Millennium - 69. Chapter 69

March 13, 2000

 

I was nervous on the drive to the office. Something wasn’t right. This thing with Elliot Pfinster had me on edge. There was nothing I could point to, nothing obvious that broadcast his plans, but I was sure that whatever he was up to, it was bad news. I paused for a second to evaluate that, to think about how I was looking at business from an emotional and impulsive perspective instead of a factual and logical one, but I’d seen Stef make billions of dollars by trusting his instincts. My instincts told me we were walking into a trap.

I strode into the office with a purpose. “Good morning, Grace.”

“Good morning,” she said pleasantly.

“I need you to assemble the team.”

“Now?”

“Now,” I said firmly but politely. “It’s important.”

“You got it,” she said. Twenty minutes later found me sitting in the conference room with everyone assembled.

“I’m sorry to pull you in on such short notice,” I said. “Are you there Rashid?” I asked of the speakerphone in the middle of the table.

“Most definitely,” came his urbane reply.

“We received an interesting phone call this morning,” I announced. “Elliot Pfinster has called a special meeting of Triton’s board for this Friday.”

“Can he do that?” Randi asked.

“He can. We let him remain as chairman as a courtesy. The chairman has that power.”

“What’s he up to?” Ethan mused.

“I think he anticipates that something big is happening this week, and he’s going to try and derail us,” I told them.

“How could he do that?” Cal asked.

“You said he’d been asking for information?” Ethan asked. “What kind?”

“I don’t know. We can find out.” Amazingly enough, we managed to conference Jordan in on the same line with Rashid without hanging up on either one of them. “Thanks for joining us Jordan. Cal asked me a question that I couldn’t answer. He wants to know what kind of information Elliot has been asking for.”

“It’s hard to decipher the direction he’s taking,” Jordan prefaced his comments. “He’s asking for complete financial information, and he’s asking for any information relating to lines of credit or loan commitments we’ve arranged, and he’s demanded specifics on any arrangements we have with your companies. In addition to that, he’s put in a formal request for information on the systems involved in those two contracts Omega got cut out of, and the one that’s up for vote.”

“What do you think he’s up to?” I asked.

“To be honest, I haven’t given it a lot of thought,” Jordan said. “We’ve got more business now than we know what to do with, and I’m just scrambling to make sure we meet our commitments and deadlines while keeping our quality up.” In other words, he’d abdicated the political responsibilities to us, which was fair, since that was one of the things we said we brought to the table.

“He’s working with Omega,” Ethan announced suddenly, catching us all by surprise.

“Is that possible?” I asked of everyone in general, but of Jordan specifically. “Don’t he and Alexandra hate each other?”

“Her animosity was always directed more at me. I’m the one who derailed her plans, he had supported them,” Jordan said. That was interesting. Elliot must have tried to prevent his marriage to Marcia. He was a remarkably loyal son, considering what an ass his father had been. “I can see them making common cause.”

“He’s got a deep war chest from the sale of his Triton stock,” Cal reminded us.

“Any way we can firm this up, one way or another?” I asked.

“We can work on it,” Randi said, but no one really knew how we’d penetrate the private domain of Omega.

“What about our plans for this week?” Grace asked.

“If we launch a full-scale assault on Omega, and they come up with a new backer that gives them money to deflect every punch, we’ll end up sitting there looking like idiots,” Jacob pointed out.

“Maybe we should delay our attack until we know what we’re up against,” Ethan said, evidently thinking out loud.

“Brad, I need to go,” Jordan said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got a meeting that I’m supposed to be in. Look, as far as we’re concerned, if we have to put things off, that’s fine with us. We’ll be better prepared for that other contract in a month, anyway.”

“Thanks, Jordan,” I told him politely. “We’ll keep you posted.” He hung up the phone. “What do you all think?”

“I think it makes sense to pull back until we know what the result of the board meeting is,” Ethan said. “If we start hammering Omega, and then they come up with this big announcement about Elliot being involved with the firm, they can use that to deflect attention from the IRS audit, the financial problems, and the quality issues. They’ll point out that he’s the one who will restore Omega.”

