But he hadn’t hit any roadblocks. Quite the opposite in fact. AJ had tenaciously dug his way into a pharaoh’s tomb of microbiological findings, and for the past eighteen months he had been cataloguing the treasure. His rookie success had made him somewhat of a pariah on campus — celebrated by some, loathed by others, and envied by all. Even the tenured faculty could not help but take notice of his groundbreaking success. The stars had aligned for August Jameson Archer, and he knew it.
“Hey AJ,” called a grad student, standing in the doorway to his lab. “There’s some guy here to see you.”
He swiveled around on his stool. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Some old guy. He’s in Tim’s office, and I get the impression Tim knows him.”
AJ paused at the threshold of his faculty advisor’s office door. He peered through the narrow gap between the mostly closed door and doorframe at a man in a dark blue suit talking with his mentor of the past five years. The stranger was facing away from the door, so only the back of his jacket and a neatly trimmed head of pepper-grey hair were visible. Whoever he was, he wasn’t from academia; his clothes screamed Wall Street, not college campus.
The professor caught a glance of AJ loitering in the hallway and motioned with his hand, come in.
“AJ, I have someone here who would like to meet you,” said Tim, gesturing toward the other man.
“Jack Briggs,” said the man in the blue suit, extending his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, August.”
“Call me AJ or Archer. Nobody calls me August except for my grandfather, and he has to, because it’s his name and he can’t bring himself to admit he hates it too,” AJ said, shaking Jack Briggs’ hand.
“Fair enough. You can call me Briggs,” said Briggs, taking a seat. “Tim tells me you’ve recently finished your dissertation, and that you’ve accepted a postdoc position at Stanford in the fall. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. It’ll be a big change from my life here in Boston, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.” AJ paused, and an awkward silence filled the room. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Briggs?”
Briggs made eye contact with AJ. “I match talent with problems.”
AJ shot him a quizzical look. “You mean like a headhunter?”
“Not exactly. Think of me as a recruiter.”
AJ looked to Tim. “Tim, how do you know Mr. Briggs?”
“Oh, Jack and I go way back. I do consulting work for his firm, from time to time,” Tim replied with an unusual nostalgic tone to his voice.
“Are you here to recruit me, Mr. Briggs?”
“Yes,” Briggs said plainly.
“But I’ve already accepted the position at Stanford. I’m not interested in the private sector.”
“Why do you assume this pertains to the private sector?”
“Your expensive suit. Your Piaget wristwatch.”
“I trained him to be observant,” Tim interjected with a chuckle.
“I’d expect nothing less,” Briggs said, and then turned his attention back to AJ. His gaze intensified. “I should probably clarify. I’m not asking you to give up your job at Stanford. I’m looking to fill a temporary position. It’s an exigency, so to speak, in need of prompt analytical attention from an individual with your specific skill set. When the assignment is complete, you would be free to return to your old life.”
AJ lowered an eyebrow. Old life? The conversation was unorthodox, but Jack Briggs had piqued his interest. “What kind of work would I be doing?”
“The same type of work you’ve been doing here. Investigating immunological response.”
“Where?”
“At a lab here in Boston, mostly. There may be some travel and field work involved though.”
“When would I start?”
“Tomorrow.”
AJ ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair. “Tomorrow? Ahhhh, I can’t just drop everything I’m in the middle of…” He then began to ramble. “I’m running a new sample batch, there’s the class I’m teaching, I still have to plan my move, I’m—”
Briggs held up his hand. Stop. The gesture was so abrupt, so deliberate that AJ didn’t realize he’d stopped speaking in mid-sentence. Like a general in the military silencing a subordinate, Briggs had commanded his complete surrender. Briggs reached into his suit jacket pocket and retrieved a business card and ink pen. He scribbled $50,000 on the back of the card and handed it to AJ.
AJ flipped the card over, and he stared at it.
“What is this?”
“That’s my offer.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like someone who kids?” said Briggs and then added, “Half now, half when the work is done.”
“But you said I would only be working for you temporarily, until I go to Stanford.”
“That’s right.”
“This is…” AJ stammered.
“A lot of money?” Briggs interjected.
“Yeah.”
“Obviously, my firm thinks your talent warrants this measure of compensation. And that’s net, by the way. We’ll gross it up to cover the income taxes.”
AJ looked at his advisor and friend for validation.
Tim raised his eyebrows, as if to say: You’re on your own, kid.
AJ flipped the card over in his fingers. He found himself reflecting on the quality of last night’s dinner of ramen noodles mixed with canned tuna. Without warning, the image morphed. Suddenly he was at a five-star restaurant, dining on seared sushi-grade ahi, served on a bed of rice noodles, and topped with a pineapple ginger sauce. He was dressed in Jack Briggs’ suit and wearing Jack Briggs’ Swiss watch. He smiled. He was handing the valet a paper ticket to pull his new BMW…
“I’m afraid I need your decision, AJ. The project kickoff meeting is tomorrow,” Briggs pressed. “If your answer is no, then this is goodbye. I have another candidate to interview at Harvard Medical School this afternoon.”
AJ blinked twice. “What if the project runs over, and I have to leave for Stanford before the work is finished? What if I don’t find you the answers in time?”
“Then you keep the upfront money and we depart amicably. That sometimes happens when life and business intersect. We don’t hold grudges,” Briggs said.
AJ rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrists and made a noise that was half sigh, half grunt. “Okay, I’m in.”
“Very good. Meet me at the park bench by the ‘Make Way for Ducklings’ sculpture in the Boston Public Garden tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp. We’ll walk to the office together.”
“Okay, I know the spot.”
The two men shook hands, and then AJ looked at Tim.
“I’ll catch up with you later, AJ. Jack and I have some other matters to discuss before he goes,” Tim said.
“Oh, and Archer, don’t be late,” Briggs said.
“Okay. Thank you. I won’t. I mean, I’ll see you at eight,” AJ stammered.
He fought to suppress a giddy grin as he left the room. Fifty-thousand dollars for two months’ work! He couldn’t wait to see the look on his girlfriend’s face when he told her. Her jaw would drop to the floor. A celebration dinner was in order tonight. Five-star, of course.
As he strutted down the hall, he flipped the business card over to look at the front side.
It was a strange business card. No company name. No address. No contact details whatsoever… just a name, title, and an image of a bee.
“Recruiter,” he muttered. “Recruiter for what?”