[Brackets] (22 page)

Neeson made a toasting motion with his glass. Haj reciprocated and drank.

“Which venture capital firm?” Haj asked.

Neeson swallowed hard. “Um, Graham Capital. I doubt you would have heard of them. It’s small and new but they have a lot of money behind them.” Neeson’s phone vibrated again, and this time Haj noticed.

“Is that your engineer calling?”

“Yeah. It looks like they’re still encountering some minor problems—what time does your flight leave?”

“Not until tonight, but I do have some other appointments to keep. I think I should probably move on if the test isn’t immediately forthcoming.”

“I understand. And I apologize again for how things ended. Maybe I can finish the demonstration over a teleconference?”

“That would be good, yes,” Haj said, turning away slightly as Neeson paid the bill.

“And Neeson,” he added as they began motoring back to the office park, “I think I need to urge you to get this issue fixed quickly. I understand these things, but Lance may not. He is not patient by nature, and he has many demands on his attention. I’m not saying it is fair, but he’ll be pessimistic when he learns that your demonstration ended early. I will convey my positive impressions, but he will require very specific technical specifications, and he will need them soon. If you want this sale, I suggest you do everything you can to impress him within the week.”

“We’ll do our best.” Neeson stopped the golf cart in front of Haj’s car and turned with one last VIP smile. “Enjoy the rest of your stay and have a safe flight home.” It wasn’t until Haj’s tail-lights were out of the parking lot that Neeson resumed his scowl and reread Jason’s message.
Something real messed up here. Manager wants to see you ASAP.

*
             
*
             
*
             
*

“A week?” Neeson bellowed. He leaned in to direct a disbelieving glare at the technician working on the fan. Intimidated by the unexpectedly intense encounter, the technician kept his eyes on his greasy hands.

“It’s not just a matter of replacing the box, Mr. Faulkner. There was some damage from the overload in other circuits…”

“Hey, don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” Neeson menaced. “I could do all of this work myself if you gave me a wire cutter and some duct tape. Jason here could do it with just the tape.” Jason shook his head a little and looked stone-faced. “There is no way this needs to take a full week to repair unless you’re trying to drag this out. How much are they paying you per hour?”

The facilities manager stepped in to partially shield the red-faced technician. “Mr. Faulkner, I’m sure that once you let us give you a full review of the damage, you’ll agree that with all the new parts that need to be ordered—”

Neeson licked his teeth and focused his ire on the manager. “I don’t care what the extent of the damage is. Anything can be fixed if you have the skill. No offense.” He gave a sideways glance at the technician, who took offense. “I need this place up and running in two days. We have an army of techs that I will gladly loan you if you can’t handle it. Oh, and I expect a pro-rated refund on our lease for
every day of testing we lose because of this.”

“Mr. Faulkner, if you will just—”

“It’s
Dr
. Faulkner.”

“Fine, Dr. Faulkner, if I could speak with you privately for a moment, over here, I think we can get everything straightened out.”

Neeson didn’t want to talk privately; it felt more natural to yell in public. But he went with the manager off to the side of the room while Jason leaned down to speak to the tech. The manager looked over to make sure they were a safe distance from the others, then spoke softly.

“Dr. Faulkner, you need to
know before the police get here.
”

“The police?” Neeson asked, off-guard.

“After looking at the damage, we think it’s pretty clear that this was intentional. Someone broke in and…well, we’re not totally sure yet, but it looks like there was some kind of charge set off. And there was a second one that went off at the same time that made sure the breakers didn’t kick in. It caused three times as much damage as it would have otherwise. That’s why it will take so long to fix.”

Neeson was silent.
Sabotage
? He tried to think of other companies that would want to ruin his work, but there were n
o real competitors to WindSkin. A
t least none he knew of. Then again, it wasn’t their facility. It could have been anyone. It could have been someone who had a grudge against the facilities manager. Maybe it
was
the facilities manager, trying some insurance scam at their expense. After a pause, he realized that he didn’t care. His deadline was fixed. He looked back at the technician and reevaluated his position.

“OK, fine. We’ll let the police do their thing, but then we fix the problem. I don’t care who did it, as long as I’m back on schedule. I’ll tell my people to get you whatever you need.”

“That’s good of you, Dr. Faulkner, but to be honest, I’d rather not have your people around. I hope you understand.”

“I don’t.
What’s wrong with my people?
”

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but we haven’t ruled out the possibility that your group had something to do with it.”

Neeson stared as if daring him to repeat his accusation. The manager didn’t budge.

“Your team was here early, and you’ve been the only group
leasing the tunnel for the last two weeks. As you said, you have people who know their way around circuits. There’s no reason to think that it wasn’t you. I mean, your group.”

Neeson paced irritably. “That’s ridiculous. No one from my group would sabotage our own test.”

“It’s still a possibility. The police will think so, too.”

Neeson knew that the manager was right. His people did have the most access to the facility. Corporate espionage was
not
un
heard of, especially in cutting-
edge technology industries. His mind
jumped
to the mysterious problem with the failsafe that his genius software designer couldn’t seem to fix. He glanced at Jason and wondered for a moment if… but no, Jason had as much to lose fr
om failure as Neeson did. And b
esides, Jason wasn’t exactly the ruthless type. If he did have a saboteur in his company, it had to be one of the technicians. He suddenly regretted not caring more about their morale that morning.

