by Gus Ross
“Yes, I must admit I do prefer a good malt, but each to their own, I say.”
“I’ll drink to that George.”
Thomson took the merest of sips from his glass and placed it back down. The old familiar faces on the walls hung down towards him, as if they were all trying to huddle just a little closer so that they might eavesdrop on the conversation to come.
“So Mac. I am quite sure you did not travel all the way across town to debate the fineries of whisky. What is it that you would like to discuss?”
Here it was, here was the exact moment that he had been waiting for; he would very much like to have captured the very essence of it right there and then; his expectation, the look on Mac’s face as he started to move his lips, the silence all around that only he could hear, the anticipation, the excitement, all of it. But then it was gone.
“I thought maybe you could kick off George. I understand you might have something you want to share with me.”
“Whatever could that be, dear boy? I think you’ll find we are in completely different lines of business, much as I admire all the fine work the oil industry has done for our green and pleasant land. What could I possibly have that would require sharing with you?” Thomson had started as he meant to continue for now; poker face on, cards tight to his chest, waiting for his opponent’s next move, although in his mind it was a game of chess they were about to embark on.
Mac was smart, if not graced with any real degree of subtlety, but Thomson reckoned he would soon tire of what he would no doubt refer to as “pussyfootin’”, assuming he could be bothered entertaining it at all.
“George, you are far too hard on yourself. You need to take it easy and kick back a little. I am sure if you have a good think to yourself it’ll all become clear.”
Thomson fixed him with the blankest expression he could muster, “Nope. I am afraid that this time you really do have the better of me Mac. I am sorry if you have come all this way for nothing. But it was delightful to see you again.”
Howison was already growing impatient, his lips were thinning ever so slightly and his large hands began to tighten around the base of his glass. Both were very subtle movements but they had been duly noted.
“Give my regards to your good lady Mac and be sure not to forget your hat on the way out.” Thomson had particularly enjoyed that last comment. He could push Mac’s buttons all night given half a chance but already he could see he had pushed enough.
“You never change George. A man might think that all the secrets up in that god damned bald head of yours were your own personal ones.”
“Is that so? Well thank you for the compliment.”
“Let’s get right to it then shall we?” Howison took a huge gulp of his drink, draining the glass of all its fluid and most of its ice cubes. He knew the old boy would not be wearing a wire, it wasn’t really his style and after all, he was bulletproof, he had made sure of that.
“My dear boy. I thought you would never ask. Another Jack Daniels?”
Mac Howison nodded and Thomson motioned to the waiter.
This was all going exceedingly well.
I wish I could have said the same for my taxi ride; I had finally asked to be dropped off down near the East Cliff Promenade, just as you come into Bournemouth. It was a ten minute or so walk to the Tudor, but it felt safer to be on foot than stuck in the back of the slowest vehicle on the planet. I paid the driver in cash and bid him a good night, somewhere I secretly hoped he would get three points for holding up hedgehogs or failing to find second gear.
I decided that walking down by the beach was also a pretty safe option as it would allow me to see what was coming and I could always do a ‘Reggie Perrin’ and disappear into the sea if things got a bit heavy (mind you, I certainly would not be taking my clothes of at this time of year). The fact that the ambient water temperature in the English Channel in November would probably have killed me in around a minute was one of those facts my mind had conveniently filed in the wrong cabinet.
The wind was positively howling now and the rain was starting to come on properly, blowing in on horizontal sheets that stung like blazes on my bare face. I squinted my eyes into little slats, hunched my shoulders and bowed my head downwards as if somehow this would make me small enough to avoid getting soaked. I presumed that I would look like any normal bloke that had decided to take a night time stroll in the middle of a storm with entirely the wrong clothes on, but there was nobody to see me and I was confident I could reach the Tudor without being discovered.
Howison took another large gulp of bourbon and then spoke, “Some time ago I became aware of a nice little project you guys have been running up in sunny Scotchland. (Mac always referred to it as Scotchland, after all it was where Scotch came from and he knew how much it annoyed his north of the border colleagues).
He was looking hard at the old man as he spoke, looking for anything, anything at all, but the expression staring back at him was blank. “You’re good George, you do know that don’t ya? Anyway, here’s how it is. I know all about what you guys were playin’ at up there, and it sure wasn’t tiddlywinks. I know all about A.P.R.I.L.; that is what ya’ call it, ain’t it? I know about Boardman. Hell, I even know the entire history of C.E.R.N., not to mention a whole bunch of stuff about particle physics I am pretty sure I will never understand. The thing is George I got more contacts than even you can keep track of. Hell, I might even have people workin’ in your team George. Ever thought of that?”
Thomson chose not to answer the last question, it was a little too close to home, and if a certain Mr Stern Anderson had not come to such an untimely end he might have been a good deal wiser about a certain phone call that had nearly left his agent and the ‘poor sap’ like sitting ducks in a safe house waiting to be executed. He continued to sit motionless, waiting for Mac Howison to finish what he came to say, waiting for the punch-line.
