“We’ve gotta shut her down!” Stan Bollinger announced as he marched in the office of the retired general and current CEO of Bandaq Technologies. The short, wiry CFO tossed a sheaf of papers on the desk and pointed to the page on top. “Just look at those numbers, Jack. That crazy project of hers is sinking our bottom line. How much longer can we be that woman’s personal ATM?”
General Jack Landsdale stared at his chief financial officer. “You must be joking! Shut down our missile defense line just when she’s had a breakthrough?”
“So her computer game worked once. In simulation,” he scoffed. “That could have been a fluke.” He strode over to the tall windows, looked out at the park across from their corporate plaza and added with a wave of his hand, “Besides, once in a row won’t cut it with our shareholders.”
“Wait just a damn minute,” the general bellowed. “I’ve known that girl since she was a teenager. I’ve watched her graduate at the top of her class at Stanford and breeze through M.I.T. She’s a computer genius with an IQ higher than your stock price will ever be.”
“Yeah, and I hear IQ stands for Ice Queen where she’s concerned,” the CFO challenged.
“God damn it! How exactly does her personality impact on your precious P&L statement?”
“It doesn’t. It just makes it easier to fire her,” Stan said, pacing across the room.
“Look, I can read the numbers as well as you can. But you have to admit that if she can make her program work to actually take control of a cruise missile and redirect it, our entire military is going to be screaming for her technology, to say nothing of other countries who will want it for their own protection.”
Stan stopped and turned in mid-stride. “I’m not so sure. The boys at the Pentagon have blown over a hundred billion bucks on all kinds of missile defense projects over the last thirty years. Okay, so some of them have worked, but they’ve had some duds too. Remember Brilliant Pebbles?” The general started to interrupt when the CFO continued, “More like stupid pebbles if you ask me. Congress is getting fed up with all of their red ink, and when I give my quarterly report to the board in two weeks, you can count on their being up to here with the whole idea too.”
General Landsdale pushed the papers aside and cleared his throat. “First of all, that hundred billion was spent trying to stop big ballistic missiles. And have you forgotten that several of those systems are deployed overseas? Our allies are happy with the protection. Besides, Cammy’s working on smaller, guided missiles that can carry chemical, biological, even nuclear warheads. It’s a whole different concept. You know that. And second,” the general paused for emphasis, “I’m still the boss around here.”
“Not for long,” the CFO muttered.
“So my retirement’s coming up. But as long as I sit in this chair, I will make the decisions on which lines get funded and which ones are closed down . . . if any.”
“Then I assume I can count on you to answer all the budget questions at the board meeting?” Stan asked derisively, shooting his French cuffs as he stood in front of the desk.
“We may have answers by then.” The general checked his watch and thought for a moment. “She’s preparing a new simulation right now. If she can lock on to a dummy missile again, there’s going to be a lot of crow on the cafeteria menu.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t we both check in on this new simulation and see whether she can finally reduce our burn rate here.”
“Right this way,” the general ordered as he got up, buttoned his jacket and headed toward the door.
“Come in,” Cameron Talbot said absently, her eyes trained on a computer screen. The door to her then opened, and when she turned around she was surprised to see her boss, General Jack Landsdale with Stan Bollinger, his CFO in tow. She took one last sip from her coffee mug, realized it was cold and set it down next to a stack of tablets filled with calculations. She quickly saved her screen and brushed a few strands of blond hair back under her headband. “What’s up? I was just getting ready for another test run of Q-3.”
“We know,” the general said, motioning for Stan to pull up a chair. “We’ve been talking about your project, and we’d like to see the next simulation. Any new progress here?”
Cammy eyed the CFO and saw him staring at the bank of computer screens and piles of notes and books spread around the room. He had never ventured into her lab, and she wondered what brought about this sudden interest in her work. She’d never liked the man. The way he barked out his orders around the company made her think he had some sort of Napoleonic complex. And he was obsessive about numbers. She wished he could be as passionate about concepts like throw-weights as he was about EBITDA. Earnings-before-interest-taxes-depreciation-and-amortization, she reflected. What a total drag. His whole demeanor was so austere, she had told a friend that their CFO had one thing in common with Clint Eastwood. He was stone-faced with hair combed or stone-faced with hair mussed up.
