9.11 - 58. Chapter 58

October 9, 2001

Escorial

“Have a great day!” I said to Dad as I finished up my breakfast.

“You too,” he responded with less enthusiasm. I grabbed my backpack and tossed it over my shoulder, then went to meet the car out front. I was riding with John and Marie. Marie had called and asked me to go with them, since they probably wanted to hear all about my exciting weekend.

“Hey!” I said, greeting my cousins cheerfully.

“Shoots!” John said, imitating Austin. He was hilarious. “How was your weekend?”

“Kick ass,” I said. “I had a blast. Even my dad had fun.”

“Did you get in Austin’s pants?” John asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I got him in bed,” I said with a leer.

“I thought he was totally straight,” Marie said, confused.

“He is. I got him in bed, and we slept,” I said, with a fake frown.

“Dude, how lame are you? You get a dude into your bed and you can’t close the deal?” John asked, giving me shit.

“Austin is the straightest dude I’ve met,” I said. “He even kissed me.”

“How’s that make him straight?” Marie asked.

I told her all about how Austin posed as my boyfriend, and how we’d ended up in the pool and he’d kissed me. “There was no spark. Nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” John said sympathetically.

“I’m not,” I said. “I’ve got lots of guys I can sleep with, but Austin’s just an awesome dude. I’d rather have his friendship than his dick.”

“Really? Did you just say that?” Marie asked, giving me shit. I rolled my eyes. The closer to school we got, the more nervous Marie got.

“What’s going on? What’s bugging you?” I asked. I could tell she was thinking about denying it, but it was too obvious.

“I broke up with Noah last night,” she said.

John stared at her, shocked. “You didn’t tell me!”

She shrugged. “I’m telling you now.”

“Dude, are you OK?” I asked her. She’d been doing well, but she still seemed a little fragile.

She nodded. “I just don’t love him, and I realized that I was putting off the inevitable. I’m just stringing him along. It’s not fair.”

“How did he take it?” John asked.

“Not real well,” she said. “It started out as a discussion, and ended up as an argument, with him trying to convince me we were perfect together.”

“That sucks,” I said. “So what do you think today’s going to be like?”

“Weird,” she said. “He’ll probably avoid me. With him and Ferris both giving me the cold shoulder, it’s going to suck.”

“Maybe you turned him gay, and he and Ferris can live happily ever after,” I joked.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” she said. We got to school and were walking to our lockers when we saw Noah off to the side, glaring at us.

“I think he’s still pissed at you,” I teased Marie, trying to ease the tension, but it didn’t work.

“He’s trying to make me feel like shit for hurting him,” she said sadly. “Like he has to do that. Like I don’t already feel bad enough.”

John sensed that Marie was fine with just me there to hang with her, so he bailed to go to his locker. As soon as he was gone, Noah came up to us. “Will,” he said coldly.

“Noah,” I responded, in the same tone.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked Marie.

“I have to get to class,” she said.

“Later then?” he asked, almost pleading. I felt really bad for him, even though he hadn’t been very nice to me.

“Noah, what more is there for us to talk about?” she asked. “We can’t be together. It’s not going to work.” He was really uncomfortable having this conversation in front of me, but not nearly as uncomfortable as I was. But Marie put her hand on my elbow, telling me to stick with her, so I did.

“We can’t be friends?” he asked, only all three of us knew that wasn’t what he wanted, and it wouldn’t be good enough for him.

“Maybe we can talk tomorrow, OK?” she asked, trying to put him off. He seemed to get that he wasn’t going to get any more from her than that.

“That will work. After school?”

“Fine,” she said. “You can take me home if you want to.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said with a grin, and looked all happy. He probably thought this was the first step in getting back together with her. He walked away with almost a bounce in his step.

“What did I just do?” she asked rhetorically.

“You gave him hope when there isn’t any,” I said.

“I’m not trying to be cruel,” she said, being bitchy.

