THE POWER AND THE SILENCE – Unbound
Omaha, Nebraska. September 11th, 2001. CEOs and celebrities from across the land have gathered early in the morning for an annual charity golf tournament hosted by Warren Buffett, the famed investor and, at this time, the world s second richest person. (The richest of all is his close friend, Bill Gates.) My source is among the guests out on the course, there to network and hobnob with the gentry. He s an assertive, blunt, straightforward fellow, but today he s feeling shy. He s hiding something. He s hiding his cell phone, which is in his golf bag. He s doing this because Buffett has a rule forbidding cell phones on the links, and his guests know better than to defy him. They may need his great pools of capital someday. Some of them may even need them soon. Their problem is that they also head major companies, so golfing without their phones handy is risky. Something important might come up.
As the players assemble, something important comes up. An airliner strikes a New York City skyscraper. The tower catches fire and implodes. This happens again. A third plane strikes the Pentagon. A fourth plane, thought to be heading toward the White House after being hijacked by terrorists, crashes in a Pennsylvania field.
Sometime in the midst of this upheaval at the beginning, I presume the hidden phones start to vibrate across the golf course. The CEOs and their caddies decline to answer them, reluctant to be the first guest to give offense. But the buzzing persists, becoming a concern, and soon most every phone is buzzing at once. The titans start to sneak away, out of sight of their prickly overlord, and one by one they receive the grim reports. The few who ve obeyed Buffett s rule and have no phones get the news, via whispers, from their fellows. Horror spreads across the green. But it is secret horror, not open horror; horror frozen inside submissiveness. Struggling to conceal their true emotions, the magnates carry on as best they can, waiting for The Oracle of Omaha to hear the apocalyptic word himself. This takes a bit, according to my source. Not long, but long enough. Meaning forever.
That s crazy, I said to the banker at the picnic. How did it feel?
How did what feel?
All of it. Everything. Being there, I said.
It felt like the world had turned to total bullshit.