The Consultant (33 page)

“I mean
us
. Look what we’re doing now. Look what we’re going along with. We took the blood test. We don’t wear tennis shoes. We wear gold shirts. You ordered a taco
salad
, for Christ’s sake…”  

“Wait a minute,” Craig said. “How do you know about that Tom Waits interview? You had to be, like, one.”  

“I read it online.”  

“You spend your free time looking up old music interviews from when you were a baby?”  

“The internet is a wonderful tool.”  

Craig picked up another tortilla chip. “‘Tool’ is
exactly
the word that comes to mind.”  

“That’s not the point I’m making. What I’m trying to say is, despite our rebel stance, against our will and without us even knowing it, BFG’s already changed us. The only question is: what comes next?”  

Craig thought about that. As much as he hated to admit it, Phil was right. He thought he’d been fighting the consultants, but he hadn’t been immune from their influence. He
had
been forced to conform. He’d gone on that dog hunt at the retreat, had had his blood taken, allowed himself to be monitored by camera, was watched daily by an observer, and, as Phil had pointed out, was wearing uncomfortable shoes, a gold shirt and was about to dig into a taco salad he’d ordered instead of the deep-fried chimichanga he’d really wanted to eat.  

He thought of that dead dog made into a meal, of Tyler’s freak electrocution, of Jess Abodje’s wheelchair speeding out into traffic, of everything else that had happened and was still happening. Was he complicitous in any of it? He didn’t want to think so, but the circumstances were starting to make him believe otherwise. He should have been more aggressive in his opposition to the consultants, more assertive.  

“I know that face,” Phil said, biting into his burrito. “Stop beating yourself up.”  

“I should’ve—”  

“What? You should’ve what?”  

Craig shook his head. “I don’t know.”  

“You’re a cog in the machine. You’re a division head. And you’ve done a damn good job of protecting your division, which is what you’re supposed to do. Do you know how easy you guys have gotten off compared to most?”  

“We’re content providers. They need us.”  

“Maybe,” Phil conceded. “But at least you’re fighting the good fight. Me, too. We’re limited, we’re constrained, but given the state of affairs, we’re doing pretty well.” He paused. “What I want to know is: where’s our illustrious leader? Where’s Austin Matthews in all this? Listening to you after that retreat, I thought we had him in the bag. But I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the guy since. And all of those memos, if you haven’t noticed—and I know you have— are signed by Patoff
for
Matthews.”  

Craig nodded. “I’ve noticed.”  

“He’s a ghost in the machine. I’m thinking he’s on his way out.”  

“It’s
his
company.”  

“Not since it went public. He has to report to the Board now, and after that merger fiasco, they might be inclined to do whatever BFG says.”  

“Inclined?”  

“
That’s
the interesting part. Because I think the consultants are a little more forceful than that.” Phil sipped his soda. “First of all, I need to point out that
you’re
the one who should be doing this. You’re the computer geek; you’re the one whose family’s being stalked. This is really your bailiwick. But, whatever. I’ve been doing some more research.”  

“Not on your own computer?”  

“The library’s. I’m not entirely dim. But I’ve been going as deep as I can. Not just articles and press releases, but stock reports, SEC filings, Google searches of individuals, any damn thing I can find.”  

“And what
did
you find?”  

Phil looked grim. “Bad shit. ProTech, for example. BFG consulted for them last year. They were on the verge of going under, and after implementing BFG’s recommendations, they not only got back on their feet, but their stock price tripled. Now they’ve practically cornered the market on USB adapters and niche tech like that.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “But here’s where it gets interesting. Because, since then, there’ve been an unbelievable number of violent acts associated with the company. Nine former employees committed suicide. That’s nine
hundred
times the average for tech businesses. One man and two women committed
murder
.
Three
people from
one
company within the past
year
. What are the odds of
that
? The women are both in jail, awaiting trial. One killed a rival at another company, one killed her husband. The man murdered another ProTech employee, then killed himself, so, technically, he’s part of the murder
and
suicide statistics.  

