Janson noted his use of the inclusive “we” and its evident subtext: sorry that a member of our senior management inconvenienced us both. No doubt Steven Burt would be subjected to some withering corporate scorn later on. Janson decided to allow himself a few parting words after all, if only for his friend’s sake.

“Not a bit,” he said, rising to his feet and shaking Harnett’s hand across the desk. “Just glad to know everything’s shipshape.” He cocked his head and added, almost incidentally: “Oh, listen, as to that ‘sealed bid’ you just submitted for the Uruguay project?”

“What do you know about it?” Harnett’s eyes were suddenly watchful; a nerve had been struck.

“Ninety-three million five hundred and forty thousand, was it?”

Harnett reddened. “Hold it. I approved that bid only yesterday morning. How the hell did you—”

“If I were you, I’d be worrying about the fact that your French competitor, Suez Lyonnaise, knows the figures, too. I think you’ll discover that their bid will be precisely two percent lower.”

“What?” Harnett erupted with volcanic fury. “Did Steve Burt tell you this?”

“Steven Burt gave me no information whatsoever. Anyway, he’s in operations, not accounting or business affairs—does he even know the specifics of the bid?”

Harnett blinked twice. “No,” he said after a pause. “There’s no way he could know. Goddammit, there’s no way anyone could know. It was sent by encrypted e-mail from our bean counters to the Uruguayan ministry.”

“And yet people do know these things. Because this won’t be the first time you’ve been narrowly outbid this year, will it? In fact, you’ve been burned almost a dozen times in the past nine months. Eleven of your fifteen bids were rejected. Like you were saying, it’s a business with a lot of ups and downs.”

Harnett’s cheeks were aflame, but Janson proceeded to chat in a collegial tone. “Now, in the case of Vancouver, there were other considerations. Heck, they had reports from the municipal engineers that they found plasticizers in the concrete used for the pilings. Made it easy to cast, but weakened its structural integrity. Not your fault, of course—your specs were perfectly clear there. How were you to know that the subcontractor bribed your site inspector to falsify his report? An underling takes a measly five-thousand-dollar bribe, and now you’re out in the cold on a hundred-milliondollar project. Pretty funny, huh? On the other hand, you’ve had worse luck with some of your own under-the-table payments. I mean, if you’re wondering what went wrong with the La Paz deal …”

“Yes?” Harnett prompted urgently. He stood up with unnatural rigidity, as if frozen.