The Veritas Conflict (62 page)

“I was not informed about … the praying ancestress.”

Krolech lashed out with a ready claw, and Katoth, anticipating, ducked the swing.

Krolech clenched his fists and let out another roar. “One woman! One failure! The generations are dedicated to our master, and
one traitor
can cause this much pain for generations to come! She prayed for her children’s children, and for their children and—” he pressed his claws to his forehead—“it is like a thorn in my mind!”

He swung on his lieutenant, his face fierce. “The heir
must
commit. The chain must not be broken. We must have him!”

“I am at your command, my liege.”

Krolech stared at the map, placing all the chess pieces, and a slow, terrible smile began to spread across his features. “Because he must become the figurehead one day, we cannot consolidate our hold through the sort of action that ordinarily cements our relationship. However, we can get him as close as possible to observe the power he will wield.”

He drew Katoth over to the map and placed a black claw on a particular spot. “I think this will do very nicely. And it will certainly solve several problems.”

Katoth rubbed his hands together. “Good. Good.”

Krolech turned and addressed the troops, explaining, diagramming, giving orders. When he had finished and dismissed all but Katoth, he turned to his lieutenant.

“We will not answer Leviathan’s query until this is taken care of. But by then we will be the heroes.”

Ian and Claire approached a dorm room door plastered top to bottom with magnets of sports teams. Ian found a spare inch between baseball magnets and rapped on the door. He waited a second and rapped again.

A distant voice sounded inside. “Yeah, yeah, keep your panties on.”

The door was wrenched open, and an unfamiliar student stared at them. “Yeah?” He was wearing only boxer shorts.

Ian tried not to laugh at Claire’s expression. Her voice came out in a squeak. “Is Doug here?”

Ten minutes later, Doug Turner sat, openmouthed, as Claire summarized the events of the last few hours. They were in the student lounge on the ground level of Doug’s dorm. Their voices were low, even though no one else was in the room.

“This project is pretty confidential,” she concluded, “so wed appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to anyone.”

Doug nodded, clearly trying to assimilate what he’d been told. “So what do you want from me?”

“Well, we need a business whiz. Mansfield said you were really good at corporate stuff since you’d worked for an investment firm. He suggested you.”

“Really? I knew I liked that guy.”

“Well, now you need to deliver,” Ian said. “Where should we start?”

Doug thought for a second, then pursed his lips. “I’ve got a hunch. Come on.”

He led them back up the stairs to his suite and pushed through the door. Claire followed, hesitant, as the entranceway opened up into a long hallway leading to several bedrooms.

There was stuff on every square inch of floor—wrinkled clothes, sports equipment, and dirty dishes all jockeyed for space. Doug headed down to the second doorway, beckoning them along. By the time Claire reached his room, she figured she had stepped on at least two pairs of underwear. Ian trailed behind her, looking amused.

Doug ushered them into his small room and closed the door behind him.

“How can you
live
like that?” Claire blurted out, motioning toward the mess outside his doorway.

“Hate to tell you this, Claire, but I’ve been to several guys’ rooms that are
worse.”

He sat at his computer. In a moment he was on-line, his fingers busy on the keyboard. “I’m checking what comes up when I look for data on Pike Holdings.” He waited only a few seconds, then frowned at the information appearing on the screen. “This doesn’t tell us anything.”

“Print it anyway,” Claire said.

Ian glanced over at her, amused. She made a quick face back at him.

Doug was already looking at a laser printout. “Nope. See here? Privately Held. Those are the magic words for confidentiality. Only public companies—companies listed on the stock market—have to disclose detailed information. Pike Holdings doesn’t list its financials, or even its subsidiary companies.”

“But even if it did,” Claire said, “its not going to publicly list owning something like that porn magazine company—” Claire snapped her fingers a few times— “what’s its name?”

“Peephole Publications?” Ian and Doug spoke simultaneously, then looked at each other, grimacing.

Claire raised an eyebrow. “I’m not
even
going to ask why you both know that.”

Ian shrugged. “Suffice it to say that a lot of Christian men have had to be delivered from temptation. That stuff is pure evil.”

“So, as I was saying—” Claire tried to get back on track— “if Pike Holdings went to such lengths to keep some sort of relationship with that magazine secret, then its not going to be disclosed in whatever source you’re checking.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Doug gestured to his screen. “What I’m looking at, by the way, is a common resource for investment people. It lists summary financials for a lot of companies, as well as ownership information, shareholdings, market valuation, all that kind of thing. Even private companies are in here since everyone has to disclose their ownership, at least. And some private companies even list financials in case they’re thinking of doing a private placement, for example.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds good,” Claire said.

Doug grinned and turned back to the screen. “Let’s work backward. Give me the names on that list of Pike Fellowships. I’ll check the Career Services database again. It’ll take just a second to pull up the companies those people work for.”

Claire read them off as, one by one, Doug pulled up the same screens Claire had seen earlier. They printed everything out, just to be safe.

Doug continued to fiddle with the computer, muttering something about an idea. After a moment he gestured to the pages on the printer. “So is this everything you lost when you ran out of the office this afternoon?”

“No. This doesn’t include what I got from the internal database the resource director logged me in to. And of course, there was probably a ton more in that database that I never got around to before those big glowing men with wings threw me out.”

“I can’t believe you’re joking about that!” Ian’s voice was stern, but it was clear he was trying not to laugh. “This is serious!”

“I know, I know.” Claire held up a hand. “But its also kind of cool. So humor me.”

Doug’s voice rose from the computer. “Guys …”

Claire and Ian were behind him instantly, leaning over his shoulder and looking at the screen.

