Terminal Value Part 18

"Why not?"

"If you're playing around with the financials or doing something else criminal, you still need to keep track of the figures just as carefully as you do when you're on the straight and narrow. You just bury it where you think no one will find it. In my gut, I think Tony found something, and that was the file he wanted me to see. And for that, I need to hack into Mantric's secure servers."

Heather nodded. "That's where I come in. I will be much less conspicuous than you. I'm the perfect person to do this. I'm a senior member of the management team. I can go anywhere I want to in the company. n.o.body would ever think I would be hacking into the root directories. I may have a degree in digital media, but I minored in information technology. I can hold my own with the nerd herd anytime."

"I've got Brandon's script, but I'm not comfortable with you being put at risk."

She countered, "That's just it! The script will hide me while I search. I'll run it, and it'll cover my tracks by s.h.i.+fting the IP address of my computer while I work."

"Are you absolutely certain?" he asked. "I can do it."

"We have to do this, Dylan, and you're overwhelmed emotionally by what's been happening. Tony's death, this Prometheus business, the Hyperfn disaster. Are Matt and Rob learning any more about that?" she asked in a whisper.

"No. When we did our investigation, there was no sign LC was even thinking of getting into this business. It's like they knew all along about the business we were creating and somehow kept it hidden while they built one themselves."

"How could they? We keep all our work confidential."

"Rob thinks it was an inside job at Hyperfn. He might be right. Then again, now we're part of Mantric, and someone somewhere in the company could just as easily have leaked information. But why the h.e.l.l would anyone at Mantric want to hurt our revenues just after we've gone public? They'd only be hurting themselves. It doesn't make any sense."

"No. A lot of things don't make any sense." She averted her eyes.

"Such as?"

She touched her napkin to her lips. "Remember how we all thought Art was an idiot when he wouldn't let you attend his management meetings or go on the road show?"

"Like it was yesterday."

"What was his reason?"

"He said he didn't want me distracted from the business."

"No, when you pressed him, what was the real reason?"

Dylan thought for a moment. "That the board didn't want anyone else to see the detailed financials."

"Bingo," she said as she picked up her wine gla.s.s and took a sip.

"I'm sorry, Heather. I'm not following you."

She set the gla.s.s down. "Didn't Rich tell you he thought Christine was incompetent at running finance?"

"Yes, that's right," Dylan agreed.

"And she forgot to include a reserve for the acquisition of our firm in our filing with the SEC."

"Yeah, but you guys all thought Rich was in over his head."

"I know. But what if we were wrong? What if they got rid of Rich and gave him a fat severance because he was getting too close to the truth? And what if Art lied to you about the board not wanting you to see our detailed financials?"

"What are you saying?" Dylan said, leaning in closer to hear her whispers. The noise in the restaurant seemed to increase exponentially with the discussion.

"I'm saying, what if Art isn't an idiot? And what if Christine isn't incompetent? What if, in fact, they're both brilliant? I mean, why else would Art bring down the hammer over the loss of one measly client? He's trying to keep you as far away from the real action as possible."

"He's succeeding."

"Dylan," she said, leaning over the table, her face close to his. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Why do I think I'm not going to like this?"

"Remember I told you about Christine saying the New York office accounted for over forty-five percent of our revenues?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I've been doing my homework, too. I looked up last quarter's revenues for the whole firm. They were 105 million dollars. If New York accounted for forty-five percent of that, it would be over forty-seven million dollars."

"Right."

"So then I did an a.n.a.lysis of our New York revenues last quarter."

"How'd you do that?" Dylan said, surprised. "You don't have access to those numbers any more than I do."

She laughed. "You know, you're a brilliant guy, but sometimes you're just too d.a.m.n logical. It was easy. I just chatted with people working on the projects based out of the New York office. Every team knows what they are billing their own client. They just don't compare notes and add up a whole office's worth. They love to brag about their individual successes. They never questioned why I needed the information. They just gave it to me. So I quietly gathered up that information and then totaled it up myself."

Dylan certainly hoped she'd done it quietly. Having them both in trouble wouldn't help anyone. "What'd you find?"

"My estimate is the New York office only billed thirty-two million dollars last quarter, not forty-five million." Heather tapped a highly polished finger on the tabletop for emphasis.

"Are you sure?"

"Well, I suppose I could be off by a million or two, but not fifteen."

Dylan took a long drink of his water. "Well, it's not exactly hard evidence, but it certainly is suspicious."

"You are the master of the understatement. And if Tony found out. . . ." She let her statement dissipate, unanswered.

Dylan sat back and slowly responded, "I guess anything's possible."

"If Tony found out about this and maybe approached Art or Christine, would that be a big enough reason for murder?"