“Bad luck? Coincidence? You might think so, right? But the pattern holds. It’s true for four of the five companies I’ve investigated. Shockingly high rates of violence, completely unexplainable, all
after
BFG consults for them.”  

Craig felt chilled. He believed it. Every word. He thought of Angie. Maybe he
should
have supported her idea to quit her job. “So what do we do?”  

“One thing we need to do—and you can help with this—is get the information out there. Maybe someone else has put all this together, but even if they have, it’s not readily available. I’m thinking Better Business Bureau, Attorney General’s office, newspapers,
60 Minutes
. Hell, corporate ratings sites. I want to get the word out but not have it traced back. Just in case. That’s where you come in. Is there some sort of filter, some way to make my posts and emails anonymous so that even a group like BFG can’t trace it back?”  

“Sure.”  

“Because these guys don’t fuck around.”  

“We create a fake account, from an offsite computer, someplace with an IP address that has nothing to do with us or CompWare, write the email, run
that
through an anonymizer, send it on time delay set for an hour when we’re both verifiably at CompWare and engaged in other work.” He was thinking aloud. “Sure. We can do it.”  

“I have another plan, too,” Phil said. “A way to ferret out even more information.”  

“You’ve been a busy little bee, haven’t you?”  

“You know my watcher? John?”  

“Yeah.”  

“We take him out after work today, get him drunk and see if we can’t loosen his lips a little.”  

“I don’t think they’re supposed to fraternize with us.”  

“They probably aren’t,” Phil agreed.  

“So why would he?”  

“I don’t know. But this one…he seems different to me. Not as committed. Disgruntled even. We haven’t really talked or anything, it’s just a sense I have, but I honestly think that if we played this right, we might be able to have a real conversation with him. And maybe get some inside information, something that might help us.”  

“After work, huh? I’ll have to call Angie and tell her I’ll be late. Dylan’s definitely not going to like it.”  

“It’s for the greater good.”  

“Yeah, that argument always works with second graders. By the way, in all your research, did you ever find out what BFG stands for?”  

“Still no idea,” Phil admitted. “But that’s something else we can ask.”  

They finished eating, and Craig refilled his cup before heading back to work. He arrived at his office with several minutes to spare. “Early!” he announced, pointing to Mrs. Adams. “Mark that down.” He walked in, closing the door behind him.  

He wasn’t quite sure how Phil intended to even broach the topic of socializing with his observer, let alone extend an invitation without the whole thing being caught on surveillance, but halfway through the afternoon, Craig received a call from his friend. “This is a long day,” Phil said without preamble. “Want to get something to drink after work?”  

Craig’s heart was pounding. He felt the way he had as a child when he tried to lie to his parents. “Sure,” he said with false nonchalance.  

“Great. Talk to you later.”  

Smart
, Craig thought. No mention of either the observer or a location where they might go.  

Without further communication, they met in the parking lot shortly after five. Phil was alone, and Craig immediately assumed that things had fallen through, but his friend said John was parked in the visitor’s lot on the north side of the campus and was going to follow them to O’Gill’s Pub. Phil was obviously being careful and taking precautions. He didn’t want any of the cameras trained on the lot to see the observer with them. Although Craig wondered how the meet had been arranged without any of the cameras and microphones in the building picking it up.  

Phil left first, Craig following behind, and they drove through the visitor’s lot, Phil honking once to alert the observer before their little caravan headed out onto the street.  

At O’Gill’s, the three of them were awkward with each other. The observer was obviously ill-at-ease, Phil was trying too hard to make him feel comfortable, and Craig was on the sidelines, odd man out. Attempts at forging a personal connection with John through questions about family, friends and general interests fell flat, but after a couple of beers, they did manage to initiate a conversation about jobs and work. Although John warned them that even if he had information about CompWare, he could not legally or ethically tell them anything, the observer did reveal that he himself had been recruited by BFG after working for a firm that the consultants were analyzing. He’d only been on the job for a couple of months, but it didn’t seem to be a good fit, and…  

The observer cut himself off. The implication was that he would like to quit his job at BFG.  