Doug was looking at a page labeled Helion Pharmaceuticals. “Murphy Barker just worked at an investment bank, right? And the bank is a partnership without public ownership, so that’s a dead end. But when I checked Johanna Godfrey’s employer, this Helion Pharmaceuticals place … my hunch was right.” He tapped the screen. “Ignore all these financials and things. This is what you need to look at. Helion is a wholly
owned subsidiary of—” his finger traced a line down the screen to a small line of print—“Pike Holdings.”

He looked around at them. “Gee, you don’t seem surprised. Well, let me show you the rest.” Doug toggled to another screen. “See where this alum works? Big hotel management company? Wholly owned by Pike Holdings.” He toggled again. “Credit card company. Pike Holdings.” Another screen flashed up. “Publishing. Pike Holdings. I checked all of them. They’re all the same.”

Ian straightened, stretching out a kink in his back. “So every one of the recipients of a Pike scholarship in Murphy Barkers year is working for a Pike Holdings company.”

“What does that mean, though?” Claire asked. “Wouldn’t it be normal to go work for the company when they essentially gave you the scholarship?”

Doug tilted his head. “Yeah, but four years after graduation … I don’t know.”

“Most of my friends who graduated last year are already looking to switch jobs!” Ian said.

“That’s because they’re all working eighteen-hour days at those sweatshop law firms,” Doug said.

“True. But there’s lots of turnover in businesses, too.”

“Guys, can we pull it back here?” Claire was trying to pace in the small room and not getting anywhere. “What does this mean? Is this anything that would help the Excellence Awards?”

“Hmm …” Ian pondered. “I guess it would be worthwhile to tell D. J. tomorrow that we’re still finding a few things. This will interest him for sure, but it doesn’t really tell his bosses anything.”

“Check Peephole Publications for a second.” Claire gestured at the screen. “Who’s their owner?”

Doug shook his head. “You won’t find anything that way.” He typed something in, then ran his finger down to a list of unfamiliar company names. “See? They have outside companies as owners, but you won’t find out who the people behind those companies actually are. Ten to one these are all just shell companies, incorporated so another company can anonymously hold Peephole stock without socially conscious investors getting indignant. That’s one way of getting around the stigma of owning sin stocks. Whoever these owners are, they probably aren’t public companies. More likely to be just wealthy individuals who like sin stocks’ rich profits.”

Claire sighed and plopped down on Doug’s bed. “I guess this isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

There was a long pause; then Ian stirred. “Don’t say that yet. I sort of feel like we’re being led step by step down the trail God wants us on. Let’s all just sleep on it tonight, and I’ll call D. J. tomorrow. They probably have until Monday, after all.”

They said their good-byes, and Ian walked Claire back to her dorm. Ignoring her protests, he insisted on escorting her up to her room and even glanced around to make sure thing? looked normal. No one else was home.

She walked him to the door, and he shook a finger at her. “You have my number. Let me know if anything strange happens when Sherry gets back, okay?”

“I will.” She looked up into his tired eyes. “Thank you, Ian.”

He smiled. “Good night.”

The door closed behind him, and Claire stared at her empty suite. She shivered, then reached for the television remote. The television sprang to life, the news flashing with pictures of the day on Wall Street.

The news provided welcome background noise as Claire changed into sweats and unloaded her backpack. She took the pages from Doug’s printer and stored them out of sight in her philosophy textbook, then stood the textbook in one of her plastic book crates.

She wandered back into the living room and stood, remote control in hand, about to change channels. Suddenly, she started and looked closer. There was a taped shot of a young, well-dressed man in handcuffs being led into a car and driven away.

Was that …?

The picture repeated itself as the announcer turned to another man sitting at the anchor desk. “Bob, why don’t you tell us what this scandal might mean for KCP?”

The man turned toward the camera. His full name, followed by the words
Market Specialist
, appeared at the bottom of the screen.

“Well, in the past twenty years, we’ve had plenty of examples of what happens when a rogue trader—or, in this case, a rogue investment banker like Mr. Barker—decides he wants a bigger piece of the pie.”

Claire grabbed her cordless phone and sat on the couch, punching in Ian’s phone number. After a few rings his voice mail picked up, and she spoke quickly, not wanting to miss what the commentator was saying.

“…  so its not a huge market problem, but it casts a pall. And since perception
is
the market, it certainly isn’t good for KCP or even the companies KCP represents.” He turned to the news anchor. “I was just on the phone with some inside sources
at
KCP, actually, and they said they’re a little concerned about the possible impact on Helion Pharmaceuticals, for one.”

Claire bolted to her feet. “What?”

“Really, Bob? Why?”

“Well, my sources indicate that Mr. Barker was in the middle of working with Helion—he was in the pharmaceuticals area, as you know—on their rumored IPO. The company needs all the cash it can get to resolve its impending lawsuit. The higher-ups in the bank aren’t sure whether in fact some of Mr. Barkers misdeeds might have
come at the expense of Helion. They’re checking into that now. Because that, of course, raises the specter that the investment bank itself could be liable for the harm caused by its employee.”

Claire’s telephone rang right by her hand, and she jumped. “Hello?”

Ian’s voice was amazed. “I walked in about a second after you left your message. Do you believe this?”

“Murphy worked at KCP, but worked
for
Helion?”

“Well, he was Helion’s banker, working on this IPO they were talking about. But that other woman on your list—Johanna Godfrey—she actually worked for Helion itself.”

He paused, and Claire could hear him talking to himself. “So these mysterious scholarship recipients don’t just work for companies owned by the same holding company; they actually work together in some way.” Another pause, and his voice returned to normal. “This can’t be a coincidence, but I still don’t see how it gets us anywhere.”