"No. I guess it wouldn't." Jon sighed. "I can't believe Paul's gone. We were almost the same age. He was teaching me how to sail. We were buddies. I felt closer to him than I did to Patrick."
She massaged his shoulders a bit more until he moaned with pleasure, then patted his shoulder, hard, in the direction of his office door. "Let's go, Doctor. Let's meet the Duffields."
"Remind me who they are again?"
"You know who they are," Helen said, rolling her eyes with mock exasperation. "Conan David Duffield is the retired founder of SumaTek, the largest very-high-speed integrated-circuit design company in the world and the pioneer of nanotechnology. We have used SumaTek chips in our designs for ten years. He's in his late forties, degrees from Rutgers and Cornell, he's into French and Napa Valley wine, humane treatment of animals, and private schools, including providing scholarships to good students who otherwise couldn't afford a private-school education. His new acquisition company is called Sierra Vistas Partners. He's the money guy-he buys, rehabilitates, grows, and sells distressed high-tech companies."
"Hey, this company is not 'distressed.'"
"I'm not saying it is, Jon," Helen said quickly. But they both knew better-the combination of a downturning stock market, a glut of fairly modern Russian and Chinese weapons on the global arms market, and vastly lower defense spending had depressed stock values and affected thousands of defense-related companies all over the world, including Sky Masters Inc.
"His wife is Dr. Kelsey D. Duffield, Ph.D.," Helen went on. "I don't have that much info on her-she keeps more to herself. I hear she's much younger than he is. She's the front person: she investigates and evaluates companies, then reports to him."
"What's her degree in?"
"Which one? She has six or seven of them, including two Ph.D.s-electrical engineering, math, physics, computer-language design, chemistry, and a couple others. Speaks seven languages, plays concert-quality piano, writes music, and is an expert-level downhill skier and chess player. They have one child-I don't know her name."
"Sheesh, is this the definition of a dysfunctional family, or what?" Jon quipped. Helen scowled at him. "I'm only kidding. Sounds like a perfectly wonderful, albeit superoverachieving family unit. Wonder what the little girl's going to grow up like?" Helen looked at him with a knowing smile-she was looking at him. "Don't answer that."
"Can we go now?"
"All right, all right, let's meet the whiz family. But after this, no more meetings until our guys are safe."
"Deal."
"And we are not selling them the company," Jon added. Helen said nothing. The answer to that question, at least for the time being, was not up to them. "Let's go."
They walked out of Jon's office, and Suzanne escorted them to the conference room. The folks waiting for them stood politely when they entered. Kelsey Duffield was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties, her reddish-blond hair tied back behind her neck. She wore a simple silk business suit and carried a thin briefcase, and she had a good, strong handshake and a confident, pleasing smile.
"Very pleased to meet you, Dr. Duffield," Jon said as he stepped quickly into the room, extending a hand and shaking hers enthusiastically. "I've heard a great deal about you."
The woman's eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not a doctor, Dr. Masters. Just a lowly CPA." Jon glanced at Helen, a bit confused and surprised by her misinformation-Helen usually didn't get the details wrong. Duffield turned and nodded to the man standing beside her. "This is my associate and chief financial officer, Neil Hudson. Neil, this is Dr. Jon Masters, COO, and Dr. Helen Kaddiri Masters, chairman of the board."
As they shook hands, they heard a clatter. "Oh, dear, please be careful. Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter. She seems to have a case of the dropsies today." Duffield rushed over to a sideboard, where a cute little brunette girl of nine or ten had just spilled a cup of orange juice on her dress. The little girl studied Jon for a long moment while her mother cleaned her up. Jon smiled at her, and she smiled back. He found it cute that she had spilled juice on a copy of a technical journal that she had in her lap. Her mother put the engineering journal aside and put a well-worn copy of a children's book of airplanes on her daughter's lap.
Jon noticed that the girl was still staring at him, the smile gone, as Duffield returned to the group. Jon winked at her, but she did not respond. Well, Jon never did click well with little kids-probably why he was hesitating having some of his own.
"Would your daughter be more comfortable in the daycare center, with some other children her age?" Helen asked. "It's just across the courtyard."
"Or I'd be happy to take her to the park," Suzanne offered.
Both the elder and younger Duffields looked a bit confused. "No, she's fine here," the elder Duffield said coolly.
The numbers guy, Hudson, looked a little aghast for a moment; then, after Duffield glanced at him, he appeared as if he was suppressing a chuckle. "Shall we get started?"
"Of course," Helen replied. They all took seats around one end of the conference table. "On behalf of everyone here at Sky Masters Inc., welcome to Blytheville and the Arkansas International Jetport. We have a tour of the facilities planned, then lunch, then a briefing on our current projects and plans for future growth. Suzanne?" Suzanne handed her two folders. "Here is our current audited financials and company statements, including the latest Department of Defense and Congressional Budget Office audits and financial condition statements. I'm sure you'll find that Sky Masters Inc. is well positioned to ride out the shortterm economic slowdown and market situation and get ready to take advantage of new opportunities."
"So, if you'll excuse me," Jon said, rising quickly to his feet. "I've got to head back to the labs. But I'll see you for lunch at twelve-thirty, and then I will make myself available for questions afterward. I hope you have a nice-"
"We've already taken the tour, Dr. Masters," Duffield said. "We arrived yesterday, remember? You set that up for us then."
"And we've already downloaded a copy of your financials from your website and from the Defense Department's audit department," Hudson said. "Your staff should be commended, Doctors. Your own marketing information parallels the government data exactly, neither overstating nor understating your situation."
"Situation?" Jon asked defensively. He remained standing. "There's no 'situation.'"
Duffield looked down at the table, paused for a moment as if steeling herself for the confrontation she knew had to occur, then spread her hands and looked sternly at Jon. "With all due respect, Dr. Masters, your company is, shall we say, running a little peaked."
" 'Peaked'? What does that mean?"
"In our analysts' view, your company is spending lots of money, acquiring equipment and real estate, flying aircraft,
and making space launches-all without any obvious possibility of translating the activity into a government contract," Duffield said. "You're a publicly traded company with apparently no responsibility or accountability to your shareholders."
"I guess you just don't know us as well as you think."
"Your outlays for new equipment don't even come close to your contracts," Hudson said. "You have projects on two-, three-, five-, even ten-year timelines with no contract, no requests for proposals, not even draft technology memos."
"We're a research firm as well as a design-anddevelopment center," Helen said. Jon took his seat, gearing himself up to defend his company alongside his wife, trying to present a unified front. "Jon and I have spent most of our careers in advanced research, most of it begun completely in-house with no government inputs. Jon has written over a thousand papers on dozens of emerging technologies, things the government has never dreamed of before."