The Price of Greed

CHAPTER 1 -

Thursday

The sudden crack of a whip brought his head up sharply and he looked across the room at the familiar figure silhouetted in the doorway. The amber light from the vestibule chandelier formed a corona about the tight black dress and it created a shimmer as the woman moved into the room. He pushed away from the desk and sighed at another snap as she slowly crossed the room to where he sat.

"All work and no play, Victor." The woman coiled the whip up and carefully laid it on the corner of the desk.

"I'm afraid lately that's all I have time for." He tried to sound bored but didn't quite pull it off; her scent drifted to his nostrils and he licked his lips and swallowed.

"I hope you're not rebuffing me."

"I'm not rebuffing you, Charlotte. It's work. In three weeks I need to have a fully functioning program in place to get a contract signed and if I don't, it will default to Dynaflex and that could be the end of Enland Company; I have invested almost everything in this bid."

"Is that likely -- that you won't get it I mean?"

He swiveled slowly in the chair, rubbing his eyes. "No, but one can't take chances; the contract is huge. There is no room for error."

"You can't be serious about the end of your company; you told me your codes were worth millions." She cooed.

"They are but they have to be in use to prove their value. This contract will be the trophy piece in the company's history. If we lose out, Enland will slip back into the general population of those mediocre companies scrambling for business. The codes we developed are the cutting edge but they'll be useless if we fail. We had to sign a contract forbidding their use in anything anywhere other than by the client company . . . win or lose."

"Can they hold you to that, after all you did create them?"

"It was that or no bid. They know the value of this and they are the only company that can afford to pay what they will be worth."

"So is there a problem with your time frame?"

"Yes, that is my enemy right now -- time. W just finished the beta tests and things are perfect but we still have to convert to the contract parameters. What burns me is that Dynaflex could become top dog with a product that can't even come close to ours."

"I think your problem lies in worrying too much about your competition." She sat on the desk, raised one leg then the other, and compared the two. "What happens after this contract is signed?"

"Enland sits back and rakes in the money. Fish in a barrel, Charlotte."

She turned one leg back and forth and admired it absently. "Have you ever considered getting out altogether and just enjoying your spoils?"

He stared at her legs with her. "Not seriously . . . but then who knows?" he said distractedly. "This could be the zenith of my achievements"

She stood and walked around to his side of the desk, sliding a flank onto the corner and leaning down toward him. "Could be? Then why chance it, take your success and run, Victor, why bother with all this stress?"

He rocked in the chair and spread his hands. "My success is the company, Charlotte. Sure I've got money enough I suppose but the real value, the fist that holds the throat of this deal is in our programming codes and if they work as projected, I can squeeze that throat dry." He held a clenched fist up as a symbol.

"You want to hang on for the power position." She shifted slightly on the desk, smiling. "I guess I can relate to that."

"Power is control." He went on, missing her sly inference. "The money lets me do the things necessary to get that power. The stupid thing is, I own the bloody company but I can't access my own program under the security rules we put in place; it's all in a separately structured domain available only to the tech heads. And they can't get it exclusively without me." He made a grim face. "It's ridiculous isn't it? We have effectively blocked it from everyone. So, my dear, the power is in the ownership of the codes, and for me that lasts only as long as I run the company."