The Trikon Deception

16 AUGUST 1988 BATH, ENGLAND

The mist was heavy enough to drive the tourists into the shops and pubs, but not so heavy that walking was unpleasant for a man accustomed to English summers. Sir Derek Brock-Smythe crossed Pulteney Bridge, his patent-leather elevator shoes tapping smartly on the stone pavement, his double-breasted chalk-stripe suit maintaining its razor creases despite the humid air. Bath had been the city for natty dressers ever since Beau Nash established it as the capital of polite society in the seventeenth century. Sir Derek, the nattiest of all despite his diminutive stature, was perfectly at home in his weekend retreat.

Harry Meade, not so dapper, lumbered ten paces behind. He was sweating beneath his black turtleneck and tweed sports coat, and his shoulder holster dug into the sheath of burly muscle curving under his armpit. His feet were swollen in his rubber-soled Clarks; he had been walking most of the day.

Sir Derek descended the stairway on the east side of the bridge, gallantly tipping his bowler to a pair of elderly ladies making their way up the stone steps. Meade passed the stairs, lingered momentarily at the head of Argyle Street as if wondering whether to continue away from the city center, then turned back and followed Sir Derek’s path. If anyone had noted the pair of them they would have thought of a husky prizefighter trailing after a dapper tap dancer.

Sir Derek stood with one hand balled into a tiny fist and the other drumming its manicured nails on the top of the stone parapet. The Avon was swollen from several days of rain and skimmed across Pulteney Weir without breaking into foam, so silently that he could hear the soft strains of the waltz being played by the band in the gazebo on the green across from the cricket field. Meade took up a position five feet away and studiously avoided looking at Sir Derek. Across the river, the market shops were crowded. A sightseeing boat moved south with the current. It would be forty minutes before the queue for the next departure began to form.

Meade pulled a bag of stale bread from his jacket pocket. He nervously tore a slice and tossed the pieces into the water.

“I understand there was an incident aboard Trikon Station yesterday,” said Sir Derek, his eyes following the bobbing tufts of bread.

“A theft of American computer files, apparently by one of the Japs. All for naught, Sir Derek. The files were protected by a bug, and the American station commander cut power to prevent the bug from entering the computer system. They never found the thief, but at least it’s been made clear that he can’t access the data without wiping out the whole station.”

Meade stole a sidelong glance at Sir Derek and searched for some hint of a reaction. There was none.

“What else?” Sir Derek snapped.

“Well, uh…” Meade always thought he was sufficiently prepared for these meetings. He would pace his hotel room and rehearse buzz words to jog his memory. But Sir Derek’s brusque manner always struck him speechless. His reports, as neat and as clean as one of Sir Derek’s suits, became rumpled tangles of stuttered sentences.

“There was a bit of a row,” Meade said, seizing upon an innocuous tidbit of gossip. “The American scientist and a Japanese tech in the station wardroom.”

“I am not interested in barbaric behavior,” said Sir Derek. “What about Dr. Ramsanjawi?”

“The loss of power ruined an experiment,” Meade reported, his memory jogged. “He made a great howl about having worked a month to create a microbe that could neutralize seven different toxic-waste molecules. It was completely destroyed.”

Sir Derek permitted himself a smile. This incident could not have occurred at a more propitious time. Fabio Bianco was due to address the directorate of the European arm of Trikon International at its annual meeting in Lausanne within the week. Bianco was prepared to boast of Trikon’s success. He was prepared to predict that Trikon International, with its ability to coordinate the new technologies of North America, United Europe, and Japan, could rid the world of the pollution spawned by centuries of misguided old technology. In short, he was prepared to drive the last nail into Great Britain’s economic coffin.

Now Bianco had, in the Yank vernacular, egg on his face. The incident aboard Trikon Station was worthy of headlines in tabloids from Fleet Street clear around the world to Tokyo and New York. The Nips and the Yanks were taking pokes at each other. It would be months, perhaps years before they cooperated again, if indeed they ever had since the beginning of Trikon. And to top it all, Chakra Ramsanjawi had convinced everyone that the most complex toxin-devouring microbe ever engineered by man had vanished in a power outage ordered by a Yank astronaut.

