In the Company of Killers

by Bryan Christy

  Eady smiled patiently. “You’re not understanding me, Tom. It’s not about me. They’re selling The Sovereign.”

  “The magazine?”

  “All of it.”

  “Fuck me,” he said softly. “Why?”

  Eady laughed. “Why does anyone sell? You’ll continue to have a job, of course. They recognize quality. Unless you take a buyout. They’ll be extending those offers soon, letting others go . . .”

  “Who’s the buyer?”

  “The acquisition includes a billion-dollar endowment. That’s the important thing. With that kind of funding we secure The Sovereign for generations. We’ve ensured this institution’s mission, Tom.”

  “There’s always a who, Vance.”

  Eady sighed. “The acquirer is Perseus Group Media.”

  “Perseus Group?”

  “—Media.”

  “Terry Krieger,” Klay said.

  “I wanted you to hear about it from me, directly.”

  “Jesus,” Klay said quietly.

  “They had a piece of us already. It’s nothing we made public, but PGM has had a twenty percent stake in The Sovereign for some time. It was the only way to catch up to Discovery.”

  “There must have been other buyers.”

  Eady swallowed his drink. “They tried. I tried. Google. Bezos. Disney. We screwed ourselves taking that early money. He wouldn’t relinquish his shares, and nobody who could afford us wants Terry Krieger for a partner. We had no choice.”

  “How much is he paying you?”

  Eady went cold. “Check yourself, Thomas. This was not my decision. Krieger pitched the board in Davos. I was brought in after. For appearances, I expect. The family wants to cash out.” Eady cleared his throat. “In confidence, I did not support the sale.”

  A phone rang. “Excuse me.” Eady reached into his jacket pocket. “I’ll call you back shortly,” he said, and hung up. “Wife worries about me day and night now.”

  Klay’s sat in disbelief. Eady had cancer. The Sovereign had been sold to Terry Krieger and his mercenaries. From the corner of his mind he heard Bernard’s voice: Would you take Perseus Group money?

  Klay was about to stand when he remembered why he’d wanted to see Eady in the first place. “I want to go back to the Philippines,” he said.

  Eady sighed, and shook his head no. “I’m afraid that’s not—”

  “I didn’t make the connection to Botha.”

  Eady shrugged. “Perhaps you were right from the beginning: he’s not using the priest.”

  “No,” Klay said. “He was there. I saw him in the airport.”

  “Saw who?”

  “Botha.”

  Eady returned the nearly empty bottle of scotch to his bar. He stood with his back to Klay, looking out his window. “You saw Botha in the airport, are you certain?”

  “Yes, Vance. There is definitely something more going on. The priest is a peace negotiator on Mindanao. Did you know that?”

  “Was that in the file?”

  “No. He had a photograph from the peace talks. I could come in that way. Do a story on the island’s politics.”

  “No. First casualty of the new world order,” Eady said, turning. “You’re not going back there. Write up what you have on the priest. We’ll run it online.”

  “I think it’s worth—”

  “Damn it, Tom! He won’t print it! Krieger is a devout Catholic! Don’t you see? Get it to me. I’ll run it online before I leave. Sorry.” Eady shook his head, regaining his composure. “A lot on my mind.”

  “Of course,” Klay said. Eady rarely raised his voice. “You’ll have it tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “Um.” Klay pointed to the ceiling. “And the public?”

  Eady shook his head. There was almost nothing left of his office to conceal a microphone, but Vance Eady kept to his rule: no Agency talk in the office.

  Eady got to his feet, “Sorry about all of this, Tom. I’m trying to get out of here before Monday, give my replacement an open field. Sharon Reif. She’s the future, they tell me. I expect you’ll find her . . . interesting. So, get the lay of the land and we’ll talk again. Have a drink at the club. We have some things to discuss. There may be opportunity here . . .”

  “Opportunity?”

  Eady smiled.

