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“Dennis doesn’t believe in squabbling over rank, so the offices of all the people reporting to him are the same size.”
The statement made sense, but at the same time it didn’t. I was a lowly analyst, just out of business school with no staff, and my office was two floors above Fisher’sandthe same size?
The view out the window was magnificent, looking over the city and toward the Pacific beyond. I wasn’t in real-ville anymore, that much was certain. Ramona wasn’t going to believe this.
“Nice view, huh?” Cindy remarked.
“I was just thinking that.” I ventured in and felt the polished mahogany of the desk, another step up from cubicle-land.
“I’ll get you the Talbot paperwork,” she said. “Take an inventory, and let me know if you need anything else.”
“Sure.”
“Your system login should be the same, but with upgraded access. Give me your cell number, and I’ll send you all the office contacts.”
I wrote the number down for her. “Thanks. I’ll need a few minutes to get my bearings. And where will the meeting be?”
She pointed toward where we’d come from. “The boardroom. Second door past Dennis’s office.”
It was odd to hear her call him Dennis, as if he were just another guy, a normal occupant of this floor, instead of the creature from hell I knew him to be. How would she feel about him when the truth was revealed?
She left me alone in the space that was nowmyoffice.
I opened one of the short lateral files, which was mahogany like everything else in sight. The top drawer was sparsely filled, and its files were alphabetized. The second-drawer files were numerically coded—the same system as in the file rooms I’d burgled.
The numeric coding made it impossible to find something unless you knew the code it has been stored under, and only Hydra had access to that information somehow. But even he had been wrong twice and sent me after files that didn’t seem helpful in bringing down Benson.
As promised, my phone chirped with Cindy’s message, which contained a bunch of office and cell numbers. I added them to my contacts.
A few minutes later, Cindy reappeared with an armload of papers. “This is everything on Talbot—at least everything I could find.” She set them down on the small, circular conference table near the door.
I had an office with a couch, a meeting table, a monster desk, and a view to kill for. What a life.
The sheer height of the stack Cindy had arranged changed my perspective quickly.
“Two o’clock? Is that right?” I asked.
“That’s right. It’s the final meeting to sign, as I understand it.”
“Sign?”
“Didn’t he tell you? We’re purchasing a Talbot division. It’s been in the works for a few months now.”
I sighed. “By two o’clock?”
“If you want to tell him you need more time, you better do it right away. The Talbot team is flying in from Oregon.”
I followed her down to Mr. Benson’s,Dennis’s, office. I had to remember to use his first name if I wanted to fit in.
I knocked, and he called for me to enter.
He looked up as I stopped just inside the door. “Yes?”
“The Talbot files are massive. What would you like me to concentrate on for this afternoon?”
His brow knit as if that was a stupid question. “The entire file, of course. This is the final meeting with them. We should be signed by tonight.”
“It’s just that it’s so—”
