"In the bag. I was up by 0700 and consolidating my holdings--_your_ holdings, I mean. Forty-seven percent of the stock I had fragmented in a dozen different outfits; the other two percent outstanding belonged to rich widows who wouldn't sell. I lumped the forty-seven percent together in your name, then completed the transfer on Murlin's four percent and stuck that in there too. _Citizen_ telefax is now the property of Popeek, Roy!" "Fine work. How much did it cost?" Then he said, "Four hundred eighty-three million and some change. Plus my usual five percent commission, which in this case comes to about two and a quarter million." "But I offered you five million," Walton said. "That offer still goes." "You want me to lose my license? I spend years placing bribes to get a slyster's license, and you want me to throw it away for an extra couple million? Uh-uh. I'll settle for two and a quarter, and damn good doing I call that for a day's work." Walton grinned. "You win. And Sue Llewellyn will be glad to know it didn't cost the whole billion to grab _Citizen_. You'll be over with the papers, won't you?" "About 1000," the slyster said. "I've gotta follow through for Murlin on his monorail deal first. The poor sucker! See you in an hour." "Right." Rapidly Walton scribbled memos. As soon as the papers were in his hands, he'd serve notice on Murlin that a stock-holders' meeting was to be held at once. After that, he'd depose Murlin, fire the present _Citizen_ editors, and pack the telefax sheet with men loyal to Popeek. Fred was due at 1100. Walton buzzed Keeler, the new security chief, and said, "Keeler, I have an appointment with someone at 1100. I want you to station three men outside my door and frisk him for weapons as he comes in." "We'd do that anyway, sir. It's standard procedure now." "Good. But I want you to be one of the three. And make sure the two who come with you are tight-mouthed. I don't want _any_ newsbreaks on this." "Right, sir." "Okay. Be there about 1050 or so. About 1115, I'm going to press my door opener, and I want you and your men to break in, arrest my visitor, and spirit him off to the deepest dungeon security has. And leave him there. If Martinez wants to know what's going on, tell him I'll take responsibility." Keeler looked vaguely puzzled, but merely nodded. "We frisk him first, then let him talk to you for fifteen minutes. Then we come in on signal and take him away. I've got it." "This man's a dangerous anti-Popeek conspirator. Make sure he's drugged before he gets out of my office. I don't want him making noise." The annunciator sounded. "Man from communications has a message for you, Mr. Walton." He switched over from Keeler to communications and said, "Go ahead." "From McLeod, Mr. Walton. We just got it. It says, 'Arriving Nairobi on the 18th, will be in your office with Dirnan following morning if he feels like making the trip. Otherwise will you come to Nairobi?'"