"It's a reasonable enough request," Julia put in reluctantly. "The consortium are entitled to a representative. I doubt we could keep their nominee off. Not legally."

Philip nodded slowly. "The consortium has mentioned it… Someone… to oversee their interests." His voice sounded terribly weak. Julia was looking at him, almost in pain with what she saw. His head turned from the camera again. Greg thought he was looking out of the study window. "Then what?" he whispered.

"This is just theory, you understand, based on what you told me about Kendric trying to muscle in on the management side of Event Horizon. But after Kendric landed his boardroom seat I'd say that he simply planned to close down the spoiler, bringing Event Horizon's accounts back to their usual profit level. He'd disguise the link of course, make it an issue; shuffle personnel, target resources at the furnace maintenance division, but that kind of high-profile result would guarantee him the chairmanship. Now, because Event Horizon is a family company, he can never own it. But as chairman he could oversee a massive asset-stripping raid, presumably by his own front companies. That sort of money he is most definitely interested in. Julia and the consortium would be left with nothing."

Julia had listened raptly the night before, after she'd pulled the information about Siebruk Orbital for him. "So simple," she'd said, when he'd finished explaining. "I had all the pieces before you and I didn't put them together. If you hadn't had your suspicions that the memox crystals were being brought down, we would never have uncovered Kendric's involvement."

It was his intuition, of course. A foresight equal to everyone else's hindsight. He hadn't told her that. Let her go on thinking he was a magician. Event Horizon might have a few more jobs coming up, and they paid bloody well.

"I see," said Philip. "Either way, Kendric wins. How typical."

"What are we going to do about di Girolamo?" Victor asked.

"The options are regrettably limited," said Walshaw. "Our respective Scottish operations are almost fully integrated. We can hardly untangle them now, certainly not with the Scottish PSP so close to falling. A replacement for Kendric would be hard to find."

Julia cleared her throat. "The ship in the Atlantic."

"Yes," Walshaw said. "I can arrange a hardliner assault. We might even retrieve some more of our memox crystals."

"See to it," said Philip. "You've done some good work for me here, Greg, I won't forget. You too, boy."

Victor ducked his head.

Julia took her grandfather's hand, steadying the shaking fingers. "That's enough, Grandee."

"I'll get back to you later," Walshaw said.

Julia gave him a vaguely remorseful nod before the image blanked out.

Greg spent another ten minutes filling in details for Walshaw before saying goodbye. He'd been away from Eleanor for too long.

"There's a permanent job for you at Event Horizon if you want it," the Security Chief said as Greg reached the door.