“Dude, no matter what you do, this is going to suck. He’s not going to make this easy. So you’re along for the miserable ride until you get sick of it, and finally tell him to fuck off,” I said. She frowned at me. “This is the time when having really good manners sucks. You can’t just blow him off like some of the assholes here; you have to try to make things better.”

“Yeah, and by doing that, I just make things worse,” she grumbled.

“Just don’t start going out with Kevin Meany. That dude is a total tool,” I said, getting her mind off of Noah. Kevin was an idiot. He was kind of like Blaine, only dumber.

“I figured that out,” she said, being all smarmy.

“Shoots!” I heard, and almost started cracking up because I couldn’t tell if it was Austin, or John imitating Austin. This time it was the real thing.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey Starfish,” Austin said to Marie, his voice getting a little huskier when he talked to her. Austin was big into nicknames, and Marie had picked that one up after we’d found out the Hobart coat of arms had a starfish on it.

“Austin,” she said, mildly flirting back. She didn’t like being called Starfish, so it was kind of funny that she put up with it from him.

He raised his eyebrow at her and smiled, throwing some serious charm her way. It didn’t bother him that Marie seemed oblivious to it. He turned his attention back to me. “What time is math homework?”

“Has to be before six,” I said. Tony was taking me out to dinner tonight, on a real date. I was stoked.

“What’s going on after six?” Marie asked.

“Got a date,” I said. “This smokin’ hot dude teased me all weekend and wouldn’t come through, so I have to line up a man to tame my desires.”

Austin chuckled as he shook his head. “Just one?” Marie asked, giving me shit.

“He has a big dick,” I said.

“Dude, I have practice until six,” Austin said, looking somewhat desperate now. I had no problem helping him, but no way I was blowing off my date with Tony to do it.

“You want to fill in for the dude who’s taking me out, I’ll help you after six,” I said firmly.

He frowned. “I can figure it out myself.”

“You know, girls can be good at math too. God, you’re such a misogynist,” Marie said, and I was surprised to see she was pretty annoyed.

“What’s a misogynist?” he asked, ripping the word up with his pronunciation.

“A dude who hates women,” I said.

“I love women,” he insisted, and winked at Marie.

“Not like that, dumbass. A misogynist may want to fuck a woman, but he thinks she’s stupid and worthless,” I explained.

“What if I like to fuck women, but I think they’re smart and awesome?” he asked me.

“Then maybe you can talk Marie into helping you out with your math homework,” I replied.

“You think you can help me out?” Austin asked her, turning on his charm.

“Right. You wanted Will, but you’ll settle for me,” she said, pouting. “I think I have to organize my sock drawer tonight.”

But Austin knew how to play her. “Come on Starfish. Can’t you help me out with this stuff?” he pleaded. “Please?”

“Fine,” she relented, even though I knew she’d do it as soon as it came up. “Be at my house at nine o’clock sharp.”

“What happens if I’m late?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“She spanks you,” I said.

“Hot,” he said, almost a whisper. “I’ll be late.” He strutted away from us, while we watched him go. Marie was blushing three shades of red, and I started laughing at her.

“Asshole,” she said to me, with a certain amount of love.

“I’ll bet you could get into that dominatrix routine.” She rolled her eyes at me and we went to class, laughing as we did. I saw Noah watching us from a distance and felt bad for him, but heartache was something you just had to work your way through.

I’d made it through my day, literally desperate for 6:00 to roll around. I worked hard on my appearance, and dressed a little nicer than I usually would. By 5:45 I couldn’t stand it anymore, and went up to the foyer to wait for Tony. I’d just gotten there when he came strolling in. “Hey!” he said, and gave me a really nice kiss.

“Hey,” I said, after I finally forced myself to break apart from him.

“You look great,” he said.

“So do you,” I said, and he did. He was wearing gray dress slacks that fit him perfectly, along with a light blue dress shirt and no tie. It made him look really mature. I was wearing the same outfit I’d worn when I’d gone out with Eric Delgado: khakis and a green shirt. “You ready to go?”

“Lead the way, big guy,” I said, gesturing toward the door. He headed for his Camaro but I stopped him. “We’re going in style tonight.” I tossed him the keys to my dad’s Ferrari.

