Evaluate the claim that German big business was willingly and Essay

Evaluate the claim that German big business was willingly and profitably cooperated with the Nazi regime in the exploitation of Europe, 1939-45 - Essay Example One of the stronger reactions is given to those companies which are discovered or confess to having links with the Nazi regime and from an examination of historical records as well as various other documents it seems clear that many companies willingly cooperated with the Nazis towards the exploitation of Europe. However, it can be shown that the companies had little interest in ideology or the motives of the Nazis; rather, they were interested in making money since that was their main objective. The economic background of the era is important in this respect because when the Nazis came into power, the economic situation of Germany was disastrous. High unemployment rates meant that the economy was under productive and under pressure. During this time, the economic reorganization of the state was made the responsibility of a respected banker, Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, several changes were made to the economic policy and some of the first economic changes were the elimination of trade unions and establishment of the wage controls in German society (Wikipedia, 2006). These measures certainly helped the business community since trade unions had been able to strike as well as negotiate salaries on a collective basis. Needless to say businesses approved of these ideas and worked hand in hand with the Nazis to improve the economy as Hitler saw fit. The money supply to the economy was expanded with the aid of deficit spending with interest rates held firmly at 4.5%. Shell companies were setup such as the MEFO company which issued bonds but these were actually utilized to hide expenditure on arms which was a violation of the Versailles Treaty (Wikipedia, 2006). The creation of a black market was stopped simply because the Germans could send violators to concentration camps or shot after a summary trial. Imports were limited while exports were expanded leading to an overvalued mark. Despite all of these measures,

General Appliances Essay Example for Free

General Appliances Essay Introduction:The General Appliance Corporation is a manufacturer of all types of home appliances. The company has a decentralized, divisional organizational structure, which consists of four product divisions (electric stove, laundry equipment, refrigeration and miscellaneous appliance division), four manufacturing divisions (chrome products, electric motor, gear and transmission and stamping division) and six staff offices (finance, engineering, manufacturing, industrial relations, purchasing and marketing staff). The staff offices do not have functional authority over the divisional general managers, who are each responsible for their own divisional personnel. The manufacturing division made approximately 75 percent of their sales to the product division. In addition, the parts made by the manufacturing division is designed and engineered by the product divisions. Since the eight divisions are expected to act like independent companies, the transfer prices are negotiated amongst themselves. But, if two divisions could not agree on a price, they submit the dispute to the finance staff for arbitration. The product division does not have the power to decide whether to buy from within the company or from outside. If there was a disagreement with the sourcing, the manufacturing division could appeal to the purchasing staff to reverse the decision. Problem:At the General Appliance Corporation, the purchasing staffs are the personnel that decide which part would continue to be manufactured within the company (org. chart may need to be revised). When the part is decided to be manufactured internally, the manufacturing division must hold the price at a level the product (purchaser) division could purchase it outside. Currently, the managers do not have the freedom to source and choose the alternative that is in their best interest, even though an alternative for sourcing does exist. The three problems that exist in the company are:-Determining a transfer price that includes the extra $0.80 per unit spent on developing the new quality standards. Also, the arbitration committee should determine whether the appearance is a subjective or objective matter. -An excess capacity (supply is greater than demand) caused a temporary  decrease in the selling price. -The standard price used for calculations of the total cost, profit and proposed price is determined from the price given in a competitors proposal this is not a definite price. Investment Centres dont know when to produce or when to outsource (what role does innovation or engineering for lower costs play?)For each case, calculate if its better to outsource or manufactureArbitration committee which considers all staff functionsDo something quick fast (cheap) and easy to doAnalysis:Stove Top Problem Survey has shown that the companys reputation as a producer of quality products has deteriorated, and resulted in the Chrome Products Division implementing quality improvements to the stove tops. Chrome has proposed to increase the price of the stove top by $0.90; $0.80 represents the additional costs of quality improvements and a $0.10 profit mark-up. The Electric Stove Division does not see the improvements as necessary changes since there is no change in engineering specifications, the changes made were never requested or approved, consumers may not even notice or want the change, and believes that the improvements made will only bring the quality level of the stove tops to the competitors level. Ultimately, Electric Stove sees these quality changes as being more subjective rather than objective. The engineering department of the manufacturing staff has verified that the new improvements were of superior quality then of their competitors and the costs were reasonably allocated. Thermostatic Control