Page 39 of The Session

“It’s an NDA, Mark. She signed a nondisclosure agreement. That’s it. And she’s got pretty high integrity, so she hasn’t told you anything she agreed not to,” Tru explained.

“She screwed her boss or a married man, maybe both. And you guys had the money to shut it down. It seems pretty clear to me.”

“You’re not far off. There are some important details in there, but that’s the gist of things,” Tru conceded.

“So why are you here?”

Tru scooted back onto the picnic table into a seated position and crossed her legs. She was wearing a gray blouse and a dark skirt that came down to her knees, with nylon stockings. Mark was sure it cost more than his entire wardrobe.

“I’m here to answer any questions you have and extend a job offer,” she announced.

“What kind of job?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know. It really depends on the kind of work you want, I guess. Why don’t we start with questions?” she suggested. “You have some, right?”

“Yeah. What the hell is Summit Strategies?”

“What have you read online?”

“A corporate cult involved in brainwashing, high-powered sales techniques, extortion, maybe toppling foreign governments, covert CIA work, possibly working with the Mafia,” Mark listed.

“I haven’t heard the Mafia one. The others . . . there might be some element of truth to them,” she said.

“And this is your job pitch?”

“When I get to the pitch part, you’ll know. I can give you the answer my dad gave me when I was old enough to use the internet and start asking my own questions. Or I can give you the truth.”

“What did your dad say?” Mark asked.

“He explained to me how Coca-Cola has to bribe warlords. All the oil companies are involved in foreign politics, and the only way Facebook and Google were able to get as big as they did was by helping foreign governments spy on their own citizens. He told me that every big corporation had good people and bad people. Some decisions were ideal; some weren’t. What mattered over the long run was the mission and whether it was a net positive in the world.”

“So you’re just like Google,” Mark replied.

“That’s the way my dad would try to look at it, but for him it’s kind of copium. He helped create the company,” she explained.

“And the truth?” Mark asked.

“It’s not all that far off from what he told me, but more complicated. Summit Strategies is not a company in the traditional sense. It’s more of a collection of organizations with a lot of aligned interests and some wildly varying personalities. Some people I like, some I don’t. But I do think it’s a net positive in the world when it’s not doing dumb stuff.”

“That still kind of sounds like Evil Incorporated,” Mark replied.

“I wouldn’t go that far. My dad and your . . . Max Lightman, the two founders, really did have noble intentions. Granted, they’re flawed men. I love my dad and I love Max, but they have their failings. They also genuinely believe they’re making the world a better place.”

“Through high-pressure sales seminars and brainwashing?”

“Most of that’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. The origin of it all was Max and my dad taking a look at the world and trying to understand why we couldn’t apply all the things we’d been learning about human behavior in a more positive way. They were hippies in the ’60s. Then they discovered the self-empowerment movement and began to pivot by the ’70s. Instead of becoming a religion like Scientology, they went corporate.”

“Great. But what do they do?”

“Ever have somebody call you on the phone and try to sell you something? Ever try to cancel a service and have to speak to a representative who tries to talk you out of it? Most likely, either they or the person they work for went to one of our seminars. That may not have been called Summit Strategies, but it was either us or one of our subsidiaries. Chances are your insurance agent, the person you ask for a loan at the bank, or the guy on the car lot trying to talk you into a more expensive truck went through one of our training programs.”

“For someone who works at a company that’s supposed to be an expert in sales, your pitch is terrible. You just described all the worst people in the world,” Mark told her.

“We also train soldiers and hostage negotiators, Mark. It’s not all icky. We run facilities in the United States and other countries to help train warfighters. Probably the better way to describe our business is coaching.”

“Coaching,” Mark echoed.

“Fun fact I should have known before I spoke to you in person last time: We actually provide training in mindfulness and self-fulfillment, as well as financial planning, for players on six different NFL teams.”