The Veritas Conflict (51 page)

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. Believe me, whoever the informant is, he’s now on thin ice. Because things may be changing. We haven’t decided yet who gets the award.”

“What do you mean?” Ian cupped his gloved hands over his frozen nose.

“Several strange things happened in the last few months. Mary—one of our investigative reporters—was getting an early start, writing our cover story on Pike Holdings for the award edition. She was trying to get a handle on why the companies in the conglomerate have been so incredibly profitable, so resilient. The kind of thing that our readers are dying to know, right? But since Pike Holdings isn’t listed on the stock exchange—its privately owned by the Pike family—they don’t have to disclose much financial information to the public, or to regulators like the SEC. Until they go public with an IPO, they can keep their books and their management practices mostly private.

“But for
our
purposes, we would never give an award to a company that wouldn’t let us look at those things, and they knew it. So Mary had this great idea. Since they were planning an IPO, they’d have to start increasing their disclosure at some point. So we told them they might as well start with us, since we promised them confidentiality, and the article wouldn’t come out until right before the IPO anyway.”

“It sounds like it was pretty much a done deal that they were going to get the award.”

“Yeah. But that’s when things started to get strange. Mary was pushing for their numbers and they apparently had their accountants working furiously to present us something a little more detailed than the normal baloney. They couriered over a package of hundreds of pages of stuff—from their investment bank, I think—and Mary started looking through it. She’s a financial whiz, so she goes right to the spreadsheets that talk about these amazing earnings.” D. J. crossed his arms over his chest. “And on one line of one statement, buried deep in a really messy spreadsheet, was this notation: ‘Flow-through from Peephole Publications.’ ”

“The pornography magazine? Are you telling me …?”

“I’m not telling you anything. We have no idea what it means. Because about one minute after she saw that, and was still sitting there at her desk trying to find any other notations like it—which she didn’t—two men showed up from the investment bank politely requesting the package back. When she came out to talk to them and to protest, they produced a court document ordering it to be returned as proprietary financial information accidentally released.’ She didn’t let on that she’d seen anything strange, but she didn’t get a chance to copy a thing. The two men followed her back to her office and removed the entire package. She’d had it for about thirty minutes, max. The next day she got another nice neat package that looked exactly the same, except the spreadsheets had been organized a little better, and—guess what—that notation was gone.”

Ian’s voice was dry. “Imagine that. Is that porn magazine one of the conglomerate companies Pike Holdings owns?”

D. J. blew out his breath in frustration. “No. That’s why this is so bizarre. Of course, the market doesn’t always look kindly on ‘sin stocks,’ so mainstream companies rarely go near them. Pornography, gambling, alcohol—even tobacco, sometimes—are often privately held, or if they
are
listed on the stock exchange they usually aren’t part of a big, well-known conglomerate. Its usually much more quiet. The reports Pike Holdings filed with us—and which they have presumably now filed with the SEC—show no ownership of any such company. Pharmaceuticals, entertainment companies, publishing, finance, international trade, yes. Skin flicks and porn rags, no.”

“So what do your bosses think that notation meant?”

D. J. threw up his hands in frustration. “They don’t know what to think! Mary went straight to the top and briefed our president on what she’d found. After we confirmed that the second packet had no such notation, our president called over to the investment bank. They said she must have misread something. Since we don’t have a copy of the page we can’t prove anything. Its really Mary’s word against theirs.”

“Tough on her.”

D. J. gave Ian a sardonic smile. “It would be except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We can’t afford to discount her story and then be wrong.” He looked at the dawning comprehension on Ian’s face. “We’ve been doing these awards since the days of J. P. Morgan and Rockefeller. Our choice moves whole markets. The Federal Reserve has to consider the impact of our choice on interest rates, for pete’s sake! If we give an award to someone who turns out to have been cooking their books … well …” he gave a dry laugh, “our credibility—and our
survivability
—will rank somewhere below the Flat Earth Society. If you want to know the truth, our bosses have been in a tizzy ever since Mary walked into the president’s office.”

Ian’s mind raced through the events of the last few days. “I sort of feel like we’re being set up here. This conversation we’re having cannot be a coincidence.”

“No.”

“What’s our next step?”

“Whatever it is, we need to move fast.” D. J. tilted his head back, frowning up at the sky. He looked back at Ian. “In order for the award to be processed properly, a cover story written, and all the legal technicalities done, we usually have the recipient chosen by last week. Obviously, that didn’t happen. My bosses have worked out that our last possible date is this coming Monday. For weeks we’ve had reporters and contacts out practically sweeping the sidewalks to find out
anything
we can to help us
make this decision. We have a sort of alternate winner picked out that we can substitute at the last minute if we have to.”

“Why not just do that now?”

“Because its a poorly researched choice.” D. J. sighed. “We were so sure that we were picking Pike Holdings that we didn’t really investigate other options. And the market will be able to tell we didn’t do a fair job. We’re sort of caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“I can see that. But frankly, I can’t imagine that our project will have any bearing on yours. Its just a little weird, that’s all.”

D. J. glanced around the frozen park. “Well, the fact that we’re even standing out here in thirty-degree weather talking about this is a little weird. But I know what you mean.” He looked down at his watch. “I’ve got to get out of here. With all this, I really can’t afford to miss my plane. Look, Ian, I’m not going to mention this to my supervisors. Not yet. There really isn’t anything here that we can put our finger on. But that said, if you find anything by the close of business on Friday, it might make all the difference in the world. And it wouldn’t make me look so bad to my bosses, either.”

