The Consultant (45 page)

And immediately stopped.  

On the ground before him was the bloody body of a man.  

Robards.  

The guide’s face was contorted in an expression of agony, mouth and eyes both wide open. The body lay on its side, unmoving, blood still flowing from fresh wounds and seeping into the grass. One of the legs had been almost severed but was still attached to the thigh by a thin strip of muscle and skin. Organs spilled out from a hacked open stomach. Neither of the arms had hands.  

An ax lay on the ground at Robards’ feet, its blade glistening with red, and, next to the ax, stood a man with a grocery sack over his head, a sack with two holes cut out for eyes and an over-large smile drawn on the brown paper.  

How was that possible? Phil had torn up the bag.  

Maybe there were more of them. Maybe they were scattered around the maze, just waiting to be picked up and used.  

Craig took all of this in, seeing it, thinking it, processing it in seconds, then he was rushing forward and so was Phil, both of them acting instinctively to subdue the man before he could reach down and pick up the ax again. Phil, faster and more lithe, ran to the side and, in a move he must have stolen from movies or TV cop shows, grabbed one of the man’s arms and then the other, twisting them behind him. The man did not seem to be putting up a fight, was docilely going along, but Craig punched him in the stomach just to be on the safe side and ripped the bag off his head, staring into a horrifyingly familiar face.  

Austin Matthews.  

THIRTY EIGHT  

The next several hours were a blur. All phones were supposed to have been confiscated, but someone somehow had called the police, and the campus and parking lot were awash in pulsing blue and red light from the phalanx of patrol cars that had descended upon CompWare. By the time a stunned Craig, Phil and Elaine had staggered out of the maze, pushing a submissive Matthews before them, half of the retreat participants were huddled in a confused mass to the side of the entrance, one of the women topless, several of the men bruised and battered.  

It was nearly two in the morning by the time Craig arrived home. Angie had been asleep, but the sound of the unlocking and opening door awakened her, and she greeted him in the living room with a baseball bat in hand. She put it down gratefully when she saw that it was him, and hurried to give him a hug. “I thought you were Patoff.”  

“No.”  

“He came by to tell me that you were at a retreat and wouldn’t be back for days.”  

Though exhausted, Craig explained what had happened, looking over her shoulder periodically to make sure Dylan was not up and listening, and she shook her head, growing more and more incredulous. “Austin Matthews?” she said. “He
killed
someone with an
ax
?”  

“Apparently.”  

“My God.”  

Craig took a deep breath. “I’m wondering if this is the end of it. Patoff was nowhere to be found, and I’m hoping he just…took off.”  

“That doesn’t seem likely,” she pointed out. “He runs a major consulting firm with a serious reputation and major clients. This might give him a black eye and some bad publicity, but there’s no way it’ll bring him down. Besides, didn’t you say you thought this was what he wanted, that it was probably intentional? He’s not going to be blamed for anything that happened tonight. He’s going to
use
it.”  

Craig sighed. “You’re right, you’re right.”  

She hugged him, pressed her cheek against his. “It’s late. You’re tired. Come to bed.”  

“Bed sounds good,” he admitted.  

“Come on.”  

The alarm woke him at six. It was still a work day, and though Angie told him that he hadn’t gotten enough sleep and that he didn’t have to go in because he was still supposed to be on the retreat, Craig got up anyway.  

Robards’ murder and Matthews’ arrest for it was the top story on the local morning newscasts. Craig flipped back and forth between NBC and ABC, CBS and Fox, astounded by how either BFG or CompWare’s own publicity department had kept everything but the bare bones outline of the story away from the press. What should have been a PR nightmare seemed like little more than a random tragedy, the kind that occurred daily in major metropolitan areas.  

At work, police had cordoned off the building and forensics experts were inside looking for…something. Employees were milling about the parking lot in groups that mirrored their work units. Craig walked over to where the programmers stood.  

“What’s going on?” Huell asked as he approached.  

