The counterparty had the right to terminate, without penalty, at any point before closing and for eighteen months afterward, if Vivienne Bramhall ceased to serve as chief executive officer or became unable to discharge the duties of that office.

That clause was in the agreement because the counterparty had insisted on it, and the counterparty had insisted on it because the entire commercial logic of the deal was that she would run the combined business.

Which means that her capacity to serve was not a private medical matter and was not a question of feeling.

It was a term of a two-point-four-billion-dollar contract.

And there was a man on her left, six days a week, whose entire job was to make sure that nobody could assess it.