Shimmer (22 page)

The stock fell another $2.

I handed each of them a piece of paper with a very short description of what we should say.

The stock fell $4.

I handed each of them a piece of paper with eight names on it. Each of us would call eight different people.

I watched as Cliff left the room very quickly.

Two o'clock. Two hours before the market would close. Board members calling me. Analysts e-mailing. Our nonresponse still being distributed to anyone and everyone who asked. Critics saying a nonanswer was worse than any answer we might give.

Wait,
I said.
Trust me. Wait.

Outside my office, people were gathering along the aisles and hallways
of the twentieth floor, all of them quietly seeking the security of the senior staff.

Cliff left the room again. He returned a few minutes later, mouth damp. Julie passed him a mint.

Two-thirty. I picked up a phone in my office, moving toward a window, making a call. And starting to spin.

“We can't say what happened,” I said into the phone, speaking to a lead Wall Street analyst, staring out the window as the rest of the senior staff listened. “I'm not even supposed to be talking to you. All I can say is that the bettors on Wall Street have it completely wrong.”

I was nodding slowly, listening to this person ask questions I wouldn't answer, pulling at my lip with my fingers.

“All I can say is that sure, it's a better story if Core had a problem,” I said. “It's a great story. We've been untouchable. And that gets boring. But the bettors have it all wrong.”

I absently pulled at my lip.

“All I can say is that we're a company whose actions are frequently bound by secrecy,” I said. “We handle a tremendous amount of financial information. Personal information. And so we can't announce every good thing that happens, every positive development that takes place.”

I absently pulled at my lip.

“All I can say is that we're a technology company,” I said. “These people on Wall Street know finance. They don't know computers, and they particularly don't know mainframes or satellite communications or high-speed networking. So how can they tell a good development from a bad one?”

I absently pulled at my lip.

“All I can say is that whatever happened, it was a testament to the strength of this company. Its staff, its market position, its technological edge. And if we could announce the full story—and I may just find a way, given the shit I'm hearing out there—if we could announce it, then I'd be the first person to let it be known.”

I nodded, I listened, I turned back to the four of them and raised my hand, then one finger. This was it, I was telling them—of all the points on our sheets, this was the one we had to get right. This was the line we had to sell.

“All I can say is that sometimes we're bound by issues more important than rumors and stock prices. I mean, for God's sake,” I said, finger still raised, “why the hell else would I do something so stupid as to wait all day, till the market is on the verge of closing at a record loss for us—why else would I wait till now to respond?”

In another moment, I hung up, still staring out the window, staring now in the direction of Wall Street. Staring as if I could watch the reaction. In a moment I turned to them and said quietly, “Make your calls.”

Everyone started to call the people on the lists. Analysts, reporters, suppliers, customers. We delivered my story. We sold it as hard as we could.

By three-thirty, the stock had regained $10. At closing, it ended up another $5. By closing on Tuesday afternoon, the next day, it had jumped another $15, ending at an all-time high.

And so we'd won another battle.

By Tuesday night, when the market had closed, the analysts had all certified the stock's recovery as nothing short of amazing. I was walking with Whitley, the two of us crossing through the remnants of our disaster. There were cables still strung along corridors, running into and out of offices near the DMZ. There were whiteboards leaning against walls and doors and desks, all filled with checklists and next steps related to the continuing restoration of the network. There were people, some in shorts, some in overalls, each monitoring the activities and status of the patchwork system Leonard had built.

And all of them, the people here now, the people who I'd seen in hallways and in meetings and in elevators for the past two days, everyone in the company who I'd talked to or gotten e-mail from, all of
them were the same. Happy. Not just pleased. Not only relieved. But happy in a way that was total, complete. These hundreds of people who'd worked straight through the last four days, consumed and encircled by the work they did, all were deeply, purely happy.

“This all has meant a lot to me,” I said to Whitley now, stepping over the cables, reaching out to touch a whiteboard. Seeing my hand for a moment, a hand that for a second seemed very removed from my body. “Maybe too much, I suppose.”

