The Ties That Bind (23 page)

This last part was directed my way. I nodded sheepishly.

"And that takes care of that. Actually it was all pretty straightforward, and you were right, it did help that you have had de facto custody of Caspian for almost a year. Considering the Grey's have no other relatives that seem interested in taking them, this solved a problem for CPS. They had no interest in adding more kids to the system, and were more than happy to jump at an easy solution.”

Tina looked a bit relieved. I know she was worried about Margret still, but things had been hard at home for a while. I think somewhere, deep inside, she was happy about being able to escape that environment.

"I actually have something else," Jonathan said, talking over the conversations that had started after his last pronouncement. "This is business related however.”

"I don't hold anything back from this group," I told him.

He shrugged and continued, "Ok. I received a call from the CEO of MilTech. He wants you to meet with him.”

"About what," I said, surprised.

"He said he wanted to clear up everything that has happened. For some background, I turned the key over to the police over a week ago, and I know the room was searched. It is almost certain they have approached MilTech about this already.”

"So what do you think he wants," Mom asked, concern thick in her voice.

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't think you should do it. He made it clear he was only interested in speaking to you … CEO to CEO. I don't think he knows your age, or really anything about you.”

"Could it be dangerous?" Mom asked.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. If they planned something they wouldn't leave a trail through Cas's lawyer leading right to them.”

"Set up the meeting," I said.

"Cas, I don't think …" he started to protest.

"I know," I said cutting him off. "Please set up the meeting. I think you're right, he isn't planning anything, at least not overt. He might be planning on threatening me, but then at least we have some information to go on. Right now we are flying blind.”

"All right, if that's what you want, I'll set up a meeting for you Monday morning with Mr. Baxter," he said standing up and picking up the documents Mom had signed. "I need to get back to the office. I will have these filed Monday morning, and then I'll let you know when the hearing is scheduled.”

Jonathan had called with information on the meeting the next day. Their offices were in Washington D.C., which wasn't surprising considering what they did. We scheduled plane tickets for Mom and me to fly to D.C. and spend the night, since the meeting was at nine the next morning. Zoe and Tina had worked out that they would spend a few days at Vicki's house. Since we were on the CPS radar, thanks to the custody documents, we felt it best if there was always adult supervision around.

Thankfully school was over, so we didn't have to worry about scheduling around that. Looking back I was a bit surprised we had managed to make it through the year and still hold our grades up, considering how much had happened this year.

I talked Mom into waiting at a nearby coffee shop. It would be hard enough convincing them I was serious, without having my adult guardian standing over my shoulder. I walked into the office building that was apparently entirely owned by MilTech and gave them my name. While I waited I saw her glancing my way several times, and I had the distinct impression that she thought this was some kind of mistake. I had to show her my ID, which since I didn't drive yet was a school ID, which probably made the situation worse.

Still, after a few minutes, someone who looked not much older than me (but who was probably in his early twenties), came and ushered me to the top floor. My guide dropped off in a plush waiting room, guarded by another secretary. She however didn't ask me any questions, instead showing me through the double door leading to the inner office.

Inside was a man I would guess was in his mid-forties who stood up to great me as I entered.

"Caspian, glad you agreed to meet with me," he said.

He actually sounded sincere. Even though I had tried to play off concerns with Jonathan, Mom, and the girls, I was more actually fairly concerned about this meeting.

"No problem," I said trying to play it as mellow as possible until I knew what his angle was.

"Let's get down to it," he said as he gestured at one of the padded chairs opposite his desk. I was surprised when he sat at the accompanying chair, instead of behind his impressive desk.

"The police contacted me early last week about some activities at your offices and information they found that tied to my company," he continued after sitting.

"The evidence is pretty damning.”

"Yes, I know. And I want you to know we have been cooperating fully with the police. This is not how I do business; and, regardless of what the police come up with, I plan on doing a little house cleaning.”

"I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Baxter …”

"Call me Aaron, please," he said interrupting me.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Aaron, but sending armed men after your competitors is not a first step. This is something that has built up over time.”

"I think you may be right. I know this is a common sentiment from someone sitting in my chair, but I was as astonished about this as you were.”

"I doubt that," I said with a snort.

"Ok, maybe not as astonished as you were, but it still shocked me that this kind of thing could happen in my company. I won't lie and say I don't support aggressive business tactics, but within the law! I knew we were lobbying against your efforts to get your drone picked up by the DOD, and I won't apologize for that. It's how business is played at this stage. However, I did
not
know about the attempts at stealing your work product, or sending armed men after you! I would have stopped it had I known about it.”

