THEY LOST HIM

Last June she took a call for Harford. It was what she did, as a receptionist, and she did it well. It was her job.  Anyone meeting her the first time was ready to assume her efficiency without question, and she never gave them reason to doubt. She was professional and very keen. I trust she’s got her facts in order. As for Harford, she was more his personal assistant, given his position in the company, he dominated her time and she kept copious notes. Unfortunately, she is also quite tidy, and hates clutter, so the notes are routinely shredded. It’s her job and she’s good at it. So there is no trail to follow unless it goes through her. Her loyalties are just that, and she abides.
Harford's trip to Bermuda was spontaneous and out-of-character. Apparently there were jokes in the lab about secrecy, larceny, espionage,  peccadillos...everyone so amused at the sheer spontaneity of it all. That was the joke really: he's tarnished his predictability hereabouts! They jested about calling security.
In fact,  Security joked with him on his way out the gate, "you will be coming back, right Doc? you wouldn't be taking any intelligence with you, would ya' Doc? That's the last thing you'll need! Try rum and topless beaches - that should fix it!"
The banter was something Harford enjoyed on a daily basis. It allowed him a mental reset when entering or exiting the facility. Everything within the facility was tightly structured and controlled. No laboratory jocularity allowed, only focus and thoroughness.
And off he went. For a month.
She took the call. It was so unlike him. He wouldn’t be returning. He had no files, nor interest, he wanted to make that perfectly clear. He’d have his lawyer handle the Exit details. He thanked her for her loyalty and friendship, His voice cracked with sincerity. He then bid “goodbye”, and was gone.
There was the initial panic among top management, because that's what they do, damn it!
The mid-managers, many of them women (patronizing, but true), pulled the shit together. 
First thoughts were of an interference - a woman, or women, or a…man. 
Okay. Then, "medication"   - what was he taking? Prescriptions? Anything illicit? 

Mind control was considered, and noted. 

Blackmail.
 
“It’s gotta be sex!”
 
They came in on the weekend. They worked late. They needed to get Harford back and they determined that he never was in Bermuda. 

They also determined that he wasn’t even in the Caribbean…or, for that matter, on the face of the globe.
 


They lost him.

V