A Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons story
By Marion Woods
Chapter One:
Boston, May 2036
09:45 a.m. and the elevator door slid back with a
quiet hum to reveal a tall, fair-haired man, his handsome face spoilt by an
expression of petulance. He stalked across the open plan floor
towards the heavy wooden doors and pushed through without speaking to any one of
the half dozen employees in the office. Several of them exchanged wary glances
and began to calculate how long it was before they could legitimately go to
lunch.
At the far end of the plush, carpeted enclave he
had entered, an older man, slightly taller, whose fair hair had turned to a
silvery-white, looked up from the conversation he was having with a dark-haired,
bespectacled woman, and gave a smug grin.
“Good afternoon, John.”
John Svenson glared back and muttered, “Hello,
Dad.”
“Oversleep?” Stefan Svenson asked, noting the dark
patches beneath his son’s blue eyes and the bloody nick above his collar from a
too hasty shave.
“Sleep?” John gave a hollow laugh.
“What the hell’s sleep? Do you know
how many times we had to get up to that little… tyrant last night?”
Stefan plucked a number out of the air. “Four.”
“Four? You
are
joking! Seven… seven times Sarah
went and tried to settle him down.
In the end she stayed in his room and they slept on the divan. If you think I look bad, you should see
Sal.”
“But I’d guess she doesn’t have a series of
important meetings today? Never mind, they say the first three years are the
worst…” Stefan commented, successfully hiding his amusement.
His son groaned and turned to look at the woman at
the desk. “A coffee, Miss Jarrett, if you would be so kind.”
“Certainly, Mr John.”
She stood and walked towards the small kitchenette.
“Seriously, Dad, I can’t go on like this for much
longer.
I’m just not sleeping nights.” John ran his fingers through his fair hair
and grimaced. “No-one tells you about times like this before you have the kids.”
“Teeth,” Stefan reflected sagely, “are a pain on
the way in and a pain on the way out.”
John Svenson gave his father a look of abject
misery and threw his briefcase onto a chair.
“It’s no good, I have told Sarah, we have to get a Nanny – a nurse,
whatever…even if the kid won’t sleep nights, we still have to.
So let’s pay someone to do the waking up for us – we can afford it.”
“And what did Sarah say?”
“Oh, she went on about maternal instincts and
nurturing. She seems to think she’s failing him if she isn’t there 24 -
7 and it will scar him for life. I
tell her that’s nonsense. He’s too
young to care who’s rocking the crib.”
“I bet that went down well,” Stefan muttered.
“She accused me of trying to solve every problem
by throwing money at it.” The bewilderment was obvious in John’s voice as he
nodded thanks for the coffee and took a gulp.
“Well, it’s her first and she’s young,” Stefan
reasoned. “Why don’t you ask your mom to talk to her?
Maybe we could have Adam over a weekend or something?”
John looked at him with dawning hope. “Would you?
D’you know how long it’s been since we… had some time alone?”
Stefan grinned.
“About nine months, at least…”
His son had the grace to blush slightly.
Stefan’s grin broadened.
It had been no surprise to him or his wife that their son was out of his depth
with a young wife and child.
John had been bursting with pride when the child had been a boy, but the reality
of having a baby in the house had come as a complete shock to the newly-wedded
man. As long as the child - a blond-haired
moppet – had lain quietly, gurgling on cue and disappearing whenever he needed
feeding or changing, John had had nothing but enthusiasm for the whole business. Now the boy was teething, making
his misery felt throughout the house and disrupting the lives of his parents by
exercising his healthy lungs day and night, and John wasn’t so keen.
“I hoped to get to work on the Tompkins papers
today; do you reckon this meeting will last all morning?”
Stefan nodded. “There was an e-mail from Tokyo – but I guess you won’t have seen
that. Take the time to read it – I want you up
to speed before the meeting starts.”
John
nodded. “Okay.” He glanced at Miss Jarrett. “Would you please get me information
on an agency for nursery-maids, or nannies?
I want to get this sorted before I drop with exhaustion.”
“What
about Sarah?”
“She’ll thank me for it, once she’s had a good night’s sleep again,” John said.
“You
reckon?” Stefan pursed his lips and kept his doubts to himself. John would have to solve his own problems now.
By
late afternoon, the meeting was over, and the Svensons – father and son – could
feel satisfied that they had made the best deal they could have expected. Stefan looked across at his son
with something akin to awe; John was a tough negotiator and his command of his
subject was total. He had been the
driving force in the discussions and it was to him that the majority of the
credit for the deal belonged.
He was, Stefan reflected, a natural at
it and the thought of leaving the business in his hands gave his father no
concern. Under John’s control,
SvenCorp could only grow and thrive.
However, he knew his son, and the man was almost exhausted.
John always put 100% of himself into whatever he was doing – at work or at home
– and it worried Stefan to see his son’s tiredness. Surely, he thought,
there must be some way to
alleviate the pressure on John?
As he
wandered back into his office, he remembered a letter he had received a few
weeks ago, and asked his PA to find it for him.
It had been from the son of his cousin, Nils Svenson, who had finally settled
down somewhere in upstate New York and married a local woman. They had one son – Eric – a few years
younger than John. Stefan had last
seen the child when he was about four years old and he had attended his cousin’s
funeral. Nils – always a reckless
driver - had managed to get himself killed in a car accident, leaving his wife
and young son with a heavy mortgage and a pile of debts.
Stefan had intended to help the widow and her child, but his offer had been
rudely rejected. Nevertheless, he had set up a trust for
the boy – ‘for college fees’ as he told the belligerent widow, and left the door
open for a future rapprochement. He
had heard nothing from either of them, although the money from the trust fund
had been drawn on when the boy reached eighteen.
He must be about… twenty-three years old now, Stefan
thought, as he took the letter from the folder Miss Jarrett gave him, and hopefully, he has more
sense than either of his parents and will let bygones be bygones.
There
had been a ‘feud’ between the two branches of the Svenson family for the best
part of a century and it had been centred - as these things often are – on
money.
SvenCorp had always been a family firm, growing slowly but inexorably over the
decades from the thriving trading company Stefan’s grandfather had inherited. Stefan knew his own tenure of the
company was a fluke – his father’s elder brother, Carl Svenson, had sold his
stake in the company to his younger brother, Henrik, in order to pursue his own,
ultimately unsuccessful, dreams in business.
Once Henrik Svenson had absolute control of the family business, he had
laid down strict rules designed to prevent Carl’s children from demanding a
share in the company’s wealth.
Henrik, who had never seen eye to eye with his feckless brother, was not a very
forgiving man – a trait that had, unfortunately, resurfaced in his grandson –
John.
In
the years that followed, Henrik had turned the company around, moving from trade
into finance with a deftness that astounded those who did not know him. He had made his fortune, and the
Svensons moved from a comfortably well-off family into the league of the
super-rich, in three generations.
Stefan knew his own limitations; he was a competent and easy-going man, for whom
the cut and thrust of the business world held only a minor appeal. But his father had taught him well and his grasp of business
was instinctive and rarely at fault.
He had steered the company through some hard times and it had emerged stronger
than ever, becoming an influential player in the world of finance.
Outside
of work, Stefan preferred what he considered to be a modest enough life-style,
but it was a ‘modesty’ few could afford.
He devoted himself to his other interests and the welfare of his small family.
He had raised his two children to be hard working, honest citizens, and
recognised in John the makings of a businessman who might outstrip even his
grandfather’s achievements. His son
certainly had the same single-mindedness so reminiscent of the late Henrik
Svenson.
Therefore, it had come rather as a bolt from the blue when his serious-minded,
twenty-three year old son had met, and fallen hopelessly in love with, the
teenage daughter of the chairman of a small firm SvenCorp was doing business
with. It had been an even greater surprise
when – sometime later - John had suddenly announced he was getting married to
Sarah Ellis. Expecting a long
period of engagement, Stefan had been astounded to find the date was a matter of
weeks away and the news that he was to be a grandfather – which followed hot on
the heels of the wedding - had taken his breath away. But by the time his strapping grandson arrived, some six
months later, he was beyond surprising.
He
shook his head over the vagaries of family life and turned his attention to the
letter in his hand.
Carl’s grandson, Eric, had recently graduated from a reputable business school. He had contacted Stefan,
ostensibly to thank him for his generous support during his education, and to
congratulate his cousin on the birth of his first grandson.
He concluded his letter with the statement that he would welcome a chance
to become involved in the family firm, should there be any capacity Stefan might
think it suitable for him to undertake. Stefan had been considering the matter, without reference to
John – for whom the regulations laid down by his Grandpa Henrik were law – and
it now seemed to him that Eric could lift the tedious and the mundane from his
gifted son, without compromising the ideal of family. John could not carry the load alone, and his sister and her
husband were not interested in the company.
Until Adam was of an age to assist his father, Eric could be a useful
adjutant.
Stefan resolved to invite the man in for a meeting and dictated the reply there
and then.
~oo0oo~
One
week later Eric Svenson arrived at the SvenCorp offices and presented himself at
the reception desk. The
security guards looked him up and down with some suspicion; he did not conform
to the family blueprint. He was of
average height, stockily built, with a pale complexion liberally covered with
freckles and hair which had an undeniably red tinge to it.
His eyes were a strange mixture of hazel-green and grey. He wore metal-rimmed glasses, a good
quality suit and brightly polished black shoes, yet still managed to look a
little dowdy and uncomfortable.
They sent him up to the executive offices with benign smiles, which to Eric’s
nervous eyes carried more than a hint of amusement.
Stefan was rather surprised at the sight of the man he met at the elevator door
and half-wondered if it really was Eric.
“Welcome to Boston, Eric,” he said with a convivial smile, courteously extending
his hand.
“It
is very good of you to see me… Mr Svenson,” Eric faltered, shaking the proffered
hand.
“Call
me Stefan – we are family, after all.” Stefan gave the young man another
reassuring smile as he led the way into his office. “After I received your
letter, I began to think it was time to heal this breach between us all. What may have had relevance to our parents and grandparents
should not carry the same weight with us and I would like to think that we can
move on. I was sorry to hear
that your mother had passed away last year… she must have had a pretty bad time
of it. I always hoped she would get
in touch with me again, once she had recovered from the shock of your father’s
death… I was sorry she did not.”
Privately, Eric thought he ought to be grateful his mother had not contacted
them.
Stefan continued, “My son has the day off today – it’s our wedding anniversary,
mine and Karen’s - and these things need to be acknowledged – at least they do
if you want to avoid an earful from your wife!
However, I expect him here shortly with his family, as we are all going
to lunch – Karen is meeting up with
our daughter, Kristina, and her
husband, and meeting us at the
restaurant. Perhaps you would like
to join us?”
“I
don’t want to intrude…” Eric gave a
thin lipped smile as he glanced around the office with its understated plush
décor of leather chairs and solid wooden desks and the confident assertion of
wealth in the modern art on the walls.
He suspected the suit his cousin was wearing cost more than every item of
clothing he possessed. He had spent
his last savings on the new suit and shoes he was wearing… shoes that were
rubbing his heels raw. He knew he
had no legal claim to any of this wealth, but he couldn’t help thinking that,
out of fairness, Stefan ought to give him a good job and a decent salary. After all, he was a Svenson too.
Stefan
waved the doubts away with an expressive gesture.
“I would like you to meet my son – John - and then, if you like the idea, the
two of you might work together? I
know John is in need of some assistance, especially right now, with the
youngster disrupting everything so much.
If you and John can see eye to eye, then I think we can sort out the
remuneration package to everyone’s satisfaction, Eric.
SvenCorp likes to think of itself as a generous employer.”
“I am
sure it is, Stefan. That would give me the greatest satisfaction. I look forward to it.”
Stefan sat back in his chair and skilfully began to make the young man talk
about himself. Eric could not be expected to know how
expertly his cousin used his charismatic personality to gain an advantage over
his business associates in the course of brokering deals. Many a businessman had discovered that
what had sounded like a mutually
beneficial contract, when Stefan explained it over a friendly luncheon, was not
quite as mutual as he remembered once it was
signed and Stefan had moved on to his next business opportunity. The strange thing was that no-one ever
really blamed Stefan for this inconsistency.
It was almost as if they were unwilling to believe that such an open and
charming man might be deliberately
skating over the less palatable parts of any deal.
This
was partly due to the contrast of doing business with Henrik – and latterly,
John – Svenson, where it was more akin to being hauled up before a particularly
severe and single-minded headmaster: woe betide you if you did not know your
facts. No-one was ever surprised that a
contract with SvenCorp negotiated with Stefan’s father or – increasingly – his
son, was weighted in favour of the finance house.
Between them, the Svensons made a formidable combination, and SvenCorp was
flourishing on the strength of it.
Charming the rather naive Eric was child’s play to an old hand like Stefan, and
it was not long before the young man relaxed and unwittingly revealed far more
than he realised or intended.
It
did not take long for Stefan to evaluate the man before him.
He was earnest, not overly ambitious and a little lacking in the
self-confidence that had always formed such a solid bedrock in the Svenson
psyche. Accordingly, he had an
uneasy feeling that he ought to be of more consequence than he knew himself to
be. He was never going to rival
John’s flair for business, but he would be a safe pair of hands and, as such,
would probably be an ideal man to manage the long-running accounts that
cluttered John’s busy schedules.
Pleased that he had found a solution to the problem of his son’s heavy workload,
Stefan considered that now all he had to do was talk John into accepting the
help he had procured for him. He
grimaced inwardly at the thought that he would have to pull rank on his son –
John often needed convincing that he couldn’t do everything himself.
They
gradually became aware of the distant sound of disruption beyond the heavy doors
of the office. With a genuine
display of delighted expectation, Stefan went to open them, beckoning Eric to
follow. Eric trailed after him, trying not
to hobble.
The
inner office was full of secretaries cooing over a baby, who was crawling with
determination towards the executive washroom.
“Adam,” Stefan called in delight, and he hunkered down, smiling, as he opened
his arms to the child.
Without slowing, the baby changed direction and headed for the familiar voice. Stefan swept him up and swung him over
his head as his grandson chortled and tried to grab his hair.
“Hi
Steve, mind him today - he’s in hair-pulling mode. He’s very proud of himself
and seems to want to celebrate by yanking everyone’s hair out at the roots.” The
speaker was a young woman, who looked coolly elegant in a practical shirt-dress
and low heeled court shoes. She was tall and slim and her long, light-brown hair
was prudently pinned back in a plait.
Stefan acknowledged the warning and smiled at her.
He had had profound doubts about the viability of his son’s relationship with
the young Sarah Ellis, but he had to acknowledge that, despite her youth, Sarah
had made a success of things, notwithstanding the less than ideal circumstances
that had resulted in their marriage.
What was more, she managed her irascible husband with a deftness that was
not easily apparent. John adored her and was under her thumb to an extent that
would have surprised many of the businessmen who only saw the hard-headed
tycoon. Stefan liked her immensely and had no doubt that she was good for his
son. Now she came across and kissed
her father-in-law’s cheek, rescuing her son from his arms.
“What’s he got to be so proud of?” Stefan asked her with an amused smile, as he
caught the baby’s hand and pretended to chew on the fingers, sending the little
boy into a paroxysm of giggles.
Sarah
Svenson gently opened her son’s mouth and pointed to the tiniest white tooth
poking through the gum. “We have
another tooth!”
“Just
one?” Stefan laughed.
“I
know, after all the aggravation we’ve had you’d expect the full set – but no,
just the one. All the fuss must be
because these teeth are going to be just the best teeth we can possibly have,
aren’t they, Babes?” She grinned
and kissed her son’s reddened cheeks.
The
baby squirmed and when she put him down, he set off again at speed in the
direction his father had gone. As
he approached the door to the washroom it swung open and half a dozen female
voices shrilled, “Mind the baby!” as John Svenson did a quick double step and
just managed to avoid his son.
“Adam,” he growled, as, unperturbed, the baby pulled himself upright by holding
onto his father’s trouser leg, squealing with delight as he bounced up and down
a few times on his sturdy legs. Suddenly he let go, sat down heavily and rolled
over to start crawling away, back to his laughing mother.
“John,” Stefan called, over the murmured admiration for his grandson’s antics,
“come and meet Eric. This is my
late cousin Nils’s son. I’ve
invited him to lunch with us all.”
John‘s head went back and antagonism flooded into his eyes, turning them an
icy-blue. He gave his father a covert glance and received a bland smile from
Stefan. Unwilling to challenge his father in
view of the assembled staff, he obediently shook Eric’s hand, dropping it as
soon as he could, as if scalded by the touch.
Feeling very much on the periphery of this family group, Eric studied the men
his mother had always insisted were robbing him of his share of the fortune that
was his by rights.
John
was an even more impressive man than his father, with a hawk-like face and
piercing eyes, currently boring into Eric with a hostility the younger man found
unsettling. He had serious doubts
that he would ever be able to ‘see eye to eye’ with such a man. However, if he was to get a position in
the company he would have to work with him – Stefan was quite clear about that –
and Eric had every intention of working for SvenCorp, and sharing in the
good-life his cousins enjoyed.
Sarah
didn’t know the full story of the feud between the Svensons, but she knew enough
to deplore her husband’s reaction to the unprepossessing newcomer. She felt a surge of pity for the stranger.
Like
most people, she had found the Svensons intimidating at first, as had her
parents. They had been delighted when their firm
won a lucrative contract from the finance house, and had happily accepted
Stefan’s invitation to the company’s Independence Day party, which had
accompanied the signing of the deal.
It was there that she had first met John and their lives had become inextricably
linked.
Her
parents had not been enthusiastic when John had first asked her out, arguing
that, at fifteen, she was way too young to be seriously involved with a
twenty-three year old man. But John
was good-looking and sophisticated and she’d been flattered both by his
persistence and by his attention.
She had argued that she had the right to date whom she liked and John had
promised he would take care of her – so what was the problem?
Her parents, faced with the obstinacy of both the young people, had finally
capitulated, and, on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday, John had started
taking his young girlfriend for wonderful nights out on the town.
Rather to Sarah’s surprise, he had behaved with scrupulous self-control towards
her and it had not taken her long to realise that she held all the cards in
their relationship. With all
the heartlessness that only an egotistical teenager can employ, she had abused
this power over him, treating him very casually, until even John’s iron
determination had faltered, and reluctantly, he had told her that he was going
to end their relationship, because he felt that she did not really care for him.
Feigning an indifference she did not feel, Sarah had tried to pass the
separation off as unimportant, but once he had gone she quickly
began to appreciate how much she missed having him around, and not only
because the expensive nights out and generous presents stopped. She missed his company, the way he made
her feel special and cherished in his
presence. It had been a hard lesson
to learn, but she was a quick study and soon realised that she might have made a
disastrous mistake.
They
had not spoken for six months, during which time she had struggled to
concentrate on her school work and spent far too much time moping about at home. Finally, her mother persuaded her to go
out one evening to a friend’s party and quite unexpectedly John had been there –
looking rather out of place amongst the carefree party-goers. She had seized the
chance to approach him, although she had had little expectation that he would
welcome her company. She’d been
surprised at his reaction and the warmth with which he had greeted her and the
hope had begun to grow that they might be able to rekindle their relationship.
When he had agreed to ‘give things another try’, she had been ecstatic.
John,
who had taken the whole experience very badly, was far more guarded about his
feelings this time, so it had taken months before she had plucked up the courage
to tell him that she was very passionately in love with him. Even then, she had not been sure he still felt the same way
about her, until he admitted that he had missed her so much he had taken to
going to parties where he stood a chance of meeting her, in the hope she might
be there and might want to see him again…
She
looked at her husband as he stood beside his father, and sensing her gaze, he
turned to her with a smile and a look in his blue eyes that sent pleasant
shivers up her spine…. She had
first seen that look on the night they had confessed the true depth of their
feelings for each other - the very same night that they had… she felt herself
blushing and to hide her embarrassment, she turned to their guest and said, with
expansive friendliness,
“Hello, Eric. I’m Sarah - John’s wife – I am very pleased to meet you.”
Her
smile was so warm that Eric felt a blush sweeping up from his neck. He took her hand and shook it in a daze. The young woman smiling at him was one
of the most attractive he had ever seen.
She had a joie de vivre about
her that contrasted with her husband’s sombre personality.
How could someone as charming as her ever have agreed to marry a
man like John Svenson?
he thought and suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the
baby on the floor under a desk investigating the electric wires from a computer.
“Mrs
Svenson,” he stammered, “I think you had better stop the baby doing that….”
Sarah
swivelled, and with a cry of dismay, rescued her son from under the desk. “Say hello to your cousin Eric, Adam,”
she encouraged the disgruntled child, holding him out towards Eric. Adam grabbed Eric’s hair and tugged. “Stop it - you naughty boy!” she chided,
and untangled the hair from the surprisingly tenacious fingers. “Sorry, Eric,” she smiled
apologetically.
“It’s
okay,” he lied, basking in her approving smile.
“He’s a bonny little chap, isn’t he…?”
Across the room, Stefan was justifying his decision to his still censorious son. “I hoped you and Eric might work
together on all these new accounts we’ve been building.” He turned to draw Eric
into his conversation. “Now that the situation in Europe has been resolved,
there’s plenty of work there for the shrewd businessman, Eric. European companies are looking to break
into the American markets – and we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of
that movement.”
“Steve,” Sarah pleaded, turning to include her husband in her reproach, “we are
going out to lunch as a family - not as a business.
The first one that mentions work, from now on, can change Adam next time
round - and I mean it!”
“She
does, as well,” John said, with obvious pride in his wife.
“And, believe me, that is not a job you want to volunteer for.”
“Let’s go, or we’ll be late.” Sarah hefted Adam onto her left hip and gave Eric
another brilliant smile as he stepped forward to take the changing bag from her. “Why, thank you, Eric. You see, John, that’s how you could be
useful around the place. Then there
would be no need for us to have a nanny…” she added, obviously continuing an
ongoing argument
John
gave his cousin a sharp glance and purposefully moved to his wife’s side. “Lead
the way, Sal.”
Eric
Svenson followed them out with a feeling that maybe things in his life were
looking up after all.
Chapter Two:
Boston, March 2053
The atmosphere at the breakfast table was edgy.
With their mother away visiting relatives in California, there was no-one
to stand between the children and the unpredictable temper of their father.
John Svenson was reading the business pages of the paper as his children ate
their breakfasts in wary silence.
Only Peter, sitting closest to his father and
trying to read the sports pages lying beneath his father’s elbow whilst
spreading peanut butter on his toast, seemed unaware of the impending storm.
Katherine was wolfing her muesli, hopeful of getting away before the
hurricane hit, whilst little David was nervously swirling his spoon around in
the chocolate-flavoured milk in his bowl, inadvertently splashing the
white-linen tablecloth with brown freckles.
The door opened and Adam strolled in.
Kate sighed and hoped her father was too pre-occupied with the latest business
scandal to notice the time.
Her eldest brother sat down opposite her and poured himself juice from the jug,
reaching for a slice of toast with a wink at her. She gave him a nervous smile
and rolled her eyes towards their father.
Adam raised an eyebrow in question and Kate made a surreptitious
throat-cutting gesture with her hand and nodded towards him. Her brother grimaced in response
and wondered what he had done now to be in the firing line.
“Good morning, Adam,” John said curtly over his
paper, “nice of you to join us.”
“Good morning, sir.
Sorry I’m late…”
“You missed the arrival of the post,” John said
levelly. “There is a letter for you.”
Adam nodded and swallowed his mouthful of toast.
“Really?” he made an exaggerated search of his place at the table. “I
don’t see it…” John held up a long
envelope and waved it. “Ah, that’ll be why then. Davy, pass me the letter will you, please?” He nudged his
youngest brother, causing the spoon to slip and a whole tsunami of chocolate
milk to cascade over the tablecloth.
“David!” his father growled.
The little boy’s face crumpled.
“Hey, it was my fault; I jogged his arm.
S’okay, Davy, use this napkin to mop it up. It didn’t go on your clothes, did it? Can’t have you going into school all chocolaty, Mom’d flip!”
David turned his blue eyes on his brother and gave
a grateful smile.
“Come on, Davy, let’s get our stuff ready,” Kate
suggested. “Permission to leave the table, please, sir?”
John growled assent and the two youngest Svensons
raced for the door as decorously as they could.
The remaining three family members sat at the table in silence.
Peter took another slice of toast.
“What are you planning to do today, Adam?” John
asked.
“I have classes at 2.30 and then I thought I might
go over to see Billy Cabot. He’s
got a new car…”
“Before your classes, I want to see you. In my
office, here. 10.00 is the most convenient time. I have an important meeting at 12.30, downtown.”
