Ed shrugged. ‘Dr Benson said that Shearson had some kind of half-nelson on their top researcher. That’s why they called Dr Benson in secret, and asked him if he’d leak the news about Vorar D instead.’

‘So why didn’t he? And come to that, why didn’t you?’

‘Dr Benson tried to. But Della McIntosh wanted to get some background for the Blight Crisis Appeal, and she made the mistake of taking him into a bar. You probably don’t know Dr Benson, but he’s a reformed alcoholic. At least, he was until last night. He’d arranged to meet a radio reporter, but he was so stoned that he was incoherent. I didn’t even understand what he was talking about myself until this morning, when I went around to see him at his apartment. I don’t suppose it was Della’s fault. She just didn’t know. But the radio guy just thought he was raving.’

‘My God,’ said Karen.

Ed frowned at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘What you’ve just told me about Dr Benson is the matter. Della McIntosh is Shearson Jones’s latest mistress. Did you know that? Well, you obviously guessed it. But she was sent here ahead of Shearson to size you up for the Blight Crisis Appeal, just to make sure you weren’t some kind of Mickey Mouse, and also to have a quiet word with Dr Benson.’

There was a long, tense silence. Ed said: ‘Are you kidding me along?’

‘Mr Hardesty – Ed – why do you think I’m here at all? Peter Kaiser is hardly the last of the red-hot lovers, and I certainly didn’t come for the fun and the games and the laughter. Do you see anybody laughing around here? I’m not. I’m worried about what’s going on, for myself and for my relatives and for America in general, and I don’t want Shearson Jones and Peter Kaiser plotting the end of the world behind my back.’

Ed said, ‘If there’s enough stored food to last the winter, and the federal laboratories have found an antidote, it’s hardly going to be the end of the world. And we can make damned sure that Senator Jones gets what’s coming to him.’