by Hylton Smith
He mentioned on departing that if Duarte decided to cooperate he would need to smarten up his desk, which was almost invisible due to the mountain of paperwork it supported. Amongst the clutter at the top of one pile was a note, to remind himself of his son’s football match – kick-off 19.30, and a half-eaten prawn Panini which obscured the scribbled venue. The smile on Pierze’s face betrayed his utter disgust. Butragueno fixed her eyes on the floor until he had gone, then fled to the toilet before her control gave way and she sat there convulsing with laughter. Thankfully Pierze had left when she returned. She still had not regained full composure and it didn’t help that Duarte had swept everything into a box; he looked up and asked, “Any ideas on where I can stash this for a couple of days?”
“Leave it there; I’ll get someone from records to put it into files. You need to look as if you are working on something. I don’t think Pierze is a clean desk man.”
He nodded wistfully, and switched back to Pierze’s monologue. “What do you make of this SACRED stuff? I can only recall that it’s something to do with the Moon.”
“Yes, but it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that. I remember thinking at the time that it was quite a convenient blessing to recover our ability to plug the world back into the mains again so quickly, until I read more about the guys who designed it.”
“You need to bring me up to date with that in under an hour Butragueno; my boy will never forgive me if I miss the game.
Chapter 3
The grooming which Philip II had in mind for his son was not what it outwardly appeared. He knew that the only true successor which would endure long enough to allow the empire he had in mind to flourish was not a person, but a republic. He also recognised that it would take up to a century for this to be implemented, and in any event his son was not capable of such subtlety. Philip III did become monarch upon his father’s death, but it was his father’s inherited prescription to which he clung - as his encyclopaedia to govern. His father had foreseen trends in his acquired states which convinced him that the self-serving nobility could not survive very far into continually advancing technology. He didn’t personally embrace all such scientific conclusions without reservation, yet he wanted to optimise the future for both his family and Iberia.
Giving a stake in this future to plebiscites would be resisted by those who protected and coveted his son’s position. Therefore the formula he advocated was to use the Church to mediate at every contentious phase. It did require a change of religious leadership philosophy, and this was precisely the time for such orchestrated effort to plant the foundation stone. Royalty, apparently being subordinate to the Holy Roman hierarchy was what the Church had been fighting for over many centuries. The Nobility saw it as an opportunity too. The stake offered to the populous had to be managed in concert with their representatives’ ability to pledge and demonstrate total and absolute piety in every aspect of life, even the call to future wars. It did indeed take several decades to gather real momentum, and Philip III did not live to see the seeds of the republic turn to a swathe of manageable green grass. This strategy however prepared Iberia much better than any other society for the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
In the East - Russia and the Balkans moved away from the increasing power of the Orient and Indian sub-continent. They were however, nervous about the Iberian expansion, which had not only spread its tentacles to absorb the Arab world, but promoted its republican philosophy to the Africanas. Such preoccupation was the price paid for China discovering and claiming the Antipodes and naming it Sea Garden, presumably as the coastal areas were the only hospitable zones. The relentless Iberian entreaties to Russia eventually succeeded and their revolution was bloodless. Trade and technology were the catalysts. The Balkans had nowhere to go except follow suit.
The effect of early arrival of the might of industrial technology increased world travel and introduced widespread industrial espionage. One result of the fear of being left behind was the curious alignment of Asian societies in a very short space of time. This bloc consisted of the oriental nations, dominated by China and India, part of the seceded Russian steppe, the volcanic islands of the near Orient, and of course Sea Garden. Everything else flew the Iberian colours as fully subscribed members of the Republic, a protectorate, or simply a commonwealth of cultural partnership. Significantly, the Church would still have a bearing on further alignment. Orient had many more religious differences to iron out, whereas Iberia’s tolerance actually promoted Catholicism at a digestible rate. This would become a bigger issue during the era of science and technology especially with respect to medicine.
