han anybody else in the cabinet." Her mouth
turned down bitterly. "He was a stumbling block. He got in people's way,
and they hated him for it. They killed him for it."

Shandor's eyes widened. "You mean you think he was murdered?"

"Oh, no, nothing so crude. They didn't have to be crude. They just let
him butt his head against a stone wall. Everything he tried was
blocked, or else it didn't lead anywhere. Like this Berlin Conference.
It's a powder keg. Dad gambled everything on going there, forcing the
delegates to face facts, to really put their cards on the table. Ever
since the United Nations fell apart in '72 dad had been trying to get
America and Russia to sit at the same table. But the President cut him
out at the last minute. It was planned that way, to let him get up to
the very brink of it, and then slap him down hard. They did it all
along. This was just the last he could take."

Shandor was silent for a moment. "Any particular thorns in his side?"

Ann shrugged. "Munitions people, mostly. Dartmouth Bearing had a
pressure lobby that was trying to throw him out of the cabinet. The
President sided with them, but he didn't dare do it for fear the people
would squawk. He was planning to blame the failure of the Berlin
Conference on dad and get him ousted that way."

Shandor stared. "But if that conference fails, _we're in full-scale
war_!"

"Of course. That's the whole point." She scowled at her glass, blinking
back tears. "Dad could have stopped it, but they wouldn't let him. _It
killed him_, Tom!"

Shandor watched the smoke curling up from his cigarette. "Look," he
said. "I've got an idea, and it's going to take some fast work. That
conference could blow up any minute, and then I think we're going to be
in real trouble. I want you to go to your father's office and get the
contents of his personal file. Not the business files, his personal
files. Put them in a briefcase and subway-express them to your home. If
you have any trouble, have them check with PIB--we have full authority,
and I'm it right now. I'll call them and give them the word. Then meet
me here again, with the files, at 7:30 this evening."

She looked up, her eyes wide. "What--what are you going to do?"

Shandor snubbed out his smoke, his eyes bright. "I've got an idea that
we may be onto something--just something I want to check. But I think if
we work it right, we can lay these boys that fought your father out by
the toes--"

*