Overload

"Yes, and the whole thing smells like a deal. Norris will get his payoff in some way later-maybe by staying on as trustee. Besides, Norris wouldn't have gained anything himself by involving the great man."

"Whatever we think, or don't," Nim said. "it's over and finished. So get back to work and catch more power thieves."

"I already have. There's a bunch of new cases, as well as others developing from the Quayle inquiry. But Nim, I'll tell you one thing for the future."

Nim sighed. "Go ahead."

"We've been part of a cover-up, you and me; a cover-up to protect that high-and-mighty Yale name. It goes to show there are still special rules and laws for those with pull and power."

"Look, Harry . . ."

"No, hear me out! What I'm doing, Nim, is serving notice that if I have clear evidence in any case in the future, no matter who it is, no one is going to stop me from bringing it out in the open and doing what has to be done."

"Okay, okay," Nim said. "If there's clear evidence, I'll fight it with you. And now we've settled that, please go, and let me get some work done."

When he was alone, Nim regretted having vented his had humor on Harry London. Most of what London had said, about the resignation statement being a lie and part of a cover-up, had already occurred to Nim, and troubled him last night, when he slept only fitfully. Were there degrees of lying? Nim didn't believe so. As he saw it, a lie was a lie. Period. In which case, wasn't GSP & L-in the persons of Eric Humphrey, who authorized a public falsehood, and Nim, who endorsed it by his silence-equally culpable as Paul Sherman Yale?

There could be only one answer: Yes.

He was still thinking about it when his secretary, Vicki Davis, buzzed and told him, “The chairman would like to see you immediately."

* * *

J. Eric Humphrey, Nim could tell at once, was unusually perturbed.

When Nim came in, the chairman was moving restlessly around his office, something he rarely did. He continued standing as he talked and Nim listened,

"There is something I wish to say to you, Nim, and shortly I will explain why," the chairman said. "Recently I have been ashamed and disgusted at certain events which have happened in this company. I do not like to feel ashamed of the organization which pays me a salary and which I head."

Humphrey paused, and Nim remained silent, wondering what was coming next.

"One matter for shame," the chairman continued, "has been dealt with within the past twenty-four hours. But there is another, larger issue which persists-the outrageous attacks upon the lives and property of this company."

“The FBI and police . Nim began.

"Have accomplished nothing," Humphrey snapped. "Absolutely nothing!"

"They have Birdsong in jail," Nim pointed out.

"Yes-and why? Because one intelligent, determined woman reporter was more resourceful than a veritable army of professional law enforcers. Remember also that it was information from the same young woman which resulted in those other blackguards at that Crocker Street house being shot and killed-their just deserts."

Only J. Eric Humphrey, Nim thought, would use words like "blackguards" and "just deserts." All the same, Nim had seldom seen Humphrey so openly emotional. He suspected that what was being said now had been bottled up inside the chairman for a long time.

"Consider this," Humphrey resumed. "For more than a year we have suffered the indignity of having our installations, even this headquarters, bombed by a ragtag, small-time band of terrorists. Worse still, it has cost the lives of nine of our own good people, not including Mr. Romeo Abo died at the Christopher Columbus Hotel. And that is something else! I am deeply ashamed that while we were the host city, the host company, to the NEI convention, that terrible episode was allowed to happen."

"I really don't believe, Eric," Nim said, "that anyone could, or does, blame GSP & L for what occurred at the Columbus."

"I blame us, and I blame myself, for not having been more insistent, earlier, that the law enforcement agencies do something. Even now, that vile man, the leader, Archambault, is still at large." Humphrey's voice had risen in pitch. "An entire week has gone by. Where is he? Why have the law enforcement agencies failed to find him?"

"I understand," Nim said, "that they're still searching, and they believe he's somewhere in the North Casle area."

"Where he is doubtless plotting to kill or maim more of our people, and do our company more injury! Nim, I want that villain found. If necessary I want us-GSP & L -to find him." Nim was about to point out that a public utility was not equipped to perform police work, then had second thoughts. He asked instead, "Eric, what do you have in mind?"

"I have in mind that we are an organization employing many high caliber people with an abundance of brainpower. Judging by results, the law enforcement agencies lack both. Therefore, Nim, these are my instructions to you: Bring your own brain and those of others to bear on this problem.

Call on whoever you require to help you; you have my authority. But I want results. For the sake of our people who were killed, for their families, and for the rest of us who take pride in GSP & L, I want that despicable person, Archambault, caught and brought to justice."

The chairman stopped, his face flushed, then said tersely, "That's all."

* * *

It was a coincidence in timing, Nim thought, after his encounter with Eric Humphrey, that he, too, had been thinking about brainpower.

Four months ago, largely because of skepticism by Mr. Justice Yale, Nim had abandoned the "think group" approach to the problem of terrorist attacks by the so-called "Friends of Freedom."

Following Paul Yale's criticism that they had "pushed supposition pure conjecture, unsubstantiated-to the limits and beyond," Nim had summoned no further "think meetings" between himself, Oscar O'Brien, Teresa Van Buren and Harry London. And yet, reviewing what was now known, the quartet's ideas and guesswork had been uncannily close to the truth.

In fairness, Nim reasoned, he could only blame himself. If he had persisted, instead of becoming overawed by Yale, they might have anticipated, possibly even prevented, some of the tragic events which had since occurred.

Now, armed with Eric Humphrey's instructions, there might still be something they could do.

Originally, in discussing the then-unknown leader of Friends of Freedom, the "think group" labeled him 'X" the identity of "X" was now known, and the man-Georgos Archambault-dangerous, an overhanging threat to GSP & L and others, was believed to be biding somewhere in the city.

Could intensive thought and probing discussion somehow penetrate that biding?

Today was Friday. Nim decided that sometime during the weekend, using the chairman's authority if needed, he would bring the four "thinkers" together once again.

9

"As it turned out," Nim said, consulting notes, "we were remarkably accurate. Let me remind you of just how accurate."

He paused to sip the scotch and soda which Oscar O'Brien had poured for him a few minutes ago, before they started.

It was Sunday afternoon. At the general counsel's invitation, the "think group" had assembled in his home and was sprawled around an informal comfortable garden room. The other three had been co-operative when approached by Nim, even more so when informed of J. Eric Humphrey's wishes.

The O'Brien house, high above the shoreline and with a beach below, afforded a magnificent waterfront view which, at the moment, included a multitude of sailboats, their weekend sailors endlessly beating, reaching or running, and miraculously avoiding each other, amid a flurry of whitecaps raised by a stiff westerly breeze.

As on previous occasions when the group had met, a tape recorder was running.

"On the basis of the then-available information," Nim continued, "information which was sketchy at best, we hypothesized that one man -"X"-was the leader and brains of Friends of Freedom, that he was strongly masculine and vain, and that he had a woman confidante who worked closely with him. We also believed that X personally murdered those two guards at Millfield, and that the woman was present at the time. Furthermore, we concluded the woman might be a source of weakness and prove the undoing of 'X',"

"I'd forgotten some of that," Teresa Van Buren injected. "By God, we were right on target!"