The Consultant (21 page)

Phil was right. CompWare really could tell them what type of hairstyle to have. There were employers who didn’t allow beards or mustaches or who regulated hair length—and no one blinked. Society had tacitly agreed that a company paying for work could determine the physical appearance of its workers, even away from the job. Their influence was insidious.  

“Look above the elevators,” Phil said, his head down and his voice low. “New cameras. They’re popping up everywhere, a few more each day.”  

“I’ve noticed that, too.”  

“Where do you think those feeds end up? What system do they run on?”  

“You mean, can they be accessed?”  

Phil shrugged. “Well…”  

“I think I can get someone to find out.”  

“Be careful.”  

“Always am.”  

On the way up to his office, Craig stopped off on the programmers’ floor. After what had happened with Tyler, he wasn’t sure who he could trust—or if he could trust anyone—but Rusty had already expressed his displeasure with the consultants, blaming them for leaking
Zombie Navy
, and Craig thought if there was anyone who’d be willing to look into the new surveillance equipment for him, it was the technical writer.  

He was right, but, as he should have known, Rusty did not have the specialized expertise needed to conduct such an investigation. “Ang might be able to check it out,” Rusty said. They were both speaking low so as not to be overheard. “He used to work for AT&T, and he’s good with hardware
and
software. We’d need to trace those feeds back to their source but not let the trace be traced back to us. He can probably do that. Want me to ask him?”  

“No, I’ll do it,” Craig said. “No need for you to put your ass on the line.” He thought for a moment. “Do you think Ang…?  

“He hates the consultants, too.
Everybody
hates them.”  

That was a relief to hear. It had occurred to him that maybe some employees approved of hiring BFG, although with everyone’s jobs potentially on the line, he didn’t see how that was possible. It heartened him to know that they were all on the same page.  

“Is Ang in yet?” he asked.  

“I don’t think so.” Rusty stood and peered over the edge of his cubicle. “No. You want me to have him call you when he gets in?”  

“Tell him to come up to my office.”  

“You got it, chief.”  

Craig couldn’t be sure his office wasn’t bugged, but it was definitely safer to talk there than on the phone.  

Upstairs, Lupe was already at her desk. Alone.  

“Where’s Todd?” Craig asked, looking around.  

“I believe he’s in the bathroom.”  

“You should mark that down.”  

“Oh, I am. I’m keeping score. Yesterday, he arrived a minute later than me, and I was exactly on time. Which meant that he was late. I’m keeping track of everything.” She smiled. “Don’t mess with me.”  

At that moment, Todd returned. Craig saw him striding briskly toward them. Smiling slyly, Lupe met his eyes, then reached into her desk. As the consultant sat down, Lupe made a big show of staring at him and writing something down in the notebook she removed from her drawer, making sure he was aware that
she
was keeping track of
him
. Reddening, he looked down at his tablet. She put her notebook away and went back to whatever she’d been doing on her computer.  

Craig wanted to laugh, but he kept a straight face as he walked into his office, closing the door behind him.  

He sat down at his desk and turned on his own computer.  

There were forty-three email messages in his queue, all of them from the consultant.  

The first was an email about how to write and send emails, with six pages of attachments containing do-and-don’t examples. The second concerned phone etiquette within the company and without. This one also contained an attachment: audio clips of correctly and incorrectly conducted phone conversations. The third email involved new company-wide restrictions on the use of printer ink.  

Craig paused. This was ridiculous.  

And there were still forty more to go.  

He would have emailed Phil to see if his friend had received the same messages but was afraid that written communications were being monitored. Ditto for the phone.  

Quickly, he scanned through the rest of the messages, all of which were attempts to micromanage daily office routines, then told Lupe to hold his calls because he was going to Phil’s office for a few minutes.  

Todd, seated behind Lupe, duly typed something onto his tablet.  

“I thought you were supposed to be watching her, not me,” Craig said.  

“I am,” the consultant said.  

“Then what were you entering there?”  

“You gave her a specific duty, and I noted it.”  

