Terminal Value by Thomas Waite

jet.
    â€œDo you have everything?” Christine asked him, as though he were an errant child.
    â€œOf course I do,” Art snapped. As he closed the office door, his cell phone rang. “Yes?” He stopped and motioned to Christine, who had walked ahead of him toward the elevator. “Yes, it’s all taken care of. Are you sure the security is in place? We don’t want this going wrong, especially while Christine and I are out of town. Okay, stay on it. We’ll be back late on Friday.”
    â€œWhat was that about?” she asked, tapping her foot.
    â€œJust an update on that other little issue we discussed. Everything is in place. At some point that’s going to be big news, and we need to distance ourselves when it happens.”
    â€œWe don’t have time for that right now, Art. We’ll deal with any blowback when we get home. Let’s hope there won’t be any. I assume you made arrangements for the money?”
    â€œAll taken care of.”
    * * *
    April 20, 7:15 a.m. Boston
    The halls of the Boston office were quiet. Employees didn’t begin to arrive until around eight o’clock, so the trip down the hall went unobserved. The tall man shut his cell phone and turned the corner at Tony’s office. He retrieved a small leather case from his inside breast pocket and removed a thin, bladed instrument, which he inserted delicately into the lock, twisting it until he heard the lock click open.
    He slid into Tony’s office, where his first reaction was that it was the epitome of disorganized clutter—the area around the computer seemed to be the worst. Papers lay across the top of the desk in no particular order.
    â€œHow can he work in such disarray?” the man whispered to himself.
    He quickly removed the back of the computer and inserted a small device. “Okay. That was simple,” he mumbled. A cursory glance down the quiet hall confirmed that the fourth floor, home of the nerd herd, was still vacant, and the intruder departed in silence, locking the door behind him and moving on silent steps toward the front door and the trip back to New York.
    An hour later, Tony arrived in his office, preparing for a meeting with Dylan and Matt to discuss the Hyperfōn launch. As he approached his desk, he knew something was out of order. Others may have seen his own personal version of organization as unsystematic, but he could locate every paper, every pencil, every clip on his desk blindfolded. When asked, he could find an errant note within ten seconds—it was his filing system, and although others might not see it, he certainly did. So he knew when something was out of place, and as his glance roved over the desk, he definitely knew someone had been there.
    â€œHey, Tony!” Dylan called as he walked into the office. Dylan clucked his tongue against his teeth and shook his head. “How in the world do you live with this mess?” he asked, laughing through his own curiosity. “You ready to talk Hyperfōn?”
    â€œYou notice anything out of order here?” Tony asked, ignoring Dylan’s question. His eyes scanned the top of the desk.
    Dylan laughed. “You’re kidding—right? I don’t see anything in order here.” Dylan realized the joke was lost on Tony, whose eyes now roamed around the room in search of something out of order.
    â€œWhat do you think is wrong?” Dylan asked.
    Tony turned to his friend. “An odd thing happened last night after we all met in your office. I came back here and found Sandeep rummaging through my desk.”
    Dylan turned and stared at Tony. “Sandeep? I didn’t even know he was in Boston. What did he say?”
    â€œI didn’t know he was here either, although he doesn’t exactly give me his schedule. He said he was looking for paper clips. When I pointed to the dish on top of the desk, he grabbed a few, threw them into his pocket, and then high-tailed