Peter glanced across with a smug grin.
Adam guessed he knew what was coming – if he wasn’t obliquely responsible for it
to begin with.
“May I have some idea what you want to see me
about?” he asked with as much composure as he could muster.
John Svenson stood and dropped the letter on the
table. “That,” he said succinctly.
He folded his napkin and walked out of the dining room, calling for his
PA as he crossed the hall.
Adam reached for the letter and glanced at the postmark. Great, fantastic, I am a dead man walking…
he thought as he slit the envelope.
The letter bore the banner of the World Aeronautic Society and invited him for
an interview, with a view to entering the cadet training scheme. The final paragraph informed him that,
as he was under 18, a covering letter had been sent to his parents, as he would
need permission to begin the course.
He was torn between a desire to whoop with delight and foreboding. His father must have received his
letter at the same time and would, therefore, be fully aware of his eldest son’s
disobedience.
“Are you deep in the shit,” Peter said gleefully.
He wiped his mouth and made to leave the table.
“You were told to drop the idea – you knew he’d go postal about it.”
“Don’t you have a school for the mentally
challenged to go to?” Adam snarled. “You know, I am sure they’ll award you
your certificate in stating the frigging obvious any day now…”
Peter gave a derisive snort.
“Well, what do you know? My big,
strong, brilliant brother is about to shit himself over a chat with his daddy…”
“Drop dead, you God-forsaken troll!”
It was too close to being true for Adam to ignore.
He hadn’t expected so prompt a response to his
application and he’d banked on his mother being back before the letter arrived.
Still, he was old enough to know he shouldn’t expect her to fight all of
his battles. He would just have to speak to his father and explain his
actions and his intentions. It
shouldn’t be too difficult - man to… whatever his father was….
At ten o’clock precisely, John Svenson cleared
his desk and sat with a clean blotter before him and the computer screen
minimised to avoid distractions. He
knew from past experience that sessions like this with his eldest son were never
easy.
He watched the boy enter the room and walk
towards him with an insouciance that bordered on rudeness.
He’d be eighteen this summer and he was starting to fill out. Already over six feet tall, the broad
shoulders and long legs which had made him seem such a gangling youth, now held
the promise of strength and stamina. He was growing into an impressive man.
John studied at his son’s face as he approached the desk.
It was reminiscent of his own father’s, with pale blue eyes that verged on grey,
a wide mouth, with a thin upper lip
and full lower one so indicative of Adam’s proverbial obstinacy. But he had
inherited the straight nose of the Ellis family, rather than the high-bridged
nose of the Svensons. At least the boy is immune to flattery, if his reaction to the panegyric that
sycophantic society journalist wrote recently is anything to go by… he
thought.
John drew a deep breath and filled his lungs,
ready to face his son’s expected defiance.
He loved this boy with a profound emotion he had never recaptured with his other
children – dear though they were to him.
He could still recall the surge of pride he’d experienced when they put his
firstborn son into his arms.
He’d looked at his young wife, lying exhausted and exultant on her hospital bed,
and felt something akin to adoration, so great was his gratitude to her for
providing him with this precious link to the future.
As the boy had grown, revealing a bright,
intelligent mind, he‘d made exhaustive plans for his education, for he expected
great things from his son.
He’d been pleased with his scheme for introducing Adam to the complex
satisfaction to be gained from understanding the arcane world of finance.
Together they’d dissected the annual report of the Daily Planet, prepared Bruce
Wayne’s tax return and considered the financial advantages of charitable
status for Professor Xavier’s school,
despite Sarah’s pleas to ‘leave the boy
alone’. Even now, he recalled
those golden hours with pleasure, although he now realised that Adam’s smiling
participation had been mere compliance with his father’s wishes, and not
enthusiasm for the subject.
Over the years, he had watched with helpless bewilderment as his son had
inexorably grown away from him.
Most
people would say ‘here is a son any man could be proud of’ and I am proud of him - Heaven only knows how proud!
I’d be only too ready to demonstrate my pride - and my love - if Adam would only
conform! How could this most promising of boys have turned out so stubborn,
arrogant and selfish? he
thought petulantly.
For Adam, this well-trodden path brought
memories of a childhood spent trying to live up to his father’s expectations. He had gladly joined in the exercises
about the intricacies of financial management, because it had guaranteed him
several uninterrupted hours of his father’s attention.
He knew he had his mother’s unconditional love and that his grandfather
understood how he might see a life beyond the confines of the financial markets
as more attractive – but it was his father’s approval he wanted, his love he
needed to be reassured of.
With increasing maturity had come the realisation that this
deception of compliance was not going to survive the growing surety he had that
working for the family business was the last thing he wanted to do. An apparently limitless physical energy,
a boundless curiosity and a love of adventure and change, were hardly the
prerequisites of a desk-bound entrepreneur, at least in Adam’s opinion. Yet despite his attempts to explain this
to his father, John Svenson remained wilfully blind to the truth.
He stood before his father’s desk, hands
thrust deep into the pockets of his blue denim jeans, an expression of apparent
unconcern on his face.
“Well?” John began, staring down the unspoken
challenge.
“Well what?”
“What have you to say for yourself?”
Adam feigned ignorance.
“About what?”
“Don’t treat me as a fool, boy! You have been making enquiries about taking a commission in
the WAS – again!”
“So, what if I have?
It does no harm to make enquires.”
“In case you have forgotten, young man, you
are still under age, so they have sent me the forms to give my approval. I see no reason for me to give it, do
you?”
“I thought I could do some of the cadet
training courses and gain more flying experience…“
“You can fly down at the club whenever you
like,” John interrupted. “That
commits you to nothing.”
“Sure, little planes, but if I passed the
first level course I could get to fly jets…” A spark of pure exhilaration
flashed in his eyes, and his face radiated with an enthusiasm he never showed
for financial matters.
“Why would you want to fly jets? If you need to travel we have the SvenCorp machines...”
“I’m not talking about those piddling, little
executive jets – I’m talking of the new commercial jets or the military…”
“No – I will not agree to it. You will get yourself killed as like as not, and you should
be concentrating on your studies anyway, not zooming round the skies pretending
to be Lindbergh.”
Adam tried one last desperate appeal. “Dad,
please, just sign the forms. If they’re not back before the deadline I will miss this year’s
intake. You’ve known I’ve wanted to
do this for years and last year you said that if I did well at Harvard you’d
consider it this year… I got straight
‘A’s, Dad - and now you are reneging on that promise! Look, this doesn’t commit me to anything
except the basic training, and maybe they won’t want to keep me on. A lot of kids try for WAS, and
most don’t make it, so they’ll probably take one look at me in training and say
‘scram, buster!’ But I have to do
this, Dad, I have to try.”
“No, you don’t. There is a position waiting for you with
the company. You can join me when
your finals are over – as we planned…”
“As you planned,” Adam protested. “All my life there’s been this
unspoken directive that said ‘you will do
this, because your father says so’.
Well, this time I want to try something of my own.”
“It is ridiculous to turn your back on the
advantages of working with the company, Adam, just to go flying planes!
I thought it would cure you of that, once and for all, when we got you flying
lessons and your pilot’s license.”
“Yeah, like giving liquor to an alcoholic,” Adam
responded sullenly. “Dad, try to understand, please. I need to do this.”
“Rubbish. You need to take stock of your life, young man, and realise -
sooner rather than later - that your future lies with your family, not with a
bunch of no-hopers flying clapped-out planes.”
“I want to be a test pilot, Dad.
The planes would be proto-types.”
“A pure irrelevance,” John snapped. “I forbid you to do this, Adam. Why waste the time of those people when
you won’t be joining their flying circus anyway?”
“I will, if they want me to.”
“You will not!” John reiterated. “Not while you
live in this house.”
“Oh, right! You want me to leave? Sounds great to me – I’ll go!”
“Don’t be foolish. Where would you go?”
“There are hotels.”
“And what would you use for money?”
“I have an allowance!”
“Not if you leave this house, you don’t.”
“Fine - I don’t care. I can get a job...”
“Doing what, exactly?” his father asked
scathingly. “You’ve never had to lift a finger for yourself.”
“Whatever someone will pay me to do.” As Adam’s
sense of injustice deepened and he struggled to keep his dignity before his
father, his voice sank to little more than a hiss.
“Don’t be so damned stupid!” John said with
asperity.
“I’ll manage.” Adam’s voice was now barely above a
whisper.
“And what will you do when you fail your Harvard
courses because you’ve been mucking around with planes?”
“That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?
You’d like to see me fail. Then you think I would have to
work for you because no-one else would want me.
Well, I wouldn’t work for you – I’d rather sweep streets first!”
“Oh, stop it, you’re making me weep,” John mocked.
“You have never cared what I wanted, have you? Well, now I am a man in my own right…”
“A man? Hah! Hardly…”
“A man
in my own right,” his son asserted with vehemence, “and not just some
proto-financier you bred in your own image!
I don’t want to be in The Company – I wouldn’t want it if it
stood between me and starvation – can’t you understand that?”
“No, I cannot! The company you despise so much has put
the gourmet food in your mouth and the designer clothes on your back – not to
mention, bought you flying lessons and
a plane of your own!” John raged at
this unheard of sedition. “It has
given you all the comforts a person could want and a lifestyle few could ever
dream of!”
“I am sick of the company and of hearing about its miraculous
prowess! I will make it simple, Dad – pay attention - I do not want to be a
financier, a banker nor anything else that deals with pushing money from one
place to another. I want to fly planes and
if the WAS don’t want me I will try the airlines or the Air Force or a freight
service. I will NOT work in the
frigging company!”
“Get out of here - before I do something I might
regret - you ungrateful, selfish, brat!” John roared.
Shaking with a frustrated rage, such as he had
never experienced before, Adam turned on his heels and stalked out of the room,
slamming the door behind him.
John sank back into his chair and glanced
ruefully at the photograph of his wife, alongside the computer monitor. “Well,”
he said, “I think that went well - considering - don’t you?” He dropped his head
into his hands. “What am I going to do with him, Sal?”
Miss Lorraine O’Callaghan watched Adam storm
upstairs and heard the bedroom door slam.
There was nothing very unusual with that. Her employer and his eldest son locked
horns regularly and she had learned the best thing to do was ignore it. This occasion, although loud and
obviously vicious, had been comparatively brief, given that she could remember
times when Mrs Svenson had had to separate the pair before murder was committed.
She continued with her work and only glanced
up as she heard the upstairs door slam again, and the sound of feet running down
the stairs. Here we go again, it’s a wonder the hinges on the doors in this house
hold out as long as they do, she thought cynically.
Across
the hallway she could see Adam, a camping back-pack across his shoulders,
emerging from the coat cupboard with his leather jacket.
He strode over to the main door, flung it open and strode out into the
rain, leaving the door open. Moments later, his motorcycle kicked into life and
roared down the drive.
John Svenson stormed out of his office. “Who was that?” he demanded.
“Mr Adam,” she replied as non committally as
she could.
“Where was he going?”
“He didn’t mention.”
John Svenson threw a pile of papers on her
desk. “I want these ready as soon as possible.” He gazed with some concern
towards the door. “Damn that kid,
he won’t listen to sense… when he comes back, tell him he’s grounded – for a month!”
“Mr Svenson, I can’t do that!” Lorrie protested, but he
wasn’t listening, and he turned and slammed his office door behind him. She
pursed her lips. “Miserable old tyrant,” she muttered
She
glanced through the papers – there were numerous obvious mistakes – quite unlike
his usual efficiency. The old man was rattled and that was unusual. He got angry easily enough, but it was
normally a calculated anger, with a cutting edge of sarcastic disapproval that
made weaker beings quake.
Obviously, whatever they’d been arguing about had been important – to them both
– because, come to think of it, it wasn’t like Adam to flounce around like that,
either.
Perhaps my initial assessment of the incident was wrong?
she thought. After a few minutes consideration, she picked up the phone to
dial Los Angeles.
“This is Lorraine O’Callaghan, from Mr Svenson’s
private office, in Boston.
I am really sorry to be disturbing you so early in the morning, but is
your sister still staying with you?
I really need to speak urgently with Mrs Svenson…”
Moments later she was explaining the situation
to an increasingly horrified Sarah.
~oo0oo~
Sarah’s unexpected arrival back in Boston in the
early hours of the next day gave John a momentary stab of panic.
He hadn’t had any sleep, preferring to wait up for the return of his son – who,
to his increasing consternation, did not come home. He had rung the local
hospitals, but not their friends and relatives – he was too proud to admit his
son had walked out - but he took consolation from the fact that the boy was not
hospitalised. He’d not been looking
forward to telling Sarah that Adam was… missing, in fact, he’d been deliberately
putting it off. His growing
anxiety had caused him to snap even more than was usual at the younger children,
so much so that they – including Peter, normally his faithful shadow - had been
avoiding him since the evening meal, when the dining table had been dominated by
an empty place setting.
One
look at his wife’s face as she marched into his office - just as he was winding
up a complex telephone conversation with his agent in Australia - was enough to
tell him that someone else had already informed her of the situation.
Her
hand reached out to break the connection as she stared with displeasure at her
husband. He pushed her hand away and said, “Well,
pursue it, Grocott, and keep me informed.
I’ll expect a report by e-mail.
I have to go, something has cropped up…”
“You’re damned right something has cropped up!
Where’s Adam?”
John
hung up the phone. “Hello, Sal, nice to have you back so soon. Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“Where is Adam?” she demanded, brushing off his embrace.
John
frowned. “He went out on his bike…”
“Yesterday - with a rucksack?”
“I
didn’t know he had a rucksack with him.
I never know what he’s doing these days,” John said indignantly.
“Have you tried my parents’ house, or the Cabots’?”
“Yes…
and his cell phone. He’s not
answering and no-one has seen him.
Where the Hell is he, John, and what have you done this time?”
“Me?”
John protested. “I have done nothing…” Sarah’s face was an eloquent expression
of disbelief. He continued, “He’s
always saying he’s old enough to make his own decisions, so I guess he’s taken
off for the weekend. It would be
just like him not to say anything.”
“No,
it wouldn’t,” she snapped.
The
door was partially open and Eric Svenson slipped through, with a soft knock. Although they had forged an effective
working partnership, he and John still did not get on very well and there was
little love lost between them. He conjectured that John suspected the nature of
his feelings for Sarah, which persisted, even though she had never given any
indication that she recognised them for what they were, or given him any
encouragement. As he had got to know her well, he’d realised her treatment of
him differed very little from her treatment of all her friends. Her devotion to
her husband was total. His one
advantage was his closeness to her children and their acceptance of him as part
of their family network. John had
never extended that status to him, even whilst he acknowledged his usefulness to
the company.
Therefore Eric was not surprised when John snapped, “Not now, Eric.”
“Hello, Sarah,” he said, ignoring his cousin and surprised to see her there at
all. As usual, his heart was pounding so hard within his chest at the sight of
her, he felt sure she must be able to hear it.
“Eric.”
Even in her anxiety she can still find the kindness to give me a
quick smile,
he thought, bless her…. He could
see she was really worried and continuing to ignore the obvious annoyance John
was exhibiting, he continued, “I have news I think you will want to hear.”
“We
are busy…” John grated.
“Adam’s at my place,” Eric stated flatly, his eyes still focused on Sarah.
“What’s he doing there?” John snorted.
“Fuming, mostly.” Eric’s disparaging glance at John went unnoticed as his
cousin’s attention was focussed on his wife.
“Is
he all right?” she demanded, coming towards Eric, her face full of concern.
“Oh,
yes, just very, very angry. I can’t
remember the last time I saw him this worked up about anything.”
Eric scratched his neck, above his immaculately laundered shirt, and
tried to explain. “He turned up at about 1.30 this morning… he considered I was
the least likely person he knew to insist that he come straight home. I thought it best to let him stay
– he was cold and wet and very hungry.
As far as I can tell, he’s just been riding around on his bike, so wrapped up in
his anger he didn’t even think to eat anything except for a few candy bars he
bought from a gas station. He was
adamant that he wasn’t going to go home - he wouldn’t even let me call you,
John. He wants to see you, Sarah.”
“Does he
know you are here now?” she asked.
Eric
shook his head. “I’ve left him sleeping.
I didn’t know you were here and Adam isn’t expecting you back for several days. Still, I thought his family ought to
know where he was and that he was safe.”
He glanced at his cousin, wondering if John knew or cared about what it had cost
him to go against the youngster’s wishes and decide the boy’s father had a right
to know his whereabouts. He
considered the fact that Sarah was here as something of a miracle – at least
Adam wouldn’t feel as if he’d been betrayed now.
Sarah
put a grateful hand on his arm. “Thank you, Eric.
What would we do without you?”
Turning to her sullen husband, she snapped, “Right - now, suppose you tell me,
in words of one syllable, exactly what
happened between the pair of you? Then Eric can take me over to his place and
I’ll speak to Adam.”
The
phone on the desk rang.
Instinctively he reached out a hand towards it, only to draw it back as his wife
said coldly,
“Ignore it, John; you are already so far out on a limb, I wouldn’t push your
luck….”
Chapter Three:
Boston, April 2066
Eric
Svenson knocked on the door for the third time and said, with just a hint of
annoyance in his voice, “Adz, open the door.
Adz…?”
Silence.
“Open
the door. I’m not leaving until you do. Adam?
Please open the door.” He knocked once more – more loudly this time.
Silence, but the sound of movement was just audible.
“Adam? Come on. Adam? – oh, grow up!”
The
key turned in the lock and Eric pushed the door open and walked through the
small study room to the bedroom beyond, where his quarry had retreated. He paused in the doorway and looked around. There was a suitcase on the bed with an
untidy pile of clothes thrown into it.
A tall, broad-shouldered man was over by the window, his back to his
visitor, apparently absorbed in sorting through a drawer of underwear.
“Thank you,” Eric said. He moved
the suitcase and sat on the bed.
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re leaving then?”
“No,
I just like living out of suitcases…”
Eric
sighed. When he was in this mood, Adam was
almost as unapproachable as his father. “Yeah, seems like it, from the amount of
time you’ve spent away from home lately.”
“What
do you want, Eric?” Adam’s tone was exasperated and barely civil.
Eric
Svenson shrugged. He wasn’t
sure why he was here, except that Sarah had asked him to speak to her son and he
never could refuse her anything.
For
thirty years he had nursed his hopeless passion for his cousin’s wife and
because she adored her children, he did too.
He had no other family and these strong- willed, difficult people had come to
mean as much to him as any he might have had of his own. Since their grandfather had died, he had found himself
dragged into their lives far more, becoming a refuge for them all, in their day,
against the anger of their father.
He
tried to answer Adam’s question. “I
don’t know what’s happened between you and John this time – and I don’t want to
– but there is no call for you to upset your mother because of it.”
Adam
half turned and lobbed two pairs of socks into the open case, but he made no
comment. Eric drew a deep breath and
nodded.
“Right, it’s going to be like that is it?
The usual story - you and John have had a disagreement, so everyone else gets
hurt in the fall-out. I don’t
pretend to understand the almost permanent state of war that exists between you
two these days - but I do know that your mom worries about you – which seems to
me a very foolish thing for such a sensible woman to do.
John isn’t easy to get along with,” - Adam snorted –“but by now you ought
to have the age and experience to cope with him.”
He
was gratified to see a flush suffuse the young man’s neck and cheeks. He was
tired of cushioning these headstrong men from the consequences of their own
inflexibility. He knew Adam to be an intelligent man, normally tolerant and
easy-going, yet after a few days in John’s company the pair of them started
behaving like kindergarten children.
He sighed.
“Sarah
told me you were about to change your job and leave the WAS?
I take it this new job is not with the company? I didn’t expect it would be…
Look, Adz, you know your Dad always expected that when you left the WAS, it
would be to join the company, don’t you?”
Adam
turned and glared at him. “I never told him that – I never promised a thing. He had no right to expect it of me.”
Eric
nodded thoughtfully. “Look, I know things have been rough between you…”
“That
is an understatement, Eric!” Adam asserted vehemently, adding, “Ever since I
could talk I have been told I have to listen to what’s good for me… not that
anyone ever asked me what I thought
was good for me! I have done
all I can to reason with him… he just gets worse.
Since my grandfather died, he answers to no-one and cares even less about
anyone else.”
Eric
paused for a moment. Stefan’s death
three years ago had removed the buffer zone between father and son, and,
although both of them had mourned his passing, they were unable – or unwilling -
to admit the depth of their loss to each other.
In fact, they had moved further apart, partly due to the fact that Stefan had -
unusually for him – badly miscalculated when he left his eldest grandson a
substantial percentage of his shares in SvenCorp. Eric suspected he had hoped it would draw Adam to the family
concern, but it had not. Contentedly
pursuing a successful career in the WAS, Adam still declined to accept any
responsibility in SvenCorp - and John resented the fact that his father had
split his inheritance.
“Not
strictly true, Adam – he answers to your mother – he always has… and you ought
to remember that your mom is on your side.
Don’t exclude her from what’s happening in your life, Adz.”
“I’m
not the one doing the ostracising, Eric.
My father told me to get out of his house, and I’m obeying his orders, like a
good son should.”
“I’ve
almost lost count of the numbers of times you’ve left this house ‘for the last
time’….Good Lord, Adam; you ought to know better than to take what John says in
a rage as serious!”
“Oh,
he was serious. I know him well
enough, Eric. I’ve really burnt my
last bridge and I’m out in the wilderness.
You’d better not let him catch you speaking to me or you might be tarred with
the same brush.”
“Like
I care? John needs me – not as much as he did,
maybe, now Peter’s on the books - but he needs me and he knows it.”
Adam
threw himself down on the opposite side of the bed and the floodgates to a
reservoir of deeply felt personal injustice opened. “Just once, Eric – just once
- I would like my father to understand why I do the things I do, why I make the
choices I make, and support me in them.
I came here in good faith, to try to make him understand why I was making this
career move and he refuses to listen, or to even try to understand me. I have
accepted a job – a good job, a job I know I can do well - and he won’t listen to
my reasons. I have a chance, a real chance to make a difference – an important
difference - to things. I’ve spent years trying to convince my father that
I’m not cut out for a life in finance, but he just won’t listen.”
“Have
you spoken about this to Sarah?”
Adam
shook his head. “No, I don’t want to make things any
worse between them. If I talk to
Mom, she will just have a go at him and that won’t help… besides, I am well able
now to fight my own battles – even with my father – and she seems to forget
that.”
“She
loves you…”
“I
know,” Adam cried and went back to stare from the window, “and I won’t leave
without speaking to her.
She’ll know as much as I can tell her,” he conceded. “But it has to be as I’m
leaving, I don’t want them fighting about me… you understand, don’t you, Eric?”
Eric
shrugged. “Not really, but I am sure you’ll do what
you decide is right. Come Hell
or high water, you won’t be shifted from your own way.
In some ways, you and John are not so very different, you know?”
Adam
gave a rueful smile. “The only person who doesn’t see that is my father.”
|
||
Chapter One:
Home is where your heart is
Cloudbase, Sunday, 20th December 2070
Symphony Angel collected her tray and stood in line in the officers’ canteen. She glanced around at the diners once
more, reassuring herself that her quarry was still there. She relaxed as she noticed that Captain Magenta was still
only eating his main meal and that next to his plate of something lumpy and
rice, stood a dish of something else smothered in rapidly cooling custard. Why the men on the base went for
the ‘school dinners’ menu was a complete mystery to her. She selected a pork chop and mashed potatoes, and went to
join him.
“Hi,
Patrick, mind if I join you?” she asked cheerfully.
He
looked up with a welcoming smile. “No, of course not, Karen, be my guest.”
She
put her meal down and settled herself opposite him.
“Rumour has it that you are off to New York on the early shuttle
tomorrow… last minute Christmas shopping?”
Magenta smiled. “Not exactly - I’m going to see family,
but if you have any last minute commissions, I’d be happy to oblige.”
“That’s really kind of you, Pat.
For once I am more or less sorted… and as usual I am close to broke – so I
better not spend any more till pay day.”
“Pay
day?” he frowned. “We got paid early this month, honey, remember? Our next pay
day is at the end of January.”
“Uh
-huh,” she grimaced ruefully.
“Unfortunately, that doesn’t make me any less broke, Pat.”
He
gave a sympathetic shrug and looked down at his plate to hide his amused smile. He had long thought Karen Wainwright was
a wonderful girl: pretty, witty, charming and intelligent. The realisation that she was a terrible
money-manager had come later.
