Hostile Takeover Read Online Free PDF

easier to work with. Best of all, he now knew that if one of them went rogue, he knew their weaknesses. He had recourse. He could stop them.
    As the number of people working for him had grown, his prestige and power kept pace. He traded his town home for a real home and a far better class of mistress. Everyone took his call. The pit of his stomach unclenched. For even as the power of his agency grew, the number of problems it had to deal with shrank.
    The hubris of the bureaucrat Smiles had grown. Had he become so powerful that he could avoid the inevitable reversal of fortune? Had he become, in his happiness, the untouchable man, no longer the plaything of the Gods? Perhaps, but centuries of drama would suggest otherwise.

    Smiles had been enjoying one of privileges of his position, sitting in his corner office playing solitaire on an NSA-encrypted, $5,000 laptop. He had been planning to take a late lunch and forget to come back to the office. Life had been good for Director Smiles.
    Red 9 on Black 10," had come a voice from over his shoulder. Smiles had spun in righteous anger. Who would dare to sneak up on him? To enter his office without knocking? Not only to catch him playing solitaire, but to kibitz on his play?
    He had found himself facing Senator James Buchanan. He was sleek and fat like a cat who shouldn’t be able to hunt, but was somehow cunning enough that he always had blood on his claws. Senator Buchanan controlled at least 70% of Smiles’ funding. Using the bureaucratic superpower known as oversight, The Senator could make Smiles’ life very uncomfortable if he was unhappy. And he had looked very unhappy just then.
    Before Smiles had been able to sputter an excuse, the Senator had cut him off. "Get up." An aide of the Senator's had quickly moved to the computer and inserted an encrypted USB drive. He had turned the laptop monitor so that Smiles could see.
    Smiles saw that the screen was showing a highlight reel of General Business Machines being torn apart by a man with a thick neck and forehead villainous low. It could only be the Cromoglodon. The same Cromoglodon who, Director Smiles had told the world, was dead.
    "You see why I am upset?" asked Buchanan.
    Smiles tried, "No, I, uh, what is this?"
    "This is the tax base of the great State of New Jersey being pulverized before your eyes. General Business Machines, the owner of that former facility, has been a great and patriotic supporter of this country."
    And your re-election campaigns, thought Smiles.
    "I backed you for this appointment, Smiles. You and your agency are supposed to stop this kind of thing, aren't you? We cannot let the American people suffer like this. Especially since your agency has ample funding with which to solve this problem. To say nothing of the fact that you told me this thing was dead."
    "We can't be sure it's the Cromoglodon, Senator."
    "Yes, we can," said the Senator as the screen showed an image of a small man dancing on the hood of a Town Car, enjoying the destruction as if it were a spectator sport. "That's Edwin Windsor's right hand half-man."
    "But he's not wearing a costume," said Smiles weakly.
    "You don't know a puppet by the costume, you know him by the strings," said Buchanan, "It appears Mr. Windsor is still very much in business. I want you to stop him."
    "We don't have anyone stronger than the Cromoglodon, sir."
    "You lied under oath. Of course, it's the kind of thing I do all the time. But you've got to be very careful about the kind of lies you tell. You told a lie that the American people will care about. You told them they were safe. And, clearly, they are not."
    "But the Cromo—“
    "No, Smiles, do not use that name. For if you use that name, all is lost."
    "Lost?"
    "You can never admit that this creature is alive. They will hate you for it. That's why I have held off on telling the world. That's why I have come to you." Buchanan said nothing and let Smiles shuffle uncomfortably in his own office.
    "At first,