Chapter 7

That evening Roger put on his suit jacket and walked out to his car. He stopped and looked at the Ferrari. He smiled and took the Ferrari keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door and got in. He sat for a minute drinking in the throaty sound of the exhaust and then put the car in gear and backed out of the driveway.

He put his foot hard on the gas pedal and the car tried to jump off of the road. After he eased off of the gas a bit the car settled down and drove like Roger always thought that a Ferrari would drive. The car seemed like an extension of his body. It seemed like all he had to do was think of what he wanted to do and the car responded. He and the car became one being and that being owned the road. Roger had a fleeting thought that it was impossible for a human to make such a machine; this car had to be made by the Gods.

Roger pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and saw a man waving him into a parking spot right at the front door. He got out and started to hand the keys to the man but the man told him that it was not necessary. Roger went into the restaurant and the hostess took him back to a private dining room. Two men stood at the door and one of the men opened the door for Roger. Ben was at the table talking to one of his men.

"Roger, thank you for joining me. Can I get you a drink?"

Roger ordered a George Dickel and water and they sat at the table talking small talk until the drinks came.

The drinks were set in front of them and Ben signaled to his man that they wanted to be left alone, "I am indebted to you once again. If those papers had fallen into the wrong hands the assassin that you saved me from would be like a minor problem. You were wise to call me right away. If anyone had suspected that you had such things, I'm afraid that your life would have been in danger."

"Your man refused to take the money."

"Let's just say that it goes with the house. As I said, I am indebted to you again. I wish that I could tell you what you did for me."

Ben toasted Roger and then continued, "Enough of unpleasantness. We talked a bit about you helping me out with your computer knowledge. Have you figured out how much it would cost to start a company to do what we need?"

"Well, I think that we could start out small and build it slowly. The test equipment would be expensive but if we watched our pennies I think that we could get it off the ground for about three to four hundred thousand. I might have to have some more cash if the company's growth is slower than I project it will be. The problem is that I don't have that kind of money and I'm not sure how my past failure has affected my credit."

"What if I lend you the money? I will write you a check for three hundred thousand right now and have another two hundred thousand available in case you need it. You can pay me back in five years at no interest. It will be legal and I'll have my lawyers draw up an agreement."

"Damn, that's every entrepreneur's dream. What do you get out of this though? I can't and won't do anything illegal."

"I would never ask you to do anything illegal," Ben said with a smile, "The people in the Chinese community are just sick of being exploited. They will flock to an honest businessman and you have proved to me that you are honest to a fault. All I ask is that you treat my people with respect and fairness. I will spread the word that you are in business and I will personally guarantee your work. I cannot see how you can possibly fail."

Roger looked at Ben for a minute before continuing, "I have several friends that have developed software that is better than any commercial software available and I use some of the open source software myself. I think that I can offer your people software that is either ridiculously cheap or even free. It will save them a lot of money over the commercial software that has a lot of bugs and is prone to hackers and spy ware. The open source community takes a lot of pride in their software."

"What about security? Many of our people like to keep their affairs private. Can you guarantee security?"

"When I had my company, I developed an encryption program for the Department of Defense. They said that they were going to buy it but we went out of business before they did. It was so good that the government said that they were going to prohibit the sale of the program because even they couldn't crack it."

Ben had a sly smile on his face, "Do you still have that program?"