Finally, Bonner had gotten angry. He didn’t know the answers, hadn’t sought them. If the General needed specific information, he should have briefed him on what it was. Bonner reminded Cooper that he had brought out over fifty separate reports from the Potomac Towers. Information stolen from Trevayne’s private files, actions that laid him wide open to civilian prosecution.
He understood the reasons, accepted them as well as the risks, and relied on his superiors’ judgment. But, goddamn it, he wasn’t clairvoyant.
The Brigadier’s reaction to his outburst stunned Bonner. Cooper had become hesitant, flustered; he started to stutter, and for Bonner it was inconceivable that such an old line man as Cooper would stutter. It was apparent that Brigadier General Cooper was dealing with totally new, unevaluated data.
And he was afraid.
Bonner had wondered what it was. What had produced the fear? The Major knew that he wasn’t the only one bringing information out of the Towers. There were two others he knew about. One was a dark-haired stenographer, the nominal head of Trevayne’s typing pool. He’d seen her photograph and résumé on Cooper’s desk with several expense vouchers clipped underneath. Standard procedure.
The second was a blond man, late twenties, a Ph.D. from Cornell who, if he remembered correctly, Trevayne had hired as a favor to an old friend. Bonner had left late one night just as the blond man was going into the freight entrance. To the rear elevators invariably used by informers on scheduled runs. He’d looked up; Brigadier Cooper’s fifth-floor office lights were still on.
Cooper had been too upset to be evasive or even subtle. So Bonner had been given his orders: Whatever Trevayne said, whatever either of the two aides traveling with him said—regardless of how inconsequential it might seem—commit it to memory and report by telephone direct on Cooper’s private line. Try to find out the substance of any conference with anyone connected with Genessee Industries. Use whatever moneys might be needed, promise whatever immunities requested, but uncover facts.
Any facts.
Was he to look for specific …
Anything!
Bonner grudgingly admitted to himself that he’d caught a touch of the Brigadier’s fever. He didn’t like being fired up by someone else’s anger—or panic—but he had been. Trevayne had no right meddling in Genessee. At least, not to the extent that caused Cooper’s extraordinary degree of concern. Genessee Industries was, in its own way, a necessary line of the nation’s defense. Certainly more important than any extraterritorial ally. Surely more reliable.
The fighters—rocket jets—better than anything in their class in the air; fourteen different styles of helicopters—from the massive troop-, vehicle-, and weapons-carrying jet combinations to the fast, silent «snakes» that hedged men like himself into tiny jungle locations; armor developed in dozens of Genessee laboratories that housed a hundred different types of protective cover saving thousands of square feet of human flesh from high-caliber shells and the refraction of napalm fire; even artillery—Genessee controlled scores of armaments plants, and thank God they did!—the finest, most destructive weaponry on earth.
Strike force! Power!
Goddamn it to goddamn hell! Couldn’t «they» understand?
It wasn’t just the possession! It was the protection! Their protection!
What the hell did the beavers know?
What the hell did Trevayne know?
19
James Goddard walked out on his back lawn. The descending sun washed the Los Altos hills with misty hues of yellow and orange. As always, the view had a palliative effect on Goddard. It had been the primary reason he’d taken the gamble twelve years ago and bought the house in Los Altos. It had been far too expensive, but he’d reached that point at Genessee where either the future held such a home or there was no future at Genessee.
It really hadn’t been much of a gamble. Twelve years ago he’d just begun his rapid ascendancy with one of the inner circles of Genessee Industries. The nature of his work ensured his survival, his eventual proprietorship of a corner office.
Finally, the penthouse. President, San Francisco Division.
But at times the pressure became too much.
Now was such a time.
The conference with Trevayne that afternoon had been nerve-racking. Nerve-racking because its objectives, at first, were totally unclear. A little of this, a little of that. A great deal of nodding-in-agreement, a fair amount of quizzical looks followed by further nods or just blank stares. Notes taken at seemingly inappropriate moments; innocuous questions asked by Trevayne’s innocuous assistants. One Jewish; that was obvious. The other too young; that was insulting.
The whole meeting had been disjointed, without any discipline of agenda. As the immediate spokesman for Genessee, Goddard had tried to impose a sense of order, tried to elicit a schedule of inquiry. He’d been gently rebuffed by Trevayne; the subcommittee chairman unconvincingly played the role of a patriarchal uncle—everything would be covered sufficiently. The morning was only to establish general areas of responsibility.
General areas of responsibility.
The phrase had hit James Goddard’s brain like a bolt of electricity.
But he had simply nodded as his three adversaries had nodded and smiled. A ritual dance of deceit, he’d decided.
When the meeting ended, around three-thirty or so, he’d returned to his office from the conference room and immediately pleaded a splitting headache to his secretary. He had to get out, drive around, think over every aspect of what had been said during the past two and a half hours. For in spite of the nebulous approach, a great deal had been said. The problem was that it hadn’t been said in figures. He understood figures. He could recite by rote P-and-L statements from scores of divisions going back years. He could take a handful of isolated numbers and prepare projections that, given a variance of four percent, would prove out. He astonished so-called economists—academic theorists, usually Jewish—with the swiftness and accuracy of his market analyses and employment stats.
Even the Senator, California’s Armbruster, had called upon him for advice last year.
He had refused any payment; after all, Armbruster was his political choice, and Genessee wasn’t going to get hurt. However, he had accepted a token gift through a friend of the Senator. A ten-year company pass on Trans Pacific Airways.
His wife liked Hawaii, although he constantly had to reassure her that cat meat wasn’t part of the cooking.
He’d left the office and driven damn near fifty miles. Along the ocean drive, over into Ravenswood, then across to Fair Oaks.
What had Trevayne been after?
Whenever Goddard had attempted to explain a specific overrun or underestimated cost—and weren’t those explanations the essence of the subcommittee’s function?—he’d been discouraged from elaborating on them. Instead, there was only a general discussion of the items; their validity, their functionability, their operational capacities, the engineering, the designs, the men who conceived the plans, those responsible for putting them into execution.
Abstractions and median-level personnel.
What in heaven’s name could be the purpose of such a conference?
But as he approached the upward slope of the road leading to his isolated, view-calming house on his miniature mountain, James Goddard—cost-accountant-cum-division-president of Genessee Industries—saw with frightening clarity the purpose of Trevayne’s conference.