So! I'm going to the out-door-woods this weekend, which means I won't be around the interwebs. Translation, you get a quicker update! Sadness, the next one probably won't be until Tuesday... I don't own Frozen.
"Thirty-three percent of residual shares."
"Thirty-three? You've got to be joking."
"Thirty-three is generous, considering your bull-shit offer. Plus commissions tied to ship capacities in the off-season, cataloged by our marketing team."
"Madison, control yourself."
"I think it's about time we go for a coffee break, wouldn't you say?"
One of Triton's girls, the only one to speak for the duration of the two-hour negotiation (battle), eked out a phrase that signaled a temporary truce.
Three more daughters were engrossed in their smart phones, another in a crossword puzzle, while one fire-engine red head stared dreamily at a dark page boy who had wheeled in the coffee cart.
It'll never work. Two different worlds.
Ursula rose from the head of the table like a sea monster from the depths, the wall-length aquarium behind her throwing shadows over her sickly purple pallor, white hair thinning yet stubbornly styled. Anna almost admired the woman, coming to a board meeting only four days after a round of chemo. Two eels floated by the woman's shoulder, as if she were sprouting tentacled arms to choke the life from her corporate subordinates.
"Fine, but if you plan on stalling much longer, we're walking. We've got reps from Sandals, Carnival, and Atlantis on standby back at our home offices."
"Madison!" Hans called, as Anna swept onto the balcony in a huff of feigned fury.
Anna and Hans had walked into the board room all brief cases and business suits after Kristoff and Sven had incapacitated the actual reps from the cruise line that Seven Seas Trading was buying out. The Norwegian men were currently taking out most of the private foot security the Carols had hired to oversee their affiliate offices at Caneel Bay. Jane couldn't access the systems remotely; she had to be on an authorized computer to make any sort of transfers. Creating a phantom authorization code for her own systems would take too long, and would probably be detected before the transfer went through. That meant Jane had to get into the Seven Seas offices in the Caneel resort and install a program that would piggy-back the financial transfers once the account numbers and pass codes were entered. Third floor. Not many sophisticated electronic locks, but at least a dozen on hired security. Sven and Kristoff were more than happy to clear a path.
In the meantime, Anna was doing her damndest to get Ursula to trust her, and by 'her' she meant Madison Hannah.
Madison Hannah was ruthless, savvy, and the perfect lure for the kraken that was Ursula Carol. Graduating Yale with an MBA at twenty-one, Madison had been with Conch Cruises for two years, having interned in their finance department during her undergraduate summers. Anna had constructed a spectacular narrative for her alias, Madison rising through the ranks of a prep school and an early graduation, completing the dual undergrad and master's programs in a record amount of semesters. Her coveted externships with Conch and subsequent hiring gave her a higher profile; Jane had even taken some of Anna's fake news articles and uploaded them to the web, rearranging date and time stamps as needed to create a detailed electronic trail. It was Ursula's habit to do research on her acquisitions, as well as the people who were charged with negotiations. Ursula had Googled Madison Hannah and discovered a fierce young woman hellbent on business success, unfortunately overshadowed by her less driven, less responsible, but far more male brother, Thomas Hannah.
Cue Hans Westerguard.
Unlike Madison, Thomas took an extra two years at Brown, not Yale, to complete his degree. He was only at Conch because their father (a completely faked, but completely loaded software tycoon) had made a payment to Conch Cruises off the books to hire his son.
Ursula knew all of this; Hans had seen to it through his own manipulative techniques that her personal assistants, Flo and Jet, had briefed her prior to the meeting with the details of the Conch representatives' personal lives.
Nothing like thinking you have the advantage in negotiations.
Anna threw the double doors to the balcony open with both hands, leaving the sterility of the board room for sunshine and sand-blinding white. Wave sounds and seagull screeches drummed in her ears, muffled only lightly by the nude EP Jane had slipped her that morning. She hitched a hip against the balcony, and pulled a small green box of Al Capone cigarillos from the inside of her navy blazer. She tamped it, and drew one, a dishwater brown tobacco stick with three times the potency of an average cigarette.
Anna needed to make a point.
The girl Ursula would choose as her successor was anything but average.
