Free The Insiders by Craig Hickman Page A

dinner tomorrow night at eight.”
    “Have you talked to our new investors?” Kamin asked.
    “Not yet, but I will. Opportunities like this don’t come along everyday,” Tate said, feeling invincible. Things were coming together on Musselman just as he’d planned. The advertising campaign alone could double the company’s stock price within thirty days of its launch. Even if the America’s Warehouse strategy turned out to have no long-term sustainability—as Wilson Fielder and his Kresge team were predicting—Musselman’s stock price was projected to quadruple by the end of summer. Tate and his partners were not only poised to harvest a financial windfall from J. B. Musselman, they were insulated against all downsides. Any implementation failures would be laid at the feet of David Quinn and his management team. It was exactly the sort of scenario Tate relished.
    When Tate said good-bye to Kamin, he walked to the closet and retrieved another cell phone—one of the encryption phones he would use and discard. He punched in the number and waited for his personal assassin. Within seconds the call was received in Boston by a similar phone. “This is Marco.”
    “It’s Wayland. I want you to go ahead as planned. Tonight.”
    “Done,” Marco said, before ending the call and dismantling the phone. He dropped the pieces into a frog pond in Boston Common.

10
    Daniel – Boston, MA
    Cheryl O’Grady was waiting when Daniel Redd arrived at the bar of the Exelsior, a swank New American-style restaurant overlooking Boston Public Garden. The maître d’ escorted them to a table in one of the restaurant’s secluded alcoves. Cheryl had called Daniel after the merger closing and asked for a private meeting. He’d quickly decided that a public meeting would raise fewer questions than a private encounter. When they sat down in the Queen Anne wing chairs, Daniel casually placed a small surveillance-nullifying device in the middle of their table.
    “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.
    “Depends on whether you’re thinking like KaneWeller or Fielder & Company.”
    “Both, and I’d say it’s a counter-surveillance device, not a recorder.”
    “Correct.”
    “You know what I want to talk about, don’t you?”
    “I think so.”
    “Can I see them?”
    “We agreed they would remain in our custody,” Daniel said. “It was all spelled out in the documents we signed a few hours ago. Remember?”
    “Let me make this simple, Daniel. Either I get access to those files or I scuttle the merger.”
    Daniel searched her eyes. They looked no more sympathetic than an attacking Doberman’s. She was not about to back down. “I’ll let you see the files under my supervision—in our offices—on one condition.”
    “What’s the condition?”
    “You can only use the information as background. None of it can be copied or shared with your colleagues. And none of it can be used in any way to justify your scuttling of the merger.”
    “Agreed. My only interest is to understand exactly what we’re walking into—so we know what to avoid going forward.”
    “Let’s have a drink,” Daniel said. “Then I’ll take you back to our office.”
    After sharing a bottle of Shiraz and a platter of imported goat and sheep cheeses along with professional small talk, Daniel and Cheryl exited the restaurant onto Boylston Street. They walked to the intersection of Arlington and Boylston across from the Boston Public Garden and waited for the light to change.
    Daniel hoped he wouldn’t regret bringing Cheryl to the office to examine the fifty-two files. But all things considered, he had little choice. As Deputy General Counsel for KaneWeller, Cheryl certainly had the power and influence to scuttle the deal if she were so inclined. Allowing her to review the files with an opportunity to explain their true purpose, he told himself, might well be the only way to save the merger and distance Wilson from Fielder & Company. Hopefully, it would