Power Play

by Joseph Finder

  "That's right. So did she. And Boeing's CEO was forced to resign. Boeing had to pay a massive settlement, lost a twenty-three-billion-dollar deal, and their reputation was damaged for years. I was at Boeing at the time, and I remember it well. So you can bet that I'm not going to let anything like that happen at Hammond-not on my watch."

  I just looked at her, waited for her to go on, not sure why she was telling me all this. Ali was watching her, too, but it looked as if she was waiting for a cue to start speaking.

  "I'm sure you've heard the rumors about something similar going on here," she said. "That someone at the Pentagon-presumably the current chief of acquisitions-was given a bribe by someone at Hammond."

  "To lock in that big transport plane deal we signed a few months back," I said. "Yeah, I've heard that. Sounded to me like Boeing got a way better deal than us."

  "How so?"

  "All the lady at the Pentagon got from Boeing was a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar job that she actually had to show up and do. But what I heard, Hammond gave her successor-I don't know, they say it was a million bucks."

  "Be that as it may," Cheryl said, unamused. "At first I dismissed these reports as just sour grapes-you know, how in the world did a second-tier player like Hammond Aerospace beat out both Boeing and Lockheed? But after I got here, I was determined to make sure there was no truth in the rumors. Alison?"

  Ali shifted on the couch so she could address both of us at the same time. "The investigators at Craigie Blythe have already turned up some interesting things," she said.

  "Such as?"

  "What looks like a pattern of improper payments, both here and abroad."

  "We're talking bribes, right?"

  "Basically."

  "Who?"

  "We don't have names yet. That's one of the problems."

  "Hey, you've got the name of whoever the Air Force acquisitions chief is now-why don't you just lean on him-or her?"

  Ali shook her head. "This is a private investigation. We don't have subpoena power or anything like that."

  "So why don't you tip off the government and have them take over?"

  "No," Cheryl broke in. "Absolutely not. Not until we know who at Hammond was involved. And not until we know we have prosecutable evidence."

  "How come?"

  "It's tricky," Ali said. "Once the word spreads at Hammond, people will start destroying documents. Deleting evidence. Covering their tracks."

  Cheryl said, "And the moment you bring in the U.S. Attorney's Office in a situation like this, it becomes a media circus. I saw that with Boeing. Their investigation will go on forever and become front-page news, and it'll do immeasurable harm to the company. No, I want this inquiry completely nailed down. Only then will we turn it over to the government-names, dates, documents, everything."

  "That's why this whole thing has to be done under the radar," Ali said.

  "Come on," I said, "you're telling me you have a team of lawyers flying in from Washington and interviewing people and combing through documents and poking around the company and no one's going to find out? I doubt it."

  "So far, everything's been done remotely," Ali said. "They've got computer forensics examiners going through backup tapes of e-mail and financial records. Huge amount of stuff-gigabytes of data."

  "Our in-house coordinator," said Cheryl, "is our general counsel, Geoff Latimer, and he's been tasked with keeping everything under wraps. He's one of only four people at Hammond who know. Well, five, now, counting you."

  "Who else?" I said.

  "Besides us and Latimer, just Ron Slattery." That was the new CFO, whom Cheryl had brought over from Boeing. He was generally considered to be her man, the only member of the executive council loyal to her. Which was another way of saying that he was her toady. Her hood ornament, some people called him. Her sock puppet.

  "Oh, there's more than five who know about the investigation," I said.

  Ali nodded. "The head of Corporate Security," she said, "and whoever he assigned to monitor e-mail. And probably Latimer's admin, too. So that makes eight people."

  "More than that," I said.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Cheryl said.

  "The word's out. I heard Hank Bodine tell Kevin Bross about the investigation."

  "When was this?"

  "This morning."

  Cheryl gave Ali a penetrating look. "I suppose that explains why he's suddenly being so circumspect in his e-mails and phone calls."

  He, I assumed, was Hank Bodine.

  To me, she said: "You were in Hank Bodine's office?"

  I nodded.

  "Interesting. Do you go there often?"

  "First time I've ever been there."

  "What was the reason he asked you?"