She even sprung for the industrial, Turbo Shagreen lighter instead of the fluorescent BICs she'd bypassed in the stained metal caddy at the convenience store yesterday. Anna was building a character, putting on a show, and that show needed props. Fortunately, the zillionaire in the cabana next to hers had an affinity for lighters retailing at $1,200. Unfortunately, he left his back sliding door unlocked while he played golf.
She popped the top open and flicked the thumbwheel, flame bursting like a hand-held Roman Candle. She ignited the tip of the cigarillo, and began puffing away. Pacing, arms crossed, all she had to do was wait.
Ursula squeezed through the doors, banging them behind her.
Anna spared her a glance, but didn't initiate.
Let her think she's in control.
Ursula's blood-red lips drew back over graying teeth, canines pointier than natural. She chuckled, deep, more hum than laugh, and took slow, lumbering strides to the opposite side of the balcony, pulling out her own package of cigarettes. She stuck a limp stick between the plump, blood-colored flesh and it flapped listlessly between her lips, her lighter mysteriously out of fluid and refusing to ignite.
"Need a light?" Anna asked, holding her own Turbo up, expression somewhere between consternation and wariness.
"Ummmhmmm," Ursula purred.
Anna lit while Ursula inhaled deeply, bulging breasts rising against the indecent plunge of her business jacket. She was much too old and much too sick to be wearing anything so revealing, and much too powerful to give a damn.
The pair were engaged in a stand-off with their respective tobaccos, neither wanting the vulnerability associated with launching the conversation.
Anna had already offered a light. Psychologically, she retained the upper hand; and Ursula, no matter how slightly, was in her debt.
"I won't go higher," Ursula said.
"Your brother will. And as CFO, he's got a little more weight to throw around, wouldn't you say?"
Strike.
"You think this is my first negotiation, sweet child?" Ursula rasped. She was not stirred, not angry, not easily flustered.
"No. But from what I hear, it might be your last."
Strike.
"You're very cruel to a dying woman."
"I am cruel to a corporate head who knows her way around a lowball offer. This isn't personal."
"That's a good mindset. It will serve you well, should you continue in this business."
"I'll be unemployed when this merger is complete, might as well go balls to the wall," Anna said, huffing against the saliva-slick end of her cigarillo. She peered out over the balcony and feigned disinterest. "But not for long."
"Why do you say that?"
"Unlike my fuck-up of a brother, I'm not afraid of stepping on a few toes to get what I want. I work hard and I'm damn good at what I do. I'll get a company to recognize that in no time."
"You're a little cocky," Ursula said.
"You're a little patronizing."
"I've earned that right, dear. It's thanks to people like me Yale even took you in the first place."
"I think it had more to do with my father's fat checkbook— wait. How did you know I went to Yale?" Anna asked in surprise.
"The same way you know I have cancer. Know thine enemy."
"You look like you have enough young girls to study," Anna said, inclining her head toward the board room. Triton's daughters were brainlessly milling about. Two had compacts out and another was taking a selfie, complete with pouted duck lips and peace sign.
#boardroomboredom
"Imbeciles, the lot of them."
"I would have killed them at school."
"You wouldn't have seen them, let alone interacted with them at school," Ursula said, humming laugh going raspy. She took a long pull on her cigarette and exhaled, spiraling into a coughing fit. She gagged over the balcony railing and Anna walked… unhurried but persistent, intent but aloof… back inside the boardroom. She returned with Hans' handkerchief. When Ursula was finished hacking, the cotton swatch was blood-stained.
Further indebted.
Anna returned to her smoke and flicked the end into an ashtray shaped like a pineapple.
"It's episodes like that that make me think I should quit while I'm still young."
"There's always another vice to turn to," Ursula choked. "Triton has never been able to handle that much estrogen in his household. I'm surprised his liver's not kaput. He drinks like a fish."
"No family's perfect…"
"Your own brother dearest?"
"Let's not."
"Oh yes, let's!" Ursula said, happy the conversation had turned from her person. "Overshadowed by the son daddy always wanted? When did you stop being enough? When the breasts came and you weren't a tomboy anymore?"
Anna rolled her eyes and didn't reply. She fiddled with her nails, chewed the inside of a cheek. Tell-tell signs of irritation.