“Mind
you,” she said with almost too casual an air, “there is something you could do
for me…”
“Sure, if
I can,” he said rather apprehensively. There were strict regulations forbidding
the borrowing and lending of money between Spectrum personnel – and although he
was not averse to bending a few rules, he happened to agree with that one.
“A
little bird told me that you have found a way to circumvent the video-phone
image exclusion protocols?” she
said sweetly.
As
part of the rigorous security screen that Colonel White insisted on, only the
video-phone links to personal numbers that had been closely vetted by Spectrum
Intelligence - usually those of the agent’s immediate family - were allowed to
send an image. The colonel was not
prepared to run the risk that civilians might see something secret during the
personal calls his staff were permitted to make.
It was something that many of the Cloudbase-based staff had trouble with
accepting and there were constant representations to the colonel to relax his
ban.
“Rhapsody promised she wouldn’t tell…” Magenta protested.
He had agreed to over-ride the protocols when Rhapsody had pleaded that
her dear friend and mentor, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, had not been well
recently, and she wanted to see how the grand-dame of British espionage was
looking, as well as sounding, these days.
“She
didn’t – exactly. Scarlet let it
slip…” Symphony admitted in the interest of protecting her friend. She pressed
her attack. “Well, I was wondering if you would show
me how to do it, before you go to New York?
I have a friend who has… recently moved house and I want to see what her
new place is like…”
Magenta looked at her with his intense brown eyes.
Symphony blushed; it was hard enough asking him without lying as to why she
wanted to know. Besides, she felt
sure Patrick could guess the real reason.
He
gave a wary sigh. “It’s not
allowed, Karen. I shouldn’t have done it for Dianne – I
certainly shouldn’t tell anyone else how to do it.”
She
dropped her eyes from his and ate some food.
When she looked up again he was still gazing at her.
“No
big deal, Patrick, forget I asked,” she said.
He
sighed and drew his pudding towards him.
“I can show you – just once – after that you are on your own. And if anyone finds out – it wasn’t me you asked – okay? I have enough problems on my plate
without the colonel breathing down my neck for security infringements.”
His
reward for this generosity was something of a two-edged sword as her whole face
lit up. “Patrick… you are wonderful!” She
reached out and squeezed his hand that lay on the table between them.
“Yeah, and I’m a first rate mug as well…”
They
went along to his quarters and he demonstrated how to over-ride the protocols –
without actually doing it.
“You’ll be safer if you do it when Green is off duty,” he advised her. “I don’t think his deputies notice – or care – as much about
internal/external private calls.
Whereabouts is your friend based?”
“East
coast – USA,” she replied, committing the sequence to memory.
He
gave an almost imperceptible nod, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. “Well, check the rota on that time frame
and go when Green isn’t there.”
“I
will. Thank you, Pat.” She threw her arms
around his neck and kissed his cheek.
Captain Magenta waited until she had left before muttering, “You’re a lucky
bastard, Svenson.”
The
duty rotas revealed that there was only a short window of opportunity that
coincided with Symphony being off duty, a reasonable hour in Boston and
Lieutenant Green being out of the communication supremo’s seat in the Control
Room. She began to get ready for her
impending duty, taking extra care to fix her hair and renew her make-up before
she slipped into a pretty, lacy-edged V-neck top.
She looked at herself in her mirror and bit her lower lip.
She
knew that what she was proposing to do contravened the regulations and that she
really had no justification for doing it – at least not one that Colonel White
would listen to – except her overwhelming sense of insecurity and need to see
and speak to him again.
‘Him’ was Adam Svenson, of course – codenamed Captain Blue – one of
the senior colour captains on board Spectrum’s command centre of Cloudbase.
Along with his friend Paul Metcalfe – Captain Scarlet – he was a vital lynch-pin
in the constant fight they were engaged in against the alien Mysterons.
He
was also the man she was in love with.
Karen
sighed and flicked through her private address book to find the home-number he
had given her. He was fond of her,
she had no doubt about that – but they had parted in the middle of one of the
periodic ‘disagreements’ that had peppered their turbulent relationship since
its inception and - as he was going straight to Australia after his holiday –
she didn’t want the estrangement to drag on….
It
had started after the ‘misadventure’ of the antique golden torque that had
caused confrontations throughout the senior command, but, most noticeably
between Captain Scarlet and his partner - and closest friend – Captain Blue. After Scarlet had made a physical attack on Blue, Colonel
White had decided to split them up for a time – and he had designated Blue as
the lead instructor for a new team of standby pilots for the Angel flight based
on Cloudbase, and ordered him to go to Koala Base in Australia in the New Year
to carry out this duty. The Angel
pilots were all young women, as were their standbys, and her damned jealousy –
that gnawing insecurity that dogged her life - had led her to accuse him of
wanting to leave her, especially when he had announced that he was going to
spend Christmas at home, in Boston.
She had seen red and they had had another vituperative argument. Normally such
‘estrangements’ lasted a matter of days, but Adam had left for a fortnight’s
leave the next day and now, a week later, she was desperate to patch it up and
gain reassurance that he wasn’t holding a grudge against her.
She
laid the book; open at the right page, before the video phone keyboard and,
calling up the memory of what Patrick had showed her, she started to enter data. The machine flickered on and then
presented her with a menu. She
carefully selected the options and breathed a sigh of relief as the symbol for a
vision-call came up on the screen.
She entered the number and waited; still uncertain that Cloudbase’s protocols
wouldn’t spot the error and over-ride the instructions.
The screen flickered and the dialling-symbol flashed.
There
was a bleeping noise which was quickly answered by an olive-skinned woman. “The
Svenson residence. How may I help you?”
she asked in an Hispanic accent.
Symphony smiled brightly. “I would like to speak
to Mr Svenson, please, Mr Adam Svenson, that is.”
“Whom may I say is calling?”
“Karen. Karen Wainwright.”
“Please hold ,Ms
Wainwright, I will try to connect you, but I don’t know where Mr Adam is at
present.”
“Thanks.” She curled her lip. “Gee, talk about
grand!” she muttered to herself.
“May I help you?”
This time the screen showed a woman with light brown hair and sharp grey eyes
set in a clear skinned, fine-boned face.
Symphony recognised her at once. Sarah Svenson was much as she remembered her
from the time when she and Rhapsody Angel had met her and Captain Scarlet’s
mother, after they had unwittingly become embroiled in a Spectrum mission.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Svenson - I don’t know if you
remember me - but I wanted to talk to Adam...” she babbled.
Sarah Svenson beamed at her. “Not remember you?
Well, of course I do…hello, Karen dear, how nice to speak to you again! You’ll want Adam, of course. He was here a moment ago...” She turned from the screen and called,
“David, where’s Adam? There’s an
important call for him.”
Another face swam into focus beside Sarah’s; it
bore a marked resemblance to Captain Blue. “He went upstairs. Can I help you?”
He examined her with great interest.
“Of
course you can’t help… she wants Adam – not you,” Sarah admonished. “Don’t be so
nosy and go and fetch your brother. Honestly, the men around here are sadly
lacking in common sense. How are
you, my dear? You’re looking very pretty today. I hope
we’ll see you here before too long.
I’ve been telling Adam he ought to arrange it but he keeps saying it’s
not as easy as I think to arrange time off – for both of you, together – and I
hope you don’t think it’s because we haven’t asked you – and thank you so much
for your beautiful Christmas card – I sent one through Adam, I hope he passed it
on?”
“Oh
yes, he did – thank you – and thank you for the present as well. I haven’t opened it yet, of course.”
Sarah
beamed; she had the same radiant smile as her eldest son. “Oh, you are welcome,
my dear. It isn’t much – just a little something
I saw and thought you might appreciate… Davy, why haven’t you fetched Adam yet? I sometimes think I might as well talk
to a brick wall, for all the notice anyone takes of me. I am sure Karen is too busy to have time to waste talking to
me… ”
“Why would she want to waste her time talking to
Adz?” the youngest Svenson responded immediately, laughing at his mother’s
outraged expression. “Okay, okay, I’m fetching him –
right now….” David gave a bright smile, which emphasised the resemblance to his
brother. He moved away and they
heard him yelling, “Adam: video-phone call for you!
A female – and a very pretty
one! Move your ass!” He came back
to the screen. “That should do it,” he grinned.
“I said fetch him – not yell the house down!
I could’ve bawled up the stairs myself,” Sarah reprimanded him. “See what
I have to put up with, Karen?
They’re all the same.” She glanced at the younger woman conspiratorially.
There was a delay, during which Sarah kept up a
chatter of inconsequential small talk, without apparently expecting an answer or
- Symphony thought – seeming to draw breath. Then Adam's familiar voice, with an
uncharacteristically broad Boston twang to it, drawled, “What are you bleating
about,
Davy? This had better be
important, we’re gonna be late enough as it is… I thought Kitty was anxious to
make a good impression, but she’s still messing about in her bedroom...”
“Another female for you - very pretty one
too. How do you keep track of them all, Bro? Besides, Melissa will forgive you,
be you ever so late - she always does.”
“Here he is,” Sarah said brightly and dragged her
younger son away. Karen could just hear her continued
admonishment of him, as Adam moved into focus and peered crossly at the screen.
His frown vanished at the sight of her and he gave her a brilliant smile. “Karen! Well,
hi! You are a welcome sight…I was just getting ready to go out for the evening –
no peace for the wicked as they say…”
Although her heart lifted at the mere sight of
him, she couldn’t stop her first words being: “Who’s Melissa?”
She could have cursed when her tone was sharper than she intended. ‘Not much use in my
pretending to be indifferent to what he’s up to now… she sighed.
To her surprise he looked taken aback. “Melissa
Tyrrell is my godmother’s daughter and I’m taking her to dinner.
I have known her since we were kids.” There was an audible guffaw of laughter
from David. “Shut up, Davy,” he snapped over his shoulder at his youngest
brother. He angled the screen as far away from the others as it would go.
Symphony pursed her lips. “Sounds like a serious date.”
“We go out every time I come home. It’s not really
a date – as such,” he reassured her. “Why did you call and where are you?”
“On base.” She ignored the
obvious implied request for an explanation as to how she was able to call
through on the video-link.
“I just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas - from everyone here. I’m about to start working double shifts, because I have managed to
get a forty-eight hour pass to go and see my Mom… and then I’m on double-duty
again.” Her expression remained guarded.
“Well, thank you.
That was kind. How’s… everyone?”
“Fine. You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“Yeah.” He was suddenly cautious. “For a visit
home it’s gone okay, for a change; but then, I only got back from skiing in the
Berkshires in time for the fancy dress ball, and I can hardly believe I’ll be
leaving for Australia at the end of next week.”
His voice dropped. “I have missed you - all.”
“Not that much it seems, with all these
females
calling you all the time!” In her desperation not to show her delight at his
admission she remained stern towards him.
“You don’t want to pay attention to Davy - he’s a
menace.” Adam glared towards his youngest brother with an expression that
promised retribution.
“Did you enjoy the party?” she asked, fairly
stiffly.
“Yeah, rather more than I thought I would.”
“What
did you go as in the end?”
“Well, the theme was ‘heroes and villains’ – Mom went as Lucrezia Borgia and she
looked fantastic, as always. My
sister went as Wonder Woman – and she looked …” he sighed, “well, let’s just say
- she was very popular.”
“And
you?”
He
grinned. “I found an old costume I’d worn before – didn’t have much chance to
get anything new sorted. I went as someone from International Rescue… in one of
those blue uniforms, with a pale lilac sash; you know the kind I mean? Actually, it was lucky I had my uniform
boots with me – I had forgotten just how uncomfortable the boots for that
costume were. I had to change
them half way through the evening.
I don’t think anyone noticed.” He smiled at the screen. Symphony was laughing at him, her suspicions forgotten at the
mental image of him in an unfamiliar uniform. “What was really funny was that
were a couple of Spectrum look-alikes there too…” he added quietly.
“What
colours?” she asked, still amused by his story.
“Oh,
I don’t like to say,” he teased. “I
wouldn’t want Paul to get a swollen head, now would I?”
Symphony gave a chortle of laughter.
“Adam, aren’t you ready yet?
We’ll be late!” The woman’s voice was peremptory and rapidly getting closer.
“I’m on the phone, Katz.”
“Katz?”
“My sister – Katherine, okay? Jeez, you have a
suspicious mind, girl.” He couldn’t repress a smile, absurdly flattered at her
poorly concealed jealousy.
Over his shoulder, Symphony saw a stunning blonde
approaching the video-screen. She looked taller than the Angel pilot and her
long, blonde hair was wound into an intricate and attractive style.
Her make-up was immaculate and she was wearing an expensive dress that
emphasised every curve of her – undoubtedly shapely – body. Suddenly, Symphony
understood why he’d said his sister was ‘popular’ in the skimpy Wonder Woman
costume.
“Hello,”
Katherine Svenson said briskly. “We’re just off out to dinner and we’ll be ever
so late, so, please, can you make it quick?”
Adam was furious. “Go away! What does a guy have
to do for some privacy around here?
I am sorry, Karen, ignore her.”
“I have a date with someone I want to impress even
if you are only dragging Melissa along,
again. Please, Adz!” Katherine moaned.
Karen chuckled, as much at her own behaviour as at
Katherine’s. “It seems like I called at a bad time, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for
being so suspicious, too. Besides, I have to go, myself.
I am about to start my first double-duty shift in a few minutes. Go and have a good time, Adam, and Happy
Christmas!”
“Thanks,
älskling. I wish you the same – and please, give my warmest regards to
your mother. With a little
luck, I might get to see you next week, at least, en-route?
I miss you – all of you….”
Her heart thumped as the expression on his face
told her far more than his words ever would – especially given the attentive
audience he had. It seemed that he was as eager to bury
their quarrel as she was. She
replied with a wink, “You too, bye for now.”
“Bye.”
The
screen went dead.
She
sat smiling to herself as she relived the conversation in her head, knowing that
she had done the right thing in calling him – even if she did get into trouble
for doing so. Beside her a
small alarm sounded, jolting her back to reality and the fact that she had to
get on duty in a matter of minutes.
She whipped off her pretty top, and pulled the roll-neck sweater over her head,
fastening the leather jacket as she made her way to the Amber Room.
She
was barely three minutes late, but Destiny was anxious to leave and was already
out of the door before Cloudbase was rocked by a loud, expressionless voice over
the P.A. system.
“THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE
MYSTERONS...”
“Oh great...” Melody Angel breathed.
The other Angels came to a standstill to listen.
“WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR
US, EARTHMEN. WE WILL CONTINUE OUR
WAR OF NERVES IN RETALIATION FOR YOUR UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON OUR MARTIAN COMPLEX. YOUR WHEELS OF COMMERCE SHALL CEASE TO
TURN WHEN THE HUB IS DESTROYED!”
“Huh?”
~oo0oo~
Colonel White sat in the revolving chair in the
centre of the Conference Room table and looked at his senior officers.
“Any thoughts on exactly what they are threatening
this time, gentlemen?” Symphony coughed. “And lady,” the
colonel added smoothly.
“Wheels of commerce...
something financial? They have a
penchant for trying to bugger about with the World economy,” Captain Scarlet
mused.
Captain Ochre sniggered. “Translation, please?”
Scarlet frowned at him. “Use your imagination,
Captain. The Hub...hmm, London - the stock exchanges - Wall Street? They could be said to be the ‘hub’ of
the economic wheel.”
“Boston,” Symphony said unexpectedly. “They call
that The Hub.”
“It isn’t exactly the
centre of financial activity,” Captain Grey said.
Symphony shrugged. “I thought we were just
brain-storming,” she explained.
The colonel gave her a sharp glance and said, “You
could have a point, Symphony. It is
not widely known, but the finance for a good deal of the construction of
Spectrum’s technical hardware was handled by a Boston firm.
The sections for Cloudbase were put together in Sweden, as you may know,
but the money was dealt with in Boston.”
“By a firm with Scandinavian connections, by any
chance?” Scarlet asked pointedly. “SvenCorp?” he suggested.
“Precisely.” Colonel White inclined his head
towards the younger man.
“Captain Blue’s father’s company?” Symphony
gasped.
“Indeed, Symphony, the very same.
You may not be aware that your salary is ultimately paid from accounts the World
Government holds at SvenCorp,” the colonel continued. “The World Government
wanted a firm, large and respected enough, to handle the sums involved, yet
outside of the main commercial institutions, where too much information might be
available to far too many prying eyes.
It was decided that a company which was privately owned, would offer a far more
secure base – and, of the remaining privately owned financial institutions, it
was decided that SvenCorp could provide the most appropriate service. It no doubt helped, that one of John
Svenson’s father’s long-term business partners was the former World Senator
Robert Harlington, and the company had experience of handling sensitive
Government projects from previous commissions. There were protocols already in existence for contacts
between the World Government and SvenCorp, and Harlington’s name was used as an
introduction to set up the facilities through SvenCorp and their clearing bank,
the Hudson Guaranty Trust of New York.
I have to say, SvenCorp has done us proud; we make a good return on their
investments on our behalf. If the
Mysterons attacked the finance house, you could say Spectrum’s wheels of commerce would cease.”
“Then they
are threatening Boston?” Ochre said. “The Hub will be destroyed.”
“That could also include Atlantic airport - the
WAS base - couldn’t it? - where Spectrum’s planes are delivered and collected.
It has to be one of the busiest airports on the eastern seaboard, quite
apart from the civilian freight traffic through there,” Grey added.
“It would seem a distinct possibility.
However, we ought to make sure we cover all options, which means we had
better not ignore the other financial centres.” The colonel spun around and punched a few buttons on his
console. The screens flickered on
and he punched a map of North America, narrowing it down to the north east and
then to a conglomerate of streets.
He spoke to Lieutenant Green: “Please display the current whereabouts of Captain
Blue, Lieutenant.”
“Yes sir, his personal tracker is registering, but
he may not have it with him.”
“I am aware of that, just show me.”
There was a flashing light in the centre of the
street map. The colonel homed in and punched more buttons. “Hmm, it says here,
The Spinnaker Club.”
“What is that, exactly?” Scarlet asked.
The colonel read from the screen on his console.
“A nightclub, apparently,” he said in a tone of voice which suggested
that if Captain Blue had decided to spend the evening down a sewer, he would
have been less surprised. He spun his chair around to face Scarlet. “You had better get there, Captain;
collect Captain Blue from his... nightclubbing, and see what you can do to stop
this threat from materialising. Captain Magenta is already in New York, so he
can organise things there - I’ll send him to the Hudson when they open on
Monday. Captain Grey and Captain
Ochre - London and Tokyo for now, but be prepared to leave for America, if
necessary.”
“SIG,” the captains chorused.
Symphony spoke louder than she intended.
“And what about the Angels, sir, surely we can help?”
Colonel White looked at her with only the
slightest of smiles. “Yes indeed. I want the Angels on standby-alert,
ready to provide any back-up needed at any of the primary mission sites. But
you, Symphony, I would like you to accompany Captain Scarlet, as I think you had
better go undercover, Captain.
We do not wish to completely destroy Captain Blue’s cover with his friends, do
we? A little female company should
help dispel any doubts about your purpose there.”
Despite her dismay at being described almost as
window dressing for the mission, Symphony stood up with alacrity. “Yes, sir,”
she said.
Colonel White glanced at her as she moved across
to join Captain Scarlet. “I have a feeling this ought to be right
up your street, Symphony.
Your experience dealing with industrial espionage in the USS, should make
dealing with SvenCorp that much easier. Knowing what I do about John Svenson and
his company, I think we may have trouble getting their co-operation. I want you to work closely with Captain Blue, of course, on
this case – he may be our only way of getting into the company to check their
security.”
As they left the room, Captain Scarlet said, “We
will be working, remember, we are not going there to party.”
“Of course, I know that.”
Symphony gave him a sharp glance.
He acknowledged his error with an apologetic smile. “But I shall still take the
opportunity to show Melissa Tyrrell she has competition…” she added to herself
as she peeled off and hurried to her quarters to fetch the necessary
‘camouflage’ for the mission.
~oo0oo~
The Spinnaker Club was hot and incredibly noisy.
It was the most popular night club with the rich and famous in Boston.
There were always paparazzi waiting for the patrons to come and go, and
occasionally, one got through the tight security cordon and took pictures
inside. It was not one of Adam‘s favourite places, but Kitty had insisted they
go on there from their restaurant and he wasn‘t prepared to argue.
He was currently perched on a high bar-stool alongside of Melissa Tyrrell,
watching Kate and her date - a lanky young man with spiky hair - prance about
the crowded dance floor.
It
was too noisy for conversation and he was getting bored as, he sensed, was his
companion.
He turned to her. “You wanna go?
I don’t think I can stand much more of this.”
She shook her head, and cupped a hand to her ear,
indicating that she couldn’t hear a word.
He bellowed the message again, just as the music subsided into a smoochy number.
Melissa laughed. “Poor Adz, you are having a
wretched time, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I can do without this.” His hand
swept across the crowded room. “But if you want to stay, it’s
okay with me. I thought you were
looking a bit bored, that’s all.”
“Perhaps we should dance?” Melissa said
hesitantly.
“Would you like to?”
“With you? Yes.”
He stood and offered his hand to her.
She slipped off the stool. He took her in his arms and, with a practised ease,
moved her slowly across to the dance floor and into a circle, to the
accompaniment of soaring guitar riffs.
~oo0oo~
On
reaching Atlantic airport close to Boston, Scarlet ordered an undercover car
from the Boston base and then they changed into their civilian clothes.
Captain Scarlet was fond of Symphony – they had a lot in common in some ways –
but he always thought of her as almost ‘one of the boys’.
She and Melody Angel were rather tomboyish, in contrast to the ladylike
Rhapsody, the utterly feminine Destiny and the gentle-mannered Harmony Angels. Off duty she mostly wore jeans or
trousers, and although he had seen her in a dress, it wasn’t often. Now, when
she emerged from the ladies’ locker room, wearing a style of dress that he knew
- from conversations with Rhapsody - was the height of fashionable chic, he
stared at her in amazement.
The
dress had a plunging neckline and a tight skirt that was longer on one side than
the other, with a slit allowing a glimpse of her long and – very shapely - leg. It was a rich midnight-blue in colour,
with silver beading on the shoulders and at the fitted waist. The high-heeled shoes she was wearing
matched the elegant clutch bag she held and she had arranged her hair in a
rather fetching style around her ears, which sported dainty earrings. Scarlet admitted to himself - with some
rather unflattering surprise – that she looked fantastic.
He
had merely donned the well-tailored jacket Dianne had bought him for his recent
birthday, over a pair of dark trousers and an open-necked white shirt and
consequently he felt decidedly under-dressed.
“Do I look all right?” she asked a little
hesitantly in the face of his stupefied expression. She was carrying the
fur-coat that she had received from the fashion-designer André Verdain, at the
end of a mission. She waited for his response before starting to put it on.
“Oh,
yeah…. you look... great, Karen.
Isn’t that a little grand for a disco?”
“I
did some checking before we left Cloudbase.
The Spinnaker club is the most
fashionable place – if you’re not worth a fortune you can’t even get in.”
“What
about me?” he asked.
“Oh,
it doesn’t matter so much for men… and this is all in the name of our cover
story,” she assured him.
They finally did manage to gain access to the
club, after a long discussion with the doorman, during which Paul had had to
resort to dropping the fact that they were close personal friends of Adam
Svenson; which had annoyed him, and amused Karen no end.
Now they stood near the entrance, peering through the gloom at the throng of
noisy, excited people.
“Can you see him?” he asked, trusting her to
latch onto Adam’s pheromones far quicker than he could spot him on the crowded
dance-floor.
“Yes.” She pointed. “He’s there, dancing with that
woman.”
Scarlet looked at her. “Symphony, behave.
We are on duty.”
They watched the couple dancing until the music
changed to a loud, heavy-metal classic.
Then, as Adam led Melissa back to their stools, they moved forward and he saw
them.
“Karen! Paul! What are you doing here?” he called
in unfeigned astonishment. He looked at Karen with an expression of pure delight
on his face. She responded, held out a hand to him
and he took it, drawing her closer to him.
Neither spoke, lost in the contemplation of each other’s eyes.
“Hello, Adam.
Just the man I need to talk to,” Paul said with a meaningful glance, as the
silence went on just a second too long.
“Won’t you introduce your friends, Adam?” Melissa
asked. Karen dropped his hand and turned to the other woman.
Adam snapped out of his surprise and became all
business-like again. “Of course; this is Paul Metcalfe and Karen Wainwright.
Miss Melissa Tyrrell.” She was taller and broader than Symphony, with
wavy, rich-brown hair and an attractive face.
