sorrow seemed to surge. Catherine had been with them for over twenty years--he wasn't sure just how long--and he knew she was genuinely fond of his father. Her sorrow added to his. He suddenly thought of the massive statue he had seen in the Square of Sorrow on a trip to Stalingrad. His current sorrow gave it new meaning.

"Make it a good one," he said. "It may very well be his last one."

"I'll make it as good as I know how," she said.

Upstairs, the bell rang. The nurse rushed into the bedroom.

"How about a little pain-killer?" asked Joshua,

"Just a minute," said the nurse. She went out and told the doctor, "He's asking for a pain-killer."

The doctor nodded. "Anything we can do to make these last hours comfortable, we should do it."

John went back into his father's room. "Here's your Manhattan," he said.

"I'll bring you a straw," said the nurse, who had come in with a syringe full of painkiller.

The old man's eyes were barely open.

"Dad," said John, "won't you let me bring William Cochran here? Don't you think it's time he knew the truth?"

"I guess you're right. I guess we had better not put it off any longer," Joshua said with a wisp of a smile.

It was impossible for John to tell if his father had agreed begrudgingly. He hated to bring it up, but given the old man's tenuous condition, he thought that if the matter wasn't settled soon, it would be too late. He called Reynolds Publishing and told Cochran to come to the house as soon as possible.

William Cochran arrived an hour later, perplexed, apprehensive, and extremely curious to know why he had been summoned to his employer's home. John explained that his father was dying, and there was something that he wanted to tell him. He escorted William into the old man's room.

"Father, William Cochran is here. Do you want to tell him, or would you rather I did it?"

"Let me give it a try," said Joshua. It would be better that way, he thought. It's not the kind on thing that is easy to tell or to hear. "If I need any help, I'll ring my bell."

"While you're doing that, I’ll take a quick shower and change," said John.

"Sit close," said Joshua, when John had gone. "I can't talk very loud."

Cochran pulled a chair up against the bed and sat down. He leaned toward Joshua.

"I'll get right to the point," said Joshua, in a whisper. "There's no other way to do it. I'm your father. Your mother was working at our house. We had a fling and you resulted. Your mother was a wonderful woman, and I regretted having put her in that position. But I was married, and my wife was sick and bedridden. Eventually, she died. Your mother and I agreed that I would support the two of you and handle your education. She would tell no one that I was your father, not even you. But now that I'm about to die, I feel it's time that you knew. That's about it."

Cochran sat silent. He was dumbfounded. Many things had run through his mind as possible reasons for them to have summoned him. Fanciful as some of them had been, none had been half as incredible as this.

"I should tell you something more," croaked Joshua. "Naturally, I arranged for your job with Reynolds Publishing. If you had shown just a little industry and ambition, you would have gone places-right to the top. Unfortunately, you didn't. I was very disappointed in you. Take my advice, young man, and change your attitude, or at least learn to hide it." Suddenly, he doubled over, groaning with pain.

Cochran jumped to his feet. "Let me call the doctor."

"No. It's passing. Sometimes, the pain is pretty sharp. I'm almost dead anyway." He leaned back. He looked more relaxed again. "In case I don't get a chance, I want you to tell John that I have another son out there. He was born just a couple of months ago, and I didn't get anything set up for him. His name is Joshua, after me. His mother is Alice Adams, my private secretary. He's two months old now." He doubled over in pain. "Promise me that you'll tell John to see to it that both the mother and child are taken care of."

"Sure. I promise," said William. His mind was racing. His heart was pounding. The old geezer is about to die, he thought. Maybe he's going to leave me something. I'm his son. Maybe he's leaving me a lot.

"Good," said Joshua, with a gasp. It was the last word he would ever speak. He slipped into a coma, from which he would never wake.

A few minutes later, John opened the bedroom door and stuck his head in. Cochran got up and walked over to him.

"He seems to have fallen asleep," he said, "about five minutes ago."

"Step outside for a minute," said John. Pulling the door shut behind Cochran, he asked, "How did it go?"

"Needless to say, it was a tremendous shock. But I'm getting over it. I knew someone had to be my father. I knew that my mother knew who it was, because she was not the type to be promiscuous. She just didn't want to say who it was. I sometimes suspected that it might have been a family member, who had abused her. I never would have suspected this. "

The nurse asked them to step away from the door, so she could check on Joshua. A few seconds later she stepped out, put her hand on John's arm, and said, "It's over. He's gone."

The two men were silent. John just looked into space. He bit his lip. "Did he say anything else before he went to sleep?" he asked Cochran.

