"Look, Ken, she asked me for a comment on that little protest going on downstairs, but I wouldn't give her one."

Booker nodded. "That was smart. You know we have a policy here at Sumter about talking to the press without senior management's authorization. It's a policy we take very seriously."

The elevator ride from fourteen to fifty was quick.Too quick, Angela thought to herself when the doors opened. Nothing good could come of this. She was about to meet with Sumter's two most senior executives, and they weren't summoning her to the top of the tower to congratulate her on closing a profitable transaction. They wanted to grill her about her meeting with Jake Lawrence. There could be no other reason for their sudden need to speak to her.

"Hi, I'm here to see Mr. Dudley," she informed the receptionist.

"Your name?"

"Angela Day. Mr. Dudley is expecting me."

The woman looked Angela up and down, then pointed to a plush sofa behind an antique coffee table. "You can have a seat over there."

"Thank you."

As she walked across the room's huge Oriental rug, she gazed steadily at the long row of dark oil paintings stretching the length of the wall behind the sofa. These were paintings of the men who had run Sumter Bank since its founding in the early 1860s, their tenures inscribed on small gold plaques affixed to the bottom of each ornate frame: 19171926, 19261932, and so on. In their portraits, hung on the wall in chronological order from left to right, the men looked strikingly similar. All were white, silver-haired, and strong-jawed. They were all clad in dark suit jackets, conservative ties, and white shirts. And they all wore stony expressions. There were no smiles on the wall.

"The chairman is ready for you, Ms. Day," the receptionist called. "Over there."

Angela nodded and headed toward the door the receptionist had pointed to. Behind the door was an anteroom and another woman seated behind a desk, a gray-haired woman with half-lens spectacles who seemed friendly enough at first but who gave Angela the same up-and-down the receptionist had. Without a word the woman waved Angela toward a large door at the back of the anteroom.

Angela hesitated at the door, then turned the large bra.s.s k.n.o.b and pushed.

"Come in, Ms. Day."

She looked across the large office in the direction of the voice. The chairman and president were on the far side of the room, near a wide window, posed almost exactly as they had been in last year's glossy annual report to the bank's shareholders. The chairman sat in a huge leather wing chair, legs crossed at the knees, hands folded in his lap-a picture of cool control. The president stood behind him, arms folded across his chest.

"Please, come in," the president called, beckoning as he moved out from behind the chairman and met her halfway across the room. "I'm Carter Hill, and I'm sure you recognize our chairman, Bob Dudley."

"Of course," Angela said, aware of the fact that Hill hadn't offered his hand in greeting, as many men still didn't, even in business settings. They'd shake hands with her male counterparts, but not her. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Dudley."

Dudley nodded, almost imperceptibly, but said nothing.

"We appreciate your being available to see us so quickly," Hill continued politely.

"It's my pleasure." She was struck by how much Dudley and Hill resembled the men in the paintings along the lobby wall. "I want to help you in any way I can."

"Yes, I'm sure you do." Hill gave her a quick, forced smile. "Would you care for anything to drink? Coffee? c.o.ke?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine," she replied, following him past a large desk to the area by the window where Dudley waited.

"Please have a seat." Hill directed her to a wooden chair by the window. He sat in another large leather wing chair beside the chairman's.

Angela glanced out the window at a panoramic view of Richmond and the wide James River at the base of the steep hill the city was built on, then looked away and sat down. G.o.d, she hated heights.

"Everything all right, Ms. Day?" Hill asked.

"Fine." There was a table beside the chair that caught her eye. On it was a collection of toy soldiers, each only a few inches high. They were Confederate soldiers, she noted, one of which, at the front of the unit, was bearing a small Rebel flag. "Just fine," she repeated, smoothing out her dress.

"Angela, you have a fine record of performance here at Sumter," Hill began. "The chairman and I were just reviewing it. Several years of very strong production in Ken Booker's division. Lots of income, including fees, and no loan write-offs. We appreciate your fine service."

"Thank you."

"Which is why we were a little surprised-"

"What did Jake Lawrence want?" Dudley interrupted gruffly.

