William Harrell worked through his morning in the usual fashion, attending three meetings, then moving on to his daily correspondence.

After eleven o'clock he left the ICP headquarters building for a ten-block ride to an exclusive men's athletic club whose clientele consisted entirely of high-level executives. Typically, the club arranged rotating squash and racquetball matches between executives in similar positions from different companies and industries. A president of an insurance company, for example, might be paired with a CEO from an advertising agency; a TV executive with a restaurant magnate...or the chairman of the world's largest computer manufacturer with chairman of the world's largest food manufacturer.

Waiting for his technical and business advisers to arrive for their two o'clock meeting, William stretched and considered the soreness in his arms. They felt now as they had after his match with Rolland Worthy, chairman and CEO of International Foods, a little over two years ago. During that match, he mused, he had felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach midway through the game.

"What do you know about Wallaby?" Worthy had asked him.

The hard rubber ball struck the wall with solid force and rebounded toward William.

His concentration and judgment were wrecked by Rolland's question; his racquet overextended. The ball hurtled past him.

"What, I hit a nerve?" Worthy laughed, arming his sweating wrinkled forehead with his shirtsleeve.

William crouched. "Wallaby is a small company in Silicon Valley that manufactures portable computers and those new small wonders referred to as PIAs, which stands for personal interactive a.s.sistant," William said flatly. He bounced on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, antic.i.p.ating Worthy's serve.

Worthy tossed the ball in the air and pounded it with his racquet, then dropped to a defensive footing, his actions fluid and youthful.

William smashed the ball and they played out the serve, and he ultimately gained the ball after Worthy crashed into the wall.

"You okay?" William huffed.

Worthy gave his shoulder a quick squeeze where it had connected with the wall. "Serve," he ordered.

William served and the game continued.

Before the match, William had started the day in his imperturbable business-as-usual mood. He remembered the pleasure he felt upon reading his business adviser's latest market-share report, announcing that ICP had nearly doubled its total unit sales of the BP computer, compared to Wallaby's estimated total sales of its Mate all-in-one portable computer. But though sales of the BP were greater than those of the Mate, William Harrell's consummate business sense counseled against feeling triumphant.

He rationalized that Wallaby was presumably up to something big; Peter Jones, Wallaby's eminent founder, had been too quiet as far as the press was concerned. Normally the capricious spokesman of the portable computer industry, Jones had not granted a public interview in more than a year, and that concerned William. Jones had something up his sleeve. Something really big. The only thing that kept William's fear of Jones and Wallaby from growing beyond a mild concern to an actual loss of sleep was the fact that Jones was a poor chief; though he was capable of creating innovative miniature computers, he was incapable of running the company.

Without proper guidance and leadership, Wallaby would sooner or later fold.

As they headed from the court to the showers, William wiped his face with a towel and asked, "All right, Rolland, fess up. Why all the interest in Wallaby?"

"This is off the record, my friend. They called one of my best guys, Matthew Locke. They're flying him to California to interview for a job as president."

William felt the color drain from his face.

"Locke, as you know, is who I'm thinking about advancing into my slot when I retire in a few years," Worthy said.

"Anyway, he stopped by my house last night and told me that he had gotten a call from a headhunter and was a candidate to take the lead at Wallaby, working with some kid named Peter Jones."

William remained silent, praying that Worthy would go on and spill everything he knew about Wallaby and its interest in Locke.

"I think Matthew wanted me to tell him he was guaranteed my job when I retire. When I told him I couldn't do that, not yet anyway, he said then that he was going to fly out there to California and see what the company was all about.

"I just can't figure it," Worthy remarked. He paused and slung his towel over his shoulder. "Why would some hippie bantam computer nerds want to hire the president of a company that makes soda pop and chips?"

Harrell knew precisely why. What had he been mulling over all morning? The only factor preventing Wallaby from becoming a bona fide threat was that Peter Jones lacked the business savvy necessary to take his small company into big business. His intuition about Jones had been correct. The young man was looking to hire an innkeeper to run the shop so he could concentrate on building the nifty toys.