  "I think the real reason was to find out why you'd put me on the offsite list. He seemed awfully suspicious. He wanted to know if I knew you."

  "Was he aware that you and Ali are acquainted?" Cheryl asked.

  How much, I wondered, did she know? Had Ali told her about us?

  I shook my head. "I don't think so. He would have said something."

  For a few seconds she seemed to be watching the flat-screen TV. She wrinkled her nose, and said to Ali, "Do you smell cigars?"

  Ali shook her head. "Cigars? I don't think so."

  "The 'real reason,'" Cheryl repeated softly. "So there must have been an ostensible reason he asked to see you. A cover reason."

  I was impressed: She was awfully smart. "He wanted me to find out why the E-336 crashed." I added, realizing she probably didn't know what I was talking about, "At the Paris Air Show, the-"

  "I know all about it, believe me," she interrupted. "He wanted to know why, huh? That's also interesting. Did he tell you why he was so desperate to know?"

  "Well, I wouldn't say he was desperate. He said he wanted to give Mike Zorn ammunition against Eurospatiale to help him 'trash' them."

  "As if Mike needs that," she said, more to Ali than to me. "That's curious, isn't it?"

  "How so?"

  Cheryl glanced at Ali, then at me, obviously unwilling to answer my question. "Do you know who Clive Rylance is?"

  "Of course." Clive Rylance was an Executive Vice President and the London-based chief of Hammond's international relations. That meant he oversaw all eighteen of our in-country operations around the world.

  "Hank Bodine's planning to have a little chat with him at the lodge. To talk about some things he didn't want to put in an e-mail. I can't tell you how we know this." I had a pretty good idea, but I said nothing, waited for her to go on. "I want you to find out what they talk about."

  I stared at her. "How?"

  "Eavesdrop. Keep your eyes and ears open. Hang out at the bar with the rest of the guys. And feel free to bash me, if that helps you get in with them."

  I smiled, didn't know what to say to that.

  "I assume you get along with Hank, don't you? You seem to be a real guy's guy." She said it with obvious distaste, like I was an alcoholic or a pervert.

  "Get along?" I said. "He barely notices me."

  "Jake gets along with everyone," Ali said.

  I gave her a raised-eyebrow look that I knew she got at once: Everyone but you, maybe. She shot me a playful scowl.

  "If he doesn't notice you, that's actually a good thing," Cheryl said. "You're not a threat to him. You're invisible. He's not likely to be as careful around you as he might be with a member of the leadership team."

  "You're asking me to spy," I said.

  She shrugged. "Call it what you will. We need corroboration. We need to know where to point the investigators. Also, I want to know whether he mentions Craigie Blythe. Or Hamilton Wender, our lead attorney there."

  I was momentarily confused. Hamilton Wender, Craigie Blythe-which was the law firm, and which was the lawyer. Finally, I said, "That's it?"

  "Jake," Ali said, "it would be really helpful if you could find out whether Bodine or any of the other guys are talking about the Pe
ntagon bribe thing. Even in some vague, indirect way. You know, sounding worried, warning each other, talking about deleting e-mails, like that. Because if we can narrow it down to certain individuals, the forensic investigators can use keywords and string searches and all that. Install applications that watch network traffic. Maybe we can speed things up."

  "Anything that might indicate an illegal proffer of employment," Cheryl put in. "Any violation of policy that could conceivably get us in trouble. Any talk of 'gifts' offered as inducements to secure deals. Any mention of a 'special purpose entity.' Anything that strikes you as wrong. Anything."

  I thought about Lummis's remark about greasing the skids and the way Bross signaled him to shut up. But I said, instead: "Like, if someone removes a mattress tag?"

  Ali glared at me, but I could see the flicker of a smile she was trying to suppress.

  "I think we understand each other," Cheryl said, little dabs of red appearing on each cheek like cherry syrup on a sno-cone.

  I didn't like this at all. What Cheryl was asking me to do sounded like nothing more than serving as her stool pigeon-finding out who was talking about her behind her back, who was disloyal. I was beginning to wonder if all this high-flown talk about law firms and internal corporate investigations was just a cover for turning me into her ratfink. I thought for a while, didn't speak.