"Easy, Bob," Hill urged, "let's take it slowly. We don't want to-"

"What did Lawrence want?" Dudley repeated.

Angela and Dudley locked eyes. "Mr. Lawrence asked me to come to Wyoming to discuss one of his portfolio companies," she explained. Dudley's eyes were cold and dark, just like Lawrence's. "He wants to leverage the company with long-term debt, and he wants Sumter to be the lead bank in terms of providing the loans." Angela sniffed, as though she wasn't enthusiastic about the opportunity. "Of course, he intends to pay himself a huge dividend with the cash we lend to his company."

"Why did he callyou , Ms. Day?" Dudley continued.

"He didn't."

"What do you mean?" Hill asked quickly.

"First of all, Jake Lawrence didn't make the initial contact. It was a person out of his New York office that called. Second, that individual initially called Ken Booker, who then relayed the message to me. I want to be very clear on all of that because New York isn't my territory, and I don't want to step on any toes. My territory is Georgia and Alabama."

"Ken didn't tell me about it happening that way when I spoke to him," Dudley hissed. "He seemed to think you were acting on your own."

"Well, I don't know why he would have told you that, Mr. Dudley, because I-"

"You've had such a stellar employment record here at Sumter, Ms. Day," Hill cut in, "up until now, anyway. You should have run your meeting with Jake Lawrence up the chain of command before accepting his invitation. You should have-"

"Excuse me, sir, but, as I said, Ken Booker took the initial call from Lawrence's people, then approached me." She wasn't going to give Dudley or Hill any opportunity to scar her record. "You can check with him."

"Why did Lawrence want to talk to you and not Booker?" Dudley inquired.

"Because I have specific industry experience related to the portfolio company Mr. Lawrence wants to leverage," she answered, repeating what Lawrence had told her to say. "So he thinks I'm best suited to guide the transaction through the bank and to convince other banks to join us." She glanced down at the toy soldiers marching toward her on the small table, wondering if Dudley and Hill understood how hateful she found all the display represented. Perhaps the soldiers had been put there on purpose, she realized. Just for her. Perhaps they knew that she had friends who were black. One in particular. "From what Lawrence was saying, it will be a significant transaction. About a billion dollars in total, so we'll need a broad syndicate of other lenders."

"What's the name of the company he wants to leverage?" Dudley asked.

Angela hesitated, knowing how this would sound. "I'm not certain. He didn't want to go into detail yet."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure."

"What industry does the company operate in?" Dudley pressed. "He must have mentioned the industry if that was why he wanted to speak with you and not Booker."

She hesitated again. "He didn't tell me that either."

Dudley pounded the arm of the chair with his fist. "Well, whatdid he tell you?"

"Only what I've related."

"You expect me to believe that Jake Lawrence flew you all the way out to Wyoming just for that?" Dudley's cheeks were becoming flushed. "Ms. Day, you'd better come up with more-"

"He made a pa.s.s at me," she snapped, glaring at Dudley. "He made a pa.s.s at me," she repeated softly, gritting her teeth and glancing down at her lap, feeling the heat rush to her eyes. "I think that's why he flew me all the way out to Wyoming."

Carter Hill rose quickly from his chair, pulled a clean white handkerchief from the top pocket of his suit jacket and held it out for her. "Here," he offered gently.

"I'm fine," she said, holding up her hand. She wanted Jake Lawrence's help in getting custody of her son, but there were limits to how far she'd go to get it. She had found that out as Lawrence's physical advances on the cabin's couch had turned into a short but scary struggle. "Look, I didn't want to say anything. I know Mr. Lawrence is a powerful man, and I don't want any trouble. Not for Sumter Bank or for me personally. I just want to forget I ever went out there. I want to forget it happened."

"The guy's a b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Hill muttered to Dudley, stalking back to his chair. "I've heard how aggressive he can be with women. People I know in New York have told me. Jake Lawrence seems to think all that money gives him carte blanche to do whatever he wants. It's the G.o.d complex."

