“Gregory had prostate cancer,” McPherson said, with no preliminary. “Terminal.”

Paul sank back in his swivel chair. “You’re certain?” McPherson hardly ever smiled. He tried to keep a stony, hard-bitten look on his face. It was difficult for him, despite the luxurious moustache he sported; his round cheeks and bald dome did not lend themselves to a gunslinger’s beady-eyed glare.

“The agency I hired tracked down the doctor who diagnosed him. It was so advanced that no treatment was possible.”

“Christ,” Paul muttered.

“He’d been seeing half a dozen different doctors over the previous five years or so,” McPherson went on. “He knew about the cancer, looks like, but refused to do anything about it until it was too late.”

“But there are treatments for prostate cancer,” Paul objected. McPherson made a sour face. “You run the risk of incontinence. And impotence. I doubt that Gregory worried much about peeing his pants, but impotence would have been a big problem to him.”

“So he just let the cancer go.”

“And it killed him. Or rather, he killed himself when he found out it was terminal. Must have been giving him a lot of pain.”

Paul thought for a moment. “You’re certain about all this? You’ve got documentary evidence?”

McPherson brushed an index finger across his moustache. “I can get written statements from each of the doctors, plus all of Gregory’s medical records, if Joanna will sign a form demanding them.”

I’ll talk to her about it. Thanks. That was good work.”

“Wait’ll you see the bill,” McPherson said, cracking one of his infrequent smiles.

Paul blanked the screen, then sat thinking, Will Joanna be willing to sign such a form? Should I bother her with this? She’s got enough on her mind, and I shouldn’t be upsetting her with old stories about Gregory.

It’ll come up in the board meeting, Paul told himself. There’s no way I can shield her from Greg’s showing that damned videodisk to the board.

But now I know what Gregory was muttering about in the video. It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our fault. It was the cancer that was killing him, and the gun was going to protect him from the pain. He was pissed off with the doctors, not us. He knew he was a dead man anyway; he just stopped the pain for himself.

I’ve got to tell Joanna. She shouldn’t feel any guilt about this.

Paul nodded to himself, satisfied that he had all the necessary pieces to the puzzle.

One puzzle, he remembered. There’s still the question of who got Melissa to set me up. Was it Brad? And if it was, how can I prove it?

He shook his head slowly. It’s gonna be one helluva board meeting. One helluva meeting.

OVER THE ATLANTIC

Supersonic aircraft were not allowed to fly above Mach 1 over populated areas, because their sonic booms disturbed people and rattled their homes. Fanners complained of milk cows gone dry because of sonic booms. Environmentalists protested against sonic pollution.

So Bradley Arnold’s flight angled out over the Atlantic after taking off from the corporation’s private airstrip outside Savannah. Alone in the passenger compartment, sitting in one of the plane’s luxurious padded chairs, Arnold had no time to admire the procession of deep swells on the steel-gray ocean far below him. He had expected Paul and Joanna to come with him to New York, but Stavenger had backed out at the last pьnute.

“We’ll fly up in my plane,” Paul had told the board chairman.

“But I thought we would all be going together,” Arnold had said.

“I’ve got a few things to do here this afternoon. We’ll fly up overnight.”

What Paul did not tell Arnold was that he wanted to tell Joanna what McPherson had dug up about Gregory’s cancer. Paul had no intention of letting the board chairman in on the news, not until the directors’ meeting, when he would spring it on all of them, including Greg.

Disappointed, Arnold had grumbled, “This is going to be an extremely important meeting, Paul. We could use the time to get our strategy ironed out”

But Paul had insisted that he could not fly with Arnold to New York, He had other things to do. More important than strategy session with me, Arnold groused to himself.

He doesn’t trust me. Arnold frowned with the realization that despite everything he had said to Scavenger, the new CEO still did not trust him. That’s Joanna’s doing, he thought. She’ never liked me. All the years I tried to help her husband, and all the help I’ve given to young Greg, and she still hates the sight of me.

Well, it’s too bad for them, he said to himself as he swung out the keyboard set into the swivel table built into the plane bulkhead beside him. He stabbed at the telephone key and a soon as the computer’s smoky female voice asked, “How may I help you, sir?” he told the phone to get Greg Masterson. “His private line,” he added.

Greg’s face appeared on the screen almost instantly, but i was only his recorded answer. With a grave smile his image said, “I am unable to take your call right now, but please leave your name and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can Thank you.”

Nettled, fuming, Arnold blurted, “Greg, it’s me. Arnold. I need to talk to you now! Wherever you are, call me right—”

The smiling image was replaced by a more serious Gregory Masterson III. He was sitting in front of a window that looked out on Central Park and the towers of midtown Manhattan.

“Brad? Where are you?”

I’m on my way to New York, ” Arnold replied testily. “Where else would I be?”

“Oh. Of course.” Greg looked relieved.

“I have some upsetting news.”

Greg looked more amused than worried. “Really?”

“McPherson’s come up with evidence that your father was dying of prostate cancer.”

Greg’s slightly smug smile winked off like a light turned out.

“It looks as if he committed suicide, after all.”

“No,” Greg snapped. “That’s crazy. Prostate cancer can be treated. My father wouldn’t allow the cancer to go so far that it was going to kill him.”

“My source in McPherson’s office tells me that Paul’s getting statements from half a dozen doctors who either examined your father or counselled him.”

“With enough money you can get anyone to say anything.”

“But Paul’s going to use these medical statements at the board meeting tomorrow, to show that your father killed himself, after all.”

Greg fell silent. He glanced at his wristwatch. Then he said, “He wants to use these statements to counterbalance the videodisk, is that it?”

Nodding, Arnold said, “I think he’s outmaneuvered us.”

Greg’s expression hardened. “Even if my father had cancer he could still have been murdered.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think so,” Arnold said. “It doesn’t seem reasonable.”

“My father would never commit suicide, Brad. I know that. And so do you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whoever killed my father deserves to die.”

“But you don’t know that he was murdered,” Arnold said.

“I know enough,” said Greg. “I may not be entirely certain of who the murderer is, but I know enough to act.”

“You mean at tomorrow’s meeting? What do you plan to do?”

Greg looked at his wristwatch again. “Thanks for the information, Brad. It was good of you to call.”

“What? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“That’s all you’ve got time for,” said Greg.

Arnold blinked his frog’s eyes, puzzled. “What are you talking about? We’ve got to figure out some way—”

The plane lurched so hard that Arnold was hurled out of his seat and banged against the tabletop keyboard. The sudden pain in his middle made him feel he’d been carved in two. For an instant he hung there, then the plane pitched up sharply anc he was thrown back into his chair.

“Seatbelts!” the pilot’s frantic shout came over the intercom. “We’ve lost power on—”