  Cheryl said to Ali, "I definitely smell a cigar."

  "Do you want me to check it out?" Ali said.

  "Oh, no," Cheryl said. "I'll take care of it."

  "You know," I said, "there's a complete change of cabin air every two to three minutes."

  Cheryl looked at me blankly. She didn't seem impressed. I guess I couldn't blame her. Then I said, "Is this spy stuff supposed to come before the team-building exercises or after?"

  Now she gave me a look of seething contempt, or so it appeared. It sure wasn't love and admiration, anyway. I could tell she was regretting that she'd ever been introduced to me.

  "You may not hear anything," Cheryl said. "Then again, you may overhear something that helps us crack the case."

  I remained silent.

  "I'm sensing reluctance on your part," she said.

  Ali, I noticed, was avoiding my eyes.

  "I'm a little uncomfortable with it, yes," I admitted.

  "I understand. But this could be a very good thing for you. An opportunity, if you take my meaning." She probably would have arched her brows if her forehead still worked.

  I didn't quite get what kind of "opportunity" she was hinting at, but I knew she was offering me her own kind of bribe. "I don't know," I said. "Being a spy isn't really a skill set I was hoping to develop."

  "Are you saying you won't do this for me?"

  "I didn't say that." I stood up. "I'll think about it."

  "I'd like an answer now," Cheryl said.

  "I'll think about it," I repeated, and walked out.

  I returned to my seat and went back to inspecting the photos of the plane crash. Bodine and his buddies were still toking on their stogies. The cabin was dense with smoke. My eyes started to smart.

  And I thought about Cheryl Tobin and Ali and what they'd just asked me to do. It wasn't as if I felt any loyalty to Bodine or Lummis or any of those guys, but I didn't much like being recruited as a spy. I didn't like knowing that this was the real reason Cheryl wanted me here. But I trusted Ali's judgment, just as Cheryl did, and I knew she wouldn't have asked me to do something that she didn't think was important.

  Just then I saw someone stride into the lounge at top speed, like a heat-seeking missile. It was Cheryl Tobin, her face tight with anger. She went up to Bodine's circle. I could see her talking to the two men, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Her head was inclined. She was speaking calmly, whatever she was saying. The anger had suddenly vanished from her face; instead she looked almost chummy. She smiled, lightly touched Hank Bodine's forearm, then turned and walked calmly back to her cabin.

  Then I watched as Hank Bodine, a broad unperturbed smile on his face, extinguished his cigar in his single malt. I couldn't see Hugo Lummis's face, but I saw him crush his cigar out in the mixed nuts.

  I smiled to myself, shook my head, and went back to mulling over that whole scene with Cheryl and Ali. I was willing to do what they wanted, but only because Ali had asked. Still, I didn't like it. I was gradually becoming convinced that there was a lot more going on than anyone was telling me. By the time the plane landed, half an hour later, I'd gone from a low-level dread about the next four days to an uneasy suspicion that something bad was about to happen at the lodge.

  I had no idea, of course.

  13

  The lodge was built on the side of a steep hill and rose above us, massive and rustic and beautiful. It was basically an overgrown log cabin, grand and primitive, probably a century old. It reminded me of one of those great old solidly constructed lodges you see in Yellowstone or the Adirondacks. The exterior was peeled logs, probably spruce, and the gaps between the logs were chinked not with cement mortar but creosote-treated rope. It was two stories, a steeply pitched roof shingled in salt-silvered cedar. A large front porch connected to a wooden plank walkway that wound down the hillside to a weathered dock.

  The King Chinook Lodge was located on the shores of an isolated body of water called Shotbolt Bay, off Rivers Inlet, on the central coast of British Columbia, three hundred miles north of Vancouver. The only way to reach it was by private boat, helicopter, or chartered seaplane.

  When they said the place was remote, that was an under-statement. This was as close to the middle of nowhere as I'd ever been.

  "Remote," to me, described the little town in upstate New York where I grew up, fifty miles from Buffalo, in rural Erie County. The nearest shopping mall was twenty-five miles away, in West Seneca. The biggest event all year was the Dairy Festival, I kid you not. The most important event in the history of my town was when a school bus was hit by a northbound B & O freight train in 1934. No one was killed.

