Thirty Four Minutes DEAD (20 page)

“Mishimo and I have been surprised to say the least, at the Chinese calling for a Western aid presence so close to Chinese territory. The economical research and planning that the Western alliance would undertake would inevitably mean uncovering flaws in some of the Chinese-regulated decisions taken for Laos in the past. This form of global exposure would bite China hard. I mean, the economic hardship in Laos is really their work - their dirty fucking laundry! China is up to something, pal. Calling for Western assistance isn't exactly in their nature, is it? Would you want a dozen ideologically-oppositional neighbours sitting on your garden fence, examining your errors and offering corrections - would you fuck!”

After Tavini had finished detailing the suspicions surrounding the Chinese conference support offer, Vain took his leave of his two front line team members and headed for his own hotel quarters. Ko-Chai had given him some diagrams to survey concerning the conference layout, and he had been given the listing order of the ten 'speaking' nations. These countries would initially make a concise twenty-minute speech that would succinctly detail the offer of support that they were intending to make. They would also establish why they had sought to offer help to the third world country, which they had selected.

All mentor pairings had been suggested and agreed upon some months back, and thus the chief function of the world peace conference was concerned with the illumination of mentor-based help to the widest possible audience. In effect the WPC was hopefully going to be an event with a seminal capacity. It would set mentor support in motion and it would act as a catalyst for other similar conferences to ensue. The hidden agenda of the MC project ranks would radically alter perceptions surrounding the event, if their suspicions were given visual credence on the wrap-around laser screens, once they were activated.

Denison had decided to record the 'heightened visuals' of the speaking countries as soon as the first nation began their twenty minute verbal address, but the images were to be withheld from screening until halfway through the final speaking nation's address. The Spanish were subsequently the chosen nation who were going to be interrupted by the laser screen HV playbacks. At a sign from Denison, the screens behind the respective speaking podiums would be activated, and the mental imagery of those who had spoken would be displayed for everyone to see. Denison initially expected a brief confusion to reign but when speakers were confronted with images from their own 'mindsight', a partial realisation of the mind probing that had taken place would follow.

Tavini and Ko-Chai had been briefed by Denison with regard to the organisational details surrounding the conference, but Vain had been shut out to a level, as the MC project leader wanted to make him feel the pinch that ignorance generated. He still realised that Vain was one of his projects' most prized human assets, but the affair that he and Levene had fallen into had slightly tarnished Vain's image in Denison's eyes. The affair had ironically helped Denison and the MC project as a whole, because the pair's good looks and powerful positions had helped flush out the 'chasing clique' at The Washington Vanguard. Lassiter's greed-motivated secrecy had been uncovered by her pursuit of the illicit project lovers, and subsequently her discreet press-unit was expunged quite easily.

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Vain was still feeling less informed than his front-line colleagues when he waited for the conference to commence, two days later. Although the event had been a French initiative, the United States had effectively put the idea into motion, and subsequently the American President - Mr C. M. Delavoy, was the individual who was going to open the proceedings. This Western figurehead was clad in ignorance as far as the operations of the MC project were concerned, and as he began his opening address, his quest for Global peace moved the ranks of those who were similarly ignorant to the hidden conference agenda.

Vain surveyed the Presidential speech from the confines of the MC project accommodation on the third floor. The tiered structure of the floors gave the venue a quality that was similar to a huge operatic venue, and as the President closed his introduction, a crescendo of applause rose upward to the press annexes where the MC project cohort lay in readiness.

The applause continued to a consistent level as the speaking nations took their respective turns on the podium and their mindsight imagery was logged in line with Denison's instructions. No one pre-empted the recorded HVs by recalling material before Denison's signal, and although Leif was elsewhere in the building, Mr Fray was there to outlaw any contravention of his leader's wishes. Some of the project ranks had wanted to check their findings as things progressed, but Denison had been adamant in his refusal, claiming that the MC project would win either way. If all the images endorsed the verbal promises, then at least mindsight capture could be illuminated, and if some images were at odds with verbal intentions, as they suspected with France, Germany and China, then 'forked tongue' treachery could be exposed.

Vain glanced down at Delavoy while the crowd heartily applauded the Italian offer concerning third world support. As the presidential hands entered into the ovation, Vain inwardly marvelled at the ultimate power that the MC project commanded. He was looking at a naive figurehead who was ignorant of the hidden intensity of the occasion, and although other American Presidents had been shunned by security power organisations before, Delavoy had never been approached by either the CIA or FBI with regard to MC project work. His name would not be seen as a pivotal presence when the history books told the story of the Washington peace conference, and he would be relegated as a discarded entity.

The nations under suspicion came to the podium in their allotted order, and the bevy of interpreters translated their respective intent. The French representative made a passionate speech with regard to the raw material expertise his country could offer Guyana, and the German speaker detailed the arbitrary strengths his country could offer Burundi. The Chinese delegation involved a triad of speakers who slightly overran their designated duration; such was their apparent enthusiasm for seeking Western collusion with regard to the future of Laos. After nine nations had made their speeches, the Spanish made their way from the back of the conference hall toward the podium, and Leif Denison entered the hive of expectancy that contained his MC project cohort. All eyes looked toward the powerfully built project leader, and after formal greetings were briefly exchanged a pregnant silence pervaded the control room.