Her brown eyes sparkled with some private amusement.
Paul reached to shake her hand.
“How do you do, Miss Tyrrell.” She’s
pretty enough, he thought,
but I don’t see what Karen has to worry about. Not that logic
will play any part in this, of course…
“Oh, you are English! How delightful.” She turned
to Karen. “And are you English too, Miss Wainwright?”
“No, American.”
“Adam, a word with you, please - if you will
excuse us, Miss Tyrrell?”
“Call me Melissa, please, and by all means.”
Paul smiled his thanks and took Adam aside to
relate the details of the Mysteron threat.
The women stood together in silence, as the men
conversed, moving away all the time. Melissa smiled at Karen. “Have you known
Adam long?” she asked.
“About three years, and you?”
“Oh, it must be more than thirty - we grew up
together. My mother is his godmother. He’s like a kind of honorary
brother to my sister and me.”
“Oh, right.” Karen was unconvinced. “So, is this
the kind of place that he would bring his
sister to?”
“Absolutely. She’s over there, with Martin van
Heuson,” Melissa pointed. Karen followed the direction of her hand and saw
Katherine Svenson dancing energetically with a young man. She had the grace to glance apologetically at Melissa. The older woman smiled. “Really, Miss Wainwright, you have
nothing to fear from me.”
“I’m sorry?” Karen was indignant.
“Oh, come now, I am not blind and I have rarely
seen such a mix of embarrassment and… delight on Adam’s face.”
Karen blushed. “You are mistaken, Miss Tyrrell.”
“Rarely, when it comes to Adz Svenson.”
“Adz?” She recognised having heard David use the
name earlier that evening.
“He’s never liked the more usual nicknames for
Adam.”
“I know that much, at least,” Karen smiled,
remembering his thunderous face when Ochre had teasingly called him ‘Addy’ once
- and once only. “We mostly just call him Adam.”
“Peter called him Adz when he was little and it
kinda stuck.”
Karen found herself warming to this woman, who
might just be able to tell her more about her boyfriend than he ever would
himself. “We share a love of flying and sometimes I call him
Sky, but only when no-one’s listening… he doesn’t like that much either,”
she confessed shyly. She couldn’t
explain why, of course, and Melissa Tyrrell couldn’t know about the pale
sky-blue uniform.
To her surprise, Melissa nodded. “Yes,” she said
gazing towards the alcove where Adam and Paul were deep in conversation.
“Sometimes it can seem as if the sun itself shines out of those blue eyes…”
Karen gave her companion a look of sudden
understanding. Maybe Melissa did not pose her a threat but that was not the
way she wanted it to be. They waited in silence until the men
re-joined them.
Adam took Melissa's hand.
“Lissa, I am afraid I have to go, something has come up, something urgent. I need to speak to my father. Marty can take Kate home when
they’re ready, but do you mind, hon, if I take you home now?”
She saw the concern on his face and made no
argument. “Just put me in a cab.”
“I couldn’t do that.
I’ll take you home.”
“Adz, a cab is fine. Besides, you don’t want to
make Miss Wainwright jealous,” she added
sotto voce as she slipped past him and walked to the cloakroom to fetch her
coat. He watched her go, blushing violently.
“What’s wrong with her leg?” Scarlet asked. It was
impossible not to notice that she walked with a limp.
“I broke her knee,” Adam said bleakly.
“What?”
“We were tobogganing and I crashed the toboggan.”
“When?” Scarlet asked.
“I was about twelve,” Adam explained. “I’ve felt
responsible ever since, but Lissa never mentions it.
She’s always been great about it.”
Karen realised,
that explains the regular dates, what we have here is a guilty conscience…
Aloud she said, “It was an accident, surely you weren’t to blame.”
“Yes
I was, but it wasn’t me that suffered as the result.”
He gave her a rather rueful smile. “I’m a real Jonah, you know.”
“Yes, so I have always thought!” Scarlet laughed.
“After all, you’re always around when I cop it!”
Adam gave him a forbearing glance and darted
towards his sister who had just come into their vicinity.
She glared at him as he stopped her dancing, listened to him and then waved him
away, indifferent to his plans.
Adam came back and shrugged – he had done what he could.
When Melissa returned, they went through the exit, to the accompaniment
of flash-bulbs as the cameras fired off.
“I hope you are not wearing one of the
‘photo-foggers’, or it’ll cause a stir when they develop those and I don’t want
to have to think of a reason why I’m in the presence of Spectrum agents…” Adam
remarked quietly to Paul. His friend shook his dark head. Spectrum officers on duty were routinely
issued with a small device designed to make any photographs taken of them appear
indecipherable. It was part of the thorough precautions
Spectrum took to prevent the identity of their agents leaking out into the
public domain. Despite complaints
from newspapers and TV stations, Colonel White insisted on its continued use, by
all of his senior Cloudbase officers.
He was only too aware of the potential damage to be done by a cult of
personality amongst the general public.
Karen and Paul collected their tote-bags from the
car, while Adam found Melissa a cab, and then watched as he installed her in it,
with instructions and cash to cover the fare.
He kissed her cheek and waved her off, before joining the others.
“Right, let’s get back home.” He glanced at his
watch. “Dad should be there by now.”
“You're joking,” Karen said.
“I really wish I was.”
Adam’s top of the range, pale metallic-green convertible scrunched up the
driveway of the family home, on the outskirts of Boston.
The fascia of the large, modern house was ablaze with thousands of white lights,
which extended down the drive to the electronically opened, wrought-iron
security gates. Bushes, shrubs and
trees across the spacious garden had lights woven through their branches, making
the compacted snow on the ground sparkle.
Scarlet remembered Adam telling him, before he had left Cloudbase, that
his family always decorated their home with lights, on December 13th
– St Lucia’s Day – as a nodding acknowledgement of their Scandinavian ancestry.
Adam
drove round to the side of the house and slithered to a halt before a large
brick building. He flicked a switch
on his dashboard and the doors to the extensive garage opened silently. He drove in and parked his car between
his father’s black limo and his mother’s bright yellow, two-seater, sports car.
He keyed in the code numbers to open the security door to the main house, and
Symphony and Scarlet followed him as he strode through a utility room and up a
flight of stairs into the open plan hallway.
At the far end, stood an enormous Christmas tree, decorated with more lights and
streamers. Nestled around the base was a gaudy
selection of parcels, piled erratically one on the other.
There
was a narrow strip of light showing beneath a door on the right and the faint
noise of a TV set, with muffled laughter.
Adam headed that way, the others following at some distance. He opened the door
and stood in the doorway.
“Hello, Babes, did you have a good evening?” Karen
instantly recognised his mother’s voice.
“Yeah, fine, Mom.
I met a couple of friends, they’re visiting Boston and I invited them to stay. I hope that’s okay with you?”
“Well,” Sarah sighed, “I do appreciate a little
notice, but if you have already said they can, well, of course....”
“Thanks, Mom, I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“That’s not what she said.” The man’s voice was
deeper than Adam’s and hard edged.
“No, but it is what she meant.
Dad, I need to talk to you - urgently.”
“I am watching the TV - at least I was. Can’t it
wait?”
“If I said it was business, would that help you
decide?” Adam asked sharply.
“Your business or mine?”
“Yours. And mine, as it happens.” He disappeared
into the room.
“How many friends?” his mother asked.
“Just two – don’t worry about it - I’ll sort it
out, leave it all to me. I’ll sort it when we’ve spoken to Dad.”
“The royal ‘we’?” his father asked scornfully.
“No, Scarlet, Symphony and I need to talk to you.”
Obviously this wasn’t incentive enough, and Karen heard the beginning of
irritation in Adam’s voice as he continued, “About the RCF accounts.”
“What do you know about those?
They are highly confidential. Have
you been snooping around my office?” He had John Svenson’s full attention now.
“I haven’t set foot in the building since I
arrived! I need to talk to you and I need to do it now.”
Sarah’s voice cut across the bickering of her
men-folk. “Symphony? Did you say Symphony… and Scarlet?
Oh, Adam – have you left them in the hallway?
For goodness sake, where are your manners…?”
The Spectrum officers exchanged glances of wry
amusement. They had both met Sarah Svenson before and had a good idea of
what to expect.
Symphony smiled as Sarah came out into the hall
and opened her arms to the pair of them.
“Karen, my dear girl! What a
lovely
surprise…and don’t you look so very pretty in that dress? Such a wonderful
colour, my dear…” She hugged the Angel pilot and then turned to kiss Scarlet’s
cheek. “And Paul, how nice to see
you again… I had a lovely chat with your mother, just yesterday… I really must
get over to see her soon – it’s just that I get so busy around Christmas…. Your father has a bad cold, it seems,
and poor Mary was at her wits’ end with him… men always make such bad patients…
It was very naughty of you, not to drop me a hint that you were coming – but
I’ll forgive you, now you are both here… you know, when we spoke earlier, Karen,
I meant to say…”
“Mrs Svenson,” Symphony interrupted, she really
didn’t want the fact that she had called Boston mentioned, “we are actually
here… on business.” She smiled pleadingly at Adam’s mother.
Sarah
Svenson’s face grew serious. “I
hope you are not going to take Adam away?
He hasn’t had a Christmas at home for years now…”
“No,
Mrs Svenson, I’m afraid the problem is here – in Boston,” Scarlet explained
hesitantly. It was hard enough to get a word in when Sarah was in full flow –
never mind gauging what to tell her.
Surprisingly, Sarah nodded briskly.
“But you cannot say any more about it, I suppose?
Of course, I quite understand. And
– whatever this is - you need John’s co-operation?” They nodded. “Very well, you
shall have it.” She pursed her lips and sighed.
“There was I telling Adam off for forgetting his manners, and here I am
doing exactly the same! Can I get
you anything? Something to eat,
Paul? Or a drink?
No? You are sure?” She
smiled and glanced back to the room where two voices could be heard ‘discussing’
things in loud whispers. “One
moment…”
She
went to the doorway and said firmly, “John, please, these young people have come
a long way to ask for your help. I am sure they won’t be wasting their time – or
yours. They must have a good
reason.”
John
Svenson’s deep voice rumbled a reply and moments later Adam appeared at his
mother’s side. He laid a grateful
hand on her arm and waved his friends across the hall, towards a door set back
from the stairway.
Behind him, they saw another man appear, also tall and fair.
Although they had never met him, they recognised John Svenson. As a prominent financier and
business guru, his picture was a common sight in the financial newspapers, and
his opinion was eagerly sought on almost every money matter that made the news.
Not that he often gave it. A few
years older than his wife, he was handsome in an austere way; his fair hair had
turned to distinguished silver, his blue eyes were icy-pale beneath his
glowering brows. He was not much
shorter than his son, and although he was not as solidly built as Adam, it was
quite possible, Karen mused, as he pushed past her, to envisage how Adam would
look in his late fifties, so similar were they.
Hopefully,
she
thought, Adam won’t be such a
misogynist as his father always seems to be…
Sarah
Svenson watched from the doorway as her husband led the way to his office. Momentarily, she wondered if she should
follow them, but decided not to. If
this was Spectrum business, she had no place there. She turned and went back to the TV, staring for fully five
minutes, before she realised she wasn’t watching and turned it off. She went to
stare across the hall, wondering just what was happening behind the heavy wooden
door of the office…
Karen
trailed after the three men and sighed heavily as Adam closed the door behind
her and ushered her to a chair.
“Dad, may I introduce Captain Scarlet and Symphony
Angel - my father, John Svenson.
Paul and Karen are here because Spectrum has received a threat that may pertain
to your company and the accounts it deals with.”
“Spectrum, eh?” John Svenson studied the couple
sitting before him, as if they were unsuitable candidates for a junior position
in his company. “I thought you all wore those Ruritanian uniforms all the time
and only used ‘codenames’. At least, so Adam tells me.”
“We are not in uniform, sir,” Paul began, “simply
because we did not want to draw attention to ourselves, nor jeopardise Captain
Blue's cover amongst his friends.
It will take a matter of minutes to remedy that situation, if you would prefer.”
“No,” John growled. “And I don’t want Adam’s
mother any more concerned than she already is. And please, Captain Scarlet - or
whatever you are called - while you are here,
his name is Adam, not Captain Blue, or any other colour you may have in
mind!”
“As you wish, Mr Svenson.
If I may just inform you, that any official confirmation you may require,
regarding our visit, will need to refer to our codenames and not our own.”
“Yes, I understand.
Adam has explained that - to his own satisfaction, if no-one else's - countless
times.” John glared up from his desk and asked his son, “Now, you were talking
about the RCF Accounts. Explain yourself, boy.”
“Perhaps, I could?” Paul began.
“No, Captain, I had rather you didn’t,” John
responded. “Adam, what the hell’s going on?”
“What do you know about the RCF accounts, Dad?”
“A darn sight more than you should. They are World
Government money, which we invest and administer on the WG’s behalf.”
“There has been a threat; from a ... terrorist
group calling themselves the Mysterons, referring to the wheels of commerce
ceasing to turn, when the Hub is destroyed,” Adam began.
“Drivel,” said John sourly. “What does that mean?”
Karen had had enough of this. She could feel a
mounting irritation at her relegation to an incidental participant in this
masculine triumvirate. She cut across Scarlet’s opening words to say, “We
believe it refers to your company, because SvenCorp, and the Hudson Guaranty
Trust, manage a large proportion of the money the World Government has
designated for funding Spectrum. This is held in the Rainbow Corporation
Funds – known, to you, as the RCF accounts. It is possible that they will
attempt to subvert the account in some way, thus affecting Spectrum’s ability to
perform its duties – and that cannot be allowed to happen.”
“Spectrum? I fund-manage for Spectrum?” John was incredulous; he looked across at his son. “Well,
that is a turn up,” he added coldly.
Karen continued. “There is also a possibility
that they intend to destroy your offices, which would devastate a large part of
downtown Boston. So, it
seemed prudent to send Captain Scarlet and myself here to assist Capt.... I
mean, Adam, in attempting to avert whatever
they had in mind – whether it was a physical attack on the fabric of your
company or a more subtle undermining of the finance that secures our
organisation.”
“How would you avert this ‘assumed’ attack?”
Svenson asked, looking properly for the first time at the young woman he had
rashly dismissed as ‘eye-candy’. He liked what he saw and was impressed by her
air of competence.
Karen returned the older man’s gaze with
equanimity. “We will need access to your offices and the computers, to start
with.”
“Impossible. I am not letting multi-coloured
policemen and musical cherubs invade my offices. The confidentiality and
security of my business is paramount to the confidence my clients have in the
company. Our systems are constantly monitored and
upgraded, we have the best computer security money can buy. No-one can infiltrate the business that
way. There is no need for you to
have access, young lady.”
“No computers are tamper-proof,” Scarlet insisted.
“Well, mine are. Lord knows, I pay those computer
geeks enough to make sure they are secure.”
“I know someone who could hack the system,” Karen
said quietly with a smile. “Two guys actually.”
“Rubbish.”
Karen snapped her fingers at Adam and pointed at
the phone. Suppressing a grin, he handed it over and she punched in a
mobile phone number. Adam took it
back and set it on the desk, pressing the conference mode as he did so.
“Hello,” an annoyed voice responded sleepily. “Who
is it?”
“Patrick,” said Karen silkily, “did I wake you? I
am so sorry, but I need a…teensy favour.”
“Karen? What are you on about?”
“Do you have your trusty laptop to hand, Pat?”
“Never travel without it. Why?”
“I need you to hack SvenCorp for me...”
“What?! You are crazy! I thought we were trying to
stop that from happening? Anyway, last time I did something like
that, I almost got put away...”
Adam intervened, seeing his father's patience
beginning to ebb. “Magenta, it’s Captain Blue.”
“Hiya, Blue, are you there with Symphony?
Some guys get all the luck.”
“Yes, and Scarlet and Mr. John Svenson from
SvenCorp. We need to demonstrate to Mr Svenson that his computer
security is not infallible. So, can you hack their system?”
Magenta demurred. “Certainly I could, given time.
It would be easier through a more open intermediary with public access, which
I’m guessing the finance house doesn’t have.”
“So, if you could access… a Hudson account, that
had a SvenCorp connection, would that help? Can you use that to break into the
SvenCorp computers?” Adam persisted.
“Sure. It might take a time to get into the
Hudson, but if they deal with SvenCorp, I could trace it.” Magenta suddenly got
cautious. “I need a mission code, though, I’m not putting my neck in the noose
for you two without one.”
“It’s all right, Magenta, we are on the level,”
Scarlet reassured him. “And it is just to demonstrate to Mr Svenson that
the threat is a real one. The
mission code is Viking.”
Adam let out a snort of laughter and rolled his
eyes at that one.
“Lieutenant Green’s sense of humour, I guess,”
Karen grinned as Magenta, still grumbling, began to comply with their request.
“Pat, if you use my HGT account, will that speed
things up?” Adam asked, still smirking.
“Yeah, much. So fire away, buddy. I’m through to
their net banking service.”
“27712846319….” They could hear the tapping of a
keyboard. “Password – music – with a 1 in place of the I” Adam said as the
tapping stopped, adding, “PIN - 841411.”
There was more tapping of keys.
“The
hills are alive with the sound of music,” Magenta carolled, irrepressibly.
”Yes, indeed.... 841… what
was it? 411… right.” There was a
whistle. “Phew, you are not doing too badly here, my old buddy!”
“I’m
not asking for a bank statement, Pat,” Adam snapped. “Can you link to SvenCorp
in Boston?”
“What? Oh sure, there’s enough links. Oh, and you have mail. They want to know if you want to sell
the Centuria stocks - shall I say yes?”
Adam glanced at his father, who nodded sharply and
advised, “But not for less than 115.75.”
“I heard that…. okay, I have done it.
By the way, do I get a commission, when the sale goes through? Now what do you
want me to do?”
“Find the RCF account.”
“Cinch - it pays you.
Actually, it pays you more than it pays me!” Magenta exclaimed.
“Never mind, I’ll buy you lunch. Now, can you
transfer funds out?”
“No, I need a password.
Let’s see.” There was long wait as Magenta ran his
program and John Svenson, who had been looking highly uncomfortable, began to
relax.
“There it is!
Come to daddy, my little beauty.” More tapping of keys. “How much of this do you
want?” Magenta asked brightly. He really sounded as if he was enjoying himself.
“Half the balance will do,” Adam said, glancing at
his father. “We’ll put it back in the morning.”
“Well you won’t get interest on it,” John snapped,
shaken to find his systems so apparently open to infiltration.
There would be heads rolling tomorrow in the computer department. Adam gave his father a tight smile.
“145 million? Okay, there she goes; you
are
a rich little boy, Blue,” Magenta said.
“Cheers, Pat, I owe you. Oh, and by the way, I
will be changing my passwords as soon as we say goodbye!”
“Don’t you trust me?” Magenta sounded hurt.
“Not an inch,” Symphony responded with a light
laugh.
“Goodnight, Symphony, my Angel; watch yourself
with those two jokers and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, sweetheart.”
“Well, that should leave her with ample scope,”
Scarlet interjected and Magenta’s deep chuckle echoed through the room as the
line went dead.
John Svenson had fired up his own computer earlier
to follow the cash movements and he called Adam over to key in a new password.
As his son finished typing, he said, “Now put the money back, and I won’t call
the police.”
“Here goes nothing,” Adam said as he did as he was
told, and grinned to see the interest that had been automatically credited to
his account.
Chapter Two:
SvenCorp: working for the fat cats
Boston, Monday, 21st December 2070
Monday morning found Captain Scarlet lying on top
of the king-sized bed, in the opulent guest room of the Svensons’ home.
He wondered when his hosts would surface, and if he could safely shower
yet, without disturbing the household.
By the time they had parted from John Svenson, it
had been almost 1:00am and Adam had busied himself checking that their
accommodation, in one of the many spare rooms, was up to standard.
He needn’t have worried – it was obvious that his mother had sorted everything
out already. He had left Paul at
the entrance to his room and gone across the corridor to where Symphony was
staying.
Paul
had closed the door with a smile on his face as the memory of his friends
gawping at each other like love-struck school-kids flashed before his mind’s
eye. He knew a great deal about their
relationship, more than they were aware of - or so he suspected. He’d watched them manoeuvre through
countless arguments and reconciliations – even got dragged into a few of them,
as an intermediary.
So, who were they kidding by pretending that they were going to
say goodnight?
he mused. He walked to the window and gazed
out at the blanket of snow that covered the extensive lawns and flower beds at
the back of the house. Adam’s parents? He
conceded the possibility, having heard the low drone of John Svenson’s complaint
to his daughter, when she arrived home at 3.20 am.
Perhaps the Svenson offspring are
kept on too tight a rein? But Adam
is in his mid-thirties, for Chrissake - and they can hardly expect him to live
like a monk, even the colonel isn’t that naive. Having been on some pretty
hairy R&R weekend passes with his friend, Paul was well aware that, when the
mood took him, Adam Svenson could party
with the best.
He grinned at the memories and hoped the guilty
pair had got some sleep, at least.
Since
his ‘accident’, he could function perfectly well on hardly any sleep, and he
knew Adam could last for several
days, by dint of taking cat-naps; but he needed them both alert and, preferably,
not distracted by the mechanics of what his own father had always coyly referred
to as ‘nocturnal exercise’.
There was a knock on the bedroom door and he heard
Adam calling, “Paul, you in there?”
He opened the door and, seeing not only Blue but
Symphony - once more suitably attired in her uniform - wished he was wearing
more than the boxer shorts he slept in. She grinned wickedly, as she pointedly
looked him up and down.
“Good morning, Adam, Karen,” he said, trying to
ignore the Angel’s appreciative nod.
His friend gave him a huge grin. “If you want
breakfast, you’d better get a move on,” he advised as he fastened a cuff on his
grey shirt. “Dad’s already down there.”
“What? It’s only 6.15.”
“He’ll want to be out of the house by seven and we
ought to go too, if we want to make it plain at the company that we have his
authority to be there.”
“Fine, I’ll be down as soon as I’ve showered.
Save me some toast.”
“Is that all? I could eat a horse.”
“I wonder why?” Scarlet remarked as he closed the
door.
He
heard Karen laugh as they moved away.
They shared Mr Svenson’s limousine to the offices
in downtown Boston.
John Svenson was on his phone for the entire
journey, to the C.E.O. of the Hudson and then a couple of Wall Street brokerage
firms. Adam, who had eaten an enormous breakfast, cat-napped in one corner and
Symphony stifled a yawn as she watched the passing buildings through the
smoked-glass windows.
Captain Scarlet had already contacted the ground forces for reinforcements and
ordered them to collect the car they had left close to the Spinnaker Club. He had reported their progress to
Colonel White, and had been reminded that Ochre and Grey could be with them
later that day, if they were needed, but so far he felt there was little need
for their support. He would have the ground crew sweep the offices with Mysteron
detectors and search the building for explosives as soon as possible, before he
made any further decisions.
Once inside the glass and steel tower block, John
Svenson took control. He waved away the security guards and
ushered his party to the executive lift. As he emerged on the penthouse floor,
he began barking orders to the startled staff.
“I want full clearance passes for all areas
and to all accounts for my son, Captain Scarlet and Symphony Angel.” Even now,
his voice couldn’t disguise his contempt for their codenames. “Issue them with Triple A clearance
passwords; and by 8.30 I want Doug MacIntyre in here, with every security update
for the past year and the schedule of those planned for this coming year.
Following that, I want all triple A holders here for a meeting.”
He glanced at Symphony. “You will want to go down to the computer rooms, I
suppose, and check those programs, that won’t be a problem once your pass
arrives - which had better be soon!” He glared at a bespectacled, young
executive, watching open-mouthed from behind his desk. The man leapt into
action.
“Is Peter here?” John snapped.
“No, Mr Svenson, Mr Peter has an early meeting
with the C.E.O. from Winston’s. He’s due in by 11.00, when he has a
meeting with Jack Palmer scheduled,” Mrs Lorraine Saunders replied, consulting
her desk diary. She risked a brief
welcoming smile at Adam. He gave
her a wink in response; he remembered Lorrie from before her marriage to the
accounts executive who ran the British Company Accounts Department – a blunt,
good-natured Geordie, whose accent the young Svensons had all found incredibly
funny.
“And Eric?”
“Mr Eric is due to attend the meeting with Jack
Palmer, as well. I have no note of where he’s going to be before then.
I’ll try his office…”
John glanced approvingly at his PA. “Good. Adam,
you’re with me. Where are those passes?” he roared as he
moved towards the door.
