by Hammond, Ray
Their first day together had seemed magical. Jack borrowed a UNISA pool car and drove them to Brighton. They walked hand in hand along the promenade, the gulls screeching overhead, surrounded by throngs of weekend visitors enjoying the late-summer sunshine.
Jack meanwhile explained the plans they had for her. Haley was to be offered both a UN passport and protection from legal action against her by the Tye Corporation. It was recommended that she take the Tye Corporation’s money, sign the contract they offered and place the initial payment in an interest-bearing escrow account with her solicitor: she would then make use of the access they offered but would later back out of the deal with them and return the money. Her UN immunity would protect her from the legal challenge they would inevitably mount. It wasn’t honourable, Jack acknowledged, but then neither was Thomas Tye, it seemed, and this was part of a larger, very necessary strategy.
On the way back to London Jack had urged her to take whatever Tye was offering – including the invitation to the party on Hope Island. No other writer or journalist had ever been granted access to the island.
This time Jack had stayed the night, and by morning Haley knew she wanted to marry this man. Everything about him seemed so right, so familiar, so part of her. There was none of the lack of ease, the excessive politenesses, the over-careful behaviour that had characterized all her previous new relationships. Though mostly tender and considerate, he plainly desired her so much that he had sometimes seemed a little rough which, Haley realized in surprise, had pleased her even more.
After one more day he had to return to the States. He had already been away from Hope Island for too long, but they would be reunited at the celebration. As soon as the UN operation was finished, Jack would resign from the Tye Corporation and join his brother’s successful yacht brokerage. Would Haley consider living in Naples, Florida? There would be no practical immigration difficulties: the incredible boom of the euro and the expanded European Union – its six hundred million people in thirty-four member states now representing the richest single market in the world – had reversed the economic migration patterns of the twentieth century. Now many Americans of Irish and Italian descent were trying to get back into the re-enriched lands of their forefathers.
On their second and final day together they visited London Zoo in Regent’s Park. All the larger animals had long since been relocated to safari parks and game reserves outside London, but the lovers wandered through the aquariums, pens and aviaries of the smaller beasts in a happy daze. Neither of them was really aware of their surroundings, but both felt a resonance with other creatures of the planet.
‘There will be some people waiting for us when we get home,’ Jack warned during the taxi ride back to Haley’s flat.
Two men were positioned outside the red-brick mansion block, both fit-looking, in their early thirties and wearing business suits. Jack got out of the taxi first and shook hands with them. Darryl and Terry apparently belonged to UNISA’s London team.
‘I want them to stick around after I leave,’ explained Jack.
‘They won’t be watching you, they’ll just be on hand to protect you. We’re playing for very high stakes in this game.’
Haley had agreed reluctantly. She was beginning to realize that she had been plunged into something much larger and potentially more dangerous than she had anticipated.
Jack had stayed on after the two men departed. The worst thing for both of them would be the difficulty of communication. They certainly wouldn’t be able to trade locator ident access, as had recently become the fashion for lovers – glancing at a screen to see where the other was at all times was immensely satisfying, at least in the early phase of a romantic relationship. Jack had to explain the UN’s discovery that Tye could read the whole world’s encrypted communications.
‘I think we can risk the odd quick call,’ Jack suggested. ‘And if I sound funny it’s because I’m deliberately disguising my voiceprint. But we can’t safely swap locations. Although they’re supposed to be confidential, the Tye Corporation owns so much of the networks that they could easily trace our movements once they became suspicious.’
‘I’ll go mad if I don’t hear from you occasionally, Jack,’ asserted Haley, certain that was true.
‘You’ll hear from me OK,’ he promised.
They couldn’t bear to part the next morning. After Jack had finally gone, everything felt empty. Even her flat felt alien and unreal. She walked around it, picking up familiar objects, examining them as if they too must somehow be fundamentally changed because of what had happened to her. She decided to go and see Flick, to tell her everything. She would need to take a shower first, but she wanted to postpone the moment.
