by Bryan Devore
Now Lance put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder to signal that he was taking control of the discussion again. “Let’s get right to the point, everyone,” he said. “We are here today to vote on whether to give the shareholders our endorsement of the Cygnus offer. Goldman Sachs has been retained as our M and A advisor, and their valuation report—which is in the board summary packet you’ve each received—outlines their evaluation of the offer as ‘fairly priced based on current market conditions.’ Therefore, the only decision we have to make is whether or not we believe that an allowed takeover of X-Tronic by Cygnus will result in the strengthening of our corporation as the resources of the two companies are combined. As you all know, Mr. Kavanaugh is the CEO and majority shareholder of Cygnus, and he is prepared to offer retention clauses for all top executives at X-Tronic. Many mid- and entry-level employees of X-Tronic will be laid off during the restructuring efforts after the takeover, but all top management will remain in place. This will help ensure that X-Tronic continues to grow through our current strategies.”
Lance paused a moment before nodding to Diamond. “Now, I believe Jerry is planning to take us through the numbers in the report, to better explain the details of Cygnus’s proposed merger and the potential advantages of the corporate restructuring and combination of market share, and so on.”
“Thank you, Lance,” Diamond replied in his deep baritone. He lowered his shaved head and picked up the report in front of him. “Everyone please turn to page four,” he said, flipping through the glossy soft-bound packet. “I’d like to start with what the improved margins will look like after combining the revenue streams . . .”
Seaton reluctantly picked up the report. As he half-listened to Diamond’s presentation, he flipped through page after page of rosy projections and best-case-scenarios presented as if they were near certainties. Nowhere was there proper risk analysis, or contingency plans should the businesses find combining difficult. Nowhere was there discussion of Seaton’s worst fear: Kavanaugh’s history of betraying a competitor’s management and culture after the merger was initiated. But despite his growing concerns, there was nothing he could say to persuade the other board members, because when he looked up from the report he saw nothing but gleaming smiles. All the other board members were fast falling in love with the merger proposal. They loved the image of power they thought the company would have after the merger. And they were further comforted knowing that Lance and Lucas and Diamond were all for it. And Seaton, as everyone well knew, saw the merger with a jaundiced eye because of his personal dislike of Kavanaugh.
Turning back to the proposal, he knew he had lost control over everything. He didn’t need to wait for Diamond to finish his little dog-and-pony show to know that the board would vote overwhelmingly to recommend the merger to X-Tronic shareholders. He looked at the twins. They were both watching him: Lance’s lips were clamped tight, as if to fight off a smile; Lucas’s eyes were moist, as if waiting for something he hoped would happen. What were they thinking right now? Seaton had misread what was happening. He had thought it a simple case of the sons attempting to supplant the father because they didn’t respect him and had ambitions for his power. Now he understood: there was a much larger conspiracy in his company, trying to oust him from the throne. But why would the twins need to form a conspiracy, and why would Diamond join them? Something else nagged at him, eclipsing even the horrible realizations of what was happening: a bad feeling that beneath it all lurked a deeper, darker secret—one that would explain why.
Seaton’s hands had stopped shaking. At least that small blessing had been granted him. Folding them together on the table, he raised his head and sat upright. Despite the crushing weight of everything he had realized in the past ten minutes, he vowed to show the same strength and courage that a revolutionary martyr might display while facing the firing squad. But he wasn’t dead yet, he reminded himself, and as he half-listened to Diamond drone on, his mind searched and circled, looking for a way to survive the conspiracy that he had been blind to for so long. Everyone in the room thought his reign over X-Tronic finished, but he would not go gently into that good night.
31
“I SAW YOU last weekend,” Alaska said.
He snugged the cell phone against his ear. “Where?” he asked, testing her. After the long workweek, he had been too busy to expect her call.
“The party in Aspen. Who was she—that girl you were with?”
“Just a friend,” he said. “Who were you there with?” It bothered him that she had avoided him at the party. Perhaps he was making too much of their short time together. Maybe the connection he was so sure he felt with her had just been a silly illusion.
Alaska didn’t respond for a moment, and he could tell she was hurt. She had never been this subdued. The gentle side didn’t fit her; it wasn’t like her at all. Who was this—a different personality altogether? Things had started so well for them, but now they seemed to be sliding backward. All these thoughts flitted through his head as he lay on the couch, speaking on his cell phone and listening to the light Saturday morning traffic from the street below.
“Michael?” she asked. Her voice sounded so innocent, so peaceful, and he realized how much he had missed her over the past week.
“Why didn’t you talk to me at the party if you saw me?” he asked.
“You seemed happy with your friend.”
“I was,” he said with a toughness that surprised him.
She was silent again.
“Alaska?” he said, unsure whether she was still there.
“Do you feel like being alone?” she asked.
“Why were you at the party?” he asked.
“Visiting my father for the weekend—I grew up in Aspen, remember?”
“And the Seatons’ party?”
