Prescott paused for several seconds, as Ryan’s mind raced to figure out why. Was Prescott unprepared for the simple question? Insulted by the tone? Was it a politician’s pause to make sure he worded his answer correctly? Was he still considering just how much to reveal? Or, probably most likely, did he simply want Ryan to fret over why he was pausing?
“I thought you might be interested in joining your board of directors for our next meeting,” Prescott finally answered, speaking with a deliberate, measured cadence. “We’ll be convening this coming Monday at 4:00 just after market close.”
Board of directors? “Is it standard for orphans to meet with their boards when they reach adulthood?” Ryan asked, quite sure the answer was no.
“I didn’t say meeting with your board. I said joining it.”
Ryan’s jaw dropped slightly. That certainly wasn’t standard.
“We can talk more in person. I can assure you, the trip will be worth your while.”
“Well, I’ve got a lot to get done over the coming week,” Ryan hedged. But his mind was already made up. “I guess if I could get some work done on the ride over there, I might be able to… Do you think you could get me a limo with reliable Wi-Fi access?”
“How about I send one of our executive Escalades? It’s essentially a mobile office — far superior to a limo.”
“And I have a stop I’ll need to make in Northern Pennsylvania on Sunday.”
“Not a problem,” Prescott said without hesitation. “Our driver will be at your disposal. And our guests are usually quite comfortable at the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park. Will you be staying Sunday and Monday nights with us?”
“I’d plan to be there both nights, yes. But I’d prefer to stay in Midtown.”
“Not a problem,” Prescott said, still unfazed. “Any specific hotel we can book for you?”
“The Peninsula” flew off Ryan’s tongue. “I’ve got a friend in the building.”
“The Peninsula it is then,” Prescott said, impressed by the teenager’s decisiveness and poise throughout most of the conversation. “I’ve followed you very closely for over a decade. I look forward to finally meeting you.”
“Likewise.”
“Higley!” an armed guard shouted from halfway down the long hall of locked cells. “You got a visitor!”
Dillon popped his head up from a paperback book with a puzzled, mildly annoyed expression on his face. A visitor? Since he’d been sentenced to the Federal Penitentiary in Canaan, Pennsylvania six months earlier, he’d had visitors on precisely four occasions. Each time his adoptive parents. And each time he’d sent them away without seeing them.
Shouldn’t they have learned their lesson by now?
“Who is it?” Dillon asked disinterestedly, reclining on a folded pillow on his cot.
“Some kid named Ryan Ewing. You wanna see him?”
A smile cracked Dillon’s countenance. “Yeah. I do.”
Dillon’s smile persisted all the way up to the visitation area, where he quickly spotted Ryan grinning right back at him, seated behind a plexiglass window, holding a corded phone.
Dillon picked up the phone on the other side. “So how’s life on the outside?” he asked, still just as skinny and ghostly white, with the same mop of disheveled black hair atop his head. He still looked young, but he didn’t look like a kid any more. And not from some hardened-prison-inmate transformation. He looked wiser. Relaxed. At peace.
“Aah, life’s about the same out here," Ryan said. "How about you?”
“Not bad. You’re gonna think I’ve completely lost it, but I think I might actually like it better in here. My dad was pretty pissed off at me at first, but I think he’s glad I’m here now. And he won’t admit it, but I know he loves how I got here.”
“You see him much?”
“A few hours a week usually, which is obviously a lot better than before.”
Dillon had vigorously fought the charges against him for two solid months, using the highly-publicized trial to get as much dirt about Avillage out into the press as he could. Then, when he ran out of ammo, he’d made a shocking one-eighty and offered to change his plea to guilty in exchange for the prosecution’s allowing him to choose which maximum security federal facility he’d be sent to.
Prescott had successfully deflected all of the blame, most of it rightfully, onto his executive VP in order to protect the company. And Bradford, who was wasting every lucid moment between seizures in mortal fear of the next one, was too preoccupied to try to defend himself. In the end Avillage’s sterling reputation had come out of the fiasco only slightly tarnished.
“So, was it worth it?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know; that’s a complicated question. I’m glad I did it, if that’s what you mean. That shitbag definitely deserved it.
“I would’ve loved to have stuck around and fought alongside you — brought the whole operation down. But I figure, best case scenario, we were probably ten years away from that. Too much legislation to overcome. And too much money. I probably couldn’t have slipped the insider trading charge anyway.”
“Oh yeah! What in the world were you thinking with the insider trading?”
“I know, that probably wasn’t a good move,” Dillon conceded. “But I needed some extra cash. I was working on some stuff on the side. We anti-establishment hackers are a pretty tight group, but we can’t all work for free.”
Ryan nodded. “Alright. One more thing. You’ll never guess where I’m headed from here,” he said, bracing for Dillon’s reaction. “I’m going to meet with the one, the only… James Prescott — in person. He asked me to join my own board of directors. Can you believe that?”
Dillon smirked, surprisingly unmoved, seemingly liberated from his rage by his inability to change anything from inside a maximum security prison. “Hmm. Never heard of anyone joining their own board,” he said. ”Just be careful. Make sure you go in knowing exactly what you are and aren’t willing to negotiate.”
“That’s it?” Ryan said with a smile. “I thought you were either gonna hang up and walk away or try to beat your way through this glass with your phone.
“Do you at least have any last-minute dirt I could use?”
“Nope. Nothing. Seriously. I spent hours inside their system every week for years, and I couldn’t tell you a single thing about him. Bradford’s tracks were well-hidden. Prescott just doesn’t leave any.
“Look Ryan, you’re special,” Dillon said, blushing slightly. “And you know it’s not my style to give compliments, so you’re never gonna hear that again. But don’t forget it. And don’t be intimidated. You should never be intimidated.”
“Thanks, Dillon. It was good to see you again.”
“Good to see you too. And feel free to stop back by after you’ve toppled Avillage,” he smirked. “Maybe I’ll change my plea.”
Ryan laughed. “Sure. And say hi to your dad for me.”
“I will,” Dillon said straight-faced. “But just to let you know, I’m pretty sure he’d hate your conformist guts.”
Ryan could’ve easily paid for a couple nights at the Peninsula himself, but rolling up to it in the back of a mobile office on someone else’s dime, he felt like he’d arrived. Dillon’s advice about never needing to feel intimidated was appropriate, but in a way, it was too late. Something had changed in Ryan over the past year. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he was a senior in college; perhaps it was just a natural maturation process, but Ryan had grown to embrace his status as a leader on campus. He was no longer self-conscious of his gifts or semi-apologetic that he knew things other people didn’t or couldn’t.