“Too much?” she asked.

“It's a job.”

She shrugged. She seemed so comfortable, so at ease. “Not really,” she said. “It's more.”

And as I walked, talking with her, I had half thoughts and a list of notes already scrolling across my eyes. Things to do, transactions to make, people to hire, markets to explore, a shadow network that had to be maintained.

“These people have always had a sense of ownership,” Whitley said. “But it's even more so now. A sense of place. A sense of belonging.”

I needed to go back to my apartment. I needed to sleep. Tonight, sleep. Get ready for tomorrow. Keep the company afloat. Keep the shadow network alive.

I noticed that Whitley's hair was less straight today, somehow messy in a way that suggested she'd slept in late, and only now did I realize that Whitley was wearing jeans and a sweater.

My mind worked through the next steps for the shadow network, a growing list, twenty items to finish, twenty transactions to make. Buy twelve mainframes through the third Cayman company, the one with the extra cash from the sale in Dublin. Buy satellite time from the company in France. Begin the transition of the Asian accounting systems, creating the float accounts and expense pools.

Each item was a point to complete by the morning, to finish off so I could move on to the next. Although, as I walked, I knew that maybe
more than anything, what I really needed was to sleep. If I could sleep, I would make it. I would see some solution.

“The rebound in the stock,” I said to Whitley. “The spin. Thanks for your help.”

Route more Scottish data through the French satellites. Lease two more satellites through the company in Denmark. What's the name of the company in Denmark?

Go back to your apartment. Don't even stop in the office. Go back and sleep.

“What I did,” Whitley said, walking slowly, Whitley setting a pace so oddly slow, “what we all did, is made easy by what this place has become.”

Moving through the office. Crossing wide corridors, passing through areas in darkness, then bright. Passing people working late, people playing games, people drawing madly on whiteboards and notepads and computers.

Send the new Indian code to Santa Fe. Send it through the consultants. The new ones. The new ones from D.C.

Go back to your apartment. Sleep, all night, in bed.

Release the lawyer in Salt Lake. Forward all documents to the attorney in St. Paul, subtract the fee from the account, forward the money, close the account, terminate the contracts with the agency in Twin Falls. Tomorrow. Put that in motion first thing tomorrow.

And find a way to sleep.

Find a way to sleep.

Shift more cash into the Caymans. Swap bank accounts in Tampa. What's the name of the company in Denmark?

Go back to your apartment.

“In a way,” Whitley was saying, “I could have said or done anything.”

Go back and make the call.

“I don't believe that,” I was saying, saying it because this was what I was supposed to say. Because my mind was racing fast. And because I already knew what Whitley would say next.

Maybe a college girl.

And I would like it when I heard what Whitley would say. And I'd fear it just as much.

Maybe dark hair.

What's the name?

A beautiful woman. Dark and near silent, and slow.

What's the name of the company in Denmark?

Go back and make the call. Go back, and call, and sleep. Then find a way to save this company.

“What saved us,” Whitley said, touching her lip, then her ear, then touching me on the arm to reinforce her point, and smiling just a second as she did it, and I smiled back at her, lifted for a moment by the silly joy of an ongoing joke, but, still, wanting to crumble under the truth of what Whitley would say, “what saved us is that, ultimately, no one wants to believe that Core Communications can fail.”

Inside her.

Against her.

Above her.

Against.

“Like that?” she asked quietly.

Like that.

“There?” she asked quietly.

Slow. Slower.

Slow. Slower.

The white light of buildings, shining on the pillow, then the sheet. The muffled roar of a helicopter somewhere beyond me. White light lying easily across her perfect face.

Across her black and empty eyes.

“Like that,” she said quietly.

“There,” she said quietly.

Inside her. So slow.

There.

It was everything. All of it. Everything gone. Only here, above her, against her. Nothing else. Nothing.