"Nothing at all," said Cochran. He didn't see any reason to bring up the matter of the other heir. If he was going to get a piece of this action, he didn't want to risk sharing his part with some secretary and her kid. He might mention it later, and he might not. "He didn't say much. He said he would get right to the point, and he did, with very few words."

***

A couple of weeks later, John set up a luncheon appointment with William Cochran. "I was surprised that father didn't leave you anything in his will," said John, when they had been seated by the window in the Executive Cafeteria in the Reynolds Building.

William Cochran went pale. His hopes for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, vanished into nothingness. He knew the old man was worth millions, and he had a reputation for being a fair man. How could this be? He wondered if John were cheating him out of his share.

"I know he was very upset that you didn't live up to his expectations," said John. "He mentioned that numerous times. He was always saying that he had hoped to give you a division of the company, if only you'd applied yourself."

"Had I known what was at stake, I would have knocked myself out," said Cochran, in all honesty.

"Personally, I don't feel that it's right to leave you out completely," said John. "I know it was his money, and he could do as he wished with it. However, it's my money now. Hence, I can do with it as I wish. I think it's fair to give part of it to you. I assume you won't mind that."

"You assume right," said Cochran, his spirits soaring again.

"I'll get the attorneys on it," said John. "When we come up with a plan for dividing the assets, I'll get in touch with you. I've heard rumors that he has another offspring somewhere. Although I wouldn't think he would have kept that secret, you never know. I've already asked the attorneys to try to find out if there is anyone else. Any additional half-brother or sister should also have a share. "

"Of course," said Cochran. He knew he had done the right thing by not mentioning the old man's last wishes.

***

Four months later, John Reynolds transferred approximately forty percent of his father's estate to William Cochran. The value of Cochran's share was approximately 34 million dollars. Before John would affect the transfer, he insisted Cochran agree, in writing, that if another son or daughter were to surface, Cochran would give up one third of his assets to the new sibling. Cochran wasn't happy about this, but he never let on that it bothered him. As soon as the transfer was complete, he set about making sure that no one ever discovered that other little bastard.

The very next evening, he knocked on Alice Adams' door. She was expecting him, as he had called and given her some idea of the reason for his visit. He was surprised when he saw her. He had expected a younger, prettier, more appealing woman. Alice Adams was probably in her late forties. She looked like a secretary hired for her skills, rather than her sex appeal. The apartment was modest, but well-appointed. She was apparently a neat housekeeper.

"So this is my little half-brother, Joshua," he said, walking over to a baby carriage.

"He fell asleep on the way home from the store, she said.. "I didn't want to wake him."

"My father's last words were of you," said Cochran, in his best sympathetic tone. "If he had died a few minutes earlier, no one would have ever known about you and little Joshua."

"I was heartbroken to hear about him," said Alice. "I wanted to see him, but you know I couldn't."

I bet you wanted to lock in a bundle, thought Cochran. But he said, "He was in such pain that it was a blessing. He wanted you and little Joshua taken care of. But he was insistent that no one ever know that he was the father. I am here to carry out his wishes, but I must have your word that you will never tell anyone that Joshua Reynolds was the father of your child."

"I don't see anything to be gained by telling anyone," she said. "He's dead. I assume everything went to you and John. Truthfully, I never heard anything about you, not in all the years I was with your father."

"I guess I'm the black sheep of the family," said Cochran. "Do you own this apartment?" he asked, changing the subject and getting down to business.

"Yes. Well, I am making payments on it."

"Are you happy with it?"

"Yes. It's small, but it has three bedrooms and two baths. It's conveniently located. We're quite comfortable here. Joshua was making my payments and he gave me some money to live on when I had to quit working."

"I'll pay off your mortgage for you," said Cochran. "You'll have your apartment free and clear. The same for your car, if you owe anything on that. I'll put fifty thousand in the bank for you now. I'll give you five thousand a month with cost of living increases for the rest of your life. You won't have to work, unless you want to. Additionally, I'll take care of all the insurance-health, car, and home-for you for life and for Joshua until he's twenty-one or, if he goes to college, until he graduates. I'll arrange for someone that you can contact, in case of some emergency, and we'll see what we can work out at that time. In order for this to start, you will have to agree in writing never to tell anyone who fathered Joshua, not even little Joshua. If I find out you have told anyone, it all stops, and you will owe me all that you have received until then. Do we have a deal?"

Alice Adams agreed readily. Papers were signed and notarized at a nearby notary. Cochran figured he had struck a good bargain. According to his agreement with John, another heir could have cost him eleven million dollars. The idea of telling John of little Joshua never entered his mind. It occurred to him that Alice Adams' plight was much like his mother's had been, and Joshua would go through what he had gone through, but he wasn't about to let feelings of sympathy or sentiment affect his actions - certainly not in a matter of such importance. As it was, he was giving Alice Adams far more than he would have liked to. However, he wanted to be certain that she didn't have second thoughts, go to an attorney, and create a huge mess at some future date. He had big plans, and he didn't want a scandal messing things up for him.

