CHAPTER 2
An hour later Daniel was sitting in his new office as Melinda’s name was being removed from the door and his name was inserted in its place. She was sent down the hall to a smaller room further away from E. Emory ’s. Her furniture was removed and a new desk, chairs, sofa, and paintings were brought in to transform her rather vanilla looking office into one of productivity suiting a man like Daniel.
The door opened and Louis walked in with a briefcase, sat down on one of the plush chairs, and started to speak.
“There’s two million in cash here,” he said without blinking an eye. “Somebody is working on your equipment requests right now. By tonight, you should have everything you need; by tomorrow morning, it’ll be up and running. I’m expecting you will get those experts you mentioned yourself. I want you to understand something very clearly. Up until now, this was a break even company, and that was alright. Even if it lost money, that was okay as long as it was done slowly. You suddenly come in with an idea that’s going to make money, big money. Okay. There’s nothing wrong with that; but, it changes the focus a little. Now, if we succeed, we’re on the map; everybody notices and that’s good. We swim in money. The only bad thing would be if you fail because then we couldn’t go back to being what we were without a lot of people asking questions we don’t want to answer. Ten million is not a problem. Fifteen million is no big deal…as long as you succeed. But remember, there are no second chances. Nobody will bother you and the only person you will answer to is me.”
“What about E. Emory?’ Daniel asked without thinking.
“The only person you will answer to is me,” Louis said. “The first thing you need to know is that I don’t like to repeat myself.”
Daniel tried not to sweat or to show signs of fear, but his heart was racing at a mile a minute and he thought the top of his head would blow off. His Mr. Confidence personality was getting a real test as Louis rose from his chair and looked at his watch. He pressed a button on its side and then lowered his hand.
“It’s ticking,” he said succinctly. “Thirty days.”
Louis stood up and departed without saying another word. Daniel’s hand was still extended in a gesture of a handshake, but none was forthcoming. As he sat down behind his new desk, a terrible thought flashed through his mind. One, Louis was using Pro-Rank as a front for laundering money; or two, Pro-Rank was a front for some covert government operation. Neither of these options was good, but both would help to explain why incompetents were left to run the company…it was the perfect cover. The ticking down on the watch suddenly became more ominous.
Daniel picked up the phone and was about to call, when he decided that it must be tapped. Taking out his cell, he walked out into the hallway, shut the door, and dialed.
“Hello, is Richie there?” he asked. “Yes, I’ll hold.”
A minute went by before the conversation continued.
“Richie…Daniel…yah…I need them all…how soon can you get them here…Pro-Rank offices…I need them sooner than that…tomorrow…no, I’m not joking…you tell them I’ll give each of them a check to pay for their last year’s tuition…yah, room and board and books too…I’m not kidding…I’ll throw in a car but they all have to be here …yes, under the table…tomorrow, 9:00 AM…See you then.”
He closed his cell and re-entered his office, sitting in the comfortable chair behind his new oak desk. His office phone rang and a voice on the other end said the new equipment was arriving already and he should go to one of the large rooms to direct the installation. Hanging up, he suddenly remembered he had forgotten to ask Louis for his number when there was a knock at his door.
“Come in,” he said.
A blonde, athletic-looking woman who had to be at least six feet tall walked in.
“I’m your new secretary,” she said. “Mr. Postadolas told me to tell you that the installers have arrived and that you should meet them in the large room. Is there anything else?”
Surprised at seeing this raving beauty, Daniel was at a loss for words.
“No,” he replied hesitatingly. “Could you tell Mr. Postadolas I’m on my way?”
As he left he now realized one thing; his new secretary knew how to contact Louis and that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Large boxes were coming up in both the service and regular elevators with men wheeling full cart movers in and empty ones out to be reloaded. A group of electricians was standing by as well as computer installation experts. Daniel gathered the technicians together in a corner of the room and explained, in general terms, what he wanted to see when they were done. After much discussion and give and take, a design was sketched out onto a legal pad and the parties got to work. More workers came in to relieve this crew after eight hours and then another group took their turn. By 7:00 AM the next morning, Daniel was standing in the midst of two data centers complete with state of the art monitors and computers and cameras and printers and servers. It looked like the command center for a space mission as hundreds of feet of wires were bundled together to form networks. After everything was found to function, the workers were all paid and dismissed.
Daniel went back to his office and lay down on the couch hoping to get in a small nap before his younger brother Richie and his college buddies showed up, but his rest was interrupted by the entrance of the blonde Amazon. He was stunned to see that she was still there concluding she, too, must have spent the night. Since there was no real secretarial work as of yet, there was only one logical reason for her presence…Louis. Obviously she was put in place to report every detail back to him which wasn’t good since there were things Daniel didn’t want revealed until he knew they worked. He was afraid that on the surface, they might look impractical; but he had all the confidence that his plan would work. He didn’t want somebody, especially Louis, nitpicking them to death before they were all in place.
“Good morning,” he said. “In all the commotion yesterday, I didn’t get your name.”
“Lisa,” she replied handing him a freshly brewed cup of coffee. “Black, just the way you like it.”
As he took the cup from her hand, he thought that apparently someone else had been doing research as well…on him.
“I’ve cancelled all of your appointments for today,” she replied.
“I didn’t know I had appointments,” Daniel answered. “Who was I supposed to see, if I may ask?”
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