by Susan Wolfe
“But that’s not up to us anymore, is it?” Ken asked, his green eyes pleading to be contradicted. “Jill said if it’s somebody at the executive level, it has to go to the independent firm.” He buried his face in his open palms for a long moment, before sliding them down to his chin and puffing his cheeks in a deep sigh. “I tell you, this really is taking on the quality of a nightmare. The ledge we’re on gets narrower and narrower. Any minute now we’re going to plunge forty stories.”
“Can we carve this part out to give to the independent?” Quan suggested. “Maybe we can still complete the rest of the investigation ourselves.”
“Has the independent lawyer been briefed?”
“Yes,” Quan replied. “Horace. I brief him every morning.”
By now Georgia knew Ken well enough to recognize his momentary inner struggle as he set aside panic and began to lead. “That’s an excellent idea, Quan. Get Horace on the line, will you? Ask him to stand by for a call from Jean-Claude and me in half an hour.”
When they reconvened an hour later, Ken’s navy bow tie had been yanked sideways, but his gaze was steady and direct. “Okay, Horace and Jean-Claude agree that we’ll split the investigation for now. Horace takes over every aspect of Terkes. He wants restoration of Terkes’ email in the two weeks before and after the suspect email. Zack, can you make that happen today? He’ll use his own readers to do the review, and then interview Terkes himself, together with a second lawyer from his firm. He intends to finish that and report back to Jean-Claude in three days.”
“That’s the day before the filing deadline,” Quan observed.
“And that’s the challenge. Here’s where we are, guys. If Horace or the auditors decide to force a complete review of worldwide deals because of this, then it’s out of our hands completely. We’ve done our absolute best, and we turn our attention to minimizing the inevitable delay in filing. However, if Horace concludes that Terkes’ explanation obviates the need for a broader search, then this was just a momentary distraction that cannot be permitted to slow us down. My suggestion is that we avoid distracting the rest of the email team and say nothing whatever about Terkes until we know which way it’s going. Thoughts?”
“Too late,” Zack warned. “They were there when we found the email. If you want them to keep killing themselves, you have to tell them it’s a false alarm.”
“Lie to our team?” Ken said, slightly shocked.
“Not lying, Ken. Merely misdirecting with wild optimism. I’m perfect for that. If you want, I’ll apologize the minute the Q is filed.”
“Do it,” Ken decided. “I’ll apologize to them personally after the fact, and explain our reasoning. Okay, team, let’s finish strong.”
It showed excellent foresight not to tell the email army that their heroic efforts could be scuttled in a heartbeat by the independent review of Glen Terkes. Georgia, who fully understood the importance of rushing flat out, still caught herself staring at her screen in the stuffy, windowless email room in the early morning hours, wondering if her time would be better spent at home in bed. Or at least flirting with gray-eyed Eddie.
Eddie sauntered over to where she was watching the printer spit out what looked to her like yet another side deal. “How’s your zombie doing this evening?” he asked, gazing down at her with his slightly wistful smile. How did he manage to look that good in the middle of the night? She’d worn her dark blue silk blouse that matched her eyes, but what good was that if her eyes were puffy? Never mind. She felt the heavy silk slide along her arm as she tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear in what she hoped was a seductive gesture.
“My zombie is excellent, thank you, enjoying itself and growing more confident by the hour. It’ll miss me terribly if I ever get a good night’s sleep again.”
“No worries about that anytime soon. But I was wondering, after we do get caught up on our sleep and buying groceries and stuff, would you maybe like to . . .”
Her iPhone rang. Ten after three. “Sorry, probably a wrong number.”
The screen said Katie-Ann. Georgia snatched it up.
“Somebody’s trying to get in the front door!” Katie-Ann’s whisper was constricted with fear.
Georgia was on instant hyper-alert. “Have you called 9-1-1?” Eddie’s face registered alarm, and she shrugged an apology as she turned away.
“No! They’ll start snooping! The door is locked.”
“Jesus! You hear someone?”
