“An ambitious pursuit indeed, since you were aware from the beginning that an interview with Mr. Krayman was out of the question.”
“Actually, for a while I entertained hopes of at least arranging a telephone conversation with presubmitted questions if necessary. I thought I might be able to convince you to set it up for me.”
Dolorman chuckled. “Miss Lister, you overestimate my influence with Randall Krayman.”
“But you are the only man with direct access to him.”
“That I have never denied. I am in constant contact with him, in fact, because he still maintains an active interest in the vast holdings he painstakingly built up by anticipating those future trends you spoke of.”
“Then why did he withdraw?”
“Pressure, I suppose. Randall Krayman loved everything he did, but it reached a point where there was too much to love, too many decisions for any one man to make with the kind of attention and consideration Randall Krayman prided himself on. He just lost patience and wanted to be away from it all for a while.”
“Does five years constitute a while, Mr. Dolorman?”
Dolorman’s face turned contemplative. “Time is the one thing money can’t buy, Miss Lister. I’m sorry if that sounds clichéd, but in Randall Krayman’s case it was the truth. He had reached his forties and suddenly the things lacking in his life seemed greater than his awesome worth. There was never time for marriage or a family. Numerous mansions, resorts, estates, even private islands, but not one thing he could really consider his own.”
“When is a house not a home,” Sandy murmured.
“Something like that, I suppose. And the problem in Randall Krayman’s case is that he treated them more like hotels to pass through when it was convenient.”
“So this five-year sabbatical was taken so he could enjoy his property.”
“It’s far more complicated than that. If it was possible for me to arrange the interview you seek, you’d understand. But Randall Krayman would never agree to it. He has come to loathe public attention. He prefers the status of enigma. I should think that would make profiling him quite a challenge, even for you.”
“I’ve had to proceed on the theory that a man is the sum of his deeds, Mr. Dolorman. And that led to a change in the story’s focus.”
“Oh?”
“Someone I spoke with early in my research said you couldn’t separate Randall Krayman from Krayman Industries, that they were synonymous,” Sandy said, thinking of T.J., and with that a new flood of anger surged through her. “Would you agree with that?”
“To a point I would have to.”
“So I changed the conceptual focus of the story from Krayman himself to his vast multinational holdings, especially those centered around COM-U-TECH.”
“Why COM-U-TECH?”
“Because it’s the most current of his successful ventures. Today’s television viewers don’t want to hear about plastics or oil. They want to hear about computers and technology. Telecommunications is the great catchphrase these days, isn’t it?”
Dolorman just looked at her.
“What kind of man would Randall Krayman be judged if that judgment were based on the sum of his deeds dealing with telecommunications, Mr. Dolorman?”
“If you’re speaking of his holdings in cable television, his programming has opened up completely new avenues of broadcasting. It has shown that providing important public services can be accomplished while also turning a profit.”
Sandy felt her heart thumping against her chest. She couldn’t back off now.
“I can’t argue with that, Mr. Dolorman, but what about beyond cable television? What about commercial television stations, network affiliates?”
“Krayman Industries owns several.”
“How many?”
“I don’t have the exact figures in front of me.”
“Just estimate.”
Now it was Dolorman’s turn to square his jaw. “Miss Lister, I know enough about reporters to be aware that they never ask a question they don’t already have the answer to. Why don’t you tell me?”
“My research has found twenty-seven individual franchises.”
“A clear violation of current laws. Obviously, the FCC disagrees with you.”
“Maybe they haven’t looked as hard. I found the ownerships buried within a maze of Krayman holdings.”
Dolorman digested the information and wet his lips. “Our unusual interests in the field of telecommunications have led to mergers and buyouts of other smaller companies with similar interests, though on a much smaller scale. When we absorbed them, it is quite possible a number of television stations strung along, but I assure you there is no pattern in what you have discovered. The action on our part was wholly inadvertent.”
“Would you be willing to say that on camera?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because it might lead to questions concerning the Krayman Chip.”
Dolorman simply smiled, and the smile grew into a faint private laugh. “I see the rumors have reached you. I suspected as much.”
“What rumors?” Sandy asked, disappointed by the calm of his rejoinder.
“That we stole the chip from a man named Hollins and called it our own.” Dolorman shook his head, still smiling.
“Pure fabrication, I assure you.”
“I suppose you can prove that,” Sandy said lamely.
“We don’t have to. Miss Lister, there are people who make their livings out of developing good cases for someone else’s patented discovery being a ripoff of their own. They are more devious than clever. They know a long court fight would be far more costly than a modest settlement, and they are experts on gathering enough circumstantial evidence to insure that the fight will be a long one. This man Hollins was the foremost expert of them all.”
“Except the case never went to court. Randall Krayman paid him sixty million dollars for what was then a worthless company, Mr. Dolorman.”
“Then, yes, due almost entirely to Mr. Hollins’s mismanagement and nothing else. Mr. Krayman doubled his initial investment in that company in the first two years, Miss Lister. And if you’re really concerned about accuracy, it might interest you to know that the takeover bid began almost a year before the inception of the Krayman Chip. The whole incident was a ruse cooked up by Hollins to jack up the price of his company.”
Sandy felt stymied. She could sit here and poke holes in Dolorman’s answers all day long, but the fact of the matter was they were reasonable and would have stood up even on camera. His coolness under pressure surprised her. She had underestimated him and now she felt beaten. Frustrated, she felt her own strategy of patient prying beginning to waver.
“How many communications satellites does COM-U-TECH have in orbit?” she asked suddenly.
“Three, I believe.”
“Three launched from Houston.” And now the bluff. Sandy steeled her eyes. “And one from France.”
Dolorman’s eyebrows flickered. “Really? I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that.”
“Do you have knowledge about one of your employees who was murdered in New York last week?”
The surprise on the man’s face looked genuine. “I hadn’t heard.”
“His name was Benjamin Kelno, and he was a researcher at COM-U-TECH. He slipped a computer disk into my handbag before he died. The disk contained the orbital flight plan for the space shuttle Adventurer.”
Dolorman’s concern looked as genuine as his surprise. “Did you report this to the proper authorities?”
“Would you have wanted me to?”
“Miss Lister, if one of our employees is engaged in something illegal or unethical, I would report him or her myself.”