"Now corporate chairmen have decided the market has hit bottom and it's time to negotiate."

Lucas Davenport pursues the killer of a corporate chairman who was on a hunting trip.

He achieved success in a number of fields, including horseracing, the military and as a corporate chairman.

"Not bad," he said more sedately, in the manner of the corporate chairman he was.

And typically, the appointment book was filled with corporate chairmen and chief executives.

"The type of dialogue I'm used to is with corporate chairmen," he said.

He is the corporate chairman, with, he says, a small block of stock.

Two of the bodyguards covered the corporate chairman, doing a half-way-decent job, Hawkins saw.

"Yamata-san, there is no time for that," another corporate chairman chided gently.

No, corporate chairmen are protected by an inner circle, whose job it is to crush dissent.