The Dryden Note Read online

  The Dryden Note

  By Henry Hollensbe Copyright © 2015 by Henry Hollensbe All rights reserved

  ISBNN-13: 978-1507813379 ISBN-10: 1507813376 Also by Henry Hollensbe

  Rubenstein’s Augur The Dark Side of Vanity Telfair and Early, Lawmen Tat’s No. 1

  A hundred years ago in the city of Atlanta a college professor discovers way to bind new concrete to old concrete. His fledgling business needs money. The professor borrows money from a young lover. He gives her a note for the amount of money from his new enterprise. Time passes and the enterprise becomes hugely successful. The note is forgotten—almost. In the year 2000 a business school professor learns about the note. Millions of dollars are at stake. The CEO of the enterprise must quell the information about the note. Conflicts arise and people die.

  Dedication To my wife, Marsha, who led the way most of the time. Jasper, Georgia

  February, 2015

  By Henry Hollensbe

  Chapter 1

  January 15, Republic of Paraguay. When the effects of take-off acceleration had subsided, the Chairman released his seat belt, reached for the telephone console at his side, and depressed the coded number for the 61st Floor main switchboard.

  “FAD.”

  “Seamus.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hanrahan.”

  “Encrypted?”

  There was an undulating whine. “Now.”

  “Just departed Asunción.”

  “And?”

  “The old fool was adamant.”

  “As you predicted.”

  “Yes. Proceed.”

  “You’re sure? It could be difficult to rescind the order.”

  “Proceed.”

  January 19, Fuerta Olimpo, Paraguay.

  There was nothing to mark the dirt road as the entrance to the Böhlander holdings,

  home to Markus V. Böhlander and nerve center of Ermine Madera, S.A.

  The camouflaged Lockheed C-130 had been converted to a gunship. Hanrahan

  demanded FAD be well supplied for its missions. No expense had been spared on

  electronics and weapons; extra fuel tanks allowed flights of 4,000 miles, nonstop. The navigator homed on the UHF radio signal being generated at the transmitter tower

  near the center of the Ermine compound.

  “Twenty seconds,” he muttered.

  “Now nineteen seconds,” the fire control officer relayed to the two gunners.

  The aircraft reached an altitude of two hundred feet as it approached the clearing. “Dead on!” the co-pilot said as the pilot banked hard to avoid the transmission tower. “Main buildings will be on our port side,” the co-pilot said, “a residence and

  outbuildings on our starboard.”

  “Two passes,” the pilot said. “First pass to the left of the tower. No resistance

  expected. Max loiter. Andy, empty those two 20 mikemikes into the headquarters.” “Roger.”

  “Deion, same for those on the other side.” “A steep one-eighty and then back across for a second pass using the Gatling guns for

  anything still moving.”

  Both gunners clicked their microphones.

  The pilot reduced his throttle settings as the gunship crossed the edge of the clearing. Two seconds later the vibrations from the cannons shook the aircraft. The noise penetrating the crew’s earphones was deafening.

  Four seconds later the magazines were empty. The pilot fire-walled the throttles; the aircraft disappeared beyond the clearing. The pilot completed a 180-degree turn, reduced his throttle settings, and announced, “Returning to loiter. Empty the Gatling guns.”

  Both ends of the two-story headquarters building had collapsed; there were the beginnings of fire throughout the building. The smaller buildings across the compound were still standing, but with flames more advanced.

  The screams of the Gatling guns overpowered the crew’s senses for a few moments, then stilled.

  “Anything moving?” the pilot said.

  “No,” the co-pilot said.

  “That will be our report to Seamus. Are you sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “We still have the one-oh-five and the rockets.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Navigator, give me a heading for Sao Paulo.”

  February 9, Washington.

  Harding considered the new stack of paper at the corner of his desk. “Is there ever

  going to be an end to this?”

  “How long you been here, JE?” Monica Lester said. She had lost her awe of the

  Congressman many years before.

