Millennium - 48. Chapter 48

January 3, 2000

 

I sat with my assembled team and found that I was really excited. It wasn’t just the documents I’d bought from Lark. Those were invaluable. It wasn’t my own motivation, my own drive to destroy Omega that excited me, even though that was palpable. No, it was the energy from this team I’d assembled. They all sat there, chomping at the bit to get going.

I studied this diverse group. All of them had been with us long before Brian had made us known to the Carmichaels. Besides Grace, the only other woman was Randi. She was an attractive brunette in her mid-30s. Her portfolio was to evaluate Omega’s competition and see if we couldn’t erode their market share. Cal was the youngest and the cutest. He was in his mid 20s, a Berkeley grad with a Stanford MBA. I briefly let myself go off on a tangent to wonder who he rooted for at Cal-Stanford games. His beautiful blond hair and blue eyes were seemingly attached as an afterthought to his wimpy body, which made him seem dorky, but in a cute way. He was a financial whiz kid. Put financial statements in front of him, and he could read them like most people read a cheap novel. Rashid was from the Middle East, and in his late 40s. He was sophisticated and cultured, with a distinct accent that had a slightly British flavor. His job was to look for the scandals and the holes in Omega. He was an expert politician, and a lawyer. Nathan was in his mid-30s, and the most attractive guy of the group. He had a fit body, dark hair, blazing brown eyes, and an intense nature. He was also an attorney. His job was to look at this from the legal aspect of things. If Nathan had the corner on looks, Elijah, the last member, had the corner on charisma. He was Jewish, and very hairy, one of those guys who had so much chest hair that it seemed to be trying to pour out over the top of his t-shirt. But there was a magnetism about him, something that drew a person in. He was there to look at the big picture. He’d shown a marked ability to pull things together to build out the whole story.

“So you guys have been working on this?” I asked.

“Damn right. These assholes are hard to read,” Cal said. As the financial forensics guy, the copies I had next to me would be like a wet dream for him. “I got an interesting piece of information from Jerry Barkowsky.”

“That guy that works in accounting?” Randi asks. “He hits on me constantly.”

We laughed. “He gave me financial reports that look like they came from Omega.” I froze, and the mood changed with mine.

“Can I see them?” He handed me the papers. It was the same shit they’d planted on Lark: the nonsense pabulum that was all but worthless.

“It’s nothing. Someone put this together to try and fool people,” Cal said. “Jerry acted like it was some big prize, and wanted to know if you’d let him on the team.”

“What did you tell him?”

He shrugged. “I told him I’d look at it, and show it to you with my recommendation.”

“And what is your recommendation?”

“I think we should shred the thing. It’s worthless.” I grinned at his perceptiveness.

“Actually Cal, I think you’ve discovered something much more valuable than the financials. You’ve found Omega’s latest mole.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. I really had their attention now.

“I was able to acquire what I believe is the real financial information from Omega,” I said. I handed out copies to the six of them. I watched Cal shuffle through the pages. I’d bet real money he had an erection.

“This is a fucking gold mine!” he said excitedly. “What makes you think Jerry’s a mole?”

“Because the guy who sold this to me also gave me this,” I said, handing Cal my copy of the same paper he’d given me.

“It’s the same thing, the same bogus financials,” he said.

“The guy who sold me the real stuff said they put these where he could find them. He knew they wanted him to pass them on.”

“So they did the same thing for Jerry, and the price for this incredibly valuable info is that he becomes a warrior?” Nate asked, really pissed off. I smiled at the team cohesion that had evolved in such a short time.

“That’s a likely explanation,” I said.

“So what do we do about it?” Randi asked.

“We don’t do anything. Cal, you tell Jerry we’re reviewing it. My source for the real stuff is bailing on Omega soon. We’ll wait until then to tell Jerry we already had the info. Then we can use him to funnel disinformation back to Omega.”

“I’d rather kick his ass,” Nate said, cracking us all up.

“Brad, give me a day to digest this stuff,” Cal said. “This stuff really is golden. We’ll know everything. There may even be some tax evasion going on with these offshore companies.”

“I’ll have to check that out,” Nate said.

“You’ve been very busy,” Grace said to me.

“I even met my wicked stepmother,” I said, smiling. I told them about my trip to DC, all the details of my encounters, which had them laughing most of the time.

“Well I haven’t been standing still,” Randi said, taking the floor. “There are two prime competitors for Omega’s defense business, and one for their consumer electronics. The consumer side is chump change for them, so I focused mostly on the defense contracts. The two companies that compete with Omega are Triton and PTL.”

“These financials validate that conclusion,” Cal said. She ignored him.

