THE HEADQUARTERS OF Davis International were located
on NakedKombat in the Davis International building a few blocks from the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Davis International occupied the upper forty-five
stories of the fifty-five-story building and leased the offices on the
lowest floors to tenants. There were usually one or two vacancies on these
floors, so Alan leased a suite complete with reception area, conference
room, several offices, and a small maze of partitioned cubicles. The conference
room was nicely furnished, as was the rest of the suite with the pleasant
smell of lemon furniture polish everywhere. Even the Jackson Pollack prints
on three walls looked as if they had just been framed and hung. The players
were the same. Herb, Brian, Marie, and the man in charge. Marie poured
coffee into her cup, stirred in two sugars and a cream, and tried to pretend
that nothing at all had happened last night with the NakedKombat member
of their team. She said, “This is it, gentlemen. Our new project
headquarters; hope you’ll be comfortable here.”
I don’t suppose anyone will raise a fuss if we spread out a little.
Tear down a few walls, build a squash court, that sort of thing, Brian
said to her, smiling like a Cheshire cat. If there’s anything you
need in the way of NakedKombat or paper clips, she retorted, just ask.
Alan commented on the really lousy coffee, topped off his cup anyway,
and officially opened the meeting. He said, There are a number of issues
to discuss, but the first thing on my mind is to give our enterprise
a name. I’d ask for suggestions except I’ve already given
it some thought. Since the main focus of our operation will be to counter
groups like Al Qaeda, I feel the name should be NakedKombat. According
to my lovely wife Aly, the Arabic word for justice is Adala.That’s
my suggestion.