As Symphony accepted a plastic card from the
harassed young executive and attached it to the zip on her uniform tunic,
Scarlet took his and returned to the lobby, to await his reinforcements.
“Shall I show you to the computer department,
Miss?” the young man asked hesitantly.
“It would help,” she smiled.
Adam stuck his head round the door and called,
“Lorrie, coffee, please.” He waved farewell to Karen and disappeared back into
his father’s office, shutting the door firmly behind him.
“Yes sir, Mr Adam,” the woman replied to the
closing door.
“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full,” Symphony
muttered, to the astonishment of her guide. “Are they all like that all the
time?”
“Not always.
Mr Svenson and Mr Peter do get worked up and Miss Kate gets sarcastic, but Mr
Eric is usually okay…” the young man said with some feeling. “I’ve not met that
one before.” He waved a hand towards the closed door.
“Well, now I know where he gets his overweening
self-confidence from, if nothing else.” She smiled. “Let’s get a move on; it
obviously doesn’t do to keep any of them waiting.”
“No, indeed not.”
By the time Peter Svenson arrived at the office,
there were teams of Spectrum ground forces on every floor, as well as on the
main entrance, checking all incomers with a camera device.
Peter was stopped, photographed and searched, despite his protests. Incandescent with rage, he stormed out
of the elevator on the penthouse floor, only to cannon into another stranger,
dressed in a bright red and black uniform.
“Ah, Mr Peter Svenson, I presume.” Scarlet said,
with a slight bow. The man was only a little over average
height and his hair was a sandy-brown colour, rather than the true blond of his
father and siblings, but there was no mistaking the pale-blue eyes and the
narrow-lipped mouth, nor the aggressive self-confidence in his demeanour. He was a Svenson all right…
“Who the hell are you?”
“I am Captain Scarlet of Spectrum; at your
service, Mr. Svenson.”
“Then are you responsible for those goons
downstairs who stopped me coming into my own offices?”
“I’m afraid so. There is a security alert on, and
everyone has to be stopped and checked, every time they enter or leave the
building. It’s nothing personal, Mr
Svenson.”
Peter bit back his angry comment and ignored
Scarlet, to call across to Mrs Saunders, “Lorrie, is my father in?
I need to speak to him, urgently.”
“He is in, Mr Peter; Mr McIntyre and Mr Adam are
with him at present.”
“Mr Adam?
You mean my brother?”
“Yes, Mr Peter.
They have been in conference for some time now.”
“What’s he doing here?
Is this to do with you?” he asked Scarlet.
“Mr
Adam Svenson is being very
co-operative,” Scarlet answered blandly.
Peter shook his head and headed for his office.
Before he reached it, the other office door opened and the faint sounds
of John Svenson’s voice, raised in obvious annoyance, could be heard.
Adam
appeared in the entrance. “Captain Scarlet, would you join us please?” he called
across the office, and only then caught sight of his brother. “Oh… hello, Pete.”
“Adam.” Peter’s acknowledgement of his brother was
equally as off-hand. “What’s going on?”
“We’re all rather busy, right now.
I’ll catch you later,” Adam replied, as he hustled Scarlet into the room and,
with an annoying smirk at his younger brother, closed the door firmly in Peter’s
face.
Inside the room, Doug MacIntyre was suddenly
learning that the generous salary he was paid by SvenCorp, to keep their
security systems in top shape, was no sinecure.
He had listened to his boss explaining how a man, in New York with a laptop, had
been able to breach every security wall they had installed and that, if he
wanted to keep his lucrative employment, he would remedy that situation
immediately.
As he reviewed forthcoming upgrades with John
Svenson, Svenson’s imposing son held a phone conversation with someone called
Green, who persistently found breaches in those upgrades.
John Svenson was getting more annoyed with every failure. Then a second man
joined them, in a red Spectrum tunic, and he took over the phone call, relaying
instructions from Green to the younger Svenson, who programmed them into the
computer matrix.
Doug
MacIntyre saw his job disappearing before his eyes.
“Lieutenant Green says you had some pretty good ideas, Mr MacIntyre.
He’s incorporated a few of them into the security wall Adam’s just input,”
Scarlet said, seeing the man’s obvious unease. “He does have the advantage of
some very powerful computers at his command; no hackers would have access to
anything half so powerful.”
“But from what you are telling me, Scarlet, these
...”
“…Infiltrators…” Adam supplied the word before his
father could give too much away.
“…Infiltrators, could come at us from anywhere...
the World Government have powerful computers, or the defence forces.
I want to ensure our systems can cope with whatever is out there.”
“Especially if he gets the service for free,” Adam
muttered. And, typing a new code into the terminal to encrypt the program, he
added, “This is security information, MacIntyre, not for public release.” He
continued typing, a slight smile on his face.
Captain Scarlet’s epaulettes flashed a
creamy-white.
“Go ahead, Symphony,” he said as his cap mic swung down.
“Just to confirm the mainframe has closed to
reboot, Captain. And would you please tell Mr Svenson – junior - that, if he put that message on
every terminal, I will personally
ensure that the few remaining days of his life are filled with excruciating
pain.”
Scarlet laughed and passed on the message.
Adam grinned and shook his head.
“He says not,” Scarlet relayed with some
amusement.
“Then I will go to lunch with him,” Symphony
replied calmly, and cut the connection.
“Lunch? After the breakfast you ate?” John Svenson
remarked to his son, as he heard the final part of the message. “Where
do
you put it all?”
~oo0oo~
Eric
Svenson wiped the sweat off his top lip for the hundredth time that morning, and
despite the bitingly cold wind, opened the top button of his heavy overcoat. Around him, people huddled into their
clothes and hastened, with their heads down, for the comfort of the office
buildings that dominated this part of the city. In contrast, Eric was ambling along, almost reluctant to
reach his destination. His heart was pounding and he felt almost sick with
nerves.
How did I get myself in this mess?
he asked himself in despair. I’ve never
meant any harm to anyone – not even John – and God knows, I have cause enough to
loathe my cousin. After almost 35
years of dedicated service, he wants me out – but he won’t tell me to go – that
might cost him – he’d rather edge me out, until I have to swallow my pride and
crawl out…. Well, I won’t ‘go gently into this good night’…. But this – this new scheme will do so much
damage… It will hit John and Peter, of course, which is what I want it to do –
why should I care about them? The problem is it might hurt Kate and Davy and
Adam and… he swallowed, Sarah.
Could I ever deliberately hurt Sarah?
A car
raced past, spraying him with dirty water.
He stood stock still, shaking with rage.
The rainwater dripped from his hat and splashed his glasses. He removed them and wiped them on the
cloth he always carried in his pocket.
Sarah…she is the real problem.
Of course, I’ll do what I can to protect her. She won’t suffer – I’ll take care
of Sarah and Kate and Davy – Adam will take care of himself – he always does.
But John and Peter will be publicly disgraced, humiliated and pilloried. Legal cases, financial ruin …imprisonment. The
prospect cheered him immensely.
Then we’ll see which of us has the real guts, John….
He
entered the front door of the SvenCorp building and was accosted by a hefty
looking man in a charcoal-grey uniform.
“If
you please, sir, we need to check you over… there has been a terrorist threat
and everyone is being checked, on entering or leaving the building.”
A
commissionaire rushed over. “That’s
Mr Svenson – Mr Eric – you can’t search him!”
Eric
smiled. “It’s okay, Bud, I don’t mind – I’ve got nothing to hide.”
He
handed over his briefcase and submitted to having his picture taken by a strange
looking device. A second guard ran
a metal detector over him. He was
clean – Eric smiled and collected his belongings.
As he
strolled to the lift he heard Bud say, “He’s the best of the lot, is Mr. Eric –
always a friendly word – not like the others – too grand to talk to the likes of
us…”
Eric
pressed the button for the executive elevator and stepped inside, his wet feet
leaving a trail on the pale carpet. Oh, yes, good old Eric – salt of the earth….
he thought and gave a surprisingly sardonic grin. “Only now, the time has come, John Svenson, for the meek to
inherit the earth….”
Peter
Svenson was not in a good mood; his day had started badly and was getting worse. He swore he had seen a gleam of mischief
in his older brother’s eyes as he explained, with all apparent sympathy, that
for the present, everyone – including Peter - was considered a security risk. Therefore the security programs were
being updated, revised and improved.
Once these new systems were functioning, if he needed computer access for any
reason, he should ask their father - or himself – to grant that access, because
his own security passwords would be invalid.
This new package was currently being installed throughout the network and
was controlled from the computer in ‘his office’.
“Your office?”
Peter had exploded – “it’s
the executive boardroom, Adam!”
Peter
swore he would be damned before he would ever ask Adam for anything connected
with the company. Fifteen years ago
his brother had walked away from the family business, without any consideration
for the trouble he would cause, nor any apparent regret, and now he expected
Peter to kowtow to his authority?
The man was a maverick; he disrupted the family whenever he appeared, making
everyone edgy, and now he was interfering with business decisions that were
nothing to do with him. Incensed with the injustice of it all, he had gone
straight to his father to remonstrate.
His humiliation and frustration had increased tenfold when he received short
shrift from John.
With a
morning’s work to catch up on after all the hours spent shoring up his security
systems, John Svenson couldn’t spare the time to soothe his son’s rumpled
feelings. Besides, he was tired of Peter’s constant carping about
Adam, which had happened virtually every day since his brother arrived home.
Peter
was left more angry than ever and just thankful that the door to his father's
office was heavy enough to be sound-proof. He retreated to his office and buried
himself in the minutiae of the business papers on his desk, refusing to even
look up from his work.
At
around 10.15, Eric Svenson looked out from his office.
John’s door was firmly shut; the executive boardroom held Adam and the
man from Spectrum and, through Peter’s half-open door, he could see him busily
annotating papers. He went back to
his briefcase and opened the lid.
He removed a computer memory disk and applied a SvenCorp label to it. Then he placed it in a plastic wallet
and slipped it in a sheaf of papers about the next meeting. He wandered casually across the office
and up to Peter’s desk.
Peter looked up as a shadow fell across his
paperwork. “What is it, Eric?” he grumbled.
“We have
a meeting this morning, Pete…”
“Peter…” the younger man corrected.
Eric
gave a dry smile, any doubts he retained about the justice of his plan instantly
dismissed at this off-hand reception. “With Jack Palmer, remember? I hope you read the papers I left for
you?”
Peter
sighed. “I glanced at them. Why I have to do this, I don’t know,
surely you can handle Palmer? He’s
such a schmuck…”
“Peter, we have discussed this before.
You are well aware that John has asked that every consideration be given to
Palmer. He’s an old friend of your father’s and
his father was a valued customer of the company,” Eric reminded him. “Stefan had
a lot of time for Leonard Palmer; a good deal of the phenomenal growth SvenCorp
made under your grandfather was due to the partnership between the two of them.”
“Spare me the lecture, Eric, I know all this.
Sure, Leonard Palmer was a good man, but Jack’s a liability. He’s gone through
virtually all his father left him.
Ah well, I expect he’ll be late again – let me know if he turns up, Eric… in the
meantime, I have other things to do.”
“These
are his latest proposals; I did a spreadsheet for you – as a précis … check it
out, Peter, please – if only out of courtesy.”
Annoyed, Peter took the disk and shoved it into his computer.
“Okay, I will, I have another twenty minutes yet. I’ll check it out. Now please, Eric… go away.”
Eric
stood patiently alongside the desk until his cousin snarled at him and
grudgingly opened the disk. The
spreadsheet opened and Eric gave a slight smile as Peter’s eyes caught the main
column of figures and read them down.
“Is
he serious about this?” he murmured.
“I
have spoken with him on several occasions, and although I was highly sceptical
at first, I do believe that this time he has the kernel of a good deal here.”
Peter
glanced up. “You were right, Eric,
this does need looking into. But I’ll need more than this though, to even assess
the viability of the project.”
“I
told Jack as much. The meeting
today is for him to present a far more detailed breakdown of his proposals.”
“It
would be a departure for SvenCorp… outside of our normal business coverage.”
“John
has never refused to consider a good proposal – wherever it came from,” Eric
said mildly. “I think he might look
favourably on something that put us at the forefront of a new commercial
sector.”
“You’re right there,” Peter agreed.
He had longed to bring such a scheme to his father’s attention, from the first
day he started in the executive office.
He was overly conscious of the snide remarks he was sure were made about him,
behind his back – the younger son – not the preferred one – not
the clever one…not the one John wanted to work with him – and he dreamed of
pulling off a major business coup to silence them, and prove to his father, once
and for all, that he was the right choice for the job and a better man than
Adam.
He
looked up from the screen. “Okay,
Eric, you can leave this with me, now…”
“I
will, Peter, you can be sure of that…” he added to himself as he walked back to
his office. He had done his part, now it was up to
Jack.
~oo0oo~
John
Arthur Osgood Palmer (known to everyone as Jack) submitted himself to the
Mysteron detector test and to the body search, and strolled over to the
elevator, noting the perfect Christmas tree in the centre of the floor and the
tastefully arranged decorations around the lobby.
It was typical of John Svenson’s company that even Christmas decorations could
look perfect, and yet, make the visitor feel as if their presence was begrudged.
He was a
only a few years older than his erstwhile friend, John Svenson, but his
dissipated and hell-raising lifestyle had left its mark and he looked
much older. He wore his
peroxide-blond hair long, and brushed high over his forehead to disguise a
receding hairline. He dressed in expensive suits that were always at the cutting
edge of fashion – and rarely paid for - and genuinely believed he looked good in
them. He did not.
He
had spent his life – and his father’s money – recklessly.
He had almost as many failed marriages behind him as he had disastrous
business ventures. Currently, he
was divorcing the present Mrs Palmer and trying to keep the few remaining assets
he retained, out of her hands.
He
was deliberately late for his meeting with Peter Svenson, but he wasn’t
concerned about that. He had just spent an interesting morning with a very
persuasive gentleman, who had convinced him that he could solve his financial
problems at a stroke, in return for just a little co-operation.
The man was rather intimidating, Palmer thought, and definitely had no sense of
humour, but the scheme he had in mind ought to work a treat and would leave these oh-so-superior Svensons with a huge hole in their company finances
and their business in ruins. He
would give a great deal to see John Svenson squirm.
On his arrival at the Executive Offices, he raised
an eyebrow in surprise when he saw Adam and a Spectrum officer lounging by the
window, deep in conversation.
Having known the family for years, he was surprised to see the eldest son in the
building at all. Perversely, the presence of Adam Svenson
in the building was more unsettling than the presence of the Spectrum personnel.
Eric came from his office to meet him, alerted by
Reception that his appointment had arrived.
Jack jerked his head towards Adam.
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s on holiday.
I think John talked him into keeping these Spectrum people out of his way. I doubt if he’d have set foot in the building for any other
reason, but his presence has still got Peter on edge,” Eric explained.
“Well, I hope he keeps his nose out of our
business.
Pulling a scam on Peter is one thing… doing it to John - or Adam - is
quite a different thing.”
Eric shook his head.
“He’s occupied with the Spectrum people – particularly a shapely blonde who’s
currently working down in the computer department – from what I saw half an hour
ago when they all had coffee up here.”
Jack frowned. “What are the Spectrum people doing
here anyway?”
“A vague threat to financial institutions,
apparently. One of them is causing mayhem at the Hudson too. I’ve had
their MD on the phone for about forty minutes.”
“That
could work to our advantage. Keep
everyone’s eye off the ball…”
He turned his attention to the advancing figure of
Peter and shook the younger man’s hand, full of ingratiating apologies as he
followed him into his office.
“Peter, forgive me, my tardiness is unpardonable.
I am grateful that you kept the time in your busy schedule to see me.
It looks like you are having quite a difficult time here.
I was all but strip-searched by some Spectrum officers before they would let me
in - and isn’t that another one over there - talking to Adam, if I am not
mistaken? Now, what’s he doing here?”
“I
have asked the same question myself…” Peter began.
Jack Palmer listened to Peter’s re-hash of his
grievances and made suitably sympathetic noises. He was pleased to think that,
in this frame of mind, Peter would be even more inclined to circumvent any
security procedures – even the new ones the Spectrum officers had instituted –
if they were tarred with the stain of Adam’s participation. He was sure that
could be used to his advantage.
“I am sorry, Jack, you must think it all very
unprofessional...” Peter began to calm down and realise that he had said too
much to a client.
“Of course not, Peter, what are friends for?
I can understand that it must be galling to see Adam walking back in - as
you say, like the prodigal son - after the years of dedication you have given
the company. I have always
suspected that John – admirably fair in so many ways - has a blind spot for the
waywardness of his eldest.”
“Thank you, Jack.
However, I am sure you are here with other matters on your mind.
How may I help you?”
Peter
looked across as Eric entered and closed the office door behind him. He waved
them both to the conference table that occupied one side of the room.
“I have an exciting new venture which is tied to a
secure re-finance package. I would like you to look it over and
consider the advantages it would bring to SvenCorp and my own company. It has taken me some time to put it
together, the final acceptance only arrived this morning; which is why I am so
late....”
“I understand,” Peter soothed. “Eric has shown me
your preliminary proposals, they are… interesting. I understand you have more
detailed financials prepared? May I see them?”
Jack handed over a computer disk. “I am afraid I
did not have time to get them printed out, but I’m sure you can download from
this and then you have the information to hand for your own spreadsheet
analysis.”
Peter hesitated.
Even in the midst of his annoyance and sense of betrayal, he knew he should not
use an imported disk in the mainframe system.
“Is anything wrong?
I can assure you the disk came from my own supply and has only been used to
download the financial data you need to see.
I feel sure it will be acceptable, and I am anxious to allow SvenCorp first
refusal, being only too acutely aware of the… parlous state of my company’s
balance against its account at the moment. This will amply cover the shortfall
in the funds owing to SvenCorp.” Jack tried to keep his voice light, although he
could feel a film of sweat on his top lip.
Beside him, Eric coughed nervously. Jack gave him a sharp glance, and said with
just a hint of hurt in his voice, “Don’t you trust me, Peter? I’ve been doing business with your
father since you were a boy! But,
perhaps you had better get Adam and
his Spectrum friends to check it out, after all,” he added, with emphasis on the
name.
It
did the trick.
“Where are my manners, Jack?
Of course I trust you. I am
confident your scheme will cover this temporary financial deficit, if it is as
sound as you suggest.” Peter rammed the disk into his computer and clicked the
mouse to open the file, before he could have second thoughts.
He was so busy watching the screen opening, that
he did not see the exultant glance between Eric and Jack.
~oo0oo~
On Cloudbase, Lieutenant Green informed the
colonel that the new security wall was about to become operational in the
SvenCorp computer system, and that Captain Magenta was currently installing it
in the Hudson Guaranty Trust. No reports had come in from the ground
forces, as to any sign of sabotage of the building, and none of the employees
tested had proved to be Mysterons.
Did the colonel want the officers to remain on station?
Colonel White paused from the report he was reading and glanced at the young man
seated at the computer terminal.
“Do you feel that we have as good a security
system as we could expect on those computers, Lieutenant?” He wondered if he
shouldn’t have sent the boy down in person to input the program.
“Yes, sir. Captain Blue has input my new security
program and, for now, the system is locked down with only John Svenson, Captain
Blue and me, as the systems administrator, having access. All other passwords
are invalidated. It will mean that, at least for the present, all funds will
have to be dealt with by one or other of the three of us. Effectively, SvenCorp
is non-operational.”
“When do the Spectrum salary funds get released?”
“Well, sir, what with Christmas and everything, we
were paid early and the funds went through mid-month.
We got paid last week. The next
ones are due towards the end of January; so there shouldn’t be a problem by
then. There is still a lot to do; but Mr
Svenson is understandably anxious that his company be allowed to function as
normal as soon as possible.”
“Then there is no alternative that I can see;
Captain Blue will have to return to duty.
I know he is scheduled to co-ordinate the training of the new Standby Angels at
Koala Base after Christmas, but, given that John Svenson is one of the few
currently able to access the funds, and is obviously the weakest link in the
chain, I think he should stay in Boston until the emergency is over. His father is an obvious Mysteron target. If, and when, Captain Scarlet is sure
there is no obvious danger of immediate attack, he may return to Cloudbase. Symphony can come back as soon as she’s
ready.” Colonel White paused and glanced at the younger man. “Do you need to be there in person to
use the system, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir, I can do it from here.” The lieutenant
sounded slightly disappointed, he would have liked to have spent some time
off-base, but he knew the colonel needed him far more than he admitted.
“Good work, Lieutenant.
Please inform Captain Scarlet and Symphony of my instructions. The ground forces
are to maintain a yellow alert at the office building.
Captain Magenta can return to Cloudbase, once he has secured the Hudson’s
computers, but I want the New York ground forces on yellow alert at the main
offices there, as well. Ask Captain
Scarlet to check out the Atlantic airport security on his way through, will
you?”
“Yes, sir.”
~oo0oo~
Adam waved goodbye as Symphony went through the
gates to the Spectrum hangars. He was sorry to see her go, but you
couldn’t argue with the colonel’s direct orders.
He was glad they had had a quiet, unhurried, lunch together before he
drove her out to Atlantic and a - somewhat frustratingly - passionate fifteen
minutes in the car park on their arrival.
Captain Scarlet had skipped lunch and had driven himself in a Spectrum
Saloon and was, even now, somewhere in the terminal building, checking security,
prior to his own return to Cloudbase. Adam wondered if he should try to find him before going back
to the office; he didn’t want to leave his father alone for too long. He
concurred with the colonel’s analysis of the situation; it did seem that the
staff of the company were possible Mysteron targets and his father more than
most. It gave him a desolate feeling to
consider his family in danger and - of course - they had no real concept of just
how much danger…
The tannoy interrupted his thoughts.
“Will Mr Adam Svenson please come to the information desk? Mr
Adam Svenson.”
He headed there with quick strides, and saw
Scarlet waiting.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he approached, almost
at a run.
“Nothing, I just thought I would let you know that
it all checks out clear here, and I am going back to Cloudbase for now.
Did you expect a problem?”
Adam shook his head. “I guess I’m here until the
all-clear, right?”
“Yes, go home and play the good little son.”
Scarlet smiled. “If that isn’t way beyond your capabilities.”
Adam grimaced. “I won’t be able to keep it up for
long. Especially if Peter gets on my back at the office.”
“Well, see it from his point of view,” Scarlet argued as they walked towards the
gates. “You waltz in there throwing your, not
inconsiderable, weight around and trampling on his carefully built up prestige.
You wouldn’t be my favourite person in those circumstances.”
Adam shrugged. “Peter’s just a little jerk. He has
been for years - it’s all too easy to wind him up.”
“Then don’t demean yourself to do it,” Scarlet
advised. “I know family Christmases can be a pain in the arse, but,
well, just remember you are back on duty – albeit undercover – and pretend he’s
some dignitary you have to baby-sit.
I can remember wanting to throttle quite a few of them, in my time.”
Adam
nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right, Paul.
I shouldn’t let him get to me. Have
a good Christmas yourself and give my best wishes to all the guys up there. Strange to think I’d rather be up there
for Christmas these days, than at home.”
Scarlet smiled and punched his shoulder. “Merry Christmas to you too, Blue-boy. I’ll be happy to ensure that Karen gets
her usual quota of kisses under the mistletoe…”
“Watch it,” Adam threatened playfully.
Scarlet laughed. “Look, I have to go or she’ll leave without me! Take care of yourself and your family. And try to get a good night’s sleep; you’re looking decidedly
grey under the eyes.”
“Ha-ha, you’re just jealous,” Adam replied in a
jovial tone that belied the accusation.
Scarlet’s expression sobered and he said, “You
just pray the colonel doesn’t find out - romancing an Angel is sin enough to get
you into very serious trouble indeed – but an Angel who was on duty, as well!”
He drew a deep breath, his face a picture of concern.
“It’s a court martial offence – for you both - if ever there was one. Although, given that the Angel concerned
is that Angel… you may have to face the
colonel’s wrath alone.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked sharply, beginning
to take his friend seriously.
“Have you never noticed how the colonel can always
find an excuse for whatever Symphony's done wrong this time? I think it has
something to do with her mother.....” Scarlet laughed, delighted to have fooled
his friend so effectively.
“Scandal-monger,” Adam responded with more than a
hint of relief in his voice. Scarlet had really had him worried for a
moment. “The colonel’s impervious to feminine wiles - it’s a biological fact,”
he added mischievously.
“Oh sure, and you’re still a virgin!” Scarlet
mocked.
