“Does your boss want to sleep through the dinner service?”
The flight attendant’s stage whisper broke Lauren’s concentration. Irritated, she looked up from the folder on her tray table. “Excuse me?”
“Does your boss want—”
“I heard that part—and he’s not my boss.”
The seductive Chantel pursed her lips. “Sorry. But we’ll be serving dinner soon, and I need to know—”
“Dinner?” Daniel’s eyes flew open. “Bring it on.” He gave the attendant a bleary smile. “Thanks for asking.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Prentice.” The woman turned and made her way up the aisle with a great deal more hip-swing than was strictly necessary. Lauren pressed her lips together and turned her attention back to her work.
Daniel sighed, then shifted slightly in his seat, bending and unbending his long legs in an attempt to get comfortable. Despite her annoyance with the melodrama being played out at her side, Lauren felt a little sorry for him. If he found first class uncomfortable, how had he ever managed to fly tourist?
Her mouth twisted in a dry, one-sided smile. Maybe he hadn’t. Even before he was rich and successful, Daniel Prentice had probably insisted on the best.
“What are you reading.” He had lowered his head closer to her ear, and his voice came over her shoulder.
“Brussels information.” She arched her brow and gave him a coy look. “Have you been briefed yet, Mr. Prentice? Or are you planning to swagger into that council meeting and bowl the Europeans over with your New York charm?”
“New York charm? That’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?” Daniel grinned. “So brief me, advisor. You’ve got a captive audience.”
Struggling to hide her exasperation, Lauren flipped through several pages of her file. “Okay. Let’s just start from our arrival, shall we? We’ll be landing at Brussels National Airport, located in the suburb of Zaventem.”
Daniel began to snore in her ear. She elbowed him sharply.
“Hey!” He laughed and opened his eyes. “All right, I’m sorry. But the airport is a fait accompli; don’t waste time on it. Tell me something I need to know.”
Lauren bit her lip. One would think he’d need to know where he was when he got off the plane, but apparently Daniel Prentice knew the world like his own backyard.
“We’re staying at the Eurovillage Brussels Hotel,” she offered, eyeing him to make certain he wouldn’t start snoring again. “It’s very near the European Union Council of Ministers Building, where we’ll both have several meetings. There’s a pool and a health club if you’re interested.”
“Fine.” He leaned on the armrest of her seat and smiled. “Please, continue.”
“Driving in the city is not easy. Cars are driven on the right—”
“Thank goodness.”
“—and seat belts are required at all times.”
“Of course.”
“Taxis will not pick up fares on the street, so if you don’t use the limo service, you’ll have to call ahead and order a cab by phone.”
She paused, waiting for some sort of smart remark, but he only smiled when she looked back at him. Nonplused, she kept going. “French, Dutch, and German are the official languages of Belgium, but French is the dominant language in most of Brussels. English is fairly popular, though, and street signs are written in English and French.”
“Good. I don’t like using an interpreter, though I have a nice one on my computer.”
“Let me guess—Roberta?”
His eyes widened. “How’d you know?”
“A lucky guess.” She skimmed down her list. “Though the euro became the official currency on January first, many people still use the Belgian franc—it won’t be withdrawn until July 2002. Business hours are nine to five, and many offices and shops close for lunch. European Union offices operate with reduced staff during all major holiday periods.”
“Typical government.” Daniel parked his chin in his palm. “And I’ll bet they have more than a dozen major holidays.”
“That’s not all. If a holiday falls on a Thursday or Tuesday, Belgians take off a Friday or Monday. The practice is called faire le pont, that’s French for—”
“To build a bridge,” Daniel finished. He shrugged at her surprised expression. “I had to take four years of high school French. I grew up in Canada, remember?”
“Then why would you need an interpreter?”
“I can understand it, but I never claimed to be conversant in the language.”
Lauren ignored him. “Generally, suit and tie are the norm for business meetings, a small umbrella is often useful, and the average January temperature ranges from thirty to forty degrees Fahrenheit. The time there is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.”
