Before an awkward silence could grow, I snapped open my briefcase.
"Dr. Richardson, in keeping with the ground rule that this is a formal business meeting, let me introduce my first agenda item." I flashed her my best smile, then pulled out the purloined page. "This is part of the paperwork Mori seems to have brought with her. I don't understand too well what it's all about, but my first impression is that somebody has decided to do some major tinkering with your program. Take a look at this and give me an opinion." I passed it over.
She glanced down, then back at me. "Are you supposed to be bringing DNI documents home?"
That was her first reaction, swear to God.
"Look, this just accidentally got in with some of my photocopies. All it is is a list of companies. And I didn't want to talk about it there in the office." I reached over and ran my finger down the string of firms, then to several columns of numbers off to the right. "The question is, what are these outfits suddenly doing on DNI's buy list?"
She studied it a second, looked around the room, and said exactly nothing.
"Doesn't that seem at all strange to you?" I finally spoke up. "As I understand the plan, you want to shift more corporate funding into research in the companies you're buying into? I do have it right, don't I?"
She nodded.
"Okay, then you're with me so far. But take a look at this." I indicated the column of numbers. "That's the current research budget for these firms—it says so right up there on the top. Presumably these figures came out of the analytical setup down on eleven. Does anything about those figures seem out of line?"
She looked at it, her eyes widening, then narrowing.