Page 37 of The Money Man
“As soon as I can set up a meeting with Barsky and whoever else is in charge of BalanceTrakR, I’m heading for Dallas.” Derek dropped into a leather-and-chrome chair set in front of Leland’s desk and ran a hand over his face in a gesture of worry. “I should have done it sooner, but I didn’t know we were dealing with an out-and-out criminal.”
“Given what I saw in the software, I should have spotted it myself.” Leland’s smooth voice was laced with self-reproach. “I was just as dismissive of Alice’s expertise as you were at the beginning. If I’d known how capable she was, I would have taken it more seriously.”
Derek held up his hand to stop the apology. “That’s exactly why I started the SBI. We’ve lost touch with the fact that you don’t have to work for a high-powered consulting firm to be excellent at your job. Plenty of talented people simply want to be their own boss, to control their own fate.”
“Just like us back when,” Leland said. “But somehow we ended up here.” He swept his hand around the spacious corner office with the spectacular views.
“Hey, I’m proud of where we are but we should never forget where we came from. And that we nearly failed.”
Derek remembered how his stomach had heaved the day he’d realized KRG didn’t have enough money to meet their tiny payroll. He and his partners had already given up their own salaries to keep the consulting firm limping along. Presenting the news that they were broke to Leland and Tully had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, partly because his father was an unseen presence in the room. His father, who had wanted KRG to fail because it would have proved his point that Derek could just as well have pursued a career in acting. And maybe should go back to it.
He wasn’t sure what had driven him harder to pursue the angel investor who had saved them—his partners’ disappointment or his father’s imminent triumph.
“Amen,” Leland said, his expression distant with some private memory of his own.
Derek pulled them back to the present. “Where are you with breaking down the software? Not that I’m trying to rush you, but I figured I’d check in.”
“The malware is not in the obvious places, but that doesn’t surprise me. Whoever set this up is pretty sophisticated. I’ll find it.” Leland bared his teeth in a feral smile.
“I have no doubt about that.” Derek pushed up from the chair. “I’ve got to check in with Tully now. He’s pretty pissed at both of us for not bringing him in sooner.”
“Why don’t you let me go to Texas?” Leland said. “I can talk software with Barsky.”
Astonishment ripped through Derek. Leland didn’t do business trips if he could avoid it. “Why?”
“Because no one but you can handle Argon.” Leland looked at him steadily. “Tully and I can handle BalanceTrakR.”
White-hot anger blazed through Derek. “You think I can’t do both?”
“This issue has become much bigger than giving some expert advice to a small business owner, and you’re getting in pretty deep.”
“Out of the question,” Derek snapped. “I started this and I’m seeing it through.”
He stalked out of the office but stopped a few steps down the hallway to take a deep breath. He needed to refocus on the Argon project. He owed it to the client and he owed it to his partners. That didn’t mean that he was going to let anyone else go to Texas with Alice but he would spend the hours on the plane working. Alice would understand because she was as dedicated to her clients as he was to his. Oddly, the thought of Alice sitting next to him on the plane while he wrestled with foreign-exchange hedging dissolved most of his irritation and guilt.
He started down the hallway in a less combative state of mind.
When Derek walked in, Tully was on the phone. He held up one finger to indicate he was about to finish, so Derek settled into one of the cowhide-covered chairs that Tully had chosen for his office. The funny thing was that Tully was from Pennsylvania, but he’d adopted a cowboy persona. It suited him somehow.
That got Derek to thinking about Myron Barsky and his Texas headquarters. It had an all-American image that might make his clients feel more trusting ... like Tully’s cowboy facade.
“What’s on your mind, partner?” Tully removed his wireless earpiece.
“Alice Thurber got a call from Myron Barsky a little while ago. She’s smart so she didn’t answer it, but we have to move up the trip to Dallas.”
Tully cursed under his breath. “I don’t like the combination of the phone call and the deleted question on the forum.”
“I don’t like that she’s in their crosshairs now and we put her there.”
Tully shook his head. “Your bookkeeper probably put herself on their radar the minute she posted that question on the help forum. It’s a good thing that she came to us with it. At least we can protect her.” He tilted his chair back and studied the ceiling. “I want to come with you and check out the players, but that would raise more red flags than it would settle.”
“Agreed. Anything in particular you want me to look for?” Other than threats to Alice’s well-being. Images from their night together flashed through his mind, retightening the tension in his shoulders.
“I don’t want to wire you because they must be pretty tech savvy, so they might screen for that.” Tully stood up to pace around the room, his footsteps eerily silent for someone wearing cowboy boots. The man moved like a cat. “See if you can get a tour of the facility. After all, you want to invest in them. Let me know what you see. Listen for foreign languages or accents. Make sure the signage looks permanent. Damn, I wish I could get their faces on camera,” he muttered. “I’ve got a bad feeling about these guys.”
Derek felt a jab of unease. “Do I need to worry about more than Alice’s business reputation?”
Tully stopped pacing. “Well, we’re dealing with folks who are in a position to steal a lot of money and we’re planning to stop them. Add to that, Leland says the software is Eastern European or Russian.” His jaw hardened. “An agent I know caught a Russian hacker case and let’s just say that those assholes didn’t have any hesitation about using violence to protect their interests.”
