Brink

By Richard Whitten Barnes

Ben Posner is at the top of his scientific career when a change in CEOs drastically affects his lifestyle.  Before anyone realizes, Ben is using alcohol to cope with his problems. This downward spiral finds him homeless and eventually rescued by the woman he has secretly loved. Together they begin to patch his life back together, only to face a charge of murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597052337

Book preview

One

April, one year earlier

Chicago

The small room was over warm, made stuffy by the more or less eighty bodies of various sizes—mostly male members of the Electrochemical Society—crammed inside the sectioned off accordion walls of the hotel’s ball room. Outside the door, a tripod and placard announced:

SECTION 17a

4:30 to 5:30 PM

Lithium Ion Systems II

Macro Architecture Advances

in Vehicular Propulsion

Doctor Benjamin M. Posner

Entrec Systems

On the raised dais, a tall, slender man of middle age was holding forth in the darkened room illuminated only by the projector’s glow on the screen at his side. Doctor Benjamin Posner directed the red dot of his laser pen to the image on the screen.

This enlargement of the separator’s cross section illustrates the increased collection ability and electron migration from the polymer film. We fully expect this technology to be the key to making batteries for vehicular propulsion commercially competitive with the internal combustion engine in fewer than five years. Posner pocketed the pen and turned to the audience in Parlor G of Chicago’s Downtown Marriott Hotel. The lights came up. Posner took a breath.

I’m happy to handle any questions.

There was only the sound of the projector’s fan and a few creaking seats for agonizing seconds, then from the second row, an arm sprouted. It was Burmeister from Argonne Labs, an arrogant bastard Posner had known from other meetings over the years. All very neat, Doctor Posner, but essentially the same as your paper last summer in San Diego. Pardon my saying so, but it sounded more like a sales pitch than new science.

A soft undertone of whispered, mumbled comments confirmed what Posner feared. He should have insisted on cancelling the paper, but goddamn Reineke had been adamant. Surely, you can’t ignore the faster ion transfer—

Burmeister cut him off. We all know rate isn’t your problem, Doctor Posner. I doubt there’s a person in this room that wasn’t expecting you to address the pin hole leaks through your highly touted separator film. You obviously have not resolved it. Your problem is reliability.

Posner scoured his mind for a reply and came up empty. He knew the fat sonafabitch was right. Soft conversation in the room quieted, waiting for his response.

He was saved from the moment as a tall man near the middle of the room stood to speak. It was John Seevers from NASA and a longtime professional friend. I’m afraid I’ll have to agree with Doctor Burmeister in this case, Ben. Many of us have known you for over twenty years. Your leadership in fast ion science doesn’t need an endorsement from anyone, which makes this presentation so troubling. We hope that—

Thank you, John... uh, Doctor Seevers, Posner cut him off. I suspect, then, there will be no further questions. Posner somehow got down from the dais, his vision a red blur, and began to put his things together.

The room began to empty. He was fumbling at retrieving the CD from the projector, when Seevers approached.

Ben...

John, really, I don’t... just... I’ve got to go, now.

He rushed away, pushing chairs aside, holding on to his gear with both hands; trying hard to ignore the glances of his contemporaries, most of them hurrying off for dinner on this last day of the conference.

Ben Posner was barely aware of his movements as he returned to his room, then made his way back down through the lobby and out the hotel’s Rush Street entrance for the first bar he could find.

THE ELEVATOR SOUNDED a quiet ding and the doors glided open to expose an empty car. Thank God, Ben thought, his head still pounding. Inside he saw his image in the polished metal doors. You look like hell, he acknowledged, as the floor began to sink under his feet. And last night was most certainly, Hell.

Last night, reeling out of the hotel, he’d found the first of a series of bars that obviated dinner plans—plans he’d reluctantly agreed to—giving him solitude away from the scorn of his colleagues he was convinced was well deserved.

He’d awakened at 3:00 AM, two hours after returning to his room, head hammering and tongue like chalk. Two glasses of water and four aspirin had only allowed him fitful sleep. What bothered him, now, was his inability to remember everything from the previous night, just vaguely recalling his return to the hotel.

