11.
 Lee Collwood VI had already taken calls this from two ex-wives demanding money, and threatening he'd be denied visitation with his two sons and two daughters. He could only stall them while he got his lawyers to file renegotiation papers for the alimony. Lee's hands were tied. He was low on cash and he had to be extremely careful about liquidating assets, for fear of tipping off the investors. The people whom he had talked into sinking money into this company were expecting big results, but the two big cancer drugs had both come up very short in in-house tests, and Lee was stalling about giving the Food and Drug Administration samples. He knew the clock would be ticking all the louder, and once he handed the FDA his best samples, there was no way left to cook the books. His goose would be cooked in thirty to ninety days. He could appeal and claim they'd botched the tests, but it was a fool's game. Lee Collwood knew he didn't have the talent of his forefathers who had built this empire, but he had their shrewd maneuver capability, and a burning desire to win at all costs.
He had the Robertsons figured. He knew the two men sitting before him were desperate for money, and he wasn't too concerned about the amount they needed. He wasn't interested in dickering—just in getting what he knew would be the key to his future. "What did you bring me?" he asked brusquely, while ordering a silver tea service and ginger snap cookies.
Secretly, he pressed a button that caused a digital recording system to make audio and video files of the transaction, just in case things ever wound up in court. Lee had let his own father's lawyers train him well. One could never be too careful, when playing with dynamite like this.
The spacious, luxurious office with its plate glass windows overlooking desert vistas began to fill with faint aromas of sugar, vanilla, and almond. "I have the papers I told you about," the father said. The old man reached into his inner pocket and took out an envelope that looked as if he'd held it a lot, maybe sweated into its wrinkled paper. Lee sensed that the old man and his son had misgivings about how the explosive information they were handing over might be used. Lee was used to this feeling in people. They sensed, somehow, that he wasn't being sincere with them. Screw them—these two were a pair of cheap, trashy opportunists without a pot to piss in. He was from America's equivalent of royal stock. Let them sweat, and hand over their secrets, and walk out with a few thousand bucks to mend their tattered and tawdry little lives. Lee caught himself before he might radiate contempt at the two.
"Excellent," Lee said. He stirred his tea and said: "So you flew with Chennault's Flying Tigers before the war, and later on the U.S. Army Air Force Himalayan airlift into China, and after the war you came into possession of Major Karasawa's notes...?"
"You studied my report well," the old man said, trembling as he clutched the manila envelope to his chest with both arms as if protecting it. Lee watched in surprise—almost afraid that the old man might change his mind as he sat there with wide eyes behind lenses glittering in the harsh desert sunlight that filtered laser-like through the blinds and into the air conditioned office. But the old man's mouth opened in a yammering wail and he rocked violently with the baby-like envelope in his arms: "Please, Mr. Collwood, promise me. Swear to me, your oath as a gentleman, that you will keep this information, you and the Government, never to make an offensive weapon, but to study it and to make sure no other country can ever duplicate what Karasawa's people found in the jungle."
This was easy. "Sure," Lee said, smiling. The old man slumped in relief and passed the envelope across the desk to Lee, while the younger man looked mistrustful and unhappy. Lee swept a gold pen into his hands and signed a check for tens of thousands of dollars with a flourish. "You have my promise as a gentleman, and this should make things easier for you."
As the father and son walked slowly to the door, Lee said cheerfully with all the faithly nectar he could summon: "You've done the right thing, Mr. Robertson, for yourself, for your family, for the United States of America." He thought about rising and adding: "God bless these United States," but decided not to. It would be over the top.
He sat back and breathed a huge sigh after the door closed and the two men disappeared from his life, leaving him this thing on his desk, this envelope that he leaned over and was almost afraid to open, so radioactive did it seem, so vastly dangerous and crazy like that atomic bomb project back in the 1940s. It was a Pandora's Box, he knew, and he hesitated with both hands held over the envelope in the chill twilight of his empty office. Then he remembered he had no choice. He must save his company and his own integrity and cash flow, not to mention his reputation. Zestfully, he tore open the crinkled Manila paper to expose the aging and brittle papers inside.
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Copyright © 2014 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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