Anne waved at the dining room attendant, a whippet-thin teenager pushing a cart with lunch plates and plastic pitchers. “Hey there, Anne,” he said. “You going to go for some tea today?”
“Yes, please. Hot tea. Not iced tea.”
“And how about the entrée? Meat loaf or fish sticks?”
“What kind of fish is it?” she asked, ever the discriminating diner.
“It's just fish, Anne. Can't get more specific than that.”
“Then I'll have the meat loaf.”
“Good choice. Who you got here with you today?” he asked.
“This is my son, Will. He's a lawyer. Will, this is Daunte.”
Will and Daunte nodded at one another and shook hands. “Your mother's a trip, you know that?” Daunte asked.
“Yeah, I do.” Before Daunte could push his cart on to the next table, Will asked, “Has Anne gotten any visitors lately? A guy with a Russian accent?”
Daunte gave the question some consideration, then said, “No, I think I would have remembered that. But I'm not here every day. Sorry.”
Will said good-bye to his mother, planting more kisses on her forehead, then went back to her room. Every time he visited, he checked her wardrobe to see if she needed anything. Clothes had a way of becoming community property in the facility.
Will was sifting through his mother's dresser drawers when he saw it and froze. On his mother's nightstand was an item that had not been there beforeâa lacquered Russian nesting doll. He opened it up and removed four colorful figurines of Russian peasant women. They were still wobbling on the nightstand as Will rushed out of the room.
TWENTY
Will returned to his apartment and showered and shaved, nicking his face three times in the process. He turned up the volume on the television so that he could listen for any further news of Jupiter on the Financial News Network. He desperately hoped that investors might discount the rumors and start buying Jupiter, but the stock price remained flat. Mort and Christine moved on to other harrowing collapses and miraculous recoveries in the financial markets. The swift stream of commerce coursed onward, and there was no time to linger over the eddying wreckage of Jupiter Software.
Will tried to call Claire's home number and got her answering machine. He was tempted to go to her apartment and wait there until she showed up to make sure she was okay, but concluded that the best way to keep his mother and Claire safe was to find something that the Russians wanted as quickly as possible. Will had no idea how he would be able to obtain the encryption keys; the high-security and biometric scanners of Jupiter's Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility seemed to present an insurmountable barrier. But he did know how to access his law firm's confidential files. Will decided that he was going to give Yuri and Nikolai at least a semblance of the insider information that they were looking for.
Although Will sought to appease Nikolai and Yuri in the short term, he knew that, through his disclosure to Richard, he had also set in motion the process that might expose the Clipper Chip program and end the Jupiter-Pearl merger negotiations. If Jupiter's dealings with the NSA became the focus of national media attention, Will expected that the Russians would give up their efforts to secure the encryption keys and would move on to other, less risky criminal schemes.
He arrived at the offices of Reynolds Fincher at two P.M., prepared to stay at the office all day and all night if that was what it took to find just the right bit of tantalizing but ultimately innocuous pseudo-insider information. As Will approached her secretarial station, Maggie gave him a look that Will had never seen from her before, at once pitying and accusatory. No doubt she was still wondering about yesterday's visit from the SEC and DOJ agents. Will simply gave her a sheepish wave as he passed, not wanting to discuss it.
He booted up his computer and got to work. First, he entered his e-mail inbox and reviewed the most recent messages that he had received from the firm's securities practice group, looking for some mention of a pending public-company transaction.
After wading through about ten e-mail notifications of practice group meetings and new cases, Will found a copy of the minutes of the practice group's last meeting, one that he had missed because he had been immersed in the Jupiter deal.
The last entry in the minutes was headed
M&A: Workload and New Matters
. Three corporations were listed in addition to Jupiter: ABT Solutions, Farallon Consulting, and Q-Biologics. These were all publicly traded companies represented by Reynolds Fincher that were apparently in play.
Will accessed the firm's document management system and typed in the names of the three companies, obtaining the client numbers. Next, he searched the system for the most recent documents saved to the ABT Solutions file. A glance at the first document told him that ABT Solutions, a relatively small database management software company, had already been acquired; the deal had closed two weeks ago.
Will next turned his attention to Farallon Consulting. The most recent document on the system was a draft stock purchase agreement dated the day before. Farallon, a technology consulting business, was going to be acquired by personal computer manufacturing giant Koretsu, which was trying to bolster its narrow profit margins on desktop computers with a thriving consulting practice. The fact that Nikolai and Yuri would have heard of Koretsu made this transaction a promising candidate.
The trick would be to find a nugget of publicly available information suggesting that the acquisition was in the works. If a financial newspaper or stock tip website had already guessed at the impending deal, then his disclosure would still be a breach of client confidentiality, but it was less likely to have an actual effect on the stock price of Koretsu or Farallon. Even so, Will knew that there was no justification for violating attorney-client privilege. He tried telling himself that he was just gathering the information and that he would decide later whether he would actually share it with Nikolai and Yuri.
Will printed the draft stock purchase agreement. He could hear the pages of the document shuffling as they filled the tray of the laser printer outside his office. Next, Will opened his Internet browser and commenced a Google search on Farallon Consulting, looking for news of the transaction.
Will's concentration was interrupted when he saw movement reflected in his monitor screen. He turned to see that Don Rubinowski and Kevin Kaczmarek, the firm's information technology director, were standing behind him, peering over his shoulder at the contents of his screen. Don was holding a sheaf of paper, which Will immediately knew was the stock purchase agreement that he had just printed.
“Will, I'd like you to come with me. Please remove your hands from the keyboard.”
“What's up, Don?” Will asked, trying not to sound rattled. “Have we been hit with another virus?”
