An Incident At Bloodtide

Chapter Twelve

I dreamt, wildly and at length, in vivid color and full stereo sound. The same drama over and over again.

I was on a cruise ship. It was sometime in the past, when April Marlowe and I had been in love; but instead of running away from her as I had done, I'd married her, which was what I had desperately wanted to do. We were on our honeymoon. April was somewhere below deck in our honeymoon suite, but at the moment I couldn't quite remember where that was, or how to get there. I was standing at a railing on one of three foredecks, dressed in a green tuxedo. Although the dozen or so scantily-clad bathers cavorting in the purple pool on the deck below appeared comfortable enough, I was cold. The brown sun was going down, and the couples below were starting to go inside to dress for dinner. April, I knew, was already dressed and waiting for me, but, try as I might, I couldn't remember how to get to our cabin. I couldn't remember how I had gotten out on this particular foredeck, and when I turned around I saw there was no door for me to go through, no way off the deck. When I turned back, I found I was alone in dirty twilight. And I was suddenly terribly lonely. I opened my mouth to call for help, but I could make no sound. The front part of the ship, so noisy only a few moments before, was now completely cloaked in silence, and I was unable to break it.

The waves on the brown-black sea had suddenly disappeared, and the surface was as smooth as glass. The ship seemed to be speeding up, heading straight toward the black hole in the sky where the sun had disappeared. I desperately wanted to find my way below, back to where my wife waited, where there was light and warmth and food and music and where I would not feel so terribly lonely. We would eat, and dance late into the night on the stained-glass floor of the ballroom, and then we would go back to our cabin and make love.

I looked down, found that my green tuxedo had inexplicably disappeared, and I was naked. I couldn't wander around the ship naked, especially when I didn't know where to go, but my tuxedo was nowhere in sight. I would have to look for it, but I couldn't move. I was growing colder, freezing.

The glass surface of the water around me abruptly began to buckle, crack, and crinkle, becoming ever uglier, a crusted black and brown expanse that heaved and collapsed and heaved again, spewing a foul-smelling gas. I had to get away. I spun around, found that the entire section of the ship behind me had disappeared. I was in the middle of a vast, open sewer that stretched to the horizon in all directions. I turned back, found that the rest of the ship was gone from before and beneath me. I was all alone, ankle-deep in the poisonous, black-brown sludge, and slowly sinking. There was nothing to do, no place to swim to even if I could make my way through the thick, fetid ooze. The bubbling mud came up to my waist, then my chin. I threw my head back, struggling for one last gasp of air before I went under. And then, suddenly, it began all over again.

I was on a cruise ship. .

That's how it went, on and on, over and over, for what seemed like years. When I woke up, I felt so bad that I was almost willing to go back to the world of my recurring nightmare, which was terrifying, but pain-free. I felt about as strong as a sponge with a hangover and couldn't even lift my arms off the bed in which I was lying. There were needles stuck in both my arms and a tube up my nose. I felt the urge to gag, but couldn't even work up the strength to do that. Garth and Mary were at my bedside, and when I opened my eyes, my brother got up from his chair and leaned over me.

"Mongo?"

"Grrrrmph," I said, and promptly went back to sleep.

I was on a cruise ship. .

When I awoke again, the needles were out of my arms, and the tube gone from my nose, but I didn't feel any better. Garth, wearing different clothes, was still at my bedside. He was unshaven and looked like he had a three- or four-day growth of beard.

"You look like shit," I said in a croaking whisper. Just the act of speaking brought up a foul, green and black taste of grease, medicine, and smoke, but it felt so good to be off my nightmare cruise ship in the savage ocean that I kept talking anyway. "You smell too. Do you know how depressing it is to wake up in a sickbed to find a man who hasn't bothered to shave, with body odor and bags under his eyes, standing next to you?"

My little speech finished, I proceeded to have a coughing fit, which brought up more vile tastes, bile, and thick phlegm. Garth supported me with his arm, gently patted me on the back. When the spasm of coughing finally passed, he poured me a glass of water, steadied my head while I drank it down. I drank another, then lay back.

"Some of the doctors here thought you were going to die, Mongo," Garth said simply. "I told them they were wrong."

"What did they think I was going to die of?"

"Oh, the combined effects of a dozen or so maladies. Let's see if I can't recall the highlights of the doctors' diagnosis. How about double pneumonia aggravated by smoke inhalation, severe exposure, and brain inflammation? There were a few other minor items."

