Disclosure (10 page)

“Not at al .”

They shook hands. Daly turned and walked out of the room. Sanders's computer beeped three times in rapid succession:

15 SECONDS TO DIRECT VIDEO LINKUP: DC/M-DC/S

He sat down in front of the monitor and twisted his desk lamp so that the light shone on his face. The numbers on the computer were counting backward.

Sanders looked at his watch. It was five o'clock-eight o'clock in Malaysia. Arthur would probably be cal ing from the plant.

A smal rectangle appeared in the center of the screen and grew outward in progressive jumps. He saw Arthur's face, and behind him, the brightly lit assembly line. Brand-new, it was the epitome of modern manufacturing: clean and quiet, the workers in street clothes, arranged on both sides of the green conveyor belt. At each workstation there was a bank of fluorescent lights, which flared a little in the camera.

Kahn coughed and rubbed his chin. “Hel o, Tom. How are you?” When he spoke, his image blurred slightly. And his voice was out of sync, since the bounce to the satel ite caused a slight delay in the video, but the voice was transmitted immediately. This unsynchronized quality was very distracting for the first few seconds; it gave the linkup a dreamy quality. It was a little like talking to someone under water. Then you got used to it.

“I'm fine, Arthur,” he said.

“Wel , good. I'm sorry about the new organization. You know how I feel personal y.”

“Thank you, Arthur.” He wondered vaguely how Kahn in Malaysia would have heard already. But in any company, gossip traveled fast.

“Yeah. Wel . Anyway, Tom, I'm standing here on the floor,” Kahn said, gesturing behind him. “And as you can see, we're stil running very slow. And the spot checks are unimproved. What do the designers say? Have they gotten the units yet?”

“They came today. I don't have any news yet. They're stil working on it.”

“Uh-huh. Okay. And have the units gone to Diagnostics?” Kahn asked.

“I think so. Just went.”

“Yeah. Okay. Because we got a request from Diagnostics for ten more drive units to be sent in heat-sealed plastic bags. And they specified that they wanted them sealed inside the factory. Right as they came off the line. You know anything about that?”

“No, this is the first I heard of it. Let me find out, and I'l get back to you.”

“Okay, because I have to tel you, it seemed strange to me. I mean, ten units is a lot. Customs is going to query it if we send them al together. And I don't know what this sealing is about. We send them wrapped in plastic anyway. But not sealed. Why do they want them sealed, Tom?” Kahn sounded worried.

“I don't know,” Sanders said. “I'l get into it. Al I can think is that it's a ful -court press around here. People real y want to know why the hel those drives don't work.”

“Hey, us too,” Kahn said. “Believe me. It's making us crazy.”

“When wil you send the drives?”

“Wel , I've got to get a heat-sealer first. I hope I can ship Wednesday, you can have them Thursday.”

“Not good enough,” Sanders said. “You should ship today, or tomorrow at the latest. You want me to run down a sealer for you? I can probably get one from Apple.” Apple had a factory in Kuala Lumpur.

“No. That's a good idea. I'l cal over there and see if Ron can loan me one.

“Fine. Now what about Jafar?”

“Hel of a thing,” Kahn said. “I just talked to the hospital, and apparently he's got cramps and vomiting. Won't eat anything. The abo doctors say they can't figure out anything except, you know, a spel .”

“They believe in spel s?”

“Damn right,” Kahn said. “They've got laws against sorcery here. You can take people to court.”

“So you don't know when he'l be back?”

“Nobody's saying. Apparently he's real y sick.”

“Okay, Arthur. Anything else?”

“No. I'l get the sealer. And let me know what you find out.”

“I wil ,” Sanders said, and the transmission ended. Kahn gave a final wave, and the screen went blank.

SAVE THIS TRANSMISSION TO DISK OR DAT?

He clicked DAT, and it was saved to digital tape. He got up from the desk.

Whatever al this was about, he'd better be informed before he had his meeting with Johnson at six. He went to the outer area, to Cindy's desk.

Cindy was turned away, laughing on the phone. She looked back and saw Sanders, and stopped laughing. “Listen, I got to go.”

Sanders said, “Would you mind pul ing the production reports on Twinkle for the last two months? Better yet, just pul everything since they opened the line.”

“Sure.”

“And cal Don Cherry for me. I need to know what his Diagnostics group is doing with the drives.”