“Not any more,” Adam said, with a huge grin, and
then slapped a hand across his mouth in apparent embarrassment at his own
indiscretion.
Scarlet laughed at him, and shaking his head, he
laid a hand on his friend’s arm. “Goodbye, Adam,” he said in conclusion.
“Goodbye, Paul,” Adam said, then added primly,
“I’ll be good.”
Overnight, the company computers at SvenCorp ran
the updates, as they always did. Transaction accounts and debits and
credits slipped efficiently through the ether.
Records were amended, updated, accounts slid in and out of credit, new accounts
opened and old ones closed. Nothing
out of the ordinary. Then, deep in the computer memory, a little program opened
of its own volition and began to spread out through the surrounding records,
more information was despatched and received, more amendments made and figures
changed on every record the system held.
|
||
Chapter Three:
Financial Probity
Tuesday, 22 December 2070 onwards
Adam
woke up with a groan and pounded the alarm clock into silence. It was 6.00am and he contemplated staying in bed, but he was
on duty – in an odd sort of way - and ought to make the effort. He slouched into the shower and felt
better, if not happier, after an invigorating ten minutes under the powerful
shock of the water.
I really should not have drunk so much last night, he thought, surveying himself critically in
the shaving mirror.
It
was unusual for his mother to be so lenient towards the over-consumption of
alcohol, never mind actually pouring him copious amounts of it, but then, he
rather thought she had had one too many martinis herself.
Kitty had been home with her all day, under the guise of preparing a
dinner party for the family.
Naturally enough, this had included the purchase of new clothes and lunch at a
swanky downtown restaurant. He
grinned – he’d almost forgotten how easy life at home was, most of the time.
His
father had dragged himself home from work early, and shortly after that Peter
had arrived, with his wife and two young daughters in tow.
Davy had consented to stay home for the evening and his father had
mellowed enough not to find continuous fault with any, or all, of his brood.
Still, he’d been glad to see Eric wander in, as they were having pre-dinner
cocktails, thinking that, at least, that ensured a decent conversation around
the dining table. He had always rather liked Eric,
who’d been around ever since he could remember and was a kind of surrogate
uncle. An amiable and unassuming man, with far more interests in his life than
his father had – or Peter for that matter – Eric reminded Adam of his much-loved
and greatly-missed grandfather, in that one respect. Although, yesterday, Eric had seemed more preoccupied than
usual and was more attentive to his mother than his father really liked.
Yet,
even so, it had still been that rare occurrence - a good family evening -
especially when you recalled some of the ones in the past.
He
had followed Paul’s advice and had made an effort not to antagonise Peter
further, and had even managed to tolerate Cicely’s inane chatter on the subject
of her social life, for about twenty minutes over the dessert. It had always
bewildered him why Peter who - if he was fair - had a good brain, had married
the stupidest woman in Massachusetts, if not the whole of North America.
She
must be good in the sack, Adam thought
tolerantly, and then got distracted thinking about Karen.
No-one could ever call her stupid - not if they didn’t want their
head kicked in, anyway.
He
smiled smugly at himself at the memory of the other night,
now, that has to be the best Christmas present ever, he thought. He had not expected it, to be honest.
She’d been so angry that he was due to go to Koala Base, to conduct the training
for the six new standby Angels, and she refused to believe that the idea was
entirely Colonel White’s. The fact
that he had also decided to go away for Christmas hadn’t pleased her either, but
when his name had reached the top of the leave allocation chart, he had
exercised his option and come home – which had the added benefit of stopping his
mother’s complaints that she never saw him these days – but had seemed to Karen
like a further instance of desertion.
She had been less than impressed by his reasoning and had said so, long
and loud. He had finally decided
that whatever he said in his own defence wasn’t going to do him any good and
that she would just have to come out of her sulk by herself. They had parted on bad terms – so
much so that she had not even come to say goodbye when he was leaving.
It
seemed, for once, that she had eventually managed to ‘forgive’ his supposed
transgressions, because, there had been her call to him and then, later that
same night, she had taken the initiative again.
He
grinned - and then cursed as the razor nicked his upper lip - but he didn’t stop
the memories flooding back…
Adam thought she looked unbelievably beautiful in that dress, as
she turned towards him when he entered the guestroom.
He was still unsure of her mood – he knew her her too well to assume she was not
rankled by his spending the evening with Melissa. Erring on the side of caution, he began tentatively to say
goodnight. To his delight she
came to stand before him, and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him,
very gently. His response was to
lock her in his arms and hold her against him, whilst his kisses grew ever more
passionate.
Finally, with a little gasp of laughter, she freed herself from
his embrace and asked, rather shyly for her: “Your place or mine?”
He hardly dared believe that he had understood her correctly and,
irresolute and tongue-tied, he tried to gauge her mood.
If she was leading him on merely to slap him down, he had no intention of
playing along.
Karen began to feel nervous.
Perhaps he’s offended by my being so direct?
He has some old-fashioned ideas about the way things ought to be done, at times, she thought.
She smiled uncertainly and said, “Well, I didn’t think it was that difficult a
question… but maybe you don’t want to…?
The awful thought that he might have been hoping to spend the night with Melissa
wormed its way into her conscious mind and she almost cried out in relief as he
said:
“No,
no...... I want to, very much, I mean... if you are sure you want to...”
His arms tightened around her again and when he finally stopped kissing her, he
answered her question. “Mine,” he croaked.
He swept her up into his arms, and heard her throaty chuckle as
her hold tightened around his neck and her lips brushed his cheek.
“Don’t drop me,” she whispered.
“Not a chance,” he breathed against her silky hair.
He strode along the corridor and up the short flight of stairs
that led to the rooms at the back of the house.
He stopped at a wooden door, and stooped slightly so that she
could turn the handle. He stepped
inside, and closed it behind him with his shoulder.
Then, he set her on her feet and switched on the light, irritated when the room
was suddenly bathed in a harsh electric glow, guaranteed to destroy the mood.
Karen moved into the surprisingly small room and looked around
her with frank interest. It was no
surprise that the room was immaculately tidy; she’d have expected nothing less
from him, but this room lacked any sign of a personality.
There was a bookcase in one corner, piled with books and folders, close
to a computer on a wooden desk - again nothing unexpected – where Adam was,
there would you find books also…
She wandered over to examine them, hoping to discover a clue to
the child he had been. But every
one of the books was non-fiction: text books, flight manuals and reference
books, hardly the stuff of childhood.
Baffled, she turned to him and cast her eyes once more about the
room. “Okay, I give up… where is the bed?”
He smiled. “This is my study; my bedroom is through here…” He opened a door that led into a large,
airy and comfortably furnished bedroom.
The light here was softer and on a dimmer switch, which he adjusted immediately
- downwards.
Karen walked past him into the room and looked around. There was
a king-size bed opposite the door with a music consol beside it, but, she
noticed, no TV. He was consistent at least! On one of the doors of what she took to
be a large walk-in wardrobe was a full length mirror.
“Ah,” she said, walking further in and turning to smile at him,
“so this is your inner sanctum…” It
was more like what she had expected… there was even a battered teddy-bear
holding court on a small wicker chair by the window.
She went across to it.
“Is he
yours?” she asked demurely, stroking the crumpled ear, evidence that this had
been a well-loved companion.
He nodded. “That’s Lindy,” he confessed with a shy smile.
“You had a female teddy-bear?”
“No, it’s short for Lindbergh…”
She laughed at her own silliness and came to slide her arms
around him. “Now that is the Adam I know…”
His lips sought hers and she willingly surrendered to his kiss.
Gradually she broke away from his embrace, and taking hold of his
hand, led him towards the bed. She
sat on the end, leaning back on her arms and looking up at him, as he towered
over her. She forgot sometimes just how powerful a
man he was – although towards her he was never anything but gentle. A wave of spine-tingling
anticipation washed over her and she unconsciously arched towards him, her head
thrown back, exposing the sweep of her neck and thrusting her breasts forward.
She heard a low growl as he looked at her. “Karen… my darling…
mine,
my angel…” He swooped down, using his weight to push her back onto the bed.
She matched him kiss for kiss, winding her arms around his broad
shoulders. He gently disengaged from her, and began
kissing her from hand to shoulder.
She shivered, as every nerve she possessed responded to his
touch. “Aaadaammm…” she purred, intoxicated with sheer pleasure.
He kissed her lips again, leaving her craving for more when he
moved on to the sweet-smelling skin of her neck and shoulder. His free hand
travelled down her body to stroke her thigh through the open seam of her skirt. When he raised his head to look at her,
she pounced on his lips, drawing him down with her into a spiral of sensation. They rolled over and over across the
bed, wrapped around each other, their hands busy exploring, caressing, teasing
and tormenting, until anticipation exploded into an overwhelming need for even
closer intimacy. He lay above her,
taking his weight on his muscular arms, and the world around them shrank to no
more than themselves and the warm sheets that surrounded them.
Sprawled on the bed, too exhausted by the
intensity of their coupling to move, she cradled his head against her shoulder,
idly stroking his hair. He roused
himself, and gently kissed her before he rolled to her side, encircling her in
his strong arm, so that she could curl up alongside him.
“I bet that teddy has seen a thing or two in his
time…” she teased, as she traced the line of his jaw with one tantalising
finger.
He laughed at her. “Well, you’d be wrong. Lindy’s only just discovered why I don’t
take him to bed with me anymore…”
She raised her head and looked quizzically at him.
“I always knew it would have to be someone very special to share
this
bed with me,” he explained, catching her tormenting hand and kissing her
fingers.
“Someone like Lindy?” she said with a flirtatious smile.
“Oh, you are far more fun than Lindy ever was…”
Her laughter made him smile and as she gazed down at him, her
closeness caught at his throat and he drew her head down to his, murmuring, “Let
me show you just what I mean… unless you think it would shock the teddy-bear?”
Her only reply was a deeply satisfied, “mmmm….”
Adam
snapped out of his reverie with a sigh as he heard a door further along the
landing slam. That had been one of the most fantastic
nights of his life - or what was left of the night – he wouldn’t have thought
she could still surprise him with her passion… but she had taken his breath
away. He walked from the bathroom
to his bedroom, still smiling at the memory.
Of
course, they had had to get up early, as much to blur the truth of what had
happened from his sharp-eyed and occasionally censorious mother, as to be ready
for the departure to the office, but every minute of that short night had been
rapturous.
We may have fooled Mom, but we didn’t fool Paul, he thought ruefully, as he selected clothes
from his extensive wardrobe. Mind you, he divined my feelings for Karen a
long time ago.
He
remembered how Paul had behaved during the incident at the Culver Atomic Power
Station; when he had been fretting over Karen’s safety.
When they had discovered her, in a crashed SPV, Paul had tactfully stood
aside and allowed him to carry the semi-conscious Angel to the helijet. For hours afterwards, he had found
excuses to hang around sickbay annoying Dr Fawn, until he confirmed that
Symphony was basically unharmed. He
squirmed, as he dressed in his most sober suit, remembering how his anxious
assurances to the colonel at their Cloudbase debriefing - that Symphony was just
a little shaken - had earned him a warning glance from Scarlet, a frown from
Symphony herself, and raised eyebrows from the colonel.
He
had tried to be less obvious afterwards and feign a purely platonic interest in
her, but he couldn’t pretend, even to himself, that he had made a good job of
it. As for Karen – once she was over her
pique at his over-protectiveness – she had made little secret of their
friendship, without actually announcing it to the entire base. It wasn’t in her nature to dissemble about something so
important to her.
They
had their differences… she was mercurial and prone to bouts of jealousy,
sometimes taking umbrage at the slightest thing – but he had quickly learned to
deal with those occasions. He had
no worries now; he knew she felt, as deeply as he, that they had a future
together. He had begun to doubt his own capacity
to ever love someone this deeply again… and he was still fearful that something
– some awful tragedy – would rob them of their future together. Yet he could no more stop loving her
than he could stop breathing.
He
completed dressing, knotting a rich, golden, raw-silk tie and squinted at the
mirror, one last time.
Well, here I am going to the office with Dad for the start of a
working day, just as my old man has always wanted. Let him make the most of it,
he thought, going
downstairs, because at the first chance, I
am going straight back to Cloudbase!
His
father was waiting in the hallway, obviously already breakfasted. He watched his son stride down the steps
with a lump in his throat. This is as it should have always been…
he thought.
“I’ll
drive today,” Adam said, picking up his keys and waving away the chauffeur.
“Why?
Let Hewitt drive,” John responded with surprise.
“No,
leave it to me, Dad.” He dropped
his voice, “I am armed and better able to deal with any trouble that might
arise.”
“This
is Spectrum again, I guess?” his father complained grumpily as they walked to
the car.
“No,
this is the WAS. I survived three assassination attempts – let’s just say, that
kind of experience tends to make you particularly cautious.”
John
Svenson was speechless and allowed his son to usher him into the passenger seat
of his car and start the engine, before he spoke again.
“I
never knew...” he muttered in a mixture of shocked self-justification and
appalled surprise. An icy-fear clamped down on his heart as
he contemplated the dangers his son had faced – and faced alone - without his
support.
“Why
should you? You had made it crystal clear you were not interested in what
happened to me once I left the family fold.” There was a remarkable absence of
rancour in Adam’s voice; it wasn’t worth antagonising his father right now.
“I...
I guess I did, at that,” John replied, and Adam knew that that was about as much
of an apology as he was ever likely to get.
They
turned through the streets, which were just starting to get busy, and headed
downtown. They travelled in silence until they halted to turn left into the
office complex.
“That
girl; what is she to you?” John asked suddenly.
“Which girl?” The response was inattentive, as Adam concentrated on the tricky
manoeuvre to enter the underground car park.
“The
Angel girl - Karen?”
“A
colleague and a friend.”
“I’d
advise you to make it a point of honour not to sleep with colleagues and
especially not with friends,” John said levelly.
“Meaning?” Adam snapped, swerving into the reserved bay.
“Whoa, back off! You are so prickly these days.”
“I
want to know what you mean.” Adam turned off the engine and turned to face him,
seeing the indulgent smile on his father’s face for the first time.
“I
may be getting on, son, but I am not deaf and you were making quite a lot of
noise the other night.” John’s smile broadened as he saw his son’s horrified
expression. “Just be thankful your mom was out like a light!”
Adam
found himself blushing, much to his fury. John laughed. “Come on; let’s get some
work done - if you can stay awake after three late nights on the trot, that is!”
Peter
was already in his office, the door open to watch for his father’s arrival. He
nodded curtly at Adam and turned back to his computer screen.
‘Hello to you, too,’ Adam thought and wandered into the boardroom,
where they had set up the computer terminal loaded with the Spectrum security
programmes and overall access to the systems.
He draped his jacket over his chair, nodded gratefully at Lorrie as she
brought him a cup of coffee and gazed out of the window as he sipped it. He fished out his Spectrum personal
communicator and called through to Cloudbase.
“Good
morning, sir,” Lieutenant Green’s voice came back brightly.
“Hi,
Lieutenant. Did everyone get back okay yesterday?”
“Yes,
sir, no problems. Captains Grey, Ochre and Magenta are back too...”
“Lieutenant Green, what are you doing wasting time in small talk?” The colonel’s
sharp tones brought their conversation back to business. “I want an hourly
update on the situation there, Captain Blue.”
“SIG,
sir.” Blue pulled a face and got down to work, running the overnight back-up
diagnostics as the lieutenant instructed.
~oo0oo~
Captain Blue spent Christmas with his family as he had planned.
His mother pulled out all the stops to make it what she called a
traditional family Christmas – although, as Kitty remarked to him, in their
house that meant a well-mannered
state of all-out war. He
enjoyed the experience of spending Christmas Day with Peter’s daughters, the
eldest of whom - ignorant of the uneasy truce between the brothers - clambered
all over her ‘Uckle Adam’ with all the enthusiasm of which a three year old is
capable.
Towards evening, he managed to make time to call Cloudbase and spent a happy
half-hour talking to the colleagues he was missing.
Karen was delighted with her brooch-pin, which he had bought from the Royal
Jewellers in London on a recent trip, and even the colonel unbent enough to wish
him the compliments of the season, as he passed through the Officers’ Lounge.
Late
in the evening, Sarah found her son in the conservatory, sitting in the dark,
pensively watching the stars through the glass ceiling.
“Adam, are you all right? Davy
wants some supper, are you hungry, Babes?”
“No,
I couldn’t eat another mouthful, thanks.”
She
came to sit beside him and slipped her arm through his.
“Where are they now?” she asked.
He
smiled. “Over the mid-Atlantic, near the Azores.
You can’t see them from here.”
She
hugged his arm and laid her head on his shoulder.
“Maybe next year, you could bring her here for Christmas?”
“It’s
not that easy, Mom. Cloudbase has
to be adequately manned, for a start.”
“I
know, you’re forever telling me that when I invite you both to come and visit. But you cannot intend to spend all of
your lives up there…? Surely, you
want a family, someday?” She had
watched him with her grand-daughters.
He
shrugged. “That kinda depends on Karen. Besides, it’s a hard life to turn your
back on.”
“Well, all I know is that I worry myself silly over you.”
She reached and brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder. “I hope it will all
work out, Adam,” she said soberly, all trace of the scatterbrained female
banished as she looked at him. “I
know it is what you want to do and I understand why you don’t want to come back
to Boston – I guess even the financial markets would seem tame after what you’ve
been doing – but promise me - promise me this, because, whatever else I am, I am
still just your Mom, and I worry about you – promise that you will be careful.
I guess that sounds dumb, given what it is that you do, but when there is a
choice – take the safer way.
Please?”
“Hey,” he tipped her chin up and kissed her cheek, “don’t I always?
Isn’t caution my middle name, for heaven’s sake?” He could see the fear
in her eyes, mingled with love and pride, but still there. He hugged her. “I must be a real trial
to you, but I am so glad you understand.”
“Nothing, and no-one, comes between me and my children – not even their father.
And if you want the truth – yes, you are a trial, but one I gladly undergo.” She
hugged him in return, and to hide the tears in her grey eyes, said smartly,
“What does a woman have to do to get a drink around here?”
“She
only has to ask, and I go and get her one,” he smiled and escorted her back into
the brightness of the lounge.
~oo0oo~
So
many Mysteron threats happened within tight time schedules, forcing Spectrum to
act swiftly. And, once they had
dealt with the situation, there was always a period of severe anti-climax,
before the next threat arose. So
now the tension was high, following the threat to the wheels of commerce and
everyone expected immediate action, but nothing appeared to happen: Wall Street,
London, Frankfurt, and Tokyo - all the major exchanges functioned normally. There were no unexplained fluctuations
in the markets - in fact, everything went quiet.
Captain Blue fretted as New Year came and went, Karen’s birthday passed - with
only the briefest of video calls possible between them – and, on Cloudbase,
Melody and Lieutenant Green celebrated their birthdays with the usual informal
parties in the Amber Room. Having
decided that this outstanding threat was more important, Colonel White had
postponed Blue’s departure to Spectrum’s
Training Base at Koala; sending Captain Grey down to oversee the arrangements
for the arrival of the new team of Angel pilots.
He had explained to his disappointed officer that there would be ample time,
after the situation in Boston was resolved, for Blue to complete their training.
To add
insult to injury, Blue suspected that it was supposed to be in the nature of a
‘reward’ for his grudging acceptance of the change in his orders, that the
colonel had had the bright idea of arranging for him to give a series of
lectures at the Boston HQ. It was, at least, familiar
territory and, as the colonel pointed out -
it’s keeping your hand in, for Koala Base, Captain.
But, as he had never enjoyed lecturing much, it was with an air of
resignation that he made the journey over to the Spectrum building, several
times, to lecture on the various aspects of Spectrum’s organisation and role,
and field the inevitable questions about Captain Scarlet and his remarkable
capacity for survival.
This
was the only contact he had with Spectrum during this period and he was soon
bored with the routine of monitoring the SvenCorp accounts.
Over
the weeks, John Svenson had got used to having his eldest son around the office. It had always been his ambition to have
both his sons working alongside him.
He told himself that Adam was getting used to being there and, if he could be
made to see how fulfilling the job could be, there might be a chance that he
would stay on - forgetting this perverse devotion to Spectrum. With this in mind, he involved his son in as much as
possible, getting him to research projects and analyse balance sheets and
business plans, rather than ‘waste his time day-dreaming’.
Adam
did as he was asked - up to a point.
The first research his father
wanted had been on the commercial future of fish farming off the Newfoundland
Banks and in desperation, he had called Captain Grey and begged him to check out
his WASP contacts and send him the data.
John had been impressed.
And that,
Adam thought later, was my
big mistake. More and diverse projects followed, none
of which were any more interesting than the fish farming, except for a review of
a newly-designed executive jet, in which he quickly found four potentially
dangerous faults, in a report that took him all of half a day to complete.
In
between these forays into the world of finance, he monitored the RCF accounts
and reported to the colonel, daily.
Towards the end of the month, the colonel reduced the ground staff cover of the
SvenCorp building to a minimum, but showed no signs of calling Blue back to
Cloudbase.
No-one could work out why the Mysterons had not acted on their threat.
For
Captain Blue, stranded in Boston, it was a far more frustrating time than for
the officers on Cloudbase. They
could follow new leads and there was an emergency concerning an oil tanker,
which had required a joint operation with the WASPs to resolve.
In
the course of that operation, Captain Scarlet was seriously hurt and confined to
sick-bay for almost a week.
Therefore, he was more than happy to hear from Captain Blue, when the latter
called him on a secure Spectrum channel from his bedroom at home.
“How
are you feeling, Paul?”
“Itchy; but Fawn says that’s all to the good.”
“What
did you do this time?”
“Burns,” Scarlet said shortly. Blue knew enough about the events that led to
Scarlet’s Mysteronisation to understand his partner's terseness. Paul Metcalfe had seen his partner,
Captain Brown, burnt alive in the crashed Spectrum saloon and had only escaped
by the skin of his teeth, to fall prey to the Mysterons’ main agent – Captain
Black. Even now that he was
virtually indestructible, he hated fire more than anything.
“Gee,
I am sorry to hear that,” Blue said, skirting the topic as casually as he was
able. “But everything got sorted okay? It said so in the papers.”
“I
guess you don’t see the reports these days?” Scarlet teased.
“Don’t see anything anymore,” he moaned in response. “I might as well really be
working for my Dad. The most
exciting thing I’ve done in the last week was to transfer the salary money to
the Hudson.”
“That’s a vital service, Captain!” Scarlet said with emphasis. “There’d be a
riot on Cloudbase if that operation went wrong.
I know at least two Angel pilots who were down to their small change!”
“Let
me guess - one of them is Symphony?”
“A
perspicacious analysis, Captain,” Scarlet laughed. “Or was it a wild guess?”
“Experience. I’m forever bailing her out the week before pay day.”
“No
wonder she’s missing you,” Scarlet said, in amazement at that confidence -
Captain Blue had something of a reputation for being ‘careful’ with his money.
“Is
she?” He sounded absurdly pleased with the information.
Scarlet couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice. “I’d say so; if her long face
and short temper are anything to go by,” he assured his friend.
“I
think I might try to call her later.
What shift is she on? ”
“How
should I know? But, I’ll tell you
what; if she or Rhapsody comes to visit, I’ll ask her to call you. What time is
it down there?”
“No
matter, tell her to call me on the Spectrum comm. link. I’ll be here, whatever
time she calls.”
“Okay, but remember: ‘calls may be monitored for security and training
purposes’,” Scarlet recited with a snort of laughter. “The things I do for you!”
he added cheerfully.
“I
know - you’re a proper little Cupid,” Blue teased.
“Watch it or I won’t tell her....”
After
closing his conversation with Captain Scarlet, and whilst waiting with as much
patience as he could for Symphony to call, Blue contacted Lieutenant Green. “Are you sure, Lieutenant, that
you can find no trace of any activity that could relate to the threat?” he
pleaded.
“No,
Captain, I am sorry, but there is nothing that looks even remotely worrying on
the records I’m receiving,” Lieutenant Green said.
He smiled sympathetically at the despondent face of the man on the video
link and, taking pity on him, he added, “The colonel was saying yesterday that,
if we find nothing in the next week, we’ll have to assume the threat was merely
intended to tie up manpower and distract us from a different target.”
“Yes,
he mentioned that to me a while ago,” Blue confirmed. “So, it looks as if I can
come home soon?”
Green
noticed his unconscious use of home.
“Yes, sir, seems so.”
“Well, in that case, I hope nothing does happen now!
Speak to you tomorrow, Seymour.”
“SIG,
Captain. Goodnight, Adam.”