As D. J. strode away toward a row of taxicabs in Harvard Square, Ian whistled softly to himself. Thank goodness Claire was doing that advance work tomorrow afternoon. What on earth was going on?

FORTY-FIVE

S
HERRY SMACKED HER ALARM AND BLEARILY SAT UP IN BED
. She could hear faint music, the tinny strains accompanied by a quiet voice. Her groggy eyes searched the empty room. A weak strand of light trickled in from the window. Even
it
didn’t want to be up this early.

“Claire? What the heck are you doing?”

The voice abruptly stopped, and the door to their closet creaked open. Claire popped her head out and took off her Walkman headphones. “Good morning.” She was fully dressed and wide awake. She smiled up at her sleepy roommate.

“What the sam hill are you doin’ in there? its not even seven o’clock yet.”

Claire’s smile grew sheepish, and she stepped out of the closet. “I know. But I’ve been up since before five finishing my philosophy homework. Our class is discussing abortion today, and we have to write a two-page essay arguing for the view that’s opposite what we believe.”

“Well, that seems like a decent idea, actually. It forces everyone to see the other point of view.” Sherry yawned and started down from the loft.

“Yes, but that means I just spent an hour writing reasons why people should be able to kill their unborn babies. I still feel sick just thinking about it. Anyway, after I was done with the reading and the essay, I just felt icky. I needed to spend some quiet time in worship.” She grinned at Sherry and jerked her head back toward the closet. “its kinda hard to find places to do that in this room, but I discovered that those boxes in there make a perfect seat. The boxes, a closed door, and my Walkman, and I was set.”

Sherry yawned her way over to the sink, where she grabbed her shower stuff. “I’ve got to get moving, or I’m going to miss my eight o’clock. If you’re gone when I get back, uh, have a good class.”

Claire watched Sherry disappear out the door. She still didn’t know what her roommate believed.

She sank down to her bed, her mind’s eye turning backward in time, staring at two years of memories as a crisis pregnancy center volunteer. She had comforted the desperate unwed teenagers, the single moms who would lose their jobs if they had a child,
the women who believed the mantra that it was their choice but who thought they really had no choice. She had cried with the women who had gone through previous abortions and sought God’s healing after years of secret desolation, had broken down in front of a friend who’d just had the procedure, anguished by the thought of a fragile infant’s brutal end. She had held hands and rubbed aching backs, found clothes and arranged housing, contacted adoptive parents and listened for hours.

And most amazing, she had trembled with inexpressible joy at holding in her arms a tiny squalling bundle that—but for God’s meeting the vulnerable and scared where they were—would never have arrived on the earth.

Claire rocked back and forth on the bed, her knees against her chest. Today in class how could she convey God’s heart for both the little ones and their mothers? Her mind was starting to swim at the thought of the day’s discussion.

Prayers coursed through her mind as she began gathering up the materials on her desk, and within moments she was overwhelmed by a peace and love that she knew could come only from God. She smiled to herself and rubbed down the goose bumps on her arms.

When Claire arrived at her philosophy classroom that afternoon, the room was buzzing as usual, but she immediately noticed a difference. A group of eight female students were sitting side by side in the back row like a panel of judges. They reminded her of a line of soldiers, guns at the ready to protect each other’s flank. The eight usually agreed on most issues raised in the class, especially those affecting women. She looked down the row, noting that Jo Markowitz was with them.

Claire found a seat, nodding hello to Bethany at the next desk. She flipped through the reading materials again, skimming the case examples the authors had come up with to illustrate the abortion issue.
Imagine there is a world-class violinist strapped to your body and sharing your organs far nine months; you don’t want him there but he’ll die if you disconnect him: what do you do …? Imagine that “people seeds” come flying through the air, and even though you’ve put up screens against them, they come in your windows anyway take root in the carpet, and grow people who are for nine months totally dependent on you. What do you do?

Her head started to swim again. She looked across the room at Brad, who was laughing and talking to the person in the seat next to him.
God, I don’t know how to hold my own! Please help me! Help these people understand Your ways
.

Coughing emanated from the front of the room, and all eyes turned to Professor Kwong as he brought the class to order.

Ten minutes later things were deteriorating fast. The professor had asked each of them to place their names on a grid—posted at the front of the room—to indicate what they believed about abortion: morally right, wrong, or neutral; should be legal, illegal, or somewhat restricted. All the cards were now on the table, and everyone knew where everyone else stood.

“But you didn’t
ask
for the world-class violinist.” Keesha, one of the “eight amigas,” as Claire had begun to think of them, was looking across the classroom at a Harvard athlete who had come out of the closet as one of just five prolife people in the room. “And frankly, I’m pretty offended that you’re harping on this, Eric, since as a guy its not
your
body that’s being invaded without your consent.”

So far, nearly everyone in the class had made it clear that men were not allowed to have meaningful opinions on this—unless they were prochoice, of course. The other four prolife students were all men. Claire twisted and untwisted the cap on her pen until she feared it would crack. She hadn’t raised her hand yet.

Keesha turned back to Professor Kwong. “Honestly, Professor, this one is a bad metaphor because we’re talking about a
potential
violinist, not an actual one.”

Professor Kwong inclined his head slightly. “If that is your view, then apply the philosophical analysis to the people seeds example instead.”

“Well,” Keesha said, “its basically the same. You didn’t ask for the people seeds, but they are in your house, your property, and you want it back. Under the existentialist model of reason, you should be able to say that you don’t have to take the responsibility for these potential people.”