A book by a New York freelance...

A book by a New York freelance writer has so piqued Bechtel Group Inc. that the worldwide engineering and construction company is taking the unusual step of publishing a denial of the book’s accuracy. The author, in turn, accused the company of “nitpicking.” The book by Laton McCartney, “Friends in High Places,” concludes, among other things, that the privately owned Bechtel owes much of its success to uncommonly close ties with past and present government officials in the United States and to questionable business practices overseas. The firm denied an accusation that that it paid a $200-million bribe to Saudi Arabian Prince Mohammad ibn-Fahd al-Saud in order to build the $3.4-billion Riyadh International Airport.