“Fine
,” Nees
on leaned in, his voice both soothing and contemptuous
. “You have your people work as fast as they can. I can’t tell you how important it is to me to get this done fast. When it’s ready to go, don’t call the office, call me directly. For the record, I don’t think anyone in my group would do something like this. It wouldn’t make sense. But at this point, I want to avoid all risks.”

The manager nodded that he understood. Neeson and Jason stepped out, but not before
Neeson gave
one final look of death to the facility technician, who returned a different gesture when his back was turned. Neeson instructed Jason quietly as they walked.

“Listen, we’re going to let them do their thing, for now. I don’t like it, and I think we could do it better, but it would be best not to interfere right now. The manager is suspicious of us, and I can’t entirely blame him. We may have some cops coming over to ask us questions. I want you to tell everyone to cooperate fully. But if anyone has any leads, if anyone saw
anything
, I want them coming to me personally first, got it?”

Jason looked back at the door. “You think that one of our people did this?”

“No, no. I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I don’t want to give that manager any reason to be more suspicious of us than he already is. Let’s just stay out of his
way.”

Jason looked at his boss with raised eyebrows. “You seem to be taking this well. I mean, better than you were.”

“It’s the hand that we were dealt. We just have to play it through and hope that we get dealt something better soon. I’ll try to buy us some time with our clients. You get that failsafe fixed.”

“Yup, on it.” One more beat of silence, and then, “What about that investor of yours? Are you going to
have to
tell him about this?”

“I have a meeting with him next week. It will probably come up, he always finds out about this stuff somehow.”

“Anything I can do?”

“No,” Neeson shook his head. “That’s on me.”

[
South Division
: Sweet Sixteen]

[Friday, March 27]

The baseball diamond at Dulles Elementary was surrounded by lawn chairs, blankets, and people
in
sunglasses. It was Friday afternoon, and the sky was grey and cloudy: perfect for game watching. A team of eight-year-old boys and girls in bright yellow tee-shirts were fielding against a batter uniformed in dark maroon. The coaches on both sides were shouting instructions and trying to drown out the parents, who were also shouting instructions. No one paid much attention when a balding man in a dress shirt came walking onto the grass near left field, mumbling into his cell phone. Just another dad who couldn’t quite leave work at the office.

Neeson pocketed his phone and approached a figure reclined on a lawn chair beneath a tree. The man was wearing a loud shirt and a Tampa Bay Rays cap and eating a bag of candy by the handful. He barely turned when Neeson forced himself down onto a patch of clover beside him.

“Who’s winning?” Neeson asked, truly uninterested.

“Gator Mart is up by two, 5
th
inning, no outs. They’re making a good showing, but I think Hardy Hardware has a stronger bullpen. The kid with the nose-scratching addiction has a mean streak.”

“Do you have a favorite, Mr. Graham?”

“I don’t believe in having favorites,” said Mr. Graham, scratching under his cap. “I find it easier to root for the one who wins. It helps me to avoid disappointment.”

They watched an at-bat in silence.

“Bracket’s looking good,” said Graham, after the pitcher walked a skinny kid whose head was too small for the helmet. “Good call on North Dakota beating Kentucky.”

“This time next week I can have it laminated for you to take home.”

“Everything else OK?”

“Fine.”

“How is your mole hunt going?”

“There is no mole hunt,” Neeson began, as if he had anticipated the question and resented it preemptively. “There is no proof that anyone in my group had anything to do with the incident at the tunnel. I’m not entirely convinced there was an ‘incident’ at all—I think the wiring was done poorly. But it doesn’t matter. Assuming everything goes well, the wind tunnel will be ready this afternoon, and I’m going to personally run a test tomorrow. Then I’ll have a video to show to all future clientele, and we can finally start closing some deals. If someone in the company has mixed allegiances, which is unlikely, I’ll find out soon enough. In the mean time we will have a momentum that will be very hard to slow down.”

“Glad to hear it,” Graham said, without conviction. “So you aren’t at all concerned about something else going wrong in the company.”

“Not at all. Our security has been upgraded. I personally paid for the installation of new hidden cameras throughout the wind tunnel building. All the door codes and locks have been changed. We are secure.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And you aren’t at all concerned that OPUS may not be secure?”

That drew a quick head turn from Neeson. “OPUS is under my lock and key. If there was a hint it wasn’t secure, I would know about it.” Then, after a minute of silence which Graham didn’t fill, “Why do you ask?”

Graham cleared his throat, like a lawyer beginning a line of questioning. “Your demonstration of OPUS using the basketball bracket was supposed to be unique, something no one else could replicate. That’s what you told me.”

“That’s right.”

“Have you seen the ESPN bracket standings lately?”

“Not since…are you saying that there’s someone else with a perfect bracket?”

“No,” said Graham, “I’m saying that there are
three
others with perfect brackets. Not only that, all three of them have brackets identical to yours all the way to the Final Four. That’s a pretty
improbable thing to happen, don’t you think?”

This was disturbing news for Neeson. His greatest fear to that point was that OPUS wouldn’t perform. Now he realized that he should have
been
worried that other systems might perform also.
Unless
his own system had been…Neeson suddenly realized where the conversation was going.

“Do you know who they are? The bracket holders?” Neeson asked.

“Of the two in the ESPN set, one is a college kid at Nebraska, the other’s a middle-aged clerk in Seattle. A
third one just popped up: a 22-
year-old receptionist in Connecticut. Even made the morning news. Sound like anyone you know?”