"It very well could be, and that's a good reason to hack into the secure server. Honestly, Heather, I think we have to-"

"I know." She licked her lips-a reflexive gesture Dylan knew she made whenever her thoughts overwhelmed her. He had seen her do it at the poker table and at the conference table. It had always endeared her to him. "So you really think Tony was killed because he found out something bad about Mantric?"

"Yeah."

"By whom?"

"Ivan, maybe ordered by Art or Christine. The trio seems to have a tight relations.h.i.+p, though Ivan is certainly under the other two's thumbs."

She nodded slowly. "Can't say I'd put it past the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

He watched her face, knowing her creative mind was churning as she looked for flaws in his theory.

"Okay, we need to do this. Here's how it's going to be, no questions." She looked from side to side, ensuring their conversation would not be overheard.

Dylan drew a deep breath. "I don't like this."

"Doesn't matter," she insisted. "I'm better at sifting through obscure directories than you are, which is why I'm going in."

Dylan shook his head. "It's a big risk. What if you get caught?"

"I like risk. Your job is to keep an eye on Ivan while I'm hacking into the server. Because, in the end, I'd rather you were the one keeping Ivan occupied while I deal with the nice friendly server."

Dylan realized he really had no choice. Heather was right about his methodical, detail-oriented mind versus her intuition. "OK, I'll keep him occupied for you," he finally said, grimly.

Their eyes met. Heather raised her gla.s.s, and Dylan did the same.

"For Tony."

Chapter 23.

May 13, 7:30 a.m. New York The next morning Dylan arrived at Mantric before most of the staff. He sat at his desk and began to prepare a folder, his heart thumping as he considered the multiple ways the plan could go wrong. If they were caught, could they be arrested? He was an officer of the company, but what about Heather? What jeopardy had he placed her in? They had reviewed every minute of their timetable over and over until they could recite it backwards. Dylan shook his head to dispel the questions. It was too late to go back now. He reached out to the keyboard and called the Boston office a few minutes before eight-thirty and spoke with Sarah.

"So I take it you haven't been able to fix the Hyperfn problem?"

Dylan felt his heart sink. "Sarah, how many people know about that?"

"Pretty much everyone here, I'm afraid. You can't expect the whole team to keep it a secret when they are suddenly yanked out of a client and told to go back home."

It wasn't what Dylan wanted to hear, but it was certainly understandable. "So where are they?"

"In the main conference room. Ready and waiting for your call."

"Organized as always. Thanks, Sarah."

"No problem. Dylan, is there anything else I can do?"

He sighed. "No. But thanks for asking." Dylan linked to the conference room, where he had a view of the entire Hyperfn project personnel sitting around the long table. The room fell silent as he came online, and everyone's eyes focused on him.

"Good morning," he said, trying to sound calm and relaxed. He looked around the room and saw Rob seated at the far end of the table. "Hi, Rob. Thanks for coming."

"Hey, I want to help as much as possible."

"I appreciate that, especially since you have your own clients to worry about."

"No worries," Rob said with a smile.

"Matt? What have you guys come up with so far?"

Matt glanced around the room at his colleagues. He looked exhausted. "I'm sorry, Dylan, but we really haven't come up with anything that would explain how we missed the LC move."

Dylan frowned. "Nothing? No clues? Not even a theory?"

"No. Not yet." He looked down at his hands.

Dylan sighed. "So tell me what you've done so far."

"Well, yesterday we made a lot of calls to pretty much everyone we could think of. But we didn't come up with any insights."

"What about the original project plan?" Dylan asked. "Did you review it to see if we missed any important steps or maybe weren't thorough enough?"

"Yeah," Matt said. The somber faces around the table nodded in agreement. "We went through every little detail. We followed the plan just the way we always do."

"How about researching the Internet? Did you find anything to indicate LC had ever even mentioned considering starting a business like Hyperfn?"

Matt shook his head. "We pretty much pulled an all-nighter on that. Didn't find anything."

"Not even rumors of anyone else doing it?"

"No."

"What about the research firms? Did you check with them?"

"Yes. We didn't find anything there, either."

Rob looked at Dylan and shook his head. Dylan could tell he didn't think this was leading anywhere.

"So, no one here has any idea how this could have happened then. Is that right?"

The room went silent for a moment, and then Matt sighed. "No idea at all." He was clearly frustrated.

"So where does this leave us with Hyperfn?" asked Hailey Parker, one of the young web designers on the team.

"Well, I'm afraid the project is on hold for now," said Dylan. No one said anything, but their faces reflected their opinion that he was sugarcoating the situation. "The truth is," he added, "it's pretty unlikely we will be working with Hyperfn anymore."

The team exchanged disappointed glances.

"So what happens to us?" Hailey asked.

"Don't worry," Dylan said, trying to rea.s.sure the group. "We have plenty of other work for you. The good news is we'll be able to speed up some of that. I expect you all to be a.s.signed to new projects within the next couple of weeks."