by Hammond, Ray
Joe nodded. It was crystal clear. But absurd.
‘Remember, each one must think it is a one-off personal deal for them. There must be no suggestion that you are buying elsewhere. We may never have to exercise those options, but I want them all in place.’
‘We’ll have to serve notice on the Tye Corporation, sir,’ he objected. ‘They can block such a move in dozens of ways.’
‘Where is Tye incorporated, Joe?’
‘In Hope Island, sir, but . . .’
‘Our lawyers say the EUUSA notification rules apply only to corporations that are lex domicilii legally resident, in regulated territories. Hope Island isn’t one. When Tye moved his corporation out of Delaware, he escaped taxes and regulation but he also gave up the protection of the national governments that run EUUSA.’
Joe had no idea whether Chelouche was right or wrong. But he knew that at least the Securities and Exchange Commission would have to be notified, as it was when any holder’s stock rose above five per cent of issued shares.
‘We’ll have to submit a 13-D to the SEC, sir, that’s the rules.’
Chelouche regarded him silently from under his dark bushy eyebrows.
‘OK, OK, I know, I know,’ sighed Joe. ‘The World Bank makes the rules. But even if I could get the stock, even if we could build a majority voting position, do you realize how much money those options might cost? The banking operation alone would be trillions. Then there would be the poison parachutes: every board protects its members that way. They have agreements with the company that if it becomes subject to a hostile takeover they receive such huge compensation packages that it makes any such move ludicrously expensive.’
‘It’s only money, Joe,’ said the world’s banker.
*
Calypso was standing surrounded by children, many of whom she knew, all of whom knew her. She was an honorary macoumère to many and official godmother to two of them. Tommy clung to her hand apprehensively. He had never seen so many children before, all of them shades of brown and black. There must have been forty or fifty of them and at least half of them seemed to be related to his Calypso. They danced and sang and ran around the party.
‘Miss World,’ they called, ‘Miss World,’ for that was how their parents talked about her.
Calypso was the tiny island’s most famous export and her brief success as a beauty queen fifteen years earlier still meant far more to the population than her later achievements as a doctor. Every time she visited, she was given this escort of laughter. She realized she would have some explaining to do to Tommy.
They walked through the small town of Abraham’s Bay and past the old mission schoolhouse where her father had taught. Calypso skipped off the road and peered in through the windows. A class of the more dedicated Mayaguanian children had their heads down over their books and were writing in silence. She stooped and picked Tommy up so he could see.
‘This is where I went to school,’ she whispered as he gazed wonderingly at normality. ‘My father used to be the teacher.’
They had not been noticed and Calypso put her finger to her lips, signalling for Tommy and the other children not to disturb the young scholars inside. They continued through the small town until they reached the outskirts beyond and then followed a dirt path that wound through a grove of loblolly trees. They emerged at the beachfront beside a blue-painted stone cottage surrounded by a well-kept garden. The sound of hummingbirds and cicadas competed with children’s shouts and laughter on the sand.
Calypso smiled and waved at them as she led Jack and Tommy up the short path to the front door. Calypso had bought this cottage for her mother fifteen years ago, when she had first started to earn some significant money from her modelling and sponsorship activities.
The day-carer opened the door with a smile and Calypso led Tommy into a bright, white-walled interior. Mrs Browne was dressed specially for the occasion and sitting upright on the dark sofa. She was small and pencil-slim and wore a neat powder-blue suit with a navy blouse. Calypso smiled: her mother still had style. She stood up as Calypso crossed the room to hug her. The elderly lady reached up and lovingly touched her daughter’s hair.
‘And who have you brought with you?’ asked Mrs Browne, turning around.
‘This is Tommy,’ said Calypso. ‘He’s my friend.’
‘Hello,’ said Tommy uncertainly.
The old lady reached out a sinewy hand that Tommy shook.
‘Welcome to Mayaguana, Tommy,’ said Mrs Browne ceremoniously.
‘Thank you very much,’ replied Tommy with boyhood gravitas.
To Jack it all seemed slightly surreal.