Cochran made a date with Hannah Levenson for that weekend. She was certainly no beauty, but she was the only child of a successful merchant banker. Cochran had majored in Business Administration. That should be good enough to go into banking, he thought. He remembered some Wall Street executive who was tapped by the president to be Secretary of the Treasury. When his term was up, he was asked if he was going back to Wall Street. "No way," he said. Now that he had seen how banks work, he was going into banking. He said having a bank was like having your own money tree. Well, Cochran wanted a money tree. In fact, he would like an orchard.

***

Over the years, the two half-brothers went their separate ways, with no further contact of any significance. Both were quite successful. John took the already highly profitable Reynolds Publishing and made it a publishing powerhouse. When most people were saying that the magazine industry was done for, he created a string of low circulation, special interest magazines that were exceptionally high in quality and high in price as well. These magazines were made to order for the companies serving the corresponding niche markets, and they were happy to pay relatively high advertising rates to zero in on their target market.

A few years ago, John's strong political feelings led him to start The Vantage Point, a weekly magazine competing with the likes of Time and Newsweek, but with a very different philosophy. It had been very slow getting off the ground, but its reputation for integrity and objectivity grew steadily. The Vantage Point was fast becoming a synonym for trustworthiness. His wife Martha, who had been his high school sweetheart, shared his libertarian fervor, and they worked together on the Vantage Point. The Reynolds were a close family, with four children and four grandchildren.

Financially, William Cochran had left John Reynolds far behind. That first date with Hannah Levenson was followed by a whirlwind courtship, leading to a big wedding and William's entry into the banking world. To William's delight, Abraham Levenson, his father-in-law, turned out to be in poor health and gave him more and more responsibility in the business. Four years after their wedding, Abraham Levenson died, and Hannah and, indirectly, William became the owners of his string of highly profitable merchant banks.

Once Cochran had discovered a number of the fascinating advantages of the banking business, like being able to loan out ten dollars for every dollar people deposited in your bank, William leapt into big-time banking with both feet. He became a master at weaving his way into the confidence of influential people and offering his services to them.

He opened scores of small banks in widely scattered locations, such as Rome, St. Martens, Latvia, Niger, etc, particularly in what are known as tax havens. Most of these banks were tiny and inconspicuous. There was no indication of their billions of dollars in deposits in accounts belonging to impressive sounding firms, most of which were fronts or shells, or in individual's names, many of which were aliases.

William hit the jackpot when he met Stanley Worthington, a leading figure in the Republican Party, a former CIA official, and the patriarch of a very wealthy and extremely influential family. They were two kindred spirits that hit it off from day one, as the saying goes. Cochran, of course, knew who and a bit of what Stanley was. When Stanley discovered that Cochran was in the banking business and, especially, in his kind of banking, it became a match made in money-laundering heaven. Money-laundering was hardly something new to William, but with Stanley, he moved into a whole new universe. Best of all, he no longer had to worry about getting caught. Thanks to Stanley Worthington, a number of his banks were placed on the list of CIA affiliated banks that laundered money legitimately and lots of it. While people in such relationships seldom become real friends, the Cochrans and the Worthingtons came close to having a genuine friendship. The same characteristics that united them told them that if the stakes were high enough, neither would hesitate to betray the other.

Even though Stanley Worthington was no longer officially involved with the CIA, he somehow managed to get his fingers in a lot of their pies, especially when a lot of money was involved. Through Stanley, William was lucky enough to get a small piece of the action in the Reagan administration's ambitious plot to bring down the Soviet Union by destroying their currency. The few billion he made in the deal was small change compared to the hundreds of billions the big boys were getting, but William was, nonetheless, overjoyed with his few percent of a percent of the total. Furthermore, quite a few billions of the rest of that money were eventually deposited in his banks, boosting his banks to a higher rung on the banking ladder and enabling him to earn many millions more in interest.

Like the Reynolds, the Cochrans, too, were a close family, but their closeness was more pragmatic than loving. William and Hannah lived in a large family compound with their four children, Aaron, Simon, and David, who were married with children, and Jane, who was divorced with one daughter.

***

The libertarian Reynolds, the liberal Cochrans, and the conservative Worthingtons are linked. William Cochran and John Reynolds are half-brothers: Cochran and Stanley Worthington are partners in crime. A chance meeting is about to trigger a series of events that will propel the three families into a much more intricate web of relationships.

To be continued