“Aspen’s not that big, you know. I was having lunch with my dad and saw some old friends who had heard about the party, so I went with them for a bit. I don’t know anyone that lives there. I only knew that the old software billionaire owned it. But it doesn’t mean anything to own something in Aspen. People are seasonal. Who knows who’s actually staying in any of those houses at any given time?”
He had hurt her, and he knew it. “Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to see you there, that’s all.” He waited for her to respond, but when she didn’t, he said, “Alaska, look, I really want to see you again. Let’s do something today.” He stared up at the bars of morning light angling across his ceiling. “Something outside . . . in the sun. I’ve been distracted by work this past week. Let me make it up to you.”
Even before the call ended, Michael wondered what the hell he thought he was doing. Glazier wouldn’t have approved. He should be focusing all his energies on X-Tronic, but something about Alaska made him temporarily lose interest in his work. The fun he had with her, and seeing the no-regrets way she lived her life made him realize more than ever how his own choices were burning him out. Before they had met, it had been so much easier to tackle all the late nights and weekends on the job, but now he could see so much more that he wanted out of life besides his work. Alaska represented a hope he held out for the life he might have when he was finished with X-Tronic and Cooley and White. And even though he knew he should be disciplined and stay focused on his work until he was done with his audit of X-Tronic’s books, right now he needed more than ever to be around her, if only to remind himself that things were going to be good again in his life when all this was finished.
After an hour’s drive into the mountains, Michael and Alaska tromped through the snowy entrance to the Weather Lake Lodge, where a clerk helped them fill out the proper payment and insurance forms before herding them past vacationing families and college students. The clerk took them out the back door and pointed at a snowmobile. “Stay within bounds,” he said, handing them a colored map of the resort, “or you’ll risk spending a night in the Loveland jail.” He seemed amused at the joke.
“Avalanches?” Michael asked.
<
br /> “Oh, yes, avoid those, too,” the clerk replied, laughing his way back to the lodge.
They could hear the rumble and whine of other snowmobiles in the distance. It reminded Michael of the feeling of being in elementary school and realizing that his class was one of the last ones let out for recess, only to find the other kids halfway through their games. “Come on,” he said. “This’ll be fun!” He switched on the ignition as Alaska climbed on behind him. “Hold on!” he yelled over the motor. She wrapped her arms around his stomach and leaned into him as if her life depended on it. He squeezed the throttle three-quarters of the way back, and the snowmobile shot out toward the field like a dog unleashed for the hunt.
Swinging dangerously close to the wall of trees, Michael felt her grip tighten around his waist as she screamed in jubilation over the roaring engine. Discovering that she liked it only encouraged him, and he didn’t let off the throttle until they had shot out into an open field where a dozen other snowmobiles were zooming about.
He spun it in tight circles before turning toward the nearest stand of trees, then brought the vehicle to a crawl as they entered a white forest.
“Turn the engine off!” she screamed into his left ear after they had gone some distance from the field. His right hand came down to cut the engine. She immediately heaved sideways with surprising strength, pulling them both off the seat into a cushion of snow. He curled into a ball and began laughing as she moved to straddle him. She pulled the edge of his ski cap over his eyes and held it there as she began kissing him.
Releasing him, she flipped onto her back and nestled under his armpit until they were both looking up at the vanishing point beyond the pale black-spotted trees that rose above them.
“Aspens are my favorite trees,” she said.
“Why are they your favorite? Tell me.” He felt her thigh pushing again his.
“They just are,” she answered, giving him a soft elbow in the ribs.
“Ouf!” he grunted.
She dug her face deeper into his side. “Let’s just lie here for the rest of the day.”
“We’re paying for the snowmobile by the hour,” he replied. “Ouf!”—another elbow jab.
“Don’t be such an accountant.”
“Hey, watch it, missy. I can handle being called a lot of things, but a bean counter has his limits.”
She laughed. “Seriously, what made you want to be an accountant, anyway?”
Michael was silent for a moment as he looked into his past. “My father,” he said. “Also, my grandfather.”
“They were both accountants?”
“My father’s an accounting professor at Kansas State. He’s actually one of the best in the country. My grandfather, on the other hand, understood almost nothing about accounting, but he really encouraged me to be like my father when I was growing up. I got started on that path at an early age, and I was decent at it, too. So here I am.”
“Lying in the snow in the mountains with your future ex-wife,” she said with a big grin. “Didn’t turn out so bad for you, did it?”
“No, I guess I got pretty lucky. What about you? Any luck with your paintings?”
“No luck,” she said. “I checked all the places again last week, but still nothing. I graduated with an MFA from Berkeley two years ago and have been painting ever since. But I’ve only sold a few. It’s really hard to sell art these days—not quite as stable a career choice as doing accounting.”
“At least you’re doing something you enjoy. Accounting’s not always that great; trust me. My current job is killing me. I’m locked away in an office building all day long, straining my eyes and constantly stressing over issues with the client, juggling heavy workloads with short deadlines.”
“If you hate it so much, why don’t you just quit?”