“He’s the one who almost drove Triton into the ground,” Randi noted. “Who will believe that?”

“Most people don’t know that. We didn’t, not until we were deeply involved with the company,” Cal reminded her.

“I have to agree with Ethan,” Rashid said over the phone. “We don’t want to leave our political patrons hanging out to dry. If they go to bat for us, and then Omega has a defense already worked out, they’ll look bad, and we’ll lose their support.”

“Can we delay everything for a month?” I asked.

“We can pull back on the IRS, we can also hold off on our tender offer and on the push for that third contract. I’m not so sure about Go Chang.” Ethan had laid things out pretty succinctly. “Anything else is movable.”

“Grace, will you go track down Stef and Luke. Ask them to come join us; tell them it’s vital.”

“Sure,” she said, responding to my request with alacrity.

“If we get Luke and Stef to go along with this delay, we’ll have to jump on this fast. Jacob, you’ll need to get in touch with Mr. Min and have him pull back on the Go Chang takeover.” That was the dirtiest job, dealing with organized criminals, so it had fallen to Jacob since he was an attorney. We figured that attorney-client privilege would give us at least a partial shield.

“You got it,” he said.

“Rashid, you’ll have to get to Senator Danfield and talk to him about the contract. He may have to go ahead with the vote, but that’s OK. We’ll still be able to hit them with it next month,” I said. He acknowledged the directive.

“I can handle the IRS situation,” Cal offered, beating me to the punch.

“Good,” I said. Stef and Luke picked that moment to walk into the room.

“Good morning, warriors,” Stef said, teasing us.

“Good morning,” they all chimed in unison, sounding like schoolchildren.

“Perhaps you will share with me what was so important that you have opted to re-arrange my morning schedule,” he said.

I took the lead. “We think that we need to push our assault on Omega back one month, to April 15. We’re worried that Elliot is forming an alliance with them, and that if he does, the resources he contributes will help them dig their way out of the hole we’re planning to put them in.”

“Brad, this is your baby. If you say wait, I’m with you,” Luke said. I couldn’t help but smile at him to thank him for his support and confidence.

“How interesting. I feel the same way. Keep me posted,” Stef said. Then he turned and breezed out of the room, with Luke on his heels.

They all looked to me for the final word. “We’re on hold. Plan to go after them on April 15.”

“I would suggest either April 14^th, or April 17^th,” Grace said. “The 15^th is a Saturday.”

“The 17^th would be better,” Rashid said. “If we do it on the 14^th, it will give them more time to plan a defense.”

“The 17^th it is.”

“We’ll handle it,” Jacob said, and that served to end the meeting.

The day was busy, really busy, as we got in touch with all the people we needed to. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. I had just packed up all of my stuff when Stef walked in.

“I am wondering if you would give me a ride home?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. “I plan to head home tonight. I’m going to come back up on Wednesday afternoon.” He just nodded, accepting my life as a commuting employee, and followed me out of the office.

“I know that we must leave Connecticut as quickly as possible to get back to LA in time for the premier,” he said as he buckled himself into the Ferrari. “I was thinking that perhaps I could fly out with you on Thursday, and then fly back on Friday and attend as well. That is, if you think you can find me a ticket.”

“That would be terrific,” I said. Stef wasn’t a celebrity in the public eye, but he was a celebrity among the celebrities. By being there, he’d be giving Robbie a huge boost, showing his support. “That’s really nice of you. Maybe Robbie will be able to sleep tonight, just knowing that.” I’d never seen him so uptight over a premiere.

“I think you overestimate my value there. I think that as long as you are there, he will be happy.”

“I hope I’m there,” I said nervously. “I wonder if I can charter a Concorde.” That made him laugh.

“My little Falcon is speedy enough.”

“Your Falcon isn’t little,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m amazed at how much influence you still have in LA. How do you do that?”

“You do not think I am an interesting person?” he asked, pretending to be offended.

“You know what I mean,” I said dismissively. “You’ve been up here for five years now, but when you’re in LA, it’s like you never left.”

“I will tell you my secret,” he said in his conspiracy voice. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“So you leave, and those people like you more?”