Cammy pointed to her computer screen and answered, “I’ve been working on a new set of algorithms. If I can just get them to analyze the frequency a command center is using to communicate with a missile, I can use the same frequency to lock-on to it and take control.”
“And you think you can do that now?” the general asked expectantly.
“Almost,” she said. “I’m working . . . my whole team is working on it every day now. I really think we’re close.”
“Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades,” Stan declared. “I think George Wallace said that once.”
The general waved dismissively and focused on the screen. “So are you going to fire this thing up and try another simulation?”
“We were planning another one for later today, yes,” Cammy said. “Why?”
“We want to watch,” the CFO said.
“Oh,” Cammy said tensely. “Now isn’t really the best time.” She glanced down at the figures on the tablets, mentally calculating how long it would take to experiment with her latest formulas. She reached up and twisted a strand of her hair. I’m not ready for this, she thought. Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. Not now. Ever since her first triumph when she’d been able to lock on to a simulated weapon, she’d been working for weeks to recreate the conditions. And she’d failed. She had the ideas. She just couldn’t seem to translate them to her hard drive. The concepts were just in her head. And right now, her head was pounding.
“So, how about a little show-and-tell?” Stan prompted.
Cammy heaved a sigh, swiveled her chair on the tile floor and picked up her intercom. “Ben, could you come in here, please.” Her palms were damp as she smoothed her beige slacks and pushed up the sleeves of her white sweater. A young man dressed in beige chinos and a navy polo shirt pushed through the door. He stopped abruptly when he saw the CEO and CFO seated nearby. He glanced at Cammy with raised eyebrows.
Cammy exchanged a look with her key assistant. She had hired Ben Steiner the previous year. He was a computer whiz, and he had come up with a whole slew of calculations and ideas for Q-3. He was proving invaluable to her. He was awfully smart, but rather one-dimensional. Everything except his computer skills was kind of medium—medium height, medium brown hair, medium build. There was nothing sharp or defining about him. She often thought that his face was what you’d get if someone faxed you a picture and you were low on toner. Then again, she thanked her lucky stars that there was nothing low about the guy’s energy level.
“Ben, we’ve got work to do. Mr. Bolliner and General Landsdale are anxious to see our progress on Q-3 . . .”
“But we’re not quite . . .”
“Never mind where you are, or where you think you are,” the CFO intoned. “It’s time we got some action out of this division. Now does this Q-3 thing work or doesn’t it?”
There was silence in the room. Finally, Ben dropped into a gray desk chair and rolled over to the second computer. “Guess we’ll give it another try.”
Cammy pushed a button. A white object jumped onto the upper corner of her screen and began moving across at an angle. Her fingers flew over the keys, the staccato patterns on the two keyboards were the only sounds permeating the tension in the room. She entered a sequence of numbers as Ben made a series of calculations. Cammy typed faster and looked up to see the object reaching the center of her screen.
“Damn,” she said under her breath. “What’s its C3?” she muttered, racking her brain for another sequence. She tried again, but the little object kept moving. “Ben, anything?”
“Not yet, boss. Last algorithm . . . thought I had that sucker . . . try another . . . nope.”
She tried to ignore the flashes of pain across her forehead as she stared at the screen and entered another list of numbers. The small white object was on a downward trajectory when she shook her head. “New input. I need new input,” she called out to Ben.
“I know. I know,” he said. “I’m trying. It’s too fast. Need more time.”
“We haven’t got any more time. The missile is about to hit its target and we can’t . . . damn.” She watched as the white object hit the bottom of her screen and disappeared altogether.
“Zilch . . . zip . . . zero,” Ben said as he pushed his chair back and folded his arms.
“And that’s what your budget is going to be if I have anything to say about it,” Stan said, as he got up from his chair and headed for the door.
“What do you mean?” Cammy said, pushing away from her console and hurrying toward the CFO.
He turned abruptly to face her. “What I mean is that I’ve got to shut down this division because it’s not producing. That’s what I mean.”
The shock on her face brought the general to his feet. “Cammy, listen.”
“Listen to what? Listen to how he’s going to close me down after all these years of trying to develop a fabulous new technology? Close me down when we’re right on the edge of a terrific discovery? Close me down when we might have a missile system that actually saves lives rather than one that just kills a bunch of people?” She put her hand on the general’s arm. “Don’t let him do that, Jack.”