"You think they're going to start stuffing little computers into cereal boxes?" Worthy quipped with a chuckle as the two men headed for the showers.

Despite the hot shower, William Harrell felt washed with a chilling morbid dread. Not since his wife had begun her slide into the final stages of cancer had he felt that same feeling of helplessness that comes when loss seems inevitable.

That day was now long past. Worthy's disclosure about Wallaby had been enough to give the older man a jarring advantage that perhaps helped him win the squash game. But in the long run, William smiled to himself, the aching effects he had felt in his muscles after that game were a meager price to pay for what would be felt by the business world, thanks to the data Worthy had advanced him.

Had it not been for that squash match two years ago, he reflected, he might still be worrying about Wallaby someday becoming a serious compet.i.tor to ICP, rather than a subsidiary.

What had started as a far-out notion that night following the squash match was beginning to enter the formative stages of reality; the brakes would come off and the wheels would begin turning after Wallaby's board meeting today. His secret acquisition plan was the first thing to come along since Martha's death that had totally engrossed him, and he had wholeheartedly welcomed the diversion as a way to overcome his grieving.

William dreaded the thought of the ensuing two hours during which his advisors would spew figures and specifications, suggesting compet.i.tive market action and reaction, while all along he had begun, more than two years ago, his own compet.i.tive market plan, its countdown to liftoff about to commence.

Peter sped away from the company parking lot and raced for the engineering building and the solace of his office.

Turning into the driveway, however, he became suddenly aware of the tears streaming down his face. Cutting the wheel sharply he vaulted off the curb, then sped down the street. His outrage toward Matthew and everyone in the boardroom for what had just gone down was not coming as intensely as he wished. Instead, he felt only anguish. The damage was done, and he knew it was irreparable. Matthew had stolen control of Wallaby right from under his nose, the ultimate irony being that Peter's plan was to propose his, Matthew's, elimination. They had all turned against him.

He raced past the Wallaby buildings and headed for the highway, his mind frantically searching for answers. How could he not have seen it coming? Where had he gone wrong? Had he any forewarning of this? Could he have prevented it from happening, or have better prepared for Matthew's evil force? Had there been, when he had first interviewed Matthew two years ago, some clue, some inkling of what was to come?

"Are you sure you'll make it?" Peter said nervously.

"I'm sure," Rick Boardman said. "But if you don't quit breathing down my neck, I'll never have it ready by four o'clock!"

Rick was Peter's most prized software engineer. When Peter had discussed with Hank Towers the possibility of hiring Matthew Locke, he learned that Matthew was a somewhat reserved person. So Peter went directly to Rick, who was the programming leader on the new Joey computer. Peter asked Rick to put together an eye-popping sight-and-sound exhibition of the prototype computer, something to really show it off.

"I just hope you can do something incredible, Rick," Peter said.

He turned to leave.

"Wait," Rick said, taking the bait.

The programmer clicked the small b.u.t.ton above the trackpad, and on the screen an image of a bag of International Foods Crunch-Munch materialized. The bag opened, accompanied by crinkling sound effects, and popcorn started exploding out of the bag, followed by animated, high-spirited peanut-people adorned in tiny colored sungla.s.ses and striped sneakers. Each carried a little bucket. They chased after the three-dimensional popcorn puffs, splashing sounds resonating from the attached stereo speakers as they drenched the popcorn with candy coating. A baby kangaroo suddenly appeared on the scene, and the little popcorn people chased after it. The joey appeared to tear open a pocket right in the middle of the screen, then hopped inside, dropping a wink before vanishing. The peanut people dove in after the little fellow, then in the next instant they all came bursting out of the pocket with a pennant, which they unfurled: "WELCOME, MATTHEW," A chorus a children's voices screamed the same welcome and then the screen faded to black. Finally a phantom paintbrush appeared and painted the screen with the shimmering Wallaby logo.