  But my town was Manhattan compared to where we'd arrived.

  The Hammond jet had landed on the northwest tip of Vancouver Island, at Port Hardy Airport, where we transferred to a couple of small seaplanes. After a quick flight, we landed on the water in front of a simple dock. The sun was low in the sky, a huge ochre globe, and it glittered on the water. The setting was pretty spectacular.

  We were met by a guy around my age, who introduced himself as Ryan. He was wearing a dun-colored polo shirt with KING CHINOOK LODGE stitched on the left breast. He greeted us with a big smile and addressed everyone but me by name: obviously he remembered them from the year before, or maybe he'd brushed up. I almost expected him to hand us umbrella drinks, like this was Club Med.

  "How was your flight?" He was a slight, lanky fellow with a thick thatch of sandy brown hair and clear blue eyes.

  "Flights," Kevin Bross corrected him brusquely as he stepped onto the dock and walked past.

  Hugo Lummis needed an assist onto the dock. He'd donned a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers and needed only a porkpie hat to look like one of the Blues Brothers. "Fish biting?" he asked the guy.

  "Timing couldn't be better," said Ryan. "The Chinook are staging right now. I caught a forty-pounder yesterday, not two hundred feet from the lodge."

  Another two dun-shirted guys, who looked Hispanic, were pulling crates of perishable foodstuffs from the back of the plane and unloading suitcases from the baggage hold.

  Lummis said, "Last summer I caught a ninety-some-pounder with a Berkeley four-point-nine test line. I do believe that was a line-class record."

  "I remember," Ryan said, nodding. Something very subtle in his expression seemed to indicate skepticism. Maybe Lummis's memory was exaggerated, but Ryan wasn't going to set him straight.

  "This is one of the best sports-fishing lodges in the world," Lummis told me. "World-class."

  I nodded.

  "You fish?"

  "Some," I said.

  "Well, it don't take a
lot of skill out here. Nor patience. Just drop the line in the water. But reeling 'em in ain't for wussies. Chinooks-that's what they call the king salmon-they're monsters. They'll straighten out your hook, break your line, tow your boat sideways. Tough fighters. Am I right or am I right, Ryan?"

  "Right, Mr. Lummis," Ryan said.

  Lummis gave Ryan a pat on the arm and started waddling up the steps to the lodge.

  "First time here?" Ryan said to me.

  "Yep. Didn't bring any fishing gear, though."

  "No worries. We provide everything. And if you're not a fisherman, there's plenty of other things to do when you're not in your meetings or doing your team-building exercises. There's hiking and kayaking, too. And if you're not the outdoors type, there's the sauna and the hot tub, and tomorrow night it's the Texas Hold'em Tournament. So it's not all fishing, don't worry."

  "I like fishing," I said. "Never gone salmon-fishing, though."

  "Oh, it's the best. Mr. Lummis is right. We've got incredible trophy king salmon fishing. Forty-pound salmon's average, but I've seen 'em fifty, sixty, even seventy pounds."

  "Not ninety?"

  "Never seen one that big," Ryan said. He didn't smile, but his clear eyes twinkled. "Not here."

  14

  The long, deep porch was lined with rustic furniture-a long glider, a porch swing suspended by chains, a couple of Adirondack chairs-that all looked handmade, of logs and twigs. A different staff member held the screen door open for me as if he were a bell captain at a Ritz-Carlton, and I entered an enormous, dimly lit room.

  I was immediately hit by the pleasant smells of woodsmoke and mulled apple cider. Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized I'd never seen a fishing lodge like this before.

  I'm not the kind of guy who goes to hunting or fishing lodges. When my friends and I used to go hunting, we'd stay in someone's tumbledown shack. Or an outfitters tent. Or a cheap motel. So it wasn't like I was an expert in lodges.

  But I'd never seen anything like this. A fishing lodge? This was the kind of place you might see in some big photo spread in Architectural Digest titled "The World's Most Exclusive Rustic Hideaways" or something.