"Charles Orsino, attacked April 30th by his bodyguard James Halloran in the lobby of the Costello Memorial Theater. Halloran fired one shot which killed another bodyguard and was then himself killed. Halloran's history presents no unusual features except that he had a considerable interest in--uh--history. He collected and presumably read obsolete books dealing with pre-Syndic Pre-Mob America. Investigators found by his bedside the first volume of a work published in 1942 called _The Growth of The American Republic_ by Morison and Commager. It was opened to Chapter Ten, The War of Independence!" Reiner took his seat. F. W. Taylor said dryly: "Dick, did you forget to mention that Warshofsky, Blythe and Halloran are known officers of the U. S. Navy?" Reiner said: "You are being facetious. Are you implying that I have omitted pertinent facts?" "I'm implying that you artistically stacked the deck. With a rumor, a dubious commerce-raider report and a note on a man's hobby, you want us to sweep the bastards from the sea, don't you--just the way you always have?" "I am not ashamed of my expressed attitude on the question of the so-called United States Government and will defend it at any proper time and place." "Shut the hell up, you two," Edward Falcaro growled. "I'm trying to think." He thought for perhaps half a minute and then looked up, baffled. "Has anybody got any ideas?" Charles Orsino cleared his throat, amazed at his own temerity. The old man's eyebrows shot up, but he grudgingly said: "I guess you can say something, since they thought you were important enough to shoot." Orsino said: "Maybe it's some outfit over in Europe or Asia?" Edward Falcaro asked: "Anybody know anything about Europe or Asia? Jimmy, you flew over once, didn't you? To see about Anatolian poppies when the Mob had trouble with Mex labor?" Jimmy Falcaro said creakily: "Yeah. It was a waste of time. They have these little dirt farmers scratching out just enough food for the family and maybe raising a quarter-acre of poppy. That's _all_ there is from the China Sea to the Mediterranean. In England--Frank, you tell 'em. You explained it to me once." Taylor rose. "The forest's come back to England. When finance there lost its morale and couldn't hack its way out of the paradoxes that was the end. When that happens you've got to have a large, virile criminal class ready to take over and do the work of distribution and production. Maybe some of you know how the English were. The poor beggars had civilized all the illegality out of the stock. They couldn't do anything that wasn't respectable. From sketchy reports, I gather that England is now forest and a few hundred starving people. One fellow says the men still wear derbies and stagger to their offices in the city. "France is peasants, drunk three-quarters of the time. "Russia is peasants, drunk _all_ the time. "Germany--well, there the criminal class was _too_ big and _too_ virile. The place is a cemetery."