  “I know, I know,” he said.

  “Take a look at the article on top. It’s enough to make one wonder if this is an

  election year.”

  Harding read the article in the left-most column of The Washington Post.

  NEW TASK FORCE ANNOUNCED

  EXECUTIVE BRANCH GROUP TO ATTACK RUSSIAN NATIONAL PROBLEMS Washington – The White House announced today the formation of a task force to improve the commercial, political, and social well being of Russia and other nations that had made up the former Soviet Union. The CPS Task Force is to be headed by the Vice President, with support from all facets of the executive branch as required. More details are expected within the week.

  “Hooah,” Harding said. “I like it. They get a double—an improved way of delivering our money to the Russkies and a way for the kid to get the glory. Someone’s doing some thinking at 1600.”

  “Steady, JE.”

  “Maybe we’re in the wrong party.”

  “Probably a bit late to switch.”

  February 14, Washington.

  Harding had slept most of the way from Camp David to the portico of The Virginian

  Condominiums in Old Town, Alexandria.

  Rufus King, the Congressman’s bodyguard, opened the rear door of the White House

  limousine. “We’re home, sir.”

  When Harding made no move, the bodyguard touched Harding’s shoulder. “It’s been

  a long day for Mike, here, and me, too. What say we get to bed?”

  Harding levered himself out of the backseat. He was short and stout, with a few

  strands of fine white hair, a veined, reddish nose, and bright blue eyes that those who did

  not know him imagined were twinkling.

  He winked at his driver, patted Rufus King on the shoulder, nodded at the waiting

  doorman, and entered The Virginian’s lobby.

  Harding filled a glass with Wild Turkey, then leafed through the FAXes in the wire bin on his desk.

  He was about to consign the entire pile to his briefcase when he saw a copy of the top half of the second page of the day’s The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

  CONGRESSMAN CHANGING HORSES? HARDING’S OPPOSITION TO TARIFF ASTONISHES FELLOW LAWMAKERS Washington – In what observers on Capitol Hill described as a startling reversal of his three-decade support of big business, Joe Earl Harding, Representative from Georgia’s 14th Congressional District and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, took a leadership role in yesterday’s defeat of a proposed new tariff named the ‘Cockerham Tariff’ for its chief sponsor, Senator Steven Cockerham (R, IL). Harding was quoted as stating, “the Cockerham bill is a particularly egregious attack on the ordinary citizens of the nation and has died the death it so richly deserved.”

  There have not as yet been any responses from the Atlanta or national business community to this surprising change in Congressman Harding’s attitude toward the protection of American business, but observers expect that negative reactions will be swift in coming.

  Harding clenched his hand. He could not have liked the article better. Congressmen Shay and Hildebrand woul
d be fresh out of reasons to call him unfeeling for his fellow citizens and perfect dupe for the corporate barons.

  Moments later his telephone rang. “Harding.”

  “Good evening, Harding.”

  “Walter!”

  “You’ve been away from your telephone all day.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you went out into the Maryland countryside to get yourself a pat on the

  back.”

  “You might put it that way. What can I do for you?”

  “You’re fired.”

  Harding caught his breath, then said, “Walter, I don’t think that...”

  “You didn’t think we’d stand by while you turned statesman on us, did you?” “Walter, I have a plan.” Harding was pleading. “I should have briefed you. Let me

  explain: I’m sure the liberal wing of the party will see me in a different light now and...” “Stop sniveling, Harding. We’ll be supporting a better man next November—

  vigorously.”

  “This is revenge!”

  “No, it’s not. I am not a vengeful man. Vengeance takes time, money, and psychic

  energy. You have been found untrustworthy and so are being replaced. It’s nothing

  more.”

  Harding was about to continue his pleading when it became apparent he no longer

  had a listener.