“What if he wants to use it?”

“He’s in Connecticut,” I said.

“Awesome!” We hopped into the Ferrari and I was patient while he dicked around with the mirrors and shit, then he drove off. “I love this car.”

“I know,” I said with a smile. “So where are we going for dinner?”

“There’s a really nice Chinese restaurant in town. I heard it was good,” he said. He told me the name of it, and it’s the same place I’d gone with Matt, Wade, and the hockey team.

“Good choice,” I said. “It is.” We just bullshitted about school, reconnecting by sharing the stupid shit that happened in our normal lives, and continued that conversation until we were at the restaurant and we ordered.

“I didn’t know if you’d be free tonight, but I really wanted to see you,” he said.

“Dude, I told you I’d be there for you if you needed me. You needed to eat. Dinners count,” I said, smiling at him.

“My mom said you sent her a nice e-mail,” he said.

“She sent me a nice letter,” I told him.

“She didn’t tell me what she said,” he commented casually, but he clearly wanted to know. That didn’t bother me. If my mom had written a letter to a guy I’d been with, I’d want to know what it said, only then I remembered that I didn’t have a mother. And then I had one of my attacks, where the tears flowed and I got sad. “Are you alright?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just one of those stupid attacks I get.” I got up to leave but he stopped me.

“Stay here, with me. It will be better.” I looked at him and blinked, kind of shocked at what he said, but he was right, and I was able to pretty much shrug it off after that.

“Thanks. You were right,” I said, then focused on the letter. “Your mom was really nice. She apologized for treating me so badly at the funeral, and said that her behavior was really inexcusable. She told me that she’d always liked me, and that she thought I was good for you, and that she should have known better than to listen to stupid-ass rumors. She promised me that it wouldn’t happen again.”

“She tell you who told her that shit about you?” he asked. I nodded. “It was Rick?” I nodded again. “I should fucking kick his ass.” He said that with real anger, but I knew that he’d have a hard time actually doing it if Rick were in front of him.

“I think you’re better off just moving on and forgetting about him,” I said.

“I talked to Casey about that,” he said. “I went to see him this afternoon.”

“What did he say?”

“I’m having a real problem with just cutting Rick off,” he said. I felt myself starting to get pissed off, thinking that was why he took me out, to tell me he was still going to be with Rick, but I calmed my ass down. I had to learn to wait for bad news before I got upset about it.

“Why?”

“Because we’ve been friends since we were kids,” he said. “Breaking up with him is like ending us, and ending our friendship too.”

“What did Casey say?”

“He said the sometimes you can be friends with people you break up with, and sometimes you can’t.” His eyes actually got watery. “He doesn’t think that with Rick I can.”

I wanted to say I was sorry, but I wasn’t. “I know this is tough on you.”

“Is this how you felt about me this summer, after the float trip?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I pretty much knew that we’d be able to be friends again after you worked your way through things and groveled like a little bitch.” I grinned as I said that, and he smiled at me to think me for easing the emotional tension.

“I’ll be your bitch anytime,” he said, and with such sincerity it was really touching.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Why do you think you could do that for me, but I can’t do that for Rick?”

I paused to think about that, and he just let me work that through in my brain. “I knew that you were in denial about being gay, and I knew that was fucking up your brain. I knew that the baggage from your dad was just making it worse. But underneath all that, I like the person that you are. Rick may be going through some of the same shit you are, but underneath that, he’s an asshole.”

“He hasn’t always been an asshole,” Tony insisted.

“I don’t know him well enough to argue about it, but you may want to think back about how he’s treated other people,” I said. “And it doesn’t matter, really, because the way he fucked around with both me and your mother should be enough to seal the deal.” He looked at me, the clarity working its way through to him, but it still needed a little help. “Dude, you gonna let someone fuck with your mother’s mind like that and get away with it?”

