Gordian sipped from his mug and listened to the rain pounding against the windows.
“It’s coming down in buckets,” he said.
Julia nodded.
“Lucky thing I didn’t give you a tough time about staying the night,” he said.
She smiled at him. “Not too.”
Gordian was quiet awhile, his face turning serious.
“That talk you mentioned…”
Julia noticed his hesitation, reached out to pat the back of his hand.
“Don’t look so concerned,” she said. “I’m fine.”
He kept his eyes on her, visibly relieved.
“Oh,” he said. “I was… well, you know…”
“You worry sometimes.”
Gordian nodded.
“I never doubt that you can take care of yourself,” he said. “But since the divorce… and then after what happened last year…”
“I know, Dad,” she said. “And I appreciate it.”
He looked at her.
“And you honestly are okay?”
“Aside from being pregnant by an axe murderer named Jason, yes.”
Gordian’s eyes widened for the briefest of moments. Then he raised his cup to his lips.
“As long as this Jason respects his elders and earns a decent wage, you two have my blessing,” he said.
Julia smiled, spooned some whipped cream into her mouth off the top of her hot chocolate.
“What I wanted to ask isn’t about me,” she said after a bit. “It’s about Tom Ricci.”
Gordian looked surprised.
“Oh,” he said.
“You all right with that or should it be none of my business?”
“Why not?” Gordian shrugged. “You just caught me unprepared.” Another shrug. “I don’t know exactly what I expected, but guess it was something else.”
Julia lowered the spoon to the table and sat with her hands wrapped around her cup.
“I met Megan Breen for lunch today and his name sort of came up in conversation,” she said, unsure why she’d elected to omit the fact that she was the one who brought it up. “I knew he’d been suspended, and was wondering if anything was ever made final.” She paused. “Meg told me there hadn’t been a decision.”
Gordian nodded.
“That’s my understanding,” he said. “It will be her call when it’s made. And Pete Nimec’s, I’d imagine.”
“You don’t have any part in it?”
Gordian shook his head.
“One of the biggest things I decided the day I stepped down as UpLink’s CEO was to place my unqualified trust in Megan. She’s too competent to be a figurehead and shouldn’t have to contend with a meddling old know-it-all getting into her abundant red hair.” He scratched under his chin. “Besides, that would defeat the whole aim of retirement, don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Julia said. And hesitated briefly again. “Nine times out of ten.”
Gordian crooked an eyebrow at her. “You think the Ricci situation ought to be an exception to the rule?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s hard to be objective considering I owe the man my life.”
Gordian didn’t answer. He sipped his hot chocolate and seemed to listen awhile to the whisk of rain on the windows.
“I understand how you feel,” he said at last. “I’d have to be cold and ungrateful not to feel that way myself. But we need to put personal feelings aside here. No doubt, Tom Ricci has proven he’s capable of being the best at what he does. On the other hand he’s shown a contempt of authority that makes him a serious wild card. From an organizational perspective, his… I don’t know what to call it except insubordination… has brought on a world of trouble.”
Julia inhaled, held the breath a moment, then blew it out to disperse the thin filaments of steam curling from her drink.
“I’ve been thinking about when you, Megan, and Pete cooked up a name for UpLink security all those years ago,” she said. “Sword, you decided to call it. And I felt that sounded so hokey and pompous, remember?”
Gordian nodded, smiling a little.
“I remember,” he said. “You’ve never been shy about your opinions.”
Julia gave him smile of her own.
“Or you about your opinion of my opinions,” she said. “I can still see the annoyed look on your face. And hear you explaining that the name was a sort of play on words. That it referred to the legend of the Gordian knot, and how Alexander the Great was supposed to have solved the problem of untwisting it with one swift hack of his sword, and how that perfectly described the approach your people would take to solving problems. Realistic, direct, practical, determined… those were the exact words you used.”
Gordian looked straight into her eyes.
“We don’t forget much,” he said.
“No,” Julia said. “We hardly forget anything.”
Gordian nodded, and for a while the only sound was the rattling of rain on the windows.
“If your point is that the actions Ricci took are somehow in keeping with the premise behind Sword’s formation, I don’t think I’m able to bite,” he said then. “It’s based on taking that premise to a reckless extreme. And it’s judging those actions by results that could very well have been calamitously different.”
“That’s what I keep hearing, but where’s the proof?” Julia said. “Think about it a minute, Dad. Somebody infects you with a germ hatched in a lab, almost kills you. A year later this head case has me kidnapped. And then another psychopath with a mission tries to wipe out New York. What situations could be more extreme? How do you deal with any of them without taking risks? Tom Ricci’s always been ready and he’s come up a major stud every time.”
Gordian looked at her again. “A major stud?”
“Blame them.” Julia nodded at the dogs. “You live in a house full of animals, you start thinking in animalistic terms.”
Gordian’s brow had crinkled with amusement.
“If you say so,” he said.
They spent a few minutes quietly drinking their hot chocolates. Then, his cup emptied, Gordian pushed it slightly to the side, leaned forward, and massaged the back of his neck.
“You make a better case for Ricci than I could,” he said. “Unfortunately his attitude doesn’t help. Because of him UpLink’s under pressure from all sides, and from what I hear he’s dropped out of contact. If he wants trust, he’s got to show some. In somebody. How can Megan and Pete go to the mat for him, buy him a chance, when he won’t give himself one?”
Julia considered that and realized she didn’t have an answer. She sighed, finished her own drink, and glanced at the clock on the wall.
“It’s after midnight,” she said, and stretched. “Suppose the dogs ought to be getting in their Z’s.”
Gordian nodded.
“A little sleep wouldn’t hurt us, either,” he said.
A moment later Julia rose, pushed in her chair, and gathered their cups and spoons onto a tray. She was carrying it between three wet, sniffing black noses toward the sink when she turned back to face her father.
“Do we do anything for him?” she said.
Gordian looked at her from the table, smiled gently.
“We’re thinking about it,” he said.
Pete Nimec hadn’t been able to fall asleep and that puzzled him. It should have been easy, he thought. Certainly easier than staying awake. He ought to be dead tired after everything he’d done in the past forty-eight hours or thereabouts, starting with having to pick up his mother-in-law at the airport, then practically turning right back around in the car with Annie to catch their flight to the Caribbean, followed by the trip itself, and the dinner invite by Henri Beauchart that had barely given them time to settle into their villa before drawing them out again. And all that rushing only accounted for last night, the first they’d spent here at Los Rayos. Up with the sun today, Nimec and Annie had climbed onto a pair of silver Vespas they’d discovered along with a Mustang soft-top in their villa’s attached garage — the transportation provided without fanfare by their hosts — and then zipped off to see about getting him signed up for kiteboarding instruction at a beachfront water sports shop Annie had highlighted in her resort guide.