“You see George, that little problem you were dealing with, the one where the Ruskie’ stole your precious data and was about to hand it over to those clowns in Geneva, well as I am sure you know, she didn’t quite make it. Actually, that’s not strictly true; it wasn’t her that didn’t make it, rather that Hendrick bloke. But hey, you know all this already; it’s been all over the news.”
“Russians, data, Geneva, all very interesting. Are you sure you have not been spending too much of your time reading comic books? I know how you Americans love a good yarn.”
“Say what you want George but you and I both know the truth. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, so this information the Ruskie’ was about to hand over, the information on particle physics, seems a lot of people are very interested in it. And why not, your friends up in Scotchland seemed to have come up with something a bit special. I know there’s no doubt a lot of technical jargon for what it is, but you know I’m just a simple kinda’ man, hell let’s call it clean energy, yeah I like that, clean energy. Imagine that George. Imagine what someone could do with that. Wouldn’t want that to fall into the wrong hands now, would we?”
Still nothing changed on the old man’s face and Mac was beginning to get irritated again.
“I have it George. You know I’m not bluffin’. I have it, and I am not afraid to use it.”
Check....
“What exactly do you think you have Mac?”
Thomson’s pawn moved across the board to protect his King....
“I have the information. Everything I need to make clean limitless sustainable energy, but then you know I’m not really in that line of business.”
Thomson rolled the malt up the sides of his glass, it left a thick glossy sheen before slipping back down again, he could smell it, but he resisted the urge to drink it.“So let us assume for a moment that this stuff you are telling me is true. Let’s assume you have some magical information that would allow you to make this ‘clean energy’. I fail to see how that helps someone whose whole empire is based on selling fossil fuels to the world. It sounds to me more like so
mething that was liable to put you out of business completely.”
Thomson had taken his turn to go on the offensive and now he waited for the response...
“What do ya’ take me for George. Jeez, and I thought you were the smart one. I ain’t gonna’ make it. Hell, I’d need to invest a whole bunch of dollars just to get a facility like the one you’re hiding up in Scotchland, and for what. No George, this is all about leverage. You know how this works. You guys have invested a lot of time and money into this and of course you don’t want to share your new shiny toy with the rest of the playground. I understand. I understand completely. And I know that now you’ve let the genie out of the bottle that you can’t really go trying to wedge its fat backside back in. It is out there and I get that. But here is what I can do. I can sell this to the highest bidder. I can blow your little game out the water George, I can sell to the Russians, the Europeans, the Chinks, the Gooks, just about anyone I please. And we are not talking small potatoes George, ya’ know what this is worth. And I have a strong feelin’ your lords and masters might have somethin’ to say if they thought their precious secret was about to be spilled.”
The counter was as predicted and George was already moving his piece to defend it...
“Ok Mac. That sounded like a nice little business plan. But what is stopping you from simply going right ahead? Why do you even need to waste your breath telling me this wonderful tale? Why not just go and sell your box of tricks, or whatever it is you think you have?”
“Aw George. You really can’t think much of me? Do you think I don’t have an ounce of Patriotism left? Have you not seen the photo of me and the President hangin’ in my office? I don’t want to let the commies, ragheads and slant eyes get a hold of this any more than you do.” For a brief moment Mac Howison looked genuinely disgusted at the proposition that had just been thrown at him, almost as if his feelings had been hurt.
“Then I am still no wiser Mac. What is it you are proposing?” Thomson was setting the whole thing up just as planned. It was almost as if he had scripted it. Let his opponent open, let him make the offensive moves, counter and manoeuvre, all the time looking three moves ahead, provide the sense of false security and then lead him right up the garden path by the balls to checkmate.
“I don’t want to do no business with the other side George. I want to do business with the good guys. I promise to hold onto the goody bag, you guys agree to let me keep selling my oil to the rest of them. And if eventually we can’t keep the cat in the bag, then you guys cut me into a slice of the pie.”
“You don’t ask for much Mac. I’ll give you that. But if I may, and with the risk of repeating myself, what is it that you think you have?”
“I thought we’d covered that bit already George. You’re not slowin’ down on me are ya? I know you’re pushin’ on a bit in terms of years but I thought I’d made myself pretty darn clear.”
Thomson allowed himself a brief smile from the corner of his mouth, perhaps he was slowing a little these days but he was still twice as smart as the fat American opposite him. “I only ask Mac, because I was wondering why you think I would let such an important piece of information, assuming anything you have said was true in the first place, simply slip into the hands of some Russian agent. Don’t you think I might have been a little more careful than that?”
“Hey George, I do love yer Poker face and all that, but you’re bluffin’ like a man who just threw his watch onto the table and is holding a hand full of nothin’.”
“Do you really think so Mac? Do you think I would simply let some Russian agent simply waltz in and take something, which if what you say is true, would be almost beyond value? Let me put it another way, just so there is no chance of misunderstanding. Do you think I would still be sitting where I am now if I had dropped the ball...or how might you put it...fumbled before the end zone? And from what you say, this is not just any old game is it? I think it sounds more like the Super Bowl.”
