Total Control

Sidney slumped back. "No."

"So, being his wife and all, do you have any idea what he was actually going to L.A. for? Any suspicions?"

She shook her head.

"That's it? Nothing else? You're sure it had nothing to do with Triton?"

"Jason rarely talked about company business with me."

"Why's that?" Sawyer craved a cup of coffee. His body was starting to go down on him after the late night with Hardy.

"My firm represents some other companies who might be perceived as having competing interests with Triton. However, any potential conflict has been waived by the respective clients, including Triton, and we've constructed Chinese walls from time to time when necessary--"

"Come again?" This was Ray Jackson. "Chinese walls?"

Sidney looked at him. "That's what it's called when we cut off communications of any kind, access to files, even shop talk, shooting the breeze in the hallway, about a particular client's matters if an attorney of the firm represents another client with a possible conflict.

We even maintain secure computerized databases with respect to pending deals we're handling on behalf of clients. We also do it to ensure that up-to-the-minute negotiation terms are accurately maintained. Deals change fast, and we don't want clients surprised about what the principal terms are. People's memories are fallible; computer memories are a lot better. Access to those files is restricted by use of a password known only to the lead attorneys on the case.

The theory is that a law firm can carve itself up, upon occasion, in order to avoid problems like that. Hence the term."

Sawyer leaned in. "So what other clients does your firm represent who could possibly have a conflict with Triton?"

Sidney thought for a moment. A name had come to mind, but she was unsure of whether to give it. If she did, the interview might be hastened to a conclusion.

"RTG Group."

Sawyer and Jackson exchanged quick glances. Sawyer spoke up.

"Who at your firm represents RTG?"

Sawyer was sure he caught a twinkle in Sidney Archer's eyes before she answered. "Philip Goldman."

In the front yard of the Archers' home, the cold was beginning to eat through Paul Brophy's very expensive gloves.

"No, I have no clue as to what's going on," Brophy said into the cellular phone. He jerked his head away from the hand-held unit when the speaker on the other end unleashed a blistering response to Brophy's professed ignorance. "Wait a minute, Philip. It's the FBI. They carry guns, okay? You weren't expecting that to happen, why should I?"

This deference to Philip Goldman's superior intelligence apparently calmed the man down because Brophy now held the phone normally. "Yes, I'm sure it was him. I know what he sounds like and she called him by name. I've got the whole thing on tape. Pretty damn brilliant on my part, wouldn't you say? What? Yeah, you bet I plan on sticking around, see what I can find out. Right, I'll check back with you in a few hours." Brophy put the phone away, rubbed his stiff fingers together and went back in the house.

Sawyer was watching Sidney Archer carefully as she slid her hand back and forth on the armrest of the sofa. He was debating whether to drop the bombshell on her: to tell her that Jason Archer was definitely not buried in a crater in Virginia. Finally, after much internal conflict, his gut won out over his brain. He rose and offered Sidney his hand. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Archer. If you think of anything that might help us, you can reach me day or night at these numbers." Sawyer handed her a card. "That's my home phone on the back. Do you have a card with numbers where you can be reached?" Sidney picked up her purse from the table, rummaged through it and produced one of her business cards.

"Again, I'm sorry about your husband." He truly meant the last part. If Hardy was right, then what the woman was going through right now would seem like a day in the park compared to what was ahead for her. Ray Jackson exited the room. Sawyer was about to join him when Sidney put a hand on his shoulder.

"Mr. Sawyer--"

"You can make it Lee."

"Lee, I would have to be pretty stupid not to realize that this all looks very bad."

"And not for a minute do I think you're stupid, Sidney." They exchanged glances of mutual respect; however, Sawyer's statement was not entirely supportive.

"Do you have any reason to suspect that my husband was involved in anything..."--she paused and swallowed hard, preparing to utter the unthinkable--"in anything illegal?"

He looked at her, and the unmistakable sense that he had seen the woman somewhere before began to nag him again until it became a certainty. "Sidney, let's just say that your husband's activities right before he left on that flight are giving us some problems."

Sidney thought back to all those late nights, Jason's trips back to the office. "Is anything amiss at Triton?"

Sawyer watched her squeezing her hands together. Normally the most tight-lipped of FBI agents, for some reason Sawyer wanted to tell her everything he knew. He resisted the temptation. "It's an on going bureau investigation, Sidney. I really can't say."

She stepped back a bit. "I understand, of course."

"We'll be in touch."

After Sawyer left the room, Sidney felt a twinge of apprehension as she recalled Nathan Gamble's similar remark about keeping in touch. She suddenly felt enveloped by cold bands of fear. She hugged herself and drew closer to the fire.