Problem Electric Motor Division has been able to consistently reduce the price of the thermostatic control units to mirror the price of Monson Controls Corp. from $3.00 in 1984 to $2.40 in 1987. Monson has decided to further reduce their price to $2.15, which according to the general manager of Electric Motor Division, would result in selling at a loss rather than a profit. The GM believes that they are just as efficient as Monson, therefore Monson must be selling at a loss at $2.15. Laundry Equipment and the Refrigeration Division both require a total of 120 000 units for their division (100 000 units for Laundry and 2 000 units for Refrigeration). Refrigeration has made an agreement with Electric Motor that  they will be able to competitively source to the lowest bidder, in this case, Monson for $2.15. Laundry Equipment believes that for such a large order, they could probably obtain a lower price than $2.40 if they were to outsource. In reviewing this dispute, the Finance Staff stated that there was excess capacity in the market that results in soft prices. The purchasing staff believed that Refrigeration could purchase their requirements at $2.15 for the next year but if the corporations orders were all place externally, the price would rise to $2.40 through increase in demand or limited supply. Considering the 120 000 units of thermostatic control that is required by both the Laundry Equipment and the Refrigeration Division, and the fact that their requirement is large enough to increase Monsons price of $2.15 to $2.40, General App. will have to outsource and purchase from within. Assuming that the more units General App. outsources, the price will gradually increase due to the increase in demand. The best combination of outsourcing and purchasing from within would be to outsource 60 000 units at an estimated price of $2.25 and purchase 60 000 units internally for $2.40. This would cost the organization $279 000, a savings between $1 000 and $9 000. The average price per unit is $2.325, less than the cost of the market price if the required volume was entirely outsourced. It is also less then purchasing the entire volume internally. This would result in Laundry Equipment saving $7 500 and costing $3 500 to Refrigeration as oppose to purchasing their required volume at $2.15. Transmission Problem Laundry Equipment has previously entered into an agreement with Thorndike Machining Corp to purchase one-half of its transmission for 10 years. Two years before the expiration of the agreement, General App. decided to manufacture their own transmissions to extend their capacity. Thorndike proposed a price reduction of $0.50 consistently for the next two years with a new economy transmission unit at a price of $10. The Gear and Transmission Division estimates that they can replicate a comparable model of the economy transmission at a competitive price of $9. The Gear and Transmission Divisions proposal failed to eliminate the cost of design features of $0.50 per unit. This would bring the proposed total  unit cost for GT from $11.66 to $11.11. This error makes Thorndikes proposed price of $11.21 appear more favourable. Bibliography: Anthony, Robert N., and Vijay Govindarajan. Management Control Systems. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2000.

richard nixon :: essays research papers

Richard Nixon is known as the 37th president that resigned from office. I am going to tell you the whole story. Nixon was born in 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, the second of five sons of Francis Nixon and Hannah Nixon. The Nixons were Scots-Irish and the Milhouses were of Irish and English descent, known as Quakers. Richard Nixon attended public schools in Whittier, California, and went to Whittier College, a Quaker institution, where he majored in history. He won a scholarship to Duke University Law School and received his law degree in 1937. Nixon joined an established law firm in Whittier and there met his future wife, Thelma Ryan. They married on June 21, 1940, and had two daughters, Patricia in 1946 and Julie in 1948.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1946 Nixon was persuaded by California Republicans to be their candidate to challenge the popular Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis for his seat in the United States House of Representatives. Nixon’s campaign was an example of the vigorous and aggressive style characteristic of his political career. He accused Voorhis of being soft on Communism. The two men confronted each other in a series of debates, and Voorhis was forced into a defensive position. Nixon won the election by a vote of 65,586 to 49,994. As a new member of the Congress of the United States, Nixon gained valuable experience in international affairs while serving on a special committee that helped establish the European Recovery Program. Nixon also served on the House of Education and Labor Committee, where he helped draft the Taft-Hartley Act on labor-management relations.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1948, he was reelected to Congress after winning both the Republican and Democratic nominations. In 1950 the Republicans chose Nixon as their candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. His opponent was the liberal Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. In another bitterly fought campaign, Nixon linked her voting record with American-Labor-Party congressman Vito Marcantonio, who was widely regarded as pro-Communist. Nixon won the election by 680,000 votes.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1952 Nixon was selected to be the running mate of General Dwight Eisenhower, who had won the Republican presidential nomination. Shortly after Nixon’s vice-presidential nomination it was reported that a fund had been collected to meet his expenses as a senator. No evidence was produced that Nixon had misused the fund or given special favors to contributors, but many of Eisenhower’s advisers wanted Nixon to resign his candidacy.

