Robert Tanenbaum - Enemy within

He was going on about Rule 135, which comprises a long list of forbidden sorts of press statements. Marlene let her mind drift, for she herself would not willingly talk to any journalist, nor did she own any financial secrets. She completed a rose border and idly looked around the table. At its head, Lou Osborne, the CEO, seemed his usual rockhewn self as he listened very carefully, indeed, to the people who were going to make him a multimillionaire. Osborne was a former Secret Service agent who had taken early retirement a decade or so ago and built this firm into the fastest-growing general-service security and investigations operation in America's fastest-growing business. He had done this largely by picking up smaller firms and integrating their operations into Osborne's own, making limited partners of the owners rather than spending any hard cash. Marlene's firm, an outfit specializing in services to women, had been the first of these. Her former partner, Harry Bellow, was now Osborne's VP for investigations. Harry was there next to Osborne, his baggy cop face interested but blank. She caught his eye and received a tiny wink. Harry was not entirely corporate yet; as a former NYPD detective, he did not take suits all that seriously, but he was a lot more corporate than Marlene was. Moving along the table, there was Marty Fox, VP security, shaven-headed, with the hard face of one of the better Roman emperors. He was a former FBI agent, an old buddy of the boss's, and he thought Marlene should be working for him, since she also handled security. Marlene did not agree, and since she was a partner, too, and had Harry's vote, he could not force the issue. Then came Deanna Unger, the chief financial officer, about ten years Marlene's junior and the only other woman in Osborne's top management. A cat-faced blonde in an Armani suit, smart, ambitious, she was always reasonably cordial to Marlene, but clearly preferred to play with the boys. Sisterhood had stopped being powerful. Marlene suspected that Unger thought the VIP operation was fluff. Finally, on Marlene's right there was a wiry, small man in his mid-fifties with pale blue eyes and pencil-lead pupils that never seemed to expand. Oleg Sirmenkov was VP for international operations. He had spent most of his professional life running security at Soviet consulates in the United States, and at the embassy in D.C., which was how Osborne had met him. It tickled Osborne to have a former KGB colonel working for him, and it apparently tickled Sirmenkov, too. A man who laughed a lot, and loudly, so that you hardly noticed that the laugh never got all the way to those funny eyes. Next to Harry, Oleg was Marlene's favorite VP.

"Are you as bored as I am?" she asked out of the side of her mouth.

"Not bored in the least, I assure you," replied Sirmenkov sotto voce. "I am fascinated. But I have been to some very boring meetings. This is the Kirov by comparison."

Bell was now droning into Section 11, which laid out the liabilities for making false statements or phony claims in the prospectus. The only document that could be given to prospective investors was the prospectus itself. Any documents that Osborne used in the road show had to be taken back, lest they violate Section 5.

Oh, the road show. Marlene was to be one of the stars of the road show. Marlene knew famous people; despite what Deanna might think, Osborne felt Marlene's operation gave the firm some unusual shine. It might not have brought in as much as Harry's corporate investigations, or the security and training stuff that Fox did, but glamour sold, which was why insurance companies hired actors who had played doctors to appear on TV for them.

Bell finished, and the Frog from Kohlmann started on the schedule for the road shows, during which the principals of Osborne would visit big institutional investors and tell them why they should buy stock in a firm of private dicks. There was an actual script for this, and a director the Frog had brought along, a kid who looked about seventeen and the only person in the room besides Marlene and the CFO who had hair more than three-eighths of an inch long, who was now talking about setting up rehearsals. The task was to fake enough sincerity to carry the investors along with the illusion that it was a sure thing that big was better in security, and the whole dangerous-world line of malarkey. Everyone seemed enthusiastic about this but her, like kids talking about putting on a high school play. She wondered why. The lure of show biz? The prospect of immense wealth? Briefly she longed to be part of it, to submerge herself in a group mind for once. But the inner watcher, ever alert, tugged her away, and she looked at them, as from a distance, and felt the exhaustion rise up, although she kept her face pleasantly neutral throughout.

The meeting ended. Marlene grabbed up her doodles and left the conference room without indulging in any of the postconference chitchat normal on such occasions.

Sirmenkov fell into step with her. "What is it, Marlene. Why everyone happy but you? You look like dog died." He paused. "Did dog die?"

"No, dog live," said Marlene, a little miffed at having revealed this much. "Dog in office."

"So why is this frowning? You don't want to get rich as God in heaven?"

"Oh, I don't know, Ollie. I'm just generally pissed off these days. I'm not made for sitting in meetings and telling lies and ordering people around. I need action. Don't you? Don't you want to go and torture a dissident once in a while?"

Sirmenkov looked pained and mimed delicacy. "Please, Marlene, that was another directorate entirely from us. We are being guards only, like yourself."

"So you love all this, right?"

"I confess, I do. I am a late convert to capitalism, you know. I have of convert… hm, what is this word… rvrenyeh…" He made an expressive gesture with his hands to his heart, thrusting outward.

"Zeal?"

"Just so, zeal. I love this stuff. I wish very much to be extremely rich."

"And you think that will solve all your problems?"

"Those to do with money, surely." He laughed, showing gold teeth.

"I wonder. You ever see a movie called The Treasure of the Sierra Madre?"

"Of course I see, many times. Also I read in school. Is book by B. Traven, socialist hero. Very popular with former regime. Ah, you mean how lust for gold destroys men. Yes, but only stupid men, as in film."

"Right, but I was also thinking about wasted effort. I guess I can't believe that this market is going to get all excited about an IPO from a security company. It's not exactly high-tech."

"But is, Marlene! But is-we are extremely high-tech. And we expand into Internet security very fast. Marty will tell you-he has all those boys down there with the long hair and the T-shorts."

"Shirts. Still, I think everyone is going nuts over a long shot. Also, suppose it works. I don't know. I spend a lot of my time with very rich people, mostly people who've made their pile off dumb luck and flash. I don't find them a particularly happy bunch. You won't believe this, but a lot of rich people take drugs and drink too much, and screw up their marriages, and are mean to their kids."

He chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Marlene, you break my little heart. Now, believe me, honestly, you only say this because you have American guilt. Is from being rich all your life: you say, 'Oh, money is nothing.' But if you see only poor, poverty, your whole life, the way people, I mean intelligent people, how they live in other countries, filthy flats, cold, rotten clothings, bad food, then you don't think is something wrong with rich. You will see. Somehow, you will learn to like."

"If not, you haf vays, right?"

After the tiniest pause, a booming laugh. "Oh, Marlene, you are amusing woman, I tell you the truth. Seriously, though, you should not worry the IPO will fly. It is good time for it."