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Weldon made a shooing motion with his long-fingered, liver-spotted hands.
Hawks got up from his chair, dreading the trek through the Old Man's jungle. There were a lot of snakes
between him and the elevator.
"Oh, one little thing more," the Old Man said, with a slight cackling that might have been laughter.
"There's going to be a few changes at Webb. I've hired a new assistant for you."
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Hawks turned back to face Weldon. He had to stand on tiptoe to see over the plants on his desk. "An
assistant?" His voice nearly cracked with anxiety.
"Yes. A corporate systems engineer. What we used to call an efficiency expert in the old days."
"Corporate.." Hawks knew what the title meant: hatchet man.
"Gunther Axhelm." Weldon's wrinkled face was grinning evilly. "You may have heard of him."
Hawks's knees turned to water. Heard of him? Who hadn't heard of Axheim the Axe, the man who single-
handedly reduced General Motors to a museum with a staff of six, the man who fired four thousand
management employees of AT&T in a single afternoon and drove Du Pont out of business altogether. He
was coming to Webb! Might as well get in line for unemployment compensation now, before the rush.
"Don't get scared," the Old Man said, almost kindly.
"Scared? Me?"
"You're white as an albino in shock, son."
Hawks tried to control the fluttering of his heart. "Well, Axhelm's got quite a reputation.."
"Nothing for you to worry about, son. I promise you. Just give him a free hand. It'll all work out for the
best."
"Yessir."
"And get that electronic book for me! I want it in our hands. I want this brilliant young inventor on our
team or out of the picture altogether. Do you understand me?"
"Certainly, sir." Hawks saw the diamond-hard glint in the Old Man's eyes and decided that he would
rather face the snakes.
Weldon W. Weldon watched his protege slink away through the jungle foliage. "Brain the size of a
walnut," he muttered to himself. "But he follows orders, like a good Nazi."
With a sigh, Weldon poked a bony finger at the floral design on one of the ceramic pots atop his desk. The
plants were all plastic, beautiful fakes. The pot's curved surface turned milky, then steadied into a three-
dimensional image of Tarantula's corporate organization chart.
Tapping a few more places here and there among the flower pots, Weldon got the display to show the
distribution of stockholders in Tarantula. Although he himself was the largest individual stockholder, he
only owned twelve percent of the company. There were others out there, selling out to the Sicilians.
It was a complicated situation. Tarantula was supposedly an independent corporation. But Synthoil Inc.
owned a majority of the stock, and Tarantula was in fact controlled by that Houstonbased corporation. Yet
sizable chunks of stock were owned by other companies, too, such as Mozarella Bank & Trust; an obvious
Mafia front.
The old man shook his head tiredly. The stockholders meeting coming up this November will determine
the fate of the corporation, and I'm not even sure who the hell owns the company!
Reader s Report
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Title: Midway Diary
Author: Ron Clanker (Capt., U.S.N., [Ret.])
Category: WWII historical fiction
Reader: Elizabeth Jane Rose
Synopsis: Tells the story of the Battle of Midway from the point of view of a young navy officer serving
aboard a U.S. ship. He is in love with a Japanese-American woman who lives in Hawaii, which causes no
end of troubles because we are at war with Japan at the time. I don t know much about WWII (I was an
English major, of course), but his writing is vivid and there s not too much blood and machismo. The
novel is really very romantic and sensitive in spite of all the war stuff.
Recommendation: Should be considered seriously by the editorial board.
FOUR
AFTER two hours, Carl finally began to understand the way the editorial board worked, although it didn t
seem to make any sense.
He had thought, from the little Lori had told him, that the purpose of the meeting was to decide which
books Bunker would publish, out of all the manuscripts the editors had received since the last meeting.
One by one, each editor seated around the conference table described a book manuscript that he or she
believed should be published. The editor usually started with the author s name and a brief listing of the
author s previous books. Then the editor spoke glowingly of the book s subject matter: 'This one is hot!'
was a typical remark. 'A diet that allows you to eat all the chocolate you want!'
Not a word was said about the quality of the writing, nor of the ideas or philosophies the writers were
writing about. The editors talked about each manuscript s category (whatever that was) and the author s
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