The Fourth Estate (82 page)

As the delegates
broke up, Townsend strolled round the room, trying to appear relaxed as he said
goodbye to some of his chief executives. He only hoped that when they returned
to their own teff itories, they wouldn’t be met by journalists from rival
newspapers wanting to know why the company had gone into voluntary liquidation.
And all because a banker from Ohio had said, “No, Mr. Townsend, I require the
fifty million to be repaid by close of business this evening. Otherwise I will
be left with no choice but to place the matter in the hands of our legal
department.”

As soon as he
could get away, Townsend returned to his suite and packed.

A chauffeur
drove him to the airport, where the Gulfstream was waiting to take off. Would he
be traveling economy class tomorrow? He was unaware of how much the conference
had taken out of him, and within moments of fastening his seatbelt he fell into
a deep sleep.

Armstrong had
planned to rise early and give himself enough time to destroy various papers in
his safe, but he was woken by the chimes of Big Ben, foreshadowing the seven
o’clock television news. He cursed jetlag as he heaved his legs over the side
of the bed, aware of what still needed to be done.

He dressed and
went into the dining room to find his breakfast already laid out: bacon,
sausages, black pudding and four fried eggs, which he washed down with half a
dozen cups of steaming black coffee.

At 7:35 he left
the penthouse and took the lift down to the eleventh floor. He stepped out onto
the landing, switched on the lights, walked quickly down the corridor past his
secretary’s desk, and stopped to jab a code into the pad by the side of his
office door. When the light turned from red to green he pushed the door open.

Once inside, he ignored
the pile of correspondence waiting for him on his desk and headed straight for
the massive safe in the far corner of the room. There was another longer and
more complicated code to complete before he could pull back the heavy door.

The first file
he dug out was marked “Liechtenstein.” He went over to the shredder and began
to feed it in, page after page. Then he returned to the safe and removed a
second file marked “Russia (Book Contracts),” and carried out the same process.
He was halfway through a file marked ‘Territories for Distribution” when a
voice behind him said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Armstrong
swung round to find one of the security guards shining a torch into his face.

“Get out of
here, you fool,” he shouted. “And close the door behind you.”

“I’m sorry,
sir,” said the guard. “No one told me you were in the building.” When the door
had closed, Armstrong continued to shred documents for another forty minutes
until he heard his secretary arrive.

She knocked on
the door. “Good morning, Mr. Armstrong,” she said cheerfully. “It’s Pamela. Do
you need any help?”

“No,” he shouted
above the noise of the shredder. “I’ll be out in a few moments.”

But it was
another twenty-five minutes before he eventually opened the door. “How much
time have I got before the board meeting?” he asked.

“Just over half
an hour,” she replied.

“Ask Mr. Wakeham
to join me immediately.”

‘The deputy
chairman is not expected in today, sir,” said Pamela.

“Not expected?
Why not?” bellowed Armstrong.

“I think he’s
caught the’flu bug that’s been going around. I know he’s already sent his
apologies to the company secretary.”

Armstrong went
over to his desk, looked up Peter’s number in his Filofax and began dialing.
The phone rang several times before it was answered by a female voice.

“is Peter
there?” he boomed.

“Yes, but he’s
in bed. He’s been rather poorly, and the doctor said he needed a few
days’rest.”

“Get him out of
bed.”

There was a long
silence, before a reedy voice asked, “is that you, Dick?”

“Yes, it is,”
replied Armstrong. “What the hell do you mean by missing such a crucial board
meeting?”

“I’m sorry,
Dick, but I’ve got rather a bad dose of ‘flu, and my doctor recommended a few
days’rest.”

1 don’t give a
damn what your doctor recommended,” said Armstrong. “I want you at this board
meeting. I’m going to need all the support I can get.”

“Well, if you
feel it’s that important,” said Peter.

“I most
certainly do,” replied Armstrong. “So get here, and get here fast.”

Armstrong sat
behind his desk, aware of the buzz emanating from the outer offices that
showedthe building was coming to life. He checked his watch: only about ten
minutes before the meeting was due to begin. But not one director had dropped
in for their usual chat, or to ensure that they had his support for whatever
proposal they were recommending to the board. Perhaps they just didn’t realize
he was back.

Pamela entered
his office nervously and handed him a thick briefing file on the agenda for the
morning’s meeting. Item number one, as he had read the previous night, was’The
Pension Fund.” But when he checked in the file, there were no briefing notes
for the directors to considerthe first such notes were attached to item number
two: the fall in circulation of the Citizen after the Globe had cut its cover
price to ten pence.

Armstrong
continued reading through the file until Pamela returned to tell him that it
was two minutes to ten. He pushed himself up from the chair, tucked the file under
his arm and walked confidently into the corridor. As he made his way toward the
boardroom, several employees who passed him said “Good morning.” He gave them
each a warm smile and returned their greeting, though he wasn’t always certain
of their names.

As he approached
the open door of the boardroom, he could hear his fellow directors muttering
among themselves. But the moment he stepped into the room there was an eerie
silence, as if his presence had struck them dumb.

Townsend was
woken by a stewardess as the plane began its descent into Kennedy.

“A Ms. Beresford
phoning from Cleveland. She says you’ll take the call.”

“I’ve just come
out of my meeting with Pierson,” said E.B. “it lasted over an hour, but he
still hadn’t made up his mind by the time I left him.”

“Hadn’t made up
his mind?”

“No. He still
needs to consult the bank’s finance committee before he can come to a final
decision.”