“But of course. I have learned just how to balance it. I go down there often enough that they remember me, but not so often that they grow tired of me.”

“You are brilliant,” I said to him admiringly. “You never stop surprising me with your skills.”

“Why thank you. I am in good company. I think you made a good decision today.”

“You do?”

He smiled at me. “There is a time to be aggressive, and a time to be cautious. You have a good plan, but for it to be successful, you must implement it at the correct time.”

“I hope you’re right.” I dropped him off and headed to the airport. I boarded the Learjet for the ride home. I hadn’t liked the Bombardier. So far, the plane that was winning my contest was the Gulfstream V. It was big, fast, and smooth. This was a brief flight, but it was enough to convince me that the Lear wasn’t the plane for me.

As soon as I landed, I called Robbie. “Hey there,” he said cheerfully. “Did you put a stake through Alexandra’s heart today?”

“It’s the only way to kill a bloodsucker like her,” I teased.

“I’m glad I’m a cocksucker, not a bloodsucker,” he joked back.

“We delayed our attack until next month. This thing with Elliot is making us all nervous,” I told him. “So are you at home?”

“No, I’m at the office. I figured that since you were out of town, I’d work late. I’ve got another hour of shit to get through, and then I can go home.”

I smiled. “All right. I’ll talk to you later.” I told the limo driver to take me to Anders-Hayes instead. They had yet another new receptionist, and I had to be positively rude to her to get her to let me in the door. I really needed one of those badges.

I walked into his suite and saw his door was open; he was meeting with someone. I stood off to the side, so I could see in but my presence wasn’t noticeable. Standing in front of Robbie’s desk was a really hot guy, only he was hot in a Hollywood kind of way, which meant he was almost too perfect. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked, sounding slutty.

Robbie eyed him gravely. “No, thank you,” he said firmly.

“Are you sure?” he asked, trying to be seductive. He rubbed his stomach as an excuse to pull up his shirt and show off his perfect abs. I almost laughed. If someone wanted to seduce Robbie, this was not the way to do it. Robbie had never been attracted to slutty guys. The ones that got to him were the boy-next-door type.

“As a matter of fact,” Robbie said, “there is. You can find yourself another job.”

“No, please don’t fire me,” the guy said, switching from sexy to desperate in a flash.

“You obviously have no ethics, and I can’t trust you. Why would I want you to work for me?” Robbie asked him in a very logical tone. “Even if you did, you have no future here.”

There was silence for a minute. “I guess I really fucked up. I’m sorry. I’ll go clock out.”

“Yeah, you did fuck up, but hopefully you learned something from it. I’m not giving you a second chance, but I will give you a good reference.” I heard footsteps and backed up. The twink walked out, looked at me and got a terrified expression on his face. I just gave him my ‘get the fuck out of here’ look. As soon as he was gone, I walked into the office. Robbie heard footsteps but didn’t look up. “I told you I’m not giving you a second chance.”

“Actually, you’ve given me more than one of those,” I said. He looked up and his face broke out in a huge smile.

“I thought you were in Paly!” He rushed around his desk to give me a big hug and a nice kiss.

“We backed everything down, so I came home.”

“I’m glad,” he said.

“Me too. Come on. I’m buying you dinner.”

“I’ve got another hour of work to do,” he said morosely.

“We’ll see about that,” I said as I pulled out my cell phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Stef. I’ll let him explain priorities to you,” I teased. Stef and Robbie had both watched Greg work himself into an early grave, and Stef was adamant that Robbie not follow in his footsteps.

He grabbed his jacket. “You play dirty.” I made him let me drive, and I took him down to a nice little restaurant near the Santa Monica pier. No one recognized us, and I felt relieved about that, even though we had to wait a little bit for a table. It was nice to be anonymous, to be alone in the world, just the two of us.

“I heard you fire that cute little twink,” I said after we ordered our dinner.

He gave me a dirty look. “It seems like you’re spying on me. Every time a guy hits on me, I look around, wondering if you’re there.”

“I might be. You never know,” I said with a smile, cajoling him back into a good mood. “I was standing there almost laughing.”

“Why?” He was trying to decide whether to be mad at me or not.