"Brain inflammation?"

"I told them you didn't have a brain to be inflamed, but they insisted. You walked out of here with a mild concussion, right?

Well, it's not so mild anymore. All that time you were running around doing whatever it was you thought you were doing, you could have had a stroke at any time. The swelling is down now, but if you look like Mr. America when you get out of here, it's because of all the steroids they've been pumping you full of. The way you've been bouncing around on your head, it's a wonder you've got any uncracked brain cells left. But you never put that organ to much use anyway, do you?"

"Tee-hee. You've got a great bedside manner, Garth. How long have I been. . away?"

"Not quite a week."

"Not quite a fucking week?"

"Take it easy, Mongo," Garth said quickly, putting his hand on my chest and pressing me back down on the bed as I tried to rise. "You're out of danger, but you're going to have to stay here another week at least, and probably longer. I was told not to talk to you for longer than fifteen minutes if you came around. The doctors said you'd probably want to go back to sleep by that time."

"Well, they're wrong again. I don't want to go back to sleep. I have nightmares. What the hell's been happening?"

Garth smiled wryly, chuckled, and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling-a flamboyant display of reckless emotion from my taciturn brother. "I'll bring you your reviews in a day or two. You've made two out of three of the network broadcasts, and I can tell you that you're selling a lot of newspapers. That's the good news, if you're a newspaper publisher."

"Aha. Since I'm not a newspaper publisher, my surviving brain cells interpret that to mean there's plenty of bad news for me."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow or the next day. Really, Mongo, I don't think I-"

"Damn it, Garth, I've been sleeping for a week. I promise I'll rest. Just tell me what's been going on. I absolutely guarantee I'm going to get better, because I'm going to find Julian Jefferson and separate his head from his shoulders. That's twice the son-of-a-bitch tried to kill me."

Garth sighed, propped me up with some pillows behind my back, then sat down again in the chair next to my bed. "Too late for that. Jefferson already separated his head from his shoulders for you-at least most of it. He shot himself on the deck of his tanker, presumably with the gun he was using to try to kill you."

"Well, well," I said. I thought about it for a few moments, waiting for some sense of satisfaction that refused to come. "It doesn't make any difference. He was just a drunk doing what he was told, and the person who ordered him to rev up those engines was none other than Chick Carver, our friendly neighborhood sorcerer. Carver was on the tanker that night, because Jefferson called him to report that the local troublemaker was back. He also seriously trashed Tom's boat, then drove it himself down to the salt marshes."

"The captain told you that?"

"Yep."

"You got it on tape?"

"Gee, Garth, I don't. I plumb forgot to pick up my recording engineer before I went chasing after that ship."

"So you haven't got it on tape. Too bad."

"Anybody else aboard the tanker killed?"

Garth shook his head.

"Jefferson was just something broken that Carver used as a murder weapon. But Chick Carver's kind of broken too. I want to nail him, but I want even more to nail the gray suit or suits responsible for hiring a freak like Carver in the first place, and then giving him free rein to act as an enforcer to cover up their illegal water-transport business. Maybe that's Roger Wellington, but I suspect it's somebody even higher up, somebody Mama Carver could pressure. Damn it, Garth, this whole thing is about responsibility, and I want to nail the people responsible for making policy."

Garth grunted, then stared at me for some time with an enigmatic expression on his face. Finally he asked quietly, "Just what the hell did you think you were doing, Mongo?"

"Uh. . bringing things to a head?"

"You mean onto a head; your head. I can't understand what you hoped to accomplish, aside from almost killing yourself, by playing Tarzan off the Tappan Zee Bridge, and then trying to hijack a tanker."

"Hijack a tanker? I wasn't trying to hijack that thing, I was trying to park it, for Christ's sake! And don't give me any more of this 'what did you think you were doing' crap. I was pretty pissed off when I left the hospital, because you were where I am right now. I went to have a little chat with Bennett Carver, to show him the photos and ask what the hell his company and son were up to. He was pretty shocked by the whole thing, especially since he disowned his shithead son years ago. But Mama wasn't shocked; she wasn't even surprised."

"She got him the job?"