“I heard something on our doorstep, and then . . .”
“What?”
“I—I just saw the door knob move.”
Georgia flashed on the creep who’d stared into her car. “Is the chain lock on?”
“No. I left it off for you. But I pushed in the button on the handle.”
“Can you hear them now?”
“No.”
Georgia race-walked toward the door, leaving Eddie stranded by the printer looking worried. “Okay, Katie-Ann, I’m headed home, walking out the door now. I want you to fake a really loud call to the cops.” Zack was calling her name. She gestured impatiently and kept walking.
“You sure?”
“Now, Katie-Ann!”
“HELLO! POLICE? I NEED HELP RIGHT NOW AT 237 WILLOW DRIVE! NUMBER 3-B. THAT’S RIGHT! HURRY!”
“Good! Can you hear anything?”
“Someone’s running down the steps!”
“You got ’em,” Georgia’s voice was confident, but her knees were suddenly weak. “Now go to the door and lock the chain.”
“No way!! What if they come through the door?”
“Then go to the kitchen and get a knife.” She slammed her car door and started the engine.
“No! I’m sitting here with my back to the wall.”
Her tires squealed as she accelerated out of the lot. “Then hang onto the phone and scoot around with your back to the wall until you get to the kitchen. You can do it. I’m in my car, Katie-Ann. Ten minutes. I want you to sit with the knife in one hand and the phone in the other and watch the door. If you hear them come back you have to call 9-1-1. Hear me?”
Katie-Ann’s voice was suddenly tiny. “I feel more afraid with this knife in my hand.”
“You aren’t going to need it. They’re gone.”
“Who is it, Georgia? Johnny Awknell? Or that weirdo who watched you in your car?”
“Weirdo wouldn’t have waited this long. And Awknell would thump his Bible and march right in with a bunch of cops to save your soul,” she asserted with more conviction than she felt. Could Awknell be a kidnapper? “Probably just some addict doing rounds for an unlocked door. Long gone by now.” Her car was now straddling several lanes as she hurtled down the center of the ghostly, deserted Central Expressway, streaking past multicolored street lights that stretched in a bright confetti parade into the distance.
“Do they know I’m alone?” Her voice was barely audible.
“Doubt it. Five more minutes, Katie-Ann. Stay on the phone with me.”
“Shouldn’t you put the phone down while you’re driving?”
Georgia snorted softly. “Just keep talking to me, okay? Nobody out here for me to hit even if I wanted to.” She hoped that was true.
“I don’t want to be here alone at night anymore.”
“Agree completely,” Georgia said grimly. “I’m turning onto our street now. That’ll be me at the door in one minute.”
Her tires squealed as she braked hard at the curb, and jumped out to find two fat raccoons on the bottom steps leading to her apartment. They stared at her insolently for several seconds, revealing nothing, before waddling over to the storm drain and disappearing below the street.
Two hours later she was still staring up at her dark bedroom ceiling and listening to Katie-Ann’s deep breathing, when she suddenly remembered that Eddie Fallon had been abruptly cut off in mid-invitation. Probably the end of that. Not very romantic, really, shouting directives into her cell phone as she ran for the door. Just as well, maybe, since
he’d have found out about Katie-Ann soon enough, and who wanted to wade into that kind of domestic hassle? He probably looked a lot better than he really was, anyway. Nobody could possibly be as good as Eddie Fallon looked. She sighed and turned over to face the window.
Could that really be dawn already beyond her blinds? Sure enough, the clock said almost 6. She groaned, threw off her sleeping bag and went to stand in a hot shower.
For the next two nights, Ken took Georgia’s shift on the email review. When she protested (weakly) he said it was simply the best allocation of resources to keep all critical functions moving ahead. Very objective, nodding soberly, his bow tie firmly in place. She smiled each time she remembered it, as she worked alone through the night in her living room, surrounded by stacks of documents, brewing coffee to keep herself awake while Katie-Ann slept peacefully in the next room. At one point she jerked awake from a deep sleep, her cheek pockmarked and tender from the coarse living-room carpet, bright sun backlighting the thin, yellow kitchen curtains. She realized how little it mattered that she’d fallen asleep and tried not to feel side-lined. She wondered if she’d ever lay eyes on Eddie Fallon again.
