And he liked driving along with his hands on the wheel as the big V-8 engine ran with a low satisfying sound that reminded him of a perfect, sustained note coming from deep in the belly of an operatic tenor.
And he liked how there were just enough motorists on the freeway to give him a sense of forward progress, of linkage to other people pursuing their daily objectives, each of them slightly ahead of the pack, moving toward their destinations in lanes that would jam tight only a few hours later.
On his way to work now, he was undeniably pleased that he'd resisted Pete and Ashley's urgings. There were a number of things on his mind, things he needed to sort through without interruption, and the driver's seat of his car was the ideal place to do precisely that.
It always comes down to willt timing, and maneuverability, he reflected. You have to avoid getting stuck on any one battle, and make sure you're ready to exploit any possible chance to take the opposition by surprise.
That was modern combat doctrine in a nutshell, although in this instance Gordian was thinking neither about armed conflict, nor even the martial art of highway driving, but business, which he had long ago learned was its own species of warfare — coldly opportunistic, full of hidden traps, and capable of heaping loss and carnage upon the unprepared, the indecisive, and the inflexible.
The night before, Gordian had gotten his call to war from Chuck Kirby, who had phoned to confirm what he'd already known in his gut, and what legal disclosure requirements would reveal to the public within days: The tender offer for the Spartus holdings had been made by Marcus Caine through a rather thinly disguised corporate surrogate… specifically, a Midwestern concern called Safetech.
Okay, next item, he thought. Having established what Caine wanted, the issue of why he wanted it still remained to be tackled. A takeover seemed the obvious objective, but things were not necessarily that clear. The Williams Act and a whole slew of California securities and antitakeover statutes compelled Safetech to state the reasons for its stock acquisition in a Schedule 13D filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in other documents it was required to exhibit to shareholders. Even playing strictly by the rules, however, Caine had plenty of wiggle room in which to obscure his intent.
His offer-by-proxy left no doubt that he at the very least wished to remain discreet — and one thing Gordian knew about Caine was that he never stayed in the background unless there were some very compelling reasons to do so. While Marcus was often unsubtle, he was not unsophisticated. If he was preparing to mount a raid, he would bide his time until he was in the best tactical position to execute it. Hands down, he would represent himself in the schedule as seeking not to wrest control of UpLink from Gordian and its board of directors, but rather to obtain a substantial minority interest that would give him a say in managing its assets, and allow him to protect his investment. Whether that position would bear up under scrutiny was immaterial, because all the courts were likely to do in the event of false or incomplete disclosures was order that they be revised.
Meanwhile, Caine would be getting exactly what he needed: time to woo other large shareholders to his side, time to sidestep the Williams Act's disclosure provisions by purchasing smaller blocks of UpLink stock on the open market, time to develop and refine any number of additional takeover strategies.. assuming, of course, that a complete acquisition was his goal.
How, then, to anticipate it? Kirby and his trustbusters were already formulating a civil action on the grounds that there were several sectors of the communications and technology industries where Marcus Caine's various interests were in direct competition with UpLink. The lawsuit was a showstopper in that it would keep the lawyers and judges wading through a sea of complicated litigation, but unless the feds climbed aboard with a criminal antitrust suit of their own to bolster UpLink's challenge— something they were typically slow to do — it would result in a long battle of attrition with unpredictable results, and hunkering in had never been Gordian's style. As Sun Tzu once said, the possibility of victory lay in the attack. With all the resources at his disposal, there surely had to be a—
Gordian eased into the left lane to pass a lumbering trailer truck in front of him, a look of deep concentration on his features. Quite unexpectedly, his mind had turned back to the piece he'd read by Reynold Armitage in the Wall Street Journal the other day. What was it he'd had to say about Gordian's resources? The leadoff essentially had been a rant about his corporate diversification having led to wrongheaded management decisions, after which Armitage had drawn his grotesque Siamese twins metaphor, something about mismatched limbs and unsustainable growth. The article had prickled — but could it be Armitage had a point?
Gordian hesitantly had to admit that he might, and supposed part of his irritation over what he'd read stemmed from his having realized it from the beginning, if only on a semiconscious level. He could not afford to let his disdain for Armitage — or suspicions about his motives—
prevent him from intelligently evaluating his assertions. Emotionalism in a fight was blinding and corrosive. Regardless of its ultimate merit, his enemy had unwittingly given him a tip worth exploring.
And if it turns out he's right, what path does that take me down? Gordian thought, knowing full well that wasn't the question he needed to ask himself. The path was there before him, its direction clearly marked, and what he really had to learn was whether he'd have the strength and will to walk it… and accept the painful sacrifices to which it would inevitably lead.
Inhaling deeply, he glanced out the driver's window to see the sun perched fat and lazy above the mountains, as if it had found a comfortable nest where it might linger for all eternity, describing a constant, knowable horizon against which he could steer a warmly lighted path through the world.
Pity indeed life was never that simple.
It would have been a harried and difficult twenty-four hours for Pete Nimec under the best of circumstances. With only a couple of days to go until Roger Gordian and his closest advisors flew to D. C. for their press conference, a million and one security arrangements — everything from personnel selection to the job's involved Beltway logistics — needed to be finalized. In addition, there had been a series of unexplained lapses in the alarm net at the Nevada data-storage facility. And two of his Sword administrators at the Botswana satellite station had let a squabble over authority escalate into a bar fight that left one with cracked ribs, the other in a local jail, and Nimec with the problem of whether both deserved to be canned.
These were all matters requiring prompt attention, but it was Max Blackburn's unaccountable disappearance that had been occupying most of his thoughts… and the phone conversation he'd just had with Max's secretary had done a lot to exacerbate his worried mood.
On his previous call, which he'd placed from the UpLink building at six o'clock Tuesday night — eleven A. M. Wednesday, in Malaysia — Joyce had told him Max still hadn't returned to the ground station or contacted her with any explanation for his absence, making it almost four days since anyone had seen or heard from him. The protectiveness Nimec had detected in Joyce's voice when they'd had their initial talk had been replaced with a disconcerted, anxious tone.