"Right. She's a tough one. The lady as much as told me to go to hell, because there wasn't a damn thing I could do about any of it. That kind of annoyed me. I got even more annoyed when I got back and found the tanker gone; obviously Mama had called somebody, probably her boy, to tell him the tanker should get out of there fast. I took off after it in the car, because I knew if it ever got out of New York Harbor, we'd never see it or Julian Jefferson around here again. I was intending to make a last-ditch effort to get the Coast Guard to stop them, but while I was on the road I realized that was a waste of time. I saw the construction equipment on the TZ, and I just went for a head-to-head with the captain; I knew it was probably the last chance I'd ever have. If you'd been in my place, you'd have done the same damn thing."

"Yeah," Garth said mildly. "You're probably right. These goddamn people and their attitudes, and the attitude of the authorities toward these people with attitudes, is enough to give you an attitude. Well, you certainly stopped that ship, brother, and you sure as hell made sure the situation would get a public airing. But we're left with a few problems."

"Like what? Everything you've told me so far sounds like good news."

"Care to guess where you are?"

"Uh, Cairn Hospital?"

"Try the hospital ward on Rikers Island."

"Oh-oh."

"Even as we speak, the state and federal authorities are arguing over who gets to beat on you first. Since Carver Shipping claims you caused three million dollars' worth of damage to their tanker, they want at you first in a state court so they can sue you for everything we've got. But the feds' position is that what you did was an act of terrorism, and they want to make an example of you by first trying you on charges of attempted hijacking of a ship and then putting you away for twenty-five or thirty years. Naturally there's politics involved. We don't have anything but enemies in this administration, and this is probably their way of punishing both of us for what they believe to be our close ties to our dear ex-President."

"Who's winning? State or federal?"

"Your lawyers, I hope."

"Who are my lawyers?"

"Benson, Quadratti, Kratz, and Pringle."

"Hoo-boy," I said, raising my eyebrows. "Ira's on the case, is he? Talk about heavy hitters."

"Yep. He's working pro bono, no less. Any number of the firms we've done business with over the years volunteered to represent you. I thought it best to let Ira handle it."

"Why pick a Washington firm?"

"Because that's where the real pressure in this case is coming from, and Ira does have friends in this administration. Even more important, he has friends in high corporate places, and, to my thinking, it's in the boardroom that this little drama you've produced is going to play itself out."

"Your thinking? What about my thinking? I'm the one they're trying to brand and try as a terrorist!"

Garth grunted. "I'm taking over as quarterback. You worry about resting and getting your strength back. You're going to need it. Right now you're being held without bail, so there's no place you can go, and nothing you can do if you could go someplace. Your P.I. license has been suspended."

"I don't need a goddamn license to hunt Chick Carver."

"Ah. But you're not going to do anything unless Ira or I tell you." Garth's tone, as usual, was mild, but I knew he was deadly serious. He continued, "When Mary and I couldn't think clearly, you did our thinking for us. I appreciated it, and I cooperated. Now the situations are reversed, and you're going to cooperate. Sacra Silver isn't our main concern right now; he's not even a secondary concern. These are worthy opponents you're up against now, Mongo, and if we're not very careful, they're going to blow you right into prison. Now that you've come around, there'll be a formal arraignment. Ira and I haven't made a decision yet whether or not to even ask for bail."

"Give me a break, Garth. You'd let me sit in the can because you're afraid of what I might do if I get out?"

"Frankly. . maybe. But the main point in keeping you locked up is so reporters can't get to you."

"I would think we'd want reporters to get to me."

"At a time and place of our choosing. When I bring you the papers, you'll see that the situation is getting plenty of ink, and what makes it more than just another corporate scandal story, frankly, is the involvement of Mongo the Magnificent. For some reason, there seem to be a lot of people who find you a colorful figure."

"It sounds to me like you've been orchestrating the media campaign."

"To the extent that I can, sure. The photographs of the tankers went to all the right people in the press, and I've emphasized that Mongo the Magnificent was working on the same matter that killed a heroic, small-town riverkeeper."

"Have you told anybody the whole story about what happened to Tom?"

"Two people-Henry at the Times and Beverly over at the Post. But nobody's going to print any of that, because they'd be sued for libel, but it should guarantee that now we've got investigative reporters looking deeper into the story. We need all the help we can get. But what's keeping this story hot at the moment, dear brother, is the image of the aforementioned colorful figure lying forlorn and alone, near death, in a hospital bed here on Rikers Island."

"It brings tears to my eyes."

