50
James Goddard, president, San Francisco Division, Genessee Industries, sat across the room while Trevayne and Vicarson studied the voluminous papers and computer cards spread out over the long conference table. The room was large, an executive suite at the Shoreham Hotel.
Goddard had been brief nearly four hours ago when Trevayne and his aide first walked through the door. There was no reason, he felt, for extraneous conversation. The figures, the reports, the printed results of the Genessee master tape were all that was necessary.
Let the numbers do the talking.
He had watched the two men; they’d approached the carefully sorted-out display apprehensively. At first they were guarded, suspicious. Then gradually the magnitude of the indictment shook their sense of reality. As their disbelief turned into reluctant acceptance, Trevayne started hammering questions at him; questions he answered—when he wanted to answer them—in the simplest of terms.
Let the numbers do the talking.
The subcommittee chairman then ordered Vicarson to return to their offices and bring back a small multipurpose desk computer. The sort of machine that added, subtracted, divided, multiplied, and held figures in six-column accruals until needed. Without it, Trevayne had said, they’d be there a week trying to reach their own conclusions. With it, and with luck, they might accomplish the job by morning.
James Goddard could have completed the job in two hours, three at the outside.
It was four hours now, and still they hadn’t finished.
Amateurs.
Occasionally, then with growing rapidity, Trevayne turned to him and asked a question, expecting an immediate reply. Goddard laughed to himself as he «thoughtfully» found that the answer was not within his grasp. Trevayne was reaching the end; he wanted the specific names now, the master planners of the master tape. Goddard could easily supply them—Hamilton and Hamilton’s faceless legion of «vice presidents» in Chicago: men who stayed in deep cover, out of sight, manipulating the huge national and international commitments.
They never let him reach that level. They never gave him a chance to show he had the qualifications to set entire courses, to create—with even more accuracy—the fiscal projections spanning the five-year interregnums. How often had he found it necessary to make major alterations within his own sphere because the master tape had carried errors that would have led to financial crises within isolated sectors of Genessee’s production? How many times had he sent irrefutable proof back to Chicago that he was not only the public figurehead of Genessee’s finances but, in fact, the one man capable of overseeing the work of the master tape?
The replies from Chicago—never written, always a faceless voice over a telephone—were invariably the same. They thanked him, acknowledged his contribution, and restated the premise that his value as president of the all-important San Francisco Division was without parallel. All to say he’d reached the end of his line.
In the final analysis, he was expendable. The public figurehead ready at the crack of a whip for a public hanging. And once that hanging was set, what could he possibly do about it?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. For his «contributions» were there for all to see. And without the master tape, his «contributions» stopped at his office door.
But there was a way out, his only way.
To move swiftly to the top—his top—of the one conglomerate larger than Genessee Industries.
The United States government.
The kind of deal that was made every day under a dozen guises: «Consultant,» «Expert,» «Administrative Adviser.»
It meant giving up the house in Palo Alto; and the beautiful hills that calmed him so with their majesty. On the other hand, it meant also giving up his wife—she’d never, never consent—and that was a plus.
But the biggest gain of all was his own sense of well-being. For from now on his «contributions» would not only be extraordinary—and acknowledged as such—but also indispensable. The history of Genessee Industries’ ascent to its present position covered nearly twenty years. To untangle that extraordinary financial interweaving would take, perhaps, a decade.
And he, James Goddard, «Expert,» was the economic legend who could do it. It would have to be done, for it was, after all, an intrinsic part of the history of twentieth-century America. He would record for the millennia that history. Scholars for a thousand years would research his words, study his figures, hold his knowledge in reverence.
The government itself, right up to the highest reaches of decision making, would consider him the indispensable man.
No one could do what he could do now.
To have that acknowledged was all that he wanted. Couldn’t Ian Hamilton and the faceless voices in Chicago understand? It wasn’t money; it wasn’t power.
It was respect. A respect that took him out of the realm of being primed for hanging.
It was nearly five hours now. Trevayne and his voluble, obnoxious assistant had gone through two pots of coffee. The chain-smoking chairman had stopped asking questions; the aide kept shoving cards and papers in front of Trevayne—they’d finally understood the pattern of financial sequence as he’d arranged it. They hadn’t acknowledged it, of course, but they fell into a rhythm on the desk computer that silently betrayed the fact.
Soon it would come. The question.
Then the deal.
It would all be spelled out. Nothing left to speculation.
It was really quite simple when one analyzed it. He was merely changing sides, altering his allegiances.
He watched Andrew Trevayne get up from the table and rip the wide paper tape from the machine. The subcommittee chairman looked at it, placed it in front of his assistant, and began rubbing his eyes.
«Finished?»
«Finished?» answered Trevayne with the same question. «I think you know better than that. It’s just begun, I’m sorry to say.»
«Yes. Yes, of course. Precisely… It has just begun. There are years, volumes to be completed. I’m well aware of it… We must talk now.»
«Talk? Us?… No, Mr. Goddard. It may not be finished, but I am. You talk to others… If you can find them.»
«What does that mean?»
«I won’t pretend to understand your motives, Goddard. You’re either the bravest man I’ve ever met … or so consumed with guilt you’ve lost all sense of perspective. Either way, I’ll try to help. You deserve that… But I don’t think anyone’s going to want to touch you. Not the people who should… They won’t know where your leprosy ends. Or whether they’ve got a latent case, and standing next to you might make their skin fall off.»
51
The President of the United States rose from behind his desk in the Oval Office as Andrew Trevayne entered. The first thing that struck Trevayne was the presence of William Hill. Hill was standing across the room in front of the French doors, reading some papers in the harsh light of the early sun off the terrace. The President, seeing Andy’s obvious reaction to a third party, spoke rapidly.
«Good morning, Mr. Trevayne. The Ambassador is here at my request; my insistence, if you like.»
Trevayne approached the desk and shook the hand extended to him. «Good morning, Mr. President.» He turned and took several steps toward Hill, who met him halfway between the desk and the French doors. «Mr. Ambassador.»