Sector C (2 page)

“Can’t say I noticed — or didn’t notice — anything about Mr. Shankar the last few times he’s been here. That’s been three, I think. But this time —” Lim paused, trying to judge what Thurman was looking for and what information might set him off. It was pretty easy for him to figure out what the animals in his care needed and how they would react in any given circumstance. But a corporate executive was another beast entirely.

“—
this
time he was having muscle tremors. Like the elephants. And I’ve had to remind him about tour days.
Even where to pick up supplies.”

The shift in Walt Thurman was nearly imperceptible — a slight slump to his shoulders, a slight sag to the muscles in his face — but Lim was a close observer of nature, human and otherwise.

“Is there something we should know, Mr. Thurman? Mr. Shankar isn’t the only client we’ve had lately who seems a little … off.”

Lim didn’t need any special skills to identify the next change in Thurman: defense posture. “Most of our clients have been with us a few years now. They’re Type A’s. And Type A’s age faster — aches, pains, even senility are catching up with them. It’s not anything more than that with Shankar. What I don’t want is him spreading innuendo that Triple E has or may have anything to do with his current medical problems. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly, sir.
What is it you want me to do?”

“Kill him, of course.”

Lim stared blankly at the CEO, trying to process the unexpected order.

Thurman threw the keeper a half-grin and slapped him on the back. “You do know I’m joking?”

“Sure,” Lim lied with a shaky laugh.

“I want to sweeten Shankar’s pot. Give him a reason to keep his allegiance with us. I’ve already agreed to reimburse half his fee for today’s hunt. Now let’s give him a special pass into Sector C. I know he’s still one hunt short of membership, but I’m willing to give him that free ride if it keeps him quiet. If he doesn’t have the money, we’ll work out a deal. What I want from you is to be sure he’s ready. We can’t afford screw-ups like
today’s
over in C.” Thurman absently reached out and stroked the soft cheek fur of the red wolf — forever baying at a forgotten moon — that stood beside his desk.

“Keep your friends close, Mr. Chiou. That’s the lesson from today’s business world. Triple E survives solely on the experience we provide our clients. Without their goodwill — and their discretion — we’d all be out of jobs. Remember that.”

“Yes sir. How far out do you want me to schedule Mr. Shankar’s return trip?”

“Make it six months.”

“And the tiger?
It’s bound to find the ranches.”

“Any way it can be tracked back to us?”

Lim shook his head.
“Only if we show up to claim it.
It has our tattoo, of course. But the tattoo is only traceable if we publicize our branding system.”

“If you can catch it in the next few days, fine; otherwise, let it go. We don’t have the men available to go traipsing after an animal we may or may not find. And we’re certainly not going to hire outside help.”

“There’s something maybe you should know, sir.” Lim took a deep breath, reluctant to voice it considering Thurman’s earlier reaction. The CEO had been clearly agitated even if he had tried to pass it off with a laugh. “The tiger’s showing some of the same symptoms as the other animals — in its hind leg and jaw especially.”

“If that tiger starts killing cattle, some rancher’s going to find it. It’ll be trapped or shot soon enough. It’ll make the local headlines and be a curiosity for awhile,
then
it’ll be forgotten. It’s a genetically weak animal. They all are. It’s been a known risk from the beginning. But we’re working to turn that. Sound stock will keep this company in business.” With that, Thurman circled his desk and took a
seat,
a not-so-subtle indicator to Lim the meeting was concluded.

The keeper debated pressing the issue. Every animal, humans included, had a tolerance point. Push them beyond and the consequences could turn dangerous fast. But sometimes there were questions that had to be asked.

“Then your concerns about Mr. Shankar’s condition —”

“—
totally
unrelated.”

The clip in the CEO’s voice told Lim he was prodding too close.
Still … “And the other clients?
Or the workers who’ve had to quit? They’re also unrelated?”

Thurman’s face was cold. “The breeding program has some genetic flaws. But they’re just that: genetic. Someone with
Down’s Syndrome
may pass that trait on to their children, but their caregivers aren’t going to suddenly see a drop in IQ just because they associate together. Speculation like yours is what we’re trying to avoid.
Dissemination of false assumptions.
Don’t find red flags where the evidence simply doesn’t support them. Are we clear?”

At face value, Thurman’s words seemed reasonable to Lim, but the man’s delivery was too emphatic, like he was trying too hard to be persuasive. There were two truths there to be sorted through; that much was clear to Lim.
Only not today.
The keeper had been very categorically dismissed. And Lim knew when the wisest course of action was to back away from a cornered beast.

GAYLE BALDRIDGE YAWNED AND SCROLLED through her Pad-L, hoping to find an unanswered message that could distract her from her meeting. It was always hard for her to understand thick accents, and the current speaker had obviously never lived in the States nor been through any accent neutralization classes. Listening to English words filtered through his Japanese phonemes and stress-less pronunciations was giving her a headache. Nor did jet lag and the lunch she’d just come back from help her concentration.

She checked the time: 1:42. Only eighteen more minutes before the next speaker. She glanced at the printed schedule on the table to remind herself what the topic would be:
Capitalizing on Acquisition Assets to Strengthen Sell-in for Existing Accounts
. At least that was a subject she had mild interest in, assuming the speaker brought something new to the conversation. Otherwise, she already had a pretty good handle on what her accounts wanted and expected from their relationships with RouterNet Technologies.