Then her VideoMate announced an incoming voice call. It was her solicitor, requesting her to come in and see him urgently. They agreed on a time that afternoon. She hung up and then called Felicity.
‘Where have you been for the last few days?’ demanded her sister in vexation. Haley hadn’t even checked her AutoSec for messages. She arranged to go over to Ladbroke Grove after seeing her solicitor.
She had never seen Percy Sedley looking so serious. ‘The United Nations High Commissioner to Brussels himself has been to see me,’ he had begun. Then he blinked, seeming to be at a loss. ‘I’m not sure what you’re up to, but you’re being offered UN diplomatic immunity – a modern form of extraterritoriality.’
Haley raised her eyebrows.
‘I didn’t really know what it meant either,’ admitted the solicitor, ‘but he brought copies of the international statutes with him.’ He reached out and patted a pile of documents in front of him. ‘It seems you will be legally protected over this biography.’
*
‘There’s masses and masses of stuff, Ron. I’ve already decrypted over three thousand communications.’
This should have been a triumph, but Al Lynch looked worried. He had been hacking into the government networks that served the White House, the Pentagon, NASA and other US state-security agencies.
‘It took me almost two days just to get in,’ continued Lynch. ‘They’ve moved up to microwave moats since I worked on the systems. But once I realized what the White House network architects had done, then the security on the NASA and NSA networks was far easier to spoof It’s always the same: once a department declares a standard safe, they all adopt it in precisely the same way.’
‘Congratulations,’ exclaimed Deakin, beaming.
‘Not so fast, Ron. It isn’t good news. I was delighted when I first started searching for stuff on Tye and his corporation. I found plenty of it – policy statements, details of tenders, antitrust proposals, that sort of stuff . . .’
‘But?’ prompted Deakin.
‘Well, then I noticed something strange. There was a pattern I thought I recognized so I dug out some of my old software. They’re all fake, Jack, even the ones that look sensitive. They’re generating documents and messages using the original software agent I developed when I worked for them. That was how I spotted it. They’re still using Version One and it has a few glitches. When I analysed the communications, all the text fitted my algorithm patterns for automatic document-generation. They’re faking it, Jack. It’s not real. They must know about the Tye Corporation’s ability to crack hard crypto.’
So it would seem, thought Ron Deakin. But at this point rank and responsibility forced him to disregard their decades of friendship and say no more.
‘Thanks, Al,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s keep this to ourselves, OK?’
*
Thomas Tye’s ‘special requirements’ meant being very particular about hotels. He chose them because of their location and the willingness of their management to allow his people to redecorate and refurnish, to electronically ‘scrub’ and install anti-bugging devices in the suites to be occupied. Once satisfied, he would rarely stay anywhere else.
Over the twenty-five years he had been travelling the world, the president of the Tye Corporation had co
me to know which hotels best suited his own somewhat peculiar needs. So when he was in DC he made the rather eccentric choice of always staying at the old Palmer House Hilton.
The Palmer House was one of the city’s old-style traditional hotels, and it was here that Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy used to throw their fund-raising dinners and post-campaign parties. The Kilkenny-marbled atrium, hallways and lobbies were spacious, as if designed to accommodate the needs of world leaders. To imaginative visitors, the ghosts of JFK and Jackie, Bobby, Teddy and Marilyn seemed to float through the corridors.
Although Tye was travelling with an unusually small retinue – just Connie, Furtrado and two executive assistants, Pierre Pasquier and his deputy director of presidential personal security, Stella Witherspoon – the entourage had still taken over the entire top floor of the hotel. Pierre had drafted in three of the Palmer House security staff to help Stella maintain a complete floor watch during the sixteen hours the group would inhabit the building.
There was a knock on the double doors of the suite and Stella put her head in. ‘They’re on their way up.’
Pierre nodded and rose while Tye slipped off his mask and handed it to Connie for disposal. He seemed unusually formal, dressed in a dark suit, a white shirt and silver-grey tie. His hair was pulled back severely. He looked like he was going to a funeral.