Angela glanced at Dudley who was staring straight back, no sympathy in his expression. "Do you really believe Jake Lawrence flew you to Wyoming to make a pa.s.s at you under the guise of a big transaction about which he gave you no details? That makes no sense." Dudley shook his head. "No offense, Ms. Day, but I'm certain Jake Lawrence could find more willing partners, women who would be willing to look at what he wanted simply as a business transaction. If you get my drift."

"What are you saying, Bob?" Hill asked after a long pause.

"I think Jake Lawrence had another agenda," Dudley answered, not taking his eyes off of Angela.

"Such as?"

Dudley's eyes narrowed. "I'm sure you did a little background work on Mr. Lawrence before you went to see him, right, Ms. Day?"

Angela stared back at Dudley, wondering where he was headed with this question.

"At least that's what the network management people reported after studying their server records," Dudley continued when she didn't respond. "In the days before you went to Wyoming, you visited several Web sites looking for information on Jake Lawrence. And you accessed Free Edgar and probably discovered in a 13-d filing that he owns 8 percent of Sumter Bank. Isn't that right, Ms. Day?"

"Is that a problem?" she asked quietly, shocked by the fact that Bob Dudley had directed the bank's information technology specialists to spy on her. "Wouldn't you expect me to do background work before meeting with one of the world's wealthiest men?"

"Yes, I would." Dudley looked out the window over downtown Richmond, then back at her. "Did he bring up the fact that he owned all of that Sumter stock?"

"No,I brought it up, Mr. Dudley. I told Lawrence I had found out about his large position in Sumter stock. I told him I had calculated that he had spent four hundred and fifty million so far on Sumter stock, and he corrected me and told me that it was actually closer to half a billion. And he was down forty million so far on his purchase."

Dudley was gazing at her intently, hanging on her every word. And as she looked closely, she could see a trace of fear hiding in his intensity, a tiny sliver of anxiety, working its way into Dudley's fiercely proud expression. Jake Lawrence and his army of a.n.a.lysts were at the Sumter gate, and Dudley understood as well as any financial expert that the bottom line in a business war was money. Who had more of it, and who was willing to risk it. If Jake Lawrence offered a significant premium for Sumter shares, the market would sell to him, and all the value Dudley had created for the bank's shareholders during his ten years at the helm as chairman would be forgotten in the time it took them to endorse their stock certificates. And once Lawrence owned the bank, if that were his ultimate objective, Dudley's grip on the office of chairman would turn tenuous at best. Because, as the new owner, Lawrence could do whatever he wanted. Including replacing any senior executive he chose to.

"I asked Mr. Lawrence why he was so interested in Sumter," Angela continued. "I made the point that he couldn't view an investment in a bank as a high-return proposition, that we weren't going to find a cure for cancer or invent the next white-hot wireless device. I made the point that the bank's stock is trading around two times its book value, which I told him I thought was pretty high."

"And?"

Bob Dudley had a reputation as one of the toughest senior executives in the entire banking business. During his ten years as chairman, through a series of expertly planned and smoothly executed acquisitions, he had propelled Sumter from its position as a sleepy Virginia retail inst.i.tution-little more than a corner savings and loan operation-to an aggressive, superregional bank with a ma.s.sive mortgage portfolio that had caught Wall Street's attention. After several large, high-profile acquisitions in North Carolina and Tennessee, Dudley had been ruthless, summarily firing the acquisitions' existing senior management and replacing them with his lieutenants-after initially promising that there would be no blood once the deal was done. But Dudley had made billions for Sumter stockholders, and the defeated men had slunk silently away, unable to get anyone to listen to the fact that Dudley had lied to them.

But now Dudley was on the defensive, uncertain of Lawrence's motives. Now he was the hunted.

"What was his response, Ms. Day?" Dudley demanded.

A week ago she'd been a n.o.body. Now this. Suddenly she wished she could go back and decline the opportunity to meet Jake Lawrence. "He said he thought the bank's shares still had a good deal of room on the upside. He said he thought that the bank was very well positioned as a strong player in one of the hottest regions in the country. The Southeast."

"Did he say anything about acquiring Sumter?" Hill spoke up. "Or wanting a board seat? Did he mention anything like that?"

Angela shook her head. "No."

