"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it,Chivas? Bet you thought there was going to be a big fight and you were going to have to protect Mark from his dad, didn't you? Well, you were wrong. Blake loves Mark just as much as you do." She smiled sadly. "He just doesn't understand him quite as well, that's all."

Almost as if he understood her words,Chivas trotted out of the kitchen and curled up on the floor at Mark's bedroom door, where he would wait patiently for the rest of the day.

It was nearly four o'clock that afternoon when Blake's secretary, Rosalie Adams, appeared in the doorway of his office. "All set for the big meeting?"

Blake shrugged. He and Rosalie had been trying to figure out what was going on all day, but so far neither of them had come up with an answer as to why Ted Thornton might want to talk to Blake. Thornton, after all, was the CEO ofTarrenTech, and though Blake's own position as Marketing Manager of the Digital Division was hardly low on the totem pole, everything atTarrenTech was done according to the chain of command. If John Ripley, who was Blake's immediate superior, was in trouble, it would have been Ripley's boss-the Executive Vice President of the division-who would have summoned Blake to tell him he was replacing John. But as far as both Blake and Rosalie could determine (and Rosalie had spent most of the morning on the secretaries network, gathering gossip), John Ripley was in no trouble at all. Besides, since it was Thornton himself who wanted to see Blake, the "poor old Ripley's out" scenario had never really made much sense. There were a lot of other people Thornton would have informed long before getting down the chain as far as Blake Tanner.

"No late bulletins?" Blake asked Rosalie as he got up and straightened his tie. He almost reached for his briefcase, but stopped himself in time, remembering that there had been no instructions for him to bring any files with him.

That, too, seemed unusual.

"Nothing," Rosalie replied. "Nobody seems to be in trouble, and if you've been a bad boy, either what you did was so awful no one's telling me, or you covered your tracks so well you haven't been caught. So go on in, and take good notes-I want to hear every detail of what the great man has to say."

And "great man," Blake reflected as he walked toward the large suite of offices at the far end of the corridor that housed Ted Thornton and his staff, was precisely the phrase that applied toTarrenTech's Chief Executive Officer. For it was Thornton who had begun the company a little more than a decade ago, and built it from a minor supplier of computer software into the giant high-tech conglomerate it had become. Though software was still one ofTarrenTech's major product lines, Thornton had recognized the volatility of the computer industry and launched a program of expansion and diversification. NowTarrenTech produced all kinds of electronics- from television sets to abstruse gadgets involved in the space program-and had gone into consumer goods and services as well.

When Thornton had decided the company needed its own fleet of airplanes, he had simply bought an airline, then another and another. That had led to hotels, car rentals, and a string of other travel-related companies.

Next, as Thornton had recognized the aging population of America, came the hospitals, nursing homes, and pharmaceutical companies. By now the Digital Division had become only a minor cog in the whole great machine, but Ted Thornton, partly out of a sense of nostalgia, and partly as a way of appearing a lot more humble than he was, still kept his offices in what had once been the entire space occupied by the beginnings of his vast conglomerate.

"Go right in, Blake," AnneLeverette told him from her guard post outside Thornton's door. "He's expecting you." Her smile alone made Blake relax, for it was well known that if Thornton was chopping off someone's head, Anne never smiled personally at the victim. Her loyalty to Thornton was legendary, and she was known to resent anyone she assumed had caused trouble for her boss.

Blake stepped through the double doors into the immense corner office and found Ted Thornton sitting behind a bare, black marble desk, a telephone cradled against his ear. Thornton signaled him to take a chair, then quickly wrapped up his phone call. As soon as he'd hung up, he stood, offering Blake his hand and asking if he wanted a drink.

Blake relaxed even more-the offer of a drink invariably signaled good news, and was not meant to be turned down.

"Chivasand water," Blake replied, and Thornton smiled.

"Never settle for less than the best," he said, pouring each of them a generous shot over a single ice cube. He grinned as he handed Blake one of the glasses. "It's a cliché, but then, your best moment has become one, too, hasn't it?" He held his glass up toward a large, framed mosaic on the wall. On a cobalt-blue background, the stylized white letters spelled out the slogan that Blake had dreamed up seven years before.

IF ITS HI-TECH, IT'S TARRENTECH

"I guess you could say so," Blake agreed, raising his own glass slightly, then taking a sip of the whiskey. Surely, at this late date, there was a more important reason for this meeting than for Thornton merely to acknowledge the slogan that had, indeed, become a cliché over the years? He wondered what Thornton was leading up to as he watched the CEO seat himself behind his desk again and regard him appraisingly.

"Ever heard of Silverdale, Colorado?" he asked, and Blake's heart skipped a beat. This was something neither he nor Rosalie had thought about.

"Is there anyone atTarrenTech who hasn't?" he countered.

"Oh, I'm sure there are a few." Thornton chuckled. "I'm not sure most of the people in the Travel Division even know about Research and Development, much less care."

Blake permitted himself a small smile. "I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with you," he suggested. "After all, Tom Stevens runs Travel, and his last post was Silverdale." He didn't feel it necessary to add that it wasn't merely the Travel Division's chief officer who had once been posted in Silverdale, but virtually every senior man in theTarrenTech hierarchy. A posting in Silverdale, as nearly everyone in the company knew, meant that you were in line for the top jobs. As far as Blake knew, however, no one from Marketing had ever been sent there before.

"True enough," Thornton mused, then fell silent for a few moments as his gray eyes seemed slowly to assess Blake. "Jerry Harris has an opening out there, and he's asked for you."

Blake tried not to let his astonishment show. Until two years ago Jerry had run the Digital Division, and though he'd been several rungs above Blake on the corporate ladder, the two men had become good friends, largely due to the influence of their wives, neither of whom seemed to give a rap for Ted Thornton's general disapproval of his managers becoming too friendly with men they might someday have to fire.

As if reading his thoughts, Thornton spoke again. "If you'd been working for him here, of course, I wouldn't entertain the idea for a moment-I've never believed in letting people build empires within my own company. But you didn't work for Harris here, at least not directly, and he's a good man. If I trust him to run R and D, I have to trust him to choose his staff. Therefore, you'll be moving."

It wasn't a question, it was a command. Blake understood instantly that he wasn't being offered a new job; he was being informed that he had one. Not that he would have considered turning it down, he reflected, even for a moment. Aside from the fact that to refuse would have meant the end of his career atTarrenTech, he was as aware as anyone that being sent to Silverdale meant that, at the age of thirty-eight, he was already marked for a top position in the company. And top positions didn't come much larger than they did atTarrenTech.