Emergence

by Hammond, Ray

  ‘And that was the last you heard of him?’ asked the intelligence officer.

  ‘Directly, yes,’ admitted Laila. ‘I’ve never spoken to him since.’

  ‘But you have heard from him?’ prompted Chevannes gently.

  Laila sighed. ‘I’ve never told Benji – my husband.’

  Chevannes nodded. His job had long since proved that everybody had their secrets. ‘We only want to talk to Mr Larsson. This isn’t about you or your family.’ But he couldn’t promise that her secret would be safe until he knew what it was.

  Laila nodded. She’d already said too much to hold back now. And she’d been waiting for this to emerge for a long time.

  ‘He sends me money,’ she said. ‘Every month, to my old bank account. It’s in my name before I was married – Hagstrom. It’s quite a lot and I’m saving it for Aya-Karin.’

  ‘Where does he send it from? Have you got any transaction records?’ asked Chevannes.

  Laila shook her head. ‘It’s all done by direct bank transfer. From a bank in Geneva – in Switzerland,’ she added, as if a Jamaican-American might not know where Geneva was. A sensible precaution with any American, thought Chevannes.

  She rose from the table and opened a drawer under the work surface. She rummaged through a pile of papers and extracted one sheet. Laila tore the header from the page and returned with it to the table.

  ‘Here’s the address of my bank and my account number,’ she said as she sat down. ‘They’ll give you all the details. Tell them to contact me and I’ll authorize them to give you the information you need.’

  ‘And that’s all – just the money?’ persisted Chevannes.

  Laila nodded. ‘I thought someone would come eventually,’ she admitted as she picked up her coffee mug again. ‘Will I have to give it back? I’ve kept every bit of it since it started arriving. There’s over thirty million dollars.’

  *

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted trip,’ said Marcia Fernandez, the chief administrator of the Sandler Cosmetic Clinic. ‘There is absolutely nothing in our files that predates nineteen eighty-seven. We’ve been asked about that before.’

  Haley allowed a sigh of disappointment to escape her lips.

  ‘We do get enquiries about Thomas Tye from time to time,’ offered Ms Fernandez. ‘But we’re a different sort of clinic altogether now. I understand the building was almost completely gutted before it was renovated. Then the Tye Foundation sold the property on to our organization.’

  ‘Any contact with the previous patients?’ asked Haley.

  The woman looked at her quizzically. ‘It wasn’t exactly the type of place to run an alumni programme, Miss Voss.’

  Haley’s irreverent and unruly imagination instantly assembled a fantasy scenario of former mental-asylum inmates attempting a reunion. What would they say to each other? She wondered again what on earth could have been so wrong with the five-year-old Thomas Tye to warrant his committal there.

  ‘Are any of the original medical staff here?’ Haley persisted, as she pulled her thoughts together.

  This produced a chuckle. ‘No, but I sometimes think I could use them,’ smiled Marcia Fernandez. ‘This might now be a cosmetic surgery clinic but we do get some strange types in, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘What about janitors, non-medical staff? Or administrators, secretaries, accountants?’

  ‘Miss Voss, it’s nearly thirty years since my corporation bought the building. There’s no one here from those days. I’m really sorry . . .’

  Haley put her coffee cup down, then rose. ‘Well, thanks for making time to see me,’ she said as she halted her data capture.

  At the end of the long gravel drive, Haley turned right towards Springfield and the 190. Her adverts among the Thomas Tye communities had elicited a particularly interesting response from an individual in Philadelphia. She had a long drive ahead.

  *

  Even though they had chosen a region that was not covered by any of the surveillance-satellite networks, they realized that sooner or later the scar would be noticed and, in due course, investigated. Accordingly, they designed the test so that the affected area would look like a long teardrop, suggestive of a gouge caused by a low-angled, burning descent. They also knew that once soil investigations began any meteor theory would be quickly discounted. But, given the absolute remoteness of the Western Amazon basin, they calculated that any such examination would happen many months later, long after their new service was launched and delivering its phenomenal benefits. Marsello Furtrado, the only native Brazilian with knowledge of the project, predicted it would probably be years before the Ministry of the Interior got round to sending an expedition out to such an inaccessible region.

  There had been arguments within the team about destroying even a comparatively small area of such an important ecological environment but, as the Director of Solar Focus reasoned, the Amazon basin occupied over two and a half million square miles and the relatively small area they planned to affect would regenerate naturally and regrow with the benefits of the invigorating, fertilizing nitrogen that would be released as acres of rainforest were turned to ash. The trial would also test the first-phase energy network at its most extreme range and Tom was adamant he wanted the data on what was possible at southern latitudes.

  So, on the same evening during which Haley enlivened her long drive across country by flicking through the channels on the satellite radio system in her rented car, eight square miles of Brazil’s vast tropical rain forest started to experience intense nocturnal sunshine. At first the daytime creatures of the forest re-emerged after a severely truncated night and resumed their activities, briefly meeting some of their nocturnal cohabitees as the latter grudgingly sought their shelters long before their usual order of business was complete. Birds sang and epiphytes near the top of the tree canopy opened their buds. But the heat continued to rise and, as the cloud cover sweeping down from the foothills of the Andes burned off, the continual dripping at the forest floor began to cease for the first time in over one hundred million years.