“I know.”
“Pickpockets operate enthusiastically in Brussels, especially on public transport and in department stores. We’re warned to stay away from the vicinity of the Gare du Midi-South Station and the areas of Sainte-Josse, Place Sainte-Catherine, and Fontainas.”
“It’s a shame, isn’t it, that so many places named after saints are riddled by crime?”
“Indeed.” Lauren skimmed the protocol section of her notes. “Oh— this is important. People are quite formal in Belgium. You must always shake hands when you arrive and when you leave. Even if you are late to a meeting where fifteen people are gathered around a conference table, you should shake hands with all fifteen.”
“Sounds like the presidential drill.”
Lauren smiled, realizing that he was right. President Stedman did have to shake hands with every person around every table he ever visited. No one could be allowed to feel excluded.
“Belgians do not use first names immediately—you must wait until a Belgian addresses you by yours before using his or her first name. And don’t take off your jacket unless your Belgian host has already removed his.”
“Anything else?” His voice was slow and drowsy.
“Just one more thing.” She shifted in her seat in order to look him in the eye. “The entire country practices the quart d’heure academique—the practice of waiting fifteen minutes for a latecomer. So if your friend Chantel is late for her rendezvous with you, you have to wait at least fifteen minutes before you can find another flight attendant.”
“There will not be any rendezvous with Chantel or any other Belgian beauty.” Daniel let his head fall back to his headrest. “I’m too tired for a romantic liaison.”
Lauren closed her file and thrust it back into her briefcase, wondering why she cared what he did. She herself had set the ground rules for this trip—they were two professionals, each intent upon doing a job. And no matter how attracted she might be to Daniel Prentice, she could not consider him as anything more than a friend and occasional escort. President Stedman had another two years remaining in this term and the possibility of yet another term to come. Until he and Victoria were ready to retire, she would not leave Washington.
She turned her head and caught Daniel’s eye. “Don’t let me stop you. If you see someone you like, by all means, follow your heart—”
His hand abruptly caught hers; his touch sent a shiver of awareness rippling through her. His voice dropped in volume as he leaned closer. “Why would I be interested in Belgian girls when a fascinating American woman is sitting right next to me?”
Lauren tried to throttle the dizzying current racing through her. This was not good. This was a working diplomatic trip, not a lovers’ vacation. She was aboard this jet to represent the president and first lady of the United States, not to get all warm and cozy with one of the world’s most eligible bachelors.
If she had to act the part of Isabelle Iceberg until they landed on American shores again, so be it.
“I’ll thank you to keep your fascinations to yourself.” She pointedly removed his left hand from her right. “Remember what you told me back in my apartment. We are professionals, and we will act like professionals . . . at all times.”
Daniel sighed heavily, then leaned back into his own seat. “Yes, ma’am.”
SEVENTEEN
10:30 A.M., Sunday, January 24, 1999
DANIEL TUGGED AT HIS JACKET ONE FINAL TIME, THEN LIFTED HIS CHIN AND walked into the chamber where the ten major leaders of the European Union’s inner circle waited . . . for him. This Sunday meeting was unusual, the aide who greeted him explained, but the Council of Ministers was most anxious to hear how the United States proposed to solve the Y2K computer crisis.
Daniel had a sneaking suspicion that the council members already knew quite a bit about various aspects of the Millennium Project, but he played along and smiled as if spies did not exist and electronic eavesdropping were not an everyday occurrence.
Suffering from jetlag, he had spent his first day in Brussels in his hotel room, and he suspected that Lauren had done the same. This morning she had gone out to address a gathering of European Women Against Heart Disease, and Daniel knew that she had risen early to rehearse her speech. Though she was quite competent in the White House with Sam Stedman’s influence firmly behind her, she had confessed on the plane that the thought of making speeches on the president’s behalf made her more than a little nervous.