"Like I said, it doesn't matter. I'll get a job and— never mind."
"No. Go ahead, child. There are no secrets here."
Anna redirected her attention to Ursula's dimming gaze, stone countenance at a decaying façade. "I'm going to succeed. If that happens at my brother's expense… well, all the better."
Ursula turned back to the windows of the room, watched as Triton yanked the red-headed girl away from the coffee cart with more force than was necessary. Anna witnessed a brief exchange of words, a teary teenager, and a weary CFO. He took to the corner, reached into his suit, and withdrew a gold flask. Sepia liquid poured into weak coffee.
Ursula snarled.
"Can't even make it through one negotiation sober."
"At least your brother knows what he's talking about," Anna began.
"Barely."
"Mine can't even make it through a negotiation competently," Anna rolled her eyes and propped herself on the balcony railing. "I wish there was a way for me to get my feet in on something established," she continued. "A place that isn't too scared to take on some new talent. Stick with the business model, but let me do my thing while my brother sits with his thumb up his ass back at the condo in LA. I'm tired of him riding my coat tails."
Take the bait, take the bait—"
"How much sway do you have with your board?" Ursula asked.
"I'm not on the board, but I've been called in on a number of advising sessions."
"Would you be opposed to getting your hands a little dirty?"
"I've slept with a third of the accounting department. I've stooped to more for less reward."
"Take twenty for the company instead of your thirty-three plus commissions and I'll sweeten the deal for you, personally."
Gotcha.
She didn't want to seem over eager. "Make it twenty-three and keep the commissions."
Ursula bowed her head, acquiescing.
"I'm listening," Anna said.
"Don't expect me to name you CEO," Ursula began. "But I can offer you a job here, once the deal goes through. You could act as my proxy, though you're terribly young—"
"Youthful, innovative, cutting-edge—"
"Presumptuous, crass, and rude," Ursula said, cutting her off. "According to the doctors, I've got a year and a half. Maybe more. Chemo seems to be slowing it down."
Anna nearly reached for that blood-spattered hankie to wave in her face.
"And unlike Triton, who seems intent on throwing everything out the window by crediting his daughters with unearned positions, I would actually like for this corporation to succeed. Leave an imprint on the world. Even if I'm not with it, it can still contribute to my…"
"Legacy?"
"Legacy. Perhaps, though that's sickeningly romantic," Ursula drawled. "Could you arrange the transfer in full? Bump up the time table to tomorrow?"
"I'd have to speak with the accountants. Well, really just Mr. Marlin, he's the current President of Conch. We were going to use that extra thirteen percent as severance pay to the staff we'd be letting go."
"Pity."
"They can get other jobs," Anna said, smile widening. "Brother dearest will have to."
Hans was currently engaged with one of Triton's daughters, both flirting mercilessly.
"So do we have a deal?" Ursula asked, extending a hand.
Anna watched it, the offending appendage likely to transform into the maw of a shark if she wasn't on guard.
"I have to be there when the transfer goes through," Anna said.
"Of course."
"And I want a job offer on paper. Notarized, none of this, she-said she-said bullshit."
"That you shall have. But I haven't got all day, I'm a very busy woman."
Anna took Ursula's hand and gave it a firm shake, the pair of women both thinking:
Now I've got her.
Anna followed Ursula down a hallway the following morning at ten a.m. She bypassed Sven and Kristoff, noting that Ursula gave the black-suited men a nod of her head as she traversed the third floor of the Caneel Bay resort which doubled as the Seven Seas affiliate offices. Caneel Bay was a subsidiary of the Carol's company, after all. They moved together, a blob of business-formal pinstripes and pencil skirts, until they reached the door to Ursula's office.
The same door Jane had waltzed right through one day previously.
Ursula sat at her desk and booted up her computer.
The self-same desk and computer Jane had compromised with her—techy stuff— bugs, viruses, trackers, whatever the hell the blonde did to make this so easy. Anna couldn't very well stand over her shoulder to get the fifteen-digit account number as Ursula initiated the transfer, but that didn't mean she couldn't exert her sensory perception to the fullest:
The office wasn't overly homey: a copy of Ursula's diploma from Harvard business school was framed on the wall above the woman's left shoulder; a picture of her breaking a bottle of champagne against the hull of a massive ship, her company's first purchase, in what looked to be late eighties garb; a full pill box at the corner of her desk, clacking and taunting their consumer into a quicker concession.