“Can’t,” he groaned. “I’ve made commitments I can’t break.” He watched as a clump of snow fell from a branch high above them and broke into a cloud of powder as it fell through the branches, showering them in a light haze of crystals. “My dream is to someday become a chief financial officer for a company. I want to be the head of the overall financial aspects of a nice small company, so I can help it grow, so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something worthwhile in the business world. And to get a job like that, I need to get a lot of experience in one of the big international accounting firms. So that’s where I’m at now: just doing my time in the trenches so that someday I can be a general.”
“So we’re both chasing dreams,” she said, rolling onto her side and wrapping her arm over his chest.
“The only problem with dreams,” he said sullenly, “is that they always feel so far away.” He had been referring more to himself than to her and hoped she hadn’t been offended. But his concerns vanished as she leaned in and began kissing him again. She always had the ability to make him forget all the problems on his mind, as if taking him into another world where everything was perfect. And at that moment, he realized that he had more in common with Alaska than with anyone else in his life.
32
THE LEARJET 60 XR dipped down out of the clouds and glided toward the festive night lights of Austin, Texas. Don Seaton looked out the window at the illuminated State Capitol Building. After circling the city, the jet approached an outer airport from the south and landed on a black runway lined with emerald lights. Seaton and Marcus descended the stairs and slid into a bulletproof limousine waiting for them.
Going through downtown, Seaton noticed that winter was almost nonexistent here. Along Fifth Street, people dined in chic ethnic restaurants surrounded by some of the best live music venues in the country, while, only a block away, college students from the University of Texas seemed to treat every night as if it were spring break.
The limousine turned up a narrow neighborhood road that wound up a small hill covered in stately cottonwoods and live oaks. Pulling in front of a spacious white house, the car stopped next to a stone staircase that rose up a low hill to a wraparound porch.
As they got out, Marcus scanned the area for any movement among the shadows. They were in one of Austin’s most prestigious neighborhoods, with century-old mansions fronted by iron gates. The only movement Marcus could see was a plump silhouette at a second-floor window. Nodding his approval, he followed his employer up the stone steps.
The heavy door opened just as they stepped onto the porch, and out stepped the same plump body that Marcus had seen watching them from the window.
“Mr. Seaton, I still can’t believe you insisted on coming all this way,” the man said. “Luckily, I could work you into my schedule. As you know, I’m very busy these days.”
“Busy trying to take over my company,” Seaton said to Fredrick Kavanaugh.
“Among other things,” Kavanaugh replied.
“Fred, you need to withdraw your bid from X-Tronic.”
A wide grin crossed Kavanaugh’s face, turning into hearty laughter. “Don, your tactics are remarkable,” he said. “You come to me with a request like that when you know I have no intention of turning away from X-Tronic. This is a desperate ploy, even for a man who has lost the faith of his own board.”
“How did you hear about that?” Seaton demanded.
“We all have our sources, Don. You of all people should understand that.”
“Fred,” he said, stepping closer to his adversary, “I came to you tonight not to ask you for a favor, but to warn you of the consequences if you continue to pursue this folly. I will not let you take control of my company. X-Tronic is in the middle of something right now that I’ve been planning for years, and I won’t let you ruin things. You know my history. You know what I do to companies and people that challenge me. You know what I’m capable of.”
“Things aren’t what they used to be, Don. Times change. X-Tronic is falling apart from the inside out. Your house is no longer in order. Your precious company isn’t as strong as it once was, and neither are you.”
Seaton motioned with his eyes for
Marcus to return to the car. As his bodyguard retreated down the steps, he turned back to Kavanaugh. “Fred, you don’t have any idea what you’re getting into on this one. I came here to warn you. What you do with that warning is up to you.”
“You didn’t come all this way to do me any favors, Don. You took the time to come here because you’re searching for a miracle. It just shows me how desperate you really are. Now, I don’t know exactly what kind of trouble you guys are having up there in Denver, but whatever it is, I can promise you one thing: once I take over X-Tronic, I’m going to find out everything that’s been going on. And here’s a little warning for you, Mr. Seaton: you’ll be the first piece of business I take care of. You were great in your day, but that day is over. I hope you haven’t done anything too desperate to try to hold on to your company. I used to have a lot of respect for you, and I’d hate to have to be the one to make you pay for your mistakes.”
Then, without another word, Kavanaugh stepped back inside his palatial house and shut the thick wooden door.
Seaton stood there on the porch for a moment, trying to calculate just how desperate his situation was rapidly turning. It was sobering to think that Kavanaugh’s informants gave him such a clear view inside X-Tronic. But Seaton wasn’t giving up hope. His investigation into the events surrounding Jack Ross’s demise had turned up the name of a man working in Portland who had once worked for Ross—a man who, Seaton hoped, held the secret behind everything that had gone wrong with Ross’s business. When he turned around, he heard Marcus starting the car engine on the street below. Moving away from the great, brooding mansion, Seaton hurried down the stairs.
33
THREE HOURS AFTER leaving Austin, Don Seaton’s Learjet rocketed past the snow-covered mass of Mount Hood, descending toward Portland. A steady, chilling winter rain drenched the world outside.