He went back into his office. He noticed his e-mail cursor was blinking, and pushed the key to read them. While he waited, he looked at the three faxes on his desk. Two were from Ireland, routine weekly production reports. The third was a requisition for a roof repair at the Austin plant; it had been held up in Operations in Cupertino, and Eddie had forwarded it to Sanders to try and get action.

The screen blinked. He looked up at the first of his e-mail messages.

OUT OF NOWHERE WE GOT A BEAN COUNTER FROM OPERATIONS DOWN HERE IN

AUSTIN. HE'S GOING OVER ALL THE BOOKS, DRIVING PEOPLE MAD. AND THE WORD IS

WE GOT MORE COMING DOWN TOMORROW. WHAT GIVES? THE RUMORS ARE FLYING, AND SLOWING HELL OUT OF THE LINE. TELL ME WHAT TO SAY. IS THIS COMPANY FOR

SALE OR NOT?

EDDIE

Sanders did not hesitate. He couldn't tel Eddie what was going on. Quickly, he typed his reply:

THE BEAN COUNTERS WERE IN IRELAND LAST WEEK, TOO.

GARVIN'S ORDERED A COMPANY-WIDE REVIEW, AND THEY'RE LOOKING AT

EVERYTHING. TELL EVERYBODY DOWN THERE TO FORGET IT AND GO BACK TO WORK.

TOM

He pushed the SEND button. The message disappeared.

“You cal ed?” Don Cherry walked into the room without knocking, and dropped into the chair. He put his hands behind his head. `Jesus, what a day. I've been putting out fires al afternoon.”

“Tel me.”

“I got some dweebs from Conley down there, asking my guys what the difference is between RAM and ROM. Like they have time for this. Pretty soon, one of the dweebs hears `flash memory' and he goes, `How often does it flash?' Like it was a flashlight or something. And my guys have to put up with this. I mean, this is high-priced talent. They shouldn't be doing remedial classes for lawyers. Can't you stop it?”

“Nobody can stop it,” Sanders said.

“Maybe Meredith can stop it,” Cherry said, grinning.

Sanders shrugged. “She's the boss.”

“Yeah. Sowhat's on your mind?”

“Your Diagnostics group is working on the Twinkle drives.”

“True. That is, we're working on the bits and pieces that're left after Lewyn's nimble-fingered artistes tore the hel out of them. Why did they go to design first?

Never, ever, let a designer near an actual piece of electronic equipment, Tom.

Designers should only be al owed to draw pictures on pieces of paper. And only give them one piece of paper at a time.”

“What have you found?” Sanders said. “About the drives.”

“Nothing yet,” Cherry said. “But we got a few ideas we're kicking around.”

“Is that why you asked Arthur Kahn to send you ten drives, heatsealed from the factory?”

“You bet your ass.”

“Kahn was wondering about that.”

“So?” Cherry said. “Let him wonder. It'l do him good. Keep him from playing with himself.”

“I'd like to know, too.”

“Wel look,” Cherry said. “Maybe our ideas won't amount to anything. At the moment, al we have is one suspicious chip. That's al Lewyn's clowns left us. It's not very much to go on.”

“The chip is bad?”

“No, the chip is fine.”

“What's suspicious about it?”

“Look,” Cherry said. “We've got enough rumors flying around as it is. I can report that we're working on it, and we don't know yet. That's alt. We'l get the sealed drives tomorrow or Wednesday, and we should know within an hour. Okay?”

“You thinking big problem, or little problem? I've got to know,” Sanders said. “It's going to come up in the meetings tomorrow.”

“Wel , at the moment, the answer is we don't know. It could be anything. We're working on it.”

“Arthur thinks it might be serious.”

“Arthur might be right. But we'l solve it. That's al I can tel you.”

“Don . . .”

“I understand you want an answer,” Cherry said. “Do you understand that I don't have one?”

Sanders stared at him. “You could have cal ed. Why'd you come up in person?”

“Since you asked,” Cherry said, “I've got a smal problem. It's delicate. Sexual harassment thing.”

“Another one? It seems like that's al we have around here.”

“Us and everybody else,” Cherry said. “I hear UniCom's got fourteen suits going right now. Digital Graphics has even more. And MicroSym, look out. They're al pigs over there, anyway. But I'd like your read on this.”

Sanders sighed. “Okay.”

“In one of my programming groups, the remote DB access group. The group's al pretty old: twenty-five to twenty-nine years old. The supervisor for the fax modem team, a woman, has been asking one of the guys out. She thinks he's cute. He keeps turning her down. Today she asks him again in the parking lot at lunch; he says no. She gets in her car, rams his car, drives off. Nobody hurt, and he doesn't want to make a complaint. But he's worried, thinks it's a little out of hand.