Death.
"Madison Hannah, our attorneys, Mr. William Turner and Captain James Norrington."
"Captain?"
"JAG division, Miss Hannah," Norrington replied.
"It seemed handy to have someone familiar with naval litigation and maritime law," Ursula said. "His retainer's a little salty, though."
The lawyers smiled at each other while Anna waited her turn.
"I believe this is what we're here for, Miss Madison?"
Turner passed off a contract of employment to Anna, who spent a good five minutes going over the fine print.
Ursula watched from her desk with steepled fingers, face torn between admiration and hostility.
"You find the arrangement to your liking, child?" Ursula asked.
"Might we include a clause which prohibits you from calling me 'child' in professional circles? It's only going to hurt my credibility as eventual successor."
"An endearment, nothing more. And 'successor' is not a guarantee, Madison," Ursula chided.
The shift in address did not go unnoticed; the lawyers stiffened.
"And everything is good on your end?" Ursula asked. "You've spoken with Marlin and we've knocked the offer down to $67 million, not a cent more."
"Well, you know, processing fees—"
"Madison."
"It took some work. I only needed to remind him how desperate he was."
"For the money?"
"Well…" Anna turned so the lawyers could not see her and made a gesture toward the length of her body. "You'll find that I'm very persuasive. And I'm not above blackmail."
"Oh really?"
"Mr. Marlin is recently remarried and has a son he's only just gotten reacquainted with. Wouldn't want to shatter that image he's worked so hard to build."
"Very well then. Sign the papers and hand it off to Norrington."
Anna did so.
"And now," Ursula typed into her computer, Anna desperately trying to take note of her fingers. Moments later, her desk phone rang.
"Lagan," she said into the receiver. "Conch Cruises." Silence.
Anna was straining to hear, but at the same time doing her best to look only mildly interested. That morning, Jane had fitted her with an undetectable microphone, a device thirteen times more sensitive to sound than the ones used by undercover ops with the DEA and ATF.
Anna heard the receiver ask for Ursula's passcode.
Ursula was on her desk phone, not at her affiliate offices. The numbers beeped different tones, but Anna had been memorizing those pitches for over a decade.
Pass code, got it!
Ursula turned back to her computer; the process for corporation funding transfers had to be made in front of members representing both parties in the transaction. For the moment, Anna constituted Conch's member.
Only Anna didn't work for Conch cruises.
When it was all said and done, the Seven Seas would be quite literally drained and Conch Cruises would have grounds for a legal suit. Let them try for a buyout with one of their other resort offers.
"Gather round, all," Ursula instructed.
"These are the correct numbers for the Conch accounts?" Ursula asked.
Anna nodded; and they really were. Conch's bank would send Ursula a confirmation email once the transaction was finished.
But Anna would be off the island before a representative from Conch noticed the discrepancy. It's only withdrawals that shoot off red flags… never deposits.
While looking at the screen, Anna did her best to memorize the three fifteen-digit account numbers making up the Seven Seas buyout payments. Unlike Conch, Seven Seas Trading never withdrew from a single account, Ursula and Triton actually agreeing that dividing the financial burden of mergers and buyouts among several departments would ease the pain on their primary purchasing account. One of the only things the siblings agreed on.
"So it's done?" Anna asked, numbers whizzing through her head. It was moments like these when she wished she had Jane's talents. Organization and compartmentalizing seemed much easier for her.
"That's all there is too it. The cash flow is happening, expect email confirmation within the hour, the signed contract will be mailed once Turner and Norrington lick the stamp."
"A pleasure, Ms. Carol," Anna said.
"The pleasure's all mine, dear. I just bought another fleet, and my next little minion."
"I think I prefer 'sweet child' to that moniker."
"Just keep in mind… I own you." Less reminder and more threat.
BULLFUCKINGSHIT, PURPLEPEOPLEEATER.
