will suck CloudServe into a black hole of bankruptcy. CloudServe is your only viable enterprise. You can’t afford to lose it. Everything else must go.”
Dahm sprang onto the dock in a single leap. Stamps instinctively flinched as he brushed against her and headed toward the ship’s bow. She could smell the savory-sweet tang of dope on him even in the slightly gusting breeze.
“The JP Morgan analyst following us gave me a heads-up this morning,” she shouted.
He was fifty feet away now and kneeling down to untie the dock line from its davit. He didn’t respond.
She continued. “They plan to issue a major downgrade in the next week if we can’t demonstrate some kind of a plan to rectify this situation.”
He tossed the freed nylon line onto the deck and headed back her way, his face flint-hard and determined.
“That’s really for the board to decide, isn’t it?” he said as he stomped over to the davit at her feet and knelt down. “And when push comes to shove, the board will do as I say.” He struggled to untie the knot.
“One of the board members called me as well. They’ve all decided they want to address this crisis head-on before it’s too late. They want to teleconference this afternoon at four p.m.”
Dahm finally worked the line free and tossed it onto the deck, then leaped back on board.
He turned around. “I’ll be on the conference call, but I’m not selling any assets. That’s the old way of doing things.”
“It’s the right way of doing things, Elias.”
“Forget it. I’m not selling!” Dahm stormed toward the saloon and his automated helm.
“Then I resign,” she whispered to the back of his head as he disappeared into the cabin.
She turned and marched away to the sound of the boat’s diesel engines turning over. She wiped away the tears clouding her fierce eyes, saddened for her friend. He was a sailor heading into a storm he refused to see. Like “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” she thought.
A line from another Longfellow poem swept across her mind.
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.
What was the poem? Oh, of course. But who said it? A chill ran down her spine.
She turned around to see his yacht pulling away from the dock and into the harbor.
The answer was written on the stern.
Prometheus.
55
GDYNIA, POLAND
Are you sure?” Liliana asked. “It seems like a waste of time.”
“Why not?” Jack shrugged. “You work undercover. Sometimes people tell you things without meaning to.”
“Oh. So this really is a criminal investigation? I thought it was a business trip.”
“Just sayin’.”
They sat parked in front of the Citi Handlowy building, Liliana’s Audi still idling. Christopher Gage’s office was on the tenth floor, according to his website. The bank building, like so many others in Gdynia, was modern steel and glass. Jack had called ahead for an appointment with Gage’s secretary, who booked him for this afternoon.
Gdynia was just a few minutes’ drive from Gdańsk. Like Gdańsk, Gdynia was a port city, one of three (Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Sopot) making up the Trójmiasto lying on Gdańsk Bay, an area of more than one million people. The tricity Trójmiasto was expanding rapidly, thanks to Scandinavian tourists, who favored the much cheaper housing and cost of living, as well as to a recent influx of Chinese investments. Gage had located his headquarters in the middle of the action.
“You coming?”
“If you like.” Liliana killed the engine. “But I doubt he’s going to tell you anything you don’t already know.”
* * *
—
Jack Ryan?”
Christopher Gage stood up from behind his desk. He was Jack’s height and weight, but he was more flab than muscle stuffed inside a tailored gray Armani suit. His well-groomed hair was flecked with gray, like his neatly trimmed beard.
Jack smiled. “Yes.”
“Christopher Gage.”
Jack didn’t detect any hint of recognition in the eyes of Dixon’s stepson, which was fortunate. Despite the fact that they were both children of D.C. politicians, Gage was several years older than Jack, they had attended different schools, and the Gage family fortune put them in a vastly different social circle from the Ryans’. To the best of Jack’s recollection, they had never met before.
They shook hands. Jack noted the soft, uncallused hands. On the wall behind Gage were a dozen framed photos of Dixon-Gage charity projects featuring Christopher with smiling Africans in front of schools, water wells, bicycles, and farm equipment paid for by the trust. Jack gestured toward Liliana. “This is my assistant, Ms. Pilecki.”