  Then the entire section of forest began to steam and a mist filled the gaps between the trees. For a few hours the dense tree canopy managed to protect the abundant and multifarious life forms beneath but, shortly after midnight, the highest layer of foliage started to crackle and burn beneath the tightly focused and magnified output of all twelve energy stations. The steam swiftly evaporated and, three hours before dawn, the lachrymiform target area was ablaze, its dehydrated, flash-baked foliage, liana and fauna erupting almost spontaneously as fierce concentrated beams seared through the burned-out tree canopy and reached to the ground.

  Watching on monitors fed by the Tye Argus satellite network, the DSF ordered a cessation shortly before dawn. As planned, the winds from the foothills began dispersing the smoke and the soaking wet of the surrounding jungle contained the conflagration whilst itself suffering only minimal collateral damage.

  Thomas Tye’s image appeared on the monitor. ‘Congratulations, Doctor,’ Tye greeted his Director of Solar Focus. ‘You will ensure no recordings of the test are filed, won’t you?’

  The small, highly paid and well-trusted team clapped enthusiastically. Their measurements, received from ground-level calorimeters that they had parachuted in, had transmitted results far better than expected before the instruments too were engulfed in flames.

  *

  Haley had arrived in Chalfont, a northern suburb of Philadelphia, just before midnight. She had prebooked a motel room and had found the inn, situated on the main street, with ease. Her appointment was not until eleven a.m. the next morning, so after a lie-in she had treated herself to an American breakfast – where they really know how to cook eggs, bacon and hash-browns, she thought as she enjoyed it.

  As she checked out she asked directions from the desk clerk. He recognized Miss Hattie Jones’s address. It would only take her five minutes. Haley took her time loading up the rental car and then, on a brigh
t, sunny Wednesday morning, she set off to visit the woman who had responded to her advertisement for fresh information about the great Thomas Tye.

  Understandably, her correspondent had been reluctant to disclose full details without discovering what was on offer. She claimed to have documentary information about Thomas Tye’s very earliest years, the period before he was institutionalized. In response to Haley’s e-mailed request for further background, Hattie Jones had written simply, ‘I worked at a clinic which treated Thomas Tye as a baby and I kept a copy of the records.’ Nothing Haley could say would get the woman to offer further evidence of her claim, and the old lady – Haley worked out that she had to be at least seventy years old – had refused even to name the institution to which she had referred.

  Haley found the street, then the house, without difficulty. She parked and walked up a short path to the low, single-storey residence. The other homes in the street looked respectable but, like the paintwork on this property, gently faded. She rapped on the wooden frame of the mesh outer door. When there was no answer, she tugged at the mesh door and it opened easily. Extracting her car keys from her purse, she tapped on the glass of the front door beyond. In a few moments she spotted movement from the hallway within and she allowed the mesh door to close once more. The inner door opened and a small, birdlike woman was looking up at her.

  ‘Miss Jones? I’m Haley Voss.’

  The woman pushed open the outer door and extended her hand. ‘Miss Voss, and you’re on time. So polite of you.’

  Haley smiled and took the wizened hand. She estimated that this neatly dressed woman was probably well into her eighties.

  Hattie Jones stepped back into her hall, allowing Haley to enter. She ushered her into a small living room and gestured to a Victorian grandmother chair that needed restuffing. ‘Sit down, sit down. The kettle’s boiled, I’ll make tea. My mother came from England. I know you probably haven’t tasted a decent cup since you arrived.’

  Haley smiled her thanks. That was true.

  ‘Don’t realize the water needs to be boiling to split the leaf, that’s the problem here,’ said Miss Jones over her shoulder as she disappeared.

  Haley took in the clean but faded room with its vaguely musty smells. She switched her VideoMate to record and put on her clear-glass viewpers. Then her host reappeared with a tray that looked far too heavy for her.

  Refusing Haley’s help, she lowered the tray onto a low table, then sat down and began to pour.

  Haley responded to her polite questions. No, she hadn’t been to Chalfont before, nor even to Philadelphia. Yes, she had visited the States before on several occasions.

  ‘I know you’re a successful writer,’ said Hattie Jones with a grin. ‘I’ve looked you up!’

  Haley smiled back. ‘Well, I hope this will be my most important book so far. My publishers seem to think so.’

  She was wondering how to prompt the woman to get down to business, but she needn’t have been concerned. Miss Jones rose suddenly, crossed to an old mahogany sideboard, pulled open a drawer and returned with a thick buff file.

  ‘So how much is my reward?’ she asked, suddenly very businesslike.

  ‘Well, that depends,’ replied Haley hesitantly. ‘I mean, it depends on what information you have to offer. I have a research budget, of course, and I . . .’

  ‘I understand.’ Miss Jones nodded. ‘You need to know what I have here. My nephew is a lawyer, over in the city, so I asked him about the best way to handle this.’

  She extracted a crisp white sheet of paper from the file and handed it to her visitor.

