“I understand.”
“And he didn’t tell me I had to do anything for it, that was what was amazing. It was like Santa Claus.” Paul flushed again. “But it was like a miracle. He said he would foot the bill, full ride. And he did. He does.”
“How does he do that, physically?” Mary hadn’t figured that out yet and was dying to know.
“Some company of his pays the tuition bill directly.”
Mary could have guessed as much. “What’s the name of the company?”
“Dilworth Corporation, LLC.”
Mary made a mental note and she knew that Bennie, Judy, and Anne would never forget the name. In fact, if they could get on the phone to Lou now, they would have. “And Dilworth Corporation pays Drexel directly?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever done any favors for him before this one?”
“No,” Paul answered, after a moment.
“But I’m guessing that one day, probably sometime in October or November, he came to you and asked for a favor, isn’t that right?”
“He called me, yeah.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said I know you do some computer stuff, can you go try to get an internship with this company, London Technologies? Say you’ll work free.” Paul glanced at Jim and Sanjay again, his lower lip puckering with regret. “I really am sorry guys, I mean it.”
Sanjay didn’t reply, and Jim merely nodded.
“Paul, what did Machiavelli ask you to do, specifically?”
“A couple things.” Paul looked down.
“Which were?”
“Basically, let him know what’s going on around here, about the lawsuit with Home Hacks and EXMS.” Paul began picking his fingernails. “Like if the lawyers ever come in and meet, let him know. Try and hear something. Make copies of anything that the lawyers send and get it to him, like that…” Paul let his sentence trail off, and Mary waited for him to finish, knowing there was more.
Sanjay interjected sharply, “Paul, did you give him our code? For the software?”
“Yes,” Paul admitted, hanging his head.
“Oh God.” Sanjay grimaced. “That’s it! Game over!”
Jim shook his head in disgust. “So they’ll become us, once they drive us out of the market.”
“Not so fast, gentlemen,” Mary said, to them. She needed more information from Paul, so she resumed the questioning, in the same quiet tone. “So Paul, you gave him the code for the data integration software?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember when you did that?”
“The first week I worked here.” Paul looked down, still picking his fingers.
“Did you give him anything else with respect to the software?”
“Bug fixes, patches, and code that I wrote for 2.1.”
Sanjay shook his head, saying nothing. Jim rubbed his forehead.