‘And this is Jack,’ said Calypso. ‘He’s also my friend. He works with me on Hope Island.’
The old lady looked up and squinted with her fading eyesight. ‘My, you have brought a good-looking man to my house,’ she laughed.
‘Hello, Mrs Browne,’ said Jack as he took her hand. He suddenly realized he was being introduced to his girlfriend’s mother – if Calypso was his girlfriend. He turned to look and he saw a mischievous smile hovering around Calypso’s mouth. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable.
‘Sit, sit,’ ordered their hostess. ‘We’ll have tea in a minute.’
Calypso sat down at one side of her mother on the firm sofa, and Tommy on the other. Jack found an upright chair near the door. He felt reassured that Pierre and Stella had followed them discreetly through town and would now be in position at the front and the back of the house.
‘And how old are you?’ Mrs Browne turned to her young guest.
‘Seven,’ answered Tommy hesitantly. He wasn’t used to conversation with strangers.
‘Do you go to school?’
Tommy nodded shyly. Then he remembered what Calypso had told him about her mother’s eyesight. ‘Yes, well, I’ll be going again soon, won’t, I Calypso?’
‘Yes, you will,’ affirmed Calypso. ‘I think Tommy’s ready to attend full time.’
Her mother looked towards the kitchen, where her day-carer was assembling cups and plates for afternoon tea. Calypso could smell freshly baked johnny-cake.
‘I’m Jed,’ said Jed, filling any silence as he was supposed to.
‘Oh, my manners!’ said Mrs Browne, peering along the sofa in puzzlement. ‘You’ve brought a friend, Tommy. And are you going to school as well?’
‘I’m a caterpillar,’ Jed explained.
There was a short silence as she attempted to digest this information.
‘It’s called a Furry, Mum,’ explained Calypso. ‘A toy you can talk to.’
‘He’s my friend,’ affirmed Tommy, clutching the caterpillar even closer.
‘Ow, that hurts,’ complained Jed.
‘Don’t harm him, dear,’ said Mrs Browne anxiously.
Tommy laughed at the idea. ‘He doesn’t really mind. He doesn’t feel anything. He just says things like that.’
‘Mayaguana is the most easterly of the Bahamian islands,’ offered Jed. ‘There are about three hundred people resident on the island and it remains almost wholly unspoiled.’
‘My,’ marvelled Mrs Browne. ‘You do know a lot.’
‘Mayaguana is the original Indian name for the island,’ continued Jed, undaunted. ‘It is a paradise for sailors, boat owners and divers because of its extensive anchorage and coral reef During the year temperatures vary between nineteen and thirty degrees Celsius. Friendly and inexpensive accommodation can be found at the Abraham’s Bay Inn, in the island’s main town.’
‘He does know a lot,’ agreed Calypso. ‘Don’t you think Jed knows a lot, Jack?’
‘He does know a lot,’ laughed Jack. ‘I’ve thought that before.’
‘Shut up,’ Tommy hissed to Jed.
Mrs Browne started to laugh and they all laughed with her. Jed promptly fell silent.
‘We’ve brought a toy pet for you too, Mum,’ said Calypso.
She bent to pull a package from her bag lying on the floor. She leaned across her mothe
r and handed it to Tommy to make the presentation.
‘This is Roger,’ said Tommy, holding the box out shyly.
The elderly woman took the box and opened the lid. Calypso had deliberately ruled out gift-wrapping in order not to spoil the moment. She watched her mother lift out the ball of warm fur, and quietly removed the box from sight.
‘You say hello to Roger,’ suggested Calypso.
Mrs Browne began stroking the CatPanion.
‘I’m Roger,’ said the cat in a soothing voice. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Let me show you around the garden,’ murmured Calypso to Jack and Tommy. ‘We’ll leave Mum alone with her new companion for a while.’
‘See you later, Roger,’ called Jed as they left.
*
Deakin was calling the emergency meeting to order. Almost forty section heads of Operation Iambus were crowded into the conference room on the eleventh floor of the UN Secretariat building. The UNISA Exec was perched on a battered projector stand.