“Because I kept thinking that if this guy wanted to hit on you, he was doing it all wrong. That slutty act never works on you.”

He chuckled. “True. Guys like that don’t care about me; they just figure that if they let me fuck them, it will help their careers. They’re just hustlers.”

“Or desperate,” I said.

“I, uh,” he started, and then stopped.

“Go on.”

“I don’t want to ruin our nice dinner by talking about this shit,” he said.

“Well now you made me curious, so you have to,” I said, kind of joking, kind of not.

“I was thinking about this thing with Carson. About how he got under my skin.” He watched me to see if that freaked me out.

“So what did you decide?” I asked. Just then, the waiter brought our food, so that stalled our conversation.

“He made himself unobtainable, not because he wouldn’t sleep with me, but because in order to do that, I had to jump through too many hoops, and change too many things.”

“You mean you had to deal with me,” I said. He started to get upset. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I get what you’re saying.”

He nodded to thank me. “It was like he just built up the tension, teasing me, driving me crazy.”

“Not all guys are as twisted and evil as he is,” I told him.

“In this town, it seems like most of them are.”

“What would have happened if you’d have fucked him, before he got his hooks into your psyche?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I sound like some fucked-up, wimpy guy who has absolutely no control over himself.”

“Come on Robbie, that’s not fair. You were vulnerable, we weren’t in a good place, and he was a master at the game. You make it sound like this could happen to you any time. You’ve convinced yourself that you’re vulnerable and weak. That’s bullshit. The planets aligned; it was the perfect storm.” It was funny how badly I’d wanted to make him pay for hurting me like he did, how much I’d wanted to torture him for it, yet now I was almost forcing absolution onto him. I guess this is what Cody was talking about when he told me not to be a drama queen.

“Thanks,” he said as he looked deep into my eyes. That one word had more significance than a thousand.

“For the record,” I said, “I’d much rather have come up there, found you fucking that guy’s brains out, and been done with it, then have you let the temptation fester.”

“For the record,” he said, “I didn’t even want to fuck his brains out. And for the record, even if I would have, it would have been a pretty short fuck, because he doesn’t have much in the way of brains.” That made me laugh so hard I almost choked.

“I’m glad you don’t want to.”

“I’m never risking us again,” he said. He saw my expression change and got nervous. “What?”

“I’m worried that you think that if you make a mistake like that, that if you fuck up, we’ll be over. I’m worried that if I did that, made a mistake like that, you’d dump me. We are so much more than that.”

“You want to fuck other people?” he asked incredulously.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to be with anyone but you. But I also don’t want to have this big thing hanging over your head or mine, where one mistake and we’re done. I keep telling you this, that we’re human and prone to error. I’m not tossing you out over a stupid mistake like that.”

“You’re right,” he observed. “You’re much better at separating sex and love than I am.”

“Will asked me if I’d ever been in love with someone besides you. I haven’t been. You’re the only one.” I saw him look really happy, and then I saw that look change to guilt. “And I know you loved Neil, and maybe you even loved Carson, but even then, you loved me more.” He nodded. “You’re a pretty smart guy. I think you figured out that bad things happen when you let anyone but me into your heart.”

“Yep,” he said, grinning.

“Just tell me what’s going on, what you’re thinking. As long as we talk to each other, we’ll be just fine.”

“Yep,” he said again, cracking me up.

March 14, 2000

 

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to see Mrs. Danfield,” the orderly said. They were much more pleasant and organized on this visit. This receptionist hadn’t been ditzy like the other one. The orderly led me into one of the meeting rooms, and there was Elizabeth Danfield, looking really good.

“Brad, how wonderful to see you again!” she said enthusiastically, and gave me the typical faux-kiss-greeting.

“You look fantastic!” I told her honestly.

“Why thank you,” she said coquettishly, sounding like Scarlet O’Hara. “I’m feeling so much better.”

“I’m glad,” I told her. We talked about her therapy for a while, about the journey that she’d been on here at the clinic, but we both knew it was just a prelude. “We postponed our plans until April 17^th,” I said. “Elliot Pfinster called a board meeting, and we think he may be involved with Omega.”

“And you want my advice?”