“We're going to discuss this in private,” Don said, in his most ominous managerial tone. “Come with me.”
Will followed Don, who was still carrying the agreement, down the hallway to his corner office. He decided it was best not to ask questions until they were behind closed doors because he suspected that the answers would be profoundly embarrassing.
Will took a seat across from Don's desk. His office was ostentatiously simple, adorned with little more than photos of his wife and two children, one of those burbling electric fountains, and a panoramic view of the bay on one side and Telegraph Hill on the other. There were no papers on the desk, which sent the message that he was now more akin to a CEO than a common lawyer.
“So what's up, Don?” Will said, still attempting nonchalance.
“You're fired, Will.”
“Why? What's wrong?” Will did not sound as shocked as he would have liked.
“It's a little too late for that. This firm and its clients trusted you, and you betrayed that trust. But I need you to tell me one thing.”
“What's that?”
“I need to know how many transactions you've compromised.”
“I don't know what you're talking about, Don.” Sick with self-loathing, Will knew just how halfhearted that statement sounded.
“Okay. I thought so. You had a bright future here, but you just pissed all over it. You have a half hour to get out of this office. A security guard will accompany you while you gather your things.”
Will had known that he was risking his career with every step he had taken since the night he met Katya at the Whiskey Bar. But when Don Rubinowski spoke the words that ended his more than six years with Reynolds Fincher, and perhaps his entire legal career, it still came as a physical shock. His pulse raced and blood pounded in his ears, drowning out all sound. The only thing he heard was his own voice in his head saying over and over again,
Fucked
.
After what could have been fifteen seconds or five minutes, Will's pulse began to slow and his eyes refocused on what was before him: the implacable, dual-chinned face of Don Rubinowski, watching him with morbid fascination.
Fuck you
, Will thought. The fact that Will happened to be wrong did not make Don any less of an asshole, and he was not about to give him the satisfaction of losing his composure.
“The agents from the SEC and DOJ spoke with me at the end of the day yesterday about their evidence that you leaked insider information on the Jupiter deal,” Don said. “Frankly, I couldn't believe it. They suggested that we track your activities this morning, so Kevin set up a pen register on your computer to capture every keystroke you made.” Don waved the stock purchase agreement. “It was quite clear what you were doing.”
Will considered saying that he was just searching for a form document that he needed, which was a semiplausible story. But Don would have known that was a lie, and saying it might limit his options later. “I think I'd better not say anything until I have a lawyer,” he said. Will could muster no enthusiasm for defending himself.
“Then you'd better go. But first, I'll need your office key, access card, parking pass, and BlackBerry.”
Will removed the plastic cardkeys from his wallet and placed them on Don's desk. “I'll have to get the BlackBerry from my office.”
“You can give it to the guard as you leave.” Don paused, then added, “I've got to admit I can't figure out why you did this.”
“I don't think I should say anything else until I've spoken with an attorney.”
Don simply turned his back on Will and began examining his e-mails. Once, Will had overheard Don grousing about what it was like to be the managing partner of a large law firm. Even in a relatively placid workplace, there was an endless series of employee altercations, personality conflicts, and employment-related lawsuits, actual and threatened, and many of those unpleasant matters were ultimately resolved in Don's office. Even the other partners didn't hear about most of the incidents. Will recognized that he was now just one more potential liability for the firm that had to be managed, lawyered, and eradicated.
When Will left Don's office, a security guard was indeed waiting for him. Will had seen the guard patrolling the Reynolds Fincher building for the past few years, although Will could never quite tell where his official rounds ended and his search for nooks where he could smoke cigarettes began. He thought his name was Jeff, but he wasn't sure. He was a stocky young man in his midtwenties with close-cropped black hair who filled his blue, slightly-too-small guard's uniform like it had been inflated.
“I'm supposed to stick with you until you're out of the building,” Jeff said.
“Okay. It's Jeff, right?”
“Yeah. Jeff Wilson.”
“How long you been here?”
“Four years.”
“Almost as long as me. Sorry we didn't get more of a chance to talk.” Will wondered why he had started this conversation, which was making him feel like even more of a jerk.
“Yeah,” Jeff said, thankfully choosing not to kick him while he was down.
“I'd just like to stop by my office and pick up a few things and I'll be out of here.”
“Okay, but you know I'll have to inspect everything when you leave.”
“Sure.”
As Will walked with the security guard down the hallway, which was flanked on one side by attorneys' offices and on the other side by secretarial cubicles, he could tell that news of his firing had already spread. The faces of the secretaries displayed variations on the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I look that Maggie had given him earlier that morning. No one was even making a pretense of working. They didn't want to miss the spectacle of his downfall, a cautionary tale that would be recounted in the firm's lunchroom for years to come.
At the other end of the hallway, but closing fast, was Jay Spencer. Jay was the last person Will wanted to see. He hoped that Jay hadn't heard the news yet, but the smarmy smile on his face told him otherwise.
“I couldn't believe what I just heard,” Jay said as they stepped around each other in the hallway. “Say it ain't so.”
“I'm a little busy right now, Jay.”
“Whatever you say. But I know you can do the time. Stay hard in there, man,” Jay added, tapping a closed fist to his chest in a gesture probably cribbed from an Eminem video.
Will was too dispirited to even attempt a comeback. Jeff nodded, urging Will to keep moving.
When they were out of Jay's earshot, Jeff whispered, “I don't know what you did or didn't do, but if being a dick was a crime, they'd lock that guy up and throw away the key.” Will smiled a bit at that.
Sam Bowen, who was hovering over his secretary as she worked on a document, looked up as they approached. “Will, buddy, we need to talk. Come on in here.” His manner was simultaneously solemn and agitated.