Meanwhile, a team of scientists in a Lancashire laboratory, using data gleaned by Ramsanjawi and transmitted in code directly to Sir Derek, were already testing a microbe capable of neutralizing fourteen distinct toxic-waste molecules. Britain would beat the foreigners at their own game.

No, not Britain. England. Not the Welsh nor the Gaels nor the damnable Irish nor any of the mongrels that had been allowed onto this blessed isle. England would triumph over them all.

Sir Derek excitedly patted the damp stone of the parapet. Common men, preoccupied with banal concerns, saw events as merely happening willy-nilly. The visionary could sense the stirring of distant events long before they crossed the horizon. This evening, in the soft summer mist, Sir Derek positively heard a rumble. England would no longer be the outsider, the also-ran.

“There is one more item,” said Meade. “About the shuttle.”

“Delayed by Hurricane Caroline, I know,” said Sir Derek.

“Trikon has added another scientist. An American.”

Sir Derek looked at Meade for the first time. “Who?”

“Name of Hugh O’Donnell.”

“Well, who is he, man? Out with it.”

“We don’t exactly know, Sir Derek. We haven’t had the time to investigate him thoroughly.”

“Is he there to work on the toxic-waste microbe?”

“We assume so,” said Meade. “We understand he is employed as a staff scientist for Simi Bioengineering, in California.”

“What makes this O’Donnell gentleman important? His employer is hardly on the cutting edge of genetic engineering.”

“We don’t know, Sir Derek.” Meade noticed that his boss seemed to be staring through the brown surface of the Avon. “Simi is a member corporation of the American arm of Trikon.”

“I am fully aware of that,” said Sir Derek. “Are you attempting to portray this new scientist as some sort of mystery man?”

“We don’t know enough about him to be certain of anything,” said Meade. “We are following your orders to keep you apprised of all developments on Trikon Station. We wanted you to be aware of O’Donnell.”

“Dr. Ramsanjawi should be advised and kept informed of anything you uncover about this man.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“Is there anything else?”

Meade shook his head, then realized that Sir Derek was not looking at him. He dropped the last pieces of bread into the water. “No.”

The bread caught the current and dipped quickly down the shallow steps of the weir. A young couple swaddled in yellow slickers walked past and stood at the dock for the sightseeing boat. They paid no attention to the two men.

Sir Derek watched the bread swirl into the distance. He watched it long after it disappeared from view, long after Meade’s presence faded into the misty evening air, long after the sightseeing boat appeared under the Parade Bridge, The Avon drained the lands where, more than eleven hundred years earlier, a young King Alfred rallied a band of Saxon warriors and defeated the Danes at Ethandune. Without that victory, there would never have been an England, and Sir Derek—if he had been born at all—would have been speaking Danish. The peril facing this last fragment of the Empire was no less great. Economic power had been squandered by a xenophobic government. But he, with a band smaller than Alfred’s, would restore England to its preeminent position. And make millions of pounds for himself in the process. Sir Derek left his place on the river and retraced his steps across Pulteney Bridge. A freshening breeze lifted the shops’ awnings and the lowering sun edged through a seam in the cloud cover. A pale yellow glow seeped into every corner of the city. Bath seemed alive.

Five years earlier, when it became apparent that Great Britain would separate from the European Community, Sir Derek had invited Chakra Ramsanjawi to his weekend estate in the Mendip Hills. The two men had not seen each other in several years, and Sir Derek was both surprised and gratified to see how paunchy Chakra had become. Chakra was dressed in a rumpled gray pinstripe suit that Sir Derek noted had been inexpertly pressed. The vest was stretched across his belly. His slick black hair was parted in the middle in a caricature of a style in vogue among the fashion trendsetters of Savile Row.

Sir Derek was barely able to keep his distaste of Ramsanjawi from showing on his patrician face. This Indian fakir, this would-be Englishman with his ash-gray skin and his pretenses of gentility. This would-be brother whom his misguided parents had foisted on him.

The two men had cocktails on an enclosed veranda in virtual silence, dined at opposite ends of the long table in the main dining room, then retired to the fire-lit parlor for brandy and cigars. They stood before the fireplace and stared at the flames licking the blackened mouth of the chimney—the true English aristocrat and the dumpy Indian hopeful. Chakra held his brandy snifter with his pinkie aloft. His other hand was half dipped into his jacket pocket, thumb exposed.