"Did he say he was viewing Sumter as simply another investment in his liquid portfolio? Did he talk about buying more shares?"

She knew where Hill was going with this. He was trying to read the tea leaves to figure out Lawrence's true intentions. Searching for buzzwords in anything Lawrence might have said for clues as to whether Lawrence would buy more shares and ultimately announce what would be a hostile takeover attempt or remain pa.s.sive, which was what she knew they hoped.

"No," she answered.

"Dammit," Dudley cursed under his breath.

"Easy, Bob," Hill said soothingly. "I don't think you need to-"

"Shut up, Carter," he snapped, glaring at Angela. "Ms. Day, don't you find it odd that out of all the banks in this country and all the lending officers working at those banks, Jake Lawrence would secretly contact you to discuss a transaction about which he ended up giving you no real information? While at the same time he's acc.u.mulating shares ofmy bank. Don't you get the picture? He could have called any of the big New York banks he works with all the time to help him leverage his portfolio company." Dudley gritted his teeth. "They'd fall all over themselves to do a deal like that with him, but he called you."

"I told you," Angela said evenly. "n.o.bodysecretly contacted me. The contact was made through Ken Booker. You can check with him. He'll tell you what happened."

Dudley continued staring at her for a few moments, then eased back in his chair and forced a calm smile to his face. "How did you leave things with Jake Lawrence?"

"I told him not to contact me again, Mr. Dudley. The man made a pa.s.s at me. Didn't you hear me? My G.o.d!"

Dudley's eyes narrowed. "What did he say to that?"

"Say?"she asked.

"Did he tell you he still wanted you to be involved in this supposed transaction? Did he still want you to lead it, even when you wouldn't let him have what he wanted?"

"Even?"

"If you're so d.a.m.ned angry about him copping a feel, why didn't you call the police?"

"The police?" she asked incredulously. "Do you think they would have believed me?" The world took the word of a rich man over that of a girl from a trailer park. She knew that from personal experience. "Or done anything even if they had believed me? We're talking about Jake Lawrence here."

"So how did Lawrence leave it with you?" Dudley demanded. "What did he say when you told him no?"

"I didn't give him a chance to say anything. I got out of there as fast as I could."

Dudley pointed at her with a gnarled finger, the way he always did when he really wanted someone's attention. "If Jake Lawrence or one of his people contacts you again, I want to know immediately." He hesitated. "And I don't want you to tell him to go to h.e.l.l either, Ms. Day."

"I don't understand."

"I want to know what Jake Lawrence's intentions are. I want you to be loyal to Sumter Bank and to me," Dudley said firmly. "I don't want you to mention what he did to you in that cabin if he calls. I want you to act as if nothing out of the ordinary happened in Wyoming. You are to continue working on this transaction, if that is what he asks of you."

"But, I-"

"Bob, we ought to think this through," Hill cut in. "I mean, we don't want to put ourselves in a difficult position." He flashed a nervous smile at Angela. "We don't want to put Ms. Day in a difficult position either."

"I'm not asking Ms. Day to put herself in a difficult position," Dudley snapped, peering at Angela. "I'm simply asking her to be a loyal employee, loyal to the bank and loyal to me. Jake Lawrence is a bad man. And he has no idea how to run a bank like mine. I've devoted too much of myself to this organization and its shareholders to let a slimy son of a b.i.t.c.h like him ooze his way through the crack beneath the front door just because he's got so much money. None of which he earned himself," Dudley added snidely. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Ms. Day?"

She nodded slowly, appalled by what the chairman was saying, appalled by what he was asking of her.

Dudley nodded back. "Good. If you hear from Jake Lawrence, you are to contact Mr. Hill or his a.s.sistant immediately," he instructed, gesturing at the president, "and arrange an appointment with Mr. Hill using the project name Snake. Mr. Hill's a.s.sistant will understand what that means and what to do. Are we clear on all of that?"

Adrenaline surged through Angela. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't give a d.a.m.n what Jake Lawrence had done to her on that couch in Wyoming. To Dudley she was nothing but a readily expendable foot soldier in his personal war to maintain total control of Sumter Bank.