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wood. He read the marble plaque on the adjacent wall: THE FALCON ROOM. He paused, let out a deep breath, reached forward, and grabbed the brass handle, pulling the door open and stepping inside.
    Leon Yardley sat at the long conference table. He was hunched over, scanning through a shuffled mass of papers. He looked up and gave Charlie a queer, confused stare.
    “Hi, Leon,” Charlie said. “Having a good day, I hope?”
    Leon Yardley was a pale, thin man near seventy with a horseshoe head of silver hair. His forehead was sun-spotted from too many winters golfing in Boca. His neck was wiry with age and seemed physically incapable of holding up his head. Although Yardley lacked the physique to fill out his tailored suits, Charlie felt intimidated. He prickled at the notion of participating in one of Yardley’s meetings.
    A shadow of the man whose pictures lined the hallways and conference rooms of SoluCent, Leon Yardley still spoke in a booming voice that belied his withering frame.
    “Charlie,” Yardley said. “I didn’t realize you were attending.” His voice was husky and warm. Charlie observed Yardley fiddle with his Harvard class ring. He would twist the thick gold band back and forth around his spiny finger intermittently. Either it was an unconscious nervous habit, or the man wanted to reinforce his belief that Harvard outshined all other universities.
    “I’ve had this meeting on my calendar for a week now,” Charlie said.
    He had practiced the lie in his apartment several times that morning,even using Monte as a test audience. He had no margin for error. He had to be accepted and welcomed into the meeting as if he had belonged there all along. To do that required confidence and attitude, qualities Charlie possessed in abundance. If it played out the way he expected, Yardley and the others would assume that Charlie was supposed to be there and that someone had simply forgotten to update the agenda. In a company of twenty thousand employees, those mistakes happened.
    Jerry Schmidt was in the room as well. He looked up at Charlie and then over to Yardley but didn’t say anything. He didn’t even acknowledge that Charlie was there.
    “Well, it’s always good to have you,” Yardley said with polite sincerity. “Todd, you compiled the agenda. What is Mr. Giles here to discuss?”
    Todd Cumberland, a junior vice president in marketing, stared at Charlie.
    “InVision,” Charlie said. “I’m here to discuss InVision. What else?”
    Jerry Schmidt perked up. Jerry had a round, expressive face, bushy brown hair, and squinting oval eyes that shifted and blinked constantly, as though he had just awoken and was adjusting his sight. Stuffed into a brown suit that had been in vogue years ago and wearing tan shoes in desperate need of a good polish, Jerry was at least fifteen pounds overweight. From what Charlie could tell, that didn’t bother him in the least. Charlie knew his type well—not an appearance guy, but an old-fashioned workhorse, who had built a sizable fortune through marketing savvy and diligent follow-through, not engineering brilliance, qualities that greatly contributed to the company’s bottom line and Yardley’s steadfast loyalty. Convincing Yardley to turn on Jerry was going to be an uphill climb.
    “Don’t trust marketing to represent you, Charlie? Or did Mac tell you to come here and cover?” Jerry asked.
    “I’m here on my own,” Charlie said. “Mac is out of town, so we didn’t have time to connect on my topic.”
    Charlie’s boss, Simon “Mac” Mackenzie, was on vacation and wouldn’t be back for another few days. The timing, from Charlie’s perspective, could not have been better. He hadn’t worked for Mac long, but Charlie knew him well enough to know he would never have condoned such aggressive tactics. Fortunately, Mac had onequality that served Charlie’s mission well: the discipline to stay out of office affairs while on vacation.
    Charlie settled into a vacant seat