"There are a lot of people who don't believe that a man of your reputation would trash a multi-ton tanker over a minor environmental infraction and water-hauling scheme, and they're waiting to hear the whole story-from you. But it will do absolutely no good to just talk to reporters; what's introduced and said at your trial is going to be what counts. In order to explain your motivation for going aboard that tanker, we have to at least strongly hint that Carver Shipping is guilty of corporate murder, not just corporate skulduggery. Ira says that won't be easy. He's thinking that we should let you sit tight here for a while and let the investigative reporters keep digging. There's no sense in tipping our hand, and it could backfire if you make allegations we can't prove."

"For Christ's sake, Garth, I delivered up a whole tanker filled with Hudson River water that was illegally being hauled. That's no allegation, it's a fact. Are you going to tell me the hull cracked open and all that water leaked out?"

"Nope. But it's virtually irrelevant. I told you I got the pollution and water-shipping stories out. I also told you these people we're up against are worthy opponents. They haven't exactly been sitting still; Carver Shipping has squads of lawyers and public relations people, and they have their own sympathetic reporters to talk to. Within an hour after this story hit the street, their CEO held a press conference to announce that the company itself had uncovered a plot by Julian Jefferson and a few other so-called rogue captains to line their own pockets. The company categorically denies knowing anything about it, and they officially deplore what was happening. At the same time, they are agreeing to take responsibility, to pay all appropriate fines, and even donate half a million to various environmental groups-including a hundred thousand to the Cairn Fishermen's Association, in Tom Blaine's name. Now, that's public relations, brother."

"Now you really are bringing tears to my eyes."

"But wait; there's more. The very next day, our beloved Secretary of the Interior, the same one who's giving away all the timber, coal, and marshlands, held a press conference in Washington to praise-and these are his words-'Carver Shipping's exemplary record of good citizenship and corporate responsibility.' He also took the opportunity to deplore the actions of a 'well-known vigilante type.' Anybody who knows us realizes that I'm the vigilante type in the family, but I believe he was referring to you. He also used the word 'terrorist' a few times. So, for what amounts to pocket money for the company, probably only a fraction of what they've already made selling water to Kuwait, Carver Shipping is looking to come out of this not only with their profits secured, or most of them, but with a new and burnished image as a kind of New Age corporation that really cares about the environment. You get a thirty-year prison sentence. The CEO's even called for a full shareholders' meeting in six weeks to ask for a vote of confidence in himself and the board of directors."

"I love it."

"I knew you would. Get the picture? Make a peep about murder now, and they'll just say it's the self-serving rantings of that well-known vigilante type and soon-to-be-convicted felon. So you just sit tight. We're going to save our ammunition, if we can find any, for the trial."

I looked away. Now I wished I'd just gone back to sleep when Garth had suggested it. The nightmare I'd been dreaming suddenly seemed pale in comparison to the one I'd awakened to, and at least that had only been a bad dream. "What about the other captains involved?" I asked quietly. "Maybe one of them will come forward and tell the truth."

"You think so, huh? Maybe a few captains really have been fired, like the company claims, but it's more likely they've been transferred to cushy jobs somewhere else in the world, where we won't be able to subpoena them, in exchange for keeping their mouths shut. And you'll never get a member of any crew to testify; half of them are probably illegal aliens."

"What about Carver and Roger Wellington?"

Garth shrugged. "What about them? Nothing's going to happen to them, and they'd certainly lie on the stand. They're in administration, remember? And for the company to can anybody in administration would be to acknowledge that higher-ups might have been involved, and they won't risk that. No, the official line is that it was a conspiracy of captains only, to earn extra money. Carver and Wellington will stay at their desks."

"And so Chick Carver, and the men responsible for him, get away with murder."

"Hey, I hope I don't have to tell you that I'm no happier about that than you are. But right now, you're up to your ass in alligators, and that's what we have to focus on. For now, we let things simmer. Lots of people have seen the photographs of those loaded tankers, and some people-except for the Secretary of the Interior, of course-are already beginning to wonder out loud how a half dozen ships could cart millions of tons of water, month after month, without somebody at the corporate headquarters being aware of it. When the current publicity dies down, then we spring you to tell at least part of your side of the story. Who knows? By that time, we may be able to make a deal."

"Maybe I don't want to make any deal."

"That's easy for you to say; you're not the one who'll have to spend all that time commuting to a federal prison for thirty years to visit his brother. You'll do what this quarterback says, Mongo. I'll call you off the bench when Ira and I think the time is right. Just sit tight; catch up on your reading. Now go back to sleep."

