April 3, 2008 6:07 PM St. Louis, Missouri

38° 37′ 38″ N, 90° 11′ 52″



Derek flicked the glowing cigarette butt away at the minivan parked outside the bar. Must belong to some soccer-mom drinking away her sorrows while her kids were at practice. Takes all types.

The flight in from Salt Lake City had been bumpy as hell. He had spent the entire time grabbing the arms of his seat as the plane barrelled through heavy turbulence. It was almost scary enough to make him forget the screaming match with that fucker Hagerman a few days ago. Actually, it was a one-way screaming match where the operations manager had spent two whole hours talking about the missing measurements and “faulty” gauges. Hagerman, true to form, was vehemently upset and had mentioned the word “lawsuit” liberally thoroughout their discussion.

Since Derek worked for Crowley & Simonson, the St. Louis-based engineering services firm that had overseen the design and construction of the water treatment plant, he was first in line to receive Hagerman’s verbal assault. He already dreaded re-examining all of the data with his division vice president and the engineers at the equipment manufacturer. Nine out of ten times these things could never be replicated, and therefore were unexplainable. Hagerman wouldn’t like that one bit.

Strangely enough, when Derek brought up the issue of the missing readings with the executive team at C&S, no one seemed to be surprised. Their stoic response reminded him of the trouble a few years back when the company president (who was also the owner’s son) was caught embezzling funds to feed his coke habit. Seemed like the less emotional the higher-ups got, the more likely that there was a huge shitstorm brewing. And here he stood without his umbrella.

Derek got into his rental car and started off towards the hotel. Tomorrow’s meeting with Todd Macy, his divisional veep, was going to be a real waste of time. He’d probably have to stay in St. Louis and work all through his scheduled vacation. He wasn’t sure how Lucy was going to react to that piece of news.