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.’
A second later, the phone went dead.
Payne sat down at his desk and entered Sahlberg’s name into a program on his office computer. His company employed tens of thousands of people worldwide, in more than forty countries. This program could instantly list any and all employees, where they worked, and their entire histories with Payne Industries.
A few seconds passed before he got a result.
ZERO MATCHES.
He broadened his search to include all employees, past and present. He also tried different spellings of Sahlberg’s name, just in case. But the result didn’t change.
ZERO MATCHES.
Payne growled at his screen. Given what he was seeing, he didn’t know what to make of Sahlberg’s claim. The system had been designed by Randy Raskin, a trusted friend who also happened to be the Pentagon’s top computer genius. If his program said that no one by the name of Mattias Sahlberg had ever worked for Payne Industries, he knew it was true.
And yet …
Payne pushed back from his desk and raced to the conference room. The board was still there, still challenging each other on the best course for the company’s future. Payne ducked inside and interrupted the debate. ‘Sam, can I have a word with you?’
‘Can it wait? We’re right in the mid—’
‘Now, Sam.’
The request put McCormick in a tough position. He didn’t want to be seen as Payne’s lackey, at his beck and call — especially not in front of the entire board. However, he trusted the CEO’s judgment. He knew Payne didn’t care for the politicking in their board meetings but always respected the process. Excusing himself to take a phone call was one thing, but Payne had never asked anyone else to step away from the room. At least until now.
His curiosity piqued, McCormick nodded his agreement.
‘Excuse me,’ he said as he stood. ‘We’ll make this as quick as possible. Please, carry on.’ He followed Payne into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
‘Can they do any damage in there?’ Payne asked, only half joking.
‘To each other, maybe,’ McCormick answered, ‘but they can’t vote on anything. Not with the two of us out here.’
‘Good. Because this might take a while.’
8
McCormick’s office was on the same floor as the conference room. Payne entered first, followed by the flustered senior executive. Unsure of Payne’s intentions, McCormick closed the door for privacy then hustled to his seat behind his desk. Payne pulled a chair close. He sat down and leaned even closer, as if he were about to deliver a hushed threat, a whisper so that no one else could hear what he was about to say.
McCormick’s face turned red and he started to sweat.
‘Jonathon,’ he said defensively, ‘I thought we were of the same mind on this. Ultimately, there is nothing to gain by treading water. We must continue to push our research in new directions. Otherwise, this company will become stagnant!’
‘Relax,’ Payne said in a calming tone. ‘We’re on the same page.’
‘We are?’
‘We are.’
McCormick breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Then what did you need?’
‘You’ve been an executive here longer than anyone, myself included. How much do you know about my father’s involvement with the company?’
‘Not much. No more than what I’ve seen in the files. His name pops up every now and then when I’m running through the background on this project or that, but it’s never anything noteworthy.’ McCormick thought better of his last remark. ‘I didn’t mean that in the negative sense. I meant no disrespect. Your father was a brilliant man. He truly was. What I meant to say is that there’s nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘Ever heard of a man named Mattias Sahlberg?’
‘The name rings a bell, but I don’t know why. Who is he?’
‘He claims to be a former employee who worked with my father. But I can’t find any record of him in our system.’
‘If he’s a former employee, he might not be in the system.’
Now it was Payne’s turn to be confused. ‘I was told it covered everyone, even after they left the company. That’s not correct?’
‘It is, and it isn’t. It covers everyone who was hired after 1970. If they worked for us before that, their records haven’t been digitized yet.’
‘But do we have their records?’
‘We do. In fact, I do.’ McCormick spun his chair to face a wall of file cabinets. He patted his hand against the nearest drawer. ‘They’re all in here.’
‘Great. See if you have a file for him.’
McCormick stood, opened the drawer, and then flipped through the alphabetical files. ‘What was that name again?’
‘Mattias Sahlberg.’
‘S … SA … Here it is!’ McCormick opened the folder to make sure it contained the paperwork they were looking for before he handed it to Payne. ‘It seems kind of thin.’
Payne had seen hundreds of employee files. They typically included the applicant’s initial résumé, health records, performance reviews, and tax documents. They were usually a complete, comprehensive history of the employee’s entire time at Payne Industries.
Mattias Sahlberg’s file contained only two pages.
The first page was a copy of his work visa. It listed his full name and birth date, his Swedish personal identification number — the equivalent of the United States’ social security number — and his home address in Sweden.
The second page was his contract of employment with Payne Industries. Curiously, it listed a salary that was well above that of other researchers employed at the time. But what interested Payne even more was that his position was simply listed as ‘Research and Development’, and that it was Jon’s father’s signature on the contract, not his grandfather’s. The revelation should not have been surprising — after all, it was his father that had initially steered Payne Industries into the area of emerging technologies — but it had been years since Payne had seen his father’s handwriting.