A Different War

by Craig Thomas

  Craig Thomas

  A Different War

  PRELUDE

  And I have told you how things were under Duke Leopold in Siena

  And of the true base of credit, that is, the abundance of nature with the whole folk behind it.

  Ezra Pound, Canto III

  1st April, 1999.

  All Fools' Day. The markets had been telling him that laughing at him, in effect ever since they had opened that morning. The share prices, the snippets of information, the rumours, the heavy selling, the nervousness of the banks… Like the chuckling of people at a joke at his expense.

  Twenty million dollars had been wiped off the asset value of Winterborne Holdings in a matter of hours. Wall Street, open an hour earlier, had caught the infection and the stock of the US subsidiaries was sliding downwards in price. It could be fifty million dollars by the day's end. All Fools' Day.

  In enraged frustration, David Winterborne stood up and walked to one of the full length windows of the first-floor drawing room which overlooked Eaton Square.

  The London traffic filtered politely through the square, sunlight was dappled in the gardens. There were a few well-dressed pedestrians enjoying the spring sunshine.

  The scene appeared painted, formal, like a landscape he had commissioned to celebrate ownership. Yet, as if in the moment of an earth tremor, the whole vista of wealth, exclusivity, decorousness was rendered shimmeringly unreal by the shocks of a threatened financial disaster.

  Fraser, who remained seated on the sofa behind him, was just another of those bringing the bad news, a functionary reporting that the Oracle hadn't found in his favour. One long-fingered hand smoothed his orient ally straight black hair but he realised that even Fraser, a mere employee, would see that the gesture was entirely pretence. He turned to face the room, catching sight of his slim figure in a mirror above the Adam fireplace. His Jermyn Street shirt was crumpled, his tie askew.

  His Eurasian features appeared un habitually thunderous, stubbornly defiant.

  He had spent millions of his own trying to block the hole in the dyke.

  To little or no effect… "I may have to base decisions important ones on your assessment, Fraser. Are you certain?"

  Fraser shrugged, a moneylender's gesture.

  "I look, sir, this is good inside information. Possibly the best. MoD Procurement and the Treasury are digging in for a very bloody campaign." Fraser's Scots accent came and went, like the sophistication of his vocabulary, in the manner of a weak, intermittent radio signal. The Treasury is twisting the DTI's arm up behind its back not lo support the European helicopter, but to side with them over the American machine." His mouth distorted in a congenital contempt.

  "It's cheaper than ours yours."

  "It's not mine-" Winterborne began angrily. But it was, wasn't it?

  That was the whole problem. Winterborne Holdings in the UK had become far too close symbiotic, they said to Aero UK, senior manufacturing partner in the European consortium building the helicopter the British army was supposed to buy.

  "You must be mistaken your sources are misguided. The government just couldn't do it…" Fraser's expression remained dourly cynical.

  Winterborne turned away.

  The government the damned Tory government who had seen almost a quarter of a million of his money to help their last election campaign would do it, if it suited.

  "It would be the finish of a great many companies. The unemployment would be embarrassing… It would could be the end of Aero UK." He was speaking to the painted, formal scene beyond the window. He felt he was staring at the family estates, watching for the small army of bailiff's men who would soon be coming up the drive to dispossess him. Then, to Fraser: "You're sure?" He cupped his narrow chin with one hand, adding: "Is it no longer a simple matter of more money—?"

  "We can't buy influence at that level. It's in the hands of the grown-ups, not the greedy kids. Aero UK's board and you could wrap yourselves in the flag, talk about job losses… It might work."

  "But you don't believe it. When do they decide between Euro-copter and the American rival?"

  "Some time in the next two months before the end of May."

  David Winterborne turned to face Fraser.

  They will do it?"

  Fraser nodded.

  That's the betting. That the Treasury will force MoD to buy American because of the relative costs."

