One hundred

Eight men and three women were seated around the oval table in the Globalcom conference room. At the head, Hicham Omary’s chair was conspicuously empty. The firm’s board of directors were anxious at having been called to convene without their leader.

Glancing at his wristwatch, Hamza Harass motioned to the security guard to leave.

Overweight, and with a horseshoe of thin grey clinging to the back of his head, Harass was sweating – a signal that he needed something for his heart. Slipping a tiny silver box from his pocket, he gulped down one of the red pills inside and, in his own time, addressed the room:

‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank God at last we’ve been permitted to re-enter our offices,’ he began. ‘Despite this fact, the authorities have confiscated computers, files and everything else they could haul away with them. I want to thank you for making yourselves available, and to start by saying how saddened we have all been by the sudden fall from grace of our chairman.’

‘Who would have thought he would have had such an interest in Class A drugs?’ mumbled the man on Harass’s right.

‘C’mon,’ said François Lassalle, the only Frenchman on the board, ‘what planet are you from? This is clearly a set-up!’

Patricia Ross held out her hands. She was seated at the side of the conference table, in a special place reserved for her.

‘The timing was certainly convenient,’ she said quietly. ‘Discovered moments after the start of his anti-corruption crusade.’

‘Of course he was framed,’ affirmed Nadim Lahlou, sitting at the far end of the table. ‘We all know Omary’s no drug dealer.’

‘Is anyone aware of where exactly he’s been taken?’ asked Driss Senbel.

‘To the desert, or the mountains. One of those hell-holes they keep ready for terrorists. Does it really matter?’ Lahlou replied.

‘What matters is what we’re going to do to save him,’ said Patricia Ross.

The directors allowed their gaze to slip onto the notepads and pencils before them.

None said a word. None, that is, until Hamza Harass stood up.

‘Hicham Omary’s empire is crumbling,’ he said. ‘It’s lost eighty-five per cent stock value in a week. I’d be surprised if it’s still open for business by the weekend. Globalcom’s about to be vaporized – wiped off the map.’

‘The shareholders are insisting that trading be suspended,’ said a slim bespectacled man on the left of the table.

Harass wiped a hand over his face.

‘There may be a solution,’ he said. ‘A frail lifeline.’

‘Coming in what form?’ asked Lahlou.

‘In the form of a takeover.’

‘Are you out of your mind? Sell Globalcom without Omary’s blessing? He’d rip out your heart.’

Hamza Harass shrugged.

‘From where I’m sitting,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t look as if Mr. Omary has any cards left to play. He’s not in a position to agree or disagree to anything at all. By Clause 75 of the firm’s company code there is a provision “in extraordinary circumstances that the board of directors are permitted to act in the best interest of the whole”.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that we salvage something from a sinking ship.’

‘By allowing her to be chopped up while she’s still worth something for scrap?’ Lahlou sighed.

Patricia Ross held up a hand.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, wary of the fact she was not on the board and, as such, hardly worthy of an opinion. ‘But as directors of the Omary family firm, ought you not to consider discussing the situation with Mr. Omary’s daughter?’

‘Ghita?’ laughed Senbel.

‘Yes, Ghita.’

Harass choked.

‘As you know, my son was engaged to be married to her. She’s a socialite, a socialite with a brain the size of a pea.’

‘I’ve been trying to locate her,’ said Ross. ‘The Omary mansion has been sealed as you all know. And all her friends appear to have disowned her.’

‘Welcome to reality, Miss Omary,’ said Lassalle.

Hamza Harass clapped his hands hard.

‘Ladies, gentlemen!’ he boomed. ‘I should like to request that the board reconvene tomorrow at twelve noon to vote on the course of action to take.’