She stood and smoothed her pantsuit. “Send him in and shut the door.”
She rounded her desk as the man entered, and she shook with him. “Thank you for coming, Marco. Please, sit.” She indicated one of the chairs in front of her desk before she retook her seat behind it.
He sat. “Ms. Segura, I will admit your call intrigued me. It’s been a while since your company employed my services.”
“I will get right to the point. You are a man with many contacts. With my father’s advanced age, it won’t be long before he passes. I wish to begin the process of positioning this company internationally. There are untapped markets we can take advantage of that my father opted not to exploit. This will not be an overnight thing, obviously, but I wish to start laying the groundwork now.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Internationally? I thought you already did business in South America?”
“We do, but I meant across the ocean. Not the United States, because of their ridiculous government and fickle tariffs. I was thinking more of markets such as, oh, Russia and North Korea.”
His other eyebrow followed the first. “Those can be…problematic trade partners.”
“But their money spends as well as anyone else’s, and they’re likely willing to cut corners, no?”
He slowly nodded. “They can be, yes. Russia more so than North Korea, because they’re easier to bribe. Plus, with their numerous political ties to the US, they don’t face the true scrutiny North Korea does.”
“Can you help me with introductions?”
He sat back in his chair. “It depends on the introductions you’re seeking. If you’re looking for diplomatic introductions, the highest I can get you is perhaps a deputy clerk to an administrative assistant’s assistant. I would have better luck introducing you to, say, someone in their security, or facility operations.”
She smiled. “I’ll take what I can get.”
“This is highly irregular if you wish to seek an appointment with an official for business dealings.”
“As you very well know, sometimes it’s the least likely associates who can provide the most valuable connections. My attorneys will handle the traditional negotiations. What I wish to gain is information perhaps not available through official channels. As you yourself said, they are easy to bribe.”
“You want contacts who have dirt on the people you wish to do business with.”
She shrugged, smiling. “It always helps to have as much intel as possible. I am even comfortable if those contacts have, shall we say, dirtier business ties?”
He slowly nodded. “I will see what I can do, Ms. Segura.”
She stood and handed him a business card with her personal email address written on the back. “Message me there with the information.”
“I will.”
“Oh, and as a gesture of goodwill…” She opened her upper drawer and withdrew an envelope, handing it to him.
He peeked inside at the stack of cash, his eyebrows going up. “This is…overly generous.”
“I hope that our brief interaction will not make it to my father’s ears, yes? If you are asked what we discussed, you can tell him that I am looking for potential business inroads to Russian markets and sought your advice regarding potential contacts.”
He nodded. “Very well. And if I am asked about those contacts?”
She shrugged. “You can tell the truth, that you don’t have diplomatic contacts, and that if you were able to make any, you promised to pass them along to me.”
“And he’ll believe that?”
“Hopefully, he won’t even ask you. But if he does have eyes and ears reporting back to him, that is exactly what I shall tell him.”
She didn’t want to admit to him that she fully expected she would be questioned about their meeting. She definitely didn’t want to spook him.
He tucked the envelope inside a pocket in his blazer. “I certainly hope he doesn’t. I live a quiet life now and prefer to keep it that way.”
She saw him out and told her assistant to hold her calls. She returned to her office and closed the door, unable to stop smiling. Her father would learn about this meeting and ask her about it.
And when her story agreed with Marco’s, her father would possibly scold her for her initiative, but would not suspect anything nefarious. Obviously, since she held the meeting in her office, she wasn’t hiding anything.
