Years past, the rumors were harmless and mostly ambled around common themes: office romances, promotions, and corporate politics, such as they were in a small, inbred company. But the past year, a new theme had taken hold. Terror was the only word to describe it: the layoffs struck like a fist. One year, business was booming like never before: the warehouse was crammed with a massive chemical stockpile, new equipment was ordered to chase the sudden demand, and Perry could hardly hire enough folks to handle the load. Then everything dropped off a cliff. The first layoff in Arvan’s history. Pay cuts across the board. The tremors were still being felt, leaving everybody edgy and faintly resentful.

Eddie Lungren, a big, interminably happy Swede who worked in mixing, manned the bar, a job he was quite proud of, though mostly it entailed little more than handing out Budweiser in bottles and cheap boxed wine in flimsy plastic cups. “The usual, boss?” he asked Perry, and after a nod, Eddie’s big hand pushed an icy diet Pepsi across the bar. After a health scare twenty years before, Perry had quit smoking and drank very rarely.

Mat Belton, Arvan’s financial officer, eased his way over. “Nice turnout,” he mentioned, nodding in the direction of the grills where a gaggle of workers were hungrily eyeing the chicken. Tuesday cookouts were strictly informal affairs. Most workers were still wearing their grungy coveralls, and it was strictly jeans and T-shirts for the wives. Before the purge, the turnouts were twice as large.

Perry took a slug of Pepsi. “How were the numbers this week?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Will we make payroll?”

“By a hair. It was touch and go. Had to sell five trucks and six mixing vats on eBay to make it.”

“Won’t be much longer,” Perry assured him, trying to sound confident. The past year Perry and Mat had employed every desperate trick they could think up in a jarring race against bankruptcy. Everything that wasn’t nailed down had been sold or auctioned off-usually for a tenth its worth-in an endless, increasingly reckless effort to raise cash. They had fallen behind on bank payments a few times. For a while Perry’s charm and solid reputation had bought a reluctant form of patience from the banks. Eventually, though, the calls turned threatening and vicious. Mat was forced to play hardball to get the bankers to back off. Go ahead, he had snarled at one particularly obnoxious lender-push harder, we’ll declare Chapter 11, and you and the other buzzards can scratch each other’s eyes out over the scraps, which won’t be worth squat.

Poor Mat had also been the one to make the job cuts. Perry simply didn’t have the heart, so wielding the scythe and delivering the harsh news fell to his financial man. Predictably, Mat’s popularity took a terrible drubbing. The tires on his car got slashed so many times he now took a taxi to work, sneaking up the back stairway and through the rear hallways to his office. He brought bagged lunches to avoid the nasty stares and snide comments in the company cafeteria.

“How long is not much longer?” Mat asked, taking another long sip of wine. A year ago wouldn’t be too soon.

“Hard to say, Mat. Monday, Harry and I went up to Rock Island Arsenal.”

“I heard. How’d that go?”

“Okay, I guess. They were impressed. I think we might be talking with the wrong people, though.”

“All right, who are the right people?”

Perry stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Who the hell knows? That Department of Defense is an octopus, a massive bureaucracy sprawled everywhere. Left hand doesn’t seem to know anything about the right hand. I asked the fellas at Rock Island. No idea.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, Perry. Every day counts. We’re tiptoeing on the edge of bankruptcy.”

“Hell, I know that, Mat. We could afford it, I’d hire one of those slick operators from down in Washington. You know, someone to cut through the red tape.”

“That would be wonderful.” Mat drained the wine from his plastic cup. “You’re right, though,” he concluded somberly. “We can’t afford it.”

Timothy Dyson, the besieged CEO of Globalbang, could feel the damp sweat mark spreading on the back of his red leather chair. He was being read the riot act by Mitch Walters and some good-looking young hotshot who had flown down with him in the corporate jet to Huntsville.

“Guess if the war heated up, that would help plenty,” he said softly, sinking lower in his chair.

“See if I got this right,” Walters snarled, rapping a big knuckle on the table. “Two years ago, sales were 1.8 billion. Last year, they slipped to 1.2 billion. This year is sinking below a billion.”

“Essentially, those are the numbers, yes. With a little luck and a strong backwind, we’ll probably hit nine hundred mil.”

Walters rolled his eyes and slapped the table. “That’s it?”

“Mitch, this is a demand-driven business. You knew that when you acquired us three years ago. We can’t make the Air Force and Navy shoot more.”

Walters had dropped in for a surprise visit, then forced Dyson to spend half of a miserable hour reviewing the declining state of Globalbang’s business. Thirty minutes of unanswerable questions, pierced by snarls and scowls. Dyson wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

A spy at the local airport had notified Dyson the moment the big CG corporate jet touched down. He dropped everything and placed a frantic call to his wife, telling her to contact a real estate appraiser and arrange a quick sell. Mitch Walters rarely paid visits. Walters never paid friendly visits.

Walters narrowed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, Dyson, that’s just not likely to happen. Your numbers have been nose-diving for two years without stop.”

“But we’re still profitable. I’ve been cutting costs and laying off people like crazy.”

“Not good enough.”

“I’ve also shut down half the facility. No electricity, no water, no nightly cleanup. Half of the plant is a ghost town with big dustballs blowing through the aisles.”

Walters was staring down at one of the paper slides prepared monthly that detailed the intricacies of the company’s finances. “What about this?” he demanded, thumping a finger on the page.

“What’s that?” Dyson leaned forward and tried to get a better view of whatever Walters was peering at. “The supplier slide?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“What about it?”

“What have you done to squeeze them?”

“They haven’t been neglected, believe me. Six months ago, we brought them all down here, turned the screws, said they’d share our pain or else.”

“That’s the right spirit.”

“They agreed to take a ten percent revenue reduction.”

“That’s it? Only ten percent?” Walters growled, as if that were nothing.

“Christ, Mitch, most are in very low-margin businesses. Ten percent is crushing. It virtually wipes out any chance of profit. They’re all in survival mode.”

Walters peered thoughtfully at the slide for another moment. All told, there were 120 suppliers spread across six slides, but he seemed fixated on this one. “You know what you need to do?” he eventually announced, tapping his broad forehead as if the idea had just come to him.

Yeah, find a new job where I don’t have to answer to a bullying prick like you, Dyson was tempted to say but obviously didn’t. “Not a clue.”

“An example, that’s what we need.” Walters raised a finger, shut his eyes, and brought the digit down on an apparently random target. He opened his eyes and bent down. “Arvan Chemicals,” he whispered slowly, as if sounding it out for the first time.

“What about it?”

“Cancel their contract. Today.”

Dyson gripped the arms of his seat and recoiled backward. “I can’t do that, Mitch. Just can’t.”

“Sure you can. It’s easy.”

“For one thing, it’s a one-year fixed-cost contract. We’ll be sued for everything we’re worth.”