The Gordons

#2

From an award-winning New York Times investigative reporter comes an outrageous story of greed, corruption, and conspiracy--which left the FBI and Justice Department counting on the cooperation of one man . . .It was one of the FBI's biggest secrets: a senior executive with America's most politically powerful corporation, Archer Daniels Midland, had become a confidential government witness, secretly recording a vast criminal conspiracy spanning five continents. Mark Whitacre, the promising golden boy of ADM, had put his career and family at risk to wear a wire and deceive his friends and colleagues. Using Whitacre and a small team of agents to tap into the secrets at ADM, the FBI discovered the company's scheme to steal millions of dollars from its own customers. But as the FBI and federal prosecutors closed in on ADM, using stakeouts, wiretaps, and secret recordings of illegal meetings around the world, they suddenly found that everything was not all that it appeared. At the same time Whitacre was cooperating with the Feds while playing the role of loyal company man, he had his ownagenda he kept hidden from everyone around him--his wife, his lawyer, even the FBI agents who had come to trust him with the case they had put their careers on the line for. Whitacre became sucked into his own world of James Bond antics, imperiling the criminal case and creating a web of deceit that left the FBI and prosecutors uncertain where the lies stopped and the truth began.In this gripping account unfolds one of the most captivating and bizarre tales in the history of the FBI and corporate America. Meticulously researched and richly told by New York Times senior writer Kurt Eichenwald, The Informant re-creates the drama of the story, beginning with the secret recordings, stakeouts, and interviews with suspects and witnesses to the power struggles within ADM and its board--including the high-profile chairman Dwayne Andreas, F. Ross Johnson, and Brian Mulroney--to the big-gun Washington lawyers hired by ADM and on up through the ranks of the Justice Department to FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno.A page-turning real-life thriller that features deadpan FBI agents, crooked executives, idealistic lawyers, and shady witnesses with an addiction to intrigue, The Informant tells an important and compelling story of power and betrayal in AmericaFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

#3

1965

Petaybee was growing up. Day by day, the sentient planet--like any child--was learning to recognize and understand the meaning of outside stimuli, to respond to those stimuli, to communicate its own needs and desires...even to use human speech.But few outsiders truly cared for the feelings and intelligence of what they perceived to be a giant hunk of rock--or a mere oddity to be gawked at. Some came to worship the newly awakened soul. Some came by invitation, but without comprehension, to harvest the almost magically curative native plants. Big game hunters came chasing rumors of fantastical creatures that simply gave themselves up for the killing. And tourists came in droves, many of them searching for long-lost relatives among those whom Intergal had relocated to Petaybee during its colonization phase. The Petaybeans had their hands full trying to protect their beloved planet from the sudden influx of visitors.Then some of Petaybee's staunchest champions--Yanaba Maddock, Marmion de Revers Algemeine, Bunny Rourke, and Diego Metaxos--were kidnapped. The perpetrators wanted Petaybee for its incredible mineral wealth. Their other attempts at plundering the planet had all failed, and now they were determined to force the Petaybeans to make a trade: the planet for the people. They simply didn't understand that such a bargain was impossible. For the only one who could speak for Petaybee was Petaybee itself--and no one knew what a living planet could do once it found its voice...From the Hardcover edition.