The elevator slowed to open its doors on the seventh floor to a woman and two small children, in bathing suits and towels, on their way to the hotel pool. Ben did not return their inquiring stares, but peered at his own unshaven image in the door, the smell of its newly polished brass adding to his queasy stomach.

The doors reopened to a lobby bustling with the noise and activity of checkout lines; bellmen with rolling racks and the front turnstile door in constant motion. In the street outside, cabs were lined up, their trunks and rear doors opening and slamming shut like tympani.

Ben hurried to the lobby coffee shop, fearful of being noticed, or worse, spoken to. Threading his way past the din of tables mostly filled with his colleagues, he found a small table at the far wall and waited for service. The waitress was displaying her advanced skill at not noticing his wave for attention as she ministered to the requests for second cups and checks. He considered leaving, but that would mean running the lobby gauntlet again.

Five minutes elapsed. The spirited chatter, clank and chink of silverware and china, the nauseating aroma of bacon, combined to mock his grinding headache. The waitress suddenly appeared full of morning cheer and a coffee pot.

Here we are! she beamed, pouring the coffee and slapping down a breakfast menu. How’s it going this morning?

Just a large OJ... Right away, please, he instructed.

She shrugged and hustled away, unfazed by his attitude.

He gazed down into the newly poured cup. Unwillingly, he felt the events of the previous day insinuate their way back into his thoughts.

The paper. Reineke had insisted! Ben could have—should have—refused to give it. Why the hell hadn’t he? He’d never had a problem expressing his point of view with Vic.

Fourteen months ago, Chandler Victor Daniel Jr. had the lack of consideration for his friends and employees to have a fatal aneurism at the age of seventy six, leaving his privately held company to his only child, Chandler V. Daniel III. Trip, as he liked to be called, was the company’s Sales Vice President.

The waitress returned with the juice and a coffee refill, this time not quite so cheery. Ben dumped more creamer in the cup and stirred, reflecting upon what might have been had Vic lived.

A group of four men were getting up from their table to exit the shop and Ben saw that one of them was John Seevers, his friend and co-board member of The Electrochemical Society. Seevers was slated to be next year’s president of the association and had earlier asked Ben to chair a major committee, placing him in line for the presidency. After yesterday, that was not likely to happen.

Some of the men stole glances toward Ben’s table. They must have been discussing him. Ben turned away, but when he looked up, John Seevers was approaching.

Ben... Seevers started.

Please, John, I’d rather not.

Seevers ignored the rebuff and sat in the empty seat across. Ben Posner! What the hell is going on?

The tone in Seever’s voice made Ben straighten in his chair.

Seevers pressed. I know you professionally, perhaps better than anyone, Ben. That presentation couldn’t have been your doing. Tell me what’s going on.

Ben met Seevers’ eyes. The science is there, John.

Hell, we all know the thing works, Ben. If you can make separator material as thin as ten—even seven microns! But, Ben, it has to work 100% of the time. Failure could cost someone their life.

Don’t preach the obvious to me! Ben said, a little too loud, looking around the room. He felt guilty about the outburst.

You didn’t deserve the treatment you got in there, yesterday, Seevers said, but if you were still working with Vic Daniel, I’m betting you wouldn’t have jumped the gun by implying the system was commercially ready like you just did.

The words stung.

God damned Raymond Reineke! Ben blurted, without thinking.

What! Seevers exclaimed.

Ben rubbed his face, felt the stubble of his unshaven cheek. The new CEO. He knew Seevers was aware that Entrec had been sold to a group of investors, but not the particulars.

He made you do this? Seevers asked.

Vic, in his wisdom, left everything to his son, Ben began, feeling better about talking matters out. It didn’t take young Trip long to realize he couldn’t handle the running of Entrec Systems—at least give him credit for that. Six months after Vic’s death he’d completed a cash sale of the firm to a consortium of investors that had been after his father to sell for four years. The agreement included Trip’s continuing as Sales VP. In fact, the promise by the new guy, Reineke, put in place to run the company, was not to make any unnecessary changes in management. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ we heard the old cliché more than once.

