Disclosure (2 page)

“Damn right. Winning touchdown. Crossed the end zone in glory. And then I got creamed.”

At the main-deck cafeteria, they stood in line for coffee. “Actual y, I would've thought you'd be in bright and early today,” Benedict said. “Isn't this the big day at DigiCom?”

Sanders got his coffee, and stirred in sweetener. “How's that?”

“Isn't the merger being announced today?”

“What merger?” Sanders said blandly. The merger was secret; only a handful of DigiCom executives knew anything about it. He gave Benedict a blank stare.

“Come on,” Benedict said. “I heard it was pretty much wrapped up. And that Bob Garvin was announcing the restructuring today, including a bunch of new promotions.” Benedict sipped his coffee. “Garvin is stepping down, isn't he?”

Sanders shrugged. “We'l see.” Of course Benedict was imposing on him, but Susan did a lot of work with attorneys in Benedict's firm; Sanders couldn't afford to be rude. It was one of the new complexities of business relations at a time when everybody had a working spouse.

The two men went out on the deck and stood by the port rail, watching the houses of Bainbridge Island slip away. Sanders nodded toward the house on Wing Point, which for years had been Warren Magnuson's summer house when he was senator.

“I hear it just sold again,” Sanders said.

“Oh yes? Who bought it?”

“Some California asshole.”

Bainbridge slid to the stern. They looked out at the gray water of the Sound. The coffee steamed in the morning sunlight. “So,” Benedict said. “You think maybe Garvin won't step down?”

“Nobody knows,” Sanders said. “Bob built the company from nothing, fifteen years ago. When he started, he was sel ing knockoff modems from Korea. Back when nobody knew what a modem was. Now the company's got three buildings downtown, and big facilities in California, Texas, Ireland, and Malaysia. He builds fax modems the size of a dime, he markets fax and e-mail software, he's gone into CD-ROMs, and he's developed proprietary algorithms that should make him a leading provider in education markets for the next century. Bob's come a long way from some guy hustling three hundred baud modems. I don't know if he can give it up.”

“Don't the terms of the merger require it?”

Sanders smiled. “If you know about a merger, Dave, you should tel me,” he said.

“Because I haven't heard anything.” The truth was that Sanders didn't real y know the terms of the impending merger. His work involved the development of CDROMs and electronic databases. Although these were areas vital to the future of the company-they were the main reason Conley-White was acquiring DigiComthey were essential y technical areas. And Sanders was essential y a technical manager. He was not informed about decisions at the highest levels.

For Sanders, there was some irony in this. In earlier years, when he was based in California, he had been closely involved in management decisions. But since coming to Seattle eight years ago, he had been more removed from the centers of power.

Benedict sipped his coffee. “Wel , I hear Bob's definitely stepping down, and he's going to promote a woman as chairman.”

Sanders said, “Who told you that?”

“He's already got a woman as CFO, doesn't he?”

“Yes, sure. For a long time, now.” Stephanie Kaplan was DigiCom's chief financial officer. But it seemed unlikely she would ever run the company. Silent and intense, Kaplan was competent, but disliked by many in the company.

Garvin wasn't especial y fond of her.

“Wel ,” Benedict said, “the rumor I've heard is he's going to name a woman to take over within five years.”

“Does the rumor mention a name?”

Benedict shook his head. “I thought you'd know. I mean, it's your company.

On the deck in the sunshine, he took out his cel ular phone and cal ed in. His assistant, Cindy Wolfe, answered. “Mr. Sanders's office.”

“Hi. It's me.”

“Hi, Tom. You on the ferry?”

“Yes. I'l be in a little before nine.”

“Okay, I'l tel them.” She paused, and he had the sense that she was choosing her words careful y. “It's pretty busy this morning. Mr. Garvin was just here, looking for you.”

Sanders frowned. “Looking for me?”

“Yes.” Another pause. “Uh, he seemed kind of surprised that you weren't in.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“No, but he's going into a lot of offices on the floor, one after another, talking to people. Something's up, Tom.”

“What?”

“Nobody's tel ing me anything,” she said.

“What about Stephanie?”

“Stephanie cal ed, and I told her you weren't in yet.”

“Anything else?”

“Arthur Kahn cal ed from KI. to ask if you got his fax.”

“I did. I'l cal him. Anything else?”

