Beyond Blame

Chapter 1. Executive Action

“This can’t happen again,” Roger said, looking directly at Bill, his gaze piercing, almost brutal. They were sitting across from each other at a massive wooden table polished to perfection. Despite his restrained demeanor, Roger, the son of a British diplomat, was furious. Even sitting down, he towered over everyone in the room. Roger had a thin face and a full head of white hair. In his fitted, dark-blue suit, pink shirt, and gold cufflinks, he was the only formally dressed person in the room. Roger’s other direct reports—heads of all the I.T. groups at the firm where Roger was chief information officer—were seated around the table.

“Just last week,” he said, “I had to explain to the Executive Committee the reasons for the previous outage.”

“I take full responsibility for this one,” Bill said, trying not to look away.

As if he hadn’t heard, Roger continued. “I had to stand there like an amateur and assure them that we have the expertise to keep the firm’s infrastructure running smoothly. And now the network is down on the day we have the highest volume of trades on record?”

Roger finally acknowledged Bill. “Do you have an explanation?”

Bill sighed. He was short, slightly overweight, with what little remained of his blond hair closely cropped. He wore rimless glasses and his blue polo shirt untucked. His beige khakis were held up by a brown leather belt, sagging under the weight of two smartphones in black holsters.

He was the head of the firm’s networking ...