And then the fog was gone, and Tony got it, and at that moment, I knew that Rick was history, out of his life. “No one fucks with my mother,” he said belligerently. I tried not to be completely irritated that what Rick did to me wasn’t all that important in the greater scheme of things. It was really his mother that mattered, not the rest of us. But I brushed that aside, because I was just being petulant.

“Why does he hate me so much?” I asked, referring to Rick.

He got embarrassed, and blushed a little bit, which was really cute. “One time he decided to wake me up by sucking my dick, only I thought I was dreaming.”

“So. I like to wake you up by sucking your dick,” I said, smiling at him.

“I know. I must have thought it was you, because I called out your name,” he said. And that just floored me for so many reasons. For one thing, he must really be into me, if he called out my name when he was dreaming about sex. That was a major ego booster. On the other hand, it kind of made me understand why Rick would have gone so batshit insane; I’d be pretty messed up if I was blowing my boyfriend, putting my all into it, and he thought it was a dude he used to be with.

“So you were dreaming about me?” I asked.

“I was dreaming about you,” he admitted, but in his bedroom voice.

“You done?” I asked, since we’d finished eating.

“No dessert?”

I smiled. “Dessert’s at home, where I make your dreams come true.” He tossed a C-note on the table and we were out of there and back to Escorial as fast as the Ferrari would take us.

October 10, 2001

Connecticut

The limousine pulled up to the gates of Triton’s world headquarters. I was used to the routine, the security protocols, so I was surprised when the car was stopped and I wasn’t immediately waved through.

“Mr. Schluter, can you please step out of the car,” the guard asked officiously.

“For what purpose?” I demanded.

“We have to do random checks of all vehicles. Your vehicle triggered the automatic warning,” he said. He and another guy began inspecting the limo, checking underneath it, and then looking in the trunk. “We’ll need to look through your bags.”

“You will do no such thing,” I declared.

“I cannot let you pass until we have thoroughly inspected the vehicle and its contents,” he said.

“That is exactly what is going to happen,” I said loudly, then called Jordan Pfinster, the president of the company, on my cell phone. I got his assistant, and in less than a minute, the guard was motioned over to his booth by his colleague. He returned looking rather sheepish. “You’re free to go, Mr. Schluter,” he said.

“I’ll mention in the board meeting how you people sliced ten minutes off my day,” I snapped.

“Sir, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, don’t you think your safety and the safety of everyone here is worth ten minutes of your time?”

“How many times have you stopped Jordan Pfinster?” I asked acidly.

“The automated sequence never came up when he arrived,” he lied.

“I will not be harassed at the entrance to this company by you, or anyone else,” I said firmly. “And now you have cost me twelve minutes.” I got in the car and told the driver to go on, and it whisked me up to the main entrance. I wasn’t happy about being here; I wasn’t happy in general. But now I was fuming.

Jordan’s assistant was there to meet me, and she was unlucky enough to receive the full brunt of my anger. I brushed aside her greeting, but that probably didn’t bother her, because she was a very cold and efficient woman. “I want to see the head of security in my office immediately.”

“The board is waiting for you,” she said.

“You can tell them that they can wait just like I had to wait while I talk to this asshole,” I said.

“I’ll have Mr. Bock sent in to see you at once, and I’ll notify the other board members,” she said, and strode off to do as I asked. I got into the elevator and it took me up nine floors to the top floor of this sprawling building. It was a relief not to have to deal with skyscrapers after the nightmare of 9-11.

“Good morning, Brad,” my assistant said. His name was Alec, and he was one of those skinny little efficient types, and had the misfortune to remind me of Brian. I had learned not to hold that against him, and in fact, he was a really good person to work with. He was one of those people who instinctively seemed to know what I needed, and then took the initiative to get it done. He was probably the only reason I was able to truncate my hours in Connecticut. “I heard about the security situation. Bock has been raising hell.”

“Why’d he pick me?” I demanded.

“Rumor has it they’ve developed a rating of suspicious people, based on their background. You’re in one of the categories.”

“I am?” What category could I possibly be in?

“You’re gay,” he said simply.

“Seriously?” I asked, stunned. We owned majority control of a company that was hazing gay people?