  "So, Winterborne Holdings has a huge stake in Aero UK, in a dozen wholly owned subcontracting companies, in various other offshoots…

  While already Aero UK has a new airliner no one in the world wants to buy! And a Eurodefender fighter project that's almost four years behind schedule in the development phase alone.

  Now Aero UK will lose the helicopter project, too — worth at least two hundred and fifty million sterling! Have I left anything out?"

  Fraser suppressed a grin and shook his head.

  "No, sir. Nothing."

  In the gardens, small dogs were barking around young children and nannies. It was all so bloodily mockingly normal, a flattering image of the world he had bought for himself.

  Which was now threatened. Cash-starved because of Aero UK, and even more because of his involvement in the urban regeneration project in the Midlands, his largest investment outside the US. His borrowing was at a record high, his profit at a ten-year low. He had lost twenty million because of a couple of hostile newspaper articles over the weekend and a follow-up in The Times. Just because of that damned unsellable airliner alone-! When all the other skeletons tumbled from the cupboards, Winterborne Holdings would be finished.

  "It has to be stopped the rot," he announced.

  "Sorry-sir?"

  He turned to Fraser. His decision, which had leapt out of the dark at the back of his mind, shocked and thrilled like a sudden, unanticipated sexual encounter.

  "I'm propping up the share prices and it's costing me a very great deal. That must cease."

  "Yes, sir." Fraser appeared unsettled, as if he were about to be accused of not supplying a solution to the situation. He was like a hamster trying to get further into its straw. Perhaps he sensed what was coming… "I need someone. Someone you would know, your kind of person."

  To do what, sir?"

  "Help me to sell airliners since Aero UK have singularly failed to do just that. I need someone who can help me deal with that mess."

  He moved towards the sofa, plucking that morning's Times from the arm of a chair and dropping it into Fraser's lap. The business section was folded open at one of its inside pages. The fateful follow-up to the weekend articles on Skyliner and Aero UK that had cost him so much.

  There were two photographs, side by side. One displayed the bulk of the Skyliner that no one wanted to buy, looking like the profile of a winged dolphin. The other was of an American airliner the new Vance

  494 long-haul. It, like the US helicopter soon also to become his bane, was cheap. Much cheaper than Skyliner to buy, lease, operate.

  Those carriers not waiting for the new Boeing were poised to buy it, once its early commercial flights were successful.

  Potential Skyliner purchasers would soon be queueing to buy the Vance aircraft.

  Fraser looked up at him ruminatively, doubtful of the reality of his inference. Then his expression became carefully, patiently neutral.

  "Find someone someone who can do something… about that' Vance 494 the airliner of the future, the caption beneath the photograph read.

  Beneath that of the Skyliner were the words, Euro-boast any future at all?

  "I think I understand, sir. I'll bring you some names, a scenario tomorrow?"

  Tonight."

  "Sir."

  He heard the doors of the drawing room close behind Fraser
. There seemed a finality to the sound, as if he had closed the doors on some other kind of space.

  Scruples? he mocked himself. But he sensed that some sort of Rubicon had been crossed, just by intimating this design to Fraser. Very well, he had made no final decision, he could always rethink, withdraw…

  And yet he was almost certain he would not change his mind, retreat from the place where he suddenly found himself. He reached out and pressed the bell on his desk. Coffee, which he had not offered Fraser, appealed. He glanced at his watch-realised he had forgotten that he had promised to accompany Marian to Covent Garden that evening, for the revival of Dowell's production of Sleeping Beauty with the magnificent Maria Bjornson sets. He would have to go. His absence would be remarked create further problems. Damn… And yet… He savoured his decision. Problem-solving through other channels.

  Business by means of David Winterborne smiled, feeling himself looking back towards a rock ledge he had traversed; a high fence he had hurdled with ease.

  PART ONE

  MACHINES AND SHADOWS

  Machines and Shadows Fortune calls.

  I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,

  Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.

