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“What do you mean?” Griz asked.
“Corporations do hostile takeovers all of the time. But that’s because there’s a profit to be had.”
“Right.”
“But sometimes, the fight is so hard, and the payoff so small, that the deal ends up being a loss, even for the winner.”
“So why do it?” Griz said.
“It’s usually ego,” she said. “Some rich guy gets his nuts all twisted about another company, and the takeover starts, and nobody wants to back down. Even after it’s clear that nobody’s going to win, that everybody’s going to lose, still the takeover keeps getting pushed forward.”
“Because of one guy in the company?”
“Maybe it’s a middle manager who’s trying to get the attention of the bigwigs,” she said. “To get promoted, or maybe a big bonus, even if it’s at the expense of the company’s best interests.”
“So what you’re saying is,” Griz said, “one guy following his own interests… like Ripper… can get the whole club into something that’s no good for them?”
“Club, or corporation,” Becca said. “It works the same. People are people.”
“And you think there’s somebody in Death’s Head like Ripper? Pushing this whole thing forward even though it’s no good for Death’s Head even if they could win?”
“It’s possible,” Becca said. “But we won’t know for sure unless we actually talk to one of them. Death’s Head.”
“Talk to one of them?”
“I know, I know,” Becca said. “You want to crack all of their heads open like a coconut.”
“No, no,” he said. “You’re right. We need information. But say we get it. What then?”
“Then, once we know what we’re dealing with… who we’re dealing with… then we can set up a meeting with Death’s Head and try to put an end to all of this,” Becca said.
Griz frowned. “How do we get one of them to talk to us?”
Good point. With everyone on both sides on a hair trigger, where were they going to find a Death’s Head who wasn’t going to shoot them on sight? One that they could force to have an actual conversation with them?
She straightened up and her eyes got bright. “I have an idea.”
32
“This is a terrible idea,” Kate said.
“Don’t say that,” Becca said.
“I just want to go on record with this, before we go in there.”
“It’s going to work,” Becca said.
They were sitting in the parking lot outside of a hospital, out near where Becca had stayed at the motel the night that Griz threw Skinny over the railing. A friend of Kate’s worked at this hospital, and had told them that Skinny was still being treated there, confined to a body cast.
Of all of Death’s Head, Becca figured Skinny was their best bet at a conversation. He couldn’t run away, after all, and he couldn’t try to shoot them once he saw them. He was the definition of a captive audience.
The only problem was, how to get to him. And so they’d had to recruit Kate to help them get in.
“Shouldn’t I have a lab coat like Becca?” Griz said.
“No,” Kate said.
“But aren’t we pretending to be doctors?” he said.
