The Fourth Estate (81 page)

By the end of
the third week she had completed the striptease, and left him all but naked.
And all because of one phone call. He began to wonder how long those words
would haunt him:

“Would it be too
mucb to ask the figure you bave in mind, Mr. Townsend?”

“Yes,
Ambassador. Tbree billion dollars.”

E.B. didn’t have
to remind him that there was still the contingency plan to be considered before
she could move on to stage three.

However many
times they wrote and rewrote the press release, its conclusion was always the
same: Global Corp was filing for Chapter Eleven, and would be going into
voluntary liquidation. Townsend had rarely spent a more distasteful couple of
hours in his life. He could already see the stark headline in the Citizen:
“Townsend Bankrupt.”

Once they had
agreed on the wording of the press release, E.B. was ready to move on to the
next stage. She asked Townsend which banks he felt would be most sympathetic to
his cause. He immediately identified six, and then added a further five whose
long-term relationship with the company had always been amicable. But as for
the rest, he warned her, he had never dealt with any of them before he set
about raising the three billion for the Multi Media deal. And one of them had
already demanded their money back, “come what may ...”

“Then we’ll have
to leave that one till last,” said E.B.

She began by
approaching the senior loan officer of the bank with the largest credit line,
and told him in detail of the rigors she had put Townsend through. He was
impressed and agreed to support her plan-but only if every other bank involved
also accepted the rescue package. The next five took a little longer to fall
into line, but once she had secured their co-operation, E.B. began to pick off
the others one by one, always able to point out that to date every institution
she had talked to had agreed to go along with her proposals. In London she had
appointments with Barclays, Midland Montagu and Rothschilds. She intended to
continue her journey to Paris, where she would see Cr6dit Lyonnais, and then
flights were booked for Frankfurt, Bonn and Zurich, as she tried to weld each
link in the chain.

She had promised
Townsend that if she was successful in London she would phone and let him know
immediately. But if she failed at any stage, her next flight would be to
Honolulu, where she would brief the assembled Global delegates not on the
company’s long-term future, but on why, when they returned to their own
countries, they would be looking for new jobs.

E.B. left for
London that evening, armed with a case full of files, a book of plane tickets
and a list of telephone numbers that would allow her access to Townsend at any
time of the day or night. Over the next four days she planned to visit all the
banks and financial institutions which would, between them, decide Global’s
fate. Townsend knew that if she failed to convince just one of them, she
wouldn’t hesitate to return to New York and send his files down to the
thirteenth floor. The only concession she agreed was to give him an houes
notice before she issued the press release.

“At least if
you’re in Honolulu you won’t be doorstepped by the world’s press,” she had said
just before she left for Europe.

Townsend had
given her a wry smile. “if you issue that press release it won’t matter where I
am,” he said. ‘They’ll find me.”

Townsend’s Gulfstrearn
landed in Honolulu just as the sun was setting. He was picked up at the airport
and driven straight to the hotel. When he checked in, he was handed a message
which read simply, “All three banks in London have agreed to the package. On my
way to Paris. E.B.”

He unpacked,
took a shower and joined his main board directors for dinner. They had flown in
from all over the world for what he had originally intended to be an exchange
of ideas on the development of the company over the next ten years. Now it
looked as if they might be talking about how to dismantle it in the next ten
days.

Everyone around
the table did their utmost to appear cheerful, although most of them had been
summoned to the presence of E.B. at some time during the past few weeks. And all
of them, after they had been released, immediately shelved any ideas they might
have had for expansion. The most optimistic word that ever passed E.B.’s lips
during those cross-examinations had been “consolidation.” She had asked the
company secretary and the group’s chief financial officer to prepare a
contingency plan which would involve suspending the company’s shares and filing
for voluntary liquidation. They were finding it particularly difficult to look
as if they were enjoying themselves.

After dinner
Townsend went straight to bed, and spent another sleepless night that couldn’t
be blamed on jetlag. He heard the message being pushed under his door at around
three in the morning. He leaped out of bed and tore it open nervously. “The
French have agreed-reluctantly. On my way to Frankfurt. E.B.”

At seven, Bruce
Kelly joined him in his suite for breakfast. Bruce had recently returned to
London to become managing director of Global TV, and he began by explaining to
Townsend that his biggest problem was getting the skeptical British to buy the
hundred thousand satellite dishes that were presently being stored in a
warehouse in Watford. His latest idea was to give them away free to every
reader of the Globe. Townsend just nodded between sips of tea. Neither of them
mentioned the one subject that was on both their minds.

After breakfast
they went down to the coffee room together, and Townsend moved among the
tables, chatting to his chief executives from around the world. By the time he
had circled the room, he came to the conclusion that they were either very good
actors or they had no idea how precarious the situation really was. He hoped
the latter.

The opening
lecture that morning was given by Henry Kissinger, on the international
significance of the Pacific Rim. Townsend sat in the front row, wishing that
his father could have been present to hear the words of the former secretary of
state as he talked of opportunities no one would have thought possible a decade
before, and in which he believed Global would be a major player. Townsend’s
mind drifted back to his mother, now aged over ninety, and her words when he
had first returned to Australia forty years earlier: I have always had an
abhorrence of debt in any form.” He could even remember the tone of her voice.

