troubled. "There's something wrong with this," he said softly. "I
can't quite make it out, but it just doesn't look right. Those newspaper
stories I read--pure bushwa, from beginning to end. I'm dead certain of
it. And yet--" he paused, searching for words. "Look. It's like I'm
looking at a jigsaw puzzle that _looks_ like it's all completed and
lying out on the table. But there's something that tells me I'm being
foxed, that it isn't a complete puzzle at all, just an illusion, yet
somehow I can't even tell for sure where pieces are missing--"

The girl leaned over the table, her grey eyes deep with concern. "Tom,"
she said, almost in a whisper. "Suppose there _is_ something, Tom.
Something big, what's it going to do to _you_, Tom? You can't fight
anything as powerful as PIB, and these men that hated dad could break
you."

Tom grinned tiredly, his eyes far away. "I know," he said softly. "But a
man can only swallow so much. Somewhere, I guess, I've still got a
conscience--it's a nuisance, but it's still there." He looked closely at
the lovely girl across from him. "Maybe it's just that I'm tired of
being sick of myself. I'd like to _like_ myself for a change. I haven't
liked myself for years." He looked straight at her, his voice very small
in the still booth. "I'd like some other people to like me, too. So I've
got to keep going--"

Her hand was in his, then, grasping his fingers tightly, and her voice
was trembling. "I didn't think there was anybody left like that," she
said. "Tom, you aren't by yourself--remember that. No matter what
happens, I'm with you all the way. I'm--I'm afraid, but I'm with you."

He looked up at her then, and his voice was tight. "Listen, Ann. Your
father planned to go to Berlin before he died. What was he going to _do_
if he went to the Berlin Conference?"

She shrugged helplessly. "The usual diplomatic fol-de-rol, I suppose. He
always--"

"No, no--that's not right. He wanted to go so badly that he died when he
wasn't allowed to, Ann. He must have had something in mind, something
concrete, something tremendous. Something that would have changed the
picture a great deal."

And then she was staring at Shandor, her face white, grey eyes wide. "Of
course he had something," she exclaimed. "He _must_ have--oh, I don't
know what, he wouldn't say what was in his mind, but when he came home
after that meeting with the President he was furious-- I've never seen
him so furious, Tom, he was almo