‘OK, just how interested is Washington becoming in the Tye Corporation?’ he asked. ‘Let’s put two and two together and see what we get. Marv . . . what do your sources in the White House say?’
Marvin Girdlong, a former Chief of Staff at the White House, rubbed his day-old facial stubble and studied the notes on his DigiPad. It had been Marvin’s research that had prompted Deakin to call the meeting.
‘Hendriksen was right,’ he began. ‘There’s been no official announcement but it looks like the Chief is going to attend the party. They’ve had to reschedule a visit by the Prime Minister of Israel and two fund-raising dinners have been postponed. The Secret Service has already started to re-roster for that weekend. Oh, we also hear the First Lady’s cancelled a charity appearance in New York.’
Deakin nodded. Marv’s DC sources remained the best, even though all Washington knew that he had ‘defected’ to the UN.
‘Anything else?’
‘Only a rumour, but they say Jane Treno has invited Tye to Washington, for discussions. Two weeks before the party takes place.’
Deakin snapped his head up. That was new. The Attorney-General herself was inviting Thomas Tye to visit DC! In Washington terms such an invitation was close to an imperial command. Tye was still an American subject, even though he also held a separate Hope Island passport. For reasons known only to the Department of State, he had not been asked to relinquish US citizenship when his island’s sovereignty had been recognized.
‘I only heard that just before this meeting started,’ explained Girdlong, as if apologizing for springing a surprise on his boss. ‘It’s not confirmed but once again it’s whispers and lots of calendars being rearranged.’
‘OK,’ pondered Deakin, turning to the attentive audience seated around the large conference table. ‘The President accepts a jaunt to a tycoon’s anniversary party on Hope Island and meanwhile Jane Treno invites Thomas Tye to drop by for a discussion. Any ideas?’
‘It will be about the LA traffic mess,’ stated Martha Rose, one of the international lawyers, authoritatively. ‘I hear the Tye attorneys are playing real hardball. I’ll bet the administration is going to lean on Tye personally to make an interim settlement. It will be the old one-two: Treno will be tough with him in Washington – threaten the Tye Corporation’s US interests, perhaps a domestic antitrust action, perhaps talk about pulling the company’s government contracts, et cetera – and the President will be all smiles and backslapping for the cameras at the party once the interim payment’s announced. California’s going to be even more marginal next year. It could go Republican and the Wilkinson campaign people will do anything to stop that.’
Deakin sipped his coffee, his umpteenth cup of the day. It was now late evening and, even as he raised it to his lips, he tried not to drink too much. He would never get to sleep this way. He nodded. Rose’s analysis was logical.
‘Yes, the LA thing is big enough to go all the way up to William Wilkinson,’ he conceded. ‘But could it also be anything to do with this Russian deal? Have we learned anything more about that?’
Magda Nezhdanov, the senior Russian Federation analyst, gave a Slavic shrug. ‘Everyone in Moscow is talking about it, but nobody knows anything for sure. Some say the Tye Corporation is developing real estate, others say it’s an agricultural deal. Something big has been signed, that’s for sure. And President Orlov’s attending this celebration as well.’
‘Can we all go too?’ shouted Olliphant, a young and utterly brilliant British perception-adjuster from the far end of the table. He was planning the campaign to realign the public’s view of Thomas Tye once a course of action was decided upon.
Deakin held up his hand. ‘Doctor Chelouche has sent me an interesting fax,’ he told them. There were smiles around the table. None of them had yet got used to sending paper faxes again – even ones scrambled with one-time security codes. ‘Moscow is offering to buy back Russia’s debts, at a discount.’
‘Which debts?’ asked Libby Klinkhamers sharply. She was an international economist for the UN but one who still found time to teach as a visiting professor at Harvard.
Now Deakin had their attention. ‘All of them,’ he said simply. ‘IMF, World Bank, Bank of Redevelopment and Construction, OECD grants, EU bonds, US loans. The whole damn lot. They’re trying to get them rolled up together and they want to settle them, in hard currency, at a sixty-four per cent discount inside thirty days.’
