Joseph Finder - Power Play

I stuck out my hand. "Jake Landry," I said. "And I'm not a pilot, either."

He shook my hand without introducing himself, looked down at my watch. "But you got yourself a nice pilot's watch there, I see. That an IWC, young fella?"

"This?" I said. "It's a Timex, I think. No, Casio, actually. Twenty-five bucks."

Lummis chortled heartily, turned back to the others. "And I was about to ask the young man to carry my bag onto the plane for me." Peering at me, he said, "You a new hire?"

"I work for Mike Zorn."

"Cheryl wanted an expert on the 880," Bodine explained.

"Hell, I've got hemorrhoids older than him," Lummis said to the others, then added to me, mock-sternly: "Remember, young fella, what happens in Rivers Inlet stays in Rivers Inlet." Everyone laughed uproariously, as if this were some kind of inside joke.

"Hank," I finally said to Bodine. "Singapore Airlines is in play."

It took him a minute to realize I was talking to him, but then his eyes narrowed. "Excellent. Excellent. How do you know this?"

"Guy at Aviation Daily."

He nodded, rubbed his hands together briskly.

By then they were all staring at me. Kevin Bross said, "They had eighteen 336s on order from Eurospatiale. That's five billion dollars up for grabs. I gotta call George."

"He's in Tokyo, isn't he?" Bodine said. George Easter was the Senior Vice President for Asia-Pacific Sales.

"Yeah," Bross said. "They're seventeen hours ahead of us." He stared at his watch. "What time is it, anyway?"

Bodine laughed, then they all did. "Three thirty in the afternoon. Makes it, let's see, seven thirty in the morning in Tokyo." He turned to me, flashed his watch. "Good old-fashioned Rolex Submariner," he said with a wink. "Nothin' fancy."

"Comes in handy when you're diving at four thousand feet, I bet."

Bodine didn't seem to hear me. He said to Bross, "Tell George to touch skin with Japan Air and All Nippon, too, while he's at it. This is our big chance. A no-brainer. Get to 'em with a bid before the other guys move in."

Bross nodded, then whipped out a handheld from its holster, a quick-draw BlackBerry cowboy. He punched in numbers as he turned away.

I was about to tell Bodine about the suspected cause of the crash, but then I decided to read Zoл's e-mail first so at least I knew what I was talking about.

"Let's get this show on the road," Bodine muttered, while Kevin Bross talked on his cell loud enough for everyone to hear. "There's billions to be made in the next couple of weeks, and she's got us playing games in the woods."

"Speak of the she-devil," Lummis said, and we all turned to the door.

Cheryl Tobin, wearing the same lavender suit I'd seen her in earlier, entered the lounge. She bestowed a beatific smile on the assembled.

Right behind her came another woman, who I assumed was her administrative assistant or something. An elegant, auburn-haired beauty in a navy polo shirt and khaki slacks, holding a clipboard and moving with a dancer's grace.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I knew her. I drew a sharp breath.

My stomach flipped upside down and turned inside out.

Ali Hillman.

Her apartment, in an old Art Deco building in Westwood, was like Ali: the unexpected corners, the skewed lines, stylish and a little mysterious and glamorous and sort of exotic.

"The rumor is that this apartment used to belong to Howard Hughes," she said as she led me inside the first time. We'd been spending nights at my apartment, so coming here felt like a new stage, like I'd passed some sort of test.

"He used it as a love nest for his girlfriends. That's what the landlord says."

"Either that, or he needed another place to store his mason jars." It was on the second floor, and you could hear traffic noise from the street, trucks roaring by, car horns.

"But I need to move. Too noisy. I can't sleep at night."

"Move in with me."

"El Segundo? It's a commute."

"I'm worth it."

"We'll see."

She put her mouth on mine, ending the conversation.

"Mmm," she said after a couple of minutes. "Yeah, I'm thinking you just might make the cut."

She didn't see me. She was immersed in conversation with Cheryl Tobin as the two of them swept into the room, parting a Red Sea of middle-aged men. An electric force field seemed to surround them, crackling and radiating through the room. Like it or not, this was the boss.

And-what?-her assistant? Was Ali working for the CEO now? If so, when had this happened?

I felt the electrical charge, too, but of a different sort. It was the voltage generated by all sorts of little switches going off in my brain, circuits closing, thoughts colliding. I hadn't seen her in months, had assumed she was still in HR. But I'd lost track of what she was doing, exactly. Another guy might have kept tabs on her on the company intranet, asked after her. Googled her. She was the kind of woman who could turn men into stalkers.

I wish I could say I'd moved on, had the coldhearted ability to shift over to the next woman without looking back. The truth is, I knew that if I allowed myself to mope or obsess, I'd never get over her. I wasn't sure I ever would anyway. So as much as I thought about her after the breakup, I didn't let myself wallow in the sweet misery of tracking her from afar.

And now Ali was working with, or for, Cheryl-you could tell from the body language-and she was probably going on the offsite, too.

For a moment it felt as if I were inside a freeze-frame: I couldn't hear or see anyone around me except for Ali. The loud chatter and laughter dissolved into meaningless babble.

Ali.

I knew now who'd put me on the guest list for the offsite. One mystery solved. But it only created a new one.

Why?

Yet before I could go up to her, she was gone. She said something to Cheryl and, holding a cell phone to her ear, disappeared down a side corridor.

Gradually, I returned to the room, became more aware, more present. I heard Bodine mutter to Bross, "Notice she said no staff, no assistants, no admins. Yet she brought one of hers."

Ali wouldn't be Cheryl Tobin's administrative assistant, of course; she was a rising executive in HR. But was it possible that she'd become an assistant to the CEO of some kind?

Cheryl worked the room like a master politician. She circulated among the twelve or so guys, smiling and touching them on the shoulders in a way that was warm but not too intimate.

Most of the men responded the way you'd expect. They gave her smiles that were too wide and too bright. They shifted their stances so they could watch her out of the corners of their eyes while she talked to others. They tried to suck up without being too transparent about it.

Not all of the guys, though. Hank Bodine's little clique seemed to be making a point of ignoring her. Kevin Bross said something under his breath to Bodine, who nodded, his eyes alert but unrevealing. Then Bross turned and headed toward Cheryl. Not right toward her, but meandering in her general direction. As he got close, she must have said something-I couldn't hear-because he turned and smiled right at her.

"I admired your e-mail this morning," he said, his voice louder than he no doubt intended.

Bodine and Lummis were watching the exchange from across the room.

I could see Cheryl's pleased smile. She said something else.

"No, I was really impressed," Bross said. "People need to be reminded about the culture of accountability. We all do."

Cheryl smiled and touched his shoulder. Bross nodded, gave a sort of contorted, embarrassed smile. His face was flushed. Then he turned and looked at Bodine and gave him a wink.

Not until we all began boarding the plane did Ali see me.

She was at the top of the metal stairs leading into the jet, just behind Cheryl Tobin, as I started to climb the steps. She turned around, looked down as if she'd forgotten something, and her eyes raked mine.