On the third morning she joined Ken, Zack and Quan in Jill’s office. “Boy,” Ken said appreciatively, “we all look like hell.” Quan quickly calculated a collective sleep deficit of fifty-seven hours.
“Okay,” Ken continued, “here’s the result Horace just delivered to Jean-Claude. The independent email search shows no response to the Reebuck email and no other related correspondence. Horace interviewed Terkes, who has no recollection of seeing the email, and states if he had he would have stopped the deal.”
“Wow,” Quan said. “Perfect answer. Do you believe it?” Evidently not, thought Georgia, since Ken was still calling him ‘Terkes.’
“Fortunately for Lumina Software, it doesn’t matter what I believe,” Ken responded with a muted smile. “What matters is what the independent investigator believes, and he believes the story is credible and that no further investigation of Glen Terkes is necessary.”
“Perfect,” Zack pronounced, “so we’ll assume the teeth on this gift horse are pearly white. Have the auditors bought off on it?”
“Horace will report directly to the auditors today, with Jean-Claude present. Between the two of them, they think the auditors can be convinced.”
“In that case,” Quan declared, standing up, “all we have to do is read 30,000 emails in the next”—he consulted his watch—“forty-six hours.”
At dawn on the morning before the filing deadline, the Lumina side deal team (minus Ken) filed into the long-deserted basement Diligence room, and dropped themselves wearily onto metal folding chairs. After the hell-hot sensory deprivation of the email reading room at Woodrow, Mantella, the foot-high window overlooking a parking lot seemed like open air in a meadow.
“All right guys, let’s get started,” Zack said. “Big news from Quan.”
“As of 5:25 this morning,” Quan reported, “the email review is complete.” The group whistled and applauded, which Zack immediately suppressed by pushing his flat palms firmly toward them. “Unfortunately, we’re now three days behind schedule, so we don’t know whether finance can finish its evaluation on time.”
“We can do it,” pronounced Terry of Internal Audit. Sotto voce cheers. “We will meet the goal of pencils down and handover to the auditors by midnight tonight.
“The crazy thing is,” Terry continued, “we still don’t know what the answer will be. Right now, the change in Q4 of last year is big enough to require a restatement.” The crowd caught its collective breath. “Unless a deal gets re-bucketed into that quarter, we’ll have to publicly restate our earnings for that quarter. And if another ten thousand falls out of Q2 of ’09, we’ll have to restate our earnings there as well.”
“Guys, we don’t control the outcome,” Zack reminded them. “It would be terrible to lose market value, but we didn’t make this mess. Ken told us our job was to get the answer in time, and it looks like we’re gonna make it. I think we should be very proud of ourselves.” Which was sort of like something Ken would say.
At 7:05 the following morning Ken informed Jean-Claude and the Audit Committee that the results of the investigation had been handed over to the auditors, and (to everyone’s astonishment) no restatement of earnings was required after all. Jean-Claude convened a board meeting one hour later.
“Okay,” he pronounced to the only four members who were physically present, “we are here to review the 10-Q before we file it today. It seems we must owe another big congratulation to Ken and his team. This time we don’t get a bump up in our stock, but we avoid a big bump down, which is slightly less thrilling but equally valuable.” He grinned broadly. “Some of you may know that Ken and I spoke at least twice per week for the last six weeks, and it really was—how do you say—hair lifting? I must say I am extremely surprised and impressed by this outcome.”
“Very impressive,” Larry agreed with a patrician nod. Roy nodded stiffly and silently, his small black eyes watchful over the rims of his narrow oval glasses.
“And what have we done about the people responsible?” Jared called through the speakerphone.
“We haven’t finalized that,” Ken said. “I hope to resolve it by the end of next week.”
