No Way Back Read Online Free PDF Page A

his house unlocked. He never showed up for work. He left no note. He literally
vanished from the face of the earth.
    Now, back in the boardroom, whatever warmth I stoked in Joan when I promoted her to CFO thirty seconds earlier has dissipated, as if I’ve wrenched open a window to a gust of wintry
December air. She looks at me warily. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Well,’ I say. I think: Isn’t my question clear enough?
What happened to Charles Adams?
I try to think of a different way to restate it. I come up with nothing better
than: ‘What do you think happened to Charles Adams?’
    ‘He didn’t show up for work.’
    ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Got that part.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she says. She takes one step towards me, as if to sit once again. She decides against it, and instead remains halfway across the room, an awkward distance for
an intimate conversation. Maybe that’s the point.
    She says: ‘The police came around at first, interviewed everyone. I answered their questions. But they haven’t been back in a while. I don’t even know if they’re still
looking for Charles. Last I heard, they seemed to think he ran away.’
    ‘Ran away?’ I think to myself: Teenagers run away. Young girls who aren’t allowed to date their boyfriends run away. High school students abused by stepfathers run away. Chief
Executive Officers at technology firms do not run away. ‘Ran away from what?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Joan says. But her expression indicates otherwise.
    I try a different tack. ‘Joan, I’m on your team. I just want to know what’s going on. Any information you have could be really useful.’ I add: ‘Haven’t I
already shown you a little good faith?’
    This last, not-so-subtle reminder of Joan’s recent promotion does the trick. She sighs. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘Charles Adams had... problems.’
    ‘What kind of problems?’
    She shakes her head and sighs. ‘He was a weak man,’ she says finally. ‘A nice guy, deep down – heart of gold – but he was weak. He had a personal tragedy in his
family, and then... ’ She stops.
    ‘And then... ?’
    She looks thoughtfully at me, as if deciding whether she can trust me. At last she says: ‘Things went downhill pretty fast. He got involved with bad people.’
    My expression must be blank, because she adds, ‘Not
software
people.’
    ‘Ah,’ I say.
    ‘Tough men,’ she continues. ‘You know, out of place at a company like Tao. They’d come into reception, and wait for him to show up. They wore suits, but it was obvious
they didn’t fit. Like they were costumes. Charles would come out and greet them, and then he’d leave with them, into the parking lot. And they’d drive off somewhere. He’d
come back hours later.’
    A familiar-sounding story. Something I had the pleasure of experiencing first-hand, back in my gambling days. ‘Did they hurt him?’
    ‘Not that I could see. But when he came back, he was always very pale and very quiet. He’d lock himself into his office, and he wouldn’t come out until the end of the day.
Sometimes, when I’d leave the office at eight o’clock, he’d still be in there. I knocked once and asked if he was all right. He wouldn’t open up. He just shouted through the
door, and said he was fine. That he was working.’
    ‘What did he get himself involved in?’
    ‘I really don’t know.’
    She’s telling the truth. I see that. ‘Well,’ I say. ‘Thanks for telling me.’ She turns to the door. She stops again, with her hand on the knob, and looks at me.
‘My turn to ask
you
a question?’
    ‘Shoot.’
    ‘What are the chances of turning this place around?’
    I think about it. My first instinct is to play hero – to sit straight in my chair, puff my chest, and say forcefully, ‘Excellent. We’re going to do it!’ That’s what
the restart executive needs to do: show confidence – everywhere, all the time, to everyone. To make them believe. To hypnotize them with his own will.
    But