“Look at the audience and remind yourself that they are just people,” Daniel had reassured her. “Under their clothes, they have a bellybutton just like you.”
The idea had made her laugh, but Daniel found no comfort in the ridiculous thought as the door to the Council of Ministers’ chamber opened for him. He stepped inside the cavernous space, glancing up for a moment at a shallow balcony that ran around the curving walls of the chamber—just room enough, he realized, for a TV camera, not for spectators.
Walking with long steps and a bold confidence he didn’t feel, he dropped his briefcase into an empty chair, then made his way to the lectern. The representatives of the European Union rose as a collective body as he approached. Remembering Lauren’s briefing on the plane, Daniel placed his leather folio on the lectern, then began at one end of the semicircular table and shook hands with each minister. He recognized a few faces and more than a few names but was startled to find himself face-to-face with the man he’d last seen on television during the New Year’s Eve party. Adrian Romulus occupied a place of honor at the center of the table, and his dark eyes gleamed with intensity as he clasped Daniel’s hand between both of his own.
“A very great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Prentice. I have read a great deal about your accomplishments and look forward to having you on our team.” He spoke in perfect, cultured English, his voice a silken whisper in the chamber. “Together, we shall create a one-world community.”
His presumption left Daniel fumbling for words. On our team? Daniel had agreed to give a presentation in hopes of expanding his corporate empire; he had never promised to join any sort of political crusade.
Daniel pasted on a nonchalant smile. “The honor is mine, Mr. Romulus.”
He moved on down the table, saying the right things, smiling politely, though his mind still buzzed with Romulus’s words. Daniel had the uneasy feeling that he had stumbled into a sea of shifting tides and treacherous currents. He realized that his knowledge of European politics and agendas was not all it should be—and he might be in over his head.
He’d ask Lauren for a background briefing . . . later. Right now he had to present the Millennium Project and hope that the Council of Ministers would agree to invest a significant part of its huge computer budget to acquire Prentice Technologies’ breakthrough Y2K solution.
With protocol duly observed, Daniel moved back to the lectern and opened his folio. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that a handful of observers had slipped into the room and taken seats in a row of empty chairs behind the council table. He recognized Generals Kord Herrick and Adam Archer; both men wore full uniform and fairly gleamed in ornamental splendor. Another man sat with them, a thin fellow with a narrow face and a dark beard.
“Esteemed councilors, ladies and gentlemen,” Daniel flashed his smile across the group, “let me begin by telling you a very simple, very true story. In March of last year, Marilyn Baxter, a housewife in Warren, Michigan, walked into her local grocery, a small operation called the Produce Palace. There she gathered her purchases, then paid at the register with her new VISA card—one with an expiration date of March 2000.”
He looked at Lady Bowes-Lyon, the councilor representing Great Britain. Her arms were casually folded on the table, but her eyes burned with interest.
“When the clerk tried to run Mrs. Baxter’s VISA through the verification system, the computer rejected the card. The grocer’s expensive computer could not process the year 2000 date, and his computer system froze. The manager of the Produce Palace suddenly found himself unable to use any of his cash registers, even for customers with cash and check purchases. In the end, in order to sell any fruits and vegetables that day, he and his clerks had to pull out an old-fashioned adding machine and systematically total all produce sold. By closing time, the manager estimated that the Millennium Bug had cost him almost two hundred employee hours— time he would have to pay employees to repair the system, reenter the day’s charges into the computer, and adjust his inventory. He could not, of course, even estimate the financial loss due to frustrated customers who left and vowed to shop elsewhere.”
Daniel regarded the impassive ministers with a level gaze. “Imagine that little scenario on a worldwide scale. Imagine computers that freeze and remain inoperable for a month or more. Imagine every shop, bank, hospital, government agency, and airport without computers for just one day—and now you have a clearer picture of what Saturday, January 1, next year, will bring.”
The plastic, polite smiles vanished. Lady Bowes-Lyon wore a cold, congested expression, and Adrian Romulus’s mouth went tight and grim.
