Tyler decided it was time to resign. He replied to Sunny with a one-
sentence email giving his two weeks’ notice and offering to leave
earlier if he wished him to. A few hours later, Mona, the head of HR,
summoned him to her office and informed him that the company had
decided he should leave that day. She made him sign some new
nondisclosure forms and told him security would escort him out of the
building. But no one from security was available to come get him, so
Tyler saw himself out.
He hadn’t even made it to his car when his cell phone rang. It was
his mother and she sounded frantic.
“Stop whatever you’re about to do!” she implored.
Tyler told her it was too late. He had already resigned and signed his
exit papers.
“That’s not what I mean. I just got off the phone with your
grandfather. He said Elizabeth called him and told him that if you
insist on carrying out your vendetta against her, you will lose.”
Tyler was dumbfounded. Elizabeth was threatening him through his
family, using his grandfather to deliver the message. He felt a surge of
anger. After hanging up with his mother, he headed over to the Hoover
Institution.
George Shultz’s secretary showed him to his grandfather’s corner
office on the second floor of the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building. A
lifetime’s worth of books lined the shelves. Tyler was still unnerved by
Elizabeth’s threat but calmly explained to George what had happened.
He showed him his email to Elizabeth and Sunny’s blistering reply.
George asked his secretary to make photocopies of them and to put
them in his office safe.
Tyler thought he might be getting through this time, but he wasn’t
sure. The old man was hard to read. His years as a senior member of
the president’s cabinet, facing down threats like the Soviet Union at
the height of the Cold War, had made him a cipher. He absorbed
information but rarely volunteered any. They agreed to meet again for
dinner that evening at his grandfather’s house. As they parted, George
told Tyler, “They’re trying to convince me that you’re stupid. They