“I talked to some people at Triton systems. Their problem is capitalization. They have some neat projects in the works; they just don’t have the money to work on them all. They have to retreat from markets where they could hammer Omega because they can’t afford to fight there. The other company is PTL Electronics. PTL stands for “Praise The Lord.” I don’t think you want to work with them,” she said.

“What’s their deal?” Elijah asked

“Their problems are different. The way they put their religion front and center gives them a built-in support network in Congress. But while they’ve got the political backing, they don’t have the products. They’re pretty moribund.”

“Do they work with Omega?” Rashid asked. How typical of him, to think of consensus and cooperation.

Randi laughed. “Neither company does. Quite frankly, they all three seem to hate each other. My original thought was that there might be a merger potential between PTL and Triton, but PTL really couldn’t bring anything to the table except politicians.”

“You mentioned mergers,” Elijah said. “What about a civilian electronics company that has money and needs to broaden their market?”

“You mean like Comcalc?” Rashid asked. “Stef’s got some pull with them, doesn’t he?”

“Not much,” I said. “He thought their direction was pretty narrow, and he sold most of his stock over the past few years.” Comcalc’s stock had taken a nosedive last June, once again making Stef look like a savant.

“You talk money with Triton?” Cal asked Randi.

“I just put out some feelers,” she said. “I don’t know what their deal is for sure.”

“Can you get a meeting set up so we can meet with them?” I asked. “It needs to be top secret, for their benefit as well as ours.”

“I’ll get on it,” she said, smiling.

I looked at Rashid and Elijah. “We may have to put together some external financing, or bring in some partners, if we plan to build Triton into an overnight powerhouse.”

“We can drum up some institutions,” Elijah said confidently.

“One more thing,” Nate said. “Omega didn’t get the exclusive contract to supply the new Virginia class submarines with their electronics because there are problems with the systems they put into the Seawolf. They have to co-op it with Triton.”

“So if we could make a big deal about the Seawolf problems, we might be able to nudge them out of the Virginia deal?” I asked.

Nate nodded. “There’s another thing. Remember the Patriot missiles during Desert Storm? Seems that they weren’t as effective as they claimed to be. Know why?” We shook our heads. “Crappy electronics.” He was grinning now.

“Omega did them?” Elijah asked, grinning too.

“They did,” Nate said. “There’s one more issue I wanted to raise.” I noticed that the others gave him disapproving looks, so he’d obviously run this by them and they weren’t sure it was a good idea.

“Go on.”

“I had an idea to distract ABC.”

“ABC?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s our code for Alexandra. ABC is for Alexandra ‘the Bitch’ Carmichael.” I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

“I like it. How would you distract her?”

“File a lawsuit demanding your rightful inheritance as Kevin’s son.” I just stared at him, digesting that. My instincts were to avoid that. I didn’t want anything from the Carmichaels. I didn’t need their money; I didn’t want anything from them, other than to be left alone. I looked at him and saw him get really nervous at my reaction.

“That’s an interesting idea,” I said. “I have a feeling you guys were nervous about bringing this up?” Randi and Cal nodded. “Don’t be. We’re a team. You got an idea, I want to hear it. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

“We were worried it would be an unpleasant course of action,” Rashid said diplomatically.

“Make sure you understand this. I want to destroy these people. If that means I have to grapple with some inner demons, I’ll grapple with them. No holding back,” I said severely, looking at each of them to make sure they got it. “Now tell me why you think I should sue for my inheritance. The bucks came from ABC.” They smiled because I’d used their term for my wicked stepmother.

“I don’t think we have a chance of winning any money or property,” Nate said. “I just think it would really piss her off. That and we might be able to force her to divulge a bunch of information. We’re trying to find out if his estate went through probate. I figured that if we hit her with that around the same time we nailed them with this other stuff, it might really make them stagger.”

“Work it up,” I said. We got ready to adjourn our meeting.

“I’ve got one more thing,” Elijah said. We all looked at him, our non-verbal sign to go on. “I’ve been talking to a psychiatrist.”

“It’s about time,” Randi joked. He gave her a withering look.

“I wanted to get some insight on how to deal with a person who was obsessed with another person. I wanted to find out how to use that to our advantage.”

“And what did you find out?”

“If we put you in front of her, it’s going to inflame her emotions and that might make her decision-making processes less logical. But if we put you in front of her too often, it dulls the surprise. She basically gets used to you.”

I nodded. That made sense. “So the strategy is for me to poke her from a distance when I can, but minimize contact with her so when I actually do see her, it has a much bigger impact?”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Sounds like a plan. Good work guys. Keep digging. Let’s meet again tomorrow morning and Cal can tell us what he found out, at least so far.” I left the meeting and went up to see Stefan. I found Jerry in there with him, ironically enough.

