nquest, the investigative agency owned by Intercorp, was headquartered in Philadelphia and headed by a former CIA man, Richard Olsen. Olsen was waiting in the reception area when Matt got off the elevator at 8:30 the next morning. "It's good to see you, Matt," he said as they shook hands.

"I'll be with you in five minutes," Matt promised. "Before we get started, I need to make a phone call."

Closing his office door behind him, Matt sat down at his desk and called a private number that rang on the desk of the president of a large Chicago bank. It was answered on the first ring by the president of that bank. "It's Matt," he said without preamble. "Reynolds Mercantile is pulling out on the Bancroft loan, just as we thought they would. So did the other lender they'd lined up for B and C."

"The economy's shaky and lenders are nervous," the banker remarked. "Also, Reynolds Merc had two mega-loans go bad on them this quarter, so they'll be looking for money for a while."

"I know all that," Matt replied impatiently. "What I don't know is whether the bomb scares are enough to make them decide B and C is becoming risky, and to start selling off some of the loans they're holding on them."

"Shall we give it a try?"

"Do it today," Matt ordered.

"The same approach we talked about before?" the banker reconfirmed. "We buy up the B and C loans on behalf of the Collier Trust and you arrange to take them off our hands within sixty days."

"Right."

"Is it all right to mention the name Collier to Reynolds? He won't connect it with you?"

"It was my mother's maiden name," Matt said, "no one will connect it to me."

"If this bomb-scare business comes to an end without doing serious damage to B and C's overall worth," the banker added, "we might be interested in retaining the loans ourselves—once they're stabilized."

"In that case, we'll discuss terms then," Matt agreed, but his main concern was more immediate. "Once you've offered to take the loans off Reynolds's hands, make certain you tell him the Trust wants to finance the Houston project for Bancroft as well. Get him to call Meredith Bancroft right away and tell her that. I want her to know she's got the funds available to her."

"We'll handle it"

After hanging up the phone, Matt asked Eleanor to bring Richard Olsen into his office. He waited with strained patience as Olsen surrendered his coat, but before the man had settled into a chair across from him, Matt asked the question that was uppermost on his mind: "What do the police know about the bombings?"

"They don't know a great deal," Olsen said, unlocking his briefcase and removing a file which he opened on his lap. "They've drawn some interesting conclusions however, and so have I."

"Let's hear them."

"For starters, the police think the bombs were meant to be discovered before they went off—a theory which is borne out by the fact that warnings were phoned to the police in plenty of time, and the bombs were placed where they'd be easy to find. The bombs themselves were the work of a pro. My gut feeling is that we aren't dealing with a demented crank here who's retaliating for some imagined offense or indignity he suffered at a Bancroft store. If the police are right—and I think they are—then whoever planted those bombs obviously didn't intend to cause harm to the stores themselves or anyone in them. If that's true, the only remaining logical motive is to cause harm to the store's profits by scaring away shoppers. I understand B and C's sales plummeted all over the country yesterday and the value of their stock has already dropped significantly. Now, the question is, who would want to cause that to happen and why?"

"I don't know," Matt said, striving to keep the frustration out of his voice. "I told you on the phone yesterday that there's a rumor that some entity—other than myself —has been planning to try to take them over. Whoever that is has been quietly buying up their shares. When I got into the game and started buying, too, I drove the price of Bancroft's shares up. Presumably, there's a predator company out there, other than mine, who decided to either scare me off with the uproar over bombings and the risk to Bancroft's earnings, or they're simply trying to drive down the price of the shares so they could grab them cheaper."

"Do you have any idea who that company could be?"

"None whatsoever. Whoever it is wants B and C so badly that they aren't thinking straight. The corporation's in debt and B and C is a bad buy for the short-term gain."

"Obviously you don't care about that."

"I'm not in it for profit," Matt replied.

With characteristic bluntness Olsen said, "Why are you buying up their shares, then?" When his question was answered with a quelling stare and total silence, Olsen lifted his hands. "I'm looking for motives other than profit, Matt. If I know yours, maybe I can find someone else with a similar motive or motives and that will give me some leads."

"My original motive was revenge against Philip Bancroft," Matt said when his desire for privacy lost out to his greater desire to get this solved.

"Is there anyone else—with a great deal of money— who might also want revenge against him?"

"How the hell should I know?" Matt said, getting up and beginning to pace. "He's an arrogant son of a bitch. I can't be his only enemy."

"Okay. We'll start there—we'll look for enemies he might have made who now see a long-term shot at revenge and profit, and who can afford to go after it by taking over B and C."

"That sounds absolutely ridiculous."

"Not nearly as much when you consider the fact that no legitimate corporation with motives of pure profit would resort to bomb threats as a means of weakening their prey."

"It's still ridiculous," Matt argued. "Sooner or later they're going to have to make their intentions known, and the minute they do, they're going to be suspect in the bomb threats."

"Being suspect doesn't mean anything unless there's proof," Olsen said flatly.