Tall Poppies (49 page)

Tall Poppies bowed Home Office on schedule, but they

were way behind. Lukewarm reviews said there was nothing wrong with the product, but so what? With its no-nonsense packaging, no sales discounts and lack of publicity, Home Office was a moth to Tony Savage’s glittering butterfly. Their loans were due in two months. It looked like the game was up.

‘He’s won,’ Nina said dully.

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‘Wait and see.’ Elizabeth was defiant. ‘I don’t hear any fat lady singing.’

Exactly twenty-one days after the launch, Dragon took a call. A sweet shop in Birmingham complained of a bug. Instead of printing out its normal spreadsheets, Executive Package was typing a nursery rhyme. Over and over. Nothing they could do would stop it.

Tony called the customer personally. He thought it was a masterly piece of PR.

‘Must be a faulty copy. What’s the message exactly?’

The man sounded embarrassed. ‘It goes, “I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal,” uh, milord.’

‘What?’ Tony coloured. ‘Never mind. Just a glitch. We’ll replace it right away.’

That same clay, the Customer Service Department received fen more calls. The next day, twenty. By the end of the week, they were flooded.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Tony said, raging at John Cobb. ‘Fix this! Don’t you understand, we have half a warehouse full of returned copies?’

Cobb looked helplessly at Frank Staunton. ‘I can’t fix it. It’s programmed into the code. It, uh, appears to be a time-activated thing.’

‘It prints the message three weeks after EP is turned on, sir,’ Frank Staunton said smoothly.

Tony looked at his underling with loathing. The little jerk was enjoying this!

‘If it’s in the code, write new code! Change it!’ Cobb ran his hands through greasy hair. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept. ‘But I can’t do that, milord.

It was Henry Namath’s code.’

‘Get out,’ Tony snarled.

Cobb scuttled out. Tony sat down heavily in his carved chair and stared at Staunton. ‘I can’t believe it.’ The

clipped tones were tight with humiliation and fury. ‘It’s a trap. The little bitches have trapped me.’

‘We’ll have to recall the entire line,’ Staunton said blandly. ‘I’m afraid the television stations are starting to pick up on it.’ He tossed Tony a copy of that night’s Evening Standard. Twin shots on the front page showed Tony and a computer screen, blurting out the EP

message. The headline was, ‘DIRTY RASCAL TO LOSE HIS CASTLE’.

‘To do what?’ Tony snorted. ‘What are they talking about, Staunton?’

‘I think it’s this comment from Marcus Fitzallen, sir,’ the Terrier said with undisguised pleasure, ‘speaking as Chairman of the Board of Dragon. He says they want a word.’

‘But he survived,’ Nina said.

Elizabeth shrugged. ‘Of course he survived. Men like that always do. My father knows too many people, he’s spent a lifetime covering his back.’

They were in the office, sipping champagne and leafing through the papers at a celebratory Tall Poppies brunch. All around them was the chaos of last night’s wild staff party. Friday morning, when Tall Poppies went public, the issue was an immediate success. After the bank loans had been repaid, they were all three millionaires, a few times over. Today they were looking at pictures of themselves in the financial pages, smiling broadly. Many of them were placed next to a grim-faced Tony Savage exiting his board meeting. The ‘Rascal’ fiasco had cost him a profits warning and a public reprimand.

‘What made you suspect John Cobb?’ Jack asked Harry.

He grinned. ‘I didn’t. I just didn’t trust anybody. I booby-trap every programme I write against hackers.’

‘Come on, sweetheart.’ Nina stood up and beckoned Harry. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘OK.’ He reached over and biefly touched her cheek. ‘I’ll wait for you in the car.’

‘Goodbye, Jack,’ Nina said, waving to him.

‘Nina.’ He winked.

Elizabeth said, ‘I’ll walk down with you,’ ran over and threaded her arm through Nina’s.

‘We did it,’ Elizabeth said.

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‘We did the first part of it,’ Nina replied, smiling softly.

‘We’ve got a long way to go to get where I want to be.’ ‘Tony’ll be back, you know? We hurt him badly, and we made him look like a fool.’

‘Yeah, ain’t life grand,’ Nina said, her eyes sparkling. ‘We can handle him, no problem.’

‘It’s true: he couldn’t stamp us out when we had nothing …’ Elizabeth grinned. ‘Living well is the best revenge, but misery and humiliation’s pretty good too.’

They hugged, and Nina slipped out to the back, to where Harry was waiting for her.

Elizabeth walked slowly back up the stairs. The place

looked like it had been hijacked by a gang of marauding , kids. Squishy cake on the steps and balloons drifting

everywhere.

Jack was perching on the edge of her office couch, wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a thick blue jumper. He looked so gorgeous. Bittersweet pleasure, because now, Elizabeth thought, he’s got nothing to stick around for.

0 She walked over to him and sat down. Don’t cry, Elizabeth warned herself, as her exhilaration burst like one of the balloons. Don’t ruin the happy mood by getting all emotional.

You know the score.

‘So, I guess you’ll be leaving soon.’

‘Hmm. Maybe.’ Taylor nodded. ‘But first, I got a business proposition for you.’.

Business. Right. Elizabeth tried to look enthusiastic. ‘Sure, go ahead.’

‘Well now,’ Jack said slowly. His Southern accent dripped over her like honey, she hated how his voice turned her on. ‘I spoke to Pop last night. Thought if y’all could make so much money with lateral thinking, we should give it a try. I was talking to him about property over here. The Viceroy Hotel.’

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‘The place on the river?’

‘Yes, ma’am. We reckon it would look real good in the portfolio, but it’ll need upgrading. We thought maybe Tall Poppies could do it.’

Elizabeth sat stunned. ‘But that would take you—’

‘At least six months. By which time, you’ll probably

need to open an office in the States.’

‘Jack!’

He caught her left hand and pressed it to his mouth. ‘Baby, I’ll say it again. Will you marry me? We can be together, we’ll work something out. Hell, you take all these dollar-and-cent gambles every day. Why don’t you risk a little on something important?’

Elizabeth leaned up and kissed him. He tasted of sun and champagne and Texas, Jack, her Jack, absolutely the

only man she had ever loved. ‘Aggressive as ever.’ ‘Is that a yes?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Elizabeth said, ‘that’s a yes, sugar.’

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