“There you are,” Stef said enthusiastically. “I was just going to come looking for you.”

“Well you found me,” I said cheerfully. “Hey, Jerry.”

“Hey, Brad,” he said, smiling. We all stood there until Jerry realized he was supposed to leave. I closed the door behind him.

“He wants to be on your team,” Stef said.

“He’s a mole,” I responded. Stef looked at me, surprised and upset.

“How do you know this?”

“You know those crap financials they planted on Lark? Jerry gave copies of those to Cal.”

“It is interesting that Omega feels the need to constantly try to infiltrate our company,” Stef said.

“And even more interesting that they only seem to be able to draw moles from the lowest rungs,” I said.

“How do you want to handle Jerry?” he asked.

“Let’s keep him around. He’s in a low impact area. We’ll use him to funnel false info to Omega.”

“You do not think they have learned their lesson from Brandon?” Stef asked.

“I don’t think they knew we were sending info back to them,” I told him. “I heard they finished transferring money to Go Chang yesterday.”

Stef grinned. We’d seen the financials. That really tapped them out. Their cash reserves were low now, dangerously low. “It is about time for us to do some high profile tech deals.”

“We’ve got a few,” I said. “I thought we were staying out of the business?”

“It will not hurt us to use ten or twenty million dollars as a taunt to Omega,” Stef said. “We’ll win, and then point out that they’re too broke to bid.”

“I like it,” I smiled. “Randi found a company she wants us to talk to. Triton Electronics, a competitor of Omega.”

“Do you need me to go along?” he asked.

“If you can, it would be good.” Stef’s input was priceless. “I don’t know when it will be yet, though.”

“We will see if I can work that into my schedule.” I left him and went down to pore over the information we were developing on Omega. It seemed like my day flew by; before I knew it, it was time to head home. I stopped on my way out to talk to Stef.

“We’ve got the meeting scheduled with Triton this Friday. They’re in Connecticut,” I told him.

He busily looked at his schedule. “I can go out on Thursday night.” I grinned at that. He brought such prestige and knowledge to meetings like that.

“Excellent. I’ll see you at home.”

I hopped in my Ferrari and smiled. It reminded me of Robbie; just thinking of him made me happy. I picked up my cell and called him, listening to the various clicks as the phone call transferred to the jet. When he answered he sounded frantic. “We got stuck in LAX on the ground. We just took off. I don’t know if I’ll make it to Escorial by 7:00pm.”

“It’s OK. I’ll make sure JP doesn’t hurt you,” I said.

“Very funny,” he said, pretending to be all pissy.

I called Rafael and told him I’d pick Robbie up, and then called JP to tell him we’d be a little late. So much for being a big badass. It would have been nice to just head straight back to Escorial, but the look on his face when he got off the plane and found that I’d come to pick him up myself was priceless.

“You came to get me!”

“You’re really smart,” I teased sarcastically.

“That was really nice. It’s great to see you!” He tossed his bag in the car and I whisked us toward Escorial.

“I have to go to Connecticut on Thursday night for some meetings on Friday morning. I don’t know what your schedule is like, but I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?”

“You want me to fly out to Connecticut and then chill in a hotel room while you’re in meetings?” he asked, not quite annoyed, but almost.

“Actually, I was thinking that you could fly out to Connecticut with me on Thursday, you could chill in the hotel room on Friday while I’m in meetings, and then we could spend the weekend in New York together.”

“Now I see the appeal,” he joked. He pulled out his calendar. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“We have to go to Hawaii tomorrow night with Lark,” he said. Fuck. I’d forgotten all about that. I thought about telling him that I could handle Lark so we could go to New York together, but changed my mind. He’d be too uncomfortable leaving me alone with Lark. That could have bothered me if I thought it was because he didn’t trust me, but I knew better. He didn’t trust Lark. He’d worry about me the whole time and it would drive him crazy.

“Alright. So much for my plan,” I said with resignation.

“It sucks that we can’t go, but you know what’s really cool?”

“What?”

“I think it’s pretty cool that you dreamed that up and included me,” he said, grinning. I smiled back at him, and then I focused on the task at hand. I got us to Escorial at 6:55pm.

 

January 4, 2000

 

I was frantically running around, trying to get my work all wrapped up before I left. I still had to get home and pick up Robbie, go see David, then meet Lark at the airport and take him to Hawaii. And then I got to go home for a few days.

“I think that’s everything,” Grace said. She handed me an audit case. “That has all of your reports in it.”