Seevers gestured for Ben to continue.

Anyway, Ben let out a sigh, "This guy Reineke has an urgent need to promote ‘Megtrec’, his name for the technology. I don’t blame him, it will be huge for us, but—"

The technology’s not finished, Seevers ended the sentence.

No, but I am. I’ll never be able to face any of those people again. He nodded toward the door to the lobby.

Seevers waited, then said, You will when you prove your system is commercial. Hell, Ben, you stunned the entire power industry with your demonstration. No one doubts your claims for three hundred and fifty miles without a recharge. It’s the safety issue.

Someone is going to make it safe, John and when they do, it will change everything.

The big innovation was in the size of the individual battery cells. Instead of the usual battery shaped like a large brick, Entrec had developed large sheets of electron collectors that could be stacked like bed sheets on the roof of a car. The increased surface area translated into tremendous power plus the ability to be recharged on household current.

The two friends sat without talking for a bit, sipping coffee.

Seevers broke the silence. Do you hear from Nancy, ever?

The question surprised Ben. His wife and children had been frequent visitors to Houston when Ben was on the Shuttle project for his previous employer and the two families became close. Twelve years ago, she’d taken the two children, Michael, fourteen and Ellen, eight, along with the new Audi A4, most of their net worth and Ben’s promise to pay for the kids’ education, home to her wealthy parents. Two years later, Ben heard she’d been living with a well known heart surgeon in Houston, the kids tucked away in boarding schools.

My alimony checks to her are our most common means of communication. I do hear a little through the kids.

How are they doing?

Mike’s practicing law in Baltimore. Ellen’s in her last year at Bryn Mawr.

Seevers rose. You must be really proud. Give them my best, will you?

Ben nodded, looking down and played with the spoon in his cup.

Gotta go, Seevers looked at his watch. We have a car to O’Hare at 10:00. Take care of yourself, Ben. Stay in touch."

A pat on the shoulder and he was out the door.

Ben rubbed his head and grimly thought of Raymond Reineke’s words, If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The reality was that, while the investors were satisfied with the organization’s financial health and direction, Reineke was the kind of personality that could not merely keep a firm hand on the tiller. He was determined to make every facet of Entrec his own as he took the company to his view of unimagined heights.

Ben Posner’s carful adherence to the cautious scientific method did not fit well with Reineke’s need for continuous bottom-line improvement at the quarterly board meetings back in New York.

For that matter, neither did Trip Daniel brighten Raymond Reineke’s days. Trip never really completely understood the nuts and bolts of Entrec’s business, which was threefold; the production of Lithium battery separators, the production of colloidal lithium electrolyte and a consulting service in battery technology.

As often as not, Trip’s father had accompanied Trip on sales visits and always on major presentations. Since the advent of the new management, that job had been assigned to Ben, who was not comfortable in the role and only occasionally Ben’s assistant, Charles Yang. Now the decision, those many years ago, to leave the safe confines of The Stanford Research Institute and join a small, privately held company, seemed to Ben a justification of Nancy’s opinion of him as someone else’s pawn.

He emerged from his musings with a feeling of panic. It had been occurring with increased regularity over the past several months, much like driving a car down a steep, winding road with no brakes. Right now he wished his coffee had a little hit of something stronger, though he’d been hitting the scotch awfully hard lately. What the hell. He could handle it.

Two

San Jose, California

Monday morning hung damp fog on San Jose like a shroud, even as the April sun rose in a cloudless sky above it. Ben’s Toyota Camry turned in to a campus of three buildings located in one of the city’s newer industrial parks, stopping in front of the one story research building. The letters on the curb spelled out POSNER.

Ben stepped out of the car and checked his watch—7:15, then punched in the code to click open the side door. He went straight to his office, closing the door behind him. The corner office was enclosed in glass on two sides, giving him a clear view of the entire main laboratory, excepting the instrument rooms and pilot facilities adjacent. Closing the door was a new thing, something he never did before Vic died; a perfect metaphor to his growing feeling of isolation.

