Thirty Four Minutes DEAD (19 page)

“A project controller with a more irascible edge to them would have wiped one of you as a lesson to the others, maybe both of you for that matter. You two are damned fortunate that I didn't listen to advice along this line from some of my more - shall we say impetuous colleagues!

“Until we have broken our findings to the world, I want the pair of you to cease all fucking contact with each other, barring work commitments. If you trivialise our collective team spirit with your mating game prerogatives, I'll pull the fucking trigger myself! This time your security risk status did us a favour but if that hadn't been the case, Jess might have been breaking someone else's neck. You've been given a reprieve this time. Just make sure your future behaviour doesn't load my gun. Come on Mr Vain, you're going back to The Connoisseur. Marcia is going to finish her drink here and reflect on how fucking lucky the pair of you have been not to be going out of here with Lassiter!”

Leif Denison had provided a rude awakening for Vain and Levene, shattering their illusion of safety as far as their relationship was concerned. Denison had clearly established the threat that his two front-liners had been to project security, and his words had their desired intent as far as the installation of collective fear was concerned. As Vain journeyed back to The Connoisseur in the rear of the project leader's limousine, he had time to mull over the events of Alvettis. He regretted the
naiveté
that both he and Marcia had shown with regard to the power of the security embryo that hung over the MC project, as it seemed as though surveillance had followed the couple in their most intimate encounters. He thus realised that when the pair had thought their privacy was unchecked, they had a camera or a recording device chart the progress of their affair. This factor annoyed Vain, rather than make him feel guilty for his security indiscretions and it put the MC project rein handlers in a new voyeuristic light in his mind.

After his anger subsided, fear returned as he tried to recount what he had said to Levene about project developments and the leading figures that orchestrated them. He felt reasonably certain that unlike Levene, he had directly criticised Denison, Fray and Wheeler on occasions when the pair had met, and he now wondered what this power triad would have heard him say about them. Alvettis had been the most impressive security decision as far as Vain was concerned and he had to admire the perception with which the security section had anticipated Levene's choice of location in her Washington free time.

As the car approached the driveway to the hotel base, Vain thought about what Denison hadn't revealed. He tried to determine who had leaked project information to The Vanguard, and he wondered what fate awaited Lassiter's 'in the project know' colleagues. These were answers, which Vain would never receive - his security misdemeanour with Levene ensured that.

When Denison's party entered The Connoisseur, David Tavini greeted Vain in a show of typical exuberance.

"Yo Greg, good to see you, buddy. You gotta skip the cabaret pal, because I gotta take you through the conference set up details. Come on we'll take the elevator to the project rooms - we can talk there".

Tavini had preferred to stay in touch with the organisational details surrounding the Peace conference, during the free time period, as had Ko-Chai who met them when they disembarked from the elevator. Upon greeting Vain, Mishimo echoed Tavini's buoyant enthusiasm. He even managed to take the verbal lead away from Tavini for once, when they entered Vain's suite.

"The set up makes for quite a show, my bossman! With speaking delegates, front line aides, back line interpreters and the plethora of body guards, over two thousand people have to be accounted for. This figure doesn't include our own MC project staff or conventional security forces and so you can envisage the magnitude and sheer volume of the event".

Tavini interjected.

"We've finalised the ten first world nations who are going to put their provision cases forward Greg. The ten are going to be the first nations to take the global media entourage through the cradle support system and their vault extensions are going to be recorded during their twenty minute verbal introductions. As the delegates speak, we'll access their thoughts buddy and when Leif gives us the nod halfway through presentation ten, our findings will be illuminated on the huge laser screens directly behind each speaker’s podium. Obviously we're going to need you to check the sensory positioning of the padding that is encased in the headgear that the speakers will wear. We've placed the line adjacent to the microphone wires that link the speakers to their respective interpretation crews. Our reception devices are out of sight in a section on the third floor overlooking the arena - we've got space either side Greg, keeping our security without looking too fucking suspicious in the process. The other third floor sections are all media annexes you see and we're hiding amongst them!”

As Tavini paused for breath, his eyes became very excited. His athletic frame moved closer to Vain and Tavini's voice became hushed in comparison to the volume that accompanied his utterances thus far.

"The best news as far as we're concerned surrounds three of the ten speaking nations. We would have been mad to turn the potential gun on ourselves here, and so the Brits and us will have a 'no show' as far as speaking is concerned, but we reckon some of the big guns speaking have ulterior motives surrounding their supposed cradle based assistance. What these guys say could be a fucking mile away from what they would really like to do with the countries they have offered to help! The French are on show. After all the conference is their fucking idea, but we reckon their good guy image could be a bluff.

“The French are supposedly going to help Guyana with their depressed economy and raw material management, but our research has indicated that a 'clean sweep' take-over plan may lie behind their offer. Think about it, Greg. They already have control of French Guyana, and only the Dutch owned Surinam lies between what they already control and Guyana itself! A territorial clean sweep would give the frogs one hell of a presence in South America. Sure they could milk the metal processing and timber raw materials of these countries, but we reckon their interest in Guyana is more closely linked to the testing ground potential of the tropical environment prevalent in this region of the world. The French have been stepping up their production of organic germ warfare compounds - living weapons that contaminate through parasitic regeneration. One of their latest efforts ‘Guerre Ex 20’ is a real fucker, breaking down tropical vegetation through an injection of mutant spores that essentially pollute localised oxygen in a region. If people come in contact with the stuff, they're dead in seconds if they're in close proximity, and thus the French need a paradise to play around with as far as testing goes".

Vain begged a question of Tavini.

