around it. Also, he mixed the concrete with .22 shells. That left a construct that could not be chipped away or pulled up. It is my understanding that it still stands today." Peck tapped his fingers together.
"I tell you this generally irrelevant story because I believe it gives some insight into Mr. Beamon's psyche."
Hallorin crossed his legs and examined Peck coolly. He'd found acquired Peck when the man was only eighteen years old. He'd come with an advertising and business consulting firm that Hallorin had purchased sight unseen based on its inspired and wholly unconventional marketing strategies.
It had taken only a couple of weeks to realize that the genius of the organization wasn't in its management team. A few more days of investigation had turned up Roland Peck, a thin, red-haired boy toiling in a small basement office that looked like a trash dump.
Peck's tenuous grasp on sanity was obvious the moment Hallorin met him, as was his brilliance. The boy's ideas were utterly original some times too much so and showed a depth of understanding of human nature and its manipulation that Hallorin had never seen before.
On that day, he had taken the parent less boy under his wing and discarded the company Peck had worked for, Hallorin had spent years carefully cultivating a father-son relationship that would ensure Peck's undying loyalty. With the right handling, Roland Peck was the ultimate weapon.
Now, sixteen years after their first meeting, Peck controlled every aspect of the Hallorin campaign and the widespread business holdings of Hallorin Industrial. On paper, though, he was still nothing more than an assistant marketing director in one of Hallorin's insignificant real estate partnerships.
His anonymity was at times inconvenient, but absolutely necessary.
Hallorin knew that Peck's sexual tastes ran well past amoral and into the bizarre. In fact, when Peck was twenty-five, Hallorin had provided him with a wife that was amenable to allowing him to act out his twisted fantasies with her keeping the possibility of scandal to a minimum. If there were any extramarital excesses, Peck hid them with his normal brilliance.
"So where are we, then, Roland?"
"We had never counted on additional tapes, David. No, we hadn't ever counted on them. They would have been helpful, but it doesn't matter We're still on track. It doesn't matter." from his position in the back of Darby's gently rocking '76 VW van, Tristan Newberry couldn't see the ground or the trees, only the gray clouds moving through the sky. He pushed the sleeping bag off and adjusted himself into a more comfortable position on the bed as Darby turned and began maneuvering up a steep incline. The feel of the old mattress, the smell and motion of the van--it was all so familiar, so comfortable.
Right now, he wished he'd never left it.
They had been inseparable--best friends. They'd traveled all over the world together: wandering from Africa's heat and claustrophobic crush of humanity, to the empty expanses of Patagonia, to the icy tundras of Tibet and the Himalaya. There had been no agenda then; nearly everything they owned and certainly everything they cared about fit in her van or on their backs. The only thing they ever had to think about was where their next adventure would take them and how they were going to finance it.
Tristan felt their progress slow and looked up at Darby as she leaned forward and squinted through the windshield. He felt the van drop as the front tire hit a rut, then a slight acceleration, and the back tires were in and out. Only the right side of Darby's face was visible, but it was enough for him to see the broad smile and exaggerated sigh of relief. No important parts had fallen off what was left of the old vehicle.
"You alive back there, Tristan?"
He stretched and kicked the sleeping bag that was Darby's only blanket into the corner of the bed.
"Yeah, yeah."
"Good." The van lurched to a stop.
"Because we have arrived at our
"I tell you this generally irrelevant story because I believe it gives some insight into Mr. Beamon's psyche."
Hallorin crossed his legs and examined Peck coolly. He'd found acquired Peck when the man was only eighteen years old. He'd come with an advertising and business consulting firm that Hallorin had purchased sight unseen based on its inspired and wholly unconventional marketing strategies.
It had taken only a couple of weeks to realize that the genius of the organization wasn't in its management team. A few more days of investigation had turned up Roland Peck, a thin, red-haired boy toiling in a small basement office that looked like a trash dump.
Peck's tenuous grasp on sanity was obvious the moment Hallorin met him, as was his brilliance. The boy's ideas were utterly original some times too much so and showed a depth of understanding of human nature and its manipulation that Hallorin had never seen before.
On that day, he had taken the parent less boy under his wing and discarded the company Peck had worked for, Hallorin had spent years carefully cultivating a father-son relationship that would ensure Peck's undying loyalty. With the right handling, Roland Peck was the ultimate weapon.
Now, sixteen years after their first meeting, Peck controlled every aspect of the Hallorin campaign and the widespread business holdings of Hallorin Industrial. On paper, though, he was still nothing more than an assistant marketing director in one of Hallorin's insignificant real estate partnerships.
His anonymity was at times inconvenient, but absolutely necessary.
Hallorin knew that Peck's sexual tastes ran well past amoral and into the bizarre. In fact, when Peck was twenty-five, Hallorin had provided him with a wife that was amenable to allowing him to act out his twisted fantasies with her keeping the possibility of scandal to a minimum. If there were any extramarital excesses, Peck hid them with his normal brilliance.
"So where are we, then, Roland?"
"We had never counted on additional tapes, David. No, we hadn't ever counted on them. They would have been helpful, but it doesn't matter We're still on track. It doesn't matter." from his position in the back of Darby's gently rocking '76 VW van, Tristan Newberry couldn't see the ground or the trees, only the gray clouds moving through the sky. He pushed the sleeping bag off and adjusted himself into a more comfortable position on the bed as Darby turned and began maneuvering up a steep incline. The feel of the old mattress, the smell and motion of the van--it was all so familiar, so comfortable.
Right now, he wished he'd never left it.
They had been inseparable--best friends. They'd traveled all over the world together: wandering from Africa's heat and claustrophobic crush of humanity, to the empty expanses of Patagonia, to the icy tundras of Tibet and the Himalaya. There had been no agenda then; nearly everything they owned and certainly everything they cared about fit in her van or on their backs. The only thing they ever had to think about was where their next adventure would take them and how they were going to finance it.
Tristan felt their progress slow and looked up at Darby as she leaned forward and squinted through the windshield. He felt the van drop as the front tire hit a rut, then a slight acceleration, and the back tires were in and out. Only the right side of Darby's face was visible, but it was enough for him to see the broad smile and exaggerated sigh of relief. No important parts had fallen off what was left of the old vehicle.
"You alive back there, Tristan?"
He stretched and kicked the sleeping bag that was Darby's only blanket into the corner of the bed.
"Yeah, yeah."
"Good." The van lurched to a stop.
"Because we have arrived at our
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