an enormously powerful program. Kind of helps make our point for us, doesn’t it?’
‘But they’re saying it’s a threat to national security,’ said Andrei.
‘But we all know that’s not true. We all know it’s a program with huge commercial application and this threat to national security business is just some senator with a pretty hostile track record trying to big herself up for a hopeless run at the next election. That’s a line I’m very comfortable with. That’s a line our media guys will be taking when the moment’s right, and which we can put out to investors. Given Senator McKenrick’s track record, I think we’ll get a pretty good hearing. As for the power and potential of this program, the senator’s helping us make our case.’
Leib glanced at Andrei. ‘What do you think?’
Andrei shrugged. It made a kind of sense. But so, he suspected, would the opposite argument.
‘Let’s just hope they call you to testify.’ Broule laughed. ‘I guess they’ll have to. How can you investigate something without talking to the person who has the only living, working example of it on earth?’
Andrei stared at the banker’s face on the screen. He hoped they’d call him?
‘You think that’s going to help?’ said Leib.
‘Absolutely. A lot’s going to depend on you, Andrei. You’ll need to give a strong, confident, robust performance at the committee. You’ll need to be charming, natural, likeable.’
Andrei felt ill.
‘We’ll strategize this. We’ll get you the best coaching we can get. That’s what we’re here for. I’m not talking about some washed-up reporter trying to make a few bucks in his spare time. This is why you hired Mann Lever, Andrei. I can get you a dozen ex-senators to put you through the exact experience of what a Senate committee hearing is. There won’t be a single question McKenrick’s committee asks you that you won’t have answered before.’ Didier paused. ‘When it comes down to it, this is how it’s going to play out. You’re the man with the program. You know it like nobody else knows it. You know what it can do, you know what it can’t do. You control it. Which means this so-called threat to national security … Andrei, in the end, it’s you. Show us that you’re not a threat – and the threat’s not there. All that’s there is one very smart, very likeable guy and the enormous commercial power of what you’ve created. The American dream, in short. All that’s left of these hearings is a witch-hunt by some bitter, technophobic, has-been old senator against the embodiment of that dream. Now, if we succeed in putting it across like that – and remember, we’ll be working the press around this – then in the court of public opinion, who wins?’
Robert Leib nodded. ‘Didier’s right.’
‘Of course I’m right,’ said the banker. ‘And that’s why I’m going to get you a market capitalization of a hundred and twenty billion dollars in four months’ time, Senator McKenrick or no Senator McKenrick. You know what? She’s not an obstacle – she’s a godsend. We just need to make sure your performance when you go in front of that committee is pitch perfect.’
42
ANDREI WOKE EARLY on the morning of the hearing. He had breakfast sent up to his hotel room. As he ate, he studied the text of the oral statement that he was going to make. It was the final text that had been approved by his legal team but he made a couple of slight changes nonetheless.
His parents had come from Boston to Washington to see him the previous night, and they had had dinner together. He wished his father had some advice to help him out, but there weren’t too many lessons from Moscow in the nineties that were going to be of much use in front of a US Senate committee.
Now he was too nervous to want the breakfast, but ate anyway. He had been told by his lawyer to make sure to get something into him because it might be a long morning.
At around eight, one of the Fishbowl legal people who had travelled to Washington with him called to see if he wanted to go over anything. Andrei said he was fine. He spent some time doing emails and then went to have a shower and get ready. Someone had organized a suit for him and it was hanging in the wardrobe, ready for him to put on. The tie proved a little harder and in the end he