Page 115 of Due Dilligence (Takeover)
Chapter Twenty-four
A meeting reminder on Fazil’s laptop chimed, pulling him out of his work. Two minutes until he and Eli piled into Sam’s office and talked to Dr. Sandra about the Singularity Storage job. There’d been a shift over the past couple of days. A sense of urgency and fear, the sudden need to get everything done.
He pushed back from his desk and grabbed a can of Coke on the way. Up way too late chatting with Todd last night. They’d touched on the rumors swirling around Singularity and the shit-ton of work Stephen kept dropping on Todd as part of his probationary period. They’d slid into gaming—and Todd had brought out his bag of dice.
Fazil shivered. That had lead to some fun games—none of which he was going to focus on now. Both Eli and Sam were too observant for him to chance walking in with a dopey smile and a hard-on. He cracked open the soda and took a sip outside the door to Justin and Sam’s offices.
Justin nodded at the inner door. “They’re already in. When you’re done, we’re all hiking up the hill to the PGH Taco Truck.”
If that wasn’t incentive to keep the meeting short, nothing was. He shut Sam’s door after entering and joined Eli, who was sitting in one of Sam’s guest chair. He stifled a yawn on the way down.
“Long night?” A hint of amusement in Sam.
He shrugged and tried not to grin. “The whole three-hour time difference isn’t fun.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Sam’s humor melted into seriousness. “You wouldn’t happen to have any intel on what we’re walking into?”
“My bet is someone approached the board.” Eli tapped a finger on the armrest of his chair. “That would explain many of the requests I’ve gotten.”
Fazil set the can down on Sam’s desk. “That’s one of the rumors—that they’re being bought. The other is that they’re going bankrupt because a customer pulled out.”
Sam pursed his lips. “I haven’t heard of any customer disengagement. Rumblings about missed deadlines, yes, but that’s normal in tech.”
Fazil leaned back in his chair. “Guess we’ll find out.”
A nod from Sam. He leaned over his speakerphone, typed in a number, and pressed call. “Here we go.”
A couple of rings and Sandra answered. After the normal hellos were exchanged, silence ruled over the line. Eli sat forward. Sam picked up a pen and clicked the end. “So, we take it there’s news.”
She cleared her throat. “The rumor mill has reached that far already?”
Fazil put an arm on the desk and leaned closer to the phone. “Doesn’t take much to read between the lines of sudden frantic e-mails.”
Sandra sighed. “I’ll give you that. The board received an offer from BinBox Group.”
Eli clicked his tongue. “Reasonable company.” He peered at the phone. “A good offer?”
A ridge grew between Sam’s brows. “E—”
“It’s a fair question,” Sandra said. “There are some on the board who believe it’s the best we can get, considering. There are others who believe we’re worth more.”
“What doyouthink?” Sam asked.
A breath. “I think they’re lowballing. We have issues with meeting deadlines, but that’s getting better. Our finances are solid.”
“Ofcoursethey are.” Eli practically bristled. Sam threw him a look.
“We owe you, Mr. Ovadia.” She paused. “For more than just that.”
Eli said nothing, though he looked very unhappy to be holding his tongue. Sam mouthed a thank-you in his direction and Eli’s shoulders relaxed.
“We do need to finish putting engineering together, though.”
Fazil’s domain. “We’re nearly there,” he said. “There are a few key procedures to document, and I still need access to your source code repository to finish cataloguing the open source code.”
“There’s an issue there.” A rattle of paper on the other end. “Stephen would rather you not have access.”
Sam sat back. Fazil couldn’t because there wasn’t any breath in his lungs.