As the perceived wealth gap widened another problem arose. The society with by far the highest population density also had by far the least land, and there were uprisings in Orient. Disparate religious belief in such overcrowded life, while looking over the shoulder at a successful alternative, turned envy into self-harm. This became an indirect problem for Iberia as there was no prepared structure to cope with mass refugee migration. Hurriedly installed law brought tension and polarisation within the Iberian culture. Orient also outlawed ‘defection’ and the success of many hundreds of thousands of escapees blurred the deaths of millions of unsuccessful individuals. A stand-off was sought and agreed. It was based on Iberia revoking sanctions and once again forging a ‘technology for trade licence’. This worked quite well until the electronics age and the lure of space travel. Both of these developments took place earlier than they may have done if there had been prolonged nationalism from mediaeval times through to the industrial revolution. Electronics became part of everyday life by mid-twentieth century. The absence of global conflict, which had looked likely, but was avoided by the trade/technology pact, helped oversee more space exploration. The first human to set foot on the Moon was a Catalan. Rodrigo Mondragon planted Iberian colours there in 1956. As consumer advertising mutated from ancillary status to multi-billion peseta industry, there was less investment in pioneering technology. Satellites invaded the orbit by the hundreds and global communication grew into the monster which demanded instant everything. By 1969 there were unmistakable signs that population growth would force draconian measures for the entire planet, but it was the Orient which had the most acute problem, and they took the decision to block the altar of worship to consumerism and invest more of their GDP in getting to another planet. It wrong-footed Iberia for almost two decades, and culminated in their own Moon landing. They were reminded that the Moon was Iberian sovereign territory and the squabble dragged the trade/technology agreement into sharp focus. A formula was born out of anger, whereby Iberia compensated Orient by financing the next step toward a lunar colony, and an unconventional lease which favoured Iberian veto of excessive emigration rates by either society. This was considered relatively conventional in the Republic, but seen as being sold down the river by the people of the totalitarian regime. The governing Orient body was ousted, replaced and the lease revoked. And so the apartheid world came into being.
Orient was now a closed society, able to infiltrate and spy on a quite unprepared and porous dominion with borders of almost infinite length. The lunar colony would be upgraded in timescale and the sole proprietors of any gain would be Iberia. They knew that they could not halt the espionage drain and called time on the trade/technology licence, which fuelled talk of war. Within a year the internet changed everything as it grew into an activity which was difficult to monitor, and it thankfully took the talk of conflict to a lower shade of alert. By the millennium trade barriers had evaporated and consumer society had once more dulled the appetite for space travel. Harmony was fragile but was actually being restored.
Out of the blue, three men who had made obscene amounts of money in different areas of internet business, met to evaluate the vulnerability of their private wealth generation, specifically its possible collapse. They were all Iberian.
Chapter 4
Butragueno sum
marised the reams of data she had on the reclusive trio. “Sorin Gretz was apparently the intellectual driving force, recognising the trend toward more pernicious computer viruses. He predicted that the internet would flat-line earlier than it did, so his thinking on what happens next was outlined well ahead of it being needed. He had cleverly moved significant proportions of his trillions of annual peseta profit to his brainchild SACRED. He is of Swiss-Iberian descent and still lives in Basela. Andreas Verdasco and Constantin Boniek brought other influence to the table. Verdasco made his fortune from software which replaced open search engines with personally coded link interface enquiry.”
Hosting with maximum privacy spawned such demand that capacity had to be rationed until new methods of data exchange became available. Terrestrial fibre-optic transmission was replaced by huge satellite chains around the globe. Boniek was invited to the party because of his supply of all manner of support equipment to the Iberian financed lunar colonisation project, which had by then run out of favour. The mothballing decision left the perfect premises for SACRED to evolve from embryonic status to ‘premature birth’. It all dovetailed perfectly – a remote location which precluded physical invasion, the orbiting relay girdle with which Boniek’s lunar equipment had previously specified compatibility, Gretz’ and Verdasco’s software integration, and the plight of Iberia’s financially crippling colonisation disaster. The three wise men took this burden from the Iberian government within a suspiciously short period after the internet collapse threatened to seriously mutate to perennial fiscal and social nuclear winter.
Duarte’s stoic expression remained while he verbalised how this was of minimal interest to him right now. “Very interesting, if you get off on conspiracy theory, but as Pierze said – we have boundaries to observe. A suicide investigation is our only remit until the evidence itself leads us on to his patch. I really have to get to the game. I’m sorry to dump this in your lap Butragueno, but I’d appreciate you getting preliminary forensic information and any progress on Salina’s tattoo decode to me in the morning.” He had often indulged in this kind of temporary disconnect from the loop, but this was courting further confrontation with a powerful adversary who had already threatened to end his career. Butragueno wondered if he was finally ready to quit. The thought was dismissed as suddenly as it arose – Duarte’s sheer doggedness was something Pierze was about to experience. She resigned herself to a night without sleep and a long day to follow.
The code which Salina had devised was pretty straightforward for the breaker group and simply revealed the entry details for his deposit box. Armed with this, Butragueno obtained the necessary paperwork to compel the bank to allow access. The contents consisted of photographs, names and family contact data plus the cause of death of at least twenty of his personal friends. There was also a message that implied more could have occurred recently that he did not know of. In a dirty brown envelope he had put together reasons why he was convinced his friends were murdered. He also hinted – no more than that – of a wider strategy of the perpetrators, namely to cause and accelerate Iberia falling from within. He concluded the note by explaining that he would be on this list, and faced such elimination himself. His dilemma was whether to inform the authorities (who would have considered him delusional), or accept that he may have to die and make those same authorities think hard on his claims.
