Warren Murphy: Scorched Earth

In his office, with the eternal rain pattering at the Thermopane windows that kept out the winter chill, Reemer Bolt shuddered as his mind went careening back to those heady days in which the planet Earth came perilously close to being incinerated. All because Reemer Bolt had charge of a product whose utility at first eluded even a marketing genius like himself.

It was called the Fluorocarbon Gun. It shot fluorocarbons, chemicals that had been banned by most industrialized nations because they ate away at the ozone shield high in the atmosphere. Holes in the ozone allowed dangerous solar radiation to penetrate. One hole accidentally knocked out a Russian missile battery, precipitating an international incident that almost ended the world-and Reemer Bolt's promising corporate career.

It was a huge marketing debacle. The biggest since the Edsel. ChemCon was forced into strategic bankruptcy.

Through it all, Bolt remained unscathed. In fact, his corporate future improved. On the strength of a new resume that showed he had been in charge of a fifty-million-dollar project with global ramifications; Bolt moved from director of marketing of ChemCon to president of Web Tech. He knew nothing about Web Tech and, when he left to become COO of Quantum Neutrino Mechanics three years later, he knew even less about Web Tech. It didn't matter. No one ever got fired or laid off or punished for screwing up a billion-dollar corporation. They were handed golden parachutes, stock options and golden handshakes and wished well by anxious stockholders delighted to be rid of them.

It was middle managers and workers who invariably ate failure in corporate America. Not the Reemer Bolts. No matter how high the tides rose, their necks always stretched farther and their chins always lifted over the lung-quenching flood.

It was true that the corporate-downsizing mania threatened even the Reemer Bolts of the world. Somehow he got himself involved in the military-industrial complex. He didn't realize it for several weeks until he walked in on a Web Tech management research-and-development conference and saw the scale-model tank.

"Who brought that toy in here? This is a place of business," he snarled, knowing that no one ever snapped back at a snarling executive, never mind questioned him. They were petrified for their jobs.

"It's our next project," he was told by a more than brave technician.

"Scrap it," Bolt told him.

"Why? The Pentagon has accepted it."

Bolt froze inwardly. This was in 1991. He knew that if there was one thing an executive never did, it was reverse a decision. No matter how disastrous. He had been caught. He could not retreat. To retreat showed weakness. Worse, it showed a complete and unforgivable ignorance of the product line. That simply would not do. Not in corporate America, where smiling, two-legged sharks circled the office water cooler hoping to take a bite out of an unwary coworker's ass.

"It has Failure written all over it," said Reemer Bolt. "Scrap it."

No one questioned the decision. It saved Reemer Bolt's high-six-figure salary and perks for three years, while Web Tech, six million dollars in development costs and a fat government contract down the drain, stumbled aimlessly until Reemer Bolt could smell the stench of decay seeping into his air-conditioned office and hired a head-hunting agency to find him a safer hole.

At first, the interview with Quantum Neutrino Mechanics didn't go well. Then the interviewer noticed the blank spot in the resume.

"The years 1984 to 1987 are blank."

"Yes," Reemer Bolt said, knowing that he could not deny the obvious.

"Were you employed at that time?"

"Yes."

"In what position?"

"I cannot answer that," Bolt said in his most firm and sincere tone.

The interviewer blinked. "Say again, Mr. Bolt?"

Bolt cleared his throat and made it deeper. Much deeper. "I am contractually forbidden from, and cannot answer, that question."

The man blinked again. This was unusual. Even in corporate America.

"Was this government work?"

"I cannot confirm that," Bolt said truthfully.

"Did it-can you at least whisper something, Mr. Bolt? A blank spot does not look good"

Bolt shook his head. Here was the difficult part. He knew that some resume blank spots reflected alcohol or cocaine addictions. If they jumped to either conclusion, he was dead.

The interviewer looked around furtively. "Did this position by chance have anything to do with national security?" he breathed.

It was a wild guess, and Reemer Bolt answered, not entirely untruthfully, "I can neither confirm nor deny that assertion."

The interviewer relaxed. He leaned back in his chair. His entire face softened. "Mr. Bolt, I think I can say you've moved to the top of the list. Quantum Neutrino Mechanics is looking for a man like you."

Bolt smiled. He was the kind of man who had progressed in life from his mother's breast to one easy teat after another. He knew the scent of fresh milk. He was smelling it now.

The trouble was, the milk was running out for the defense industry, and since Quantum Neutrino Mechanics was courting Reemer Bolt, he never bothered to look into their product line. Only his personal package.

"Congress is backing away from Star Wars," Reemer was told one day a year or two after the Berlin Wall fell and he had been with qNM long enough to feel he could bluff his way through any meeting on any level of the company. He had all the latest buzzwords down. This year synergy and outsourcing were in vogue.

"I have no problem with that," said Bolt in a brusque, take-no-prisoners-and-suffer-no-fools voice.

The managers seated around the boat-shaped fumed-oak conference table hesitated. One finally gathered the strength to speak up. "It leaves us out in the cold."

"Build a fire," Bolt said.

"With what?"

"Rub two sticks together. Or try a magnifying glass."

Reemer Bolt forgot that last comment as soon as the meeting was adjourned. It was only an aphorism. Now known as R. M. Bolt because he thought the initials commanded more respect than being called Mr. Bolt, he was into managing by aphorism. He had good, imaginative people working under him. All they needed was the right kind of push.

He remembered telling them to build a fire but forgot about the magnifying glass until R d him with the scale model.

"Who left this disco ball in here?" Bolt snarled, pointing at the blackish gray ball sitting under the high-intensity lamps.

"It's our future."

"Disco is dead," Bolt said.

"If you'd indulge us, R.M.," R ineer Bartholomew Meech said.

Bolt went with the flow. Some days you pushed. Others you pulled. He was in a pulling mood that day. So he nodded.

The presentation involved overhead slides, an animated videotape that had Walt Disney Corporation fingerprints all over the production values, while six different white-smocked technicians pointed out features with their red laser pointers. All spiced with impressive-sounding technical terms like aluminized mylar and photovoltaic panels.

In the end, R. M. Bolt understood none of it. He found himself glowering at the disco ball to keep the dull lack of comprehension off his face.

"Take it again from the top," he instructed. "So my grandmother would understand it."

And they did.

"It's solar-powered."

"Orbiting continuously above the earth."

"Where it will do the job America needs done."

Reemer frowned. He wasn't getting it yet. Then someone said the word that touched his marketer's heart.

"And it will promote the heck out of qNM," said Bartholomew Meech.

"I like it," Bolt said.

Smiles all around. Grins. Beaming ones.

"One question," Bolt asked after the second impenetrable presentation.

"R.M.?"

"Will this have any effect on the ozone layer?"