Barry Eisler: Fault line

“Go to his apartment,” he said. “See if you can find him there. South Tenth Street in San Jose. I forget the exact address, but it's in his file. Keep trying him on the way and call me when you arrive. We've still got a little time before I have to cancel the meeting and we look like idiots.”

“What do you-”

“I don't know. Just call me as soon as you get there. Go.”

Alisa nodded and closed the door. Alex returned to his pacing.

God, don't let him screw this up, he thought. I've got so much riding on it.

Alex was a sixth-year associate at Sullivan, Greenwald, getting close to that delicate “up or out” stage of his career. It wasn't as though anyone was going to let him go; his blend of science and patent law expertise was too unusual, and too valuable to the firm, for him to ever have to worry about unemployment. No, the problem was much more insidious: the firm's partnership liked him exactly where he was, and wanted to keep him there. So in another year, two at the most, they'd start talking to him about the benefits of an “of counsel” position, the money, the seniority, the flexible hours and job security.

It was all bullshit to him. He didn't want security; he wanted power. And power at Sullivan, Greenwald, he knew, came only with your own client base, your own book of business. If you couldn't eat what you killed, you'd always be dependent on the scraps from someone else's table. That might have been fine for other associates. But it would never be enough for him.

Which was why Hilzoy was so damned valuable. Alex had grasped the potential of Obsidian in a way he knew few other people could-not from Hilzoy's pitch, but by actually getting under the hood and examining the fundamental design. It had taken maneuvering, and a level of political skills he didn't even know he had, to convince the partners both to defer the firm's fees and to list Alex as the originating attorney. Behind their Bay Area casual attire and the first-name basis with the secretaries and paralegals, these guys were all sharks. When they smelled blood in the water, they wanted the kill for themselves.

Alex's mentor was a partner named David Osborne, a shrewd lawyer but with no formal tech background of his own. Over the years, the strategic patent-counseling side of his practice had grown increasingly dependent on Alex's technical acumen. He made sure Alex's twice-yearly bonuses were the highest the firm could give, but in front of the clients he always managed to take credit for Alex's own insights. He put on a confident show in his trademark cowboy boots and fuchsia T-shirts, but inside, Alex knew, Osborne felt threatened by people he suspected had more potential than he. So despite the periodic noises he made about backing Alex for partner “when the time was right,” Alex had come to believe that time would never come. Partnership wasn't something they gave you, Alex had decided. It was something you had to take.

So after several secret meetings with Hilzoy to ensure that he really did own the Obsidian technology, or at least that no one could prove otherwise, Alex had taken a deep breath and walked down the short stretch of expensively carpeted corridor that separated his medium-sized senior associate's office from Osborne's gigantic partner's version. Both offices were in the main building, the massive round structure the partners liked to refer to as the Rotunda but that was better known among the associates as the Death Star. An office in the Death Star rather than in one of the two satellite buildings conferred a certain degree of status-the kind of thing that mattered a great deal to Osborne and, Alex had to admit, to himself, too-as well as putting its occupant at the geographical center of the firm's action.

Outside Osborne's door, he had paused to collect himself in front of the massive wall display of Lucite tombstones commemorating work done for Cisco, eBay, Google, and a hundred others. There were framed photos of Osborne with various Valley luminaries, with the celebrity CEO of a major telecom Osborne had recently landed as a client in a major coup, and even one with the prime minister of Thailand, where Osborne traveled three or four times a year to work the project-finance practice he had developed there. Alex tried not to think of the kind of power and influence a person would accrue in doing all those deals and knowing all those players. The trick was to convince yourself of the opposite-that the person you were about to face in negotiations was beneath you, needed you far more than you needed him-and Alex knew the tombstones and photographs were as much about causing people to flinch and abandon negotiating positions as they were about bragging rights.

He had psyched himself up, gone in, and made the pitch. The balance was delicate-it had to sound interesting enough to make Osborne want to say yes, but not so interesting that he'd be tempted to try to claim the origination for himself. After all, if this went well, the patent would be just the beginning. It would also involve a ton of corporate work, and that was Osborne's specialty more than it was Alex's.

When Alex was done, Osborne leaned back in his chair and put his cowboy boots up on the desk. He scratched his crotch absently. The relaxed manner made Alex nervous. It felt like a feint. He knew that behind it, Osborne was already calculating.

“What's my client going to say about this?” Osborne asked after a moment, in his nasal voice.

Alex shrugged. “What can they say? The invention doesn't have anything to do with Oracle's core business or with Hilzoy's day-to-day responsibilities there. I've already checked the employment contract. Oracle doesn't have any claims.”

“What about-”

“He invented it at home, on his own time, using his own equipment. We're okay optically, too.”

Osborne smiled slightly. “You did your homework.”

“I learned from the best,” Alex said, and then immediately wished he hadn't. Osborne would probably twist the comment in his mind until it became You've taught me so much, David. I owe you everything.

“Tell me how you met this guy,” Osborne said after a moment.

“He called and asked if I could advise him about something he was working on at home,” Alex said. He'd rehearsed the lie so many times that he remembered it as though it had really happened this way. “I met him at a Starbucks and he showed me what he'd been doing. I thought it looked promising so I took it from there.”

It wasn't the answer Osborne had been hoping for, of course. If Alex had told him the truth-that he and Hilzoy had first discussed Obsidian while Alex was at Oracle on firm business-it would have presented an opportunity for Osborne to make a stronger But for me, this wouldn't even have come to you argument. Alex expected Osborne would probably check with Hilzoy, discreetly, if he ever got a chance. But Alex had prepared Hilzoy for this possibility. For both their sakes, the more this thing seemed to have happened outside of Oracle and Sullivan, Greenwald, the better.

“I don't like it,” Osborne said. “The client will say you met this guy through them. Even if they don't have a legal case, I'm not going to risk pissing off a client like Oracle for something that's pretty small-time by comparison.”

“Come on, David, you know every company ever born in the Valley at some point had a connection to a big established corporation that was somebody's client. It's just the way it works. And Oracle knows it, too.”

Osborne looked at him as though considering. Probably enjoying the ability to take his time and make Alex squirm on the carpet before him.

“Let me have this one, David,” Alex said, a little surprised by the firmness of his tone.

Osborne spread his arms, palms up, as though this went without question, as though he hadn't spent every minute since this conversation began looking for a way to freeze Alex out. “Hey,” he said. “Who's your daddy?”