“But surely now
that all the other banks have fallen into place, Pierson can’t ...”

“He can and he
may well. Try to remember that he’s the president of a small bank in Ohio. He’s
not interested in what other banks have agreed to. And after all the bad press
coverage you’ve been getting in the past few weeks, he only cares about one
thing right now.”

“What’s that?”

“Covering his
backside.”

“But doesn’t he
realize that all the other banks will renege if he doesn’t go along with the
overall plan?”

“Yes, he does,
but when I put that to him he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘in which case
I’ll just have to take my chance along with all the others.’”

Townsend began
to curse.

“But he did
promise me one thing,” said E.B.

“What was that?”

“He’ll call the
moment the committee has reached its decision.”

‘That’s big of
him. So what am I expected to do if it goes against me?”

“Release the
press statement we agreed on,” she said.

Townsend felt
sick.

Twenty minutes
later he dashed out of the terminal. A limousine was waiting for him, and he
climbed into the back before the driver could open the door for him. The first
thing he did was to dial his apartment in Manhattan. Kate must have been
waiting by the phone, because she answered immediately.

“Have you heard
anything from Cleveland yeol’ was her first question.

“Yes. E.B.’s
seen Pierson, but he still hasn’t made up his mind,” replied Townsend, as the
carjoinedthe bumper-tobumper traffic on Queens Boulevard.

“What do you
think the odds are on him extending the loan?”

“I asked E.B.
the same question yesterday, and she said fifty-fifty!, “I just wish he’d put
us out of our misery.”

“He will soon
enough.”

“Well, the
moment he does, be sure I’m the first person You call, whatever the outcome.”

“Of course
you’ll be the first person I call,” he said, putting the phone down.

Townsend’s second
call, as the limousine crossed the Queensboro Bridge, was to Tom Spencer. He
hadn’t heard anything either. “But I wouldn’t expect to until after E.B. has
briefed you,” he said. “That’s just not her style.”

“As soon as I
know what Pierson’s decided, we’d better get together to discuss what has to be
done next.”

“Sure,” said
Tom. “Just give me a call the moment you hear anything and I’ll come straight
over.”

The driver swung
into Madison Avenue and eased the limousine into the right-hand lane before pulling
up outside the headquarters of Global International. He was taken by surprise
when Mr. Townsend leaned forward and thanked him for the first time in twenty
years. But he was shocked when he opened the door and the boss said, “Goodbye.”

The chairman of
Global International strode quickly across the sidewalk and into the building.
He headed straight for the bank of elevators and entered the first one that
returned to the ground floor. Although the lobby was full of Global employees,
none of them attempted to join him, except a bellhop who jumped in and turned a
key in a lock next to the top button.

The doors slid
closed and the elevator began to accelerate toward the forty-seventh floor.

When the lift
doors opened again, Townsend stepped out into the thickly carpeted corridor of
the executive floor and walked straight past a receptionist who looked up and
smiled at him. She was about to say “Good morning, Mr. Townsend,” when she saw
the grim expression on his face and thought better of it.

Townsend’s pace
never faltered as the glass doors that led to his office area slid open.

“Messages?” was
all he said as he passed his secretary’s desk and headed toward his office.

THEGLOBE

5 NOVEMBER 1991

S
earch for Missing Tycoon “GOOD MORNING,
GENTLEMEN,” Armstrong said in a loud, cheerful voice, but he received only the
odd murmur in response. Sir Paul Maitland gave a slight nod as Armstrong took
the vacant place on his right. Armstrong looked slowly round the boardroom
table. Every seat was filled except for the deputy chairman’s.

“As everyone is
present other than Mr. Wakeham,” said Sir Paul, checking his fob watch, “who
has already tendered his apologies to the company secretary, I suggest we
begin. Can I ask if you all accept the minutes which have been circulated of
last month’s board meeting as a true and accurate record?”

Everyone nodded
except Armstrong.

“Good. Then the
first item on the agenda is the one we discussed at great length during our
recent finance meeting,” continued Sir Paul, “namely the current position of
the pension fund. On that occasion Mr. Wakeham did his best to brief us
following his short trip to New York, but I fear several questions still remain
unanswered. We came to the conclusion that only our chief executive could property
bring us up to date on what was actually taking place in New York. I am
relieved to see that he has found it possible to join us on this occasion, so
perhaps I should begin by...”

“No, perhaps it
is I who should begin,” interrupted Armstrong, “by giving you a full
explanation of why it was impossible for me to attend last month’s board
meeting.” Sir Paul pursed his lips, folded his arms and stared at the
unoccupied chair at the other end of the table.

I remained at my
desk in New York, gentlemen,” continued Armstrong, “because I was the only
person with whom the print unions were willing to negotiate-as I am sure Peter
Wakeham confirmed at last month’s board meeting. Because of this, not only did
I pull off what some commentators described as a miracle-” Sir Paul glanced
down at a leader that had appeared in the New York Tribune the previous week,
which did indeed use the word “miracle”-”but [ am now able to confirm to the
board something else I asked Mr. Wakeham to pass on to you, namely that the
Tribune has finally turned the corner, and for the past month has been making a
positive contribution to our P and L account.” Armstrong paused before adding,
“And what’s more, it is doing so for the first time since we took the paper
over.” Several members of the board seemed unable to look in his direction.
Others who did were not indicating approval. “Perhaps I deserve some praise for
this monumental achievement,” Armstrong said, “rather than the continual
carping criticism I get from a chairman whose idea of enterprise is to feed the
ducks on Epsom Downs.”