The Blockchain Revolution Page 22

  One of the few exceptions was Audrey Addams. Where others saw a fantastic boss and a brilliant deal maker, she saw a portly man with perpetually disheveled hair and a taste for inappropriately flamboyant ties. The more successful the bank became, the less worthy she thought he was to lead it. Of course, she never criticized him directly. But she didn’t need to; a sniff and a look at the right time could speak volumes. The more out of sync she became with her peers, the more she compensated with aloofness. And the more aloof she became, the more the word got around: Audrey Addams was not a team player. And that was that.

  Like many surprising success stories in the world of big business, Willie Bigelow’s eventually ended. He pulled off the biggest coup of his career by acquiring a storied bank, First Manhattan, after it made a series of large and disastrous loans that left it with insufficient cash reserves to meet regulatory requirements. But even in that weakened state, its assets were almost three times those of Bowery S&L. It was a complicated deal, too, because Willie’s bank needed to convert from a savings and loan institution into a commercial bank before it could merge. But Willie was convinced this was the transaction of a lifetime, and he stuck with it doggedly, huddling with the lawyers and bucking up the courage of his board. As a last concession to seal the deal, he agreed that he and Benson Cronin, the suave head of First Manhattan, would be co-CEOs of the combined enterprise. It seemed like a safe bet. The chairman would come from Bowery, and he and Willie were tight.

  All seemed to go well, and the bank’s stock rose encouragingly.

  Behind the scenes, though, Cronin was only biding his time, waiting for the right time to bump the bumpkin in the office next door. The opportunity to make his move came when the chairman, suffering from health problems, unexpectedly retired a year after the merger. The board was still split fifty-fifty between the directors of the two banks that had merged, but Cronin began meeting privately with those who had come from Bowery S&L. He showed them a skewed industry survey that suggested they’d been severely under-compensated for years under Bigelow’s leadership. He didn’t mention that his own directors had been paid about the same.

  Cronin sprung his trap at a board meeting under the “other business” topic at the end of the agenda. Without warning Bigelow in advance, he proposed a dramatic increase in director pay. Willie was shocked at the numbers Cronin proposed, predicting analysts and stockholders alike would object. He suggested the board should instead hire a compensation consultant to recommend any adjustments that might be in order. Instead, the board asked him to step out of the room. When he was invited back in, he learned they’d voted to adopt Cronin’s recommendation instead of his own. And also, to demote him to chief operating officer.

  Cronin moved quickly to consolidate his new power by reorganizing management, demoting or letting go former Bowery S&L staff wherever possible. And he made Audrey Addams his chief of staff. Her file showed she had the qualifications and had never been part of Bigelow’s team. Best of all, placing someone with her imperious manner in such a visible and influential role would send a message that the free and easy Bigelow days were over. When he invited her to join his team, Cronin assured her that further advancement would follow in due course.

  Of course, she took the job. She’d been in Cronin’s corner since the first time she heard him speak. At last, the bank – her bank – had a leader who looked and acted the part instead of an ill-groomed ruffian with a Brooklyn accent.

  For a year, Addams felt she’d died and ascended to career heaven. Cronin was as respectful and courteous to her as he was to the board. Within a few months, it was clear he trusted her completely and relied on her absolutely to make his job as efficient and painless as possible.

  Bigelow, naturally, didn’t stick around. He stayed just long enough for his most recently awarded stock options to vest and then left to become CEO of another up and coming bank. Cronin replaced him with Larry Bragg, someone he’d known since college, sharing a dorm room with him there, an apartment while in business school, and vacations after that with their families.

  That was when things on the sixty-fifth floor really changed. Whenever anyone left or a new job was created, Bragg gave preference to cronies from his and Cronin’s past. Within a year, he went further, filling spots with former colleagues without engaging a search firm at all. And the hires were always men.

  Once the new order of things became clear, some of the best female managers quit to pursue better opportunities elsewhere. That trend snowballed as those who remained felt more and more isolated. By the time Bragg’s second anniversary at the bank came around, the only women left in management were those who refused to be edged out as a matter of principle or were so close to retirement that making one last move made no sense.

  That would have been bad enough. But junior staff changes on the sixty-fifth floor were equally disturbing. It seemed that whenever a new manager came on board – male, naturally – the only thing he paid attention to when interviewing an administrative assistant candidate – always a woman – was her appearance. After a while, the vice presidents began firing and hiring their admins in a blatant race to see who could hire the best looker.

  Audrey ignored the disgraceful process for as long as she could. Cronin, she was sure, was above what was going on. He was on the road a great deal, after all, and relied on Bragg as much as he relied on her to keep the place running smoothly. But turning a blind eye grew more difficult as the number of Bragg hires increasingly outnumbered the managers from the old Bowery S&L days.

  And then there was this: some new employees not only had the biases of sexist pigs but were perfectly happy to act like them, too.

  The change wasn’t immediately obvious. Some female employees shut down their bosses if they made an unwelcome move. But others were afraid of losing their jobs, opting instead to put up with as much as they could and avoiding non-public places as much as possible when their predator was around.