I went back to sleep, allowed my body to heal, read the newspapers, watched television, and otherwise sat tight.

Ten days later Bennett Carver demonstrated his political influence by managing to get in to see me. I could have refused to talk to him, but I was curious as to what he had to say. Although I was still in the hospital ward, on narrow-spectrum antibiotics and a blood thinner, I actually felt much better. I didn't think Bennett Carver could say the same. The silver-haired man's walk was unsteady, and he was using his wife's cane, which was too short for him. His pale green eyes had lost their brightness, and were watery. I was sitting up in bed, reading, when he was admitted to my cell. He nodded curtly, then pulled up a chair next to the bed and eased himself down on it.

"I came to cut a deal with you, Frederickson," he announced with his characteristic bluntness. "I hope you're going to be happy with the terms; but even if you're not, I hope you'll have the good sense not to reject the offer."

"If I had good sense I wouldn't be in this pleasure palace, now would I, Mr. Carver? I hope you have other business in the city, because otherwise you've come all the way down here for nothing."

"The company will drop all charges and lawsuits against you. If that happens, the chances are good that, with a little prodding-which I guarantee will be provided-the Justice Department can be persuaded to drop its charges; if Carver Shipping denies that its ship was hijacked, it's difficult to see how the government can claim otherwise. In exchange, you promise not to discuss the matter with the media. When asked questions, you'll reply, 'No comment.' All this publicity is bad for the company."

"I thought Carver Shipping had the glowing imprimatur and praise of the Secretary of the Interior."

Carver made a sound of disgust. "Those fools on the board of directors think that's worth something; it isn't. I didn't found that company to have its reputation depend on the praise of a man who's a hypocrite and bullshit artist. There are people I respect, and friends of mine, who believe Carver Shipping is guilty of something precisely because that man said the things he did."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Mr. Carver, because the company you founded is damn well guilty of a lot of things. You know it, and I know it. But I'm still not sure what you're worried about. Those people you're referring to are a distinct minority. I read the papers, watch television. Their public relations people, it seems to me, have done a pretty good job of turning things around and making Carver Shipping look like a paragon of an environmentally concerned corporation. It's already old news."

"It won't be when you get out of here. I don't know what you're going to say, or how you plan to prove any of the allegations I'm sure you're going to make, but none of it can be good for the company. With your reputation, you could have been out of here on bail; since you're not, I have to assume that keeping you secluded in here is a ploy by your lawyer to eventually mount a second publicity assault on Carver Shipping. You're a dangerous man, Frederickson."

"Thank you. Have a nice day, Mr. Carver."

"You're facing a thirty-year prison sentence, Frederickson!"

"So I've been told. Look, Mr. Carver, this isn't about pollution, or illegal water hauling, both of which we know Carver Shipping is guilty of. And it's not about which side can mount the best public relations campaign. As far as I'm concerned, this is all about responsibility. Specifically, it's about your son's responsibility for causing a man's death, and the responsibility the company you founded bears for, in effect, giving him the license to do it."

"You don't know-"

"Yes, I do know. Before he stuck a gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger, Julian Jefferson told me exactly what happened the night your fellow church member was killed. Jefferson called your son to report that Tom was poking around the ship, and your son came on board that night to put a stop to it. He ordered the captain to start up the engines while Tom was under the tanker, and he personally stripped and trashed Tom's boat."

I expected him to deny it, or at least to point out the obvious-that my version of something I claimed a chronic drunk had told me before he killed himself was totally worthless in court, and libelous if I repeated it in public. But he did neither. Instead, he winced and turned away slightly, as if I had struck him a physical blow. It seemed proof of what Chick Carver had done, or the bizarre circumstances under which I had obtained the captain's confession were irrelevant to this man, for Bennett Carver seemed to know-had always known-that his son was capable of doing the things I had described.

"Charles no longer works for the company, Frederickson," he said in a very low, weak voice. "He's been sent off to a. . place very far away, where he will stay until the day he dies if he ever hopes to see another penny of the trust fund he's been living on for twenty years, or of his final inheritance. Neither you nor I will ever see him again."

"At the risk of sounding insensitive, I have to point out that his mother isn't going to care much for that arrangement."

"Well, she's going to have to learn to live with it," he said in a stronger voice, lips pulled back from his teeth. "I carry much blame for what Charles has become, Frederickson, but I consider his mother responsible for what's happened here. Charles should never have been put in a position of power or responsibility over other people. And Roger Wellington is gone too. He'll never work in the shipping business again."

