“Why did you keep this from me?” Tresco said, caution turning to fear. “I didn’t know anything about it.”

“I doubt anyone will believe that.”

“Was that a threat, Craig? Are you threatening me?”

Of course, that was exactly what he was doing. But there was no reason to be explicit about it. Tresco was an extremely wealthy man with a carefully crafted and impeccable reputation. He would do whatever was necessary to protect the status he’d spent a lifetime building.

Bailer handed him a tablet and turned onto an even more desolate road that led into the rugged Organ Mountains. Crosswinds buffeted the car, but couldn’t be blamed for Tresco’s increasingly pale complexion as he scrolled through the graphs and charts.

“How…How did this happen? How could you let this happen?”

“I was aware of some of it, but I only recognized the extent about a year ago.”

“But Christian—”

“Christian can’t be trusted anymore. There was a time when he’d listen to financial realities, but as he’s gotten older he’s become more and more isolated. He lives in his own world now. A world he believes he can save. And it’s causing him to make stupid decisions like focusing on a search system that makes judgments about people, and software that’s specific to the financial industry and politicians. It’s also caused him to limit our military sales to only a small percentage of soldiers worldwide.”

Tresco shut down the tablet and stared out at the dead, rocky hills speeding by. His hand shook visibly as he wiped the sweat from around his mouth.

“We need to move Dresner out, David.”

Tresco let out a bitter laugh. “Do you have any idea what that’ll do to our stock price?”

“We’ll do it quietly. Keep him in place as a figurehead.”

“I’m finding it very hard to believe he’s going to just give up his position at a company he spent his life building. And how does that help our cash flow? No. We’re going to have to look for a partner.”

“We can’t sell off a significant interest in the company, David.”

“Why not?”

“There are things that would come to light…” His voice faded for a moment. “Things that need to stay in the dark.”

“The offshore debt?”

“It’s not the financial issues, David.”

“What then?”

Bailer took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Even in the confines of the car, it was hard to say these things out loud.

“The human mind is a very complicated piece of engineering. Maybe the most complicated thing we know of. It’s difficult to find an adequate substitute for it. When the research started, we used chimps—”

“So what?”

“So, there’s only so much you can learn from experimenting on the mind of a monkey. Eventually, we had to move to human subjects.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Some of the tests—particularly the early ones—weren’t entirely successful.”

Again, Tresco seemed to be struggling to process what he was hearing. “Are you telling me that some of the volunteers were harmed?”