The Lights of Tenth Street (28 page)

“I don’t have the energy to fight right now.”

“But I’m not fighting you. I’m mad
for
you!”

Doug closed his eyes. “I need to go chill for a while. I’m going to go watch the news.”

“But—”

Doug shook his head. “Please, Sherry.”

“Fine.” Sherry began moving the piles of paper off the table, her motions jerky. “Go watch TV. Dinner’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks.”

Sherry watched Doug disappear into the den, her emotions roiling.

Why did he never want to talk about these things? Why was he always shutting her out? She wasn’t stupid—she had a Harvard degree, too! She could see what was going on at the company, and had had it up to
here
with Jordan. The nice house and the cars weren’t worth it. She wouldn’t mind if Doug transferred to another job tomorrow. She just wanted her husband back—her fun loving, kind, generous husband who tossed the kids in the air when he came home and gave her a big kiss.

The man who came home these days was tense and worried, and kept things inside.

She stood at the stove, stirring a pot of spaghetti, tears leaking down her cheeks. She loved her husband, but what had happened to their fun, their little touches of love? They shared a house, shared a bed, but she hardly knew what was going on in his head anymore. Why would he never share it with her? Didn’t he love her anymore?

Late that night, Doug lay awake, staring at the ceiling. He’d been unable to sleep over the sound of Sherry sniffling next to him. He knew she’d been crying, and felt helpless to know how to fix it. He knew he was at fault somehow, but didn’t know what he’d done or how to change it back.

He had tried to move to her side of the bed, to stroke her hair, to run his hand over her back, but she had stiffened. He had retreated, hurt and confused.

Now she was asleep, and he was staring at the ceiling at one-thirty in the morning. The board meeting loomed like a large dead-end in the morning. He tried to pray, but his thoughts felt like lead.

He slipped out of bed, put on a sweatshirt, and closed the bedroom door behind him. A long bonus room downstairs had been converted to a home office the week they had moved in. He closed the French doors behind him.

Within minutes he was looking at a spreadsheet of the family’s expenses, and wincing.

He went online to look at the last few months of credit card bills and shook his head. Why did Sherry feel the need to buy all this
stuff
with his hard-earned money? They were going to have to have a long, hard talk in the morning.

He still wasn’t tired.

A small, buried thought kept trying to rise up, and Doug kept pushing it down. It knocked again, and finally got to the surface.

You’re all alone, and everyone is asleep
 …

His stomach twisted in anticipation. He typed in a Web address, almost shaking when he heard the music, saw the first pictures. He quickly entered a credit card number. One of his credit cards; a bill that Sherry never opened.

He was all alone, and everyone was asleep.

The website was flooded with credit card numbers; tens of thousands a night. Each time a customer paid with plastic, a signal was routed to the credit card company.

But they also went somewhere else; a large prewar building in Atlanta staffed
with a trusted team of analysts. Every transaction was captured and analyzed. Possible targets were profiled, reports compiled. It was tedious work, but every now and then there was an immediate payoff.

An analyst’s computer chimed as several transactions came in, one right after the other. With a yawn, he opened the necessary screen, looked at the most recent transactions, and sat up straight. He looked again and called his supervisor over.

There were two credit cards listed: one was from a satellite engineer in the Washington, D.C., suburbs; the other was from Doug Turner. Both were on-line at that moment.

The supervisor smiled and picked up the phone. Sometimes, people just made it too easy.

Down in the islands, Tyson listened for a moment, a satisfied smile on his face. He clicked his phone shut and looked at the others, then pointed at the short list on the table in front of him.

“Well, we got two of our targets again tonight. We’re now over 50 percent of our first target list. Since we have redundancies built in, I’d say we pull the trigger and get started. The timings perfect.”

One of the older men nodded. “I agree. We can alter the plan as we go, if a necessary piece is absent. We need to start bringing in cash flow now.” His face was hard. “And there are many other means of achieving our objective, if simple persuasion is ineffective.”

