VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [100]
“Unless your name is Admiral Jones,” said Wayne. “In which case your shipment goes out on time – and everyone else gets backed up to next week.”
“Well, my lunchtime is about over,” said Jayro. He pushed half a chicken sandwich toward Wayne. “Here. That’s for you.”
“No, really–”
“You’ve got to keep up your strength,” Jayro told him. “Now that’s good barbeque chicken between that bread. Don’t go wastin’ it.”
Sarah recognized the engine note of the Porsche as it approached her townhouse and stopped outside. She had just gotten into bed. Mumbling in annoyance as she threw off the covers, she quickly put on a bathrobe and was coming down the stairs even as the doorbell rang. Sure enough, when she opened the door, there was Viktor.
“Yes?” she asked.
“May I come in?”
“I’ll tell you right now, I am not in the mood.”
“Tonight, I’m the one with the headache.”
She walked away from the door, leaving it open. Viktor closed it behind him as he came inside.
He was still dressed in his office clothes, but his tie was gone and his shirt collar was unbuttoned. And something else, she noticed after she turned on some lights and plopped into a chair in the living room: he was ashen-faced. He looked truly shaken.
“What’s the matter? Were you in an accident?” she asked.
Viktor grimaced, shook his head, and said simply, “Worse.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“We’re about to lose the Manchester contract.”
Sarah’s mouth opened. “No! I thought you’d patched things up with them.”
“I thought I had, too,” said Viktor. “But they’re backing out. I was on the phone with them for hours, but it’s no use. The announcement will come tomorrow morning. And there is another shoe soon to drop… . Listen, I hate to impose at this late hour, but could I trouble you for some libation?”
“You know where everything is. Help yourself,” she told him.
He headed toward the kitchen. She heard the tinkle of ice in a glass. Viktor returned a minute later with a vodka and cranberry in hand.
“You said, there’s ‘another shoe’?”
He nodded, took a swallow of his drink.
“I had dinner with Brechman tonight. He is, to say the least, not very happy with us. That business is soon going to be leaving, too, I’m afraid.” He raised his glass. “When it rains, it pours, doesn’t it.”
Sarah had shut her eyes.
“Viktor, why … ?”
“Because we’re expensive and we’re slow!” he all but shouted at her. Then, more softly: “In essence, that’s what it comes down to. And, yes, you warned me; you were right. Good for you! But there is something else; something I wouldn’t have expected. There are doubts about the reliability of our findings. They are skeptical of the quality of our work. To me, that’s the devastating part of it.”
Sarah was grimly silent, then ventured to say, “We spin our wheels a lot, Viktor. There is a lot of waste in the way we operate.”
“Oh, please, Sarah! Are you serious? Do you really think that program the corporate idiots foisted on us, that whole Lean Six Sigma thing, do you really think that would have saved the Manchester contract?”
“The waste definitely drives up our costs and slows us down,” she answered. “You know, efficiency is not our enemy.”
He hesitated; he scrutinized the expression on her face to see if she was sincere.
“Really, do you think Wayne Reese has the answer to our problems?” he asked.
“Honestly … no. But you shouldn’t have just rejected him out of hand, Viktor. You especially shouldn’t have let the Lean Greenies hijack everything the way they have, I can tell you that.”
“I’ve had other things on my mind!” he said.
“Viktor, we need something. Whether it’s Wayne and LSS or just plain common sense or I don’t know what. The procedures we follow – that you make people follow – there are so many steps, so many rules, so many policies … and some of the time they’re even in conflict with each other. That’s why everything is so slow … why everything gets to be so expensive.”
He took another deep swallow of his drink, then looked into