Not wanting to get into an argument and already feeling irritated, Craig shared a glance with Lupe, then headed down the corridor toward the elevators.  

Upstairs, Phil’s secretary, Shelley, was sitting stiffly at her desk, an observer seated to the right watching every move and typing on the electronic tablet in his lap.  

“Is Phil in?” Craig asked.  

Shelley’s greeting was uncharacteristically formal, but he understood why and did not fault her for it. In a single smooth move, she picked up the handset of her phone and pressed one of the buttons on the console. “Who may I say is calling?”  

“Craig Horne.”  

She relayed the message, then informed him that he was approved to enter Phil’s office. Getting up from her seat, she led him the five feet to Phil’s doorway, stepping aside to allow him entrance. “Sorry,” she whispered.  

Phil rolled his eyes. “Close that door, will you?” he asked Shelley. “Thanks.”  

Craig motioned toward the door and the observer beyond. “I see you guys have one, too.”  

“What a pain in the ass this is turning out to be.”  

“Tell me about it.”  

“Do you have any idea how long they’re going to be disrupting our lives?”  

He shook his head. “No one’s confiding in me.”  

“Well, I hope it’s quick.”  

“Don’t hold your breath. Hey, the reason I’m here is that when I came in this morning I found forty-something emails from Patoff telling me how to write email messages, and how to make professional phone calls, and how to save money on printer ink, and a whole host of helpful hints. I was wondering if you’d gotten anything like that.”  

“Oh, indeed I have.” Motioning Craig closer, Phil swiveled his monitor and typed something on his keyboard. Up popped an Inbox filled from top to bottom with messages. “I guess my skill set deficiencies are somewhat different than yours. Look! Now I can learn how to describe a product to a prospective buyer in the most positive manner possible. Something I’ve been doing for
half my goddamn life!
”  

Craig shook his head, scanning the subject lines. “These are all completely different than mine. How can he write so many? Where does he find the time?”  

Phil waved his hand. “They’re probably generic. Every client they have probably gets the same emails. I get the Sales ones, you get the Programming ones…”  

“Maybe,” Craig said doubtfully.  

Phil sighed. “Well, as if that weren’t enough, I’m down one man.”  

“What does that mean?”  

“I got here this morning and found out that Isaac Morales had been fired for cause.”  

“They wanted you to fire Isaac, didn’t they? After the interviews?”  

“Indeed they did.”  

“So what’d he do?”  

“Apparently, he’d been charging personal items to our department account. And not just an occasional flash drive or ink cartridge but …a flat screen TV…a new laptop…clothes…”  

“Really?”  

“Yeah. Except…”  

“Except you don’t think he did it.”  

“The evidence is there. In black and white. He’s not only been fired, he’s being criminally charged, and I’m told the case is airtight.”  

“But you don’t think he did it.”  

Phil shook his head. “No. I don’t think he did it. I
know
Isaac. He’s not that kind of guy. Sales is sometimes a shady business, and we get all types here. But he’s an anomaly, like a virgin in a whorehouse. He’s an honest sales rep. That’s why his numbers are so good. Clients trust him because they know he won’t steer them wrong. Besides, some of those purchases…a flat screen TV? Isaac doesn’t even
watch
TV.”  

“Maybe his wife—”  

“His
boyfriend
doesn’t, either.”  

“Oh.”  

“There’s just a lot of shit that doesn’t add up.”  

“So he was framed?”  

“That’s my guess. I have no way to prove it, but I hope he finds a smart lawyer who can.”  

Craig believed him. It made no logical sense to sideline a good employee, not from a consulting firm supposedly trying to shore up CompWare’s business, but there seemed nothing logical in the decisions that had been made recently, no method to BFG’s madness.  

He thought about the weekend retreat, Tyler’s freak accident, Anderson’s and Cibriano’s suicides.  

Maybe he and Phil were reading undeserved import into unrelated events, seeing malevolent conspiracies where none existed.  

But he didn’t think that was the case.  