"You seem to have a lot more say about what goes on in that company than you let on in our previous conversation."

"What I have is a very large block of stock."

"It's not enough, Mr. Carver."

"You can't expect me to help in the destruction of my own son, Frederickson! I've sent him away! He'll never bother anyone from around here again!"

"We'll see how far away he goes, and how long he stays. But I'm not talking just about what Charles did, nor about the immediate superior who let him loose. I'm talking about the company itself; it was company policy, finally, that was responsible for everything that happened. But companies can only be fined. The people who created or checked off on that policy must be held accountable, which in this case means a CEO and a board of directors. You and I both know there was no cabal of captains; they were following what they understood to be official orders. There are enough killer companies in the United States, and under this administration they're going to multiply like rabbits. I'd like to see the men responsible for turning Carver Shipping into a killer company buried; I want them exposed, removed from power, and punished."

"You're crazy, Frederickson."

"So I've been told on more than one occasion."

"You can't touch them."

"You're probably right."

"You're willing to throw away your freedom to fight in a battle you can't possibly win? Why, for God's sake?"

"Because the cost of agreeing to keep my mouth shut is too high. These are bad guys, Mr. Carver; they're a pack of gray-suited thieves and murderers who hide behind corporate bylaws. They're the same kind of bad guys as the gray suits who looted the savings and loan industry, the kinds of people who are the root cause of so much that's wrong with this country that you feel so strongly about. To you, it's important that the United States be honored by having its flag displayed on the altar of your church. I try to honor my country-and myself-in my own way, by making sure that a bunch of rich, greedy, corporate pricks don't get away with complicity in the murder of a very fine man who was working for all of us, and then be hailed as heroes by a spokesman for this administration. At least I try. It turns everything I believe in on its head. I know what makes you mad, Mr. Carver-somebody trying to remove the U.S. flag from your church altar. And now you know what makes me mad. So you go back to your people on the board and tell them to stick their deal up their collective corporate ass. Also, tell them I'll see them in court."

Bennett Carver seemed stunned. He stared at me, blinking slowly and with his mouth slightly open, for some time. Finally he rose from the chair and, leaning heavily on his wife's cane, walked unsteadily to the door. But he did not signal for the guard.

"Perhaps I was wrong for trying to bargain with you, Frederickson," he said in a thick voice, without turning around. "I think I knew-or should have known-what your reaction was going to be. I understand why you had to go on that ship, and I admire your courage. I know what you did next you did because you were fighting for your life. Perhaps it's true that Tom Blaine's life was taken from him, but I can't do anything about that beyond what I've already done. If I cooperate in the prosecution of my son, I will lose my wife. I do bear much blame for what Charles has become; I was not a good father. But you have also been wronged, and you're in danger of being ground up and spat out by the part of the system that you so reasonably deplore, and that I can do something about, and have. It was done before I came in here. Carver Shipping has agreed to drop all charges and suits against you, and influential people I know are, at this moment, pressing the Justice Department to do the same. I believe they'll succeed. I will be very much surprised if you're not a free man again before this day is out, Dr. Frederickson. I told you I admire you for your courage, but courage can only take a man so far. You've dodged a very big bullet. My advice to you is to put this matter behind you and get on with your work and your life."

"Just a minute!" I said sharply as the old man raised his hand to knock at the door. He hesitated, then slowly lowered his hand and turned to look at me. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and walked across the room to stand in front of him. "There is more that you can do."

"I've told you I can do nothing more regarding Charles."

"I'm not talking about Charles. I want to get the men who wrote the stage directions. I'm thinking maybe you do too. I understand the CEO and the board have called for a shareholders' meeting in a few weeks to call for a vote of confidence. You be there. Use that big block of stock you own, and your influence, to at least get rid of those people. Take back control of the company they screwed up, for at least as long as it takes to get decent people to run it."

Bennett Carver slowly shook his head. "Even assuming I had the power to do that, and the physical strength to wage such a battle, I would still need some proof of serious malfeasance, or a criminal charge, to use against them. Pollution and illegal water hauling? That was a conspiracy of captains, remember? If they weren't already out from under that one, you wouldn't be walking out of here."

"Then think of some other way."

Again he shook his head, then turned back and knocked on the door to signal for the guard. "This business is finished, Frederickson. Get on with your life."