Tyson shook his head. “Maybe later. Other methods are likely to draw attention and suspicion. We
must not
trigger any profiling or any law enforcement activity, or our best customer prospects will disappear. The whole point of these operations is that because they are being set up under the radar, using domestic resources, that they will be a complete surprise.”

The older man’s eyes narrowed. “Then what happens if one of our targets refuses? Will that send a whole project down the drain?”

“Maybe not down the drain, but we might have to move to a different project for a while.” Tyson held up a sheaf of paper. “Look, you’ve seen the list. Any customer would pay big money for any one of these projects; very few will care which one is actually triggered.”

“And when is your big meeting with our first prospect?”

“Tomorrow at noon. They’re flying in as we speak, using a regular courier run to the islands as cover. They need to be out by the usual departure time of five o’clock so as not to arouse suspicion. You never know who’s watching.”

“If someone could be watching, how will you be able to meet with them without drawing attention to
you?
”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll find out tomorrow.” Tyson shrugged. “Proxy set the whole thing up. He put out the feelers and got the bite. He assured me it’s been worked out.”

There were a couple of raised eyebrows around the table, but nobody disagreed. Proxy’s track record was almost perfect. It had become natural for these hardened operatives to place complete trust in someone they didn’t know, and had never actually seen.

D
oug rose in the morning, his eyes heavy with lack of sleep. Not a great way to go into the board meeting.

A parade of images from the dark hours accompanied him as he found his robe and pulled on a pair of slippers. He feebly tried to push them away, and headed downstairs for coffee.

Sherry was already in the kitchen, busy around the coffeepot. She turned when he walked in and gave him a long hug.

“I’m sorry.” She rested her head on his chest. Her voice was soft. “I’m so sorry I made you upset last night. I didn’t mean to be confrontational … I just get so mad at those guys sometimes. I’m so proud of you, and I just want them to appreciate what they have in you.”

She gave him another squeeze, then looked up into his face. “I know you’ll do the right thing at the board meeting today.” She smiled and turned back to the coffeepot.

Doug straightened. He should tell her that he might be fired, should ask her advice. It wasn’t fair to her otherwise. He stepped toward her and opened his mouth.

She turned from the countertop, two steaming mugs in hand. “So, sweetheart, how’d you sleep? I noticed that you’d gone downstairs.”

“How’d you know I went downstairs?”

She gave him a curious look. “Well, you weren’t upstairs and I assumed you were catching up on some work in your office.”

“Oh—right. Actually, not just work but looking at our family budget. That kind of thing. Bank statements on-line; you know. All that stuff.”

It was getting late. He needed to get a shower and get on the road. He took a few sips from the coffee mug and escaped up the stairs.

The chief operating officer was waiting for him when he got to the office. He was sitting in Doug’s chair, his feet up on Doug’s desk, smoking a cigar.

Doug hurried into his office and halted in surprise.

“Hey. What’s up?”

The COO blew out a long breath and smoke curled around his head. “Come in and close the door.”

Doug hung up his coat and glanced at his watch. “I’ve only got a few minutes, and I’ve still got a few things to do for the meeting.”

“Close the door, Doug.”

His voice was calm and cold, and Doug’s skin crawled. He slowly closed the door.

“Sit down in that chair.” The COO pointed at the chair in front of Doug’s desk. “Good. Now. We need to have a little chat before the board meeting.”

“Look, if Jordan put you up to this, I just want to go on record to say that—”

“There will be no going on the record here. What I have to say to you is between you and me. Nobody else will know.”

His colleague calmly pressed a few keys on the computer’s keyboard. “I’d like you to see something.” He turned the monitor toward Doug and hit “enter.” The screen went black then flickered to life. Sleazy music blared out. A video of the inside of a strip club began to play, and the camera focused in on one person in the crowd.

Doug grabbed the arms of the chair, sure he was about to vomit.

The COO watched him carefully as he pressed another series of keys.