Stan Bollinger grabbed the door knob and twisted it. “Show’s over, folks. For the record, nobody lets me do anything. I think the board will have to decide this one. But if it were up to me . . .” he turned and gave Cammy a stern look, “. . . yes, I’d shut you down in a heartbeat.” He opened the door and called over his shoulder, “And now, I’ve got real work to do.”
Cammy slumped down in her chair and saw the dejected look on Ben’s face. She paused and turned to the general, “So does this mean we’re through? You’re really going to give up on Q-3?”
The general ran a hand through his graying hair and thought for a moment. “Stan doesn’t have the power to shut you down . . . not yet anyway. I’m still running the show here, but you know I’m scheduled to retire, and Stan is the heir apparent. He’s right about one thing though. If we can’t show more progress on this missile defense idea of yours, the board may agree that we’ve got to cut our losses.”
“So we’ve got a couple of weeks till the meeting?” Cammy asked.
“Two weeks max. But there are a few things we can do right now.”
“Such as?”
“First of all, the satellite and radar division is ahead of schedule. I’m going to pull Raj Singh off that line and reassign him to your staff on a temporary basis. He may have some new ideas on how to get your computer program to react faster once a missile is launched. And with a little more time, you may be able to figure out the frequencies.”
She hesitated. Work with Raj? She didn’t like the idea. She knew he was smart, but she wasn’t sure she could trust him. She figured Ben might have misgivings too.
“Ben, what do you think about working with Raj?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Guy’s smart. No question. But . . .”
“But what?” the general demanded.
“What Ben means,” Cammy answered, “is that Raj has his own priorities. He heads up another division, and he’s been trying to get his own budget increased for months now. Why should he help us when he’d get the lion’s share of R&D money if we get slammed?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re all working for the same company. We all want this place to succeed. We all want to get this whole missile defense system working so it ties into his satellite and radar and then get the Pentagon to buy the whole shebang. You know that.”
Cammy looked up. “His satellite and radar systems can be used independently. He could partner with Sterling Dynamics on their missile systems. Or he could sell them separately.” And he could compromise Q-3 once he learned my routines here, she thought to herself.
“We’re not doing any deal with our major competitor. Where did you get that idea?”
“You know Sterling has been trying to replicate some of our systems. I told you about the guy they hired who tried . . .”
The general softened his tone. “Yes. I know. The man tries to sweet talk you into telling him about Q-3, and when that doesn’t work, he goes to work for Sterling.”
It still hurt when Cammy thought about Ken—the bastard. She had met him at a defense symposium. He had seemed so attentive. And she had to admit he had been rather attractive. After a few dinners and a weekend at his place in Middleburg, she had fallen for him. Hard. Then the questions came. They were subtle at first. He said he was so interested in her work, how she had come up with the idea of Q-3, how it stood for its three components of satellites, radar and computers working together to take control of a cruise missile once it was launched. But her project was classified. She never talked about it outside the office. Then when he finally figured out that he wasn’t going to learn anything about it, he dumped her and went to work for her nemesis, Sterling Dynamics. She had been devastated—for a while anyway. Ever since then, except for her own small staff, she had preferred to work alone.
“So you trust Raj to come over here and save my project?” Cammy asked.
“That’s step one,” the general said.
“There’s a step two?”
“Yes. This is a long shot, but there’s a hearing before the House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday morning. They’re in the process of putting together one part of the Defense Authorization Bill. I’m going to see if we can get on their docket for that hearing. If we could get a special appropriation for this technology, we’d have enough R&D funds to keep going. At least for a while.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Cammy said.
“I’m going to call the chairman. But I want you to handle the testimony.”
“Me?” Cammy exclaimed. “I’ve never testified before a congressional committee. I’ve never even given a speech, Jack. Why in the world would you put me in front of that bunch?”
“Because you’re the one who created Q-3. It was your idea, your research, your simulation that worked.”
“When it worked that time,” Ben said, “Guess we should’ve TiVo’d it, huh?”
“Wish we had,” Cammy murmured.
“Yes, once,” the General said. “And so you’re the best one to explain why it’s important for the United States to have a system that can neutralize a guided missile if it’s launched against us or our allies.”
“But I can’t . . . I mean, I don’t have time . . . I’d have to write the . . .”
“Stop it, Cam. Stop the excuses. If you can impress the committee, and I think you can, there’s a chance we can keep going here. Bollinger will have to take a pass and the board will too. At least for now.”