“In any event,” Jean-Claude said, “now that we have this dangerous episode behind us, we may expect an impressive quarter.”
Later that day Lumina Software quietly filed its 10-Q on time. Shareholders learned that the company had achieved solid 7 percent revenue growth and that the SAP litigation was now behind them. Happily, they learned nothing of the near-death experience that had been averted by a matter of hours.
“Georgia, could I speak to you a moment in the conference room?” Beatrice was standing in the door of her cube, looking delicate and demure with her dark skirt and white Peter Pan collar covering her compact forty-year-old frame. She’d been looking tired ever since the incident with Sally, but this morning she seemed calm and rested. “I wanted to let you know,” she continued, closing the conference room door, “that I have decided to accept a position at Seagate Technology.” So that’s why she looked better. She was escaping the Nusty Beech.
“That’s terrible,” Georgia responded. “Does Ken know?”
“Oh, yes. And Sally. I spoke to her quite frankly when she came to me, right after Ken forced her to . . .” Beatrice smiled knowingly. “But she didn’t apologize. She told me I misunderstood her, but, Georgia, I didn’t misunderstand her tone of voice to me. She believes I am nothing. If I stayed here, I would have to work with her, so it’s time for me to go. Even though I am so sorry to be leaving Ken.”
“What a huge loss for all of us. I just hope this penetrates the dense skull of our HR queen, and she learns something from it.”
“I do, too, Georgia, but I don’t think you should expect it. She acts this way because it gratifies her. Thank you for taking this time with me. I think it’s really good for the company that you’re here.”
Georgia wandered down to Ken’s office, and found Maggie and Beatrice’s assistant Suzanne already with him. “This a Beatrice meeting?” she asked. “Can I join?”
“Come on in, Georgia,” Ken said. “We’ll probably all be in here before the end of the day.”
“Can you talk her out of it?” Georgia asked.
“No.” Ken shook his head sadly. “If it was about more money, I could get her more money. But Beatrice didn’t say a word to me until her mind was completely made up. We’ve lost her.”
“What I don’t understand,” Suzanne said, “is how we’re going to cope until we get her replacement. How are we going to finish the options memo?”
“What memo is that?” Georgia asked.
“Oh, you know, all this backdating stuff. The board asked us to research all the company’s option practices going back three years. Beatrice is the one who knows everything.”
“Sally said her tea
m can pick up the slack,” Ken said.
“No way!” Suzanne protested. “It’s impossible to get the basic data out of her team as it is.” She put her face in her hands. “I’m gonna be next. If Beatrice couldn’t stand it, how will I?”
Georgia thought it was a very good question.
“Hi,” Zack interrupted, knocking on Ken’s door frame. “Is this the Sally Kurtz hanging posse? Can I join?” Clever, Georgia noted sourly, but a clever joke was still useless. If there was ever going to be a real hanging posse, it would consist entirely of one Georgia Griffin. Too late to help Beatrice, of course, but time for Georgia and the Nusty Beech to develop some rapport.
Georgia was relieved that Nikki showed no interest in taking back management of the executive committee and board meetings as her migraines diminished. When Georgia arrived in the boardroom just before 9 a.m. for the next executive team meeting, Andrea was already in the room with her laptop open, her black turtleneck accentuating her blond, no-nonsense hair. Georgia was setting up the speakerphone when Sally entered, hugging her laptop and thereby obscuring one or two of the gigantic orange poppies on her salmon pink dress. That dress would make a strobe light squint.
“Sally,” Andrea called, her eyes still on her computer screen.
“Yes?” Sally answered warily.
“I understand you told Lucy Feiffer you want to be in on the interviews for my new head of product.”
“Yes. Just the finalists.”
“No,” Andrea said.
“No, what?”
“No, you cannot interview my new head of product. Lucy’s great.”
“I know she’s great, but this is an important position.”
“Precisely,” Andrea agreed, and now she looked squarely at Sally. “A very important position, whose sole criterion needs to be talent and experience for doing the job. You’ll just have to hire your political allies somewhere else.”