~oo0oo~
John
Svenson met his son at the breakfast table, as was becoming his habit. Adam was eating toast, an oversize cup
of coffee half-empty by his plate.
“Morning,” John said.
“Hi,
Dad,” Adam replied after swallowing. He was wondering how to tell his father
about his impending return to duty.
John
helped himself to cereal and sat opposite his son. They exchanged awkward
smiles. “I have a meeting with the CEO of Flight
Inc today, about that jet you were so unimpressed by.”
“I
wasn’t unimpressed, just aware that they’ll never get a commercial permit if
they don’t address those faults. I
doubt the regulators have eased any since my day,” Adam explained for the nth time.
“You
should come along and talk to him. The finance side is well prepared and, on
that, it looks a good bet. You need to be there to talk technicalities with
him.”
“Just
show him my report and tell him it’s from an independent assessor. He’ll have to
take notice and you won’t need to talk technicalities. Don’t be blinded by science, Dad, those faults are real and
it will take time and money to get them sorted adequately. When - and if - they
do correct them, I think they could have a viable and profitable product.”
“Come
along with me. The meeting’s at
11.30 and we can do lunch. I want to talk to you about a new venture I’m
considering,” John urged.
“No,
Dad. Talk to Peter. I won’t be around long enough to be involved with new
ventures.”
John
frowned at his son. “Why’s that?”
“The
colonel has decided that I should return to base within the next week, if
nothing happens.”
“Has
he now?” John asked quietly. “How do you feel about that, Adam?”
“Relieved. I cannot stay here indefinitely.” He refused to acknowledge the
challenge in his father's eyes.
“It
shouldn’t be too difficult to buy out your commission, if you want to stay.”
“I
don’t want to buy out my commission!
I want to get back home... to work.” Adam avoided his father’s severe stare by
assiduously drinking his coffee. He could see the annoyance in his father’s
face, but he didn’t realise it resulted from the hurt that his unintentional use
of the word ‘home’ had caused.
More
upset than he cared to admit, John slammed down his spoon and stalked from the
room. He went straight to his office, intent
on collecting the papers he needed for the day ahead. Damn the boy, damn the
boy! This is his home – this is where he belongs!
He looked up from the desk and his gaze fell on a photograph on the
shelf close by. It had been taken
over twenty years ago – when Adam was about twelve – as part of the company’s
glossy annual report. He frowned
uneasily at it, as, for the first time, he saw nuances in it that had never been
apparent to him before.
It showed John, sitting in his square,
chintz-covered, upholstered armchair in the elegantly furnished, but
comfortable, living room, with his two oldest boys. The children were dressed alike, in
white shirts, striped ties and dark braces, grey trousers and tan loafers -
miniature versions of their father, who was wearing his usual sober suit,
although the silk scarf, draped casually around his neck, gave the impression
that he had just arrived, or was soon to depart from the location.
Peter
was leaning across the arm of the chair, his head resting on his hands against
his father’s shoulder, his fair hair brushing his father’s cheek, as John’s head
inclined slightly towards his younger son. Peter’s face was turned towards the
camera, but it was obvious that his attention was focused entirely on his father
and that he was content to be included in the photograph – if only for the
opportunity it presented to spend time with his father.
Adam’s image was far less harmonious.
He lounged at the other side of the chair, his head bowed slightly so that his
hair flopped over his left temple and almost obscured his eye, but he was
looking directly at the camera from beneath lowered brows, with an aversion that
was almost tangible. There was the
merest suggestion of a pout on his lower lip, as if he resented being made to go
through this banal rigmarole.
The
memory of the tussle he had had to get his eldest son’s compliance flooded
John’s memory – that Adam had not complied willingly was suddenly overwhelmingly
apparent from the picture. He had
one hand shoved deep into the pocket of his grey trousers, whilst the other
rested lightly on his father’s hand, seeming to acknowledge his earlier
disobedience, and ask forgiveness.
A gesture his stern-faced father was ignoring – his rejection made even more
obvious by his incline towards the far more biddable Peter.
His
own expression was remote from both the children – focussed, instead, on the
unseen photographer in a stern reminder of the expected high standard – and in
apparent disregard for both boys’ desire for physical contact.
Now,
in the light of this fresh insight, John looked away, disturbed by what he was
seeing in a picture which, until now, he had always liked, showing - as it did -
what he had believed was the secure succession in the company’s upper
management.
Did his son’s repugnance for the whole lifestyle really go back
so many years? And had he really missed seeing what was suddenly so obvious?
Swiftly, he moved across and turned the photograph flat on the shelf.
Damn the boy, damn the boy! Why did
he have to be so stubborn!
Adam
watched his father leave with a sigh. Why
does he always have to get mad at me? You’d think he’d accept me for what I am
by now… He almost wished the Mysterons would do
something, just so he could deal with it and go straight home. With another sigh
he continued his breakfast.
He
looked up again as Katherine came in. She was wearing an impeccably tailored
dark-grey suit and her blonde hair was drawn back into a severe French-plait,
which had the effect of making her appear older than her twenty-six years and
subtly emphasised her resemblance to her father and brothers.
She looked a different person from the fashionable night-clubber and rich
wild-child she’d seemed to Symphony and Scarlet, when they had seen her at the
Spinnaker Club. Adam barely
registered the change in her, her ability to compartmentalise her life was one
he was familiar with and which she had, more or less, learned from him.
“What
have you done to Dad?” she asked him in exasperation. “He’s just stormed out of
here.”
“Nothing.”
Her
face registered an expression of disbelief.
She pulled her chair out and sat down, arranging her crockery before she said,
conversationally, “He’s been so much more laid back lately, with you around.” It
was Adam’s turn to register disbelief. “It must have seemed like all his dreams
were coming true – there you were, at the office, working with him on projects.
It’s very unsettling to have him so genial… I mean, he’s even been tolerant of
your singing in the shower every morning… something I don’t appreciate, by the
way.” She glanced across at him, catching his eye and making sure she had his
full attention before she added, “You must surely realise that all this is
driving Peter nuts.”
“I
guessed that much. But what can I do about it?
I keep trying to distance myself from the company.
Anyway, no-one will have to suffer me for much longer - with luck, I'll
be out of here and back to my real job by next week.” His relief was apparent in
his voice.
“Ah,
that’s what’s upset Dad, then,” Kitty said flatly and began her orange juice.
“He
cannot have expected this to last, it was always going to be purely for the
duration of the Spectrum mission,” her brother said defensively. “So it can’t be
that much of a surprise that I am to be recalled.”
“People hear what they want to hear and then believe what they heard,” she
retorted, spreading peanut butter on her toast.
Adam
rolled his eyes. “And which particular fortune cookie did that gem come from?”
“S’true, however trite.” She ate her toast and stared accusingly at him.
He
flushed under her scrutiny. “This wasn’t my idea, I came for a holiday – to see
Mom and the rest of you – I never planned to be here above a fortnight. I certainly never expected to be
spending the best part of a month in the company offices, and if I ever had any
doubts about not working there, they have all been resolved by this experience. I can’t hack it, Kitty-Katz. I’ve always known it, even though Dad
won’t accept the truth. I’m just
not cut out to be a banker. I’d go mad
if I stayed here much longer.”
She
studied him carefully. “Don’t tell
me, I know it,” she acknowledged.
Adam had started displaying all the symptoms of restlessness that she remembered
in him from her childhood. The relaxed, tolerant man he had become was reverting
to the tense, waspish, teenager he had been, constantly battling to get his
voice heard.
“Still, you did leave the rest of us with the unenviable task of trying to
realise Dad’s expectations, as best we could,” she reminded him a little
sharply. In her time she too had suffered
from the certainty that her father was comparing her unfavourably to the ideal
he had of Adam doing her job. She
was not immune to the same feelings of inadequacy that were currently driving
Peter insane with jealousy, even though she had more self-confidence than her
older brother.
Her
eldest brother met her accusation head-on. “You think I don’t know that? I know
how much I owe to you and Pete. I don’t think I
could
have walked away if I hadn’t known Peter had far more talent for this job than I
ever would. And, whatever any
of you think about me, I’m not so heartless that I would’ve hurt Dad so much, if
there hadn’t been an alternative.”
Kate
sighed dismissively and looked away. There was more to it than the clash of
wills between Adam and their father – but he had never really seen that, so
intent was he on getting his own way.
Of
all of her brothers, he was the one she felt closest to.
She had always adored him - from childhood - and he had always spoilt
her. However miserable he had been, he’d always had time for his ‘little
Kitty-Katz’. She, in turn,
had trusted him with secrets she wouldn’t even tell her mother and he had never
let her down – except in this one big instance: when he had left. Even the
relationship between her parents had altered subtly once he had gone; she
reckoned she had always known he was their favourite, but it had hurt to see it
confirmed. She could remember sitting alone in his
bedroom – a room that had never seemed so empty before - hugging that damned
teddy-bear he’d always been so protective of and just wishing he would come back
home.
Sometimes, she thought, he is just as selfish and obtuse as Peter always
maintains.
She
finished her breakfast in silence, and then they drove downtown in his car -
John having left without them both.
~oo0oo~
Arriving at the office they were greeted by an
anxious Ken Scott, the Vice-President in charge of Financial Reserves. Scott had
worked for the company since (as he liked to say)
Adam was a lad. He followed Adam into the boardroom,
shutting the door and without preamble said,
“Thank goodness you are here.
We have a problem, Adz - almost all of our fund accounts are going into the
red.”
“What? How?”
Scott handed over a sheet of paper. “I don’t know.
The computer system started registering thousands of transactions on Friday and
there is no way we are doing that volume of business.
I traced the drain on the reserves to the Hudson in New York, where, according
to the daily reports, the recent trend in their transactions has been sharply
upwards. But it is within the parameters
we’d expect for this time of the year, given that people do spend around
Christmas and in the sales… so we made the usual seasonal adjustments
accordingly – extending their credit until the demand has peaked.
It’s just routine. But when
I got here today, their main accounts had fallen below the acceptable levels
over the weekend and consequently they started drawing on their funds with us to
bolster their cash reserves.
Nothing too unusual there, but that’s when the trouble started. Their accounts with us were quickly all
but wiped out - why is a complete mystery - but somehow, our system then allowed
them access to our organisational accounts – the big corporate and government
accounts we fund-manage. That is
where the Hudson is drawing its cash from; effectively they are stealing from
these accounts. If this gets out,
we’ll both be in trouble and at serious risk of censure or – at the very worst –
closure, until the Securities and Exchange Commission are satisfied they are not
in breach of the fiscal regulations, and that SvenCorp remains financially
sound. At the moment, I have to say, we would not meet the criteria and we’ll
shortly be, in effect, trading illegally.”
“What? Why haven’t you spoken to John?”
“I’ve been trying to speak to John since he
arrived, but he won’t give me a chance,” Scott said with a shrug.
“He’s gone into conference and I cannot get through to him. Neither Eric nor Peter are here either.”
Adam switched on his computer and waited
impatiently for it to configure. Scott handed him another sheaf of paper
printouts. There seemed to have been a great deal of activity overnight, with
the transaction reports running to hundreds of pages.
“Okay, Ken, I’ll see what I can do.
Get on to the Hudson and see if they’ve had any luck tracking down what is
causing the cash haemorrhage at their end, would you?”
Scott
nodded and left the room in a hurry.
As the computer came on-line Adam went into the
Spectrum account details and his expression froze in horror at what he saw. He
pushed the intercom to his father’s office.
“Dad,
are you accessing the RCF accounts?”
“Of course not!” John snapped.
“Then who is?” Adam asked, “There’s a whole stream
of transactions going through the accounts.”
“Nonsense, Adam. I am busy right now, can’t it
wait?”
“I think not.
Would you come here please?”
The door slammed open and John Svenson stood in
the doorway looking like thunder. “What is it?”
“Did you give anyone else your password?”
“No.” The response was barely civil.
“Look, the screen shows hundreds of transactions
going through, amounting to millions of dollars!”
John walked across and glanced at the screen.
He gasped, studied the screen intently and then printouts Adam wordlessly
handed him. Father and son stood
side by side, identical frowns on their faces.
“So
much for your impenetrable security. That has to be a virus,” John said
contemptuously, dropping the papers to the desk.
“I know, but how did it get there?” Adam asked.
“I have no idea; maybe your hacking friend did it?
He said something about hacking the Hudson before now,” John suggested angrily.
“It has to be stopped, whatever it is.”
“I know that too.
The Hudson has drawn on the organisational accounts and they have started
drawing on the RCF accounts. They
tap straight into the World Government Funds – and those are linked to the major
reserves in Futura and the World Banks. This could bankrupt the Government if it
goes on at this rate.”
“Well,” his father said caustically, “that would
certainly stop the wheels of commerce, or whatever that threat was.”
“Oh, godammit!” Adam suddenly made the broader
connection and activated the communicator. “Lieutenant Green, get into the
SvenCorp system now - there’s a virus emptying the RCF accounts and tapping into
the WG funds.”
“W-what?” the young man stammered, as he punched
console buttons and saw what Captain Blue was watching.
“Oh, no… oh, please… what the…?”
“I have to ask this - although I don’t for one
moment believe it likely - this isn’t Magenta’s work, is it?” Adam said,
glancing at his father.
“No, sir, Captain Blue, it cannot be.
The security program would have found it.
It isn‘t showing up yet on the reports I get here.
It must be extremely localised.”
“Are you sure, young man?” John snapped.
“It
isn’t localised, Lieutenant, it‘s pulling in the Hudson Guaranty Trust accounts
too,” Blue stated bleakly.
“Nevertheless, I am positive, sir.
This has to have been introduced locally - the RCF accounts were, to all
intents, isolated from the general accounts and there are only a few terminals
that link the two systems. This has gone in locally and spread outwards.”
“How could it have done that?” Adam moaned. “The
place is crawling with ground staff security personnel and every machine is
password coded.”
“Someone who has access as a norm then - that’s
the only answer.” Green was only half-listening as he tried to slow down the
increasingly paced transactions.
“You mean you suspect me and my son?” Svenson
barked.
“No, sir, I don’t suspect Captain Blue,” Green
replied distractedly. Svenson’s snort of rage made him add swiftly, “Nor you, of
course. I need to get Captain Magenta in here and we need to do what
we can - the way the system is drawing on World Government funds, we may have to
sever all connections to the WG right now.”
“If you do that, those transactions will bankrupt
us in a matter of hours!” John Svenson cried angrily.
“Go to it, Lieutenant - as quick as you can.”
Blue broke the connection. “They will do what they can and they won’t let
us suffer for it. Right now, I have to find out who input that virus and how.”
“If they cut the connections, we’ll be wiped out
in less than a day’s trading,” John raged. “What the hell happened?”
“Calm down!
I don’t know - yet. But I will find out, believe me.”
Adam picked up the printout from yesterday and began scanning for relevant
information. “Part of the security regime Spectrum implemented ring-fenced the
RCF funds, blocking connections even to the Hudson, unless they were cleared by
the password holders - you and me, or the systems administrator - Lieutenant
Green. In theory, nothing should be
going through that account that we don’t know about. Yet it looks, “Adam gazed at the screen, “as if every
transaction is going through those accounts!”
“What do you suggest?” John asked coldly, watching
the numbers tumble in the account balance. The screen flashed a red warning of
reaching a critical balance level and explained, somewhat plaintively, that its
route to additional funds was not responding, should it try again, or should
someone call the systems administrator? Irritated, Adam punched the cancel key
and the numbers started to fall again, with the machine making increasingly
mournful bleeps as it reached new lows.
In desperation to be doing something, he sent for
a Ground Staff Sergeant and ordered him re-test everyone on the executive floor
with the Mysteron detector, including a harassed Doug MacIntyre, summoned back
to the boardroom to be thoroughly quizzed on what he had been up to.
Ken Scott came back with the depressing news that nothing the Hudson
could do was making any difference.
They were all watching the final credit balances
of the RCF account fritter away, when Lieutenant Green came back on the
communicator.
“What news?” Adam asked, adding bleakly, “Spectrum
has just gone into the red.”
“Not much joy, I‘m afraid.. I cannot trace the
virus program, it has to be in one of the local machines. Colonel White has
ordered me to fly down and work on it there, with you and Captain Scarlet.
Captain Magenta will man the system here. My ETA is forty-five minutes,
so, in the meantime, I need you to run the following diagnostics on every
executive floor machine. Is Mr MacIntyre there? Good, I’m sending you the
details on the Spectrum laptop, get him to help you.”
“Very well, but make it soon, Lieutenant, we’re
running out of time and money here.”
The young man said hesitantly, “Every transaction
made by any account connected to SvenCorp, however remotely, is now routed
through the RCF accounts, and these, unable to cope with the heavy seasonal
demand, are drawing on every other account…which in turn draws money from the
RCF accounts. The money is going round in
circles, but with every transaction, the amount in the kitty is decreasing. It’s
clever stuff. I hesitate to
suggest this, but, if you could get the Hudson to shut down all its computerised
transactions, including ATM functions, it might help. The majority of the new debits are coming through that link. It goes without saying that you should
close SvenCorp down as soon as possible.”
John Svenson looked as if he would explode. “Every
transaction?” He spun round to the intercom and barked into it, “Lorraine! I
want the brokers to stop trading now!”
“Mr Svenson?”
“NOW!”
Lieutenant Green signed off, leaving the SvenCorp
executives to consider the damage already done to their company.
“How
could the general checking accounts of the HGT lock into the RCF accounts?”
Scott wondered aloud. “There isn’t any way those accounts could be linked.”
Adam
looked up with a bleak expression. “There is one way.
Yesterday I transferred the money from the RCF accounts to pay the
Spectrum salaries. A number of
those payee accounts are with the HGT.” My own, included, he added to himself.
Ken Scott heard this with increasing anxiety.
“I’ll get on to the Hudson and see what I can do. They might be willing to close
down for a time, but they won’t want to stay down for long, John.
They’ll have even more problems with the financial regulators than we
will - not to mention the public - people need access to their cash.”
“Fine, Ken, if I can leave you to do that, it
would be a help,” Adam responded, as his father seemed distracted by the
situation. “Will you deal with the SEC as well? Please don’t say more than you
have to about the reasons.”
“I know; there’s a computer virus affecting the
system. Can I suggest we have been targeted by computer terrorists?” Scott
suggested.
Adam nodded. “That’s the kind of thing. Assure
them we’re on it with everything we’ve got, but don’t mention the Spectrum
connection, or the WG’s involvement.
We need to keep the lid on that for as long as possible.
Can you imagine the consequences if the markets thought the World Government was
about to become insolvent?”
Scott
nodded. “The 1929 crash would look like a picnic! I’ll see what I can do, Adz.”
He glanced at John, and back to the younger man. “I’ll keep you informed.”
“Thanks, Ken.”
Scott smiled. “It’s lucky you were here, if you
ask me.” He turned and left.
“Where is Peter?” John asked suddenly, looking
around. “And Eric, for that matter?
Why aren’t they here?”
Adam
shrugged and asked Lorrie.
Peter and Eric, it transpired, were due in later –
after they had had an early morning meeting with Jack Palmer.
|
||
Chapter Four: Doing Business
Boston, January 2071
Peter
Svenson paid off his cab and looked with distaste at the neighbourhood. It seemed that every time Jack Palmer
changed offices it was to a less salubrious location.
The office blocks in this area were about a hundred years old, products
of the early phase of construction with glass and steel, with faded panels of
coloured glass highlighting the stairs up the three storey building – many of
them sporting spidery cracks. He
sniffed. This is what you got when
people started going on about conservation of the past – run-down buildings that
were not at all cost-effective. It
would be much better to bulldoze the whole street and put up profitable
buildings.
He
entered the narrow door and climbed to the first landing
The door on the right had a laminated notice pinned to it, bearing the
legend’ ‘jp enterprises’. He opened
it and looked at the office within.
It did not give him hope that things would improve. The receptionist, a young
black girl, smiled blandly and asked, without interest,
“Hi-there-can-I-help-you?”
She was chewing gum, Peter noted fastidiously.
“Peter Svenson to see Mr Palmer.”
“He’s expecting you, go on in.” She pointed at a
door bearing another notice: ‘Jack Palmer President.’
Peter sighed, knocked and opened the door.
“Peter, welcome!” Jack cried animatedly, coming to
meet him, “Isn’t Charise there? You cannot get these young girls to work
properly. Come in and sit down.
Charise? Coffee, please. Now. Please.”
Peter perched gingerly on a rickety chair and
noticed, for the first time, that there was another man in the room, standing in
the darkest corner. He looked quizzically at Jack.
“May I introduce Mr Black, my business associate?
This is Peter Svenson of SvenCorp,” he prompted.
The stranger moved closer and Peter got a good
look at him in the dingy light from the window.
He was gaunt, lantern-jawed and very pale.
He looked half-starved and tired. Irrational thoughts of Bela Lugosi and
vampires flashed across Peter’s mind and his unease was not lessened by the
man’s deep - almost sepulchral - voice with its clipped English accent.
“Peter Svenson – the brother of Adam?”
“You know my brother?” Peter gasped.
“We have met many times, although only briefly
over the last several years.” The man gave what must be called a smile
and a heavy chuckle. “I am sure he would be interested to learn I was here.”
“So, you are Jack’s business associate in this new
venture, the… eh, the Ares Project.
Pleased to meet you.” Peter held out his hand and was ignored.
Affronted, he sat back in the chair and turned to Jack.
“Yes, indeed,” Jack replied heartily. “Tell me
what you think of it, fascinating, isn’t it?”
“There are certainly some interesting aspects of
it all, Jack, however, I have a good many questions that will need resolving
before we can progress much further with it. Hasn’t Eric arrived yet?
He said he would meet me here. He
has been doing most of the research into the viability of your project, Mr.
Black. I have merely been examining the
financial aspects of the project, which I have to say make encouraging reading. However, I am no expert, and I’m
surprised that you think yourself one, Jack.
Space hardware is a very specialised field and the market is small, even
today. The Lunar complexes ran
substantially over-budget for many years, and then there was that devastating
explosion at Lunarville 6. So, I
don’t really understand how you propose to construct so cheaply - always given
there is a commercial interest in Martian exploitation,” Peter explained
testily. He began to wonder if Eric
would show up at all, and felt he had been conned into wasting his valuable time
with this harebrained scheme; but doing favours for Dad’s old friends was part
of the downside of being the son of the company president.
“Oh, I agree, Peter.
It is a specialised and small market – at the present.
But, I feel sure I am right when I say this market is set to expand. SvenCorp would be at the forefront of a
new, growth, business, with cutting-edge science.
You see, we have a revolutionary new technique - Mr Black has been
working on it for some time - and the money is starting to roll in,” Jack Palmer
chuckled. “Plenty of people don’t share your scepticism, it seems.”
“You have already gone public?” Peter frowned.
“Oh yes, you could say that, in a big way,” Jack
smiled.
“I don’t recall seeing anything.” Peter shifted
uneasily as Mr Black moved behind him towards the office door.
“You will,” Jack promised, smiling even more as
Peter crumpled under the blow delivered by Mr Black. “Now what?”
“Tie him up. We wait.”
“For what?”
“Spectrum,” Captain Black spat.
Captain Scarlet strode back into the Executive
Offices with Lieutenant Green in his wake.
Lorrie moved to welcome him, just as the door opened and Adam appeared.
“Captain, Lieutenant, in here!”
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?” Lorrie asked
as they walked past her desk.
“Well, a hot drink would sure be nice, Ma’am.”
Green smiled, and then turned to hurry into the room past the waiting Captain
Scarlet. After the comfortable artificial atmosphere of Cloudbase,
Boston struck him as a wet and freezing cold place.
Unlike Scarlet, he had yet to remove his gloves, or unbutton his uniform
coat.
“Hello, Paul, Seymour. Set the laptop up here,
this machine is the one you need.” Adam indicated his terminal. “Although the
readings on it look bad!”
“Hello, Captain... that is…Mr...eh, sir,” Green
stammered, setting his machine up as Lorrie came in with a fresh pot of coffee
and three china mugs. “This is still monitoring the
situation?” he asked Adam, who nodded.
The money was continuing to trickle out of the accounts, and although closing
the systems had slowed it down, SvenCorp was now trading in the red.
Green
nodded his thanks as Adam placed a mug of coffee close to his hand. “I’m going
to boost the balances with some WG fund money, which the colonel has
authorised,” he explained, adding cream to the steaming liquid. “We don’t want the Securities Board or the Fed closing you
down.” He took a mouthful of the scalding coffee before settling down in front
of the computer screen and starting to program in data.
