Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘The switchboard must have known something!’

‘It’s automated. Just a few supervisory staff and Johnson says it was easy to use his security authority to get by them and work unobserved.’

‘It still in place?’

‘I wanted your views, today.’

‘Take it off. Get rid of it. Today, as soon as you get back.’

‘I will.’

‘We got some frayed edges,’ decided the president. ‘Too many frayed edges. You seen the Journal?’

He should have bought the Wall Street Journal at the airport, Newton immediately realized. A bad mistake. ‘I didn’t have time.’

‘They’ve picked up on today’s meeting. We’ve dropped three points already.’

Your problem, not mine, thought Newton. ‘We had to be affected, in the circumstances.’

‘We’ve got to lose this terrorism tag. I don’t want this to become a mess.’

‘I don’t see why it should. Dubette hasn’t done anything wrong – doesn’t have any skeletons in any closets, does it?’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Grant, carelessly.

‘No, I’m not sure that I do.’ Newton thought he’d made that refusal before. He wondered how many more times he was going to have to say it again. He became aware how creased, unkempt, Grant’s suit appeared to be. Newton was glad he’d had his pressed.

The boardroom, normally over-large, was today inadequate for its intended function of reassuring unsettled boards. The cause was the electronic paraphernalia needed to link every other subsidiary board by satellite on to a wall-dominating screen, in many cases in what was the middle of their nights or early mornings. Each location was served by three cameras, the primary to provide a single, encompassing view of each and every board composition, the others to enable split-screen close-ups, against that general view, of individual speakers. To make that visually possible, none was able to sit, in the normal way, around a complete table, but had to be in a horseshoe, each chief executive at its middle, Edwin C. Grant heading the assembly – and the global gathering – from New York. Irrationally – but even more unfittingly – Dwight Newton had a mental image of the Last Supper, even before noticing that, including himself in New York, there were a total of thirteen men. He refused to extend the Judas reflection.

The worldwide gathering began, oddly, with the unnecessary introductions of individual boards and each member from each country. That done, the master camera came back upon Grant. They were, said the president, caught up in a situation beyond their control. The tragic death of a valued member of their headquarters staff was upsetting enough – the repercussions of her having in her possession the number of an Air France flight which had been the subject of a terrorist alert was severely affecting the company. Already, that morning, the stock was down three points on the Dow Jones after this conference had been publicized, which brought to a twelve-point drop the total loss since Rebecca Lang’s killing and the discovery of the flight details. Certain people at McLean were co-operating fully with the FBI investigation. The parent board hoped for an early and successful conclusion of that investigation, until which time they had reluctantly to expect Dubette to be the subject of unsubstantiated speculation. To restrict that as much as possible – and by so doing limit any further stock-market uncertainty – the parent board’s lawyers were retaining additional attorneys to initiate immediate action against publication of any material judged malicious or likely adversely to affect the reputation of the company. There was going to be a full media release at the end of today’s meeting, in which this precaution was going to feature prominently, as a warning to the media. The parent board wanted that release simultaneously issued by each subsidiary. Additionally, legal teams were to be established by each overseas board he was addressing, to take similar action against any confidence-damaging publication in their respective countries.

One by one the chief executives of the subsidiaries recounted the individual effects upon them of what publicity there had already been. There had been stock-slippage in England, Germany, France and Japan. There had been no drop so far in Italy, Spain or Australia. Anti-terrorist police or agencies had examined company laboratories in England, Germany and France. It was chief executive Henri Saby who spoke from Paris. Newton only just stopped himself physically coming forward, and thought he detected a similar held-back shift from Grant. The thinning-haired, urbane Saby appeared quite relaxed on the satellite link, the superbly cut grey suit a sharp contrast to that of the president. In addition to scientifically examining everything in their laboratory, French anti-terrorism officers had personally questioned him about the AF209 flight listing being in Rebecca Lang’s possession. Like everyone at Dubette headquarters, he had been unable to explain it but had assured the investigators of his full co-operation on any future developments.

Edward C. Grant picked up on that, insisting that all subsidiaries offer every assistance to official enquiries and investigators. The promised media release had been prepared well in advance by Dubette’s public affairs division and faxed to every overseas branch. The president invited improvements, additions or corrections from every link-up. There was no challenge from any foreign division.

‘This has the utmost priority,’ concluded Grant. ‘I want daily input from all of you. We must know, here in New York, of everything that happens in your countries. Nothing – nothing whatsoever – is too small or inconsequential…’ He hesitated and then, as if they’d had a choice, said: ‘Thank you for participating, particularly those of you for whom your local timing is inconvenient.’

The parent board remained in session after the closedown of the satellite connection, but the discussion was a pointless repetition of what had been debated before and after the global conference. They adjourned both for the electronic equipment to be removed and to watch the midday television news in an outer office. All three major networks carried the press release threatening legal action against malicious publication, tacked at the end of stories about the global conference. To groans from almost everyone – and the outburst of ‘shit’ from Grant – all three described it as an emergency session and listed the current stock-market loss.

To Dwight Newton’s surprise, lunch was provided, in the restored boardroom. By the time they emerged, Dubette’s stock was down a total of ten points on the day.

‘Sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday,’ apologized Newton. ‘I was up in New York.’

‘I saw the stories on television. And read about it in this morning’s Post,’ said Parnell.

‘You got something on the flu research that’s going to lift our spirits and maybe our stock ratings?’ said Newton.

‘Not exactly,’ said Parnell.

The vice president frowned. ‘What is it then?’

‘There seems to have been a misunderstanding,’ said Parnell.

Newton’s frown remained and he felt a twitch of apprehension. ‘About what?’

‘When we spoke about that business from France, I understood you to say it was something that hadn’t worked.’

‘I don’t recall, exactly,’ said Newton, warily. ‘Why?’

Liar, thought Parnell. ‘That’s not what I understood from the FBI guys. They thought it was something ongoing. Something that’s being adopted?’

It wasn’t a problem, Newton decided. ‘Maybe I gave the wrong impression. Like I said, I don’t really remember. It’s some changes being made to the routine formulas coming out of France on proprietary stuff: cough mixtures, linctuses, decongestants, that sort of thing.’