I sat at the computer and brought up the directory.
Cheater leaned over my shoulder and reached toward the keyboard. “Let me do it. You should sort them by date, first.”
“That’s a waste of time,” Martin said, reaching around from the other side. “If we sort them by name, it will give us a better picture of what we’re dealing with.”
“That’s totally wrong,” Cheater said, wedging in closer, and pressing against my injured arm.
“Ow!” I got up from the chair and backed off from the computer. “Go ahead. You guys do it.” As eager as I was to see if there was anything useful in the files, I figured it was best to get out of the way. And, to be honest, I figured that even with the arguing, they’d probably come up with some answers quicker than I could.
I grabbed a pencil and sketched while they battled over the keyboard and looked at the files. Eventually, they both sighed and walked over to me.
“Anything?” I asked.
“He’s running a couple dozen experiments,” Cheater said. “But not for the military. They’re for some companies. But there’s nothing in here to help us find him quickly. There are hundreds of documents. I have no idea which ones to look at first. This could take days.”
“We don’t have days,” I said. “Lucky needs us.”
“It might not be in code any more, but it’s still gibberish,” Martin said. “Contractors, subcontractors, holding companies, subsidiaries, non-disclosure agreements, sealed bids. I don’t understand all this business stuff.”
“The only business I understand is funny business,” Flinch said.
“You know I don’t have a clue,” Torchie said.
“Even I don’t understand business,” Cheater said. “I think it’s a secret language adults use. What the heck is binding arbitration?”
“That’s just when two parties agree to have a dispute settled by a third party instead of going to court.” As soon as the words left my lips, I found four guys staring at me.
“How’d you know that?” Cheater asked.
“I think it’s in my blood,” I said.
taking care of business
I PUT ASIDE the sketches and walked over to the laptop. I didn’t know a thing about the military or the government. And I sure didn’t know about checksums and encryption keys. But I knew the business world. I thought about the phrases Martin had mentioned. The sound of familiar terms got my pulse pumping. Dad had been telling me stuff about the business world all my life. I grew up surrounded by proxy statements, balance sheets, and corporate flow charts. We ate dinner with tales of price-earnings ratios, executive stock options, and leveraged buyouts.
Maybe I’d inherited some of his talent. Dad could take apart a company and restructure it the way a good mechanic could rebuild an engine. I didn’t always pay attention, but I guess a lot of it had sunk in.
I started to sort through the documents. It took me almost an hour to get a handle on everything. Finally, I closed the lid of the laptop and slumped back in my chair.
“Bowdler’s company, Psibertronix, wasn’t just getting money from the government,” I said. “Like Cheater noticed, Bowdler has a couple dozen experiments running, all being paid for by other companies.” I remembered the box in the lab, and the note that mentioned “our next round of contracts.”
“What kind of experiments?” Martin asked.
“Mostly attempts to find paranormal stuff. But here’s the thing. Every single one of the companies was getting paid by the government to run experiments. They’d all gotten government research grants.”
Martin shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”
“Me, either,” Flinch said.
I pointed to the laptop. “Can you print a file out for me?”
“Sure,” Cheater said. “Uncle Ray has an office downstairs, next to the kitchen.”
“It’s called ‘test_sites.doc’ I cut-and-pasted it together from the information in the research contracts.”
Cheater grabbed the laptop and dashed off.
“How can the government waste all that money?” Martin asked.
“They almost have to,” I said. “Suppose you had a ten-million-dollar research budget and you only spent fifty thousand. How much money do you think you’d get next year?”
“Fifty thousand?” Martin guessed.
“Right. That’s the rule. Use it or lose it. And there are so many different departments, divisions, and agencies in the government. Each one has a budget they have to spend.”
When Cheater returned, I pointed to the first entry on the printout. “Look at this. Ganelon Corp. Trace-metal sensitivity to paranormal emanations.”