bright and red.
Ensconced in the armchair opposite him, William Halpern released a long, heaving sigh. Wearing dark flannel pants and a herringbone blazer, he was a spare, white-haired man in his mid-fifties with an undershot chin and virtually neutral complexion.
'Awful outside, isn't it?' he said in a haughty Connecticut Yankee accent. 'The forecast was for sunny and warm, you know.'
Using his wheelchair's joystick control, Armitage swiveled around to face his host. He was feeling winded from the dampness, which exacerbated the respiratory problems associated with his condition. The mere act of breathing was a reminder of the limitations of his failing body. Yet from the way the president and chief executive of MetroBank seemed to take the bad weather as a personal affront, one would think he was the man in poor health.
'It's difficult to make predictions for the shore,' Armitage said. 'Don't bother yourself about it, William. I'm hardly up to a stroll on the beach, and found the ride in your corporate helicopter to be quite entertaining.'
'I'm glad,' Halpern said, although he still had the look of someone who had booked reservations at an exclusive restaurant and found his meal to be a cold disappointment. He glanced out the window again and then settled back, appearing resigned and vaguely disgusted, as if realizing there were no one in charge of the climate to whom he might complain. 'I wanted a discreet and quiet spot for our meeting, you see.'
Armitage said nothing. There were, he thought, any number of quiet places in Manhattan where they could have met with greater convenience. But even in their elevated circles a Leominster membership was a glowing symbol of status, and Halpern obviously liked to showcase it. He was also well aware of the attention being paid to Marcus Caine's grab for UpLink voting stock, and with MetroBank retaining a significant percentage of the company, wouldn't want to start rumors flying by being seen with Roger Gordian's most noted media critic.
No, there was nothing mysterious about Halpern's desire to meet where they were. The real question for Armitage was why he'd wanted to get together in the first place. And with their mannerly preliminaries out of the way, he wasn't about to kill time waiting for an answer.
'So,' he said. 'What gossip about the financial community can we exchange? Let's think of something blisteringly hot and in the news. Something that gets flashbulbs popping. Shall we?'
Halpern looked at him.
'There's Monolith and UpLink,' Armitage said with an arid little smile. 'Not to mention UpLink and Monolith.'
Halpern seemed perplexed by his sarcasm. 'I've sat down with some of the men on MetroBank's executive board to discuss liquidating our UpLink shares/' he said. 'Prior to a formal meeting, you understand.'
'And?'
'The consensus to go ahead with the sell-off hasn't materialized as I'd expected.'
'Interesting,' Armitage said.
'It gets more interesting,' Halpern said. 'As you know, I have no allegiance to Roger Gordian, and think his mission to save the world by planting a wireless telephone booth in every garden is nothing but horse crap.'
'You're mixing metaphors,' Armitage said. 'And being a tad reductionist about his goals, wouldn't you say?'
Halpern shrugged. 'Call it what you will, I am concerned with MetroBank's stake in his corporation only insofar as its profitability, or lack of same. But there are directors on the board who feel a personal loyalty to the man, and have been reluctant to part ways with UpLink despite the diminishing returns on our investment. Before yesterday, though, I'd convinced most of them that hanging tight would be an abdication of their fiduciary responsibilties.'
'And what's changed that?'
'Not 'what,' but 'who,' ' Halpern said. 'Gordian himself phoned three senior executives. He requested they hold off on considering any offer from Marcus Caine until he's had a chance to meet with them.'
Armitage wondered if he was expected to be surprised.
'A sensible preemptive move,' he said. 'And one with nothing behind it. As long as UpLink's value continues to deteriorate, your board is obliged to take a serious look at Marcus's bid. Money, not loyalty or misplaced faith in Roger Gordian, is what will count in the final tally.'
'And Gordian has promised to address shareholder doubts about UpLink's future at his press conference tomorrow,' Halpern said. 'He assured the directors he would be making a major, positive announcement. And that they would, at the very least, want to reassess their options after hearing what he has to say.'
This time Armitage raised his eyebrows.
'I thought his reason for going to Washington was to protest the Morrison-Fiore legislation,' he said.
'So did I,' Halpern said. 'And I'll tell you something else. His top securities attorney caught a red-eye out to San Jose last night. Canceled all his other appointments at the last minute.'
'How do you know?'
Halpern stared at him.
'I have my contacts,' he said, shrugging again. 'You… and Marcus… can take my word for it. Something's in the air.'
Armitage inhaled. His chest felt tight. If the feeling persisted, he would have to page his nurse into the room and be administeed a respiratory dilator. He felt a sudden bolt of hatred, and wasn't sure why. Nor was he even certain toward whom it was directed.
Outside the window a seabird emitted a shrill, ribboning cry as it plunged through the low veil of fog.
He looked at Halpern.
'I appreciate the tip, William,' he said. 'But the one thing you haven't told me is where you come down in this.'
Halpern crossed his legs and was silent a moment.
'We've known each other for years, and you've always given me sound financial advice,' he said finally. 'But as you said yourself, this business is about money, not loyalty or faith… and like all bankers, I'm an agnostic.'
'Meaning you'll be listening to Roger Gordian's statement before deciding whether to stay behind the bid.'
Halpern nodded, brushing a speck of lint off his trousers.
'Yes,' he said without hesitation. 'And very closely.'
On a stubby finger of rock jutting off his island base's ocean side, Kersik stared out across the benighted water at the lights of Sandakan Harbor. Restless, he had left camp alone, thinking the freshness of the breeze would somehow dispel his somber mood, but instead it had made him feel worse. He supposed it was his knowledge of the violence that soon would be launched from his pristine shoreline, the deaths that were inevitably to come. There would be dozens, perhaps hundreds… if not many, many more. For a just cause, yes, or anyway a cause in which he squarely believed. But wasn't that the same ancient, self-righteous madness which drove every act of war?
Men fought. They had always fought, whether armed with stones, arrows, guns, or nuclear torpedoes. And they found their reasons. Indeed, Kersik sometimes felt that belief in a cause was nothing but a dark funnel into which both heroes and villains leaped with equal certitude, all tumbling together like clown players in a circus. Like the man who presently ruled Indonesia as if he were a Javanese king, parsing the nation's wealth out to his courtesans… like his predecessor, and Suharto, and those who had come before them, Kersik saw himself as being on the right side of history. Zhiu Sheng, Nga, Luan, they too were right from their individual perspectives — and yet the forces that had moved them into alignment were far too complex to be defined by absolutes.
Kersik's brow creased above his bushy eyebrows. Wasn't the judgment of right or wrong only a matter of who survived to render the verdict when the smoke cleared and the spilled blood of the dead was washed away? He had renounced his allegiance to his country's government and was about to place himself in defiance of ASEAN, Japan, and the United States. The entire world, really. Before all was said and done, he would be called a rogue, an international pariah. And what would he think of himself in the end? Might a division ultimately form in his own mind… half of him feeling validated, half condemned?
Kersik gazed out at the lights of a city that in the last 150 years had been governed once by the Germans, twice by the British, and exploited by traders, gunrunners, and timber lords from diverse corners of the globe. That during World War II was invaded by the Japanese and leveled by American bombs… and that now literally and