Shortly before 8:00 the lab staff started to arrive, most of whom had been diverted to working on the pin hole problem. Ben stared numbly out at the scene. There had been no breakthrough in reducing the nearly three percent rejection rate of the ultra thin polymer film that was the basis for Entrec’s promising new technology. At 8:00 on the dot Ben saw Charles Yang walk in and head immediately for Ben’s office, knocking on the glass door.

He didn’t wait for a response, but poked his head inside and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken How did it go in Chicago?

Ben frowned, motioning him to a chair, but did not answer.

Yang flipped on a switch by the door and lowered his short, but husky frame into a chair. Why are you sitting in the dark?

Ben pulled at his lower lip.

So—tell me. How did the paper go? Yang prompted.

What do you think?

I’m guessing bad.

Worse. Ben related the debacle at the Marriott, sparing no detail, as if relishing the pain anew.

Yang began an attempt at ameliorating the outcome of Ben’s account, but he was cut off.

Entrec, certainly Benjamin Posner, will be the brunt of every joke and condemnation in the industry after last week’s little performance. How did the last run go? Ben added with a glimmer of hope.

Also, worse. The new plasticizer was a bust. Yang looked down. Ben, I’m sorry.

At what? This last test, or my embarrassing display in Chicago? Look, Charles, you have nothing to be sorry about. We wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are without you. We have a good idea that’s been trotted out to the public way too soon by that... He averted his eyes from Yang’s stare. Forget it. Ben glanced at the wall clock out in the lab. I’m going to see Reineke when he comes in at 9:00. I can’t wait to hear him justify the pile of shit that he’s caused."

Yang was visibly upset and Ben felt guilty about pulling him into the ongoing dispute he and Reineke had been developing over the past few months. Ben had hired Charles Yang four years earlier to head up the new project. Charles was a rarity; a physical chemist working in polymer chemistry. Just what the project needed. The results had proved him right. Ben’s idea of making near Angstrom unit-thin plastic film as foundation for a lithium ion battery system was demonstrated shortly before Vic Daniel’s death, thanks largely to innovations contributed by Yang. Now, if they could only prove reliability in the area of four nines, or 99.99 percent. That was the minimum level of reliability required to assure the National Highway Safety Administration the battery wouldn’t end up killing people. The problem was those damn unpredictable pin holes! Tiny holes that would occasionally form in the thin plastic film that separated the cells of the battery.

Ben stood up and went to the door. Not your problem, Charles. Let’s see if the coffee’s done yet.

RAYMOND REINEKE EASED his spanking new Lexus into the circular drive that set off the main entrance to Entrec Systems. Soon to be Entrec Corporation, he thought. Not too soon. He needed to hold off that son of a bitch Zucco and his investors long enough for the public offering of Entrec’s stock to kick in at a level high enough to activate his bonus.

He slid the immaculate, black sedan into his parking spot, exited the car and walked past a tall row of magnolias to the steps of the front entrance. Passing through the lobby, he nodded to the receptionist who was already at her station. She looked up and smiled. Nice, he thought to himself, aware of his freshly barbered dark hair, Armani suit and four hundred dollar shoes.

Entering his office suite at the end of the hall, he stopped to instruct the woman in one of the two offices adjacent to his. At forty-seven, this stunning, petite woman did not look like two things: her age and the competent executive she was. Maybe a little too competent, he thought.

Mrs. Bell, please ask Doctor Posner to see me, if you don’t mind.

ANGELA BELL DID MIND. Vic Daniel had been a man who disdained multiple levels of management in his company, while at the same time, hated large, drawn out staff meetings. He allowed a small group to report directly to him. That included Trip Daniel for sales, Ben Posner for R&D, Jackson Terrell for Manufacturing, Dillon Frey for Finance and Angela Bell. Angela was responsible for all of the company’s staff functions,