“No, that's about it, Tom.”

“Thanks, Cindy.” He pushed the END button to terminate the cal . Standing beside him, Benedict pointed to Sanders's phone. “Those things are amazing.

They just get smal er and smal er, don't they? You guys make that one?”

Sanders nodded. “I'd be lost without it. Especial y these days. Who can remember al the numbers? This is more than a telephone: it's my telephone book. See, look.” He began to demonstrate the features for Benedict. “It's got a memory for two hundred numbers. You store them by the first three letters of the name.” Sanders punched in K-A-H to bring up the international number for Arthur Kahn in Malaysia. He pushed SEND, and heard a long string of electronic beeps. With the country code and area code, it was thirteen beeps.

`Jesus,” Benedict said. “Where are you cal ing, Mars?”

`Just about. Malaysia. We've got a factory there.”

DigiCom's Malaysia operation was only a year old, and it was manufacturing the company's new CD-ROM players-units rather like an audio CD player, but intended for computers. It was widely agreed in the business that al information was soon going to be digital, and much of it was going to be stored on these compact disks. Computer programs, databases, even books and magazineseverything was going to be on disk.

The reason it hadn't already happened was that CD-ROMs were notoriously slow. Users were obliged to wait in front of blank screens while the drives whirred and clicked-and computer users didn't like waiting. In an industry where speeds reliably doubled every eighteen months, CD-ROMs had improved much less in the last five years. DigiCom's SpeedStar technology addressed that problem, with a new generation of drives code-named Twinkle (for “Twinkle, twinkle, little SpeedStar”). Twinkle drives were twice as fast as any in the world. Twinkle was packaged as a smal , stand-alone multimedia player with its own screen. You could carry it in your hand, and use it on a bus or a train. It was going to be revolutionary. But now the Malaysia plant was having trouble manufacturing the new fast drives.

Benedict sipped his coffee. “Is it true you're the only division manager who isn't an engineer?”

Sanders smiled. “That's right. I'm original y from marketing.”

“Isn't that pretty unusual?” Benedict said.

“Not real y. In marketing, we used to spend a lot of time figuring out what the features of the new products were, and most of us couldn't talk to the engineers. I could. I don't know why. I don't have a technical background, but I could talk to the guys. I knew just enough so they couldn't bul shit me. So pretty soon, I was the one who talked to the engineers. Then eight years ago, Garvin asked me if I'd run a division for him. And here I am.”

The cal rang through. Sanders glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight in Kuala Lumpur. He hoped Arthur Kahn would stil be awake. A moment later there was a click, and a groggy voice said, “Uh. Hel o.”

“Arthur, it's Tom.”

Arthur Kahn gave a gravel y cough. “Oh, Tom. Good.” Another cough. “You got my fax?”

“Yes, I got it.”

“Then you know. I don't understand what's going on,” Kahn said. “And I spent al day on the line. I had to, with Jafar gone.”

Mohammed Jafar was the line foreman of the Malaysia plant, a very capable young man. “Jafar is gone? Why?”

There was a crackle of static. “He was cursed.”

“I didn't get that.”

“Jafar was cursed by his cousin, so he left.”

“What?”

“Yeah, if you can believe that. He says his cousin's sister in Johore hired a sorcerer to cast a spel on him, and he ran off to the Orang Ash witch doctors for a counter-spel . The aborigines run a hospital at Kuala Tingit, in the jungle about three hours outside of KL. It's very famous. A lot of politicians go out there when they get sick. Jafar went out there for a cure.”

“How long wil that take?”

“Beats me. The other workers tel me it'l probably be a week.”

“And what's wrong with the line, Arthur?”

“I don't know,” Kahn said. “I'm not sure anything's wrong with the line. But the units coming off are very slow. When we pul units for IP checks, we consistently get seek times above the hundred-mil isecond specs. We don't know why they're slow, and we don't know why there's a variation. But the engineers here are guessing that there's a compatibility problem with the control er chip that positions the split optics, and the CD-driver software.”

You think the control er chips are bad?” The control er chips were made in Singapore and trucked across the border to the factory in Malaysia.

“Don't know. Either they're bad, or there's a bug in the driver code.”

“What about the screen flicker?”

