Joseph Finder - Power Play

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 Pentagon 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.

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.