  He gulped the remainder of his whiskey and stared at the Potomac below. Then a smile appeared. He began shuffling through the materials Monica had jammed into his weekend reading briefcase. Ten minutes later he poured himself another full glass of bourbon, then retrieved a checkerboard and a box of checkers from a closet.

  He arranged the checkerboard on his desk and extracted one red piece and one black piece from the box. He put the black piece on the far back row and the red piece on the nearer back row. He moved neither piece, but studied the pathways they might take in a one-on-one game. Finally, he reached across the board, cocked his index finger behind his thumb, and flicked the black piece across the room.

  Chapter 2

  February 15, Washington.

  The following morning Harding yelled at his secretary, “Monica, do you remember

  the William Morgan case? Midsixties?”

  “Client angry with ICP. We couldn’t help and dropped the case. Client later killed.” “Right. Where would that file be?”

  “Decatur.”

  “Ask Rose to FedEx it to us.”

  February 16, Washington.

  A FedEx envelope lay on Harding’s desk when he returned from an early morning

  roll call. He emptied the envelope.

  The first document was a handwritten letter:

  July 6, 1966 Mr. Joe Earl Harding

  122 Schmidt Building Decatur, Georgia 30030

  Dear Mr. Harding, I tried to talk with Granny, but she wouldn’t say anything at all about those times. Then I talked with Grandpa. He made me promise I wouldn’t tell Granny what he was going to tell me. It was a sort of confession Granny had made to him before they were married and he had promised never to tell.

  It turns out after Grandma got out of secretarial school, she went to work at Tech. She worked for a professor who was doing some sort of work with cement. She fell in love with the guy. She had inherited a house from some relative, so when the prof needed money for his cement studies, she mortgaged the house and loaned him a thousand dollars. She was supposed to be paid back the money, with interest, but she never got any money. All she got was something he called a note.

  The story sounds right. That letter I found from Granny to her parents talked about a note. And the letter from the Company to Granny talked about a loan that wasn’t going to get paid. So they owe the family whatever it was they didn’t pay Granny. Plus interest for all the time passed.

  Well, that’s it. I’ll see you on the 19th.

  Very truly yours,

  William (Will) Hawkins Morgan, Jr. Harding closed his eyes. It was a summer afternoon in 1966. He was in his new law office, awaiting a client.

  Will Morgan had been burly. Six feet tall, heavy shoulders, narrow waist. Dark brown hair and medium blue eyes. Handsome, in a coarse sort of way, with heavy brows and a firm jaw.

  “You got my letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve heard from the Company bastards?”

  “Yes.” He had handed his client a letter.

  International Construction Products World Headquarters

  ICP Building

  Atlanta, Georgia 30303

  Office of the Corporate Secretary, Parker O. Harrington July 15, 1966

  Mr. Joe Earl Harding 122 Schmidt Building Decatur, Georgia 30030

  RE: your request of July 11, 1966, for access to corporate files

  Dear Mr. Harding: Treat this letter as our absolute last communication regarding your several requests on behalf of your client, William Hawkins Morgan, Jr., for access to or to derive information from our corporate files. As has been explained to you, such files are and will remain proprietary to our staff. Mr. Morgan’s request is permanently denied.

  Should you persist in your attempts to gain access to these records, we shall ask our attorneys to bring your offensive behavior to the attention of the Georgia Bar Association. Should your client persist in his obnoxious behavior, we shall file a civil suit, asking he be permanently barred from contacting the Corporation or any of its employees.

  Sincerely,

  Parker O. Harrington, Secretary “Sons of bitches!” Morgan had yelled as he balled the sheet and threw it at his attorney. “Rotten sons of bitches!”

  Harding had waited until his client’s ranting ceased, then had said. “I’m afraid that’s it, Mr. Morgan. We can’t afford to antagonize them any further.”

  “So you’re done?”

  “Yes.”

  Morgan had stepped to the front of Harding’s desk. “I understand, you lily-livered ambulance chaser. They’ve scared you. Or bought you. And...”