A few minutes later they heard Stella’s coded knock again and Pierre reopened the doors. The three lobbyists entered and were greeted by Marsello Furtrado who then introduced them to Thomas Tye and his executive assistant. It was obvious they were overawed at meeting such a famous face, and they were flustered as they found their seats and groped for personal equilibrium.
Pierre moved to the bar – given the sensitivity of the discussion, he would fill in for waiter staff. He poured two mineral waters and a coffee as he listened to them going over that afternoon’s forthcoming meeting between Tye, Furtrado and Jane Treno, the US Attorney-General of William Wilkinson’s administration.
‘We think they’re just nervous about potential political embarrassment from the LA lawsuits, Mr Tye,’ began the senior lobbyist, forgetting to use the tycoon’s first name. ‘The Tye Corporation isn’t an American company any more so your core corporation is outside the reach of the Justice Department and US law. They can’t even lean on you by breathing down the neck of the European Union or ASEAN. All they can do is hurt your US domestic operations and, even then, their legal power over a foreign corporation is limited. My guess is that this will be a “Remember you’re an American at heart” speech.’
‘I’m here because you advised that I should see Treno,’ Tye said shortly. ‘I really don’t have time to fuck around with domestic US issues. Marsello’s people or the US V-Ps can take care of things here.’
Now it was the lobbyists’ turn to exchange looks.
‘We’re not sure it would be wise to say that, Mr Tye,’ suggested the senior lobbyist hesitantly. ‘The information we’re getting is that Justice is very het up about your corporation and Jane Treno is not a woman to mess with.’
‘TO HECK WITH HER!’ shouted Tye. ‘I have better things to do than bum around with bureaucrats and second-tier politicians. They’re here today and gone tomorrow!’
There was a silence. Furtrado moved into the space. ‘What background material have you got for us?’ he asked.
‘She’s pretty clean,’ said the lobbyist. ‘We’ve got all the current information here.’
Furtrado nodded and the lobbyists extracted a huge and very private dossier they had built up on the Secretary of State’s personal life and her many interests and causes.
*
‘You wanted me?’ observed Michael Chevannes as he closed the door to his boss’s office.
‘Good morning, Mike,’ greeted Deakin, pointing to a chair in front of his desk. The officer detected an edginess in his boss as he took his seat. There were no preliminaries. ‘Have you gone through the stuff we’re collecting on Tye?’ he asked.
Chevannes shook his head. ‘Some, but I haven’t finished. Like you suggested, I took a couple of days out. Things have been piling up at my apartment.’
Deakin nodded. He knew. Like the rest of the Iambus team he had seen little of his home, or his wife, in the last few months.
‘You’re going back in the air,’ said Deakin as he slid a paper file across the desk. ‘There’s a flight to Cape Town at three this afternoon.’
Chevannes opened the file and scanned a UNHCR report on a visit to a Zimbabwe jail. Then he started to read more carefully.
‘Go and see this Reon Albertyn and his mother,’ ordered Deakin. ‘She was employed by one of Tye’s biotechnology companies fifteen years ago. They’ve got a story to tell us and if it’s what I think, it’ll be just what we need. The background is in the file.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
A 3D projection of the inner planets of the solar system filled the Holo-Theater. Jack had briefly seen a version of this image before – Thomas Tye had been showing it when he had been called away following Tommy’s accident at the swimming pool. But this later iteration seemed to contain much more detail and Jack presumed it had been developed into a full demonstration to be shown during Tye’s visit to Moscow.
The team leaders of Operation Iambus had gathered in the Security Council’s private meeting chamber. Rolf Larsson and the aerospace analysts had now finished sifting through the mountains of data concerning the Phoebus Project and, after providing an outline briefing to Ron Deakin, the astrophysicist had been asked to make a presentation of his analysis as soon as possible. The team members had pulled chairs away from the oval conference table and had grouped themselves in a rough semicircle around the Holo-Theater.