But was afraid to do so.  

Worried, perhaps, that he’d said too much, John told them he had to leave and hastily put down his beer without finishing it. “Is this enough?” he asked, pulling a ten out of his wallet.  

Phil waved him away. “We got this,” he said. “You’re our guest.”  

“Well…thanks,” John told them and hurried off.  

Craig looked over at his friend, eyebrow raised. “So what do you make of
that
?”  

“He’s scared.”  

“Of what?”  

“Patoff, I assume.”  

“We didn’t learn much today.”  

Phil was silent for a moment. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said.  

**** 

John knew he’d made a mistake even before leaving the bar. He hadn’t really said anything, hadn’t given away any trade secrets, but The Consultant wouldn’t want him speaking to civilians about
anything
. He’d been ordered—
warned
—to keep everything on a strictly professional level, and he was well aware that even this minimal amount of contact was forbidden. It had felt good to talk to someone, though. Because he was starting to regret ever taking this job. Yes, he needed the work, but even with as limited a perspective as he’d been granted, John knew that BFG was not…normal. His own duties might be fairly ordinary and straightforward, but he was well aware that he was unable to see the whole picture, and he had no idea what The Consultant did with the information he and the other monitors provided.  

Although he was pretty sure it was being used for something… wrong.  

Because The Consultant was wrong.  

The Consultant scared him.  

He shouldn’t have met with the subjects, and, walking out of the bar, John told himself that he’d learned his lesson. From now on he wouldn’t—  

“Where do you think you’re going? Or, more importantly, where are you coming
from
?”  

The Consultant stood on the sidewalk, a slight smile playing across his mouth though his eyes remained incongruously hard and steely. John’s knees felt weak. It had been stupid for him to think that he could get away with it and that The Consultant would not know. The man knew everything, and if he had not been so distracted, John would have realized that.  

He looked down, afraid to meet the man’s eyes. “I know. I’m fired.”  

“Did you think you would get off that easy?”  

No. He hadn’t. He’d been
hoping
, but deep down he had known that any punishment delivered by The Consultant would not be so benign.  

His heart was hammering crazily in his chest, and he considered just taking off, running down the street as fast as he could, like a little boy chased by bullies. Then The Consultant’s arm was around his shoulder and the chance was gone. Leading him up the sidewalk, The Consultant acted as though they were old pals, good buddies out for a friendly stroll. But the hand on his shoulder had a grip of iron, and John knew that even if he tried his hardest, he could not get away.  

They turned right at the end of the block, moving onto a less crowded street, John’s muscles tensing even more as potential witnesses grew fewer in number. Hard hand still on his shoulder, The Consultant steered him into an alley that ran behind the first row of buildings—  

Except there was no alley.  

He was in the CompWare building, and he was all alone. He could still feel phantom pressure on his shoulder, but The Consultant was gone. He was standing by himself in a dim corridor that looked like the floor on which he’d been working, only…  

Only the corridor was too wide. And the doors were wrong. The lights, even if they had all been on, were not where they should be in the ceiling and did not give off the illumination of ordinary fluorescents.  

This was a
different
version of CompWare. The way The Consultant wanted it to be? The way The Consultant intended to make it? John wasn’t sure, but either could be correct.  

Where
was
he, though?  

Slowly, cautiously, John moved forward. To his left was an elevator, and he pushed the inset button on the wall next to the closed metal doors, thinking he would go downstairs and get out of here. He was aware even as he pushed the button that it was the wrong shape, a triangle instead of a circle, but that realization did nothing to prepare him for what he saw when the bell dinged and the elevator doors slid open.