The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron (78 page)

Skilling led small groups of Enron executives and customers on daredevil expeditions, including this one, in 1996: a twelve-hundred-mile road race in Jeeps and on dirt bikes called the Enron Baja Off-Road Rally. The bikes line up for the day’s race.

Skilling
(left)
and Fastow share an exultant moment.

Fastow at the dinner table.

A midrace lunch break (Skilling is standing in background; Fastow is standing in foreground).

Skilling (
left
) catches some sun after a day on the race course.

Ken Rice gets nine stitches. He wiped out on his bike, putting his tooth through his lip.

Rick Causey, Enron’s chief accounting officer, pushed Arthur Andersen hard to see things Enron’s way.
(Gamma)

Rick Buy, the head of Enron’s risk assessment and control department, agonized over his inability to stop bad deals.
(Gamma)

Longtime Enron executive Amanda Martin says that the company managed to anger virtually all of its big customers. The word was out, she says: “Don’t do business with Enron. They’ll steal your wallet when you aren’t looking.”

Greg Whalley was the only one who could control the unruly traders. He became Enron’s president when Skilling left the company.
(Landov, Bloomberg News)

Skilling and Fastow were among those who built enormous houses with their Enron wealth. Skilling moved into his 8,120-square-foot house just before he quit Enron.
(Michael Stravato, Gamma)

Fastow’s house was still under construction when he was indicted.
(Pat Sullivan, AP)

Ken Lay in better times:
(left)
at a company celebration in 1998 and
(bottom)
with his wife Linda at an Alexis de Tocqueville Society reception in early 2001.