"I hope that is true, for your sake. The police have good evidence against you, and we have made suggestions to the department of justice to look into your past dealings for similar activities. They seemed interested. If you were involved, you might be looking at a much different office in the near future.

"There won't be anything for them to find, but I welcome any investigations," he said with a frown. "One of the reasons I invited you here was to offer you my apologies for what happened.”

"Thank you," I said tersely.

"Considering your life was put in danger by what happened, I didn't hold out much hope that my apology would amount to much, but I wanted to make it all the same.”

"And the other reason?" I asked.

"Right, because I said one reason. You are sharp. What information we have on you suggested you were much smarter than most people give you credit for, due mostly to your age. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about, is a business proposition.”

"Seriously?" I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

"Yes, I know how that sounds. Just hear me out. Whoever sent those thugs after you had one thing correct. Your product is something my company very much needs to have. We have looked over your patent filings, and my engineers believe some of your innovations will be worth serious money. Not just to our own intelligence community, but to those of foreign governments as well, or at least those we are allowed to sell military tech to.”

"You saw our patents? I thought those were under some kind of classified status with the DOD?" I said surprised. According to Marcus and Ted, since we were building intelligence apparatus for the government, most of our designs and patents around that equipment were classified. It was one of the reasons for the safe for our documents.

"You aren't the only one with friends in procurement." he said with a smile. "I want you to go back to your partners. I am prepared to purchase your drone technology, and considering the situation we find ourselves in, I believe you might end up with the upper hand in these negotiations.”

"Why would we sell to you?" I asked.

"Several reasons. One is you are not set up for this, not to take it to the level it will end up going. You are a small boutique shop. You just don't have the infrastructure. Also, from what my sources tell me, you have other projects in the works that are non military in nature. Projects that will require a good deal of funding if what I am told is right.”

"Your investigators seem to have dug up a lot on us. Hopefully they will be as thorough when looking into the actions of your own employees.”

"They will be. I shouldn't say anything, but you will be seeing some things very soon that should back me up on that. So, will you take this to your partner's.”

"Yes. That's the best I can offer.”

"It's all I ask. Your lawyer has my information. Have them call my office and we can start negotiating. I look forward to working with you and I hope the first impression you have of my company won't stick with you. We have some bad apples to be sure, but you can trust me.

"Right," I said with a derisive snort. I hadn't actually planned on responding, but it sort of slipped out.

"Point taken. But you can work with me. And in business that is more important.”

We said our goodbyes and I followed the reverse course back to the lobby, where I met up with Mom.

"So, what did he want?" Mom asked as we walked out to our rental car. "Threats to get the police to back off?”

"No, he said he was cooperating. What he wanted is to buy our drone technology.”

"Really?”

"Yeah.”

"Are you going to do it?”

"I have no idea. I will take the offer to Marcus, Jonathan and Ted. We will probably loop Charles Green into the conversation. If we do decide to go through with selling our drone patent, he is the guy to do the negotiating.”

"Is this a real offer; or is he just messing with you guys, and trying to buy some good will?”

"I have no idea," I said, and I really didn't.

When we got back home from D.C., everyone was excited and wanted to find out what happened. Sadly there wasn't much I could tell them. I got Marcus, Jonathan, Charles Green, and an exceptionally skeptical Ted to get in contact with Mr. Baxter. I wasn't holding my breath about that, however. He seemed pretty sincere, but they had sent armed gunmen after us, so 'sincerity' didn't really count for much.

I checked in with Alex to find out if there was any news about Margret, as well. Nothing great on that front either. She was the same, and Alex said again that she was extremely skeptical that Margret would ever recover. The one bright point was that Tina was settling in nicely.

I knew she was concerned about Margret, but I hadn't thought she was truly unhappy about her home situation until I saw the difference between the girl now living with us, and the Tina from just a few weeks before. Some part of me was a little happy that things had worked out this way, letting Tina escape from what had clearly been a stressful and emotionally exhausting home life.

We used the lull in activities to start planning our summer vacation. Emily was still out, so it looked like right now it would be the girls, Megan, Sarah, Tina, Mom and me all heading out for a summer vacation together. We had decided to go on one of the big cruise lines that were based out of Galveston. It was close enough to drive so all we needed were the tickets for the cruise itself, making logistics pretty easy. Tami was working on getting her parents to bend and let Judy come along, so Tina would have someone to pal around with. Mom was footing the bill, couching it as one of my birthday presents. We were all pretty excited about it, although I wished that Emily were coming with us.

