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countries as well as a sizable chunk of private industry. Four years ago the company had announced a new model, a technological marvel that, it was rumored, would revolutionize helicopter design. Jack McKinstry, then playing in France, had taken four of his friends to the branch of McKinstry Helicopters that was located near Marseilles to try out the new model. Jack had recruited one of the company’s pilots, and they’d taken off.
    The six of them had headed east over the Mediterranean, following the coastline in the direction of the Riviera. But they’d barely passed Toulon when they ran into trouble. Witnesses on the island where the accident took place said they’d heard no engine sounds to indicate anything was amiss; they’d watched in disbelief as the helicopter sailed serenely into the side of a high cliff that ran straight down to the sea. There’d been no explosion, no burst of flames; the helicopter had wavered there a moment like some giant insect burrowing into the cliff face, its tail bobbing gently in the air. Then the craft had begun a slow-motion slide downward, breaking into pieces as it fell into the sea.
    Only Jack and the pilot had survived.
    They were the only two who’d been able to jump into the water before the helicopter hit the cliff. At the subsequent inquiry the pilot had testified they’d been cruising along on autopilot when he spotted the cliff ahead. But when he tried to return the helicopter to manual control, the autopilot lock had refused to yield. In spite of his best efforts, he could do nothing to increase the craft’s elevation or change its direction. An investigation of the recovered parts confirmed the pilot’s testimony; the helicopter had indeed been on autopilot when it crashed.
    The crash had made headlines not only because the new model was the latest thing in helicopter technology but also because its passengers had belonged to the beautiful-people set. At the time A. J. Strode had thought there was a fishy smell to the story; but it was something he had noted only in passing as a matter of idle curiosity. It wasn’t until Jack McKinstry emerged as one of the obstacles on his road to the ownership of House of Glass that Strode became actively inquisitive about the accident. Strode’s detective, Pierce, pretending to be an old friend of McKinstry’s, had talked casually to a number of his real friends. While every one of them was sympathetic, they all shared a suspicion that it had been Jack who was flying the helicopter when it crashed.
    The reason was simple: Jack loved helicopters. He couldn’t resist the big noisy toys that lifted him up off the ground and then put him back down again. He’d been licensed to fly since he was nineteen, but he’d taken a pilot with him on the ill-fated jaunt along the Mediterranean coast because the new model had instruments and controls he wouldn’t have been familiar with. But his friends were all agreed that Jack could no more ride in a brand-new helicopter without trying his hand at the controls than he could learn Sanskrit overnight.
    One friend speculated that the pilot had been teaching Jack how things worked, and they’d both gotten so engrossed in what they were doing that they hadn’t looked up and spotted the cliff until it was too late. Pierce didn’t explain that the helicopter had an audible proximity warning system that made such an eventuality virtually impossible. None of Jack’s friends saw anything wrong with his jumping to save himself. They quite reasonably pointed out that his dying wouldn’t have saved the others.
    So did he pay off the pilot to take the blame? Strode had wondered. It was certainly consistent with the image of Jack-the-playboy. And it went a long way toward explaining the change that took place in Jack after the accident. For the first time in his life, Jack was putting his talent for making friends to work for the