Peter grinned with extreme satisfaction and pride. Still, he laid on a little more pressure, a little more challenge. "Hmm. I wonder if you make the last part, with the paintbrush, a little faster," he said, tracing the word "Wallaby" on the screen quickly with his finger. "Maybe you can add that part you showed me last week, too, with our little Joey pointing out the device's features with those slick animated flash cards he's got stashed in that secret pocket of his...."

Rick nodded excitedly. "Yeah, yeah, I can do that."

Peter left to the staccato sound of keystrokes and clicks, and went to his own office. Taking a folder from his desk, he lowered himself to his stylish couch, kicked off his dock shoes, stretched out comfortably, and began sifting through the collection of articles and clippings about Matthew Locke and International Foods, which had been mailed to both him and Hank earlier in the week by the headhunter they had retained for the search.

In a "Fortune" article ent.i.tled "Big Business Chairman Hopefuls,"

Matthew Locke was the first person mentioned, accompanied by a half-page picture of the young grinning Ivy League executive posed before a wall of soda bottles in a super market. The article predicted that Locke was being groomed to succeed International's long-time chairman and CEO, Rolland Worthy. It described Locke's career over the past fifteen years at IF, listing the numerous successful marketing programs he had developed, all of which Peter recognized: Holy Cow ice cream, Presto Microwave Popcorn, and one of the most popular beverages of all time, Orange Fresh carbonated juice. International Foods had formerly been separated into several divisions, the largest being food, beverage, subsidiary, and services. The article explained how Locke had consolidated the food and beverage divisions into one group, and had the services divisions rolled out as a subsidiary operating unit. That way, International Foods was able to concentrate primarily on developing and marketing its mainstream products; non-retail sales were managed as a separate business unit.

Pretty smart, Peter admitted. In his head, he tried to work the formula on Wallaby's separate product divisions, Mate, and the new Joey, but did not come to the same conclusion Locke had reached. Each of Wallaby's divisions was unique from a technological standpoint, and incompatible, unlike food and beverages which, as far as Peter was concerned, were all the same. This type of solution would not work in a company like Wallaby, Peter concluded, just as he had known it wouldn't when he started the Joey project a few years ago. To create Joey, he had taken a number of his top engineers from the Mate division and moved them into their own building. There were accusations of special privileges, and the accusations were true. Peter nursed, stroked, and dined his people in the Joey building. A giant refrigerator was stocked with exotic foods and beverages, portable Walkman CD players were free, and in-office ma.s.sages were provided by professional ma.s.seuses and ma.s.seurs.

Dismissing Locke's consolidation concept as impossible at a place like Wallaby, and therefore an inappropriate measure of the man's abilities, Peter skimmed more articles. He read interviews with people who had worked for Locke over the past several years. Most of them reflected on his no-nonsense business att.i.tude and keen marketing abilities. One marketing a.n.a.lyst who had worked with Locke on International's now highly successful line of diet beverages said that Locke often had several secret projects going at any given time, and as different market opportunities arose, he called upon the brewing projects to launch major new products.

The a.n.a.lysts and business community, and the most important group of all, the consumers, perceived the new products as brilliant and timely. Most of them, however, had been waiting in the wings, in some instances, a few years, until the right moment arrived to move them out of the marketing group and into the supermarket.

One spiteful IF manager revealed anonymously that Locke had never actually invented any of the products himself. The most outstanding example was the pull-tab, which back in the early 1970s banished the need for a can opener. While Peter took it for granted nowadays that all you had to do was pop the top on a can of soda to sip its contents, he could remember back to when he was a boy, when you had to use a can opener to get to what was inside. It was this fact, that Locke was the one to introduce the pull-tab, that appealed to Peter more than anything else. He compared the metaphor to the Mate and Joey. The Mate was the first all-in-one portable computer (though inside the company they referred to it as a "luggable," rather than a true portable) that you could easily move from room to room, place to place, but it was nonetheless difficult to use; you first had to understand the utility "tool" programs that controlled the machine and its programs before you could fully employ all of its features.