> From a quick look at the code, this shouldn't happen, but I wonder if 
> fexec() does expand shell wildcards instead of straight calling exec().

Hmm ... of course & belongs to the set of shell metacharacters that are
not wildcards, so I wouldn't expect this behavior of a function that simply
tried to replicate the wildcard-globbing behavior of the shell.  It looks
more likely that the command is genuinely being seen by the shell.

-Chap