Kizza, Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age Essay

CS 300 Week 2 Kizza Chapter 4 – Ethics and the Professions pages 65 to 96 Kizza, Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age, 3rd. Edition, ISBN 978-1-84628-658-2. |Chapter Number and Title: 3 Ethics and the Professions | |Your Name: Brent Robles | |Today’s date: 02NOV09 | |Briefly state the main idea of this chapter. | |A continued discussion of ethics in a professional atmosphere. | |2. List three important facts that the author uses to support the main idea: | |The four themes discussed are evolution of professions, the making of an ethical professional, and the professional decisions making process, | |and professionalism and ethical responsibilities. | |3. What information or ideas discussed in this chapter are also discussed in readings from DePalma? List the Unit and Title(s) of the reading:| |De Palma – Reading #10 – Dilberts of the World, Unite! | |This article discusses how fast the white collar sector is growing and some of the issues involved. Microsoft is discussed in great detail on | |the treatment of their contracted employees. When it came to wages they were considered to be high-level computer professionals, thus not | |entitled to overtime pay. When it came to benefits, they were treated as temps unworthy of healthcare  coverage and stock options. So some | |individuals got together and worked to organize the workers. The article also talks about Microsoft hiring immigrant workers in the same | |positions as Americans and paying them considerably less. The unions worked with congress to oppose Bill Gates request for immigrant visas to | |be extended. There will always be a fight with these companies when trying to keep them hiring Americans. They are just trying to ensure that | |they can maximize profits. I chose this article because it discusses morals in hiring and paying white collar workers. I believe that it had | |ethical issues when dealing with professional issues like equal pay and benefits for immigrants. | |4. List and briefly discuss one of the questions at the end of the chapter. | |Are whistle blowers saints or blackmailers? I think that society has turned a saint into a blackmailer. By this I mean because of the fear of | |reprisal a whistle blower has to keep his mouth shut. But when he doesn’t he is considered to be a disgruntled employee and is trying to | |blackmail his supervision. It is hard to get issue resolved when dealing with a uncooperative management team, that is why employees have | |rights and protections, however there are only a few companies that protect the whistle blower, that is why when the whistle is blown the | |individual is considered to be a problem worker. | |5. List any examples of bias or faulty reasoning that you found in the chapter: Section 4.4.3 discusses guilt and making ethical decisions. | |On page 87 he explains actions that people experiencing guilt will go through. I think that this is a biased or faulty reasoning because not | |everyone goes through this process. I know that this article is a generalization, but there are people in society that make their decisions | |and move on with no remorse or guilt. The statement that guilt causes decision makers to agonize over decisions I think is only true for a | |select few individuals. Those individuals that are affected have to have some integrity and solid values. | |6. List any new terms/concepts that were discussed in the article, and write a short definition: | |Utilitarian – where decisions are made solely on the basis of their intended outcomes or consequences. | |Rights – where decisions are made based on the set of liberties the society enforces such as the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. | |Justice – which decisions are made so that they are fair, impartial, and equitable to all. |

Night World : The Chosen Chapter 6

What she felt was a shivering jolt that began in her palm and ran up her arm like electricity. It left tingling in its wake. But the real shock was in her head. Her mind exploded. That was the only way she could describe it. A noiseless, heatless explosion that shattered her completely. All at once, Rashel couldn't support her own weight anymore. She could feel Quinn's arms supporting her. She had no sense of the room around her. She was floating in a white light and the only solid thing to hang on to was Quinn. It was something like the terror she'd felt before†¦ but it wasn't just terror. Impossibly, what she felt was more like wild elation. She realized that Quinn was holding her so tightly that it hurt. But even stronger than the sensation of his arms was the sense she had of his mind. A direct conduit seemed to have opened between them. She could feel his astonishment, his shock, his wonder. And she knew he could feel hers. It's telepathy, some distant part of herself said, trying desperately to get control again. It's some new vampire trick. But she knew it wasn't a trick. Quinn was as astounded as she was-she could feel that. Maybe he was even worse off. He was breathing rapidly and shallowly and a fine trembling seemed to have taken over his body. Rashel