The next day began busily enough. Hervey was the first to call.
“The Citizen’s sewed up, Roy! I had dinner with Murlin last night and weaseled him out of four percent of Citizen stock in exchange and for a fancy tip on the new monorail project outNevada way. He was grinning all over the place—but I’ll bet he’s grinning out of the other side of his mouth this morning.”
“Is it all arranged?” Walton asked.
“In the bag. I was up by 0700 and consolidating my holdings— your holdings, I mean. Forty-seven percent of the stock I had fragmented in a dozen different outfits; the other two percent outstanding belonged to rich widows who wouldn’t sell. I lumped the forty-seven percent together in your name, then completed the transfer on Murlin’s four percent and stuck that in there too. Citizen telefax is now the property of Popeek, Roy!”
“Fine work. How much did it cost?”
Then he said, “Four hundred eighty-three million and some change. Plus my usual five percent commission, which in this case comes to about two and a quarter million.”
“But I offered you five million,” Walton said. “That offer still goes.”
“You want me to lose my license? I spend years placing bribes to get a slyster’s license, and you want me to throw it away for an extra couple million? Uh-uh. I’ll settle for two and a quarter, and damn good doing I call that for a day’s work.”
“Walton grinned. ”You win. And Sue Llewellyn will be glad to know it didn’t cost the whole billion to grab Citizen. You’ll be over with the papers, won’t you?“
“About 1000,” the slyster said. “I’ve gotta follow through for Murlin on his monorail deal first. The poor sucker! See you in an hour.”
“Right.”
Rapidly Walton scribbled memos. As soon as the papers were in his hands, he’d serve notice on Murlin that a stockholders’ meeting was to be held at once. After that, he’d depose Murlin, fire the present Citizen editors, and pack the telefax sheet with men loyal to Popeek.
Fred was due at 1100. Walton buzzed Keeler, the new security chief, and “said, ”Keeler, I have an appointment with someone at 1100. I want you to station three men outside my door and frisk him for weapons as he comes in.“
“We’d do that anyway, sir. It’s standard procedure now.”
“Good. But I want you to be one of the three. And make sure the two who come with you are tight-mouthed. I don’t want any newsbreaks on this.”
“Right, sir.”
“Okay. Be there about 1050 or so. About 1115, I’m going to press my door opener, and I want you and your men to break in, arrest my visitor, and spirit him off to the deepest dungeon security has. And leave him there. If Martinez wants to know what’s going on, tell him I’ll take responsibility.”
Keeler looked vaguely puzzled, but merely nodded. “We frisk him first, then let him talk to you for fifteen minutes. Then we come in on signal and take him away. I’ve got it.”
“This man’s a dangerous anti-Popeek conspirator. Make sure he’s drugged before he gets out of my office. I don’t want him making noise.”
The annunciator sounded. “Man from Communications has a message for you, Mr. Walton.”
He switched over from Keeler to Communications and said, “Go ahead.”
“From McLeod, Mr. Walton. We just got it. It says, ‘Arriving Nairobi on the 18th, will be in your office with Dirnan following morning if he feels like making the trip. Otherwise will you come to Nairobi?’”
“Tell him yes, if necessary,” Walton said.
He glanced at his watch. 0917. It looked like it was going to be hectic all day.
And Fred was due at 1100.
XVI
Hervey showed up at 1003, grinning broadly. He unfolded a thick wad of documents and thrust them at Walton.
“I hold in my hand the world’s most potent telefax sheet,” Hervey said. He flipped the documents casually onto Walton’s desk and laughed. “They’re all yours. Fifty-one percent, every bit of it voting stock. I told Murlin about it just before I left him this morning. He turned purple.”
“What did he say?”
“What could he say? I asked him offhandedly if he knew where all the outstanding Citizen stock was, and he said yes, it was being held by a lot of small holders. And then I told him that somebody was buying out the small holders, and that I was selling my four percent. That’s when he started to change colors. When I left he was busy making phone calls, but I don’t think he’ll like what he’s going to find out.”
Walton riffled through the papers. “It’s all here, eh? Fine work. I’ll put through your voucher in half an hour or so, unless you’re in a hurry.”
“Oh, don’t rush,” Hervey said. He ran a finger inside his collar. “Couple of security boys outside, y’know. They really gave me a going-over.”
“I’m expecting an assassin at 1100,” Walton said lightly. “They’re on the lookout.”
“Oh? A close friend?”
“A relative,” Walton said.
Fred arrived promptly at 1100. By that time Walton had already set the machinery in operation for the taking-over of Citizen.
The first step had been to call Horace Murlin and confirm the fact that Popeek now owned the telefax sheet. Murlin’s fleshy face was a curious shade of rose-purple; he sputtered at Walton for five minutes before admitting he was beaten.
With Murlin out of the way, Walton selected a new editorial staff for the paper from a list Percy supplied. He intended to keep the reporting crew of the old regime intact; Citizen had a fantastically efficient newsgathering team, and there was no point in breaking it up. It was the policy-making level Walton was interested in controlling.
The 1000 edition of Citizen was the last under the old editors. They had received word from Murlin about what had happened, and by 1030, when Walton sent his dismissal notices over, they were already cleaning out their desks.
That 1000 edition was a beauty, though. The lead headline read:
ARE WE CHUMPS FOR THE GREENSKINS?
And most of the issue was devoted to inflammatory pro-war anti-Popeek journalism. A full page of “letters from the readers”—actually transcribed phone calls, since few of Citizen’s readers were interested in writing letters —echoed the editorial stand. One “letter” in particular caught Walton’s attention.
It was from a Mrs. P.F. of New York City Environ, which probably meant Jersey or lower Connecticut, and it was short and to the point:
To the Editor—
Hooray for you. Popeek is a damned crime and that Walton criminal ought to be put away and we ought to kill those greenskins up there before they kill us. We gotta have room to live.
Kill them before they kill us. Walton snickered. All the old hysterias, the old panic reactions, come boiling up again in times of stress.
He looked at his hand. It was perfectly steady, even though his wrist watch told him Fred would be here in just a few minutes. A week ago, a situation like this would have had him gobbling benzolurethrin as fast as he could unwrap the lozenges.
The ghostly presence of FitzMaugham seemed to hover in the room. The ends justify the means, Walton told himself grimly, as he waited for his brother to arrive.