  It was, Klay thought, a crevice anything might hide in.

  CHANGE, MOVE, OR DIE

  Sovereign Headquarters

  Washington, DC

  It was several weeks before Klay was invited back to the tenth floor to meet Eady’s replacement. He stepped off the oak-paneled elevator and was met by a glass wall. In the middle of the wall was a door with a metal handle. He pulled, but it was locked. The PGM security badge he reluctantly wore around his neck—one of many recent changes—did not seem to work, either.

  A digitized female voice said, “Please look in the direction of the light. Speak your full name clearly.” A red light appeared. Klay scowled at it and said his name. He pulled on the door handle. Locked. A moment later a thin young man wearing a wireless headset appeared. He opened the door and introduced himself as Timothy, Ms. Reif’s personal assistant. “Sorry, you’re not fully in the system yet,” Timothy said. He wore a slim-cut light blue suit, narrow tie, and shiny black Australian boots. Klay followed him inside.

  “I have Tom Klay,” Timothy said to his headset.

  Eady’s labyrinth had been replaced by what looked like an Apple Store, a hive of hip young people moving among white desks topped with oversized computer monitors. On two walls enormous flat-screen monitors depicted a range of digital activity in real time. The Sovereign’s web pages were up on one, with graphs measuring followers, story impressions, engagements, likes, comments. Six more screens delivered news from dozens of other Perseus Group Media platforms. An electronic news ticker at ceiling level wrapped the room in green, like a neon anaconda.

  Timothy opened a glass door. Sharon Reif rose from her desk. A politician was Klay’s first thought. A TV news anchor. It was the razor-cut blonde hair set against black rectangular glasses. The instant, star-like self-assurance. “Tom Klay. Finally!”

  Reif presented her hand half cupped, no thumb extended, as if she had a small bird she wanted to pass to him. Klay accepted her hand, then didn’t know what to do with it. He held it for a moment and released it.

  She wore an impeccably tailored cream suit, an Apple Watch, and a well-manicured smile. Her posture, Klay noticed, was as impossibly erect as Eady’s.

  Reif gestured toward her sofa. In place of Eady’s worn brown leather couch was a spotless white upholstered sofa with a chrome frame, bookended by armless white chairs.

  She took a seat in one of the chairs and crossed her legs. Klay sat on the sofa, but found the seat too deep for him to sit back.

  “How are you, Tom?”

  He perched at the sofa’s edge. “I’m good.”

  “Good is good.” She leaned forward and patted his knee. “Did they catch the poachers?”

  “From Kenya? No, not yet.”

  “Well, it’s only a matter of time, right? With all the reporting we’re doing, the government there is under a lot of pressure to bring those bastards to justice. We’ll keep on it. It’s been one of my priorities. We set up a hashtag for you, WhoShotTomKlay. It’s getting a lot of traffic. Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  “Reader response has been absolutely terrific. You should check out the comments when you get a chance. It might make you feel better.”

  He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. She was studying him, head cocked slightly like a chickadee, working on some theory about him.

  “Okay, let’s get down to business. We only have a few minutes before the press conference, but I wanted to take the time to meet you in person.”
She studied him again. “How are you?”

  “Good,” he said, puzzled. “Sharon,” he added clumsily.

  “Good is good. Okay, I need to lay some ground rules. No more violent crime. Legal says it’s too risky—and metrics says it doesn’t sell.”

  “Except that’s what I do,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Change, move, or die.”

  While Sharon talked, Klay rubbed the pad of his thumb with the tip of his index finger, quietly spelling two words in one continuous script. It was a technique he used to remind himself how to handle moments like this. The words were “shut” and “up.”

  “You will adapt, Tom. I’m sure of it. We just have to set up a few new rules—of the house, as it were—and get you on your way. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I love to say no. That’s why I’m here. We’re taking the magazine off line.”

  “It is off-line,” Klay said. “It’s a magazine.”

