The Einstein Pursuit (5 page)

Today the air was clean, but the only smell he could detect was the faint waft of garbage that had cooked too long inside the neighborhood’s waste cans. It was trash day, and he could hear the hum and whirl of the garbage truck from two streets away. Sahlberg smiled, knowing that the odor would be gone by the time he returned.

He walked away from the river, where the houses gave way to apartments and condominium complexes. He stopped briefly at one of the neighborhood’s small parks. It wasn’t that he needed the rest – even in the heat he had yet to break a sweat. Instead, it was the class of preschoolers who had invaded the playground that had caught his eye. He watched for a while as they played. They chased each other everywhere, an endless cycle of constant motion as they climbed up the jungle gym and slid down the slide. Up the stairs and down the slide. Over and over again. Kid after kid after kid. As they did, they laughed and giggled without a care in the world.

How refreshing
, Sahlberg thought.

Nothing worries them at all
.

They have no fear of the future.

Suddenly he was struck by the dichotomy of the last hour: the joy of these children and the lives they had in front of them versus the horror of the lab fire and the lives of his peers cut needlessly short. His physical tension was gone, but his anger and curiosity remained. So much so that he decided to head back home to search for answers.

As he rounded the street corner nearest his house, he noticed something peculiar. A delivery truck was parked at his curb, and two men in jumpsuit uniforms were walking toward his front porch. The first man approached empty-handed, followed by a man carrying a large package. But when they arrived at the door, they didn’t knock or ring the bell. Instead, they peered through the slit windows on either side of the door as if they were casing the joint.

Sahlberg slowed to a halt. The sight of two strangers on his front porch – either of whom could have delivered a package on his own – tripped an alarm in his mind. Something about this didn’t seem right. With his heart pounding in his chest, he ducked behind a row of hedges to see what they did next.

The first man picked the lock on the front door while the second man concealed the crime with the large box in his hands. As soon as the door was open, he placed the package on the porch and pulled a pistol from his jumpsuit. He waited for his partner to draw his own weapon before the two of them slipped inside the house.

Sahlberg gasped at the sight.

Who were these men? What did they want with him?

Less than a minute later, they reappeared in the doorway. The first man shook his head toward the delivery truck and pointed left. Then he pointed to himself and motioned right. As they hustled from Sahlberg’s house, two more men stepped from the truck. They were dressed in suits and had shoulder holsters.

Until that moment, Sahlberg hadn’t even known they were there.

Now he knew they were after him.

Sahlberg had to act fast. He cut through his neighbor’s yard and retreated to the relative safety of a nearby market. He knew it wasn’t perfect, but at least he wasn’t by himself.

‘Mr Matty, how are you!’ shouted the twenty-something behind the counter. Sahlberg had known the young man since he was a child, back when
Mattias
had been too difficult for the boy to pronounce. He had been Mr Matty ever since.

‘I’m fine,’ he lied. ‘Except I seem to have left my cell phone at home. Would you mind terribly if I made a call? Local, of course.’

‘No problem at all,’ the young man said as he handed Sahlberg a cordless phone. ‘Help yourself.’

Sahlberg grabbed the phone and stepped away from the counter so he would not be overheard. Then he dialed a number from memory. At a time like this, there was only one person he thought he could trust. He only hoped the stranger would listen.

The call was connected on the second ring.

‘Please don’t hang up,’ Sahlberg pleaded. ‘Someone is trying to kill me.’

During his highly decorated military career, Jonathon Payne had survived gunfire, terrorists, and several forms of torture, but none of that compared to the nails-on-a-chalkboard agony he suffered whenever his board of directors gathered for their quarterly meetings.

For a man of action, it was cruel and unusual punishment.

Borderline inhumane.

If given the choice, Payne would rather rappel down the side of the building in a blizzard while completely naked than listen to a bunch of geezers in custom-tailored suits drone on and on about his company’s debt-to-equity ratio, its market capitalization, or whatever the hell they were talking about, because the truth was he had stopped listening an hour ago. If not for the love and respect he felt for his grandfather – a self-made millionaire who had risen from steelworker to mill owner before willing the company to his grandson – Payne never would have left the military to take over as CEO of Payne Industries.

What did he know about the business world?

A lot less than anyone else in this room.

And yet he was technically running a multinational corporation when all he wanted to do was run back to the life he had trained for, the life he had chosen for himself.

The one where he made a difference.

A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Payne had excelled in all aspects of his training but was particularly adept at leadership and hand-to-hand combat. He was such a skilled officer he was asked to lead a newly formed special forces unit known as the MANIACs, an elite counterinsurgency team comprised of the top soldiers the Marines, Army, Navy, Intelligence, Air Force and Coast Guard could find – hence the acronym. Whether it was unconventional warfare, personnel recovery or counter-guerrilla sabotage, the MANIACs were the best of the best and Payne was the alpha dog – the unquestioned leader of the military’s top team.

Now he was little more than a figurehead.

An insider who wanted out.

He glanced down the mahogany conference table and surveyed his board of directors. They were arguing about something he didn’t understand. His eyes shifted to the chestnut-lined walls and intricately carved molding. He noted the state-of-the-art audiovisual system of plasma screens and 3D projectors. Everything was first class. The best that money could buy. He leaned back into the soft leather of his executive chair and wondered how much the company had paid for it and all the others chairs that were spaced around the table.

Probably several thousand each.

But that paled in comparison to the building itself.

It was an architectural marvel, a sparkling tower of glass and steel.

Located atop Mount Washington, high above the city of Pittsburgh, the Payne Industries building had a magnificent view of the city’s skyline, its two sports stadiums (PNC Park and Heinz Field), and the confluence of Pittsburgh’s three rivers (the Monongahela and Allegheny flowing together to form the Ohio). If the motorized shades in the conference room had been up, Payne would have gladly spent the entire morning staring at the scenery below. Unfortunately, the shades were down to protect the company’s secrets from telephoto cameras, radio-controlled drones and laser-guided listening devices.