“So what’s the plan?” Craig asked.  

“I don’t know.” His friend sounded tired, his usual fight in abeyance. “Keep our heads down and wait it out? They’re not going to be here forever. I don’t know what the time frame is, but for all we know, they could be halfway through already. It’s probably easier and faster to wait them out than try to go against them.”  

“Matthews—”  

“If he really wanted to, he could get rid of them today. He might be having second thoughts, but he’s obviously not willing to scrap this consulting thing completely.”  

Craig was silent for a minute. “I’m not sure there
is
a time frame. Those new cameras don’t make it seem like they’re leaving anytime soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an open-ended contract and the consultants are here for as long as they want to be here, for as long as
they
say it’s going to take them.”  

Phil nodded soberly. “Highly probable.”  

Craig stood. “Well, it’s been fun. Thanks for the pep talk.”  

“Anytime.”  

He started for the door, turning before grabbing the handle. “We
might
be halfway through this ‘work management study.’”  

“But what comes after that?”  

“Exactly.”  

He’d been gone less than ten minutes, but Lupe passed him a handful of pink While-You-Were-Out messages when he returned. Neither of them spoke in front of Todd, but Craig sorted through the notes as he walked into his office. As he’d hoped, one was from Ang, and he shut his door and called the programmer, at first asking Ang to come to his office, then changing his mind and telling the programmer to wait at his desk, he’d be coming down.  

Rusty had always had a mouth on him—in retrospect, maybe he shouldn’t have revealed so much to the technical writer—and as soon as Craig approached Ang’s desk, a group of programmers gathered around, all wanting in on the action. There were no BFG fans in his division, and Craig felt a certain pride at that.  

But he was already thinking that maybe Phil was right, and the best approach was just to go along to get along, and wait the consultants out. What good, really, would it do him to know where the growing number of video feeds led, especially since, if word of their investigation got out, they could all be fired? Tony Hernandez had once worked for TRW, was more versed than the rest of them in workplace privacy issues, and he said that consistently upheld court cases had gutted employee privacy and allowed employers to monitor workers on job sites with almost complete impunity. That put the nail in the coffin. “You know what?” Craig said. “I changed my mind. We’re not going to do this. Just let it lie.”  

“Got it,” Ang responded, but it was said almost with a wink, and Craig knew they all thought he was just trying to institute some plausible deniability.  

“No, I’m serious,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. It’s not worth it, and there’s nothing we could learn that would help us in any way.”  

That seemed to get the point home. “They’re
spying
on us,” Rusty said.  

“And, apparently, they’re allowed to do so.”  

In order to make their retreat more palatable, Craig added a “for now” to his prohibition against investigating the cameras, and that seemed to placate everyone, even Rusty. It was a feeling of helplessness they had, that he shared, and they all wanted to do something about the consultants, though there was not really anything they
could
do.  

He went back up to his office.  

Found twenty new emails from BFG.  

Deleted them all without reading a single one.  

Feeling restless, feeling antsy, he stood and paced around his office. Getting a bottle of water from his little fridge, he stood near the window, drinking as he stared down at the campus. Below, two men dressed in black hoodies were making their way along the winding concrete path toward the parking lot, carrying a long covered bundle between them, a bundle that looked like…  

A body?
 

No. It couldn’t be.  

Yes, it could.
 

He probably should have called Security but instead sped down to the campus. Taking the stairs rather than an elevator, he held onto the railings on both sides, using leverage to swing over multiple steps in an effort to get to the ground floor as fast as he could. But by the time he ran outside to the spot he had seen from his window, that area was empty. He followed the path in the direction the hoodied figures had been moving, ending up in the parking lot, but saw no one on foot and no moving vehicles. Wherever they’d gone, he’d missed them, and now he’d never know what they were carrying.  

In his mind, the contours of the covered shape still looked like a body, and he tried to think of who it might be.
Isaac Morales?
The idea was ludicrous and crazy—only it wasn’t. Not after Tyler. Not after Anderson and Cibriano.