The phone call from Jason had initially buoyed her to the highest levels of euphoria. She had never felt such joy, yet the scant details he had provided had brought her plummeting back downward. She was currently in a state of utter confusion, helplessness and unbridled loyalty to her husband; an unwieldy emotional elixir to be carrying around inside. She wondered what surprises tomorrow would bring.

On the way out of the house, the two agents were trailed by a chatty Paul Brophy. "So obviously my firm would be quite anxious to learn of any possible wrongdoing involving Jason Archer and Triton Global." He finally stopped talking and looked hopeful.

Sawyer just kept walking. "So I've heard." The FBI agent stopped behind Bill Patterson's Cadillac, which was parked in the driveway.

When he put his foot up on the rear bumper ro retie his shoelaces, he saw a MAINE, THE VACATIONLAND STATE bumper sticker. When was the last time I had a vacation) he thought. You know you're in trouble when you can't even remember. He hitched up his pants and turned to the attorney, who was watching him from the front sidewalk.

"What'd you say your name was again?"

Brophy glanced at the front door and then hurried over. "Brophy.

Paul Brophy." He hurriedly added, "As I said, I'm a New York-based attorney, so I really have little to do with Sidney Archer."

Sawyer eyed him closely. "And yet you flew all the way down here for the memorial service. That's what you said, right?"

Brophy looked at both men. Ray Jackson's eyes narrowed as he took in Paul Brophy. Slick money and bullshit were written all over the man.

"I'm really here as the firm's representative. Sort of by default.

Sidney Archer is only a part-time attorney, and I was in town on business anyway."

Sawyer stared at a patch of cloud above the house. "Is that right?

You know, I had an opportunity to check up on Ms. Archer. From the people I spoke with, she's one of Tyler, Stone's top attorneys.

Part-time or not. In fact, I asked for a list of the top five guns in your place from at least three different sources, and you know what? The lady was on every list." He looked at Brophy and added, "Funny, though, your name never came up."

Brophy sputtered for a moment, but Sawyer wanted to move on anyway. "You been here awhile, Mr. Brophy?" He nodded in the direction of the Archer residence.

"About an hour. Why?" Brophy's whiny tone betrayed his hurt feelings.

"Anything unusual happen while you were here?"

Brophy was bursting to tell the agents that he had a dead man's words captured on tape, but that information was far too valuable simply to give away. "Not really. I mean, she's tired and depressed, or at least seems so."

"What do you mean by that?" Jackson asked, taking off his sunglasses and staring at Brophy.

"Nothing. I mean, like I said, I don't know Sidney all that well.

So I don't know if she and her husband really got along."

"Uh-huh." Jackson's lip curled and he put his shades back on. He eyed his partner. "You ready, Lee? This man here looks cold. Oughta go in there and warm up," he said, looking at Brophy. "Go pay your respects to your bare acquaintance in there."

Jackson and Sawyer turned and headed to their car.

Brophy's face was red with anger. He looked back at the house once more and then called after them. "Oh, that's right, there was the phone call she got."

Both agents turned in perfect unison. "What's that?" Sawyer asked. His temples throbbed from lack of caffeine and he was tired of listening to this jerk. "What phone call?"

Brophy approached them and spoke in a lowered tone, occasionally glancing back at the house. "About two minutes before you showed up. The caller identified himself as Henry Wharton when Sidney's father answered the phone." The agents looked puzzled.

"He's the managing partner of Tyler, Stone."

"So?" Jackson said. "The man might be checking in on her. Seeing if she's okay."

"That's what I would've thought too, but..."

Sawyer's fuse was about gone. "But what?" he asked angrily.

"I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to say."

Sawyer's voice dropped back to normal, but his words took on an even more menacing tone. "It's a little cold out here for bullshit responses, Mr. Brophy, so I'm going to ask you real nicely to give me the information, and that will be the only time I'll ask real nicely."

Sawyer leaned into Brophy's now frightened face while the burly Jackson crowded him from behind.

Brophy blurted out, "I called Henry Wharton at the office while Sidney was talking to you." Brophy paused dramatically. "When I asked about his talk with Sidney, he was completely surprised. He had never called her. And when she came out of the bedroom after taking the call, she was white as a sheet. I thought she was going to faint. Her father noticed it too and was greatly disturbed."

"Well, if the FBI came knocking on my door on the day of my spouse's memorial service, I'd probably look pretty bad too," Jackson responded. One hand curled and uncurled, making a very large fist that he would have given anything at that moment to let fly.

"Yeah, well, according to her father, she looked that way before he told her you were at the front door." Brophy had made that part up, but so what? It wasn't the FBI appearing at her doorstep that had thrown Sidney Archer for a loop.

