Awakening, 2nd edition (42 page)

At any rate, one of these people deliberately damaged the boat. One of them is behind yesterday ’s ice bath. Indirectly, but still behind it. And despite all of this he (or she? Nah . . . this must be a man) has every chance of winning . Perhaps even more of a chance than others, since he won ’t stop at anything —a t least anything that can ’t be considered a criminal offense. And he might just win this race. Unless we stop him. And we will.

Oh well . . . stop him or not , elected or not elected, this whole thing sucks . . . Yesterday’s excitement is history. Now it ’s so dull and stinky here. And on the large scal e , everything is indeed up in the air. The warm feeling of engagement has gone. Gone . . .

She stretched her neck, fidgeted to get more comfortable in the chair and resumed paying attention to the dull, boring, useless flow of words.

It happened during Paul’s speech. He had just finished painting a dark pictu re of the challenges he had to face daily (“ . . .No one cares, no one wants to do shit, all they want is to gossip all day long and to write some crappy reports . . .”) and moved on to describe some positive moments: “But of course, it ’s not completely hopeless. Otherwise, why on earth would I stay there? Occasionally things get done. Last week, for example—”

Whatever accomplishment Paul ’s company had achieved last week remained a mystery forever.

“Yes?” A half-familiar voice said in a tragic whisper. “Do you know where I am now?”

It took Stella at least five or six seconds to realize to whose voice she was listening . She probably would ’ve been just as surprised had her chair started talking to her.

“Listen—” Ed repeated, wedging the cell phone to his head and grimacing as if he was suffering from a toothache.

Apparently, the invisible disturber of the peace knew where Ed was. It was ju st as obvious that he considered Ed ’s whereabouts irrelevant.

“What?” Ed said, this time louder. “No way! He did not! Hold on . . .”

He got up and crossed the room.

“And they made us hand in our phones . . .” said Brandon .

“Let’s keep going, ” Chris said. “So what happened last week?”

But Paul, standing by the flipchart, didn’t reply. His eyes were rooted on the table where just a moment ago Ed had sat. Now Ed was gone. Instead of him, looking lonely at the right side of the table , lay a notebook. An ordinary dark-green notebook. And it was open.

They all began speaking simultaneously.

“Can you believe it?”

“We can’t touch that thing.”

“Are you crazy?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t know about you, but I ’m peeking.”

“He could be back any second. Don ’t even think about it!”

“Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“We’re all in or all out.”

“What if I don ’t want to?”

“Ross, close the door, leave a crack, stand by it.”

After Alex had harshly uttered these abrupt words, silence crawled warily into the room.

Ross obediently posted himself by the door.

“He’s gone, ” he observed through a thin crack. “I can ’t even see him.”

“Perfect,” the familiar commanding notes clanged in Alex ’s voice. “This is our chance.”

In complete silence, he stood up, went to the table and closed the notebook abruptly.

“Everything they write about us is here. It would be stupid not to read it. But everyone must be in. No exceptions.”

“So everything would be fair, ” added Ross from his lookout post .

“Drop it,” said Robert. “He wants everyone ’s hands dirty.”

Alex didn’t argue.

“Right. Because it ’s good for everyone.”

“The best way to get into trouble , ” said Stella. “Listen to someone who tells you that something that is clearly fishy is good for you.”

“Skip the lecture, ” said Paul. “He could be back any moment. Are you in?”

Stella shrugged.

“I’m in. But not because of him.”

“It doesn’t make any difference. Alex, go for it.”

Alex looked around the silent room and reached for the folder.

“Wait,” Michael said quietly.

Alex’s hand froze one inch away from the folder.

“Did everyone think about the consequences?”

“Apparently, ” Alex said impatiently. “I don ’t hear anyone objecting. What ’s there to think about?”

“A bit of e xtra thinking never hurts. You won ’t find any transcript s inside. If anything, you ’ll find conclusion s .”

Alex looked as if he were about to roll his eyes.

“Yes. That’s why we want to read it.”

“Conclusions may be not so convenient for everyone, ” Michael replied vaguely. “But do as you wish. We can always change the rules again.”

“Alex, just do it, ” demanded Joan. “Mike, take it easy. This has nothing to do with our rules.”

It is not a secret that secrets come in all varieties. Some stun you, making your heartbeat muffled and rapid. Others, their voice s thin an d yelping, divulge facts that are not worth the paper they are written on. Another kind of secret throw s the one who dares to stir them into a state of dark , gloomy pondering—a dark rabbit hole that could lead anywhere. And then there are the secrets that fall short of meeting expectations and leave you baffled and disappointed.