Check to Thomson again ...
But although what he had said was true, there was more than an element of bluff involved in the way he was spinning it.
Mac was calculating what Thomson had told him very carefully, he stared straight at him, trying to read something that could not be read. Ultimately it was a game of Poker to him and a game of Chess to the old man. He could not be certain if Thomson had dropped the ball and let the Russians nip in and steal the crown jewels from right under his nose, or whether he had staged the whole god damn shootin’ match and handed them the patsy file.
There was nothing to read in the old man’s eyes; his face was a blank sheet. Nothing to read and no way to know what the right answer was. He had his own team of experts and scientific minds he could call on, but none of them would be able to verify whether he held the answer to one of the world’s biggest problems or simply a useless dummy file, and of course he did not have a spare particle accelerator sitting in his back yard to prove it one way or another. But something didn’t sit right.
“Thing is George. I think any Russian agent assigned to this gig would have a pretty good idea what they were looking for. And it is not for me to say why they suddenly decided to flip sides, but to have gotten C.E.R.N. involved they must have been feeding them something that smelled pretty good. I know she was sleeping with your Boardman guy and that means she had access to the cookie jar.”
His argument was beginning to sound convincing. Of course they must have had something. And then something else hit him. Regardless of what it was he had, surely its very presence would offer enough collateral to get what he wanted; even if he did not have the Holy Grail, he could still blow A.P.R.I.L. and the whole Scotchland set up clean out of the water and that had to be worth something.
Thomson could see by the glint in his opponent’s eye that he still thought he was in the driving seat, but that was exactly how he liked his opponents to feel. What he also liked was that Mac was now dropping in nice little titbits of information, titbits that were already narrowing the field of suspects that could have been supplying them.
If he kept on like this, soon Thomson would have Mac and the mole. Not bad for an evening out at the club.
“Ok Mac, I can see you are going to need a little more convincing. Why not let me walk you through a.... hypothetical scenario... a little bedtime story. You just sit back and enjoy your Bourbon and then tell me what you think.”
Thomson stopped himself from opening with the age old “Once upon a time” and started to speak.........
“....So let’s imagine that there is a secret establishment hidden away somewhere in remote Scotland, which somehow has remained undetected for years, but has miraculously, discovered the way to make clean energy. And let’s call this place A.P.R.I.L; I have to admit, I do like the sound of that. And then one day a big bad Russian agent comes sneaking around trying to find out what has been going on up north, steal the information and pass it on to her bosses back in Moscow. Now this Russian agent, who just so happens to be rather beautiful, gets her hooks into the scientist who made the discovery in the first place and suddenly everything looks tickity boo for the Russians. Except the really clever British guys know all about the Russian agent, have done for years and have had her under surveillance before she even made her move and, for reasons that I won’t go into right now, are happy to let the dalliance between the great scientist and the spy develop. Now you may ask me why? Why would they let that happen? Why let her get up close and personal with someone who might verify the existence of A.P.R.I.L. and risk exposing everything? Well what if I said, that the really smart British guys were not really worried about the discovery of A.P.R.I.L? What if I said that most of the major players already knew about it anyway? In reality, and of course I am just presupposing, but in reality in this day and age I would have thought it well nigh impossible to keep anything as big as a particle accelerator complex, buried in remote Scotland, a secret from the world, wouldn’t you?......It is not as if it is Siberia we ar
e talking about.”
Mac could see the logic, and if it were so, then his option of simply letting the cat out of the bag regarding A.P.R.I.L. would not carry much of threat. If it were so.
Thomson continued.....
“......Now, of course, the smart British guys, having led the big bad Russian agent to the honey pot were not actually intending on giving up the good stuff. That really would be silly now, wouldn’t it? Remember, in this story, they have been monitoring her for years, so she is under full surveillance. So let’s imagine the smart British guys ensure that she gets what she thinks she came for, but actually what she has is something that is about as useful as a chocolate teapot......”
Howison was beginning to get rather irritated by the old man’s storytelling and anyway he could still see the obvious flaw already.
“If what this agent had was the crock you say it was then how come she managed to convince the foreheads over at C.E.R.N.? There is no way those guys would buy into a pile of crap and you know it.”
“Whatever makes you think it would be a pile of crap Mac? One would not go trying to con someone into buying a fake Picasso without having something that on the surface at least looked the part. Of all people I thought you would have understood that Mac.”
The thinly veiled attack on his personality aside, Mac Howison was now beginning to get a rather uncomfortable sinking feeling in the pit of his belly. Had he been played? Had they all been played by the old man? The argument was beginning to sound convincing but it still didn’t answer the why. Why would he have gone to such elaborate lengths and risks in letting the whole game play out? If what he had been saying had any ring of truth in it, then why didn’t they just intercept the Russian agent and send her back on the first fishing boat to Saint Petersburg?