held on to him, thinking crazy things. She wanted to comfort him. She could sense, probably better than he could himself, how frighteningly vulnerable he was under that frozen exterior. Like me, I suppose, Rashel thought giddily. And then she suddenly realized that he was feeling her vulnerability just as she had felt his. Fear welled up in her so sharply that she panicked. She tried to find a way to shut him out, to resist the way she resisted mind control-but she knew it was useless. He had gotten past her guard already. He was inside. â€Å"It's all right,† Quinn said, and she realized that he had stopped trembling. His voice was almost dispassionate, and at the same time madly gentle. Rashel had the feeling that he'd decided that since he couldn't fight this thing, he might as well be as insane as possible. Strangest of all, she found his words reassuring. And there was fire under the ice that seemed to encase him. She could feel that now, and she had the dizzy sense that she was the first one to discover it. They had fallen to the floor somehow, and they were sitting just at the edge of the light. Quinn was holding her by the shoulders, precisely, and Rashel was astonished at her own response to the clinical grip. It stopped her breath, held her absolutely motionless. Then, just as precisely, every movement deliberate, Quinn found the end of her scarf and began to unwind it. He was still filled with that mad gentleness, that lunatic calm. And she wasn't stopping him. He was going to expose her face, and she wasn't doing a thing about it. She wanted him to. In spite of her terror, she wanted him to see her, to know who she was. She wanted to be face to face with him in that strange light that had enveloped both their minds. It didn't seem to matter what happened afterward. She said, â€Å"John.† He unwound another length of the scarf, preoccupied and intent as if he were making some archaeological discovery. â€Å"You didn't tell me your name.† It was a statement. He wasn't pushing her. She might as well write it out on a death warrant and hand it to him. Quinn could reveal himself to humans-but then Quinn could disappear completely if he wanted, hole up in some hidden vampire enclave where no human could search him out. Rashel couldn't. He knew she was a vampire hunter. If he knew her name and her face, he'd have every power to destroy her. And the scariest thing of all was that some part of her didn't care. He was down to the last turn of the scarf. In a moment her face would be exposed to the air†¦ and to vampire eyes that could see in this darkness. I'm Rashel, Rashel thought. She couldn't quite get the words to her lips. She took a deep breath. And at the same instant a light blazed into her eyes. Not the ghostly light that had been in her mind. Real light, the beams from several high-power flashlights, harsh and horribly bright. They cut through the dark cellar and threw Rashel and Quinn into stark illumination. Rashel gasped. One hand instinctively flew to her scarf to keep it over her face. She felt as if she had been caught naked. And she was horrified to realize that she hadn't heard anyone come into the cellar. She had been completely absorbed, oblivious to her surroundings. What had happened to all her training? What was wrong with her? She couldn't see anything beyond the light. Her first thought was that it was Quinn's vampire Mends come to save him. He seemed to think it might be, too; at least he was standing shoulder to shoulder with her, even trying to push her back a little. With an odd pang, Rashel realized she could only guess what he was thinking now. The connection between them had been cleanly severed. Then a voice came from beyond the terrible brightness, a sharp voice filled with outrage. â€Å"How did he get loose? What are you two doing?† Vicky. I'm going insane, Rashel thought. I completely forgot about her and the others coming back. No, I forgot about their existence. But there were more than three flashlights on the stairs. â€Å"The Big E sent us some backup,† Vicky was saying, and Rashel felt a surge of fear. She counted five flashlights, and in the edges of beams she caught the figures of a couple of sturdy-looking guys. Lancers. Rashel tried desperately to gather her wits. She knew what had to be done, at least. She nudged Quinn with her shoulder and whispered, â€Å"Get out of here. There should be another stairway on the other side of the room. When you run for it, I'll get in their way.† She pitched her voice so low that only vampire ears could hear it. The good thing about having her face veiled was that nobody could read her lips. But Quinn wasn't going. He looked as if he'd just been awakened with a bucketful of ice water. Shocked, angry, and still a little dazed. He stood where he was, staring into all the flashlights like an animal at bay. The lights were advancing. Rashel could make out Vicky's figure now at the front. There was going to be a fight, and people were going to get killed. Steve's voice said, â€Å"What did he do to you?† â€Å"What's she been doing with him, that's the question,† Vicky snapped back. Then she said clearly, â€Å"Remember, everybody, we want him alive.