“You, my friends, have a much bigger problem than my associates in the United States. I understand, of course, that your conversion to the euro has required thousands of hours of preparation. Unfortunately, you no longer have thousands of hours in which to prepare for the unavoidable calamity bearing down upon you. The year 2000 will arrive in just 341 days, and you are not prepared.”
Daniel thrust his hands behind his back, and when he spoke again, his voice was firm and final. “Fortunately, my company has developed a program that will convert your mainframe software in a matter of hours. It is known as the Millennium Code, and its implications are quite staggering.”
Nodding with confident satisfaction, Daniel walked to the chair where he had dropped his briefcase and pulled out a small, handheld scanner, a prototype Dr. Kriegel had developed over what should have been his Christmas vacation. Daniel punched on the power, then handed the device to the British representative.
“Would you be kind enough to hold this for a moment, ma’am?” he asked, sliding the gun-like scanner into her hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He strolled before the conference table, his confidence spiraling upward. “I know you have concentrated on converting your computer systems from various European currencies to the euro. I applaud you for your willingness to lay aside petty differences in order to come together as one unified force.” He broke into a leisurely smile as he glanced back at General Archer. “After all, my own country consists of fifty states. Two hundred and twenty-three years ago we established a common system of law, of currency, of trade, of government, and subsequently we grew to be a world power. And now we are evolving yet again, ready to take our place in the community of nations . . . in the new millennium.”
Dramatically, he raised his right hand and turned toward the British councilor. He stood at the far side of the half-circle now, at least fifteen feet from the woman. “Lady Bowes-Lyon,” he called in his most authoritative voice, “would you please point the scanner toward my hand and press the green button?”
Playing her part with aplomb, Lady Bowes-Lyon lifted the device and emphatically pressed the button. In less time t
han it took Daniel to blink, the monitor behind him filled with an astounding array of shifting images—his digitized photo, his Social Security number, his address, phone numbers, next-of-kin information, even twenty-year-old medical records from Daniel’s pediatrician.
Daniel walked to the other side of the table and smiled his thanks at Lady Bowes-Lyon. “This particular information is on a loop purely for the purpose of demonstration,” he told his astounded audience as he picked up the scanner. “But I want you to see that the information is not in the monitor, nor is it contained in the scanner. Every bit of this information— up to 5 million bits—is contained within a tiny personal identification device implanted on the back of my right hand.”
A flutter of amazement moved through the group, and Daniel held up a finger, predicting their first concern. “The chip will be programmed with all pertinent and necessary information,” he said, lifting a brow. “But the scanner will only be able to download specific sectors of that information. For instance—a merchant will want to confirm my identity and that I have sufficient funds in my personal bank account. He does not need to know how much I have tucked away in mutual funds, nor does he need access to my medical records. The scanner he will be issued, then, will only access the information he needs. Everything else will be encrypted so that personal data remains secure.”
Lady Bowes-Lyon waved her hand in the air. “This is fascinating, Mr. Prentice, but why should our citizens want to be injected with a foreign object?” She shuddered slightly. “Implantation seems so . . . invasive. Rather like George Orwell’s novel 1984.”
Daniel thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled at her. “Vaccinations once seemed invasive—after all, what thinking person would want his body injected with a virus? But when we learned that the cowpox virus would naturally protect against smallpox, the walls of resistance fell quickly.”
He looked up and let his gaze play over the assembled panel. “My mother, who lives in Florida, told me about an extremely vocal group who protested the state law requiring seat belts.” He smiled, recalling that Lauren had told him that Brussels law mandated the use of seat belts, too. “The opponents of the seat belt requirements claimed that government had no right to intrude upon an individual’s right to choose whether or not to be belted into a car. But they were wrong, of course. Seat belts save lives. We will never know how many lives have been saved because government dared to act, but thousands undoubtedly owe their lives to the government’s foresight.”
Flee The Darkness Page 18