  ‘It’s a non-disclosure agreement, Miss Voss,’ explained the old lady as Haley studied the document. ‘Very simply, it allows me to show you what I have, but you aren’t free to use any of it until we have agreed terms. How does that sound?’

  It sounded very fair, and suddenly Haley’s heart raced. If this woman’s lawyer nephew considered the information sufficiently valuable to draw up this agreement, then it could be something very special.

  She smiled again. ‘This looks fine.’ She started to rummage in her bag, then looked up to find Miss Jones offering her a pen.

  Haley signed and dated the document and returned it. The old lady folded it, neatly inserted it in an envelope and placed it on the sofa behind her.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Where to begin? Tell me, have you heard of Professor Charles Eon?’

  Haley searched her memory. ‘No . . . I don’t think so . . .’

  ‘The sex doctor,’ prompted Miss Jones. ‘He was always on TV.’

  Haley searched again, but shook her head.

  Hattie Jones shrugged. ‘No, well, I suppose it was long before your time – back in the nineteen-sixties and -seventies. And poor Charlie was best known here, in the States, of course.’

  Haley nodded, waiting.

  ‘Charlie died last month, Haley – may I call you Haley?’

  Haley smiled her consent.

  ‘He was nearly ninety-five, and died a week before his birthday. There weren’t many at the funeral service.’ They was a silence as the old woman thought over those events. There she pulled herself back to the present. ‘Charlie was the Professor of Psychosexual Medicine at the University Hospital,’ she explained. ‘He founded the department in the 1950s, and I was his secretary for thirty-two years.’

  Haley smiled again, encouragingly.

  ‘I’m afraid some of the things we did . . . Well, Charlie was sure they were for the best at the time . . .’ Now she looked embarrassed, almost mortified. She folded her hands on top of the thick folder.

  ‘Well, that was a long time ago. Later on, Charlie sort of retreated from the world. I always knew he had a good heart, but the press were very cruel . . .’

  Haley waited as the woman fought some inner battle.

  ‘I always swore I wouldn’t do anything with this–’ she tapped the folder ‘–while Charlie was still alive. But now . . .’ She tailed off again, looking down, then up again, some internal decision made. ‘But it happened a very long time ago, nearly fifty years.’

  Haley nodded, silently screaming for Hattie Jones to get on with it.

  ‘Like I said, I was his secretary – well, secretary to the whole clinic, really. I had to type all the old files into the first computer they installed, and it took me months. I was instructed to trash all the paper files when I was through, but I didn’t trust that machine so I brought them back here for safety. Never did need them, though, I must admit,’

  She changed tack. ‘I remember the little boy, he was very pretty. But he was a classic case, like most of the others that were referred to Charlie. He’s become so famous now, hasn’t he?’

  Haley nodded once more.

  ‘I’d like to think it might help him . . . well, deal with things, . . . if his case was known. He’s never married, has he? So many of them got over it better once it was all out in the open. Some even got married . . .’

  Haley wanted to scream out loud. She wanted to tear that file off the old lady’s knees.

  Hattie Jones looked down at it again. Suddenly she thrust her hand into the folder, withdrawing a pile of yellowing papers and black-and-white photographs, and laid them on the cushions beside her. She leaned forward and handed the empty file cover to Haley. ‘Let’s start with this,’ she said.

  Haley took the empty file with shaking hands and read the printed headings and the handwritten entries:

  Family Name: Tye

  Forenames: Thomas, Richmond

  Date of Birth: 07/01/66

  Date of admission: 04/07/67

  Putative sex: Male

  Assigned sex: Female

  Assigned forenames: Thomasina, Rachel

  The former secretary lifted the pile of paper records and photographs from the cushions and placed them on her lap.

  ‘Now, what am I bid?’ she asked with a sweet, old-lady smile.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Aerospace

  Rep. R
obarts Calls on White House to Intervene In Tye Aerospace Experiment – ‘Satellites Could Be Weapons’

  By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter

  WASHINGTON – In a stinging attack on what he called ‘the failure of White House foreign and defense policies,’ House Minority Leader Ronald Robarts today accused the White House, the Pentagon and NASA of suppressing research which, he claims, has identified a chain of deep-space location satellites launched by Tye Aerospace, Inc. as having weapons potential.

  Addressing a House Judiciary Committee, Mr Robarts showed what he claimed was an edited extract of a Top Secret NASA/CIA report and urged the President and Secretary of Defense to be honest with the American people about the threat to the nation’s security posed by this chain of distant satellites.

  ‘NASA knows these aren’t simply a positioning system for the solar system but they won’t tell the people what they do know,’ he said. ‘There are fourteen deep-space vehicles in orbit above the northern hemisphere – all of them in solar-stationary orbits. Twelve of them are deployed above the night side of the Earth’s northern hemisphere, two are positioned sunwards of our planet. I challenge the White House and the Department of Defense to publish the full text of this report. These things could be weapons – the people have a right to know.’

  Following the hearing, Mr Robarts’s spokes-woman played down the more sensational side of his speech. ‘We’re not claiming that these are a definite threat, we are simply asking for the facts to be disclosed,’ she said. ‘We want to know why the White House has remained silent on this topic.’