His plan was approaching its final stages. Yesterday's strategic alliance announcement had been deemed an enormous success by the press, and in just a few short months the plan's final phase would reach its climax.

He felt at ease and at peace now as he awaited the completion of his original plan. Though he had a real scare when Byron Holmes had called him four months earlier, asking for some of his notes and doc.u.mentation, his former partner had ultimately a.s.sured him that what he and Peter Jones were working on would not become a "real" product anytime soon.

Even so, he still felt more than a little concern for what the two were up to, but after finishing his conversation with Byron, William realized he had initially overreacted to his old friend's new hobby, as Byron himself had referred to it.

And now, with the strategic alliance phase complete, William felt for the first time like he could lift his feet from the pedals and coast through the final stretch as he advanced to the finish line.

With regard to the merger, the FTC would never allow ICP to acquire Wallaby under the two companies' current modes of operation. To counter this regulation, ICP would halt production of its BP portable computer, thereby avoiding a monopoly by pulling its own entry from the market-the Joey line would become ICP's new standard. In doing so, an even greater battle would cease. The clone makers, companies that manufactured computers that operated the same software as ICP's, would be nearly shut down once ICP announced Joey as their new portable computing standard. Unlike the BP, which used a third-party source operating system, the Joey was built upon Wallaby's proprietary hardware and software technologies, and was therefore illegal for other manufacturers to replicate it.

William's desktop now proudly displayed his prototype Joey II system, which he used for all of his office work. He'd had his technical adviser move his "old" BP to a shelf against the wall.

As far as he was concerned, he would no longer need it.

The irony of his plan was beginning to hit home. Here he sat, the chairman of the largest computer company in the world, with his "compet.i.tor's" product on his desk. William's dream was nearly reality. "I liked the product so much, I bought the company," he quipped to himself as he activated the e-mail program.

The machine's modem dialed the phone and connected to the host computer. There was only one message, and as it was being written to his screen, scrolling quickly from the bottom of the screen to the top, he saw that it was from Matthew Locke. The action was too quick for his eyes, so as he waited for the message to finish downloading, he pulled a tissue from his drawer and cleaned the computer's monitor.

Matthew's message was now unfolded on the display, complete, and as he wiped, the e-mail's subject caught his eye. He quickly scanned the screen for the gist of the message-and he froze.

His throat constricted and his mind slammed on the brakes, chucking him from his exhilarating joyride. He felt his insides rumble as if he were about to lose control of his system, not unlike the feeling, the lack of feeling, that he had experienced as Martha's hand let go of his when she had slipped away.

He forced his hands to be still on the desk and read the message from the beginning.

TO: [email protected] FROM: [email protected] SUBJECT: REVISED PLAN

William, I'll get right to the point: Yesterday's introduction of the Joey II was phenomenal.

Therefore, Wallaby and ICP will maintain a strategic alliance relationship, as we disclosed to the press: Wallaby will work with ICP to develop powerful Joey products which are compatible with ICP systems.

We will not go through with our private original plan of merging the two companies into one.

I am satisfied with my role at Wallaby as chairman, president, and CEO, and I look forward to our two companies working together.

--Matthew

"No," William declared breathlessly as he sank heavily into his chair. He raised the tissue to his brow, blotted the sweat that had instantly formed there.

In one fell swoop, Matthew Locke had just changed William's entire plan-and the future of ICP. He felt his heart racing, and he began to hyperventilate. He wondered if he was experiencing the onset of a stroke. He held his palm over his heart and willed it to slow while he attempted to breathe evenly, all the while staring at the message spilled across his-no, Matthew's!-screen.

When he eventually calmed down enough to think a little more clearly, his panic was replaced by shallow emptiness. Then, vaguely at first, a strange feeling of grief and mourning numbed his senses, resurfacing for the first time since he had begun his plan to acquire Wallaby.

His mind started racing, and his immediate reaction was to quickly counter Matthew's scheme by unveiling ICP's own compet.i.tive product, showing him that no one pushed the number-one computer maker around. Thinking this through, however, William could hardly bring himself to ask the question, What can I do? He already knew the answer. Nothing. Hadn't he himself halted any new designs of ICP's BP series, or for that matter, any new portable design, after reaching the "Jones" phase of the original plan, when Matthew had moved into power?

