Weldon Hawkins said, “For the past nineteen months, part of our brain trust has been focused on a new issue. Many facets, a multitude of scenarios, but all derived from one base concept. Anticipate the paradigm shift.”
Five of them were gathered in one of the alcoves off the conference center’s top floor. The ground floor held a half dozen meeting rooms. The middle floor contained the banquet hall and a state-of-the-art spa modeled after ancient Roman baths. The top floor was referred to as the Club. The Club held bars, a cinema, a billiard parlor, a smoking room, a library, and lovely courtesans of both sexes. Its alcoves were framed in oiled paneling and Isfahan carpets and windows sealed behind heavy drapes. They were places meant for secrets and strategy. When the Combine gathered, the entire center was swept daily for bugs.
Weldon stood by a fireplace acquired from a Medici palace. Reese was seated in a straight-backed chair she had pulled in from the library. The three gentlemen facing them were sprawled on leather settees, their jackets opened, their hands holding cigars and snifters of vintage brandy.
Weldon continued, “Our brief here at the Reserve is direct enough. We are to follow corporate and economic and political and legal trends. We are to anticipate the moves of national and international governmental bodies. Where possible, we are ordered to turn future trends to our members’ benefit. We are to use whatever means necessary to determine your competitors’ strategies. And we are to use all the powers at our disposal to further your aims.”
The trio seated between Reese and Weldon were members of an intricately interlocked series of corporate boardrooms. Closest to Reese sat Edgar Ross, former US treasury secretary and now CEO of the nation’s second-largest investment bank. He nodded thoughtfully as Weldon continued, “An examination of possible paradigm shifts is a natural component of our mandate. The modern marketplace is too high velocity and too intensely competitive for our members to worry about something that may or may not arrive. That’s our job.”
Next to Ross sat the Swiss chairman and CEO of a pharmaceutical empire that stretched around the globe. He also owned two extremely private Swiss banks. His accent was thick but polished. “Are we quite done here?”
“Not yet. A paradigm shift is defined as an event so monumental it takes humankind to a completely new level of existence. In technology, one paradigm shift came with the invention of the microchip. In medicine it was the discovery of antibiotics. Part of our think tank here is drawn from groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution, where they have been trained as futurists. They take raw data and search beyond the standard event horizon.”
Next to the Swiss sat an Italian telecommunications mogul. He was glossy and slick, and he eyed Reese with the glittering gaze of a well-fed panther. His focus did not shift as he asked Weldon, “You have found something?”
“Until this week, I would have answered you with perhaps. Perhaps we have an issue that might be a real threat.”
“And now?”
“For several years now, a number of respected academics have been predicting that the time is ripe for a cultural paradigm shift,” Weldon replied. “For companies ready for this transition, such a change could catapult them into world dominance. For those left behind or caught unawares, it would mean oblivion and collapse.”
The Swiss magnate said, “Get on with it.”
“One concept arose that troubled us most of all,” Weldon said. “What happened if the next paradigm shift eradicated the global corporate culture?”
The Italian laughed out loud.
“That was our initial response as well. Since the days of Phoenician traders, the world has been ruled by profit and greed. We accused our futurists of watching too many Star Trek reruns. But then we found ourselves unable to let it go. We lost sleep over it, every one of us. Because the more we thought about it, the more valid this concept became.”
Weldon walked over to the window and drew the heavy drapes, blocking out the sparkling night. “The modern corporate culture is built upon certain assumptions. They have been around so long we forget that there was ever once a different system. Today we control the consumer. We dominate their world. We define their fantasies. We promise them fulfillment through our products. We tell them who they want to be. We define success. When they get there, we tell them how to dress and what to drive and how they’ll measure their self-worth. We tell them which pills will make them well, lose weight, stay active. What music defines their life. What entertainment—”
“What did you find?” Edgar Ross demanded.
“Our team decided the greatest risk to our current system would be the simplest. And that is, what might cause the culture to stop listening to us?”
“And the answer was, it would only happen if they discovered something that was more powerful, more compelling, than anything we had to offer them. Something we could neither market nor package. Something over which we had no control.”
“You mean, another drug.”
“No. Something far worse. Something without any negative side effects at all.”
“Impossible,” the Italian mogul declared. He was no longer watching Reese.
Reese spoke for the first time. “Think about the internet.”
The Swiss gentleman waved her words aside. “We don’t control the medium, but we do control the flow.”
“Not all of it,” the banker mused. “Not by a long shot.”
Weldon said, “We asked what would happen to our situation if we were faced with a new item of such overwhelming allure that everything in the commercial process paled in comparison. Then, almost as soon as we framed the question, we discovered a team working on precisely such a concept. And they were making astonishing progress.”
“Buy them out.”
“Unfortunately, what they are proposing cannot be patented or controlled. Once the consumer learns of its existence, we may well lose them entirely.”
“So crush them. That’s what you do, yes? Operate outside the boundaries.”
“We can’t find them,” Weldon said. “We thought we had everything under control. We drew in their financier, and without his knowing we found a way to monitor the team. But somehow they discovered they were being watched. And they vanished. What’s more, they have brought in a security specialist. A former Army Ranger who trained CIA agents in counterterrorism tactics.”
The room had ceased to breathe.
“We sent in our best force. All of them. He escaped.”
“They know,” the Swiss magnate said. “About us, and about you hunting them.”
“We can only assume this is the case.”
“This is terrible.”
“I agree.”
“Where are they?”
“We are fairly certain it’s somewhere in Western Europe. But we can’t be sure of even that. All we know is, some of their members flew to Zurich. Border controls being what they are these days, we lost them there. There is one possibility for finding them. Just one.” Weldon focused on the two European gentlemen. “For that, we need your help.”