  That approach became increasingly necessary as word spread that anyone who complained to the human resources department – now also headed by a Bragg hire – was met with skepticism and endless forms to complete. And no corrective action was ever taken.

  Word also got around that if a woman persisted in her accusations, the director of HR would suggest that perhaps she would be happier working somewhere else. If so, she would receive a glowing recommendation plus twelve extra weeks paid vacation while she looked for a new job. Of course, there would be paperwork to sign – the confidentiality agreement and release of all claims of any kind against the bank, for instance. Just the usual forms.

  If the accuser didn’t take the bait, the director of HR would flip through the papers in her employee file, shake his head, and observe that there didn’t seem to be any room for advancement for her there. As a matter of fact, now that he examined her file more carefully, her performance of late had really been quite poor … Was she sure she couldn’t use a nice vacation?

  And still Cronin looked the other way, either not aware or not caring what was going on outside his corner office door.

  It took a while for Addams to catch on because she was so unapproachable. She never engaged in chitchat with anyone, including the few female senior managers who were left. They might be colleagues, but they were also competitors for advancement.

  Still, reality had a habit of barging into people’s lives – even the Audrey Addamses of the world. For her, not one but two rude shocks arrived in a way she couldn’t ignore. Both took place at a typically boozy going away party open to everyone who worked on the management floor – the kind of event that women who feared unwanted advances found excuses to miss or left as quickly as possible. Audrey rarely tarried either, but that was due to her lack of interest in socializing.

  This time, though, she was taken by surprise. Soon after the party began, Ben Cronin tapped on a glass. So far, so good. Audrey expected him to say a few kind
words about the departing employee. But when Cronin sat down, Larry Bragg rose to announce and congratulate the person who would take over the newly open job, one she’d applied for and thought she should get. But Bragg wasn’t congratulating Audrey Addams. Worse, the person being promoted into the position was junior to her. Someone Bragg had hired just six months before. Someone, of course, who was a man.

  Audrey was forced to stay for a full half hour before she could confront Cronin without being overheard. When she did, he made what she heard as a game, but lame, effort to explain. The job wasn’t a big enough step up for her, he said. Be patient. He had his eye on a better, more appropriate position he expected would open up – maybe as soon as next year. Give him time.

  She didn’t buy it. Furious and humiliated, she retreated to the back of the room, wanting to leave but determined not to let anyone notice and think she cared.

  She didn’t fool everyone, however. Glen Olson, one of Bragg’s latest hires, noticed her sitting alone, checking her email. He’d happened to be watching her when Bragg made his announcement and saw her face change from anticipation to anger.

  People were leaving by now. Only the hard-core party types remained, clustered in the front of the room, laughing loudly. He detached himself from them and strolled over to Audrey.

  “Hi,” he said. “You were out of the office the day I came on board, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to thank you ever since. I really appreciate how helpful and professional you were when I was interviewing.”

  She examined his face cautiously. He’d been perfectly proper during the hiring cycle – very respectful. But that could have been an act. She was, after all, Cronin’s chief of staff and might have some influence over her boss’s hiring decision. No need for an act now, though. He could walk into the CEO’s office any time he wanted without her say so.

  And he was speaking just as respectfully as before. Indeed, he was offering a sympathetic ear without suggesting he knew of any reason why she might need it even though she guessed he’d caught on. He listened carefully to everything she said, frowning or nodding appropriately as the moment required and exactly on cue. He also filled her glass whenever it was empty.

  It became empty several times. That was unusual, because Audrey Addams rarely allowed herself more than a single glass of wine, regardless of the site or circumstances. By the time she was finishing her third, she was venting her frustration and revealing her hurt at being passed over. They were sitting down now on a couch.

  She didn’t notice when the last of the partiers left the room, but he did. He put his arm consolingly around her shoulder, and the unexpected and rare experience of being touched sympathetically put her over the edge. She began to cry, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  “I just can’t believe it,” she sobbed, “I’ve given my heart and soul to this place. I’m here till all hours every night. All I’ve ever wanted was a fair shake, and now this happens.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, taking her hand. “That sounds terribly unfair. I can tell how bad this is hitting you.” He was stroking her hair now.

  But his efforts to console her only made her cry harder; she’d been bottling everything up for so long with no one to confide in. It was beyond unfair.

  Through her tears, she dimly became aware that the hand that had been touching her hair was moving downward. He continued to make soothing sounds, but now both hands were in places they had no right to be.

  The reality of what was happening hit her like a thunderbolt. She jumped to her feet. Looking around, she realized for the first time they were alone and threw the drink he’d just refilled in his face. Her own was burning as much with humiliation at being taken in by his act as with rage and alcohol.

  But his reaction was infuriatingly cool. He stood up and, without touching her, slowly backed her up, quivering, against the wall. Then he slowly pulled her scarf from around her neck.

  “Very pretty,” he whispered, his face just inches from hers. “Silk, isn’t it? Must have cost a lot.” He used it to mop his face and then dropped it on the floor where he pushed it around with his foot, wiping up the rest of the wine.

