Hoodwinked. Diana Palmer

were visiting dignitaries or government inspectors around. There was a lot of concern about the disappointing first test flight of the corporation’s Faber jet, and perhaps that was at the root of Mr. Blake’s nervousness. Quality control was where the buck stopped when anything went wrong with new designs, especially when the design department could prove that they weren’t at fault. That put not only Maureen’s boss but the entire quality-control department on the firing line.

      The design department had already proved itself blameless; they’d shown a computer-graphics presentation of the craft’s performance on paper. The plane should have flown perfectly. So now everybody was beginning to think that the flaw was much more likely the result of sabotage than a design defect. MacFaber had enemies. Most successful companies and executives did. One particular rival firm, Peters Aviation, had recently made a takeover bid for MacFaber’s corporation. But characteristically, old MacFaber had pulled his irons out of the fire just in time by gathering up proxies. He had three votes over what he needed to win the fight, and Peters had gone away fuming but empty-handed. But if the new design failed, and Peters got his design in ahead of time, the board of directors might vote a lack of faith in MacFaber and approve the takeover. It was a risky situation.

      Maureen, like the rest of the staff, had wondered at the poor maiden performance of the renovated Faber jet. It didn’t seem possible that it had been sabotaged, but the evidence was beginning to point that way. How curious that Mr. MacFaber hadn’t been roaring around the place raising Cain over the difficulties. But perhaps the lady in Rio had him mesmerized.

      “I’d like to mesmerize someone, just once,” she muttered as she pulled up the Faber-jet file on her computer and began to type the performance report Mr. Blake had given her.

      The intercom buzzed, interrupting her thoughts. “Miss Harris.”

      “Yes, Mr. Blake?”

      “Please go down to Mr. MacFaber’s office and ask Charlene for the latest figures on the cost overrun on the Faber-jet modifications,” he said.

      “I’ll go right now.”

      She left the computer up and running and went down the hall to the huge office that Mr. MacFaber occupied when he was in residence. Charlene, a pretty blonde, was glaring at her computer monitor and grumbling.

      “I hate computers,” she said, glaring at the screen. “I hate computers, I hate companies that use computers, I even hate people who make computers!”

      “Shame on you,” Maureen said. “You’ll upset it and it will get sick.”

      “Good. I hope it dies! It just ate a whole morning’s work and it won’t give it back!”

      “Here. I’ll save you. Get up.” Maureen grinned at her, sat down, and within five minutes had pulled out the backup copy of the file, copied it, and put Charlene back in the chair.

      Charlene stared at her suspiciously. “I don’t trust people who understand how to do things like that. What if you’re an enemy agent or something?”

      “I can’t possibly be. I don’t even own a trench coat,” Maureen said reasonably. “Mr. Blake wants the latest cost-overrun figures on the Faber jet. I’d have asked for them on my terminal, but I imagined you having hysterics if you had to try to send it via your modem.”

      Charlene’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t even know how to turn on the modem, if you want the truth. I never wanted this job in the first place. Computers, modems, electronic typewriters—if the pay wasn’t so good, I’d leave tomorrow. You try sitting here trying to explain to everybody short of God that Mr. MacFaber hasn’t set foot in the office for the past year. Just try. Then explain to all these people who keep calling him that he can’t be reached by phone because he’s sitting on the banks of the Amazon contemplating the ancient Incas or something!”

      “I’m really sorry,” Maureen said. “But I do need the cost-overrun figures.”

      Charlene sighed. “Okay.”

      She got up and fumbled through her immaculate filing cabinets until she got what she was looking for and handed a file to Maureen. “Don’t lose it and don’t let it out of your sight. Mr. Johnston will kill me if it vanishes.”

      “You know very well the vice president in charge of production worships the ground you walk on.”

      Charlene smiled smugly. “Yes, I do know. If he doesn’t watch out, I’ll have him in front of a minister. He’s sexy.”

      “I think so, too, but we can’t all look like you,” Maureen told her. “Some of us have to look like me.”

      “I like your new hairdo and makeup,” Charlene said kindly.

      “I’m still going home alone, though.” Maureen shrugged. “Maybe someday I’ll get lucky.” She glanced around the plush, carpeted office. “Have you ever seen your boss?”

      “Once, at a dead run, when I first got this promotion three months ago. Mostly I get memos and phone calls and relayed messages. He’s not bad looking, I guess. A bit old for my taste. Graying around the edges, you know, and a little on the heavy side. Too much high living, I suppose.” She frowned. “Although it could have been that bulky coat he was wearing.” She shrugged. “He had on dark glasses and a hat—I wouldn’t know him in a police lineup.”

      “You’d think his picture would be around here somewhere, wouldn’t you, since it’s a family corporation,” Maureen remarked.

      “There was a picture, but it didn’t come over with the stuff from the old building, God knows why.” Charlene sighed. “Bring that file back when you finish, okay?”

      “Okay. Thanks.”

      She took the file back to Mr. Blake and sat down at her computer again. Odd, some of the figures looked different. But a quick glance at the sheet she’d been copying from told her that they were correct. With a tiny shrug she got back to work.

      The canteen was full when she got there. She’d long since decided that rushing out to a restaurant was wasted time, and fighting the hectic traffic just killed her appetite. Even if the canteen food was artificial tasting, it was handy and cheap.

      She bought herself a cold meat sandwich and a diet soft drink and sat down as close to the window as she could get. She felt self-conscious around all these people, most of whom were men, although nothing about her clothes was the least bit provocative. She was wearing a beige suit and pink blouse, with her hair in a neat French twist at her nape. She looked young and elegant and not too unattractive, she thought. The makeup did help, but nothing would change the fact that she wore glasses. She’d tried contact lenses, but she’d grown allergic to them and kept getting eye infections, so she’d given up. Anyway, she was never going to be a raving beauty. As if that mattered. None of the men around here ever looked at her, anyway.

      She munched on her sandwich, watching the antics of a squirrel in the big shade tree next to the canteen with a faint smile. It took a minute for her to realize that she wasn’t alone anymore. A shadow fell across her as the big, dark man she’d met yesterday sat down two seats away with his lunch pail, glancing coldly at her as he opened it.

      She didn’t look back. She’d already had enough of his arrogance. Her sandwich began to taste like cardboard, but she didn’t let him know it.

      “You work for Blake, don’t you?” he asked.

      She kept her eyes on her sandwich. “Yes.”

      He put his sandwich in a wrapper on the table and opened a thermos to pour some of its contents into a cup. “Does it pay pretty good?”

      “I get by.” She was feeling more nervous by the minute. Her hands trembled on her sandwich, and he saw it and frowned.

      He glanced her way with coal-black eyes that seemed to see every pore in her skin. “I’ll bet you do,” he replied. “You don’t dress like a penniless secretary.”

      That was vaguely insulting.