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The Devil's Casino_ Friendship, Betrayal - Vicky Ward [65]

By Root 316 0
Scott Freidheim. At Northwestern, Freidheim had

been the captain for the university's soccer team. He had been hired by Odrich and Hill in

1991.

Scott was the son of Cyrus F. Freidheim, the former vice chairman of Booz Allen &

Hamilton and CEO of Chiquita. Freidheim was 31 years old at the time of his hiring, and

was a senior vice president working in banking. He was, in many ways, like Fuld: a good

athlete and intensely competitive--ruthlessly so, if need be--but he could also be

charming. And he was extremely loyal.

When Fuld offered him the job, Freidheim immediately accepted. "Why don't you think

about it overnight? " Fuld asked him. "Sure. I' ll humor you," said Freidheim. "Then I' ll

come back tomorrow and say I want the job."

Fuld looked at him quizzically. Most people didn't speak to him like that. Fuld preferred

it when people treated him like the scary gorilla.

Freidheim knew this promotion was putting him in a precarious but potentially lifealtering position. Mary Anne Rasmussen, then director of human resources, met with him

about the job and he mulled it over, and reportedly told her, "I suppose that if you want to

let it rip, get close to the sun. But you had better be comfortable with knowing that it's

either going to work out spectacularly well or it's going to blow up in flames. It will not

be an average experience."

Freidheim struggled to engage with his boss for a while, and Joe Gregory was reportedly

far from helpful. Colleagues say he considered Freidheim an obstacle--that he got in the

way of Gregory's direct access to Fuld. But Fuld also wanted to test his chief of staff, and

make sure he paid his dues and earned credibility. So Fuld never offered Freidheim a

simple "How are you?" or "How was your weekend?"

Freidheim didn't respond well to this, and Fuld was growing wary of his latest chief of

staff. "Is this guy really the right person?" he reportedly asked Odrich.

"Give him a chance," said Odrich. "You' ll see."

Two years into his tenure, colleagues recall, Freidheim felt he needed to make a

breakthrough. He thought about who Fuld really was and what would appeal to him.

Freidheim considered the things that mattered most to Fuld. "Dick adored his family," he

later told colleagues. "And he was just as passionate about work. When there was a

problem, and when no one else could handle it, we'd wheel him in, and he'd take care of

it."

Freidheim remembered a documentary he'd seen, Eternal Enemies: Lions and Hyenas.

He brought the video into his next meeting with Fuld. As the meeting ended, Fuld was

becoming aggressive about something, and ordered Freidheim to repeat something he had

just said. Freidheim said, "Okay, Ntwadumela. Whatever you want."

Fuld leaned forward. "What?" he said.

Freidheim said again, "Whatever you want, Ntwadumela."

Fuld tipped back in his chair, took off his glasses, and looked at Freidheim. "This better

be good," he said.

Freidheim described the documentary to his boss: Lions and hyenas go after a wildebeest,

and in the confusion of the kill, one lioness finds herself on the wrong side of the

territorial boundary, and she's surrounded by hyenas.

"And the hyenas are slowly--there must be 40 of them--surrounding the lioness. She's

trying to fight them off, but they 're all keeping their distance. But one by one, they dart

in and bite her, then dart away. It's clear that they are winning, and she is going to die.

"Then, one of the two males--Ntwadumela--hears what is going on in the distance. He

was sleeping, but he gets up, starts heading toward the hyenas at a trot. And then he starts

running.

"As he gets close to the pack of hyenas, he picks up his pace, picks out the matriarch, and

goes straight for her. The matriarch is the top dog in the pack of hyenas. Ntwadumela

catches the matriarch, bites her on the back of the neck, throws her in the air, breaks her

neck. She 's dead. Everyone goes home. Game over."

Freidheim paused, then said: " Ntwadumela is Botswana for 'He who greets with fire.

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