The Pad-L vibrated in her hand.
Still awake?
the
message on the screen asked. She smiled across at the sender, a sales colleague from the UK sitting a couple of chairs away.
Am I that obvious?
she
tapped back.

Fraid so.
But look around. Everyone is on the verge.

Thank God no one dimmed the lights.
Else snooze-fest.

Do
u know the speaker?

CEO of one of our cable vendors, I think. Here to drum biz.
Never used them in my deals.

Me either. But RNT’s pushing consistency in the supply chain.

Long as I get my margins, I don’t care who we use. Do you know if
—

A distressed murmur rumbled through the auditorium. Reflexively, Gayle’s head snapped up as she looked around for the cause. Her colleagues’ attention quickly pointed her to the podium. Two people from the audience were taking the steps two at a time to get onstage, but it was the speaker that had elicited the collective gasp.

The man slumped against the lectern, his body twitching. For a panicked moment, Gayle thought maybe the man had been electrocuted, but as the Samaritans from the audience laid him down, she realized he must be having some type of seizure. She could clearly hear the drumming of his heels as his shoes thumped against the dais. More people swarmed the stage with good
intentions,
though there was little anyone could do but wait out the episode.

After a couple of minutes, the seizures subsided. Two of the men onstage helped the CEO to stand, supporting the clearly disoriented man between them as they exited stage right.

RouterNet’s CFO, Paul Acklemore, took the microphone to advise the audience there would be a ten-minute break before the next speaker and that they would be updated on Michio Yamashita’s condition as soon as there was word from the hospital.

That word came some two hours later.

Gayle, numbed, listened to the announcement. “It is with heartfelt condolences to Mr. Yamashita’s friends and colleagues,” Mr. Acklemore told the gathered group, “that I must inform you Michio Yamashita passed away about fifteen minutes ago. The cause of his death is not yet known.”

/////

To take her mind off her grief, Yamashita’s personal assistant, Kaoru, immediately sent regrets to the businesses Michio was scheduled to visit over the next month. Kaoru sniffed back tears as she tapped the final send button. Michio had so been looking forward to returning to the U.S. this year for his second stay with Triple E Enterprises.

Kaoru was flipping the key pad back in place when her right hand began to shake, badly enough that she had to use her left hand to help close and pocket her phone.

Nerves
, she decided. And who could blame them for showing up now when she’d lost not only a boss she had respected but a friend she had been quite close to. Just the thought of the enormity of the job hunt before her made her tremble.

“THANK YOU FOR MEETING WITH ME, Mrs. St. John. I know what a difficult time this must be for you.”

The reporter’s voice sounded soft and sincere on the phone, and Doris relaxed at once. With three interviews scheduled for the afternoon, she’d been dreading more of a paparazzi-style barrage of impudent questions and insensitive comments. “Thank you, my dear. I know I agreed to talk to you or you wouldn’t have this number, but I’ve agreed to so many people — who are you with again? You’ll forgive me; my calendar is such a mess. And I had to take my little Maltese into the vet this morning after she ran headlong into a wall, so I’m just not at all prepared, I’m afraid.”

“I’m Kristin Sharpe with the
Shreveport Times-Courier
, and no need to apologize. I’m sure I would be pretty messed up myself in your situation. I’ll try to keep this brief.
If I can just verify a few facts first.
Your husband, Jerome, was 51, is that right?”

“Jerry. He liked to be called Jerry by his friends. And he’d have been honored to have the whole city consider him a friend.”

“Of course.
I know he was a cardiac surgeon at Willis-Knighton, but did he have a preference of disciplines?”

“Pediatrics.
He loved being able to give infants a second chance at life. But he operated on adults for ten years before he considered himself knowledgeable enough to work on babies. That was what his Founders Award was for, you know. The American Academy of Pediatrics gave it to him for his contributions in neonatal care. ”

“Yes, I have all the information on his awards. I’ll be sure to include them in the article. He was so young — is it true he had Alzheimer’s?”

“Well, the specialists don’t really know what it was.
Alzheimer-like symptoms, yes, but it progressed so, so fast.
Six months ago you wouldn’t have known there was a thing wrong with him. Then he started having short-term memory loss — not remembering what he’d had for breakfast or who had called him that day. I didn’t think that much about it at the time. Jerry was such a brilliant man, and Einstein was notoriously forgetful, you know. But then he began to forget what patients he’d seen and what drugs to prescribe.

“His neurologist, Dr. … oh my, his name is on the tip of my tongue … I’ll remember it in a moment. Anyway, his neurologist couldn’t find a reason for Jerry’s struggles. And Jerry just got progressively worse. He even started to lose function in those beautiful hands of his. They did brain scans and even did a brain biopsy. It was probably two months ago that his long-term memory started failing. And it was just last month when he looked at me and didn’t know who I was. After 26 years of marriage I was a stranger. From that day I was gone from his brain. It was wiped clean, like you do with a computer. He never called me by my name again. And he died not knowing who I was.”