  Bob Dylan, "Changing of the Guard'

  CHAPTER ONE

  Business Arrangements "Look, Major—" The FBI agent employed his former rank without respect, as if it was a shrivelled fruit bitter on his tongue.

  "It's in your own interest to cooperate with the Bureau…"

  There were two of them in the small apartment's main room. Fall sunlight exposed the age of the carpet, the weary furniture. If he craned his neck, he would catch a glimpse of the Washington Monument in the distance, narrow and sharp as a missile against the faded blue of the sky.

  "I know nothing about Alan Vance or his business deals," he replied for perhaps the fourth or fifth time. Midmorning traffic three floors below the window protested like animals caught in quicksand with the squeal of horns and brakes.

  "For Christ's sake, Major, you were married to his daughter until a couple of years ago!" It was spoken by the senior of the two, his back to the room, his face in half-profile irritated, squinting into the light as if it challenged him.

  "What d'you mean, you know nothing? You were family, Major!"

  They were short-tempered with frustration, with a kind of righteousness. It was entirely probable that his former father-in-law was as crooked as they came, and their investigation overdue. Vance in trouble with the federal authorities amused him — however much he resisted being drawn back, even at such a tangent, into the morass that his brief marriage had become. The FBI men threatened to reawaken painful memories. He squinted towards the window.

  "I wasn't family, Mclntyre never family."

  The younger of the two, seated opposite him in a narrow armchair that seemed designed more for interrogation than comfort, appeared embarrassed. Mclntyre remained at the window, his features set in a grimace that expressed a determination to disbelieve. Then he turned to him.

  "For Christ's sake, you don't owe the guy a free beer, Major! Why cover for him now?" He came closer, wafting ahead of him the scent of a masculine aftershave and tobacco. And moral outrage. He stood before the sofa, hands clenched at his sides.

  "We're going to get Vance, Major for bribery, tax evasion, corruptly obtaining government funding the works. I don't see how you can refuse to help us with your record."

  "My record?" he mocked, sensing himself smaller, more compact than the man who bulked over him, the soft hair above his collar haloed by the sunlight.

  "Desert Storm, Major you were there. Instructor on Stealth Fighters, you even flew missions. Your other work for the Company, your air force record…" His effort suggested there had to be some button he could push that would activate the human being he confronted.

  Trying to wrap me in Old Glory won't do it," he remarked, angering Mclntyre. The younger man's bland, pale features extinguished the beginnings of a smile.

  Mclntyre turned on his heel.

  "What the hell is it with you, Gant?" he snapped.

  "Your file says you're an asshole. I believe the file!"

  "Your privilege, Mclntyre. I told you, I know nothing about Vance's aircraft company. I flew his company jet, I married his daughter. I left his company, I left his daughter." With a deliberateness that was designed to anger, he glanced at his watch.

  "I'm late for work, Mclntyre you through with me?"

  "Not by a long way, Gant not by a long way," Mclntyre threatened.

  "What happened to Major! It kind of dropped out of sight—"

  "Why are you siding with a guy who screwed up your job and your marriage, Gant?

  Tell me what you owe him."

  "Nothing you'd understand, Mclntyre." He realised he was leaning forward tensely in the chair, in some vague, reminiscent form imitating the posture of someone refusing to answer an interrogator. His Vietnamese interrogators, KGB questioners… it was of no significance which memory was evoked. It was important only that he was once more confronting the world as something pitted against him, antagonistic and dangerous.

  "I don't owe him anything. I just don't know anything."

  Mclntyre was leaning forward as he stood, large hands clasping his thighs like a footballer paused for a set play.

  The Senate Committee is going to call him to give evidence. We already got a great deal of data against Vance. Don't be a hick from Iowa all your life, Gant.