Sawyer straightened up and looked at the house. He eyed Jackson, whose eyebrows clicked up a notch. Sawyer studied Brophy's face. If the guy was screwing with them... But no, it was obvious he was telling the truth, or at least mostly the truth. He had evidently been dying to tell them something to bounce Sidney Archer off the ceiling.

Sawyer didn't care about Paul Brophy's personal vendetta. He did care about that phone call.

"Thanks for the information, Mr. Brophy. You think of anything else, here's my number." He handed the attorney his card and left him in the front yard.

Driving back into town, Sawyer glanced at his partner. "I want Sidney Archer put under immediate twenty-four-hour surveillance.

And I want all calls going into her home in the last twenty-four hours checked, starting with the one Mister Fancy Pants told us about."

Jackson stared out the window. "You think that was her husband on the phone?"

"I think she's been through enough hell to where it would take something pretty big to knock her off her feet like that. Even while we were talking to her, you could see something was off. Way off."

"So she did think he was dead?"

Sawyer shrugged. "Right now, I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

We'll just watch her and see what happens. My gut tells me Sidney Archer is going to turn out to be a pretty interesting piece to this puzzle."

"Speaking of guts, can we stop and get something to eat? I'm starving." Jackson looked at the long line of eateries they were now passing.

"Hell, I'll even buy, Ray. Nothing's too good for my partner."

Sawyer smiled and turned into the parking lot of a McDonald's.

Jackson looked over at Sawyer, mock disgust on his face. Then, shaking his head, he picked up the car phone and started punching in numbers.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The slim Learjet streaked through the skies with power to spare.

Inside the luxurious cabin Philip Goldman reclined in his seat and sipped at a cup of hot tea while the remnants of a meal were cleared away by the cabin steward. Across from Goldman sat Alan Porcher, president and chief executive officer of RTG Group, the Western Europe-based global consortium. The tanned, slender Porcher cradled a glass of wine and studied the attorney intently before speaking.

"You know Triton Global claims they have concrete evidence of one of their employees handing over sensitive documents to us at one of our warehouse facilities in Seattle. We can expect to hear from their lawyers shortly, I would imagine." Porcher paused. "From your law firm, of course, Tyler, Stone. Ironic, isn't it?"

Goldman put down his teacup and folded his hands in his lap.

"And this troubles you?"

Porcher looked surprised. "Why shouldn't it?"

Goldman's reply was simple. "Because, with respect to that claim, you're nor guilty." He added, "Ironic, isn't it?"

"Still, I have heard some things about the CyberCom deal that trouble me, Philip."

Goldman sighed and sat forward in his cabin chair. "Such as?"

"That perhaps the acquisition of CyberCom will occur more rapidly than we thought. That perhaps we do not know the latest offer that will be made by Triton. When we make our offer, I must be assured it will be accepted. I will not be allowed to bid again. Cybercom is inclined toward the Americans as it is."

Goldman cocked his head and absorbed the CEO's words. "I'm not so sure of that. The Internet knows no geopolitical boundaries.

So who's to say the domination cannot occur from the other side of the Atlantic?"

Porcher took another sip of wine before answering. "No, other things being equal, the deal will land in the western hemisphere.

Therefore, we must ensure that conditions are decidedly unequal."

There was now a hard glint in Porcher's eyes.

Goldman took a moment to methodically wipe his mouth with his handkerchief before responding. "Tell me, who are your sources for this information?"

Porcher waved his hand distractedly. "It blows in the wind."

"I don't believe in winds. I believe in facts. And the facts are that we do know Triton's latest negotiating position. To the last detail."

"Yes, but Brophy is now out of the loop. I cannot be limited to old news."

"You won't be. As I've told you, I am currently very close to solving that problem. When I do, and I will, you can easily trump Triton and walk away with an acquisition that will ensure your domination of the information superhighway for the foreseeable future."

Porcher looked pointedly at the attorney. "You know, Philip, I have often been curious about your motivation regarding this matter.

If, as I hope and you continue to promise, we succeed in acquiring CyberCom, Triton will most assuredly be unhappy with your law firm. They may go elsewhere."

"One can only hope." A faraway look appeared on Goldman's face as he thought of the possibility.

"I'm afraid you have lost me."

Goldman assumed a pedantic tone. "Triton Global is Tyler, Stone's largest client. Triton Global is Henry Wharton's client. That is the chief reason Henry is managing partner. If Triton ceases using the firm as counsel, would you like to guess who becomes the largest rainmaker at the firm and, therefore, the probable successor to Wharton as managing partner?"

Porcher pointed at Goldman. "And I would hope that in such a case RTG matters would be given the highest priority in the firm."