Doug’s voice came out husky. “Stop … please …”

Another scene was played, and then another. Dates and times flashed across the screen, dates and times when he was supposed to have been at work … when Sherry was in bed. Trusting Sherry. A wife he adored, who loved and trusted him implicitly.

O God, O God
 … Doug closed his eyes, but they flew open again when the music changed. A screen flew by, a graphic of a credit card—with Doug’s name on it—being paid into an innocent-looking computer. The screen crackled to life with a date and a time, and Doug realized it was showing the wee hours of that very morning. A parade of images began—exactly as he had seen it downstairs in his office. Every scene, every picture in its ghastly, brutal explicitness. Every key stroke, captured. Every perverted desire, graphically laid bare.

O God, O God
 … Doug grabbed the trash can and vomited up his breakfast. What would Sherry say? She’d never understand. How could any woman understand? What would the church say? He’d lose his friends, his family. His kids. Everything he had.

O God, O God, have mercy
 …

A cold voice broke into his despair.

“No one has to see this, Doug.” The COO was leaning back in Doug’s chair again, watching as Doug cleaned off his mouth and sat back down, shaking.

“What do you want?” Doug forced his mouth to work. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m doing this because I need you to cooperate. Because I have a lot of money at stake, and I don’t intend to lose it. Because you and your stupid ideals are throwing a wrench into some carefully laid plans. And I don’t intend to let that happen.”

He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together on the desktop, the perfect picture of reason. “So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to tell the board today that you fully approve of the Silicon Valley deal. You’re going to tell them that it’s the best thing for the company, and that we can’t afford to lose all the money and time and effort that has already been expended on the project. You will fight off every objection, overcome every concern. They will listen to you and approve the deal.”

Doug tried to sound calm. “What then?”

“You’ll come back to your desk and work for the company like a good boy for as long as I tell you to. You will not quit, and you will not mention this little conversation to anyone—inside or outside the company. You’re a highly skilled CFO, and I need you as long as you don’t let your idealism get the best of you. I intend to ensure that that never presents a problem again. From time to time, I may ask you to approve a particular deal, green light a given project. You will squelch these nitpicky negatives you keep coming up with, look at the big picture, and stop trying to sabotage my efforts.”

Doug closed his eyes again, and then tried to sit up straighter in his chair, grasping its arms for support. “You know that I can’t … I won’t … do anything illegal. It’s one thing to approve a deal I disapprove of fiscally. It’s another thing to get into an activity that could land me in jail.”

The COO puffed out a few smoke rings. “Highly moral words, Doug.” His eyes traveled to the now-blank computer monitor. “Funny that they come from the same man I saw on that screen, tipping a whore.”

“What my personal problems are is none of your business.”

“Oh, but I’m making it my business.”

“Obviously.” Doug clenched his jaw. “What I’m trying to say is that if I have a personal struggle that I’m dealing with, that’s a matter of my conscience. It’s another thing entirely to commit fraud or do something illegal. I will not do that, no matter what the consequences.”

“Well, well. The man of steel comes out.” The COO stared at him, a half-smile on his face.

Doug stared back, trying to relax. His colleague suddenly stood up, placing the
cigar on his ashtray. He walked around to the front of the desk and perched on it, staring down at Doug. Without warning, his face relaxed into a smile.

“I’m glad I have your attention, but you’re taking this far too seriously. I’m not talking about anything illegal. Not remotely close to it. I don’t have the same moral qualms as you, but I don’t want the cops hounding me. I stay within the law because it’s too inconvenient not to. However, what I
am
talking about is you getting back to the job of being the kind of CFO that this company needs. I have my own side interests that depend on some of these deals, and I don’t intend to let your idealism flush all my money down the drain.”

Doug sat still for a moment, trying to force the words out. “What will you do with that … that …”

“That highly instructive video presentation has been made into a CD-ROM, which will remain in my possession indefinitely. If I find that you have talked to
anyone
about this—inside or outside the company—I will personally ensure that copies find their way to your wife, your church, your alumni association, your professional association, and anyone else that you care about.”