"In any case," Cheryl said, "it would be grossly negligent of me as CEO to allow us to give in to this extortion. I have a responsibility to protect the corporation."
Lampack, ignored by everyone, now just watched in sullen defeat.
"You have a responsibility," Barlow said, "to protect our lives. The lives of the people who run this company."
"We wouldn't be in this position if it weren't for your negligence," Bross said to Cheryl.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Cheryl snapped.
"You know exactly what I mean," Bross said.
I caught Ron Slattery giving Bross a quick, furtive look. Annoyed, maybe, or warning: It was hard to tell. I wondered what it meant.
Then Slattery said, in a reasonable voice, "Cheryl, you know, we lost a whole lot more than that last quarter on the telecom satellite we're building for Malaysia, right? If we have to take a hundred-million-dollar charge for an extortion demand, or ransom, or whatever we call it-"
"Which I'm sure is covered by our K &R insurance anyway," Lummis put in.
Cheryl was shaking her head. "This is not how it works, Ron. You should know as well as anyone here. In Latin America, when the secuestradores kidnap an American executive, they never get more than thirty percent of their initial ransom demand. It's expected. If you pay them any more, they'll think they didn't ask enough."
"Well, Danziger handles all the special risk coverage for me," Slattery said. "I don't really get into the weeds."
"The point is, this guy's demanding a hundred million dollars-now," she said. "But the moment we go along with him-the moment we agree to wire out a hundred million dollars-he's going to think, Well, why stop now? If a hundred million was that easy, why not a billion? Why not four billion? Why not demand every last goddamned dollar we have in our cash reserves? And then what do we do?"
I nodded; she was right.
"We don't know that, Cheryl," Slattery said. His glasses were smudged, the frames slightly askew. "He's not necessarily going to escalate his demands. I don't think we have any alternative but to give him the hundred million and take him at his word."
She shook her head. "No, Ron, I'm sorry, but one of us has to say no, and that's got to be me. We're going to hang tough. Refuse to give in to his demands."
A panicked expression flashed across Slattery's face, then disappeared. But he said nothing. You could see his loyalty warring with his survival instinct. Russell had promised that he'd be the first to be killed if we didn't cooperate. Yet he was Cheryl's man, the only one here who owed his job directly to her. Her only ally on the executive council. Except for maybe Geoff Latimer; but La-timer seemed to be the sort who was quite careful not to take sides.
"She's going to get us all killed," Bross said, shaking his head.
"How easy it must be for you to issue orders," said Upton Barlow. "After all, you're not the one he's going to shoot first if we don't cooperate." His eyes shifted from Cheryl to Slattery. He'd sensed Slattery's panic the way a dog smells fear. He'd seen daylight between Cheryl and her toady, and he was determined to widen the crack.
"Oh, come on," Cheryl said. "These buffoons aren't actually going to kill anyone. They're trying to scare the hell out of us, and I can see it's working like a charm on you men. But Russell's not going to carry out his threats."
"Oh really?" Bross said. "And what makes you so sure of that?"
"Human nature," she replied brusquely. "I can read people. They may be thugs, but they're not murderers."
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Bross snapped. "These are a bunch of trigger-happy outlaws with guns. You are so out of your league here, Cheryl."
I agreed with Bross, but I wasn't going to say so. I didn't particularly like the woman, but I sure wasn't going to join the other piranhas circling her because they smelled her blood in the water.
"They're hunters who got lost," Cheryl said. "They're tired and hungry and all of a sudden they see this lodge, and they get the big idea to try a holdup. See if they can pull it off. If it wasn't us, it could have been a convenience store. These men aren't actually going to do anything so stupid as to kill one of us."
"They look mighty serious to me," Lummis said.
"There's a bright line between trying to bully a bunch of unarmed businessmen and cold-blooded murder," she said. "And they're not going to cross that line. They're hunters, not hired killers."
I couldn't hold back any longer. "I don't think they're hunters," I said softly.
"Why don't we find out what your CFO has to say about this," Barlow said with a malevolent smile. "You feel like staking your life on Cheryl's ability to read people, Ron? You're the one who gets his brains blown out first."
Slattery looked at Barlow, that panicked look returning, but he didn't reply.
Bo Lampack was trying to get everyone's attention, so we stopped and looked at him.
"If I may say something?" Lampack said. There was silence, so he went on. "Let's face it-a gun is really a phallus. Men like these who insist on waving guns around are really just waving their dicks around. They're compensating for their inadequacies. To challenge them outright is to emasculate them, which could provoke a really hostile and defensive reaction-"
"Will someone tell Russell to get in here and shoot this guy?" said Bross.
Lampack looked around for support, and when no one came to his defense, he sat back, looking deflated.
"They're not hunters," I tried again, a little louder.
Finally, Cheryl looked at me. "What makes you so sure of that, Jake?"
"For one thing, they're not equipped like hunters."
"And you know this how?"
"Because I hunt. I shoot."
"You shoot?" Bross said. "What, paintballs?"
"You want to hear me out or not?"
"Not especially."
"Let the kid talk," Barlow said wearily. "I've got to get to the john before my bladder bursts."
"Start with their outfits," I said. "The camouflage."
"Plenty of hunters wear camo," Lummis pointed out.
I nodded. "But they're not wearing the kind of camouflage you get at a hunting store," I said. "It's old military-issue." The pattern was the old six-color chocolate-chip camouflage, which the army had discontinued around the time of the first Gulf War. "They're also wearing genuine military tactical vests, with gear clips and mag pouches. Those sure aren't regular hunting vests." Hunting vests were normally made out of smooth acrylic so you didn't get snagged on brush or whatever.
"Well, so maybe they picked up their outfits at some Army-Navy surplus store somewhere," Cheryl said.
"That's possible," I said. "Sure. But they're carrying banana clips on their vests. I've never heard of a legit hunter carrying a banana clip. And that gun that Russell was waving around was a Glock 18C."
"Yeah," Bross said with heavy sarcasm. "We were all impressed by your knowledge of firearms."
"Excellent," I said. "That was my whole point-to impress you, Kevin. Then again, maybe I was trying to figure out how much he knew about it. Maybe even where he might have gotten it." I said to the others: "See, the Glock 18 is banned for sale to anyone who's not in law enforcement or the military."
"What-what are you saying, they're soldiers?" Slattery said. "Ex-soldiers?"
"Were you in the Army?" Barlow asked.
"The National Guard Reserve for a year. But my dad was a Marine," I said.
"Maybe they're one of those homegrown militias," said Slattery. "You know, those crazy survivalist gangs that turn up in places like Michigan and Kentucky?"
"Jesus, I've got to take a leak," said Barlow.
"A couple of them also look like they've done time in prison," I said.
"I wonder if they're fugitives of some sort," Geoff Latimer said. "Who maybe pulled off a bank robbery, and they're on the run. Remember that old Humphrey Bogart movie called The Desperate Hours? These escaped convicts are looking for a place to hide, and they break into this suburban house and they hold the family hostage-"