  “No, off line. Terminating it.” She picked up an iPad from her glass coffee table. “We’re going all-digital.” She tapped the screen, sighed. “Your work is analog. I’m looking at your expenses. Twelve months for a single story?”

  She swiped a finger up the screen. “You regularly miss your deadlines.”

  “I take the time the stories need.”

  “This goes back years,” she said, paging through. “Extravagant expenditures. A pet store? You bought a pet store?”

  The pet store had been cover for a piece on Mexican drug trafficking. Narcos love exotics, especially birds and white tigers.

  “We got a good deal on it.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  Klay had his own question: Who’d assembled this file for her? Porfle? Giovanni, the photography editor? Fucking photographers.

  “We’ve had some good results, Sharon.”

  “When I need results, I call a plumber. We’re in the news business here.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “That’s funny?”

  “I thought we were in the insight business, not the news business—telling people why over what. At least that’s what they told me my first day here. Vance Eady did.”

  “Vance.” She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head, birdlike again. “The accountants are still trying to understand what he was up to.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”

  “What?”

  He pointed to his left ear. “I’m a little deaf in this ear.”

  She raised her voice. “I said, the accountants have run into some irregularities when it comes to Mr. Eady. In the best light, they tell me, he took four steps—at four times the cost—to do what could have been done in one.”

  Klay laughed.

  “Funny again?”

  “You think Vance Eady was embezzling?”

  “Probably not. No. But we’re looking into it.” She set her iPad down on top of a Wall Street Journal. “Nobody wants to kick a man when he’s down. Certainly not a man who’s meant so much to this institution. To the world.”

  She waved a hand and smiled brightly. “Let’s not talk about the past, Tom. We wish him well. He was supportive of PGM hiring me. I appreciate that.”

  Klay was distracted by the smell of fresh paint and new carpet. What color carpet did Eady have? He couldn’t recall. How could he not remember the color of the man’s carpet he’d crossed a thousand times?

  No whiff of desiccated tissue. No brittle animal fur. No sign Vance Eady had occupied this room at all. In place of his African masks, books, and zebra mount, a large painting hung on the wall above her glass-topped desk. A single blood-red brushstroke on white canvas. A mirror image of the Japanese painting using a black brushstroke hung behind his head.

  “Do you know my background, Tom?”

  “I saw the email. PR, right?”

  He’d had Tenchant pull up some information on her. Married, forty-six. USC. Born in Chicago. Father, psychiatrist specializing in sleep disorders; mother, corporate lawyer; husband, reality television producer. She started in retail, then turned to advertising. Rose to partner at Aegis-Thompson in Los Angeles, which was subsequently acquired by Perseus Group Media. She was active on social media. Tenchant had pulled up her Twitter. “A bit of news: I’m heading to Washington as new EIC at The Sovereign. Psyched for a new PGM challenge! Big boots 2 fill. [Boots emoji]”

  Klay told Tenchant not to bother digging any deeper.

  “Public relations is selling, Tom. That’s what we’ll be doing now. Selling our information.”

  Klay found it hard to concentrate on what she was saying. Eady used to invite new hires to sit on his sofa and describe their futures for him. If they were nervous, which covered just about everyone, he would hand them his ivory walking stick with some line about how everyone needs a little assistance. They’d hold Eady’s walking stick across their laps and tell him what they had planned for their illustrious careers, how they intended to tell stories in ways that refreshed the old and tired Sovereign. “Not your work, of course, Mr. Eady . . .”

  Those he liked, Eady let in on his little secret. The rest he sent back to their desks, where they learned from their colleagues that they had nervously rubbed a walrus penis bone for half an hour while talking to God.

  She was still talking.

  “. . . that’s what I told the board about Prescott & Brower, which was one of my main accounts when I was a partner at Aegis. David Prescott founded P&B in 1892, selling pith helmets and elephant guns. Did you know that?” She paused. “Tom?”