Payne realized the precautions probably weren’t necessary.

After all, he was
inside
the room and he wasn’t even listening.

He couldn’t imagine why an outsider would want to eavesdrop.

Unless, of course, they had insomnia.

Payne sighed from boredom and tapped his fingers on the yellow legal pad on the table in front of him. He knew he should probably be taking notes like those bickering around him, but the message he was tempted to write would have had major repercussions:

I quit.

Sincerely,

Jonathon Payne

Those closest to Payne knew he had been considering this option for several years. They also knew he would have left the company long ago if not for the debt he felt he owed his grandfather. After all, this was the man who had raised Jon after the death of his parents. The man who had taught him right from wrong and the value of hard work. The man who had given him the keys to the kingdom because he wanted him to live longer than his parents had, something that probably wouldn’t have happened if Jon had stayed in the special forces.

Eventually, the risks he took would have caught up with him.

He knew it. His grandfather knew it. Everyone knew it.

Then again, what good was life if you weren’t doing what you loved?

Before Payne could ponder that question, he was distracted by the conversation in the conference room. He only heard the tail end of the statement – something about the declining reputation of Payne Industries – but it was enough to warrant his attention.

‘Can you repeat that? What about our reputation?’ he asked.

A short, squat man with an absurdly large head cleared his throat. ‘Our reputation has been suffering in recent years. It simply isn’t what it used to be.’

The room fell silent, waiting for Payne’s reaction.

‘How so, Sam?’ he asked without a hint of ire.

Samuel McCormick was one of the board’s longest-serving members. He was a carryover from the final years of Payne’s grandfather. A company historian of sorts.

‘This company was founded on established industry. Yes, we made the manufacturing of steel safer and more efficient, but we didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Today we’ve diversified into technologies undreamed of in the early years. Robotics. Artificial intelligence. Nanotech. We’re on the cutting edge of emerging sciences.’

‘And you think we’ve overstepped our bounds?’ Payne asked.

‘Not at all,’ McCormick replied. ‘I’m all for these advancements. But there are those who believe that our eagerness to uncover the next big thing is hurting our bottom line.’

‘In other words, we can make more money
selling
wheels than reinventing them. Is that what you’re trying to say?’

McCormick nodded. ‘Again, it’s not me that’s saying it. It’s
them
.’

‘
Them?
Who is
them
? The public? The press? Our competition?’

‘Me for one,’ said Peter Archibald, who was seated directly across from McCormick. ‘We have a responsibility to our shareholders, to our employees. We can’t meander into flights of fancy just to explore the science. We make things that people need. And for that service, we are able to employ many thousands of people around the world. You start banking on things that people
might
want, and suddenly you’re playing with lives. What if we keep expanding into these fringe areas and nothing pays off? What then?’

Then our stock dips three points,
Payne thought to himself.

In the Fortune 500 world in which these men operated, the risk of unpopular products and unproductive facilities was ‘playing with lives’. Of course, that was nothing like his former career, where lives truly were in jeopardy.

Still, he hated the thought of possible layoffs.

As he weighed the arguments, everyone in the room turned their attention toward him. They could discuss the merits of both sides for days, but it would be fruitless to decide the preferred course of action among themselves if he had no plans to endorse their decision.

‘Jonathon,’ McCormick said gently, ‘your thoughts?’

As if on cue, the double doors of the conference room swung open and Payne’s elderly secretary shuffled into the room. In her left hand she carried Payne’s personal cell phone, which she had confiscated when he had first arrived to prevent him from playing
Angry Birds
during the meeting. In her right, she held a slip of paper.

She handed both to Payne without saying a word.

Payne read the note and instantly snapped to attention. ‘Gentlemen, I need to take this. We’ll have to continue this discussion at a later time.’ He rose from his chair and headed for his office. The secretary followed, closing the double doors of the conference room behind her. His board of directors was left to stare across the table at each other.

It wasn’t the first time he had excused himself.

And it wouldn’t be the last.

At least this time he had a valid reason.

In his mind, the name of the caller was merely a formality, since Payne could count on one hand the number of people who had his personal number. If someone from that list needed his immediate attention, he was going to take the call regardless of what it interrupted. He was a loyal person, who valued his friends and his country above all else.

However, this situation was different. Not only was Payne unfamiliar with the name on the note, but the caller had stressed that his life was in danger. Normally his secretary would have dismissed the whole thing as a prank, but there was something about the urgency in the caller’s voice that led her to believe that he was telling the truth.

‘Hello,’ Payne said as he headed toward his office. ‘This is Jon.’

‘I know this is going to sound terribly odd – I realize that – but I need you to trust me. My name is Mattias Sahlberg. I worked with your father for many years.’

‘You have my attention,’ Payne replied.

‘Your father spoke of you often. He never doubted that you would someday grow into the man that you are now. He always said you were special.’

‘I appreciate the compliment, but I’m not sure—’

‘Jonathon, I need your help. I’m being followed. Four armed men broke into my home, and now they’re searching the streets, trying to locate me.’

‘Where are you?’

Sahlberg ignored the question. ‘Meet me at the upper end of the Monongahela Incline in twenty minutes. Can I trust you to do that?’

‘Sir, if you’re in some sort of trouble, I can send the police.’

‘No police. Neither of us wants that.’

‘Neither of whom? You and me, or is someone else with you?’

‘Please. The incline. Twenty minutes.’ Sahlberg looked down at his clothing. ‘I’m wearing khaki pants and a blue shirt. Please, I need your help.’