Since I returned from D.C., Emily hadn't been around much and I was starting to get a little worried. Even when she was around, she had started to pull away from me, retreating back into her shell a little, which I took as a bad sign. I had made a few trips to her house, and didn't see anything overt. There were no new marks of abuse to hint at things starting up again. Her dad had made himself scarce the times I had visited, so it was hard to read the dynamic, but the hairs on the back of my neck were telling me something wasn't quite right.

Sadly, there was nothing I could really do. I had already taken a risk once meddling in her family affairs and still didn't know what the full effects of that would be. I didn't want to go wading into her family dynamics again unless I absolutely had to.

Thankfully I finally managed to find something to ease my worrying over Emily, and my guilt over Margret. In the early evening a week after we got back from D.C., I got a call from Jonathan to turn on the TV to the national news. Tina and the girls were all watching some show and I got a chorus of discontent when I grabbed the controller from them and switched the channel. Once the words of the broadcast sunk in, they all became as focused as I was.

… rteen employees were taken out of the offices of MilTech Limited today in handcuffs. Agents from the FBI and Department of Defense were seen taking computers, files, and boxes of documents… along with the men… shortly after a mid-morning raid on the company's offices.

The video showed men in shirts and ties with suit jackets draped over their heads being escorted out by agents with windbreakers that declared the government agency they worked for on the back. In the background other agents could be seen hauling box and other supplies out of the building.

The scene on the TV then switched to a man I didn't recognize standing in front of several microphones. The newscaster explained that he was the head of marketing for the company, and that he had made a statement moments after the arrest. They then proceeded to air part of that statement.

"The arrests today of members of MilTech's management staff are part of an ongoing investigation that MilTech has been cooperating with. We recently learned of a manifold of crimes by some of our employees, including extortion, bribery, and attempted murder. As soon as we learned of these crimes MilTech took proactive steps to ensure the culprits were brought to justice, and has worked hand in hand with Federal agents to achieve this goal. We want to make it clear that the actions of these men and women arrested are not indicative of the type of behavior we at MilTech condone. In addition to working with the authorities we are also reaching out to the parties wronged by these individuals. While we cannot name the parties affected by an ongoing investigation, we make a promise today that MilTech will take responsibility and corrective action for our employee’s wrong doing. We are also opening our books to the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense, for a total audit of our company. It is our hope that this proves that we are operating, and will continue to operate, in good faith. It is the goal of everyone at MilTech to supply the equipment needed by our brave soldiers around the world. We will take every step available to put this episode behind us and focus on what really matters. The men and women in uniform. Thank you.”

I handed the controller back to Tami and called Jonathan back.

"Holy cow," I said as soon as he picked up.

"Yeah, I know. Aaron called me personally to let me know what was happening, and said that this was the part of an offer he wanted to make us. He already talked to Ted and Marcus as well, and is flying here. We have a meeting scheduled in the morning.”

"So this is serious? He is going to make a legitimate offer on our patents?" I asked.

"It seems so," Jonathan said. "Even Ted is convinced. I know we haven't been bugging you with the details of the negotiations, but this could be serious. So far it has all been preliminary, going over what the sale would cover and what they would need from us. Charles told them we wouldn't sell for less than five hundred million, which I thought was a stretch. But he swears that when you figure in the sales to NATO allies, it could be worth a lot more that that.”

"Wow, that is a lot of money," I said, stunned. "That would really open up things for us.”

"Without a doubt. It is clear he is going to make his offer tomorrow, so we should all be there.”

"Count me in. See you in the morning.”

I walked back into the living room like a zombie, completely stunned.

"Cas, are you ok?" Zoe asked, looking over at me concerned.

"I really don't know," I said.

"What happened?" Tami asked.

"I think tomorrow MilTech is going to offer us five hundred million dollars for our patents.”

The room went dead silent for a moment, then exploded in loud noises. Some of it was questions directed at me, questions I couldn't hear because of the squealing and jumping up and down Tina and Vicki were doing.

Eventually everyone calmed down enough for Zoe to ask, "Is this for real?”

"Yeah, we think so. But I guess we'll know for sure in the morning.”

I could barely sleep that night and was at the office a full hour before the meeting. So early in fact that Zoe, who had driven me, and I were the first ones there.

"Is this for real?" I asked Ted when he came in, echoing Zoe's question from the night before.

"It seems to be. Trust me, I was as skeptical as anyone, but everything seems on the up and up. As he promised, we saw his first real gesture, yesterday," Ted said, putting his stuff away.

Ted was the last one to arrive, as we had all agreed to arrive early for a pre-meeting pow-wow.

"So you think the five hundred million is a fair price," I asked Charles.