“Thanks Grace,” I said. “Call me if you need me.” I dashed from the office, looking at my watch unnecessarily. I knew I was late. I was going to speed back to Escorial like a demon, but I remembered the handsome Officer Milton, and decided to keep just below a ticketable pace.

I let my mind wander back to the office, and to our meetings. The distraction helped calm me so I didn’t drive like a maniac. We’d picked March 15^th as our date to launch our assault on Omega. Rashid had suggested it, drawing from Shakespeare. “Beware the ides of March,” he’d said ominously, cracking us up. We’d spent the morning working up a strategy to hit them with multiple blows, each designed to send them reeling. I was starting to think we might just pull this off.

I drove up to the house and Robbie came rushing outside. He’d been waiting for me, obviously. “What is it about going to see David that makes you late?” he asked with a pissed off tone.

“It’s not David; it’s that he’s the last thing on my schedule, well, except for Lark. I had a lot of things to do today,” I said. We were both being just a little bitchy. I decided to change that. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“How are you going to do that?” he asked.

“I’ll surprise you,” I teased.

“You’ll surprise me,” he said, as if he didn’t believe me, just to tease me. “Alright, we’ll see what you come up with.”

We got to David’s office on time, but just barely. He was as punctual as ever, leading us back to his inner sanctum.

“So how are you doing?” he asked.

“Great,” Robbie said confidently. That really made me happy. Before when he’d voiced a status like that, he’d look at me nervously, as if to see if I was there with him. Not this time. This time, he was doing great, and he knew I was too.

“What he said,” I chimed in. David smiled at both of us, joining our happy little party. We spent some time regaling him with how we’d managed to put our relationship back together.

“What boundaries have you set for each other?” he asked.

“We have two guys we can mess around with, and we do our best not to fuck anyone else. There are two taboos, lines we can’t cross. Robbie can’t let anyone else fist him, and I can’t fuck Matt,” I explained.

“What happens if you violate one of the taboos?” David asked.

I looked at Robbie, and watched as his expression changed to one of horror. It matched mine. “We’d be over,” I said.

Robbie nodded. “That’s why it won’t happen.”

“I think it’s important to understand why it would be a problem,” David said. “Brad, why is it so important that no one else fist Robbie?”

“I used to have a lot of reasons, and one of them would have been that it’s dangerous for Robbie, but that’s not really it. He’s so healthy; it’s just another way for us to express our love for each other.” That got a really big smile from Robbie. “It’s a really intimate thing; the bond we have when we do it is surreal. I don’t think I could handle him having that kind of bond with someone else.”

“If I told you fisting was off limits, would it bother you if Robbie let someone else fuck him?”

I thought about that for a while, until their stares finally forced me to answer. “It would, but I don’t know why,” I said honestly.

“I think I might,” David said. “I have a hypothesis.”

“Go on,” Robbie said.

“I think Brad needs that, needs something really special that’s just between the two of you. That’s why if I remove fisting from the equation, suddenly he can’t stomach you having sex with another man, because there wouldn’t be anything unique the two of you shared.”

His words flew down my neuro pathways for processing as I grappled with what he said. In the end, I knew he was right. “I can see that,” I said.

“I’m not emphasizing this to ruin your good moods. It’s wonderful to see you both so happy. But I wanted you to understand why this was so important to Brad,” David said to Robbie. “If you cross that line, you’ll have removed all that is special about you as a couple, at least in his eyes.”

“There’s more to us than that,” Robbie said, irritated.

“There is,” I told him. “But he’s right. If you were letting some other guy fist you, then when I did it, I’d feel like I was just one of many. When I fuck you or you fuck me, it’s incredibly special and unique, better than it’s ever been with anyone else. But we both have other people we’ve been with, or can be with, to do that. Having something unique is like having something sacred, something for just us.”

“I get it,” he said, really irked now. “I told you I wouldn’t do it, and I won’t.”

“Why is Brad having sex with Matt such a big deal to you?” David asked.

“He’s my son. It’s like incest!” Robbie said indignantly.

“You’ve both crossed lines before. Do you think that’s really the reason?”

“Yeah,” Robbie said. He was adamant.

“Why do you think it’s such an issue?” I asked David. He was going somewhere with this.

“Another hypothesis,” David said. We just waited for him to go on. “Matt has a lot of similarities to you, doesn’t he?”

“Some,” Robbie said.

“They have some of the same features. Their eyes are the same, for example. And there’s one other thing: they smell the same,” I said. Robbie got a strange look on his face, as if he couldn’t decide whether to be weirded out by that or not.

“You said that when you were almost with him, that was the thing that made you stop,” Robbie observed thoughtfully. I nodded.