  “Untrue, Mr. Morgan,” Harding had interrupted. “We’ve done what we can with no information and no evidence, other than a couple of letters that are sixty-plus years old and that wouldn’t last five minutes in any court in the country. More importantly, there’s a legal doctrine called laches that says if one doesn’t pursue payment of a debt, it is ultimately extinguished by operation of law. The time has long since...”

  “Lawyer talk!”

  “No, your hopes for money you think you can extort from a major American corporations aren’t reasonable.”

  “Extort! We have their letter to Granny saying they’re not going to repay her loan.” He had leaned closer to Harding. “Well, Mr. Lawyer, you may be quitting, but I’m not! Whatever that rotten, no-good Company owed Granny will be mine. With interest!”

  Morgan slammed the door.

  Harding had settled back in his chair in the welcome quiet when the door had opened again. Will Morgan had been all smiles as he said, “And you’re fired.”

  Harding, maintaining his poise, had said, “Fired or not, Mr. Harding, I have one final bit of counsel for you.”

  Morgan’s smiled had remained.

  “I recommend you go easy with those people, Mr. Morgan. They’ve got a reputation for winning, whatever the cost.”

  “Me, too. Just you watch.”

  Harding had recovered the balled letter, smoothed it, and placed it in the file on his desk. He had then dialed the main number at International Construction Products, Inc. “Mr. Harrington, please.”

  Parker O. Harrington had answered the call himself.

  “Joe Earl Harding here, Mr. Harrington.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. Stormed out of my office like his hair was on fire.”

  “As you predicted.”

  “Our deal is still on?”

  “Our deal? Oh, yes. We can always use another man in Washington. Call me when

  you’re ready.”

  Next was a clipping from T
he Atlanta Journal of July 16, 1966.

  DISTURBANCE AT ICP HEADQUARTERS DECATUR MAN TAKEN INTO CUSTODY Atlanta – Police were summoned this afternoon to quell a disturbance at the International Construction Products Building on Peachtree Street downtown. A Decatur man, identified as William Morgan, Jr., was apprehended hammering on the receptionist’s desk in the lobby of the building and cursing about a debt he alleged the Company owed to his grandmother. There was no property damage and the offender offered no resistance when police restrained and removed him.

  Harding closed eyes again and saw a scene on a later day that same summer. A remote railroad crossing in the outskirts of Atlanta, a jumble of red metal on both sides of the tracks, policemen, firemen, and railroad workers, and an ambulance slowly leaving the scene.

  A third and a fourth letter were enclosed in a yellowed envelope. Harding looked at the envelope’s two-cent stamp; the letter had never been mailed. He read the letters, then shook his head and smiled. They were as he had remembered.

  “What are you mumbling about in there?” Monica yelled.

  “Reviewing a little history.” He paused. “Go to ICP’s website and download the 1999 annual report.”

  “The whole thing?”

  “No, just what the flacks imagine is the history of that glorious organization.”

  Twenty minutes later Monica laid a printout on Harding’s desk.

  A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR FIRST CENTURY In early 1893, Professor Lawrence B. Armbrewster, a professor of civil engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, Georgia, decided to search for a solution to an age-old materials problem: how to join new concrete to old…..

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Harding murmured. He skipped down. …..technique he pursued required the etching of the surface of the old concrete. A year later, Professor Armbrewster and his graduate students were able to produce one-quarter inch penetrations into old concrete. The methodology was kept secret, pending patent applications…..

  He skipped further.

  …..and in the autumn of 1894, Professor Armbrewster turned to the question of what to insert into the apertures. Unfortunately for the Professor, his personal funds had been depleted by the early work. No bank would consider a loan, nor was the university interested in funding this sort of basic research, but in the summer of 1895, Professor Armbrewster was able to assemble a group of investors who would provide $10,000 in working capital. Our Company, then named Cement Products, Inc., was underway.