Libby had been tapping on her VideoMate as Deakin was speaking. Like everyone else on the team, she had had to allow Lynch and his technical support people to disable all the network and external storage capabilities of her unit. The UN computer support staff were busy adapting one of the building’s wiring looms to provide a totally internal and insular network protected by physical firewalls, but until that happened even office-to-office network communication was banned.
‘With interest rolled up that’s almost a trillion US dollars,’ she breathed. ‘Even if they got that discount it would be . . . three hundred and sixty billion. In hard currency, you say?’
Deakin smiled. ‘I think we’ve just found out what Tye did with all that cash he raised on the markets a few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘So what has he bought?’ He looked around the room. There were only shrugs.
‘For God’s sake, not the few old nukes they have left?’ asked Chevalier, the group’s senior military analyst.
‘No, definitely not,’ asserted Deakin. ‘That would be a turnoff to every one of Tye’s shareholders and supporters. He’s maintained a strong stance against everything nuclear. What do the intelligence services say?’
James Soames, the British-born liaison officer working as linkman between UNISA and the world’s intelligence services, shrugged in turn. ‘Less than nothing, Ron. They’re telling us there’s nothing on the radar as far as the Federation is concerned.’
‘What about this Phoebus research project?’ asked Deakin. ‘Did Congressman Robarts really have something or was he fishing?’
‘NASA says not, CIA says not,’ reported Soames, ‘Pentagon says not, NATO says not, EU Defence Agency says not. All damn worrying.’
The looks around the table said it. There was something up and the UN wasn’t being told. It was back to the bad old days of distrust between the individual members and their global representative body. But why?
‘OK, three urgent tasks for us,’ announced Deakin. ‘One, what does the Justice Department really want with Tye? Two, what deal has the Tye Corporation done with Moscow? Three, what does NASA or the CIA have on the Phoebus Project that they won’t share with us? Steal it, extort it, buy it or beg it. Lean on every diplomat in this building, crawl into every little lobbyists’ crevice. Let’s get that information. I’ll talk to the SecGen tomorrow and get him to talk directly to Washington. We are the United Nations, ladies and gentleman, and we won’t be stonewalled by any of our individual members, no matter how powerful they may be.’
Chapter Nineteen
&
nbsp; ‘Touch me and you can make a difference’ said Thomas Tye, giving the camera his most earnest look. The set was designed to look like a gentleman’s study, and he sat behind a desk. But his customary open-necked white shirt and tied-back hair banished any sense of formality. Tye reached for a globe on the desk, spun it slowly and pointed to a spot. In the background began a soft, instrumental rendition of ‘It’s Our Planet’.
‘Ethiopia is a nation of seventy million people in East Africa. Approximately sixty per cent of them are starving. There has been no rain in the lowlands of the southern part of the nation for six years. Each year the harvest has failed for nearly thirty million people who depend upon it. Famine is widespread.’
The image of Tye’s face dissolved to show him standing in a desert, wearing a dust-stained beige safari suit. ‘This land is the oldest nation on earth – it is the cradle of human evolution. It is from here that our ancestors walked, paddled and sailed out of Africa to populate our world.’ He squatted and picked up a handful of earth, allowing the dry soil to run through his fingers. ‘But today the lush savannah has become dust. We have abused our planet and this is the result.’
Then the picture cut to Tye standing in an Ethiopian village. A girl about eight years old was holding his hand, staring stoically ahead.
‘This is Biya,’ he said to the camera. ‘She has no family left and she has lost her eyesight from trachoma, a viral condition exacerbated by the effects of malnutrition. She has never seen, or felt, rain.’
As he told his viewers more about the ravages of drought and famine, the picture changed to a montage of starving children, dried-up crops and lines of people queuing for food on the pediplain. The corporate anthem was now a glissando of sweeping strings, an emotive accompaniment to the sombre images.
‘The Tye Corporation can change things here, but we need your help,’ he said over the pictures.
How strange, thought Haley as she watched this v-mail that had just arrived. She’d never seen Tye make a personal appeal before. She could guess that he must have been aching to get back inside his air-conditioned trailer and slip into an antibacterial mask.
