LaCost. Patrick Rizio

man behind the desk was standing now, waving the folder containing the phony information, and the report confirming so, above his head in a rage.

      “That idiot. That fucking IDIOT!” he hollered.

      To punctuate his disgust, he threw the folder into the other man’s face hard as he said the word idiot the second time.

      Papers landed everywhere, on the desk, on the floor. The man in front of the desk made no effort to pick them up, or to attend to his nose, which was now bleeding. His heart was in his throat, and he was afraid to move. A long moment passed. The man behind the desk sat back down, apparently calmer. The man in front of the desk resumed breathing.

      “Sir, I of course assume full responsibility for any repercussions. I offer no excuse for my poor judgment.”

      Again, an intolerably long moment passed. The man standing knew his superior would accept no excuses. He also knew his superior rarely lost emotional control. Seeing him do so, knowing the power he held, was terrifying. He desperately wanted to say something in his own defense, but he dared not. He just stood there silent, sweating.

      “That will be all.”

      “Sir, if I might just…”

      “That will be ALL!”

      “Yes sir.

      *******

      Huboral International: Founded in 1919. Multinational corporation, with projects in over 30 countries. Does consulting for government, military, foreign governments, and high-level companies all over the globe. Heavily into oil, gas, and construction. Also, allegedly involved with C.I.A. in covert operations, supplying arms and munitions. Consolidated resources approximately $26.8 billion.

      Once Bob Schimmel saw the name on the report, he really didn’t need to read the rest. He knew only too well who they were but was a little surprised they were trying to steal from Universal Biotech. It was a bit unsettling, even for him.

      Huboral Intl. was one of the biggest and nastiest sharks in the corporate ocean. The big man had some thinking to do. This chess game had just gone to Grand Master level. One thing seemed sure now, he’d have to talk to Jack.

      13

      Alison was wide eyed and barely able to contain herself. She started pulling papers out of a blue folder and began laying them all over the table, frantically attempting to put them in some kind of order. Jason calmly sipped his coffee.

      “Anything for the lady?” the waitress asked.

      “She’ll have coffee and a side of valium please.”

      The waitress poured another coffee and slid it to Alison’s side of the table, showing no expression whatsoever.

      “Some people really have no sense of humor,” Jason observed, half under his breath. Alison never looked up.

      “What?’

      “I was just saying…” He could see she was far too excited to be listening right now. He picked up the salt shaker, and positioned it like a microphone, tapping it with his finger. “Testing, testing is this thing on? Hello.”

      “I’m sorry,” Alison said. “I need to get these straightened out. Just give me another second.” Jason took one more sip of coffee. He didn’t need to be shown the data. He already knew what the tests would show. But seeing Alison so excited about them, well, why spoil it for her?

      “Whenever you’re ready my love,” he said quietly.

      *******

      His breathing was steady and rhythmic. Three strides inhale, three strides exhale. The initial discomfort had disappeared, as usual, after the first half mile, and he had picked up the pace at the two-mile mark. Around Dupont Circle, back up Massachusetts Avenue to Q street, and then a mile and a half east to home, completing the 5-mile run. It was cool in the early spring, and this morning had been downright chilly. Great running weather.

      The last quarter mile was practically a sprint. He picked up the paper from the front of his overpriced brownstone and went inside. As he was grabbing a pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator, Jack Thompson remembered why, on the first morning of his retirement, he had dug an old Ipod out of his drawer, to replace his phone during his morning runs. The thing was already beeping with three messages.

      His friends at the agency had been right. He was making ten times the money now that he was retired, (being a consultant), as he had when working. Washington D.C. was a great place to live if one had the right connections, and he had more than enough of the right connections.

      Thompson took a hard-boiled egg from the plastic container on the refrigerator’s top shelf and put a piece of rye bread into the toaster. The phone rang. A smile came to his face when he looked at the printout on the screen. At last, a call from a friend. He looked at the clock on his microwave, put down the glass of orange juice, and answered it.

      “Bob, I know this must be business, because you don’t like to get up this early.”

      *******

      “OK. Everything’s in order now. Ready?”

      “I’m ready,” Jason said, looking at the folders now arranged so neatly on the table. Six folders, all color coordinated, each color corresponding to the particular subject tested. Red for verbal skills, blue for mathematics, yellow for spatial skills, green for pattern recognition, purple for memory and white for reasoning. Art teachers!

      “As you can see here,” Alison said, as she opened the red folder and used a pen to point to some graphs, “her verbal skills are about average for a girl her age, which, considering how withdrawn she has been most of her life, is quite acceptable.”

      Jason just nodded and continued to sip coffee. Alison quickly put that folder to the side and picked up the white one.

      “Her reasoning ability is a bit higher. Here she scores in the top 10 percent for children her age. These tests reflect just general type reasoning. Things like crossing streets at busy intersections or finding a specific item in a grocery store. Just very basic everyday stuff, nothing specific. This is important however because it includes her reading ability.”

      Jason again nodded appropriately as that folder was put away just as quickly. The next folder chosen was the purple one. Alison was getting increasingly more excited with each one.

      “Things start to get really interesting here,” she said opening it. “It became clear pretty early on in the memory phase of the testing, that she was in the adult range. She has incredible recall. Her memory skills are in the top 0.5 percent. She has eidetic memory.”

      Jason knew that, in time, Sarah’s memory skills would develop even further. He wanted to tell Alison so, but just didn’t have the heart to interrupt her right now. He took another sip of coffee and gave her his undivided attention. She could barely contain herself when she opened the blue folder.

      “Jason,” she said grinning from ear to ear, “Sarah’s math skills are almost unparalleled. Her scores indicate she’s capable of graduate level mathematics already. By the time we were finished with this part of the testing, she was doing calculus. Calculus Jason! On her own! Sarah had never even seen calculus before we tested her.”

      Jason looked at the graphs, and read the evaluations in the blue folder, even though he didn’t need to. Except for ordering more coffee, he remained quiet. He knew the best was yet to come. The last two folders, yellow and green, were opened together. When the charts and graphs were brought out they were blank, just as he expected. Alison explained.

      “Jason, in these last two categories, spatial and pattern recognition, I, well I’ve never seen anything like this. To my knowledge no one has. When she started this part of the testing, it quickly