The Spanish delegate began her speech and everyone waited for Denison to fire through the 'all-important command'. A droplet of sweat trickled down Mr Voight's temple but the man remained undeterred, his eyes looking into the oblivion favoured by those in deep thought.

Ko-Chai eyed the clock, willing it and Denison to find a mutual time to set the laser screens in motion. He then started to tap out a discordant rhythm with a pencil on a table edge situated in close proximity to him. This act incurred a piercing stare from Tavini and Mishimo subsequently ceased the nervous affliction. Gregory Vain's eyes fixed on the spectacle-taking place beneath him. His palms were moist, and as he willed Denison to act, thoughts of his children briefly raced through his mind. Vain looked toward Denison's direction, just in time to see his leader deliver a blow to the ‘Vation’ unit that activated all the laser screens. As he did so, Denison let forth one of his lines of immortality.

" With this act I thee wed. Nations - here's the future!”

As the screens started to render the stored mindsight images, the crowd was initially confused with regard to the interruption. The Spanish delegate stopped in mid-sentence, and as she surveyed the screen behind her interpretation entourage she became pale; seeing her words of support converted into the imagery she had envisaged. This delegate was the only speaking individual who could witness her own mindsight from the outset because she spoke on the master podium and could thus take in all the delegate screens in unison.

The other speakers could see imagery on the screens behind their fellow speakers straight away, but their screen was situated behind them and thus the visual side-show on offer initially distracted them from looking behind their own section. This uneasy equilibrium did not last for long, and a staccato cry of outrage uttered by the German speaker set chaos into motion.

The images that caused the German delegation to get upset didn't tally with their definition of support for Burundi. The HVs collected from the German speaker endorsed the suspicions of the MC project, showing convoys of articulated military vehicles with German insignia adorned on their livery. The vehicles displayed the identity of the various 'heavy metals' that the Germans had discovered in Burundi. The screen then cut to goods trains with the same type of cargo, and shortly after the trains came a series of images which caused the German delegation to stand up and point accusing fingers in the direction of Delavoy. By screaming abuse in their native tongue, they generated a frenzied pandemonium in the space around their section. The images which caused such fury concerned portraits of extreme depravation. Whilst the German speaker had preached his words of support, his mind had logged the real agenda Germany had with Burundi, and his subconscious had supplemented this vision. Rows of wasted maltreated Burundians watched the export trains speed through stations, and these images were the symptom of Germany's real mission in this African country.

The Burundians were spectrally thin in a fashion very close to the imagery surrounding famine and some of them looked as though they were about to fall where they stood. In effect the Africans looked as though they had their life-force sucked from them and one image in particular kept reoccurring fighting the others for dominance. This image featured a frozen close up of the face of one of the Burundian onlookers. This portrait involved a young male Burundian, about ten years of age, who smiled when the trains passed, but this smile illuminated bleeding gums and his eyes were caked in a residue designed by malnutrition. The lad looked as though death would be a blessing, because his smile was forged in lost faculties and the delirium associated with those who are victims to wasting illnesses. The German speaker Werner Schinkell had made what seemed to be a morally sound support speech but his mindsight had betrayed the German offer - right down to the bleeding gums of Burundian persecution.

Whilst his colleagues screamed abuse at Delavoy, Schinkell just sat down shaking his head in disbelief. He knew that somehow, someone had read his mind!

As the clamour of agitation grew, the various security units in attendance shifted uneasily in their assorted positions, and the Burundian delegation started to project lines of suspicious enquiry in the direction of the Germans. Some delegate nations remained quite calm amidst the escalating chaos, and as more nations became aware of their own laser display screen, some speakers started to take the lead with regard to explaining the source of the images behind their delegation. The Italians were one nation that remained calm despite being a country of vivacious extremes with regard to their political reputation. Their calmness was achieved because they hadn't got a hidden agenda like some of the other nations, and thus visual truth married verbal promises. The most composed delegation were the Chinese - one of the nations under suspicion!

This nation sat in uniform silence as they viewed the consternation around them. Their own laser screen highlighted a consistency of HVs despite the fact that three speaking-delegate minds had been explored. The illuminated imagery showed Chinese politicians, shaking the hands of Western politicians and representatives of Laos were given a central visual prerogative. Crops in healthy abundance appeared on the screen, as did images surrounding education and medical developments. Each group of images featured the presence of China, the home nation and Western support, just as China had verbally promised. The MC project suspicions concerning this country were subsequently unfounded, as China had not hidden falsehoods within their words. China had nothing to hide - their words had been their bond!

The nation that protested most vehemently was France. Her idea lay in tatters at her feet because of the lies embedded in her offer of support to Guyana. When the French delegate's visuals appeared on the respective laser screen, not even the most suspicious MC project members could have prepared themselves for what met their eyes. The French speaker had sold the raw material support France offered Guyana very effectively, imploring the South American nation to embrace the European nation by agreeing to a mentor partnership that would set a seal for a permanent alliance. The speaker's voice quavered slightly as they spoke of the economic hardships Guyana had got used to living with, and as the delegate drew near the close of their address, tears of apparent empathy ebbed down their cheeks. It had been a speech which had won over the assembled nations and the global media entourage who were present to record the events surrounding the conference. The French received the loudest applause because they initiated the idea underpinning the conference, and because their chosen speaker injected so much passion in their oral delivery. When the supporting HVs hit the screen, the German visuals looked almost tame in comparison.