Disclosure Read Free Page B

triangle, and had at its center a smal park, dominated by a wrought-iron pergola, with antique clocks mounted above. Around Pioneer Square were low-rise red-brick buildings built in the early years of the century, with sculpted facades and chiseled dates; these buildings now housed trendy architects, graphic design firms, and a cluster of hightech companies that included Aldus, Advance Holo- and DigiCom.
    Original y, DigiCom had occupied the Hazzard Building, on the south side of the square. As the company grew, it expanded into three floors of the adjacent Western Building, and later, to the Gorham Tower on James Street. But the executive offices were stil on the top three floors of the Hazzard Building, overlooking the square. Sanders's office was on the fourth floor, though he expected later in the week to move up to the fifth.
    He got to the fourth floor at nine in the morning, and immediately sensed that something was wrong. There was a buzz in the hal ways, an electric tension in the air. Staff people clustered at the laser printers and whispered at the coffee machines; they turned away or stopped talking when he walked by.

    He thought, Uh-oh.
    But as a division head, he could hardly stop to ask an assistant what was happening. Sanders walked on, swearing under his breath, angry with himself that he had arrived late on this important day.
    Through the glass wal s of the fourth-floor conference room, he saw Mark Lewyn, the thirty-three-year-old head of Product Design, briefing some of the Conley-White people. It made a striking scene: Lewyn, young, handsome, and imperious, wearing black jeans and a black Armani T-shirt, pacing back and forth and talking animatedly to the blue-suited Conley-White staffers, who sat rigidly before the product mock-ups on the table, and took notes.
    When Lewyn saw Sanders he waved, and came over to the door of the conference room and stuck his head out.
    “Hey, guy,” Lewyn said.
    “Hi, Mark. Listen-”
    “I have just one thing to say to you,” Lewyn said, interrupting. “Fuck 'em. Fuck Garvin. Fuck Phil. Fuck the merger. Fuck 'em al . This reorg sucks. I'm with you on this one, guy.”
    “Listen, Mark, can you”
    “I'm in the middle of something here.” Lewyn jerked his head toward the Conley people in the room. “But I wanted you to know how I feel. It's not right, what they're doing. We'l talk later, okay? Chin up, guy,” Lewyn said. “Keep your powder dry.” And he went back into the conference room.
    The Conley-White people were al staring at Sanders through the glass. He turned away and walked quickly toward his office, with a sense of deepening unease. Lewyn was notorious for his tendency to exaggerate, but even so, the -
    It's not right, what they're doing.
    There didn't seem to be much doubt what that meant. Sanders wasn't going to get a promotion. He broke into a light sweat and felt suddenly dizzy as he walked along the corridor. He leaned against the wal for a moment. He wiped his forehead with his hand and blinked his eyes rapidly. He took a deep breath and shook his head to clear it.
    No promotion. Christ. He took another deep breath, and walked on.
    Instead of the promotion he expected, there was apparently going to be some kind of reorganization. And apparently it was related to the merger.
    The technical divisions had just gone through a major reorganization nine months earlier, which had revised al the lines of authority, upsetting the hel out of everybody in Seattle. Staff people didn't know who to requisition for laser-printer paper, or to degauss a monitor. There had been months of uproar; only in the last few weeks had the tech groups settled down into some semblance of good working routines. Now . . . to reorganize again? It didn't make any sense at al .
    Yet it was last year's reorganization that placed Sanders in line to assume leadership of the tech divisions now. That reorganization had structured the Advanced Products Group into four subdivisions