FiveBefore an hour ticked by, every phone on Nathaniel or within his reach went off simultaneously and Lise, Leonard’s secretary, asked him to come up to the octagon immediately. She wouldn’t say more. He took the stairs, flinched so visibly as he passed Diana Cochran that she recoiled with a snarl, and arrived moments later. The meeting’s tension remained fully with him, so too the knowledge that in a few hours, an accident would become sabotage. Without delay Lise ushered him into the famous, erudite space that had once been so familiar.
Sunlight streaming through two sides of the octagon immediately drew his eyes to the luxurious semicircular desk occupying the room’s center and illuminated the wrinkles on Leonard Rasmussen’s face as he peered up from behind a 360-degree monitor. The s
