Sweet Rivalry (1001 Dark Nights)(28)

We’d been waiting for them to reconvene all of us and announce the award of the bid, so this feels off to me.

“Gentlemen,” I greet them as I walk into the room.

“Please take a seat,” Mason asks as he gestures to the chair in front of the four men. I do as I’m told and wait for them to speak.

Silence stretches as they shuffle documents in front of them—trying to look official—before looking back up so that all four sets of eyes home in on me.

“I’d like to start by thanking you for accepting our invitation to the bid.”

The death words. The “thank you but you’re about to get denied the job” type of death words.

My hopes fall. My pride and ego take a kamikaze spiral down with them.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“This project is rather unique. It’s highly sensitive and extremely private, as you’ve inferred by this whole process. Having you bid on a job when you can only guess about its nature must be difficult. And we understand that more than anyone. You’ve probably guessed it’s a government facility due to the secrecy, and if that were the case, then you’d be right.”

Why are they telling me this if I didn’t get the job?

“We here at Century Development would like to offer R Squared Management the first two phases of the project formally called DOD Project 427.”

I stare at him, try to feign like I’m playing it cool while I’m silently slack-jawed, wide-eyed, and shocked as shit that I finally beat out Harper Denton.

Holy f*cking shit.

Play it calm, Ryd. You knew you had this.

“Thank you so much, sir. I promise we’ll live up to the standards you expect and get the job in under budget and on schedule.” He repeats the last words with me and chuckles at the mantra.

“You look a little surprised, son.”

I look over to meet Mason’s questioning stare. “Not to undercut my abilities, sir, but to be honest, I expected Meteor to be the lowest bidder.” Did I really just say that?

“Tom Grant, here. Nice to meet you, Ryder,” the gentleman to the right of Mason says.

“Nice to meet you too, sir.” My eyes narrow as I try to figure out why all of a sudden Mason is whispering something into his ear, a little conference before a few nods are had. Something’s off here.

“This bid was to be handled with the utmost integrity.”

“As they all are,” I reply with a nod, trying to feel out the sudden change of vibe in the room.

“There were color-coded folders handed out at the beginning of the project. Each folder was unique in that it held a different set of numbers for each participant to bid from.”

I lower my head for a moment, shake it with my eyes closed as I try to process what he just explained. “So what you’re saying is we were all bidding the concept of the project but all had different numbers?” Who the hell does that? A part of me feels played while the other part is extremely intrigued as to the reasoning behind it.

“Exactly. The bid numbers were the same for all of the buildings except for one. That building’s square footage was different for each of you. We tracked those individual numbers with the color-coded folders.”

“And you are with what company?” I know I may be out of line asking but I deserve to know.

“I work for a specific branch of the Department of Defense whose interest lies in the project. I’m here to oversee the bid process and the overall project to make sure we have the right people for the job. People we can trust. People with integrity. People who we can leave unsupervised with this huge project and not worry that aspects of it will fall in the wrong hands.”

I stare at him, try to read the etched lines in his face and what he’s saying behind his words. This is all so cloak and dagger-ish, and I wonder what I’m missing here. My first thought is it’s a training facility for the FBI or some other security agency. Pieces start to click—the different set of buildings: dorm-like rooms in one, a medical-type facility in another, classrooms in yet another area, the mandatory fence and clearance area away from the actual buildings. While the need-to-know aspect is odd to me, it is slowly starting to make sense.

“Okay…I hear what you are saying…but why have us bid differently if we’re going to have to reconfigure our numbers in the end?” I think of the request to leave folders on the desks. The directive that all bid items were to remain in the war room. Things start to line up and yet still seem so unconventional.

“Because this project is important. We need to know the person awarded the contract can keep things confidential. That they won’t allow the information to fall in the hands of people who might want to use it for the wrong reasons. I’m saying too much… You’ll get all your answers once the ink of your signature is dry on the contract.”

“Okay.” What are you not telling me?

“What he’s trying to get to,” Mason interrupts, “is you weren’t the lowest bidder, Ryder.”

If he didn’t have my attention before, he definitely has it now. “I don’t understand.”

“There were two bids that came in lower than yours. Actually there were two identical bids, to be honest.”

“But that’s not possible.” If there are two sets of numbers, there can’t be matching bids.