felony in itself. Then there’s aiding and abetting a felon. Accessory
after the fact. Another nasty one. The list goes on from there.
Neither of us is a criminal lawyer, but I think you get the picture.
Father gone, mother in jail. Your little girl is how old? Tragic.” He
shook his head in mock sympathy.
Sidney jumped out of her chair. “Fuck you, Goldman. Fuck you both.”
Sidney screamed the words in uncontrollable fury. Then she lunged
across the desk, gripped Goldman’s throat with both hands and would have
done him serious damage had Brophy not come once again to the older
man’s rescue.
Goldman, coughing and gagging, looked furiously at Sidney as soon as she
was pulled off. “You ever touch me again, you’ll rot in jail,” he
sputtered.
Breathing hard, Sidney stared wildly at the man. She flung off Brophy’s
restraining hand but did not move as he kept the gun trained on her.
Goldman smoothed down his tie and ruffled shirt and reassumed his
confident tone. “Despite your crude reaction, I am actually prepared to
be quite generous with you. If you would look at the matter rationally,
you would be compelled to accept the offer I’m about to make to you.” He
cocked his head at her and glanced down at the chair.
Shaking and breathing irregularly, Sidney finally sat back down.
“Good. Now, as succinctly as possible, here is the situation: I know
that you have spoken with Roger Egert, who is now in charge of the
CyberCom matter. You are privy to Triton’s latest proposal regarding
the CyberCom acquisition. This I also know to be fact. Now you are
also still in possession of the password to the master computer file for
the CyberCom transaction.” Sidney looked dully at Goldman as her
thoughts jumped ahead of his words. “I want both the latest terms of
the proposal and the password to the computer file, just in case there
are any last-minute changes in Triton’s negotiation position.”
Sidney’s tone was slow, deliberate, her breathing now returned to
normal. “RTG must really want CyberCom if they’re paying you something
other than your hourly rate to violate attorney-client privilege, not to
mention stealing corporate secrets.”
Goldman merely continued: “In return we are prepared to pay you ten
million dollars, tax-free, of course.”
“Ensuring my economic stability now that I’m unemployable?
And my silence?”
“Something like that. You disappear to some nice little foreign
country, raise your little girl in luxury. The CyberCom deal is
consummated.
Triton Global will continue on. Tyler, Stone will remain a viable firm.
No one is the worse off. The alternative? Well, it’s something
considerably less pleasant. For you. However, time is of the essence.
I need your answer in one minute.” He ‘stared at his watch, counting the
seconds off.
Sidney sat back in her chair, her shoulders slumped as she swiftly
thought through the few possibilities left to her. If she agreed, she
would be rich. If she didn’t, she could and probably would go to jail.
And Amy? She thought of Jason and all the terrible events of the past
month. More than enough for several lifetimes. She suddenly stiffened
as she looked at Goldman’s triumphant features, felt the sneering
presence of Paul Brophy behind her.
She knew what course of action she would take.
She would accept their terms and then she would play her own cards. She
would give Goldman the information he wanted and then she would go
straight to Lee Sawyer and tell him everything, including the existence
of the disk. She would hope for the best deal she could get and she
would expose Goldman and his client for what they were. She wouldn’t be
rich and she might be away from her little girl if she did any prison
time, but she wasn’t going to raise Amy with Goldman’s extortion money.
And, most important, she could live with herself.
“Time,” Goldman announced.
Sidney didn’t speak.
Goldman shook his head slowly and lifted up the phone receiver once
more. Finally, almost imperceptibly, Sidney nodded her head.
Goldman rose from behind the desk, a broad smile on his face.
“Excellent.
What are the terms and the password?”