“His office is on this floor, over there.” She pointed west across the lobby. “Down that hallway you’ll see a sign that says World Center Management. Mr. Harback’s office is in Building Services.”
“All right. Thank you.” Stanley moved across the crowded lobby, the dingy morning light flowing through windows to his left, and down the hallway to the location he had been directed to. Inside the door to Building Services he found Harback’s secretary, who showed him into her supervisor’s windowless office.
“Mr. Stearns,” Ray Harback said, coming around his desk to greet the visitor.
“Call me Stan,” Mr. “Stearns” responded.
“Okay,” Harback, jacketless and in rolled-up sleeves, agreed willingly. “And I’m Ray. ‘Mister’ goes with the blazer.”
“I’m a loose-tie man myself,” Stanley informed his host.
“Have a seat.” Harback returned to his chair and closed several folders on his desk. “So, Mick at Sun-Snow pointed you my way.”
“Sure did. He was a big help.”
“I didn’t get the whole story from him, just that you’re doing a project overseas and there’s trouble with the environmental systems. Is that right?”
Stanley nodded. “Trouble is an understatement. The guy who did the job I’m now jumping into was arrested for taking kickbacks from one of our installation contractors.”
“Where is this?”
“Thailand,” Stanley lied believably. “We have a two-and-a-half-million-square-foot warehouse facility just about finished in Bangkok, maybe six months’ work to go, and the environmental system this idiot contracted for will not do the job.”
Harback grimaced. “Ouch.”
“The main problem isn’t the actual equipment,” Stanley went on, “it was my predecessor’s screwed up installation instructions. He had the support plant for the…” He pulled a notebook from his briefcase. “…let’s see, for the Cansco Control Systems equipment built too far from the feed systems to be of any use.”
“Yeah, I know that CCS gear,” Harback said with a shake of his head. “Their pumps and their flow managers are weak. You could boost the pumps, but that wouldn’t put any more product into your space. Just plain air.”
Product. Stanley knew that meant the output of the environmental system, what would have been called the air conditioner and heater only ten years before. No more heat. No more cool air. Product. The research he’d done was paying off.
“So our problem is that we have an almost completed facility, a completed support unit for our environmentals, and a shipload of equipment that won’t do the job.”
“Ouch again.”
Stanley drew in a deep breath and eased back in the soft chair. “So, my job now is to find a system we can put in place in six months, using the existing support plant, that will do the job. Mick said the system you have here…” Again he looked to his notes.
“The SunSnow Duo Temp Assembly 5-M,” Harback said proudly, as if reciting the name of his newborn.
“Right. That’s the baby Mick said might fit our needs.”
“So you want to know if it does us right.”
“Actually I’m sure it does,” Stanley said, easing into the pitch. “Like I said, our problem is setup. Space and arrangement. Mick said you have your equipment rigged in a way that might work for us.”
“Yeah, ours is a little unusual,” Harback admitted. “We narrow down quite a bit above fifty, so we had to plan in some creative stacking, especially with the pumps.”
Yes, the pumps. That was what Stanley had read about in a trade journal. The plans SunSnow had sent him told him all he needed to know about the pumps as pieces of machinery, but Harback would have to give him what he needed more.
“Mick said you’d be willing to show me your layout,” Stanley said. “Kinda to give me an idea if what you’ve done will suit us.”
“Sure,” Harback said, standing. “I’d be happy to show off our baby. Come on.”
Stanley stood, smiling. It was really going to be that easy.
Royce Pharmaceuticals was a sprawling complex of offices, laboratories, and other buildings dotting a neatly tended green pasture forty miles north of Los Angeles just off the Golden State Freeway. The left turn from the off-ramp pointed the Bureau Chevy directly at the facility’s main gate, and at several news vehicles staked out on the facility’s perimeter.
“Word travels fast,” Frankie commented upon seeing the high-tech trucks, two with their telescoping microwave dishes already up as they shot for a hookup with the relays on the nearby peaks.
“When you put on a major CYA show to the press it’s bound to,” Art said, wondering briefly if Vorhees would survive the feeding frenzy. Then he wondered if he really should care at all.
“We’re here to see Monte Royce,” Frankie said as she stopped at the guard shack, showing her FBI shield. The armed guard examined her credentials, then peered through the open window, hesitating. “One of our people called,” she informed the guard. “Mr. Royce is supposed to be waiting.” The look she gave him next was even less than businesslike. “As in waiting for us.”
The guard stepped back and pressed a button in the shack, which raised the single-arm barrier. “Right at the first lot. Park facing the main building, please.”
Frankie hit the up button for the window as she muttered a less than sincere “Thank you.”
“A little paranoid, don’t you think?”
“Paranoia is a virtue in some circles,” Art said, recalling the elaborate security measures he had been witness to during his years investigating organized crime.
Frankie pulled the car into one of several open spots, each clearly marked VISITOR on a post-mounted placard. Art scanned the area as he stepped from the car, noting more security measures inside the company perimeter. “Smile, partner.”
Frankie looked up, seeing the two security cameras mounted atop perches swivel their way. She met the unseen stare of the unseen operator, maintaining it until entering the oversized glass doors that led into the lobby of the main building.
“Agents Jefferson and Aguirre to see Mr. Royce,” Art said to the receptionist, again sensing more security. This time it was two men in immaculate suits standing near the only door leading from the lobby to the innards of the building. Both had their jackets unbuttoned, hands crossed hanging in the fig leaf position. It would only take a split second for either to get to the weapons they obviously carried under their coats.
“Yes,” the receptionist acknowledged. She turned to one of the security guards. “Would you please escort these visitors to Mr. Royce’s office?”
“Certainly.” The man nodded and flashed a professional, antiseptic smile to the agents. His counterpart held the door open as the security guard led the agents through, stopping halfway down a wide hallway that was decorated in subtle earth tones. He pressed the lighted up arrow next to the elevator and followed the visitors in, hitting the 6 button.
“You’d think you guys made cruise missiles or something here,” Frankie said once the door closed.
“We have competitors,” the security guard said.
Competitors. Art translated that to what the man’s tone said it should be: enemies. The business world really was where the next wars would be fought.
“To the right,” the guard said, taking the lead again once they were off the elevator.
Wow. Frankie remembered enough of art history from college to recognize the pieces that hung along the hallway they were moving down. Los Caprichos, a work by Goya, and across from it The Duchess of Alba by the same artist. Both were from the late 1700s, she recalled, amazed that some of the knowledge had stuck with her. More works adorned the walls. Beautiful paintings by Guardi, though Frankie could not place titles with them. Another Goya. And something told her that these were not just reproductions. The artwork alone warranted the security seen so far.