† Rashel gave Quinn a harder shove. â€Å"Go.† When he just glared, she hissed, â€Å"Don't you realize what they want to do to you?† Quinn turned so that the advancing party couldn't see his face. He snarled, â€Å"They're not exactly overjoyed with you either.† â€Å"I can take care of myself.† Rashel was shaking with frustration. â€Å"Just leave. Go!† Quinn looked as angry with her as he was with the hunters. He didn't want her help, she realized. He wasn't used to taking anything from anyone, and to be forced to do it made him furious. But there wasn't any other choice. And Quinn finally seemed to recognize that. With one last glare at her, he broke and headed for the darkness at the other side of the cellar. The flashlights swung in confusion. Rashel, glad to be able to move, sprang between the vampire hunters and the stairway. And then there was a lot of fumbling and crashing, with people running into each other and swearing and yelling. Rashel enjoyed the chance to work off her frustration. She got in everyone's way long enough for a very fast vampire to disappear. After which it was just her and the vampire hunters. Five flashlights turned on her and seven amazed and angry people staring. Rashel got up and brushed herself off. Time to face the consequences. She stood, head high, looking at all of them. â€Å"What happened?† Steve said. â€Å"Did he hypnotize you?† Good old Steve. Rashel felt a rush of warmth toward him. But she couldn't use the out he was offering her. She said, â€Å"I don't know what happened.† And that was true. She couldn't even begin to explain to herself what had gone on between her and the vampire. She'd never heard of anything like it. â€Å"I think you let him get away on purpose,† Vicky said. Rashel couldn't see Vicky's pale blue eyes, but she sensed that they were as hard as marbles. â€Å"I think you planned it from the beginning-that's why you told us to go up to the street.† â€Å"Is that true?† One of the flashlights swung down and suddenly Nyala was in front of Rashel, her body tense, her voice almost pleading. Her eyes were fixed on Rashel's, begging Rashel to say it wasn't so. â€Å"Did you do it on purpose?† All at once Rashel felt very tired. Nyala was fragile and unstable, and in her own mind she'd made Rashel into a hero. Now that image was being shattered. For Nyala's sake, Rashel almost wished she could lie. But that would be worse in the end. She said expressionlessly, â€Å"Yes. I did it on purpose.† Nyala recoiled as if Rashel had slapped her. I don't blame you, Rashel thought. I think it's crazy, too. The truth was that the farther away she got from Quinn's presence, the less she could understand what she'd done. It was beginning to seem like a dream, and not a very clear dream at that. â€Å"But why?† one of the Lancer boys at the back asked. The Lancers knew Rashel, knew her reputation. They didn't want to think the worst of her. Like Nyala, they desperately wanted an excuse. â€Å"I don't know why,† Rashel said, looking away. â€Å"But he wasn't controlling my mind.† Nyala exploded. â€Å"I hate you,† she burst out. She was trembling with fury, spitting out sentences at Rashel like poison darts. â€Å"That vampire could have been the one who killed my sister. Or he could have known who did it. I was going to ask him that, but now I'll never get the chance. Because of you. You let him go. We had him and you let him go!† â€Å"It's more than that,† Vicky put in, her voice cold and contemptuous. â€Å"We were going to ask him about those teenage girls getting kidnapped. Now we can't. So it's going to keep happening, and it's all going to be your fault.† And they were right. Even Nyala was right. How did Rashel know that Quinn hadn't killed Nyala's sister? â€Å"You're a vampire lover,† Vicky was saying. â€Å"I could tell from the beginning. I don't know, maybe you're one of those damned Daybreakers who wants us all to get along, but you're not on our side.† A couple of the Lancers started to protest at this, but Nyala's voice cut through them. â€Å"She's on their side?† She stared from Vicky to Rashel, her body rigid. â€Å"You just wait. Just wait until I tell people that Rashel is the Cat and that she's really on the Night World side. You just wait.† She's hysterical, Rashel realized. Even Vicky was looking surprised at this, as if she were uneasy at what she'd started. â€Å"Nyala, listen-† Rashel began. But Nyala seemed to have reached some peak of fury at which nothing from outside could touch her. â€Å"I'll tell everybody in Boston! You'll see!† She whirled around and plunged toward the stairway as if she were going to start doing it right now. Rashel stared after her. Then she said to Vicky, â€Å"You'd better send a couple of the guys to catch up to her. She's not safe alone in this neighborhood.† Vicky gave her a look that was half angry and half shaken. â€Å"Yeah. Okay. Everybody but Steve go after her. You guys take her home.† They left, not without a few backward glances at Rashel. â€Å"We'll drive you back,† Vicky said. Her voice wasn't warm, but it wasn't as hostile as it had been. â€Å"I'll walk to my own car,† Rashel said flatly. â€Å"Fine.† Vicky hesitated, then blurted, â€Å"She probably won't do what she said. She's just upset.