“I do,” I said honestly.

“How terribly flattering,” she said. “And how smart of you.” We both laughed, even though it was true. I told her all about the meetings we’d had, and the information Elliot had requested. She soaked it all up, so desperate was she to get back into the game.

“The only thing I’m concerned about this week is how to get Elliot to resign. We don’t want to reveal all of our information to him,” I told her.

“I can handle Elliot for you,” she said. “I am so glad you have postponed your plan. I will be out of here by then, and I’ll be able to help you out.”

“That would be terrific.” I meant that, and I think she could tell that I was sincere. “So how can you handle Elliot?”

“Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?” I handed her both. She wrote one word on the paper and signed it.

“Marvie?” I asked, looking at the word.

“Did you know that Elliot was in World War II?” I shook my head. “During the Battle of the Bulge, some of our soldiers exhibited amazing courage. Others did not. If he gives you problems, hand that to him.”

“What is Marvie?”

She smiled. “It is a town in Belgium, where one of the most hotly contested battles of that campaign was fought.”

“Do other people know about this?” I asked.

“Other people don’t have access to confidential pentagon files,” she said.

We spent another fifteen minutes just chatting, and then visiting hours were over. It was strange that I barely knew this woman, yet I felt as if we’d been friends for years.

March 15, 2000

 

“Stef wants to see you,” Grace said as she poked her head into my office. “Probably wants an update.”

“Not a problem,” I told her cheerfully. Things had been going just according to plan, or according to the revised plan. The Senate committee had voted, and the motion to deprive Omega of that third contract had failed, just as we had suggested. Senator Danfield had been ecstatic, because two of his chief rivals had gone on the record as strongly supporting Omega. Rashid said that they thought Omega was showing some real initiative in the way they’d lobbied for that contract. They weren’t just going to roll over and die. Good.

I strolled over to Stef’s office and barely had time to sit down before Luke came in and sat next to me. “You wanted to see us?”

“It has begun,” Stef said dramatically.

“What has begun?” I asked.

“The deflation of the tech markets. It has begun,” he stated. Stef was so funny when he was like this. It was as if he was giving an Academy Award winning performance, playing the sage who predicted the destruction of mankind and was now witnessing his prophecy come true.

“It’s been down for three days in a row now,” Luke said. “You think that’s the beginning of a greater drop?”

“It closed at 4582 today, which is almost 500 points less than the close last Friday. It is down 10%. This is the beginning.”

“We’re out, aren’t we?” I asked.

“We’re as out as we can be,” Luke said. “We’ve sold everything we have that’s liquid. About 5% of our portfolio is in new projects that aren’t public yet.”

“That’s really good work,” I told Luke, getting an appreciative smile. It wasn’t easy for him to get us down to those levels, and I knew he’d really pushed a few deals to IPO last month just to get it done.

“I agree. You have done a wonderful job,” Stef said.

“Should we get ready to buy back in at the bottom?” Luke asked.

“This is not a quick drop, this will be a long decline,” Stef said. “If I am wrong, then we will know. We should not re-enter the market until the NASDAQ is around 2500.”

“Half of its value?” Luke asked, amazed at Stef’s estimate of the potential loss. I think for the first time, it dawned on Luke how damaging Stef anticipated this drop would be.

“At least,” he said. “And how did your efforts turn out?” he asked me.

“We pulled in all of our teeth. The vote in the Senate went as planned. There’s actually an upside to this.”

“What’s that?” Luke asked.

“We had to involve a lot of people in this plan. There was a lot of activity at Triton to gear up for it. That was mostly based on planning for increased production. Now that we’ve gotten that part settled, at least as far as they know, all of those people are out of the loop. That means that when we hit them on the 17^th, they shouldn’t have any warnings or intimation that it’s coming.”

“Won’t they be surprised that they didn’t get hit this week as planned? It might make them nervous,” Luke said.

“It might, but we think that by waiting a month, it may just lull them into a sense of false security. Besides,” I said, smiling now, “Elizabeth Danfield will be back by then, and she’ll be incredibly useful just by being around.”

“How is that?” Stef asked.

“She will distract Alexandra, just when we need her to be distracted.”