“I think that besides the fact that Matt is your son, the reason it would bother you so much is that it would seem like Brad was basically trading you in for the younger model,” David said. I felt my mouth fall open as what he said came into focus. That would have ripped into Robbie’s core insecurities about aging, fed the mid-life crisis thing like oxygen feeds a fire.

“He’s a young, handsome guy,” Robbie said, trying to play it off but he couldn’t stop himself from showing his real feelings, showing how right David was.

“So why did you bring this up? Why are you making this an issue?” I asked David.

“Because I agree with you that if either of you crossed those lines it would be a very damaging wound to your relationship. Sometimes the externally logical reason doesn’t seem like such a big deal. In fact, it is a big deal to both of you.”

“So you wanted us to realize that so if we were ever tempted, we’d have a clear understanding of why it was so devastating to us?” I asked.

“Perhaps you should be a psychologist,” David observed with a smile. “I have a question for you.” He was looking at me, so I nodded. “On December 4, you two were essentially separated. On December 9, you were a couple again, and your bond was back. That was a pretty quick change. How did you do that?”

Robbie looked at me curiously, which I thought was ironic since I was doing the same thing, searching for that answer. “I took a really hard gut punch, and was just reeling when I found out about my wicked stepmother. He was there for me.” It sounded simple and pathetic even to me.

“I want to try something. I want you both to stand up and face each other, arms length away.” I wondered if we were going to do that exercise where one of us falls backward and the other hopefully catches him. I thought that was pretty lame, but I went with the flow. “Now lock your fingers together with each other, making sure the palms of your hands touch.”

We did what he said, and I just grinned at Robbie. “I feel like I’m at recess,” he said, cracking me up. David positioned us just where he wanted us.

“Alright, now I want you both to keep your feet together and flat on the floor, keep your bodies rigid, and then lean into each other until your foreheads touch.”

I felt Robbie’s hands pull me forward gently, then as we leaned in we had to push our hands against each other to make sure we both didn’t fall. At first, it was weird, trying to figure out how much pressure to use, but in the end it was pretty easy. When our foreheads touched, Robbie pulled me in just a little more and gave me a nice kiss, then we pushed away until we were upright again. We both looked at David, waiting for him to tell us why were doing silly exercises like this.

“That exercise only succeeds if you work together, and to do that you have to rely on each other. When you started, Robbie made the first move, pulling you two together. I’m wondering if that would have happened a few months ago.”

That irritated me. We were back to me being a controlling, domineering asshole. Still, he was probably right. “Possibly,” I said, partially conceding. Robbie snaughed. “Alright, no, I would have made the first move.”

“And if we would have done this in November, would you have trusted Robbie to hold you both up?” he asked me. I decided the best response to that was no response. It was better than saying “no”, even though they both knew that was what I was thinking. “I think that you needed to know that you could rely on Robbie. I think that until you felt that he would hold you up, you couldn’t re-commit to him.”

“You had to know I’d be there for you,” Robbie said emphatically.

“I think David’s saying that I needed proof, and he’s probably right,” I told him, trying to convey that lovingly. “You see me as a strong, centered person.” Robbie nodded. “I’m only that way because I have a strong foundation: you.” He grinned at me.

“I think I get it now,” he said. “That’s why you were such a mess in November. I pulled the rug out from under you. I took away your base.”

I nodded my head. “And then I couldn’t be strong anymore, not without re-orienting myself to stand up alone.” It was so clear to me now, it was like a cloud lifted and I understood, really understood, our relationship. “You needed me to need you, to rely on you to push back. I needed to know that you would. Once you did, I knew I could trust you again, and I could feel safe in our relationship again.”

David smiled, a self-satisfied smile, proud of himself for having made his point so well. He praised us for doing so well, and talked about how strong our bond was. Like I didn’t know that.

We were pretty quiet when we walked out to the car and hopped in. I was still digesting everything. When I turned onto the freeway, Robbie finally said something. I chuckled to myself, noting that he’d done it when we were once again at an intersection. “Brad, even if I let everyone in California fist me, it wouldn’t be the same as it is with you. Nothing comes close to what you do to me, no matter what we do,” Robbie said to me sincerely. “But I won’t do that to you. I won’t cross that line.”

Aw. What a sweet guy. “I know,” I said simply. That seemed to be more powerful to him than a long, rambling pledge of my love. “And I want you to know that even if Matt looks kind of like you and smells like you, there’s no way he or anyone else could replace you.”

I tried to call Lark after, but he didn’t answer. It was only 4:30 though; I was early. I drove up into the Palo Alto hills, through the familiar gates, and then drove up the long road to the house.

When we got there, we saw several police cars parked out front.