† Rashel said nothing. Nyala had sounded-and looked-as if she meant to do exactly what she said. And if she did†¦ Well, it would be an interesting question as to who would kill Rashel first, the vampires or the vampire hunters. Wednesday morning dawned with gray skies and icy rain. Rashel trudged from class to class at Wassa-guscus High, lost in thought. At home, her latest foster family left her alone-they were used to her going her own way. She sat in her small bedroom in the townhouse with the lights dimmed, thinking. She still couldn't understand what had happened to her, but with every hour the memory of it was fading steadily. It was too strange to fit into the reality of life, and it became more and more like a dream. One of those dreams in which you do things you would never ordinarily do, and are ashamed of when you wake up in the morning. All that warmth and closeness-she'd felt that for a vampire? She'd been excited by a parasite's touch? She'd wanted to comfort a leech? And not just any leech, either. The infamous Quinn. The legendary human hater. How could she have let him go? How many people would suffer because of her lapse in sanity? Who knows, she decided finally, maybe it had been some kind of mind control. She certainly couldn't make any sense of it otherwise. By Thursday, one thing at least was clear in her mind. Vicky had been right about the consequences of what she'd done. Rashel hadn't thought about that at the time, but now she had to face it. She had to make it right. She had to find the kidnapped girls on her own- if girls were getting kidnapped. There was nothing about missing teenagers in the Globe. But if it was happening, Rashel had to find out about it and stop it†¦ if she could. Okay. So she'd go back to Mission Hill tonight and start investigating. Check the warehouse area again-this time, her way. There was one other thing that was clear to her, that became obvious as she got her priorities straight. Something she had to do, not for Nyala, or for Vicky, or for the Lancers, but just for herself. For her own honor, and for everybody who lived in the world of sunlight. The next time she saw Quinn, she had to kill him. Rashel moved along the deserted street, keeping to the shadows, moving silently. Not easy when the ground was wet and strewn with broken glass. There were no sidewalks, no grass, no plant life of any kind except the dead weeds in the abandoned lots. Just soggy trash and shattered bottles. A grim place. It fit Rashel's mood as she made her way stealthily toward the abandoned project building where Vicky had brought them Tuesday night. From its front door, she surveyed the rest of the street. Lots of warehouses. Several of them were protected with high chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. All of them had barred windows-or no windows-and metal freight doors. The security precautions didn't bother Rashel. She knew how to cut chain-link and pick locks. What bothered her was that she didn't know where to start. The Night People could be using any of the warehouses. Even knowing where Steve and Vicky had fought Quinn didn't help, because he had jumped them. He'd obviously seen them lying in ambush and deliberately gone after them. Which meant his real destination could have been any of the buildings on this street-or none of them. All right. Patience was indicated here. She'd just have to start at one end . . Rashel lost her thought and leaped back into the shadows before she consciously realized why she was doing it. Her ears had picked up a sound-a low rumbling coming from somewhere across the street. She flattened herself against the brick wall behind her, then kept her body absolutely immobile. Her eyes darted from building to building and she held her breath to hear better. There. It was coming from inside that warehouse, the one down at the far end of the street. And she could identify it now-the sound of an engine. As she watched, the freight door in the front of the warehouse went sliding up. Headlights pierced the night from behind it. A truck was pulling out onto the street. Not a very big truck. A U-Haul. It cleared the doors and stopped. A figure was pulling the sliding metal door down. Now it was making its way to the cab of the U-Haul, climbing in. Rashel strained her eyes, trying to make out any signs of vampirism in the figure's movements. She thought she could detect a certain telltale fluidity to the walk, but it was too far away to be sure. And there was nothing else to give her a clue about what was going on. It could be a human, she thought. Some warehouse owner going home after a night of balancing books. But her instinct told her differently. The hair at the back of her neck was standing on end. And then, as the truck began to cruise off, something happened that settled her doubts and sent her flying down the street. The back doors of the U-Haul opened just a bit, and a girl fell out. She was slender, and a streetlight caught her blond hair. She landed on the rubble-strewn road and lay there for an instant as if dazed. Then she jumped up, looked around wildly, and started running in Rashel's direction.