"I do. Stealth is the big thing in military technology right now. The innovations that Marcus made can be used as a stepping stone outside of drones. Once you consider it's long range value, in addition to the actual sales of drones to both the US government and allies that we would be allowed to sell this kind of material to, I think it's fair.”

He paused for a moment before continuing, "Actually it's a little under what I think the real value of this is, but I think it was the smart play. It's high enough that they know it's a real number, but a bargain that hopefully MilTech will want to jump at.”

"It sounds like you think we should sell this off, even if we get less than full market value for our tech," I asked.

"We all talked about that in the earlier meetings, and I do. You guys just aren't set up for this kind of thing. Contracting to the government is a very specific specialty, and honestly you lucked into what you originally got. The odds of your selling a second product are not good. No, you want to get out of the military contracting business.”

"Ok, that makes sense. I have been wanting to move us to more humanitarian projects, or at least humanitarian adjacent. I just didn't want to leave money on the table.”

"Trust me," Charles said, "I think it's worth leaving forty cents out of every dollar on the table if you can step away. Besides the infrastructure, there are political aspects you haven't had to deal with yet, that you will really want to avoid. It's worth the loss of some money upfront, to keep from dropping money down rabbit holes later.”

"Ok, so we are all agreed, as long as he is in the ballpark, we take the deal," I said to the room in general.

Everyone gave their agreement, which was good since that was the moment Mr. Baxter showed up. Mary Ann announced him over the intercom in Ted's phone, who told her to send Mr. Baxter back.

He shook everyone's hand when he entered the room saying, "Was that proof enough to our commitment to make this right with you?”

"It was an excellent first step," Jonathan said.

Always the negotiator. Maybe it's my youthful naïveté or the fact that I wasn't part of the negotiations over the last week, but I was blown away by their proof of commitment. Wisely, I held my tongue.

"Excellent," Baxter said, unfazed by Jonathan's wording. "So let's make this quick, since we have already gone over the details for what you would be willing to sell. We are talking about the drone patents, along with the accompanying patents for the internal mountings and electronics. Also the design schematics, and all ancillary work product connected to the patents in question”

Jonathan looked in Ted's direction, who gave a single assenting nod.

"Correct," Jonathan said.

"Excellent. I have spoken with my board of directors and we are prepared to offer you this in return," Baxter said as he handed a folded piece of paper to Ted.

Ted opened it, and his jaw dropped. I was surprised. Normally, Ted holds a pretty tight poker face in meetings. He handed the paper to Jonathan, who showed no reaction at all, at least none that I could see. Next the paper moved to me and I unfolded it.

Seven-Hundred and Fifty Million!

I couldn't believe it. We were prepared to take anything in the ballpark of Charles's estimate, and they instead added half again the value. Sadly, I followed Ted's example, rather than Jonathan's. I am sure the look of surprise on my face was readily apparent.

I handed the paper onto Charles who, after opening it, said, "This should work. I am curious how you arrived at this figure?”

"You mean you are curious why I just offered to pay you significantly more than you asked for, and why my board would do something as crazy as agree with this?”

"Something like that," Charles replied.

"Three reasons," Baxter said holding three fingers up, and ticking them off as he explained. " One, I believe even at this price we can make a handsome profit in the long run. I wanted a tangible expression of the company, and by extension, my feelings towards what happened to you. Two, this is part of the remuneration we are making in the wake of our former employee's actions. Sadly, you weren't the only people who were treated this way, only the most recent.”

"And three, because of the buzz," he said pointing at me.

"The buzz?" I asked, confused.

"Yes. I know you guys are a little isolated out here. But there is a buzz in the engineering community. First it was Marcus's idea you were key to making a reality. You allotted a set amount of every engineer's time, to allow them to work on their dream projects. You took an engineer that, prior to working for you, had shopped his desalination project to five companies, all of whom turned him down, and found a way to fund him. Without any history of government contracts you managed to get a project picked up by the DOD. No one does that!  

"Engineers are talking about this small start-up in Texas and how they are going to do big things. Maybe next year, maybe in five years, you guys are going to stumble across something else where we may intersect, and I want to be the first guy you think of calling, to make a deal or a partnership. So I will admit that this is a mercenary tactic on my part, but one that I hope works.

"There will be a chance for us to work together in the future. I am greasing the wheels, now, to ensure that it happens.”

I looked at each of my partners, unsure of what to say, and they all looked back to me equally as stunned.

Baxter stood and said, "I know it's a lot to digest, but I am betting you still take the deal. I will have my legal team get with you and work out the contracts for the sale. I have already told them I want this to happen quickly. I have to catch a plane back to D.C., but it was good meeting with you all.”