  “No.”

  “But you see the connection. It, too, was headed for extinction. Enter public relations. Packaging. Brand realignment. We identified P&B’s core deliverable. It wasn’t pith helmets. Or canoes. It was freedom. The African word for freedom is ‘uhuru.’ Did you know that? Of course you did. Our research told us people wanted the name, but not the musty stuff inside. Who needs a compass when we’ve got Google Earth, right? Well, nobody likes freedom more than teenagers. Our path was clear.”

  “Really?” Klay said, thinking it was tan of some kind, Eady’s carpet.

  “Really. We put P&B’s logo on premium T-shirts, delivered low-cut jeans, gave out flip-flops with bottle openers in the soles to colleges across the country. Yesterday’s pith helmets are the hoodies of today, I like to say. What do you think happened?”

  Klay was looking out the window.

  “What happened was our market cap jumped to six billion! Are you familiar with the P&B brand, Tom?”

  His grandfather had had one of those pith helmets in the attic. Klay wondered if he’d ever used it. Chances were the shotguns in the attic had come from P&B, too. He didn’t know. He had ventured into Prescott & Brower’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue a few years ago. He walked in expecting to find fly rods and hand-strung snowshoes. Instead he’d encountered a world not that different from the sex trafficking markets he’d investigated overseas—teenage boys in tank tops and underweight girls in low-cut jeans spraying perfume on tourists.

  “Prescott & Brower,” Klay said. “With the pith helmets.”

  “Exactly. Change, move, or die, right, Tom? That’s evolution. No one knows evolution better than The Sovereign. So, I ask you, do you want to be right and dead like the dinosaurs? Or alive and able to do your elephant stories?”

  “Right and alive would be my choice, Sharon.”

  “I thought so.”

  Reif stood up. She put her hands on the back of her chair. “The Sovereign’s the most trusted media brand in the world. Did you know that?”

  “I did.”

  “Not its most profitable,” she continued. “That’s for sure. But its most trusted. We’re going to leverage that trust to get new products out. Do you have any idea how much money we’ve left on the table not patenting the discoveries our people have made over the years? New
species? Tribal remedies? Genes?!” She looked at him. “Billions! I’d like you to stay on, be a part of this. Mentor a new generation. Would you like to?”

  “I’m just a field guy with a pen, Sharon.”

  “That’s content! We need content, Tom. It’s our competitive edge, the piece our competitors would kill us for. Our challenge is to package our content better, to deliver it dynamically.”

  Klay didn’t respond.

  Reif gave him the chickadee look again. “So, what are you telling me, Tom? What? You want to leave us?”

  Us.

  The word echoed. It was true. He was an outsider now, evicted but invited to return as a Perseus Group tenant. He ground his teeth. It was the choice Bernard had been given as a ranger—join Perseus Group or find some other way to support your family.

  He looked down at his security badge. He was collared now, too.

  “I just want to do my work, Sharon.”

  She clapped her hands. “Excellent! We’re agreed then. It won’t be what it was, Tom. It will be better. Smells a little better already, right?” She waved a hand in front of her nose. “Whew! Right? Okay, I think we’ve covered everything for now. Any questions?”

  “The obvious one,” he said. “We’ve been taken over by a mercenary.”

  She raised an index finger, eager to respond.

  “This is Perseus Group Media,” she emphasized. “Different companies. Totally different! That’s important to understand. Also, Perseus Group, our parent organization, will have no say at all on the editorial side. The board assures me of that. It’s my team. But I’m thrilled to know you’ll be staying with us.”

  She checked her watch. “Okay. Look, we’ll be making a lot of changes. Which reminds me.” She walked to her desk. “I know you and Vance were close. He was your mentor, they tell me.”

  “He was a good man.” Klay corrected himself: “Is.”

  “And I don’t want to intrude on that, but I must ask that you eliminate all contact with him moving forward.”