“Those of us who are ‘out’ get searched at least once a week when we enter the complex,” he said. “It’s been that way since the protocols changed after the attacks.”

“I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that. I’ll see if I can make things better. When this idiot arrives, have him wait. I’ll call him in when we’re ready to interview him,” I said.

“I’ll pass that on,” he said.

“You’re with me,” I said. I strode into the boardroom confidently with Alec trailing behind me and took my seat at the head of the table. “Welcome to Connecticut,” Jordan said crisply.

“Hardly a friendly welcome to be accosted by our own security guards when I arrived,” I snapped. “We will be adding an item to the agenda to review our security protocols.”

Jordan’s eyes twitched a bit, a sure sign he was annoyed, but he and I usually got along well, so he got over that quickly enough. “I suggest we address that after we discuss the operations projections, which would be right after lunch.”

“That will be fine,” I said. I turned to Alec. “Would you please tell Mr. Bock that he is to appear before this board at 1:30 today? He is to bring with him copies of any internal memos or communications issued to the security team on who should be stopped, and the complete set of protocols on how security is being handled now, as compared to prior to the attacks.”

“Yes, sir,” he said crisply, and left.

“Is that really a board level issue?” one of the directors, Randall Fireside, asked. He was one of the old guard left over from before our takeover, and had retained his position largely because Jordan respected him. He tended to question anything we did, and normally I found that useful. He was good at making us see different sides of a situation. But I didn’t need that insight in this situation.

“If our security team is targeting specific groups of employees and harassing them, or if our security chief is so craven with power that he delights in screwing around with the chairman of this company then it is a board level issue,” I said firmly. “Were any of you stopped and searched when you arrived?” They all shook their heads, while Jordan looked extremely uncomfortable. He should have handled this. He should have been on top of this. This was the job of the CEO, not the chairman. He would have been within his rights to object to me interfering in the operations of the company if I hadn’t been the victim of those operations. “I’ll bet if you had, you would have considered it a board level decision. Now let’s move on to the agenda.”

The first items were easy enough to grapple with. They were merely the approval of the minutes of our last meeting, and reports from the various executive committees of the board on their activities. Then Jordan opened the next agenda item, which was the discussion of Triton’s “Plan Zeta”, which we’d been working on prior to the 9-11 attacks, but had spent a good amount of time finalizing in the past few weeks. “As you all have no doubt heard, the United States government’s attempts to extract Osama bin Laden from the grips of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan have failed, and they have now adopted a more aggressive posture,” Jordan said, in his officious voice. “Bombing of that country began on the 7^th, and troops from a broad coalition of international partners are expected to be on the ground in Afghanistan next month.”

“So we are at war…” one of the board members mused sadly.

“We have been at war since the attacks on 9-11,” I corrected. “Only now, we are fighting back.”

“Plan Zeta was originally Plan Delta,” Jordan explained, “a plan to significantly expand our production capabilities, as well as our research and development efforts. Plan Delta was designed for a ten-year cycle, to be completed by 2012. With the changes in the world situation, we have come up with a way to accelerate that process so we can increase our capacity by 80% in three years.”

“An increase of 80% in three years? At what cost to quality?” someone asked.

“Much of that increase will be in existing products designed to support existing systems,” I said, stepping in to back up the plan. I’d spent almost all of my non-mourning time on this damn thing, so I understood it forward and backward. “We have excess capacity at our plants, so we will be leaning on our plant managers to increase shifts and productivity.”

“Won’t that cause a ripple effect through the entire company?” one of them asked.

I bit back my frustration, and reminded myself that this was why we had a board, to ask these tough questions. “It will, and that’s why Plan Zeta is so comprehensive. If you review the report, you’ll see that it requires that we not only enhance our production efforts, but we’ll have to work with our suppliers as well, not to mention the various internal departments, such as human resources, who will have to manage a big increase in staffing.” I wanted to point out that if he’d done his homework and read the damn plan, he’d have known that, but I opted not to be a dick about it.