When Butragueno delivered this to Duarte he sat in silence for over five minutes, waving away her intrusions, before he said at a barely audible volume, “Keep this between us for now. If there is any substance to Salina’s claims we may be shut out of consequent murder investigations by our friend Pierze. What about forensics?”
“No real evidence of anyone else’s direct involvement in the actual suicide act, but the Lightbox has highlighted many prints which will have to be checked out, and there is something lodged in one of the wall cavities without any obvious means of getting to it. Their best guess at the moment is some kind of capsule. They’ll carefully cut out access through the plaster and extract it after consultation with explosive device expertise.”
He nodded and then astonished her by an abrupt change of subject. “The boy played so well it looks like he may be offered trials with a couple of top teams. This could fit neatly with my retirement if he makes it as a pro. Let’s have some coffee and get out of here before Pierze gets to us.” She reminded him she had been up all night and was going home to recharge her batteries. Duarte acknowledged this and headed for a breakfast bar in town.
*
Pierze was furious when he arrived to an empty office and was even more frustrated when Duarte’s mobile communicator was unobtainable. He did get Butragueno and was unsympathetic to her lack of sleep, which prompted an uncharacteristic response. “Snr. Pierze, I report to Maxi Duarte and he authorised my absence for at least four hours. Take it up with him. Goodbye.” He was not used to such flagrant insubordination and simmered while he contemplated what to do next. Just as he decided to report Duarte to the regional Chief of Police, one of his entourage whispered in his ear, “Sir, we have just been informed that Salina senior and his wife are on their way here with legal representation. They are expected within the hour.”
“Shit, that is all we need. Do they know we are here?” His subordinate shrugged his shoulders.
“Well who the hell has just informed you of their arrival?”
The reply was cautious. “He said he was acting legal counsel for Salina.”
Pierze was exasperated. “Right, and did he ask who he was speaking to?”
His subordinate recovered a little confidence. “Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I said it was Duarte’s office and before I could elaborate he cut me off and said they would be here shortly. They would have assumed I was one of Duarte’s people.”
Pierze smiled. “Good, then we will receive them and not enlighten them as to who we are until we hear what they have to say. They will be more open if they think we are simply detectives and when we correct their misconception Salina will torpedo Duarte for us. We then have leverage on both Salina and Duarte.”
When the party arrived Salina stayed silent while his legal eagle disclosed their horror at having already been to the apartment and taken in the suicide scene with its multiplicity of forensic markers. “Senora Salina was extremely distressed that her son’s last act was so graphically enhanced with seemingly emotionless script and references, including the crude mechanism of the scaffold. We expected to see police presence there, but as we already had keys we entered and I must say it was a shock to find the place ‘abandoned’.”
Pierze pretended to squirm a little and sympathised with their traumatic experience. He went on to explain the procedure with the Lightbox team and how this allowed the police to work from that image first in order to cut out poorly targeted and lengthy testing. “You should have been warned to stay out of there until this phase was complete. I apologise. You may have already complicated the scene inadvertently. That would be a great pity.”
Salina could not maintain his silence. “We sent you our travel plans and you didn’t acknowledge the message, so we could only assume you were too busy with the investigation. You could have lessened this awful experience by the explanation you have now given us. I’m not impressed, and in fact I will be....”His legal man interjected quickly, “We’ll come to that in due course, make no mistake, but for now we must alert you to certain aspects of Konrad’s recent difficulties, and some possible background to his demise. You may have begun to concentrate on the ‘overwhelming’ evidence of suicide; however there are certain exchanges with his family that may cast doubt on that.”
Pierze delayed the harpooning of Duarte; this disclosure may prove much more important. “Oh, it seems another apology is warranted, certain items have been removed from the apartment. Please continue with your suspicion that Konrad’s death was not entirely self-determined.”
The legal man beckoned Salina to his side and whispered a short
reminder that it was prudent to limit information to that which could be substantiated; the speculative elements must be allowed to ferment in the minds of the police. Salina nodded impatiently and proceeded to deliver a précis of the emergence of SACRED. He was interrupted by Pierze stating that they knew all about this. “No you don’t,” scowled Salina angrily, “let me finish.” Pierze didn’t swallow this direct rebuke in front of his sycophantic team at all well, but managed to stay in control. Salina continued. “The concept was one of staggering dimension and technical achievement. It also changed the modus operandi of large corporations and individual social habits alike. It apparently overcame the threat of any kind of hijacking by any kind of adversary. The entire setup, from the impregnable lunar location, the halo of orbital relays and the lynchpin of dedicated licensed booths with on-screen recognition technology could not be faulted. In order to be accepted for membership it was necessary to suffer a long waiting list until DNA samples, facial replication vectors, and retina links were all embedded into the log-on sequence. This was probably the identity theft protection appeal which saw personal computer ownership diminish to obscurity.”