“How is it you are supporting yourself and Elaine now?” asked Sir Derek. His nose pinched at the cologne vapors swarming around his guest.

“Research.”

“I see,” Sir Derek said. “For whom are you conducting this research?”

Chakra mumbled something unintelligible. It did not matter. Sir Derek already knew the answer.

“I have a proposition for you,” said Sir Derek.

“I need none of your propositions.”

“Chakra, let us speak frankly. More than anything in the entire world, you want to return to Oxford.”

Ramsanjawi took a quick sip of his brandy. There was no need to respond. The truth of Sir Derek’s comment was obvious.

“My proposition is that you resign your present post, whatever it might be, and apply for the position of chief research coordinator at Ciba-Geigy’s laboratories outside of Basel.”

“They already refused to hire me after—”

“Apply, Chakra. I assure you, the position will be yours. There are ways for these things to happen.”

“I know,” said Chakra. He leveled a hard stare at Sir Derek. His eyes were two black dots in narrow yellow slits. “I know the way things can be done—when you want them to be done.”

Sir Derek let the comment pass.

“Ciba-Geigy is not Oxford,” Chakra said.

“It is your first step back,” said Sir Derek. “Allow me to explain. If you have been reading the newspapers… sorry, that’s right. You no longer read newspapers. If you have been paying attention to the telly, you undoubtedly realize that the United Kingdom is threatening to pull out of the EC. I think this is a foolish course, and I have labored long and hard to convince the Prime Minister and Parliament that participation is in our best interests. But none of the dolts has the wit to listen to me. I predict that by the year 2000 our economy will be in a shambles and our once preeminent place among nations will have been lost.”

“So what?” said Chakra, almost vehemently.

“I know you don’t feel that way,” said Sir Derek. “You love England as much as I, almost.”

“You think that?”

“Almost.”

“What is your proposition, Derek? I want to be reinstated to my professorship at Oxford. You tell me to work in Switzerland.”

“Simply this. I trust you are familiar with Fabio Bianco.”

“He is a microbiologist of great reputation,” said Chakra. “And he has the soul of a crusader.”

“His crusader’s soul is currently ascendant,” Sir Derek said. “He is attempting, with a significant chance of success, to create a consortium of multinational corporations that will pool their research capabilities in order to solve various environmental problems facing the world through the use of genetic engineering. The work will be so sensitive and so potentially hazardous that it will be performed on a space station.”

Ramsanjawi’s eyes widened slightly.

“The Ciba-Geigy board of directors fully intend to vote in favor of joining the consortium,” Sir Derek continued. “If you are chief research coordinator of the Basel lab, you will most likely be assigned to this project.”

“What do you want, Derek?”

“What I want is to be the father of a new empire. Since that cannot be, I will settle for saving us all from going to hell in a hack.”

Chakra smirked. “And you propose to do that by sending me to Switzerland to work for a research lab that may become part of a research project that has not yet begun.”

“Will participate in a project that will begin,” corrected Sir Derek. “It will be a coordinated effort to create a supermicrobe. I want that microbe.”

“For Britain?” asked Chakra.

“For England,” said Sir Derek.

“For yourself, you mean.”

Sir Derek’s nostrils flared slightly. “I am already a very wealthy man, Chakra. This will make me even wealthier, it is true. But I do this for England, believe me. I want to save my country despite the obstinate idiots in charge of its government.”

Chakra knocked back his brandy. Instantly, a servant appeared and whisked the snifter out of his hand.

“And my cooperation will lead to my reinstatement at Oxford?”

“If at all possible.”

“Now it is merely possible,” said Chakra. “My banishment was not merely possible.”

“You brought that on yourself.”

“Bah!” said Chakra.

“What other options do you have? Seriously.”

Chakra turned on his heel and walked toward the doorway. Sir Derek noted that the years had added a rockiness to his smooth gait.

“You know,” Sir Derek called, “Mumsy—that is, Lady Elizabeth— encouraged me to become an economist.”

Chakra froze at the doorway.

“It was after you declared your intention to become a scientist. Her reasoning was that economics was far enough removed from science that our egos would not clash. Wouldn’t she be gratified to see us cooperating so swimmingly.”

Chakra walked out the door without turning around. Sir Derek knew the words had stung.

“I’ll wait to hear from you, Chakra,” he muttered.