Craig told them what had happened last night, but that news was common knowledge, and it turned out that the programmers were more up to date on what was happening than he was. He learned that Scott Cho and three others had been arrested on charges of assault and attempted rape, and two supervisors had been charged with indecent exposure and public lewdness.  

All of them had been on Phil’s list of targeted employees.  

“Scott arrested?” Rusty said. “My heart bleeds for him.”  

Several of the programmers laughed.  

No one was laughing in the gathering of Legal employees on the opposite side of the row. In fact, it had suddenly grown very quiet over there, and Craig walked across to see what was up. Tom Scheer, the head of the Legal department, was on the phone to someone, and the other lawyers, paralegals and secretaries were gathered around him in hushed silence. Craig tapped Fred Green on the shoulder. “What is it?” he asked.  

“Austin Matthews,” Fred said. “They found him dead in his cell. Suicide. Tom’s trying to get more details.”  

Craig was stunned.  

“He smashed his head against the wall.”  

The picture in his mind was far more vivid than he wanted it to be, and Craig hurried back to the men and women of his own division to tell them the news. As taken aback as everyone had been by the fact that Matthews had murdered Robards, they were even more stunned to learn that the CEO had committed suicide. Craig was, too. He kept seeing Matthews the way he’d looked when the bag had been torn off his head, his face grimacing in pain from being punched in the stomach, his eyes blank and…not there. Though he didn’t know
how
or
why
, he knew
what
had compelled the CEO to kill both the guide and himself.  

The Consultant.  

The news was spreading across the parking lot, groups of people growing quiet as they learned what happened, and gradually, everyone began pushing toward the front of the building. Moments later, Gordon Webster, vice president in charge of product development, and, apparently, the senior staff member on the lot, mounted the building’s steps, holding a cell phone to his ear. At the top, he faced the parking lot and called for attention. When the chatter died down, he provided a quick rundown of everything that had happened at the retreat last night and beyond, giving a brief description of what was known about Matthews’ death.  

“So everyone go home,” he said. “There’s nothing that can be done here today. You all have the day off. Come back tomorrow.”  

“Are you in charge here?” someone shouted out.  

“I am in charge.”  

“Of the entire company?”  

Webster hesitated slightly. “No.”  

“Then who is?” someone else wanted to know.  

Webster looked out at them, his face expressionless. “Regus Patoff,” he said. “BFG.”  

**** 

There was no keeping this out of the press. Not only was it on the nightly newscasts, but it was the top story on the front page of the
Los Angeles Times
the next morning. Craig had expected to hear from Phil, but his friend hadn’t called, nor had he answered the texts Craig had left him. It wasn’t until Craig saw his friend in the CompWare parking lot before work that the two of them had a chance to speak.  

“Where were you?” he demanded.  

“He called me last night at home,” Phil said quietly.  

“Patoff?”  

Phil nodded.  

“He’s done that to me, too. What’d he want you to do? Check your emails at one in the morning?”  

Phil shook his head.  

“What, then?”  

“He just wanted to talk.”  

Craig frowned. “That’s weird.”  

“We talked from midnight until three.”  

“Jesus! About what?”  

“I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “Nothing. Everything. It was more a soliloquy than a conversation.
He
did all the talking. I just listened. I can’t even remember what it was about, exactly, but it was amazing.”  

“Amazing? Is that really the word you want to use?”  

“He’s different than we thought. He’s…he’s different.”  

Craig was growing concerned. “He’s different, all right. Whoever he is.
What
ever he is.”  

“He wants to meet with me this morning.”  

“Why?”  

Phil shrugged. “To talk, maybe. I don’t know.”  

Craig reached out and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”  

“I’m fine.”  

“Something’s up. What aren’t you telling me?”  

Phil shook his head, but Craig knew there was something wrong. He looked into Phil’s eyes, saw an unnerving blankness. Had his friend been corrupted or co-opted? He would not have thought that possible, but the fiery defiance that had always been an essential part of Phil’s nature no longer seemed to be there, and in its place was an uncharacteristic equanimity. The man standing before him this morning was not the same person with whom he had gone through the maze.  