Comes to me for advice. What should I do?”

Sanders frowned. “You think that's the whole story? She's just mad at him because he turned her down? Or did he do something to provoke this?”

“He says no. He's a pretty straight guy. A little geeky, not real sophisticated.”

“And the woman?”

“She's got a temper, no question. She blows at the team sometimes. I've had to talk to her about that.”

“What does she say about the incident in the parking lot?”

“Don't know. The guy's asked me not to talk to her. Says he's embarrassed and doesn't want to make it worse.”

Sanders shrugged. “What can you do? People are upset but nobody wil talk . . . I don't know, Don. If a woman rammed his car, I'd guess he must have done something. Chances are he slept with her once, and won't see her again, and now she's pissed. That's my guess.”

“That would be my guess, too,” Cherry said, “but of course, maybe not.

“Damage to the car?”

“Nothing serious. Broken tail ight. He just doesn't want it to get any worse. So, do I drop it?”

“If he won't file charges, I'd drop it.”

“Do I speak to her informal y?”

“I wouldn't. You go accusing her of impropriety-even informal y-and you're asking for trouble. Nobody's going to support you. Because the chances are, your guy did do something to provoke her.”

“Even though he says he didn't.”

Sanders sighed. “Listen, Don, they always say they didn't. I never heard of one who said, `You know, I deserve this.' Never happens.”

“So, drop it',”

“Put a note in the file that he told you the story, be sure you characterize the story as al eged, and forget it.”

Cherry nodded, turned to leave. At the door, he stopped and looked back. “So tel me this. How come we're both so convinced this guy must have done something?”

`Just playing the odds,” Sanders said. “Now fix that damned drive for me.”

A six o'clock, he said good night to Cindy and took the Twinkle files up to Meredith's office on the fifth floor. The sun was stil high in the sky, streaming through the windows. It seemed like late afternoon, not the end of the day.

Meredith had been given the big corner office, where Ron Goldman used to be.

Meredith had a new assistant, too, a woman. Sanders guessed she had fol owed her boss up from Cupertino.

“I'm Tom Sanders,” he said. “I have an appointment with Ms. Johnson.”

“Betsy Ross, from Cupertino, Mr. Sanders,” she said. She looked at him. “Don't say anything.”

“Okay.”

“Everybody says something. Something about the flag. I get real y sick of it.”

“Okay.”

“My whole life.”

“Okay. Fine.”

“I'l tel Miss Johnson you're here.”

Tom.” Meredith Johnson waved from behind her desk, her other hand holding the phone. “Come in, sit down.”

Her office had a view north toward downtown Seattle: the Space Needle, the Arly towers, the SODO building. The city looked glorious in the afternoon sun.

“I’l just finish this up.” She turned back to the phone. “Yes, Ed, I'm with Tom now, we'l go over al of that. Yes. He's brought the documentation with him.”

Sanders held up the manila folder containing the drive data. She pointed to her briefcase, which was lying open on the corner of the desk, and gestured for him to put it inside.

She turned back to the phone. “Yes, Ed, I think the due diligence wil go smoothly, and there certainly isn't any impulse to hold anything back . . . No, no .

. . Wel , we can do it first thing in the morning if you like.”

Sanders put the folder in her briefcase.

Meredith was saying, “Right, Ed, right. Absolutely.” She came toward Tom and sat with one hip on the edge of the desk, her navy blue skirt riding up her thigh.

She wasn't wearing stockings. “Everybody agrees that this is important, Ed. Yes.”

She swung her foot, the high heel dangling from her toe. She smiled at Sanders.

He felt uncomfortable, and moved back a little. “I promise you, Ed. Yes.

Absolutely.”

Meredith hung up the phone on the cradle behind her, leaning back across the desk, twisting her body, revealing her breasts beneath the silk blouse. “Wel , that's done.” She sat forward again, and sighed. “The Conley people heard there's trouble with Twinkle. That was Ed Nichols, flipping out. Actual y, it's the third cal I've had about Twinkle this afternoon. You'd think that was al there was to this company. How do you like the office?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “Great view.”

“Yes, the city's beautiful.” She leaned on one arm and crossed her legs. She saw that he noticed, and said, “In the summer, I'd rather not wear stockings. I like the bare feeling. So much cooler on a hot day.”