"Why do the French need Guyana as a test base though, Dave? Can't they get a control programme working in their own back yard?”

"Only through simulation, Greg. You see the nature of Guerre Ex 20 essentially means that it needs a 'living' environment to breakdown. Yeah, a simulated environment would give them a good effect idea, but they are looking for grand scale living landscapes to wreck for want of a better phrase. They have got things off to a fine art here. Guerre Ex 20 only fucks up a location in tropical environments, and another creation ‘Zed 29’ only devastates in high altitude 'thin air' locales. The French have been under scrutiny since they fucked up in Fiji with their atomic testing a few years back, and although Gericault promised a radical reduction to their military programmes when he got elected last year, we know that they've intensified their germ warfare capabilities to an awesome level!"

Vain was intrigued by the possibility of a hidden agenda being the reason for France initiating the peace conference. His love of French style and art had always been tempered by his distrust of their approaches concerning military research, and he was also suspicious of the far right political leanings that Gericault had demonstrated on occasions. Tavini turned his attention to the second of the three nations that the MC project ranks doubted as far as integrity was concerned.

"We've also got strong suspicions with regard to Germany's offer of support to Burundi. The unstable nature of the military coup-determined Government in this country has meant that the country is a mere shell of the potentially flourishing nation it could be. The Krauts have offered to help stabilise it politically by offering their services as an arbitration type mediator. They have also designed a regenerative tourism programme, and a landmine clearance scheme is apparently ready to implement now! The Germans have already promised that they wish to nurture the autonomy of Burundi as opposed to transplanting their national culture on the place but the package seems too fucking good to be true doesn't it, Greg? You see, back in the late eighties we had some of our research guys out there bluffing on the archaeology front. Their real role was to ascertain whether 'heavy metal' deposits existed in three key regions. They drew a blank, but four years later we know an undercover German party scored a hit, finding quite a rich vein of uranium and slivers of caesium as well. Things went quiet after that because different tribal factions started to use the area as a fucking battleground, but we think that in the light of our findings, the German support offer could be a serpent's kiss rather than a moral blessing!”

Vain put a question to his team members.

"The territorial French case seems very legitimate fellas, but this one is a bit lacking in terms of validity. I mean Germany are an affluent nation - if they wanted substantial heavy metal reserves, they could import South African supplies without skirmishing for them in a war torn outpost! I mean a fourth Reich isn't exactly around the corner, is it? Why would the Germans want to stockpile stuff like uranium nowadays? They're businessmen, not warmongers! The South American Neo-Nazi strongholds make Germany passive in comparison".

Vain's Korean team member offered a wry smile before answering his front line leader.

"How right you are, Gregory. The Germans are indeed businessmen and that is exactly why Burundi appeals to them. They don't have any master race sentiments motivating their offer of support here and they would indeed provide the forms of assistance they have offered, but when Burundi starts to recover economically they would offer the country a bargain it would find hard to refuse".

"A bargain?”

"Yes my leader, a bargain. You see, Burundi would flourish over time if all goes to plan, and Germany would be seen as a pivotal force in the new prosperity. When Germany prepares to pull their support forces out of Burundi, once prosperity starts to arrive, the alarm bells would sound amongst the Burundian people. The Germans would have a whiter than white image after the decade we feel it would take to turn the country's economic fortunes around, and the home country would extend retention offers to their European mentors. Burundi would realise that ten years of growth wouldn't kill a vendetta culture outright, and they would fear that the old civil war evils would return to haunt them. Germany would be seen as the key to the maintenance of a new peaceful equilibrium, and a retention of their support services would be of paramount importance. Then the Germans would ask the Burundians if they could have the trading rights to any heavy metal reserves they could locate in certain sections of the country. It would now be the right time for the Germans to farm the fields of Uranium, which they had kept secret from the Burundian people back in the eighties. The bargain would be struck and Germany would have a lethal chemical trading post in the process! They would sell the metals through to the highest bidder - without risking fatherland contamination! Oh yes Gregory, the Germans are good businessmen!”

Vain was taken aback by the intricacies his two-team members knew about the nations speaking at the forthcoming conference. He started to realise that whilst he and Levene had been lusting around Washington, his team had been briefed on the gameplan for the conference. He felt guilty initially, although this feeling soon turned to fear. Denison had made Vain realise that both he and Levene had been bait to corner the Vanguard press section, and now in his absence both his front line colleagues had been party to information that would have been conveyed to him first in the past. Vain felt uncomfortable, even expendable to a degree. None of his team had mentioned his liaisons with Marcia, but the rather distanced tone from Ko-Chai and the curious intensity in Tavini's eyes made Vain anxious to return to the ranks of the front-line team fold. The quantity of decent background information that the pair had fired at him in a matter of minutes accompanied the inquisitor-type eye contact, and Vain felt on the rack by their combined effect. The flood of information had rendered him silent, and Tavini saw his chance to enlighten Vain with regard to the final speaking nation that had aroused the suspicions of the MC project research unit.

"China is the other nation that could well be double-talking on the podium, Greg. They have initially offered to assist Laos with agricultural regeneration. Laos is supposedly a Left Wing Republic at this moment in time, but exist under satellite government control really, with their Chinese neighbours effectively making political decisions for them. In this form of mock autonomy Laos are just a puppet for the Chinese, and the offer to help with agricultural policy was no great surprise. The statement that followed it sure as hell was, though! China is going to call for a 'Western' alliance to help consolidate the economic future of Laos. The alliance would be based in Laos, with all the support nations being actively involved. The Chinese say that their role would be equal to the support of Western nations, not overriding in its capacity.