And any employee he had would be contractually bound to assign any IP rights

over. Just the way it works.” “How do you know Ballard has the rights?” asked

Knox. “After I deciphered what was on the screen shots you took, I checked at

the Patent Office.” “But why would you have thought to do that?” asked Knox.

“Because there has to be a motive behind all this. And nine times out of ten the

motive is financial gain. And as you already pointed out, the patents issued to

Ballard are potentially worth enormous sums in the commercial field.” “So could

he exploit them commercially?” asked Puller. “Yes. Atalanta Group is solely

engaged as a defense contractor to build the technology they were working on in

support of the Army.

 

They’re licensing technology from Ballard to do that work.” “Okay, but is he

exploiting it commercially?” persisted Puller. “Not that we know of. As you

pointed out, he’s officially retired.” Knox said, “But he has a corporation.

Just because he’s retired doesn’t mean he can’t build this stuff, right? And if

it’s so valuable, why wouldn’t he?” “I don’t know. But I could find nothing that

shows the Ballard organization is working on any of this. There may be a sub out

there I’m missing, but I don’t think so.” Puller said, “But Helen Myers is

slipping the technology to this Charpentier guy. And Myers is getting it from

Quentin, who works at Atalanta Group. The same place Jericho works. And she told

us he’s essentially her boss.” “Don’t believe that for a minute,” said Robert.

“I think the only true boss Jericho has ever had is herself.” “So how is Quentin

getting this information and why is he passing it to Charpentier?” asked Knox.

“I don’t know,” said Robert. “But we need to find out. This is a national

security issue now, John.” “Can you get your folks to dive into this?”