“This will require a significant capital outlay,” Graham Newton stated. He was the Chief Financial Officer. “We have already established lines of credit with our bankers, and are confident that those will be sufficient to cover our financial needs. If not, we have an additional line available for contingencies.” He didn’t disclose to the board that the contingency line was basically Stef and I.

“Wouldn’t it be preferable to issue bonds?” another member asked, a lady with a strong finance background.

“Since we are a privately held company, that makes issuing bonds more difficult,” Newton said. “We’re prepared to more fully brief you on that when we get to item four.” That was the proposal to discuss taking Triton public again.

“We’re spending an awful lot of money gearing up for production that may not be needed,” Fireside said. “How hard can it be to beat a bunch of Afghans?”

“I would suggest you ask the Russians about that,” I observed coldly, probably because I was annoyed with those who didn’t appreciate the importance of history. Then again, my father was a history professor, so perhaps I overstated it. “You’ll find that even at the apex of their power as an empire, the British had a difficult time there as well.”

“Well, that was them,” he said, with annoying American bravado.

“The president has not declared war on Afghanistan,” Jordan spoke clearly. “The president has declared war on terror. Our analysts believe it is likely this conflict will expand far beyond Afghanistan, and it will do so quickly.”

“Then isn’t the prudent thing to see how this develops and then expand to meet those demands,” Fireside said.

“Then it will be too late,” Jordan said. “The demand for our products will be there, but we will not have the ability or capacity to provide them, nor will we have focused enough resources on research and development, so we won’t be able to provide the new systems they need.”

“Development of those new systems will take time, and I assume our affiliations with other companies will provide us with enough warning to accommodate that under our normal processes,” Fireside countered.

“That is true, and they are doing so. We have already been approached by United Technologies, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin about their planned production increases, inquiring as to whether we’ll be able to supply them with the parts they need,” Jordan noted. “They have also seen where this is headed, and are planning accordingly.”

“I see,” Fireside said, sufficiently cowed.

“I think that it was important for you to raise those issues,” I said to him. “It is vital that we look at this from all angles, and make a deliberate decision. Unfortunately, with the way the geo-political situation has changed, we don’t have as much time to ponder things.” He nodded to thank me for that, since I usually didn’t treat him so carefully. The people around this table were big boys and girls, tested in the trenches of corporate America. They appreciated a direct approach.

But it took us a full two hours of discussion, focused on details of Plan Zeta, before the board seemed fully informed about it. But there was no way I was going to allow this kind of expansion, expending this many resources, until I was comfortable that we had a handle on this security situation. “I move that we delay voting on this until after lunch, and until we have considered the other items on our agenda,” I said.

Jordan stared at me, confused and not a little annoyed, since we’d been strategizing on how to get the board fully on board, and it seemed that they were. I could see his facial expression change in a subtle way as he pulled things together. “I’ll second that,” he said, surprising the others even more than my motion had. After that motion passed unanimously, we took a break. Jordan cornered me in the bathroom, ironically enough. “I’m sorry about the way you were treated this morning.”

“My assistant tells me this isn’t an isolated case. He says that the security office has designated certain types of employees as being a high security risk. It is possible that race is one of those criteria, but it is almost certain that being gay is. So I was stopped, and any ‘out’ employee at this firm has been stopped at least once,” I said.

“I had no idea,” he said, completely appalled. “I’ll investigate this and handle it.”

“I don’t have to tell you how Stef will react to this,” I cautioned.

“You do not,” he confirmed. Stef would have trashed the entire board meeting to hold an inquisition. “I’ll look into this, and if you will trust me to do that, and to give you a report with recommendations by the end of the week, I will give you the final say in how we handle it.”

I smiled at Jordan. He was so good at reading me, and at dealing with my somewhat hot-headed moods. He was saying that if I wanted Mr. Bock and his lieutenants fired, it would happen, but he wanted to make sure we had all the facts first. “That sounds good to me. In the meantime, can you make sure that we call off the dogs? I don’t want my assistant hounded or harassed.”

“Consider it done,” he said, and vanished to go make a few phone calls.