  “Well then,” he said, “have it your way – which is to say, at home, by yourself. I can’t imagine an ice queen like you getting some any other way.”

  He started to walk away and then turned around, now with the same pleasant smile she remembered from when he was interviewing. “Oh,” he said, “one more thing. Don’t count on Ben keeping his word about setting you up for the job he just promised you. I’ve known him for years, and he knows he’s got it made with you as his chief of staff. With Medusa guarding his door, he never has to play the bad guy. You’re there for good.”

  Chapter 29

  Home, James!

  As usual, the first topic on the agenda of the National Security Council meeting was the one President Yazzi had grown to dislike the most: “Update on Rising Tensions with the Russian Federation.”

  As the other attendees settled in, Yazzi wondered whether he’d been more naïve than most other presidents. Surely, each of his predecessors had been as focused as he was on grand domestic objectives. From that perspective, foreign affairs, and international crises in particular, were unwanted distractions from a president’s real work. Such matters demanded attention, to be sure, but shouldn’t be allowed to stand in the way of achieving real accomplishments. And yet inevitably they did, sometimes swallowing entire presidencies. Look at poor Lyndon Johnson, who’s tremendous progress on social and civil rights issues had been tragically overshadowed by the Vietnam War. Was Yazzi’s presidency, too, on the verge of falling into an international abyss? His earlier decision to return Johnson’s desk to the Oval Office suddenly seemed less auspicious.

  It was time to get going.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Yazzi said. “Let’s begin. Jim, I see you’re first up – again.”

  Jim Wakeman, the national security adviser, stood up, looking weary as he smoothed back his thinning grey hair. “I’m afraid so, Mr. President. As you know, the Russians never withdrew from Belarus after their recent military exercises. We’ve been monitoring the situation closely, of course, and over the past week, we’ve detected more Russian forces crossing the border. Judging by the activity we see in satellite photos of western Russia, it looks like they intend to at least double the number of troops already there.”

  “Just troops?” Yazzi asked.

  “Unfortunately, no, sir,” Wakeman said. “They’re also moving in missile batteries, tank units, and field artillery. That’s bad enough, but what’s really turning the strategic situation upside down is the military-economic treaty Belarus just signed with Russia. We hadn’t expected the pro-Russian presidential candidate to win in Belarus and certainly didn’t see a treaty following so quickly, so frankly this is catching us off guard. Clearly, it must have been negotiated behind the scenes before the election, perhaps in exchange for substantial Russian assistance with vote-tampering. So, almost overnight, Belarus has shifted from making membership overtures to NATO to pledging allegiance once again to the Kremlin.”

  “What’s Denikin’s objective?” Yazzi asked.

  “That’s hard to tell, sir,” Wakeman said. “Instead of concentrating his forces in a single location, he’s spreading them more or less evenly along Belarus’s borders with Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. And the situation on the ground is different in each case.

  “Let’s start with Ukraine, where he’s stirring the pot on multiple public fronts. He’s claiming the Ukrainian government is mistreating ethnic Russians in the western part of the country, and channeling even more economic and military aid than before to the separatists in Eastern Ukraine.

  “So, what about Lithuania?” Wakeman said. “Denikin is suddenly claiming the government is mistreating Russians there, too. There’s about a hundred forty thousand ethnic Russian
s there – about five percent of the total population overall and a much higher percentage in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

  “Next, let’s take a look at Lithuania and Poland together. Denikin is contesting, ‘on behalf of the people of Belarus,’ if you can believe that, the boundary between Lithuania and Poland established at the end of World War II.”

  “That’s quite a juggling performance,” Yazzi said. “But what about the military forces? It doesn’t make sense for Denikin to take on Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania all at once.” Yazzi said. “What’s he really up to? And which country is his real target?”

  “Well, there’s a chance this is all just for domestic consumption,” Wakeman said. “As you know, Denikin has a history of manufacturing crises and incidents abroad to show how tough he is. But, if he does have a territorial objective, here’s what we’re thinking. During the Cold War, the location of the border between Poland and Lithuania didn’t matter that much to Russia, because the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, as Belarus was called back then, as well as Poland and Lithuania were all part of the Soviet bloc. When the Soviet Union broke up, it lost most of its year-round access to the Atlantic. The only major warm-water ports Russia has on the Baltic now are St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad – but Kaliningrad is an isolated bit of territory surrounded by Poland and Lithuania.”

  “I’m sure Denikin would love to get unhindered access to Kaliningrad, for domestic bragging rights if nothing else. He’s made some speeches in the past where he’s spoken of direct access to Kaliningrad as something Russia should be entitled to. With Belarus back under his thumb, he’s halfway to achieving that objective. So, our best guess is he wants to force Lithuania to grant Belarus a land corridor between Lithuania and Poland to Kaliningrad. This is playing very well with his base in Russia and, as you’d expect, in Belarus. The Lithuanians and Poles, of course, are livid. If that’s his game plan, the rest is just camouflage to keep us guessing until he’s ready to act.”