A Sword Into Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

been deceptively normal, just the corporate machine getting to know one of their potential cogs a little better.  Nathan had smiled and nodded, answering their questions as best he could and trying his utmost to exude an air of professional competence.  The New York office Human Resources director had smiled back, clearly impressed.  “That was very good, Mr. Kelley.  Would you mind taking a short written exam?”
    Again, not too unusual.  Nathan supposed that many companies wanted to test their candidates to find out if their degrees were more than just sheets of paper.  The test had covered a gamut of topics:  physics, biology, math, chemistry, systems engineering, politics, sociology, and finance.  It was not terribly difficult, but it had stretched his limited academic background.  He figured it might have been a great deal harder for someone else, someone whose life experience before MIT had not been so diverse.
    “Excellent job, Mr. Kelley!  How about flying down to our Dallas offices for another interview?”  They also put up the offer of per diem compensation for all his time, so Nathan shrugged and agreed, still happy to have gotten past the first interview, the second interview, and then the test.  And now another interview in another city, for what was for all intents and purposes a relatively entry-level position in Windward Technologies engineering management program.  It was then that the first pangs of doubt and anxious bewilderment hit him.
    Did everyone go through such a rigorous process?
    The meeting in Dallas had been more than odd.  There, he met Windward’s Dallas VP, and the interview had gone far afield in both scope and location.  They met in the VP’s corner office downtown and covered much of the same interview territory that had been asked in the first and second interviews.  Then they had gone for lunch in the West End and the interview shifted to Nathan’s personal life:  Thirty-two, small town boy, single, never married, no kids, but wants the full package later, looking for the right girl, in no hurry, love to fish, love baseball, love movies, love reading, love science fiction.
    “Science fiction?”  Nathan’s inadvertent admission had led to a literary discussion that lasted throughout the afternoon as they walked around downtown Dallas, down past the JFK memorial, and back up into the financial district.  At times, it seemed as if the poor executive was simply starved for attention, keeping Nathan talking just so he would not have to go back to his dreary office.  It ended in a somewhat awkward silence, almost like the end of a blind date, and Nathan was unsure what to do or say as the sun began to set.  The VP finally turned to him and broke the silence with, “What would you think of going down to Pensacola for some physical exams?”
    As long as Windward footed the bill, Nathan was game.  Thus he had gone to Pensacola to be poked and prodded, but it did not end there.  Then it was back to Dallas for a series of much more in depth written and oral exams, then back to New York for a polygraph, a psychological battery, and a security screening which made his Naval background investigation appear narrow in comparison.  Then there was yet another interview, this time in Washington DC and mainly concerned with his military background.  That one had made him the most uncomfortable, but, thankfully, they had largely avoided any discussion of the Rivero or the war with North Korea.
    And now this.  If this was not the final interview, Nathan knew he was done.  He was either hired today, or he would finally walk away from the whole process.  Of course, this was probably the last step regardless.  How many more hurdles could there be after an interview at the CEO’s own home?
    Gordon Elliot Lee, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Windward Technologies Incorporated, lived in a large two-story home of cedar, stone, and glass.  It was bigger than a house,