Free The Consignment by Grant Sutherland Page B

looked in. Micky Baker was hunched over his keyboard, his eyes fixed to the screen.
    “It’s eight-thirty,” I said. Startled, his head swung around. “No medals for being last one out. Unless you’re e-mailing your mom,” I told him, “shut it down.” Stopping behind him, I leaned forward to read the screen.
    He tapped a pen on his notepad. A list of numbers. “Rossiter wanted an update on these export licenses we’ve applied for. I’ve been e-mailing and phoning since four. They just keep jerking me around, passing me up and down the line. Four and a half fucking hours.”
    The e-mail Micky was composing, in response to being jerked around, was caustic. Not far short of abusive. Reaching over his shoulder, I touched the screen.
    “Delete it.”
    Micky groaned.
    “If you send that,” I told him, “no one at Commerce is going to get off his butt and reply for a week. Now go home and get some sleep. When you come in tomorrow, rewrite it. And while you’re rewriting, keep it in mind that Commerce grants the licenses. No export licenses, no Haplon. No Haplon, no jobs for you and me.”
    He gestured to the screen. “It took me half an hour.”
    I looked at him silently. Finally he hung his head and jammed his finger on the DELETE .
    “Rossiter’s gonna kick my butt,” he muttered. I assured him that Rossiter knew Commerce better than to blame a Haplon employee for any delay. Micky plucked his jacket from the chair. “You’ll tell him I tried, right? You’ll back me up.”
    I clapped him on the shoulder and guided him into the hall. When he disappeared toward the elevator, I stepped into my office and crossed to the window. Rossiter’s Lotus hadn’t moved. After a minute, Micky emerged from the lobby below and crossed the parking lot. After watching him drive away, I returned to his desk in the main office. His notepad lay open by the screen.
    There were four reference numbers relating to export licenses we’d applied for, and beside each reference number was the name of the buyer, all national departments of defense. Germany, Australia, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The first three I knew about, but the only whisper of an order we had from Nigeria was the approach from Trevanian. I tore a blank page from the notepad and scribbled down the reference number before folding the slip into my pocket and returning to my office.
    Another five minutes and Rossiter’s car was one of only six remaining in the parking lot, including my own, and I went down the hall to see what was keeping him. His secretary, Barbara, a notorious martinet, had already left. Rossiter’s door was closed. When I knocked there was no answer, so I tried the door and it opened.
    I paused, one hand on the door, and looked across Rossiter’s office to the filing cabinet. He kept his correspondence and details of orders pending in that cabinet. It was tempting. Tempting but risky. I couldn’t afford to have anyone find me in there. While I was thinking it over, there were suddenly voices along the hall behind me. I quickly closed the door, stepped back, and bowed my head over Barbara’s desk calendar. Not a moment too soon. Rossiter bore down on me, trailed by Vincent Juniper, Haplon’s financial controller. Vincent had aged years in the past three months; dealing with the irate bankers out in California was wearing him down. Rossiter didn’t miss a beat.
    “Whatever you want, Ned, save it for tomorrow.” He nodded Vincent away, then stepped by me into his office. Gathering up his briefcase and coat, he flicked off the lights, then came out, pressing the lock. “Californians. The goddamn happy people. They’re gonna give me a coronary.”
    “Trouble at the new factory?”
    “Factory? Great big fuckin’ concrete slab, they haven’t even finished the roof. Now the electrical contractor’s sayin’ he wants an extension on his deadline. Just like the builders got. And Christ, those guys bust their deadline twice. All that new technology