Deakin rose and turned to face his team. ‘Most of you have already had a chance to meet Doctor Larsson,’ he began. ‘Rolf has told me the gist of what he’s found but I haven’t seen this demo either. From the little I have heard, I thought we should all see it as soon as possible; sorry I’ve had to take up yet another of your evenings.’
There were brief exchanges within the group. Most had their DigiPads ready for note-taking.
The door at the back of the room opened and Jan Amethier entered, followed by Yoav Chelouche. Deakin signalled to vacant chairs beside him and the director of the UN International Security Agency and the president of the World Bank joined the audience.
‘Over to you, Doctor,’ nodded Deakin.
The lanky Swede rose and coughed. He looked uncomfortable in his pale grey suit with a starched white dress shirt and blue tie. It looked like an outfit being worn for the first time. Only his grey shoes, ribbed and rubber-soled, betrayed the academic within.
‘Good afternoon,’ he began, his nervousness obvious. He clutched a handful of cue cards, looking as happy as a groom at a shotgun wedding. ‘First I am very sorry to be the cause of all this. I had really no idea where it would lead . . .’ He tailed off helplessly.
Deakin gave a small wave of his hand that both brushed his apology aside and told him to get on with it.
‘Well . . . this model was extracted from Thomas Tye’s personal files. It is a copy of something completed by the Phoebus Project team only about three months ago,’ Larsson said, struggling to gain confidence. ‘It appears to be the final demonstration model for the project.’
He stepped into the Holo-Theater and stretched out his arm. ‘None of this is to scale,’ he explained as he pointed at the bright yellow ball of light representing the sun. ‘If this was an accurate model, these planets–’ he indicated the spheres representing Mercury and Mars ‘–would be out in New Jersey and the Earth would be somewhere in Pennsylvania.’
Several in the audience nodded. Jack noticed that the planets were moving in their orbits, the difference in their relative speeds around the sun clearly visible.
Larsson touched a remote control and the perspective changed. They watched as the Earth enlarged and swept across in front of them, left to
right, revolving quickly on its axis.
Larsson froze the image and pointed at the side of the Earth facing them.
‘You will see that the side away from the sun is always dark. This makes our night.’
Jack heard a muffled ‘Jesus’ from somebody at the back of the group, then a stifled laugh from further along the line.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ apologized Larsson, his small and painfully acquired store of confidence ebbing. He shuffled his cue cards anxiously. ‘I just wanted to make the point since it’s very important.’
He fingered his remote control again and the image changed to reveal the sun in the centre of the holo-pit and a larger image of the Earth, revolving slowly before their eyes, its night-time longitudinal meridian towards them. After another shuffle of his cards, he found the prompt he wanted.
‘Tye Aerospace has been claiming that the aim of the Phoebus Project is to create a chain of deep-space navigation satellites that will provide a Space Location and Navigation System – a sort of interplanetary GPS system. But I can now tell you that although the company has been building a positioning network, the real aim of the Phoebus Project is to capture and redirect the sun’s energy back onto the dark side of the Earth – hence its name. Phoebus was the given name of Apollo, the Greek sun god. I am going to add the images of twelve deep-space satellites that are currently stationary between four and six thousand kilometres above the dark side of our planet.’
With the touch of a button Larsson froze the planet’s image again and then a dozen pinpricks of light appeared above and around the top half of its circumference, as if the Earth wore a tiara of small stars. He stepped closer to this large image and pointed to the arc of satellites hanging high above the planet.
‘These twelve satellites, out of a total of fourteen launched so far, have been placed in deep-space locations high above the northern hemisphere. They are all sufficiently high up to clear the earth’s adumbration – the shadow cast by our planet itself – so are bathed in constant sunlight. You will see that those nearer to the North Pole are much closer to the Earth than those further down at forty to fifty degrees latitude – above the temperate zones of the Earth in the USA, Europe and Asia. They all remain stationary relative to the Earth – meaning they are in fixed positions in relation to the line of the sun-Earth axis. They stay behind our planet, on the opposite side to the sun, throughout the year.’