Not overly boastful but not humble either, he told himself. Strike just the right note: tout the product and himself but don’t beat it to death. Don’t grandstand but also don’t leave any doubt whose vision and deft hand closed the deal.

It was a chance, the first of his three years as CEO, and he intended to use it for all it was worth.

He was tired of all the former government bigwigs around him. That oversize board filled with grandstanding political has-beens, the sinecures to former admirals and generals, and too many deputy or assistant secretaries of this or that to count. He was tired of the whole stable of Uncle Sam’s former flunkies feeding at his trough. He privately loathed them. He detested their self-importance, their inflated titles, was bored with their exaggerated war stories, nearly wretched at their endless boasting about all the people they knew, the strings they could pull, and the doors they could open.

He sucked up to them, but privately seethed.

Mitch Walters was a businessman, plain and simple. A distinguished graduate of Wharton brought in to manage the exploding complexities of a corporation that had outgrown the mental nimbleness of a bunch of ex-government hacks.

During his years as CEO, he had been bullied and sneered at, treated as little more than a hired flunky, a bookkeeper to the famous clowns above him.

A bunch of condescending, windbag know-it-alls, all of them.

That was about to change.

In a year, as the miracle polymer became the talk of the industry, as more profits poured in than they could possibly count, he would squeeze the board for a fat bonus. It would be a memorable bonus, a record payoff. He had brought home the bacon and would insist on being amply rewarded.

The start point would be seventy million-why not?-but he would settle for a mere fifty, he promised himself.

Why be greedy?

12

At nine the next morning, the assault began-an army of nosy, cold-eyed accountants, mouthy consultants, and human resources assassins descended on Arvan Chemicals. They scrambled out of four large buses and poured resolutely and quickly through the front door of the plant. All were hired locusts from an arsenal of northeastern consulting firms who would give the company a long-overdue scrubbing. In their gray and blue business suits, and by their calm but chilly demeanors, they were easy to distinguish from the workers wearing stained overalls and strained, anxious expressions.

The assault was well planned, a maneuver rehearsed and perfected countless times as the Capitol Group took over and “turned around” other companies. The consultants were all seasoned veterans. Once they hit the front door they spread out and crashed into every nook and cranny of the business, from the mixing vats to accounting, to the employee records room, to the musty shipping room, to the dreary mail room in the back.

They asked thousands of questions, scribbled notes on the clipboards, then barked more questions. They spoke one language, the workers another: the consultants peppered the workers with phrases like, What are you doing to create multiphase strategic alliances?… How are you enabling expanded, collaborative commerce?… Name the steps you are taking to create seamless, integrated, and streamlined business manners. In response, they got a chorus of shrugged shoulders, bit lips, nervous chuckles, and befuddled expressions. Work at the plant ground to a standstill.

By 9:15, the five chemists who had worked on the polymer were located and herded into the small conference room upstairs. They mustered around the long table, were sternly ordered to sit, and step two commenced.

A glowering executive from the Capitol Group stood at the head of the table and threatened to fire them on the spot unless they immediately signed thick nondisclosure agreements protecting CG’s intellectual property rights. The six men looked horrified. They exchanged back-and-forth looks of confusion; Arvan Chemicals had always operated on integrity. Perry had never thought to force or even mildly encourage them to sign a vow of silence. Trust had always been good enough.

The executive, a lawyer naturally, went on a bit about what their new employer would do to anybody who refused to sign-firing would be immediate, and loaded in his briefcase was an expandable folder filled with devastating lawsuits and injunctions he would file that very day. Fill in a name and fire away. As only a lawyer can do, he threatened, cajoled, and bullied until the last terrified man scrawled his signature.

By ten, all documents pertaining to the polymer were collected in a large safe and a guard was posted.

Also by ten, Perry had signed the contract, a forty-page document loaded with legalese, clauses and subclauses, conditions piled on top of conditions. In return for his hundred million, among many other things, he agreed to relinquish all proprietary ownership rights, to abide by a strict vow of silence, and to never set foot in the factory he had built and nurtured and groomed for over forty years. He vainly tried to insert a few clauses, mainly protections for his workforce, but CG’s negotiators crossed their arms, scowled, and stonewalled.

Perry had already consigned himself to surrender anyway. The negotiators had been through this a hundred times, the last-minute guilt of the conquered. But why, on the cusp of victory, allow him to burden them with troublesome conditions? Just sign the agreement, they flatly insisted, just get this over with, and eventually Perry caved completely.

At eleven, four burly guards with Capitol Group patches on their thick arms helped Perry out of his chair and escorted him downstairs, then across the factory floor and out the broad double doors, straight to his car. A large group of horrified workers tried to approach him, but the guards pushed and barreled through like an NFL offensive line. The uniformed quartet stood with grim smiles and watched him climb in and start the engine. He gave one long pathetic look at the plant, one look at what had been his life’s work, then slowly he eased out of the parking lot.

They watched until Perry’s car disappeared into the streets of Trenton.

Reinforcements arrived promptly at noon. Another bus pulled up and disgorged a squad of CG chemists and metallurgists, technical experts brought in to assess Arvan’s breakthrough and decide on the fastest, most efficient way to kick it into production. They crowded into the small conference room and began studying the blueprints for the precious polymer. They had been given three principal questions to answer: How much of the polymer should be manufactured here? How much could be shifted to other plants, in other states, in order to build broader political support? How fast could it be jammed into mass production?

Meanwhile, the consultants on the shop floor began breaking the production teams into new units, breaking apart teams that had operated together for years. It was all part of the standard shock treatment. Sow confusion and fear, upend the old ways, disorient the workers, humiliate the supervisors, divide and conquer.

By close of business they would know who to lay off; by dawn the next day, a squad of guards would be posted at the doors, gripping clipboards with the names of those who would be allowed to enter and those who would be coldly sent home, permanently.

The hatchet men from human resources were given a fairly light objective: eliminate fifty percent of the workers and ninety percent of the supervisors, who were considered too set in the old ways.

Of course, not a dime would be paid to those they dismissed. Not a cent of the promised severance packages.

Of course, this would incite the usual flood of lawsuits and occasional picketing over broken promises.