Floor G1’s maintenance closet was the largest closet in the Fairmont Copley Plaza.
John Michaels, Head of Facilities at the Copley, paced between cases of bottled water arranged around a banquet table he had slid into the center of the room. A soft knock came at the door.
“Johnny, it’s Bill,” said Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management.
“They here?” John asked, opening it.
Behind Bill stood ten thin men in various combinations of sweatpants and track jackets. They moved with the quiet economy of people who had spent their lives conserving motion. They filed into the room and took seats around the table.
No one spoke.
John watched the hallway one last time for any Copley employees, then closed the door.
He locked it.
A single light hung over the conference table, illuminating the front of the men. The small room around them was dark, with the stale smell of the mop bucket barely masked by the combination of cleaning supplies on the shelving at the back.
“Gentlemen, at this point you have all been briefed on the plan. Meb will move to the front coming out of Natick. You can all linger closely until Wellesley, at which point Meb will build a lead that puts him out of your sights. Meb, any speed limits through 20 that you’d like to enforce?”
Meb was looking down, ripping the label off his bottled water in strips, allowing the glued ends of the strips to remain attached as each new strip flopped and hung.
“I think if they stay at 5:00 pace I can build up a minute or so coming out of Newton,” Meb said, looking up at Bill and avoiding eye contact with the nine other runners.
“What do we do if he’s coming back before 20?” Wilson Chebet said.
“The rules are no faster than 5:00 pace and slower if he’s in sight after 15,” Bill said, looking around the table at all the faces.
Wilson nodded, turning to his countryman, Frankline Chepkwony. All the men at the table quietly calculated the execution in their heads.
Joel Kimurer tapped Frankline on the shoulder and motioned toward Bill.
“Right. And at 20, we can race?” Frankline asked.
“At 20 the race is on, but if Meb comes into view before Fenway, a three-minute float before racing resumes,” Bill said. He looked to Meb for approval.
“If I am struggling in the final few miles, I will start taking water cups and dropping them without sipping. Look for that,” Meb said, finally looking around the table at the men’s faces.
Ryan Hall raised his hand.
“Ryan,” Bill said.
“I think I can give the cues inside the pack. I’ve been working out pretty solid five-flat pacing for 18 to 20 the last month. I’m happy to play referee,” Ryan said, leaning back in his chair.
“That’s great. Hear that? All on Ryan’s cue,” Bill said, scanning the table once more.
Bill snapped his fingers toward the front of the work closet. John walked toward him carrying a thick manila folder and handed it to Bill.
“In here are NDAs. You’ve all verbally confirmed the terms, but we’ll need fresh signatures from everyone in this room. Johnny, you too, buddy,” Bill said. He began sorting through the folder and handing stapled stacks of paper to each man in the room.
“All right, fellas—pretty standard terms in here. This meeting never happened. None of you even spoke to Meb before the 2014 Boston Marathon. None of you know who I am. None of you believe there’s even betting in the sport of marathoning. This is effective for 99 years or until the final Boston Marathon is run. Violations of these terms result in a $25 million fine per violation plus three times your regular race winnings on the day. Obviously, all attorney fees are handled by the perpetrator. We will also use an internally created valuation calculator, explained in section seven, that will calculate any damages to Pershing and Meb, which the perpetrator will then be financially liable for.”
Bill tossed a pen to Paul Lonyangata at the far end of the table.
“Oh, and there’s no appeals process. This is all final here, tonight.”
Meb handed his NDA back to Bill. All the men were flipping through pages and initialing and signing various lines. Wilson Chebet hadn’t picked up his pen yet.
“What if we catch Meb in the final meters? Are we to stop racing for second and finish as a group?” Wilson looked up at Bill. “This might not work.”
Bill froze as he was flipping through the two returned NDAs in his hands. He let the papers fall to the table.
“Wilson—gentlemen—by being here right now you have already entered into a massive conspiracy. Should any of you leave this room tonight without signing, I am prepared to reveal that massive conspiracy. Outside of the many legal consequences you will surely face, you can absolutely kiss goodbye your road racing careers.” He turned to Wilson. “You will not pass Meb. You can do some racing in the final 10K if you really must, but I don’t give a f*ck what that means. You don’t pass Meb.”
Bill resumed flipping through the collected NDAs. Wilson picked up the pen and began flipping through the pages, signing an occasional initial and finishing with a signature and date.
“Pershing will be handling the bet. Each of you will receive $10 million USD over the course of the next three years. The first payouts won’t be until June. $833K per quarter to the accounts we’ve set up for you.” Bill snapped his fingers again at John. John circled the table, handing each man a single sheet with account details on it.
“Take down this information, then return these sheets to me tomorrow before heading to the bus. I will be seated at the café with an open tote bag next to me. I’ll have a ‘Boston Strong’ hat on and a red hoodie. Drop them in the bag. Say nothing to me.”
Bill collected the final NDAs and slid them back into the folder.
The men filed out of the room, John scanning the hallway as cover until the final runner pushed into the fire escape stairs at the end of the hall.
Meb was the only runner on the twelfth floor. For the final two floors of the ascent on the elevator, Meb was alone. He practiced a fist pump into the mirror of the elevator. He did a second one. As he started for a third, he made eye contact with his reflection. He looked down at the folded paper in his hand and turned his face from the mirror.