During the day,
Townsend dropped into as many of the seminars as he could manage, leaving each
one with the words “commitment,” “vision,” and “expansion” ringing in his ears.
Before he climbed into bed that night, he was handed the latest missive from
E.B.: “Frankfurt and Bonn have agreed, but extracted tough terms. On my way to
Zurich. Will phone as soon as I know their decision.” He had another sleepless
night as he lay waiting for the phone to ring.

Townsend had
originally suggested that, following Zurich, F.B. should fly straight to
Honolulu so that she could brief him personally. But she didn’t think that was
a good idea.

“After all,” she
reminded him, “I’m hardly going to boost morale by chatting to the delegates
about my job description.”

“Perhaps they’d
think you’re my mistress,” said Townsend.

She didn’t
laugh.

After lunch on
the third day, it was Sir James Goldsmith’s turn to address the conference. But
as soon as the lights were lowered, Townsend began checking his watch,
anxiously wondering when E.B. might call.

Sir James walked
onto the platform to enthusiastic applaUse from the delegates. He placed his
speech on the lectern, looked out into an audience he could no longer see and
began with the words: “it is a great pleasure for me to be addressing a group
of people who work for one of the most successful companies in the world.”
Townsend became engrossed by Sir James’s views on the future of the EC, and why
he had decided to stand for the European Parliament. “As an elected member I
will have the opportunity to...”

“Excuse me,
sir.” Townsend looked up to see the hotel manager hovering beside him. “There’s
a call from Zurich for you. She says it’s urgent.”

Townsend nodded
and quickly followed him out of the darkened room and into the corridor.

“Would you like
to take it in my office?”

“No,” Townsend
said. “Put it through to my room.”

“Of course,
sir,” said the manager, as Townsend headed for the nearest lift.

In the corridor he
passed one of his secretaries, who wondered why the boss was leaving SirJames’s
lecture when he was down on the program to give the vote of thanks.

When Townsend
let himself into his suite, the phone was already ringing.

He walked across
the room and picked up the receiver, glad she couldn’t see how nervous he was.

“Keith
Townsend,” he said.

‘The Bank of
Zurich have agreed to the package.”

‘Thank God for
that.”

“But at a price.
They’re demanding three points above base rate, for the entire ten-year period.
That will cost Global a further $17.5 million.”

“And what was
your response?”

“I accepted
their terms. They were shrewd enough to work out that they were among the last
to be approached, so I didn’t have many cards to bargain with.”

He took his time
before he asked the next question. “What are my chances of survival now?”

“Still no better
than fifty-fifty,” she said. “Don’t put any money on it.”

“I don’t have
any money,” Townsend said. “You even took away my credit cards, remember?”

E.B. didn’t
respond.

“Is there
anything I can stdl do?”

“Just be sure
that when you deliver your closing speech this evening, you leave them in no
doubt that you’re the chairman of the most successful media company in the
world, not that you’re possibly only a few hours away from filing for voluntary
liquidation.”

“And when will I
know which it is?”

“Sometime
tomorrow would be my guess,” said E.B. “I’ll call you the moment my meeting
with Austin Pierson is over.” The line went dead.

Armstrong was
met off Concorde by Reg, who drove him through the drifting sleet from Heathrow
into London. It always annoyed him that the civil aviation authorities wouldn’t
allow him the use of his helicopter over the city during the hours of darkness.
Back at Armstrong House, he took the lift straight up to the penthouse, woke
his chef and ordered him to prepare a meal. He took a long, hot shower, and
thirty minutes later he appeared at the dining room table in a dressing-gown,
smoking a cigar.

A large plate of
caviar had been laid out for himi he had scooped up the first mouthful with his
fingers even before he sat down. After several more handfuls, he lifted his
briefcase up onto the table and extracted a single sheet of paper which he
placed in front of him. He began to study the agenda for the next day’s board
meeting, between mouthfuls of caviar and glass after glass of champagne.

After a few
minutes he pushed the agenda to one side, confident that if he could get past
item one he had convincing answers to anything else Sir Paul might come up with.
He lumbered into the bedroom and propped himself up in bed with a couple of
pillows. He switched on the television and began flicking from channel to
channel in search of something to distract him. He finally fell asleep watching
an old Laurel and Hardy movie.

Townsend picked
up his speech from a side table, left the suite and walked across the corridor
to the lift. At the ground floor, he made his way quickly over to the
conference center.

Long before he
reached the ballroom he could hear the relaxed chattering of the waiting
delegates. As he entered the room, a thousand executives fell silent and rose
from their places. He walked down the center aisle onto the stage and placed
his speech on the lectern, then looked down at his audience, a group of the most
talented men and women in the media world, some of whom had served him for over
thirty years.

“Ladies and
gentlemen, let me begin by saying that Global has never been in better shape to
face the challenges of the twenty-first century. We now control fortyone
television and radio stations, 137 newspapers and 249 magazines. And of course
we have recently added a jewel to our crown:

TVNews, the
biggest-selling magazine in the world. With such a portfolio, Global has become
the most powerful communications empire on earth. Our task is to remain the
world leaders, and I see before me a team of men and women who are dedicated to
keeping Global in the forefront of communications. During the next decade. . .”
Townsend spoke for another forty minutes on the future of the company and the
roles they would all be playing in it, finishing with the words: “It has been a
record year for Global. When we meet next year, let’s confound our critics by
delivering an even better one.”

They all stood
and cheered him. But as the applause died down, he couldn’t help remembering
that another meeting would be taking place in Cleveland the following morning,
at which only one question would be answered, and it certainly wouldn’t be
followed by applause.