First Logical Steps

It was approaching nine in the evening, and the conference room table was strewn with empty coffee cups, remnants of a Chinese takeout order and empty soda cans.

Jack Newman sat half slouched in the executive-style chair at the head of the table, unconsciously spinning his pen around to the mild annoyance of some in the room. What began as a sharp-looking business executive at five that morning was now a disheveled mess: unbuttoned collar, missing tie, wrinkled white shirt and rolled up sleeves.

Gathered around the conference room table, most also slumped in their chairs, sat Jacks team. To the Presidents immediate right was his personal secretary, Ingrid Tisdale, with a notepad and pen in hand taking the minutes of the meeting in shorthand, a laptop at her elbow. Ingrid was a petite, silver-haired woman who remained youthful looking for someone seventy-seven years old.

One chair removed from Jacks secretary sat Pete Niven, facing the view of downtown Atlanta. Pete sat leani