"For now," Anna said, not bothering with Turner and Norrington. Let them think her a bitch. Ursula would cultivate such a woman into her heir. "But if you'll excuse me," Anna said, taking the employment contract and incoming confirmation fax from the machine, "I have to go and dig my brother out of a sand dune. He was at the cantina all night while I was swimming in Excel spreadsheets. I'm sure in nine months time I'll be the aunt to an island bastard. Good day, gentlemen. Ursula… we should probably schedule a meeting."
"I would like that."
Before Anna even got on the elevator she was listing numbers under her breath to Jane through the miked earpiece. They were switching in her head, out of place and blurring, columns and rows and diagonals of numerals playing tricks on her mind like an inconstant Sudoku.
"… 1-9-7-4-1-9-9-0-2-2-3-7…"
"I need the final sequence," Jane said over her ear piece.
"3-8-8-1-1-2-8-9-5-9-2— wait, they're dates," Anna walked by an actual light bulb in the hallway as the realization struck her.
"For what?"
"When were Triton's daughters born?" Anna asked.
"One sec… Olaf!"
Anna heard some muttering on the other end of the line.
"March 13, 1988, January 31, 1989, December 29, 1989, woah, two in one year—"
"That's the final sequence! The next one is sometime in May of '92," Anna squealed. "From the first born, in descending order, the month, then the last two digits of the year. Since there were two that were born in the same year, he was able to abbreviate, and get the fifteen digits in."
"So that's Triton's direct account?" Jane asked.
"Probably his purchasing account. And Ursula's isn't that difficult to crack either. 1974 was the year she graduated from Harvard; I saw it on her diploma in her desk. In 1990, her first cruise line purchase bought out a fleet of twenty-two ships. Thirty-seven, the number of subsidiaries Seven Seas currently owns—"
"I get it, A," Jane said. "Did you get the pass code?"
"One sec," Anna darted into the lobby and made her way to the concierge desk. "Is there a payphone around here?"
The chipper attendant directed her to the corner, and Anna set to furiously decoding the tune in her ear. Was that an F? Or maybe a G? She played with the notes on the dial pad until it matched the ones on her phone.
She had recorded the entire conversation.
Now that's what I call foresight, bitches!
"Alright, Jane, the passcode is 7-6-5-6-7-6-5-4-3."
"And what does that number correspond with?"
"The sounds on my keypad. Ti-la-so-la-ti-la-so-fa-mi."
"What alien language are you speaking now?"
"That's The Sound of Music and it is a classic!" Anna huffed in midair, startling a passing family clad in tropical shirts and sandals with socks.
"Careful now, wouldn't want everyone thinking you're crazier than you already are," Jane said.
"What?"
"You probably ruined that poor family's trip. Unnerving them so that they may never recover," Jane teased.
"How did you know?"
"Look to your right… now up about four feet."
Anna was staring at a security camera, red light filming her every action. Jane had said she would be hacking the feeds…
"You think you're so smart, don't you?"
The camera moved up and down on its pivot, certainly thinking highly of itself for a recording device.
"You've been watching me the whole time?"
The camera nodded again.
"I told you I would be," Jane said through the ear piece.
"That's a little creepy," Anna answered. "Did you learn anything?"
The red light on the camera's front covering moved up and down, up and down.
"And you think I'm the most amazing grifter in the world?"
The camera halted its movement, this time swiveling back and forth.
"I know, I know, don't get cocky," Anna said. "But at least you learned the scale equivalencies from The Sound of Music. Everybody knows that, even guys."
The camera didn't move this time.
"When we're all finished here, we could… watch it, if you wanted? I'd have to explain everything, like why they're speaking English in Austria, for one. But it's okay if you don't—"
The camera had started moving again. This time, a very deliberate up and down motion.
Anna beamed up at the lens.
Everything had gone so perfectly today.
That is, until it all went horribly wrong.
A/N: In my document manager, I literally titled this chapter, "The cliffs, they must hang!" In which everyone pelts me with rotting vegetables for leaving them at this point. I apologize. But thanks again to everyone following and reviewing. I'm trying really hard to reply to everyone who's got their pm's enabled, just to let you know I really appreciate it. And if you're a guest, I STILL APPRECIATE IT. Thank you thank you thank you thank you. More to come.