“What time are you supposed to meet with him?” Craig asked.  

“Now. Eight o’clock. First thing.”  

“I’m going with you.”  

Phil didn’t object, but he didn’t exactly agree, either. There was a disconcerting passivity to his manner, and Craig accompanied his friend inside the building, the two of them getting into a crowded elevator. Phil pushed the button for the seventh floor.  

Was that where the consultant had his office? It made sense. It was where he had conducted interviews and where the blood tests had been taken, and Craig wondered if BFG had commandeered the entire floor.  

The elevator stopped at each level. They were the only two employees left by the time it reached the seventh floor, and they exited into a dim hallway that stretched to the left and right seemingly farther than the length of the building. “His office is room seven hundred,” Phil said, looking in both directions. “I’m not sure where that is.”  

“Let’s try this way,” Craig suggested, pointing to the left. “On the other floors, lower numbers are over here.”  

They saw no one. There was noise, but it wasn’t the sound of people talking or the usual background Muzak. It was more organic, as though they were passing through the body of an animal and could hear simultaneously the beating of the animal’s heart, the gurgles of its digestive system and the working of its lungs.  

A cat slunk by them, hugging the corner where the wall met the floor, only it wasn’t exactly a cat. It was long and thin, moving with a feline grace, but there was something unnatural and disturbing about the creature, and Craig could not look at it for more than a few seconds.  

Reaching the first door, they both stopped to look at the posted number. To Craig’s surprise, it was 700. Phil reached for the handle, turned it, pushed open the door, and the two of them walked into what looked like the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Chairs lined three of the walls, the corners taken up by triangular tables on top of which sat
Highlights
magazines and copies of
People
and
Sports Illustrated
. The fourth wall contained an open window next to a closed door. A somber-looking elderly woman seated behind the window frowned at them and asked in an unfriendly voice, “May I help you?”  

“I have a meeting with Mr. Patoff,” Phil told her.  

The door opened, and the consultant himself came out, hand extended, all smiles. “Indeed you do! Indeed you do!” He pumped Phil’s hand, then looked over at Craig. “I wasn’t expecting you.”  

“I came for moral support.”  

Patoff—  

Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.
 

—smiled at him. “I’m afraid this is a private meeting.”  

“That’s okay. I’ll wait.”  

“Don’t you have work to do?”  

It was one of those trick have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife questions. “I’ll get it done,” he said simply.  

“I’m sure you will.” The consultant turned away from him and put an arm around Phil’s shoulder, leading him into the office. “Let’s step inside, shall we?”  

The door closed automatically behind them, and Craig sat down in one of the chairs. For a while, he watched the closed door, expecting it to re-open at any time, listening intently on the off chance that he could hear part of the conversation going on within. Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. A half hour. Bored, he picked up an issue of
People
magazine, flipping through the pages. He hadn’t read one for years and, looking at the abundance of photos and paucity of text, thought that it had been dumbed down even further than it had been before—if that was possible.  

He ended up going through all of the magazines in the waiting room, even the
Highlights
(and was glad to see that Goofus and Gallant were still around). He’d read everything he’d wanted to read and even some things he hadn’t, and Phil still hadn’t come out. He waited several more minutes, then stood and walked over to the window. “How long do you think they’ll be in there?” he asked the woman.  

She smiled meanly. “Fuck off,” she said.  

He leaned forward, speaking quietly. “No, you fuck off, you ugly old bag.”  

He jumped back as she slid shut the window and it barely missed his face. Kicking the wall, he sat back down.  

And waited.  

Three hours later, Phil emerged from the meeting looking stunned.  

“Praise Ralph!” the consultant called out before the door to his office closed.  

Neither of them spoke until they were in the darkened corridor and walking back toward the elevator. “So,” Craig said finally, “what happened? What’d he say?”