No backup plan, he thought and shook his head sadly. The funeral...the rebound to Wallaby...through these events he had lost the foresight to build a backup plan in case something like this should happen. And, he realized, taking the final blow, there could be no going back. While he could simply pick up the phone and call his development heads in and put together a team to begin accelerated development of his technical and market advisors' proposed concepts, a real product would not surface for at least twelve to eighteen months, probably more. He had no immediate backup plan, no product of his own to augment ICP's new strategic dependence and commitment to Wallaby and the Joey. He could not cancel the strategic alliance.

His gaze lingered painfully over the Joey II stationed before him. Its beautiful compact design, its crisp high-resolution screen, its ergonomic keyboard, its slick trackpad. Gently, William touched the trackpad, slid his fingertip across its smooth black surface.

Suddenly, strangely, his thoughts turned sympathetically to Peter Jones. Matthew Locke had just pulled on William the same surprise he had inflicted on Peter Jones.

Then all at once he felt charged as if by a synaptic tingle, a stirring in his fingertip that shot up to his brain. At first he feared he was completely losing control, but then he let out a little laugh, realizing, yes, he had crossed a fine line, and suddenly it all made complete and wonderfully perfect sense to him.

The call. Of course. It had been there all along, a hibernating backup plan, but William had simply ignored it. There had been no reason to notice it. His old friend calling just to say h.e.l.lo, to ask for a few notes, all along up to his old playful tricks.

Could it be possible? Were they really onto something? Something that William could perhaps enlist to save ICP from the switch Matthew Locke had just thrown?

Jones. That was the mistake he had allowed Matthew to make. A mistake that would now work in his favor.

Perhaps you were right, Matthew, William mused, sliding his fingertip to an appended e-mail file. He opened it and searched for Matthew's very first message to him after the board meeting in which Jones had been voted out of Wallaby. There it was.

Though Matthew had tried to persuade Jones to stay on at Wallaby, his exact words in the message were, "We'll succeed regardless."

You may be right, Matthew, William thought silently. He slid his fingertip over to a tiny card-file icon on the screen, typed "Holmes" on the keyboard and tapped the find icon.

He tapped the phone icon and the Joey's modem dialed Byron Holmes's telephone number. As he waited for his old friend to answer, he stared at his fingertip resting comfortably on the trackpad. A sudden awareness. .h.i.t him as if somehow he had just solved a puzzle that had been silently challenging him for a long time, that Wallaby without Peter Jones was as unsound as a the Joey without its sleek intuitive trackpad.

Grace answered, and they exchanged a few moments of courteous conversation then William asked for Byron.

"He's in his play room. I'll tell him to pick up."

A moment later, Byron came on the line. "Hi, Billy."

"Byron, how are things coming along?" William asked.

"Oh, not bad. You know, too cold to fish, mostly sitting around the house, stoking a fire."

"Right," William said, knowing he couldn't just pop Byron's cap open without a little playing. "And in your spare time, how's your hobby coming along?"

"Well, now, Billy, is there something you're curious about?"

"Yes, there is." He decided to come right to the point with his old friend, to simply ask for his help. "I'm very interested in what you and Peter Jones are working on."

"It's good stuff, Billy, though we've had a little bit of a pause."

"What kind of pause?"

"Petey had to go back to California. Had some business to deal with."

California: Wallaby. Was there more to Matthew Locke's scheming?

Had he persuaded Jones to come back to Wallaby, to rejoin him in leading the company? That would explain Matthew's newfound resolution to go it alone, without ICP. After all, wasn't Jones the one who had been so resistant to ICP all these years?

"Back to Wallaby?"

"h.e.l.l, no. Quite the contrary. Petey started selling off his Wallaby stock yesterday to fund our project."

William knew that Jones's stock sale would yield millions of dollars, many digits, the sort of lengthy figures required for serious development. Things were coming along, then. Which meant that they were probably well on their way to a real product design after all.