler's stomach clenched again. “No, he didn’t.”

“In all the financial assumptions we made after I bought back the company, we always chose fiscal predictions that were most favorable to us.” The old man took a breath and released it. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Dorian was speaking in almost a confessional tone now, and Tyler felt a growing unease. He hoped this wasn’t the admission he feared. “In business, there’s nothing wrong with using helpful financial assumptions,” he said carefully. “Or being optimistic.”

“We
fudged the numbers
,” Dorian burst out. “We
lied
during our public stock offering. Our SEC applications were pure fiction. We made up our own ‘financial analysis’, and hired shills and bogus think tanks to back it all up. We knew we could make the science work, but there was no way in hell we could ever make it profitable.”

And with that, the truth was laid bare. Templar Enterprises was
never
intended to be profitable. All the work of so many people had been in vain. Those people who had bet their futures on Sinclair Dorian’s dream had been betrayed from the start. Tyler ran his hands through his hair. His doubts and suspicions were now proven true. None of Templar’s problems were politically motivated. The crimes had been real, and Tyler had helped cover them up – from his very first day at the company.

Through fraud and manipulation, Dorian created a quest that had captured the imagination of millions. Now, because of their apparent success, other private companies were investing in the space industry, seeing opportunities for profit and growth that went beyond even Sinclair Dorian’s ambitions.

In the end, would it matter if a new age of discovery had been founded on a lie?

Samson Tyler considered that for a long moment, and found the question impossible to answer.

“So you threw your money away,” he finally said, “on a fantasy.”

“I primed the pump, I got things moving. Somebody will make money from all this, and in the end, the entire world will benefit from our work.”

“But you took other people’s money and got them to invest in your company - by
lying
to them. How will they react when they find out they’ve been ripped off? What good does that do for your cause?”

“Our average stockholder has a little over three hundred dollars invested in us. Over the course of a year, they spend more than that on beer and pizza.” Dorian shook his head. “I don’t know if we ripped people off, Samson. But the only way I could get anyone to invest in us was to appeal to their sense of adventure… and their greed.”

Tyler stood up and took a step back. He had trusted Sinclair Dorian, and though he disagreed with the man on many issues, Tyler always believed that Dorian was honest in his convictions. For the moment, Tyler set aside his bewilderment and forced himself to analyze the situation objectively. He looked back over at the industrialist. “Did it ever occur to you that you could have simply appealed to their intellect or, as you like to say, their ‘spirit of adventure’?”

“Wake up, Samson. If I couldn’t promise a quick profit, no one would want a part of the venture.” He coughed weakly. “We once sent men to the moon just to beat the Soviets. We didn’t do it for money. We did it to win the space race. It was done just to say that we did it first, just to prove we
could
do it. I always thought there was something noble about that.”

“So what’s our motive today? It’s certainly not to make a profit.” Tyler's frown deepened as he sat back down. He shook his head. “I always towed the company line because I took you at your word. Who else knows about all this? Ramona?”

“Ramona was only a division head when we went public.”

“Did Javier know? He quit the company after the trial. Is that why most of the original legal team left the company? Did they all suspect the truth? What about Jacob? He must have known what was going on.”

Dorian shrugged, and Tyler felt his cheeks burn. He felt foolish. He realized that his elevation to general counsel was not because of his skills, but simply because he had proved unwavering loyalty throughout the SEC scandal. Everyone else had left in fear or disgust. Had he been the only person in the company who actually believed that they were innocent?

“Jacob handled the early work with the SEC,” said Dorian. “He was the one who kept us looking good on paper.”

“How could he do that? Why would he risk -”

“Jacob’s been my friend for thirty years, and he’s always believed in the dream.”

“But the dream is a
lie
.”

“No!” So quick was Dorian’s movement, that Tyler feared the old man was about to jump out of the bed. Dorian jabbed out a gnarled finger. “If I had to convince people to act against their better judgment, so be it. You can’t tell me that you don’t
want
to see us succeed. You go to that space center, watch the
Naiad
when it lands. Touch it. It’s not a dream. It’s a reality!” Then he shook his head in disgust. “Why am I even talking to you about this? What do you care? You don't even
believe
in our mission.”

 The switch in topic took Tyler off guard. “Of course I believe,” he replied hesitantly. “Sure. Space travel -”

“You don’t believe in the
concept
of commercial space travel. It’s impractical, too expensive.”

Tyler could not find it in himself to disagree. “Well, it’s unprofitable. I think we agree on that.”

“But it’s not about money, Samson. Templar Enterprises is not about contracts and factories. You need to understand that.”

But Tyler was shaking his head. “Sinclair, if they ever find out what we did in the past -”

“They won’t find out,” Dorian insisted. “We destroyed the evidence years ago.”

“What about today? They’re investigating our purchasing and acquisitions. That
includes
our finances. Hell, the FBI already has half our records. And if the SEC gets back into this…”

“I told you, we destroyed the evidence. And ever since that investigation, Jacob has made sure that Templar’s finances are completely legitimate.”

“Do you know that for a fact? I’ve found information linking our purchases to outside, unauthorized dealers. I’ve tried to find more information, but -”

“But you were pulled away and Dustin was ordered to settle the matter with the government. I know. Ramona told me.”

Tyler’s eyes widened. “You
know
what she’s doing?”

“Of course I know. She called me right after it happened. She thought you were being obstinate. I agreed.”

“Sinclair, if you want us to get through this mess, then let me do my job. Something is wrong within the company. We need to get to the bottom of this, no matter where it leads.”

Slowly, Dorian shook his head. Then he sighed and spoke in a low voice, one without pride or conviction. “I don’t know anything about this purchasing business, Samson.” He looked away. “God, I hope we get through this all right.”

For what it was worth, Dorian’s admission gave Tyler a small bit of relief. Then Dorian closed his eyes once more, and his face went slack as his labored breathing filled the silence. For several long minutes, Tyler stared at the old man, trying to grasp the implications of his confession. To learn that Dorian had originally engineered such a massive fraud was staggering. His confession brought up a whole range of legal and ethical questions, none of which he wanted to consider at the moment.