  Wise up. Help us… It ought to be your duty as a Federal employee, for Christ's sake-!" His exasperation was entire, consuming. That helped. This guy," Mclntyre continued, his arm wildly addressing the younger man while he continued to stare with a baffled rage at Gant, 'let me tell you about this guy, Chris. This hero dropped out of high school this hero demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, in Iowa, for

  Christ's sake, then he went there himself! He was arrested at the age of fourteen for one of those Peace March things all that Kennedy crap."

  Gant made a noise that was almost a growl, and Mclntyre battened on the small betrayal of emotion, grinning.

  "Maybe the guy didn't know living out in the boondocks that Jack and Bobby were both dead." Chris, whose surname he had forgotten, looked at him as if watching a father or uncle being humiliated.

  "Jack and Bobby," Mclntyre continued, 'neither of them could keep their pissers in their pants, not even on Inauguration Day. Jack and Bobby…" He sighed theatrically.

  "Your hero here is just a fucking liberal, like them. And a pain in the ass ever since." Gant remained immobile, passive in his chair.

  That Camelot bullshit eh, Gant? Haven't you wised up yet?"

  There had been mane-tossing, half-wild horses near his bedroom window in the first heat of the morning, and the unexpected strips of grass gleamed after the ministrations of arching sprays of water.

  He had nevertheless felt comfortable, embraced by the stark ranch-style house beneath the high desert air and sharp grey mountains where miners had died following golden illusions. Now, squinting at the gleaming aircraft at the end of the desert runway, as speck like as a stranded gull in the morning heat haze, the high air tickled his agoraphobia, however mildly, and he resented the mood of exposure because it tainted what was to be savoured the tide of his expectations.

  He was eager, he realised as eager as he had been at the very beginning of Artemis, his company, when the only aircraft they had had were two old, hired Boeings with which to take on British Airways and the Americans.

  As eager, he realised, as he had been at the very beginning of everything, when the figures on the balance sheets had proclaimed that he had made his first million.

  This- well, that really, that at the end of the runway, still unmoving was another beginning. The first of his order of six of Vance's aircraft waited to begin its pre delivery flight waited to begin his revenge.

  The flight crew were to rehearse the press flight wh
ile they tested the systems.

  When they returned, reporters and cameramen would be loaded aboard and flown on a sightseeing, publicity-serving junket, awash with champagne and knee-deep with caviar and canapes, over the Grand Canyon and back to Phoenix. Maximum exposure, locally, nationally, internationally, for Artemis Airlines and Vance Aircraft. Sounds good to me, he thought, suppressing a satisfied, anticipatory smile.

  Cameras fussed around them. Vance, inexpressive behind sunglasses, had summoned the media as if by magic they had come to see the man being investigated by the Senate and the man who had always been the maverick of the US plane makers the dazzling, flawed boy whose firm jaw was now padded with the jowls of success and power. Beside Vance, his daughter Barbara, Executive VP in charge of Corporate Affairs at Vance Aircraft, was darkly power-suited against the mood and heat of the morning.

  Burton tensed as he saw the plane straighten, and the cameras turned towards it as to a new bird seen in an unexpected place. The tension was palpable. The low hangars and factory buildings were crouched around them beneath the desert sky, which diminished the aircraft, and made it more fragile as it began to accelerate. The Vance 494 airliner was no more than a distorted, shimmering image as it rushed towards them through the heat. Burton felt Vance's hand on his arm, but with a questioning touch. Momentary loss of nerve? Success was as important to Vance as to himself… His daughter's features seemed varnished with a glossy anxiety. Other company people were in suits and overalls, or dresses that attempted competition with the hard sunlight. In his own concentrated anxiety, he had forgotten how many people there were, arranged as for an American funeral or graduation ceremony on white chairs in neat rows in front of the hangar from which the airliner had been rolled out an hour earlier. Local politicians and dignitaries, businessmen, faces that habitually adorned the Arizona social and charitable functions and glossy magazines. The delivery of the first of Burton's six ordered planes was important to Arizona, to the whole south-west sunbelt.

  The employees and executives had moved into what might have been a protective fence around himself and Vance.