A few scorch marks; otherwise the vehicles were completely undamaged. Not even dented.

Jackson looked down his long nose at Jack. “How did you get this material?”

“You mean, did I do something illegal?”

“Exactly.”

“Why would you care?”

“As your partner, we have the right to know our level of legal exposure.”

“Relax. At the moment you have no exposure.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Jackson snapped, tightening his eyes and glaring at Jack.

“I thought a lawyer would know better. Whatever I did occurred before the fact. Only if I tell you now do you become legally culpable or vulnerable.”

Touché. Jackson actually flinched and looked away.

“Does Arvan know you’re interested?” Walters asked, a good question.

“No. I met Perry Arvan once, in New York. I doubt he remembers me.”

Bellweather walked around the table and refilled Jack’s flute with champagne. “What makes you think Arvan’s ripe for a takeover?”

Jack raised his eyebrows and smiled. “There were things Perry Arvan failed to disclose when he visited Cauldron.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one, Arvan had a revenue of four hundred million, not last year, but the first year of the war. Demand shot through the ceiling. Between Afghanistan and Iraq, the intensity of operations went sky-high. The Army and Marines were blowing up two armies the usual American way, throwing millions of bombs and rockets and artillery shells at everything in sight. High explosives became desperately short, so Perry expanded his factory and almost doubled his workforce. He stocked up on chemicals to get ahead of what he was sure would be demand-driven inflation in the prices.”

“Those sound like good judgments,” Walters noted.

“Except all good things come to an end. And that’s exactly what happened. A year later, both wars sank into low-intensity stalemates. The insurgents still use plenty of high explosives, American military demand, though, has cratered. Last year, Arvan’s net sank to slightly over two hundred million.”

“How bad off is he?” Bellweather asked, almost rubbing his hands together. Arvan’s net was down fifty percent; this sounded so good, so filled with possibilities.

“I haven’t talked to him about it, right? But he’s done his best to avoid bankruptcy, taken the usual steps. Laid off a few dozen workers. Tried to restructure his debt, squeezed his suppliers, all reasonable measures, but in the end, it’s finger-in-the-dike stuff. His only prayer is this polymer.”

“Then it is, in a very real sense, his holy grail,” Walters observed.

“Yes, it’s well named.”

“What are his chances?” asked Bellweather.

“If he can hang on long enough to get a contract and swing into production, he won’t just survive, he and his company will be drowning in profits. He’ll have to hire ten accountants to keep track of the billions. The past two years will be a bad memory.”

“How close is he?”

“We have to move fast,” Jack replied, then paused before he admitted, “frankly, this is why I put this process into overdrive and turned up the heat.”

“Describe fast, Jack,” Walters said, nearly drooling with anticipation.

“Perry is initiating negotiations with a few low-level officials at the Army munitions command at Rock Island.”

Jackson, still licking his wounds from his earlier drubbing, said, “You seem to have unusual inside knowledge, Wiley. Do you have an inside source?”

“None of your business, Phil.”

“You signed the contract, Wiley. It is now.”

“Is it true you cheat on your wife?” Jack asked with a tight smile.

“What?”

“Any extramarital affairs? Share the dirty details, Phil. We’re your partners, tell us about the bimbo. Do you use a hotel? Is she hot, Phil?”

“Watch your mouth, Wiley.”

“And you learn to keep yours shut,” Jack snapped back and the temperature in the room instantly cooled a hundred degrees. “You’re my partner, not my owner.”

Jackson had taken his best shot at intimidation and come up empty. Not many people beat him at his own game, much less mugged him to a bloody pulp. Jack had accomplished this not just once but twice, and in such a resounding fashion. They were even more impressed with Jack, their fifteen-billion-dollar man.

“Why did he go to the guns and bombs people?” Haggar asked, trying to get the discussion back on track. Jack and Jackson were still staring each other down. “The force protection and threat reduction guys, that’s who he should be talking to.”

Jack looked away from Jackson, toward Haggar, and smiled. “Remember, Alan, Perry Arvan is a scientist, not a businessman. Because of the polymer’s qualities he figures the military will categorize it as an explosive. He’s a novice at the military procurement game. Always been a subcontractor, never a direct supplier.”

The CG boys took a moment to absorb all this inside information Jack had just unloaded on them. It sounded so promising. Inside only two years, Arvan had sunk from $400 million in revenue to just over $200 million. What a disaster. They could picture Perry Arvan slapping on Band-Aids, reeling from the shrinkage, trying to stem the bleeding long enough for the big bonanza that would save his hide.

The idea of stealing it all out from under his feet-and at the last minute-was immensely satisfying.

“So what’s your plan?” Bellweather asked, openly admiring Jack for finding such a plump target. Better yet, it was clear that Jack had an incredibly knowledgeable inside source. He was dying to hear the plan; it was bound to be great.

Jack got up and worked his way to the side table laden with food and snacks. He picked up a plate and loaded it with cucumber sandwiches, a few sweet pickles, some chips. “Perry is surviving a day at a time. He borrowed heavily for the expansion and to build his stockpile. He emptied his equity, leveraged himself to the hilt. I understand he owes 150 mil on five-year notes at seven percent. Do the math.”

Walters, only too happy to express the obvious, said, “Any setback at this point will be disastrous.”

“So do you have a plan to squeeze him?” Bellweather quickly asked. He was sure he had a whopper.

Jack selected a pickle and bit down hard. “You’re going to do it.”

“Us?”

“That’s right, and here’s a happy coincidence I think you’ll savor. Perry’s largest account is a munitions company located in Huntsville, Alabama. Globalbang. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

Big smiles instantly erupted on the other side of the table. Globalbang, they all knew, happened to be one of the many subsidiaries of the Capitol Group. It produced, among other things, Air Force bombs and Navy missiles and an assortment of other things that go boom in the night. No wonder Jack had set his sights on CG. They spent a brief moment admiring how cleverly Jack had walked them into this, then another moment, leaning forward to hear the details.

After nearly inhaling a sandwich, Jack continued. “Last year, Perry sold seventy million in chemical explosives to Globalbang. You can find out more easily than I, but assume his contracts this year are roughly equivalent.” He paused and let the moment build. “Imagine now if those contracts are canceled.”

“He would sue us,” Jackson snarled, still smarting from his earlier humiliation. It was time to even the score, and he knew how to do it. He worked up a condescending scowl and said, “And you know what, Wiley? He’ll have an excellent case. In fact, he’ll cream us.”

“So what?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Let him hire the meanest legal shark he can find. Sue to his heart’s content. It would take at least a year or two for resolution. Perry hasn’t got a prayer of surviving two months, much less two years.”

The light finally came on and Jackson blurted, “And if we take him over-”

“Then why would we sue ourselves?”