Kahn coughed. “I think it's a design problem, Tom. We just can't build it. The hinge connectors that carry current to the screen are mounted inside the plastic housing. They're supposed to maintain electrical contact no matter how you move the screen. But the current cuts in and out. You move the hinge, and the screen flashes on and off.”

Sanders frowned as he listened. “This is a pretty standard design, Arthur. Every damn laptop in the world has the same hinge design. It's been that way for the last ten years.”

“I know it,” Kahn said. “But ours isn't working. It's making me crazy.

“You better send me some units.”

“I already have, DHL. You'l get them late today, tomorrow at the latest.”

“Okay,” Sanders said. He paused. “What's your best guess, Arthur?”

“About the run? Wel , at the moment we can't make our production quotas, and we're turning out a product thirty to fifty percent slower than specs. Not good news. This isn't a hot CD player, Tom. It's only incremental y better than what Toshiba and Sony already have on the market. They're making theirs a lot cheaper. So we have major problems.”

“We talking a week, a month, what?”

“A month, if it's not a redesign. If it's a redesign, say four months. If it's a chip, it could be a year.”

Sanders sighed. “Great.”

“That's the situation. It isn't working, and we don't know why.”

Sanders said, “Who else have you told?”

“Nobody. This one's al vours, my friend.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Kahn coughed. “You going to bury this until after the merger, or what?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure I can.”

“Wel , I'l be quiet at this end. I can tel you that. Anybody asks me, I don't have a clue. Because I don't.”

“Okay. Thanks, Arthur. I'l talk to you later.”

Sanders hung up. Twinkle definitely presented a political problem for the impending merger with Conley-White. Sanders wasn't sure how to handle it. But he would have to deal with it soon enough; the ferry whistle blew, and up ahead, he saw the black pilings of Colman Dock and the skyscrapers of downtown Seattle.

DigiCom was located in three different buildings around historic Pioneer Square, in downtown Seattle. Pioneer Square was actual y shaped like a triangle, and had at its center a smal park, dominated by a wrought-iron pergola, with antique clocks mounted above. Around Pioneer Square were low-rise red-brick buildings built in the early years of the century, with sculpted facades and chiseled dates; these buildings now housed trendy architects, graphic design firms, and a cluster of hightech companies that included Aldus, Advance Holo- and DigiCom.

Original y, DigiCom had occupied the Hazzard Building, on the south side of the square. As the company grew, it expanded into three floors of the adjacent Western Building, and later, to the Gorham Tower on James Street. But the executive offices were stil on the top three floors of the Hazzard Building, overlooking the square. Sanders's office was on the fourth floor, though he expected later in the week to move up to the fifth.

He got to the fourth floor at nine in the morning, and immediately sensed that something was wrong. There was a buzz in the hal ways, an electric tension in the air. Staff people clustered at the laser printers and whispered at the coffee machines; they turned away or stopped talking when he walked by.

He thought, Uh-oh.

But as a division head, he could hardly stop to ask an assistant what was happening. Sanders walked on, swearing under his breath, angry with himself that he had arrived late on this important day.

Through the glass wal s of the fourth-floor conference room, he saw Mark Lewyn, the thirty-three-year-old head of Product Design, briefing some of the Conley-White people. It made a striking scene: Lewyn, young, handsome, and imperious, wearing black jeans and a black Armani T-shirt, pacing back and forth and talking animatedly to the blue-suited Conley-White staffers, who sat rigidly before the product mock-ups on the table, and took notes.

When Lewyn saw Sanders he waved, and came over to the door of the conference room and stuck his head out.

“Hey, guy,” Lewyn said.

“Hi, Mark. Listen-”

“I have just one thing to say to you,” Lewyn said, interrupting. “Fuck 'em. Fuck Garvin. Fuck Phil. Fuck the merger. Fuck 'em al . This reorg sucks. I'm with you on this one, guy.”

“Listen, Mark, can you”

“I'm in the middle of something here.” Lewyn jerked his head toward the Conley people in the room. “But I wanted you to know how I feel. It's not right, what they're doing. We'l talk later, okay? Chin up, guy,” Lewyn said. “Keep your powder dry.” And he went back into the conference room.

The Conley-White people were al staring at Sanders through the glass. He turned away and walked quickly toward his office, with a sense of deepening unease. Lewyn was notorious for his tendency to exaggerate, but even so, the -