“There,” she said quietly. “Once more, there.”

Ronald Mertz wore slacks so tight you could see the outlines of the quarters in his front pockets. He was so detailed in his work, so thorough in his analysis, that today, as always, the rest of the SWAT team sat spellbound in his presence.

Ronald, our head of corporate security and day-to-day manager of Whitley's SWAT team, was reporting on Regence. Network restored. Eugene paid off. But Regence still out there.

“We have confirmed,” Ronald was saying now, thumbs hooked on the pockets of his maroon nylon jacket, staring toward the ceiling as he spoke to key members of SWAT, “that the attack on us was launched from a series of computers owned by the Dutch subsidiary of an American-based logistics firm. That firm is, as we suspected, one of Core's clients. Additionally—and more importantly—the Dutch subsidiary is a strategic partner of HXT, LLC, out of Bermuda, a shell operation which, according to a report just filed with SWAT, maintains very close ties to certain individuals living in Macao. Said individuals, according to another confidential report submitted to SWAT, maintain very close connections to a series of Regence executives.”

“Do we have black-and-white photographs shot from long distances?” Julie asked seriously, sitting forward on the edge of her chair, barely able to hold in her joke. “Do we have grainy photographs of said individuals getting into unmarked sedans?”

Ronald turned his gaze from the ceiling toward Julie. “In fact,” he said warily, “we do.”

Julie beamed widely. Perry smiled just slightly. Ronald seemed to make a mental note to check in on Julie later.

“Although the attack was intended to shut down our network,” Ronald continued, “it's clear that their primary goal was to understand
how a Blue Box works. In that respect,” he said, hooking a bony thumb in his belt, “we believe they failed.”

Cliff seemed to take his first breath of the morning. Whitley tapped three times on the table, smiling behind her falling black hair. Julie's square shoulders did, just slightly, go soft and low, and as small as the motion was, I thought for a moment that she might melt through her chair, reassembling herself in a warm, sleeping ball on the floor.

“Do we know yet if Regence did any other damage?” Whitley asked.

“I think Regence saw that our network was experiencing a massive failure,” Leonard was saying, now standing next to Ronald. “And so they did launch another assault.”

“On another Blue Box?” Cliff asked, leaning forward, relief gone already, and in the middle of the file folders he'd brought to the meeting I thought I saw an airsickness bag.

Leonard shook his head. “On the headquarters. Here.”

There was a shifting, movement in our seats, all of us waiting for Leonard to continue.

“Well,” Whitley finally asked, “did they get in?”

Leonard squinted, confused. “Absolutely.”

Julie was standing now, and almost yelling. “For how long?”

“Actually,” Leonard said, “I'm quite certain they continue to monitor us right now.”

Whitley and Cliff both stood. Perry stared at Leonard with a look part frightened, part entertained. Ronald Mertz stepped toward me, one hand pushing open his jacket as if he were going to draw the gun he kept in a shoulder holster, the other hand raised in an apparent effort to protect me. It was if we'd been told Regence was not only watching and listening to the seven of us in this room but that Regence's own security force was ready to break through the door in black jumpsuits and boots, guns firing rapidly as they methodically eliminated everyone in their sights.

Leonard was completely confused by our reaction. “Wait,” he said in a moment, after our concern had fully registered with him. “Let me
clarify. Regence has seen nothing of substance. We just found them this morning. They've done no damage. They simply made an inroad into a database used by internal operations.”

“Internal operations?” Ronald asked.

“Janitorial supplies,” Leonard said. “Lightbulbs, paper towels, soap refills.”

“Toilet paper?” Julie asked.

Leonard nodded. “That too.”

“This,” Perry said quietly, “cannot go unchecked.”

“When it happened, our security systems immediately isolated the intrusion,” Leonard was saying. “In other words, although we only just realized where they are, Regence hasn't been able to escape that particular area of that particular database. And so we're watching them. Studying their tactics. Recording their movements and attempts to break into other areas.”