Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

Stone took the elevator down from the third-floor bedroom of his Turtle Bay town house and

walked into his ground-floor offices. He had inherited the house from a great-aunt and had done much of the restoration work himself. He walked down to the office of his secretary, Joan Robertson, and handed her his bonus check. “Get this into the account, please, and send the IRS the taxes.”

Joan nodded, then looked at the check. “WOW! What is this for?”

“It’s my year-end bonus,” Stone said.

“They’ve never given you a year-end bonus before,” Joan pointed out.

“I brought them the Strategic Services account,” he said. “Eggers liked that. By the way, write yourself a check for ten thousand; I think you’re entitled to a year-end bonus, too.”

“Yes, sir!” Joan said, turning to her computer.

“I’m going to a memorial service for Jim Hackett in a little while, so I may not be here when you get back. I’ll call you later.”

“Got it,” Joan said.

Stone walked back to his office and began reading correspondence.

Jim Hackett’s memorial service was held at a small Episcopal church on Park Avenue. As he entered, Mike Freeman, Hackett’s successor at Strategic Services, beckoned him to a front pew.

The priest made some rambling remarks about Hackett, then turned the pulpit over to Mike Freeman, who spoke movingly of his long relationship with Hackett, who had mentored him and had made him number two at the firm.

The service ended, and Freeman said to Stone, “I’m giving a lunch at the Four Seasons for our branch managers, and I’d like you to be there. Come ride with me.”

Stone got into a Mercedes with Freeman and two other men, who were introduced to him as the heads of the London and Tel Aviv offices. They lunched in a private dining room, and much drink was taken. Stone held back on the wine, wanting to keep a clear head and to remember as many of the names as he could.

When the dishes had been taken away, Mike Freeman stood and addressed the group.

“Gentlemen, Strategic Services is not a publicly traded company; it was owned in its entirety by Jim Hackett, who in his will has left me twenty-five percent of the stock and each of you two percent of the stock.”

There were murmurs of surprise in the group, and they burst into applause. Stone looked around the table and counted twelve noses, not including himself. If the gift of stock applied to him, then the branch managers now owned twenty-six percent of the stock.

“The remaining stock of the company will be owned by the Hackett Foundation, and the board of directors will control how it is voted. The new directors are Derek Barnes, head of our London office, Jake Green, head of Tel Aviv, and Bill Chu, head of Hong Kong. Stone Barrington is our corporate counsel, and I am chairman and CEO. I will also perform the duties of my previous position as COO. Each of the directors will have one vote; I will have two, and I will vote the foundation’s stock.

“That is the new structure, and each of you will run his local office as in the past, subject to budget constraints and the will of the board. I am grateful to all of you for attending Jim’s memorial; none of you had to come. I know that many of you have airplanes to catch this afternoon and evening, so we will end this meeting now and go our separate ways.”

The men got up from their seats, spent a few minutes saying goodbye to each other and Freeman, then everyone departed.

“Ride with me,” Freeman said to Stone, and they got back into the Mercedes.

“I was very surprised to be included in the gift of stock,” Stone said.

“Jim thought highly of you, Stone, from our first tennis match. He admired the way you played against him, the fact that you were not intimidated. As you will recall, Jim was a very intimidating tennis player.”

“I was hanging on by my fingernails,” Stone said.

“He also admired how quickly you mastered the Citation Mustang.” Hackett had suggested during their acquaintance that Stone learn to fly the airplane.

“I was glad of the opportunity to learn a new airplane,” Stone said.

“I’m delighted to hear that, because Jim left you the Mustang in his will. It was his personal property.”

“You’re kidding!” Stone said.

“I am not, and I have a proposition to offer you. Strategic Services has bought a hangar at Teterboro and we have on order a CitationJet 4, which will be delivered shortly. We would like to continue to use the Mustang for business flights of less than a thousand miles, and if you will consent to that, we will offer you space for your airplane in our new hangar, and we will continue to make the payments on the maintenance programs covering the airplane. Also, we’ll have an in-house mechanic at the hangar for smaller maintenance jobs, and one of the company pilots will fly the Mustang up to the Cessna Service Center at Newburgh, New York, for periodic inspections. The firm would also like to buy your old Jetprop,” he said. “We’ll pay whatever you paid for it.”

“I am delighted to accept,” Stone said.