The secret of the green folder was of the latter variety .

Ten minutes after Alex had decisively opened the folder , he was still squinting and grimacing trying to make some sense out of Ed ’s scribbles, while being closely watched by the future lords of corporations. The gazes of the lords to be were slowly becoming more and more confused.

“So far the system ’s working fine . . . The result is as obvious as ever . . . Scenario #3 is about to develop fully . . . It ’s classic . . . 2:15 a.m.: moved to the second phase . . . Weak opposition . . .”

Words crawled the paper unhurriedly like caterpillars, forming extremely vague and useless lines. The only useful phra se so far was a fresh note: “A leader has clearly emerged.”

But who was that leader? The scribbles weren ’t even hinting about this person ’s identity.

“ . . . Had lunch, ” Alex was reading, wincing. “Expectations are likely too high . . . A vate— A voting is ripening. What does he mean, ‘ripening?’”

“It’s taken us four days to cut to the chase?” Paul offered an explanation.

“Who knows,” Alex turned the page. “This is hogwash . Just listen to this: No visible alliances so far . . . Tensions within acceptable boundaries . . .”

“We have tensions?”

“Very funny, Paul. Very funny.”

“The possibility of physical violence is negligible . . .”

“No kidding, ” said Brandon . “They think it ’s possible.”

“Everything’s possible around here, ” said Alan in a quiet voi ce.

Alex broke off reading, shot him a momentary glance, intercepted by an intent look from Michael , then directed his attention back to the folder.

“Waterloo scenario . . . Pressure is rising , no candidates so far . . . The pace of development does not exceed expectations . . .”

“It’s almost like they ’re waiting for something to happen, ” observed Brandon . “But what are they waiting for?”

“Who knows. Any ideas on what the hell they mean by Waterloo ?”

Alex was plowing ahead, no longer paying any attention to remarks and questions.

“The second-level influence is insufficient . . . A significant impact is required . . . The overall level of plotting in the group is average . . .”

Joan coughed.

“Hogwash,” Alex repeated his conclusion. “No use for it whatsoever. No names, no details . Nothing. And that ’s not the whole thing , anyway . There ’re only a couple of days here. Waste of time.”

He turned the last page.

“What do you know ?” said Paul. “Hogwash.”

Alex was looking silently at the text printed on a letterhead. These weren ’t scrawls. It was a letter—the last page of what appeared to be a multi-page letter. After Ed ’s jerky handwriting , a printed text looked unusually official and solid.

“—conference, all participating companies agreed to follow the proposed format. According to the agreement (a ttachment D), all participating companies have agreed to recognize fully any contenders selected using your methodology. The enclosed list of candidates fully meets all the requirements provided by your company.

“We would like to emphasize again the extreme sensitivity of this agreement and urge you to keep it completely confidential in full accordance with the NDA. Even a minor leak of information about the intent of the participating companies to establish a joint venture is likely to have a devastating effect on the success of this enterprise and negatively affect stock performance. Mutual interests reflected in paragraph 4.7 of the c ontract—”

“I know one of these people, ” Alex uttered slowly, looking at eleven names listed at the bottom of the page.

“I know one, too, ” said Brandon . “I guess it’s not the same one you know.”

“You guessed right, ” said Michael, who had walked to the table during the reading session. “Storm is my CEO. And who ’s been sent here by someone named Summers?”

“That’s me, ” Chris replied gloomily.

He was staring at the list, looking completely mesmerized.

“Mike, I think you were right, ” said Robert. “We ’ll have to change the rules.”

“So that’s what it is, ” Paul ’s voice was atypically quiet. “It was just a deal, wasn ’t it? And they fed us all this bullshit: leaders, potential, workshop, blah, blah , blah . . . Nice.”

Despite the bitter words, he did not appear irritated.

“On the other hand—”

A loud whisper interrupted him.

“He’s coming!”

Ross was almost dancing with panic by the door.

“He’s coming! He ’s coming!”

“We wrap up at five, ” Michael said, cutting short everyone ’s stirring, his voice sounding unusually crisp. “And we all meet at the pier at five-thirty.”

When half a minute later Ed walked into the room, his appearance was hardly noticed by anyone. They were all too busy listening to Brandon ’s speech. Ed headed for his seat and froze momentarily, his gaze set on the lonely folder. Then his eyes made a quick sweep of the room and he resumed his movement, relief written all over his face. No one looked at him—Brandon knew how to spellbind his audience.