not thrust the image aside. she was bright and beautiful as a flame -
and, like a flame, you could not hold her. when she went, she took
everything with her, everything. He should hate her also, he really
should. Everything, he thought the company, his life's work, and the
child. When he thought of the child, he nearly succeeded in hating her,
and the newsprint shook in his hand.
He became aware again that five men were watching him, and without
surprise he realized that not a flicker of his emotions had shown on his
face. To be a player for fifteen years in one of the world's highest
games of chance, inscrutability was a minimum requirement.
In a joint statement issued by the new Chairman and incoming members of
the Board, a tribute was paid.
Duncan Alexander paid the tribute for one reason, Nick thought grimly.
He wanted the 100,000 Christy Marine shares that Nick owned.
Those shares were very far from a controlling interest. Chantelle had a
million shares in her own name, and there were another million in the
Christy Trust, but insignificant as it was, Nick's holding gave him a
voice in and an entry to the company's affairs.
Nick had bought and paid for every one of those shares.
Nobody had given him a thing, not once in his life. He had taken
advantage of every stock option in his contract, had bartered bonus and
salary for those options, and now those 100,00 shares were worth three
million dollars, meagre reward for the labour which had built up a
fortune of sixty million dollars for the Christy father and daughter.
It had taken Duncan Alexander almost a year to get those shares.
He and Nicholas had bargained with cold loathing. They had hated each
other from the first day that Duncan had walked into the Christy
building on Leadenhall Street. He had come as old Arthur Christy's
latest Wunderkind. The financial genius fresh from his triumphs as
financial controller of International Electronics, and the hatred had
been instant and deep and mutual, a fierce smouldering chemical reaction
between them.
In the end Duncan Alexander had won, he had won it all, except the
shares, and he had bargained for those from overwhelming strength. He
had bargained with patience and skill, wearing his man down over the
months. Using all Christy Marine's reserves to block and frustrate
Nicholas, forcing him back step by step, taxing even his strength to its
limits, driving such a bargain that at the end Nicholas was forced to
bow and accept a dangerous price for his shares. He had taken as full
payment the subsidiary of Christy Marine, Christy Towage and Salvage,
all its assets and all its debts. Nick had felt like a fighter who had
been battered for fifteen rounds, and was now hanging desperately to the
ropes with his legs gone, blinded by his own sweat and blood and swollen
flesh, so he could not see from whence the next punch would come. But
he had held on just long enough. He had got Christy Towage and Salvage
- he had walked away with something that was completely and entirely
his.
Nicholas Berg lowered the newspaper, and immediately his officers
attacked their breakfasts ravenously and there was the clatter of
