Jack knew that the senator’s Southern charm hid a ruthless instinct for weakness and a fishmonger’s skill for hard bargains. He needed to tread carefully.
“We’re supposed to start the new training module in Colorado next week. I can’t miss it.”
“John assures me that you’re not missing anything significant, and he’ll brief you when you get back.”
“I don’t want to let the team down. If I’m in Singapore and they get the call, I can’t be there for them.” Jack took a sip of coffee. “Or is that the point?”
“Look, you’re reading way more into this thing than you need to. It’s a job and I need you to do it. That’s all. If I wanted you off The Campus, you’d be off, right?”
“Yeah, for sure.” Having once lost his place on the team before winning it back, Jack worried he could lose it again. He hoped this white-side assignment wasn’t the first gentle shove out the Campus door.
Hendley tore off another piece of his blueberry muffin. “I understand that an analytical assignment in Singapore isn’t a shoot-’em-up. I can only imagine the adrenaline rush that kind of thing must be.”
“It’s not just that. It’s about playing my part on the team.”
“Which team? You work for Hendley Associates and The Campus. We’re all one big team. You have different roles to play on both sides of the company because you have more than one talent. Not everyone in The Campus can do what you do.”
“Thanks.”
“But there’s a bigger picture here I don’t think you’re seeing. Do you know the old proverb ‘For want of a nail’?”
Jack remembered it vaguely. He recited it once while at St. Matthew’s Academy. “‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the rider was lost.’”
Hendley held up a finger. “Ah! And for want of the rider, the battle was lost, and then the kingdom was lost. Sometimes you get to swing the sword in battle, but sometimes you’re just mucking the stalls — God knows I did enough of that back on the farm. But they’re all important parts to play, and we must each play them. Jack, I need you to play this part for Rhodes.”
Jack felt Hendley was still hiding something. He didn’t want to let Hendley down, but he didn’t want to let the operators of The Campus down, either. He was torn.
“Jack, you know you’ve earned everyone’s respect around here, especially The Campus. You always show up to do the job, no matter what is asked of you. I’m asking you to see that this is your job, too.”
Hendley stood, scraping his chair against the tiled floor. “Take an hour and think about it and let me know your decision.”
“I don’t need the hour, Gerry. Of course I’ll do it.”
Hendley smiled broadly. “Great. Trust me, it’ll be more fun than you know. And it’s a good chance for you to get to know Paul. He can be a hard egg to crack, but he’s a good man.”
More like a soft-boiled egg, Jack thought. But Gerry Hendley didn’t make suggestions lightly.
Hendley turned around and caught someone’s eye across the room. In a moment he was over at another table, joking and glad-handing like he was running for county commissioner.
Jack got a sinking feeling. He would rather jump out of an airplane than spend it sitting next to a man whose idea of a good time most likely was watching subtitled reruns of Gunsmoke on the hotel cable channel. He didn’t exactly relish the idea of spending the next ten days in a city so uptight it outlawed chewing gum, either.
But like his dad used to say, at least he wasn’t shoveling shit in Louisiana.
12
What did you need to talk to me about?” Paul asked. He’d watched Rhodes close the door after Hendley and Jack left, then shut the curtain to the sidelight window.
Certain they were alone and unobserved, Rhodes crossed back over to Paul, who was seated in the club chair again. Rhodes took up a position directly in front of him, leaning against Hendley’s desk, towering over the heavyset accountant. The ex-senator’s instincts told him he should do a bug check to make sure no one was listening in, but Gerry Hendley was an old friend and a straight arrow, and he certainly didn’t want to spook Brown.
“Paul, everything I told Gerry and Jack before about the purpose of this assignment was absolutely true. I need you to believe that.”
“Okay.”
“And I need you to believe I really did ask for you to be on this assignment, and when I said you’re the best forensic accountant I know, I wasn’t just blowing smoke. We both know your skill set. You’re even a certified fraud examiner — perfect for this job. And we both know that CFE title isn’t an easy one to acquire.”
Paul shrugged, uncomfortable with the compliments.
“I also know you’re a man of… routine. And plucking you out of this place, out of your comfort zone and your work schedule at the last minute, and hurtling you to the other side of the planet on a moment’s notice isn’t the kind of thing you relish.”
“It’s just that I’m right in the middle of a major project, and my team—”
Rhodes raised his palm like a traffic cop, silencing him.
“You don’t need to explain yourself, Paul. You’re absolutely right. You already have important responsibilities here. And I want to assure you that you don’t have to do this thing if you don’t want to. But I know you, and if you’ll let me tell you what’s really going on, I think you’ll jump on board.”
“Okay. I’m all ears.”
Rhodes slipped into the empty club chair next to Paul — two old friends now, conspiring against the world.
“You know the Chinese are hell-bent on expanding their military forces. They’ve been increasing their defense spending by double digits for the last twenty years, and they’re not showing any signs of slowing down. Worse, their technological advances have been staggering. They seem to match us step for step in the development of stealth fighters, radar, drones — you name it. And the hell of it is, most of their technology has been stolen from us. The PLA cyberwarfare division is second to none. They let our corporations spend billions of dollars in research and development, then steal it away from them with the stroke of a key.”
Paul nodded. “It’s worrisome.”
“Well, large companies like mine have done a pretty good job lately locking things down. We suffer thousands of hack attacks every day — most of them from low-level criminals or hacktivist malcontents, but some are quite serious, particularly the state-sponsored ones. So far our firewalls and defensive measures have proven impervious, and we have new antihacking and antivirus technologies coming on soon. But like I said, we’re a multibillion-dollar technology company. We should be good at this kind of thing.
“But as you can imagine, our government is determined to keep it from happening in the first place. By and large, American companies are getting up to speed. So the Chinese government is turning its attention to smaller foreign companies. Companies like Dalfan Technologies.”
“Do you think there’s a problem?”
“Actually, no, I don’t. I’ve been over there a couple of times when we first began exploring the option of buying them up. They have a first-rate IT department. And the man who founded the company, Gordon Yeoh Fairchild, is the son of a British expat. He’s about as pro-Western as you can get in that part of the world. But we did a little digging around and we found out he’s had some business dealings with firms in Hong Kong and on the mainland.”
“So has your company,” Paul said.
“Of course we have. We’re an interconnected global economy now. Free trade benefits everyone. The challenge in this case is a little more complex. It’s one thing for us to sell a widget to a Chinese firm — even one with ties to Beijing — because that’s a simple transaction, an exchange of product for cash. But if we merge with Dalfan, that means our software, mainframe computers, cloud servers, and other IT infrastructure will intermingle. What our friends at Langley fear is that the Chinese may have already planted software and hardware at Dalfan that might be used to break through our cyberdefenses. Sort of like inviting the fox into the henhouse without even knowing it.”