“Too right we don’t!” John Svenson snapped, coming
into the room. Green made to stand, but Adam waved him
down. “What do you intend to do
about this, young man? And how can
we ever recoup our losses?”
“I have Captain Magenta working on that right now,
Mr Svenson, sir.”
“And?” John asked.
“And he’s working on it, you heard the man,” Adam
said. “We’ll get on much quicker, Dad, if you just let Lieutenant Green do his
stuff. He knows what he’s doing.” “You said that before, when he put the new
system in, and look what happened.”
“Ah, yes, well,” Lieutenant Green began, “have you
traced the machine that introduced the virus yet?”
“No. But it wasn’t this one, Dad’s, or any of
the general office machines. We
cannot get into Peter‘s or Eric’s machines.
When we disabled their passwords they were told to enter new ones… and record
them in the security log – which is kept in the in the main safe – but somehow
they forgot to record them… so we don’t know what the new ones are,” Adam
admitted. “I tried the obvious ones, but no go.”
“Where is Peter?” his father asked. “He should
have been back by now...”
“Password problems?” Green rummaged in his valise
and handed over a computer disk. “Try this in there; it’s Magenta’s
code-breaking program.”
“How did you get it?” Scarlet asked, impressed.
“I didn’t; the colonel made him hand me a copy,”
Green admitted. “It tries hundreds of options per second.”
“When you were trying the machines, where did you
start?” Scarlet asked with interest as he followed Adam out of the door.
“Zero, of course!” his partner grinned as he went
towards Eric’s office.
~oo0oo~
Magenta watched the computer working, humming to
himself as he did so. He knew the machine would get there in
the end, he just didn’t know how long it would take and the colonel was getting
restless. But he consoled himself with the thought that you cannot hurry
technology. He heard the door open behind him and hoped it wasn't Colonel White
again.
“I brought you a drink and some sandwiches,”
Symphony said. “Ochre said you’d been here for hours.”
“Why, thanks, Karen - you really are an angel!”
“Very funny, Patrick.” She put down the tray.
“How’s it going?”
“As I
told the colonel, you cannot hurry technology.” He bit into the sandwich with
relish.
“Sure, but what’s happening?”
“This program is looking for the money.
It’s found the internal pathway that was taking the money out, and Blue was
right – the link came from Spectrum salaries being paid through to Hudson
Guaranty. Now it’s looking where it went after
that. Well, not all of it, because some was cash withdrawals from ATMs and it
would take years to find that. But
major cash movements,” he said with his mouth full, “interesting, some of it. Of course, a lot went through the Hudson
and on to other clearing banks around the world.
I have a separate program to check those.” He pointed to a second
terminal on the next desk.
Symphony went across. “It’s stopped.”
“What? Has it found any significant payments?”
She stabbed a few keys and glanced through the
data that appeared on the screen.
“No, but it has found thousands of minor transfers into the same account, which
amount to millions.”
Magenta put down his sandwich and came to look. He
hummed again and tapped in some instructions; the machine obligingly whirled a
little and came up with a name.
“Bingo - it seems every time money went through SvenCorp or the Hudson
a charge was generated that went to the same account. J. A. O. P. Black Ventures. Now, I
wonder who Mr J. A. O. P Black is.”
“Black... isn’t that ominous?” Symphony asked.
“Some people
are called Black, you know: It
could be James Andrew Oliver Paul or John Anthony Oswald Patrick,” he grinned.
“Or - Just Another Of Pitiless Black’s Ventures?”
Symphony suggested with a wry smile at the personable Irish-American.
Magenta gave a weak grin.
“I think I’d better speak to the colonel and Lieutenant Green.”
“Yes, Colonel White?” Captain Scarlet’s cap mic
swung down. Having discovered Eric’s password –
justice – Blue had checked the machine through and found nothing suggestive
of tampering. That meant that, if the fault was to be
found in one of the executive machines as Green hypothesised, it had to be
Peter’s. They had installed
Magenta’s program in the machine and left Doug MacIntyre to watch it search
whilst they consulted Lieutenant Green as to their next move.
“Captain Magenta has found an anomaly with a
SvenCorp account,” the colonel reported.
“J A O P Black Ventures, number 664597213. Money has been transferred to that
account every time the Hudson or SvenCorp computers made a transaction. Please check it out.”
“Yes, sir.” Scarlet turned to the three Svensons
now sitting around the table. “Does anyone know of an account in the name of J A
O P Black Ventures?”
Katherine shook her head; John Svenson frowned and
then did likewise. “Me neither,” Adam added for good measure.
Scarlet gave him a pained look. “Could you check
it, then, please?”
Kate ruffled her brother’s fair hair and went to the office herself, coming back
with a single sheet of paper. “It’s a new account, started... just over two
months ago by Eric - JAOP Black Ventures: a subsidiary of ‘jp enterprises’...”
“Jack Palmer! I thought the initials rang a bell.
Jack likes to use his initials – or a combination of them - when he creates his
dummy companies.” John extended his hand to his daughter
and took the paper from her. He glanced anxiously at his eldest son. “That's
where Peter went this morning.”
The door opened, and MacIntyre nervously announced
that the password to Peter’s computer had been found –
prodigal. Kate gave a snort of laugher and glanced
at Adam.
“What’s so funny?” Scarlet asked her, as they
trooped out to the other office.
“It’s what Peter calls Adam when he’s mad at him.”
she confided. “The -ehm - F-ing Prodigal Son.”
Scarlet smiled. “And what does he call you when
he’s mad?”
“Daddy’s little princess,” she confessed with a
grimace.
Armed with the password, Lieutenant Green swiftly
laid open the contents of Peter Svenson’s computer.
There were hundreds of transaction files, all flashing on and off to show that
they were active and, even as they watched, the numbers multiplied.
“Wow,” Kate said. “Jackpot!”
“It was definitely this machine,” Green said in
confirmation. “Although which one of these files has the main instruction virus
in, I couldn’t say as yet. It is obviously producing clones and
copies to hide its trail.”
“Can’t you just switch the thing off and pull out
the plug?” John Svenson said, moving towards the machine.
“No!” Green called out in alarm. “Sir, we could
lose the blasted thing in the mainframe.
The most sophisticated of these kinds of programs have sensor-files that can
detect attempts to disable them.
When threatened, they send out clones to every networked address.
This is undoubtedly a very sophisticated program.” He glanced at Scarlet and Blue, hoping
they got the message that he suspected it had been produced by the Mysterons. “We have to move carefully, or you might
even send it down the links to every mainframe SvenCorp and Hudson’s have
contact with. I promise you, I will
have the truth out of this box of tricks, if it kills me, but you must give me
time....” He frowned at the machine and gave a sigh.
“What can we do, Lieutenant?” Katherine asked.
Green was too preoccupied to answer; he activated
his cap mic and on the reply said, “Magenta, we have a real beauty here - a work
of art. I think you need to see this - I really do.”
“SIG. I’ll be there just as soon as I can,”
Magenta replied, a note of relish in his voice. “Don’t put it all right before
then, will you?”
Green grinned. “Is that a challenge, Captain?”
Magenta laughed and cut the connection.
“Lieutenant, please,” Adam said, “I am sure this
is a fascinating intellectual problem, but we have to deal with practicalities.
What shall we do?”
Green looked up at the Svensons, all three
standing together and wearing similarly concerned frowns on their handsome
faces.
“Of course, Mr Svenson,” he smiled. “If you could
ask your brother which files he put into this machine, without getting them
checked first - as he must have done - that would help enormously.”
“Where
is Peter?” John Svenson growled. “I
will have his hide for this!”
“He was meeting Jack Palmer,” Kate reminded him.
“Although why we bother with that dead-beat guy beats me!
I know you’ve known him since the Flood, but he’s a jerk, and he has W.H.T. as
well.”
“What?” Adam asked.
“Wandering hands trouble,” his sister explained.
“He’s incapable of not touching something he shouldn’t.”
“Jack Palmer made a pass at you?” Adam laughed.
“Eeuwgh!”
“My feelings entirely, Adz.”
“You never told me that!” her father gasped,
shocked.
“Yes, I did! You told me he was just being
friendly and he’s known me since I was knee-high and I was fantasising... as
if!” Kate snapped back. “The guy’s a perve!”
“Who is he, exactly?” Scarlet asked, hoping to stop the heated discussion
brewing between father and daughter.
“Jack Palmer is the only son of Leonard Palmer -
the man who founded Janx, the technology company.
When his father died, Jack inherited the lot, but he decided he couldn’t be
bothered with technology and that his talents lay elsewhere.
He sold the company to a management buy-out; funded by SvenCorp, and
founded his own company – jp enterprises. He has consistently lost money ever
since, with hare-brained schemes, dodgy deals, and alimony payments,” Adam
replied. John looked at him in surprise. “Just because I don’t work here doesn’t
mean I keep my head in the sand, Dad.”
Kate laughed and then sucked in her cheeks as her
father glared at her.
“So, does the guy owe you money?” Scarlet asked.
“Oh, yes and then some!” Kate snorted. “Last time
Pete was going on about it, he said the debt was now into five figures.”
“What? Why wasn’t I told?” John roared.
“You
really need that explained to you?” his daughter responded with a flash of fire
in her clear, blue eyes. “Okay, Dad – listen:
One - because Jack is your old baseball buddy and two - we’re just ignorant
children who don’t understand the code of doing business with gentlemen,” she
told him aggressively, counting on her slim, well manicured fingers. “Three -
because our opinions are not worth the breath we expend on them - and lastly -
because we’re not Adam, so we couldn‘t
possibly have independent opinions on anything that were remotely relevant
anyway!”
“Hey! Leave me out of this,” her brother
protested. “It has nothing to do with me.”
This opened a floodgate.
“Oh, yes it does, Adz! You have always been the
favourite and nothing we ever did was ever going to alter that!”
“I do not have favourites, Katherine!” John
snarled.
“You do, Dad, you know you do!
Oh, shut up, Adz – what can you know about it?
You haven’t had to live with comments like –
well,
Adam understood how that worked, and
I never had to explain anything twice to
Adam!
Is it any wonder Peter gets mad at
you?”
“Look, I am sure this is a very important moment in the lives of you all, but
could you please go and emote elsewhere?
I’m trying to sort out this unholy mess!” Lieutenant Green shouted above the
uproar. As mild-mannered as he was generally,
Green had an impressive turn of anger and - as the eldest of nine - he was not
hesitant about bringing unruly children to heel.
John Svenson turned to rebuke this unimportant
man, but found himself backing down in the face of the lieutenant’s expression.
He recognised innate authority when he saw it, even in the most unlikely
people, and this young man’s whole demeanour shrieked of it.
“Come on, Miss Svenson, Mr Svenson, Adam; let’s
leave the lieutenant to it, shall we?
I am sure we would all benefit from a nice cup of tea,” Scarlet said, trying to
hide his amusement. Lieutenant Green had put the experience he’d gained working
with Colonel White to good use, it seemed.
“Tea?” Katherine said, with a shaky laugh. She was
staring at the young Trinidadian with wide-eyed surprise, but she looked away as
Green caught her eye, and turned to give Scarlet a wry smile.
“Mister, this is Boston - we put your tea in the harbour.”
“Well then, it should be brewed up nicely by now.”
Scarlet grinned at her and stood to one side, his arm extended, to usher
his charges out of the room.
~oo0oo~
Captain Magenta arrived at the SvenCorp building in record time and was soon
ensconced alongside Lieutenant Green in Peter’s office, wrestling with the
problem of the invasive virus.
The
Svensons, all slightly on edge after Katherine’s outburst, sat eyeing each other
warily in the boardroom, the remains of a buffet lunch littering the side
tables. Captain Scarlet and Symphony Angel
- who had piloted Magenta down to the rooftop helipad on the SvenCorp Building -
tried to make themselves useful to the computer experts, but Symphony was
fidgeting so much that, finally, Scarlet sent her to join Adam, guessing it was
his proximity that was making her so jumpy.
She
walked into the boardroom and into a tense atmosphere.
John Svenson nodded at her with unexpected geniality before he turned to
look out of the window. Katherine smiled a welcome, and tried to think where she
had seen this woman before. Her
brother’s reaction - the way his eyes lit up at the mere sight of this stranger
- told her far more than he realised.
Blue
made room for Symphony to sit next to him.
She slipped beside him, pressing her leg against his under the table and
returned his smile with one that echoed his own delight.
“Why did they let you come?” he asked quietly,
although his happiness was obvious in his tone.
“Patrick never could fly helicopters that well and
the colonel wanted him here as soon as possible,” she explained with a smile. “I
wasn’t going to argue, as you can imagine.”
“Well, it’s sure good to see you.
I wasn’t expecting to do that for a while yet.” He glanced across at his father,
whose expression of tolerant amusement was unnerving. “Dad guessed about... what happened,” he confessed in a
whisper. “Apparently we were making ‘a good deal of noise’.” He gave a wry
smile, only she wasn’t looking at him, but straight at his father, meeting the
gaze of the older man with a self-confidence many men couldn’t muster in the
presence of that domineering personality.
Without shifting her gaze, she answered, “Were we?
Can’t say I noticed… must’ve had something else on my mind at the time.”
Adam watched as a smile of conspiratorial approval
spread over his father’s face, even softening the piercing gaze of his blue eyes
before he turned away slightly, breaking eye contact with Symphony.
“Is he
mad at us?” she asked quietly, turning back to her lover.
“Nah, he doesn’t care enough to get mad.
Mom’s the one who might be expected to make something of it - but he
hasn’t told her. So, no problems, mate,
as Dr Fawn would say…”
She smiled at him and, without thinking, brushed a
stray hair from his shoulder. “Are you regretting it?” She knew the answer
already, but wanted to hear him say it.
“Never and in no way.” He caught her hand and
squeezed it. “You ought to know that.
I meant what I said, I love you to distraction.”
She smiled into his clear, blue eyes and moved to
kiss him, closing her eyes in anticipation.
John Svenson cleared his throat loudly and said,
“Isn’t there anything we can do, Symphony Angel?” his voice softened, “and do I
really have to keep calling you by that ridiculous name?”
The lovers sprang apart and she grimaced ruefully
at Adam before answering. “No, Mr Svenson, my name is Karen and
you can call me that, if you prefer.”
“Under the circumstances, I think you’d better
call me John,” he replied and gave her an unexpectedly charming smile.
“What circumstances?” Katherine asked, looking
suspiciously at her father and brother. It was virtually unheard of for her
father to be so… friendly to strangers.
“We spent some time together - when all of this
first blew up - checking to see if the computer security was up to date.
You were out gallivanting with the Van Heuson boy, Katherine. This young lady’s grasp of essentials is
impressive,” John said, smiling.
Adam felt himself blushing and walked to the window, his back to the others. It was embarrassing, sharing a personal
secret with his father.
Katherine took a long second look at Karen and
then said, “You’re the girl Adam met at the nightclub – before Christmas - now I
understand.”
“No, you don’t!” Adam replied forcefully. “You
understand nothing and will say even less - or you’ll answer to me, Katherine
Isolde Svenson!”
His
sister held up her hands in mock surrender and Karen gave her a half-smile, in
sorrowing apology for her lover’s attitude. Kate moved to sit beside her; and
the two blonde heads were soon bowed together in earnest and absorbing
conversation. Adam sighed forlornly - there is no hope of keeping any kind of secret now - and then had to
grin at his father’s sympathetic expression.
John moved to stand alongside his son. He placed a
hand on his arm and said “Peter still hasn’t come back.
We can’t raise him on his cell phone or his pager. ‘jp enterprises’ are not
answering their phones; all we get is a recorded message.
Lorrie has tried Jack’s home number, and Peter’s - Cicely confirms that
he went to work as normal this morning.
She’s trying all his other contacts and the emergency services, in case
there has been an accident. I am
getting worried, Adam.”
“You think that Peter is involved in this, don’t
you?” Adam asked hesitantly. “I mean, you think that he introduced the virus and
siphoned off the money? But, if that is the case, where
does Eric fit in? I can’t see Peter
working with Eric and Jack Palmer, and if anyone is working with Jack Palmer,
surely it is more likely to be Eric; he was the account manager for years.
Besides, we are over-looking the most serious part of all this… the Mysteron
threat to destroy the Hub and the wheels of commerce.”
“I
don’t know what, or who, these Mysterons are, but I cannot see Peter willingly
getting involved in any acts of terrorism.
No, I think that it must be a coincidence, but maybe, your brother is in some
kind of trouble. I blame myself, I
should have kept a closer eye on Palmer - I always knew he was a slippery
customer - and Eric just doesn’t have the killer instinct you need to be a good
financier. My guess is he let Jack
run up too much of a deficit and when Peter stepped in, things got out of hand.”
Captain Blue reserved his judgement and considered the situation.
It was highly unlikely that this incident was a coincidence; he was
convinced that somehow the Mysterons were implicated in his brother and his
cousin’s disappearance.
An
icy-cold hand of fear gripped his heart – if the Mysterons were involved, the
chance that either man was still alive was slight.
The only shred of hope lay in the fact that neither had proven positive on the
Mysteron scans that everyone was subjected to, as they entered or left the
building. Up until the last time
they left here, both were human. If
he could find them, and find them quickly, there might be a chance they would
still be human.
His
father was still watching him, hoping for some reassurance.
“Maybe the Mysterons are not involved with this and it is a simple case
of Peter planning to take the money and run? Maybe Jack and Eric found out and
want a cut of the profits…” He
glanced across to gauge his father’s reaction. John Svenson’s grim face was
pale.
“Has that only just occurred to you?
It was my first thought,” his father admitted quietly. “But why Peter would need
this amount of money is beyond my comprehension.
I thought he was happy enough.”
“Well, life with Cicely can’t be a bed of roses,”
Adam reasoned, trying to lighten the gloomy atmosphere.
John
gave him a bleak smile. “No, she’s not your cup of tea, is she? But have you
thought about his life with me? I push him pretty hard. He’s a good financier -
not a great one - but he works at it.” He looked steadily at his eldest son.
“He’s always wanted to do everything better than you.”
“He does so much I couldn’t hope to do! Working regular hours at routine jobs would drive me crazy. I could not hold this place together. I’d be another Jack Palmer! I’m good at
what I do, but I know my limitations,” Adam said vehemently.
John looked at him and, for perhaps the first
time, believed what he said. It was a turning point in their
relationship, although neither realised it.
He drew a deep breath and asked, “So, what do we do about Peter?”
“We do nothing. I go and find him.
We should check the airports – it would be better if you rang, rather than
Lorrie. We don’t want anyone to know we even suspect there might be something
wrong at the top.”
“Me?” John looked fazed at the suggestion.
“Sorry - in Spectrum mode for a minute there!
- Symphony; please would you check if there has been a ticket to anywhere
reserved for Peter Svenson?”
Kate
looked surprised, but Symphony nodded agreement. She had wondered when the
family would cross that particular bridge. “I’ll get them to check for Eric too,
shall I?” She looked across at the
two men, deeply amused when simultaneously they each ran a hand through their
hair.
“Yes,
thank you, Karen, you had better check for Eric too.” John sat down, suddenly
looking every day of his age. “To think it should even be considered
as a possibility that a Svenson would
be responsible for doing this.”
Adam glanced at his father and wished he could
think of something to lift his depression.
He continued, “Kate, get Cicely to check if Peter’s passport is at home. It’s
not in his safe here, I looked.” He gave his father an apologetic glance.
“What will you do?” John asked, accepting his
son’s authority without question.
“Get suited and go look for him.” He left the room
and, after getting an update from Scarlet on the progress with the computers,
slipped into the executive washroom, where he had, fortuitously, left his
uniform after his last lecture at the Boston HQ.
He emerged, some minutes later, in full Spectrum uniform and crossed to the
boardroom, well aware of the goggling surprise from the office staff still at
their desks. There were some things that were more
important than maintaining a cover story and, as far as he was concerned, the
safety of his younger brother was one of those things.
Katherine gaped as she looked up from her call to
Cicely; she knew Adam worked with Spectrum in some capacity, and she had heard
of the gallant Captain Blue - the man who had saved the World President’s life
and was now the partner of the equally dauntless Captain Scarlet - but never for
one moment had she connected him with her laid-back older brother.
Symphony, waiting for Lieutenant Claret to check all
the airline booking records through the Spectrum computers, felt her heart leap
with a rush of desire as she saw him, dressed once more in the familiar
light-blue tunic, boots and cap.
“Hello, Captain Blue, good to have you back,” she
said softly as he walked past her.
He gave his perennially boyish grin. “Yeah, seems
like I’ve been away too long. I do
believe I’ve put on weight.”
He fingered the edge of the tunic and pulled it down, in a gesture so familiar
to her that she laughed.
John stared across the room at his son. He had
never seen him in uniform, apart from on the odd newscast, when Spectrum’s
scrambling technology mean the pictures could have been anyone. He felt torn as
he looked at him, proudly wearing the uniform his father avowed to despise.
There is something new about him, John thought, as Adam returned his stare; he’s even more authoritative and even more
imposing. He gave a slight nod
towards his son. “It suits you.”
“No, I suit it,” Adam tried to explain. “It gives
me the confidence to do the job I’m good at.”
“And that will include finding Peter?”
Captain Blue nodded.
He came closer and suddenly John sensed an uncertainty.
He raised his brows in silent query and, after a moment, Adam asked quietly,
“Looking at it from his point of view, Dad, d’you think he will thank me for
rushing in and playing the bold rescuer?”
“If he needs rescuing, Adam, he won’t care who
does it and you should know that well enough, without me having to remind you,”
John said quietly. “Peter doesn’t have your strength; of mind or body.
He can’t take what you’ve had to.
I think we should make moves, son, before something happens to him.”
Blue shrugged and sighed. “I’m just paranoid:
about upsetting him any more than I already do - I mean - just by being here.”
His father gave him a smile of rare understanding.
“If this is about what Kate said; I always tried
not to have favourites, but you are a hard act for anyone to follow.
To be honest with you, Peter was always on a hiding to nothing, Adz. But I made it all the tougher for him,
because I think I always knew you wouldn’t settle for this,” he waved a hand in
a gesture that encompassed the building and the city below, “and I feared that
you would move so far beyond my sphere, that I would not be able to help you
and, consequently, I would be less important to you. You see, it mattered very much to me that you needed me. Now, I can honestly say, that I am proud
you
didn’t need my help to make a success
of your life. What you have achieved you have done by your own endeavours – and
that is something every father should be proud of.”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
Neither of the Svenson men was used to speaking so openly about their emotions.
With
an instinctive knowledge that he might never have another chance, Adam confessed
in a low whisper, “If I had ever thought, for one minute, that you were proud of
me - of the choices I made - it would make everything so much easier.”
John’s surprise was palpable. “Good God, Adam -
how could you ever doubt I am proud of you? You have always made me fit to burst
with pride! I know I was occasionally unreasonable about some
things in the past,” Adam snorted derisively,
“but I always appreciated what it must have taken for you to stand up for your
ambitions. In that, at least, Adz, you are one hundred percent a Svenson.” John
put his arm around his son’s broad shoulders and hugged him, to the surprise of
both. They shuffled apart,
rather embarrassed by their own demonstrative behaviour. “Now, let’s find Peter, whatever those coloured shirts next
door say!” John concluded, with an encouraging punch on his son’s arm.
Heartened,
Adam went back to Peter’s office, where his Spectrum colleagues were busily
trying to combat the effects of the virus.
“Captain Blue?” Scarlet jumped up and came to the
door. “What are you doing?” He eyed the uniform and nodded towards the watching
office staff.
“I am going to find my brother - and my cousin. I
think it is about time someone actually
did something around here. I’m going to try the jp enterprises offices;
that’s the last place we know, for certain, they went.
I’m going to take an SPV and if you want to stop me, you’ll have to arrest me,
which - as Field Commander - I guess you have a right to do.
But I have to warn you, Captain Scarlet, that if you try it, not only
will I never forgive you, but I will fight you, all the way.”
Magenta and Green looked up from their work and
watched the confrontation with anxious interest.
“No, Captain Blue, I won’t arrest you.
I think, perhaps, you are right.
We have lost sight of the fact that there are civilians involved in this and,
possibly in danger. However, I will
say this - and I want you to know that I mean every word of it, Captain - if
either Eric or Peter Svenson has been Mysteronised, it will be my duty to kill
them.”
“If either of them is a Mysteron, I
will kill him. Understood?”
“Adam...” Scarlet began to protest.
“Understood, Captain?” There was no arguing with
the stern expression on Blue’s face.
Scarlet dropped his eyes in defeat. “SIG, Captain
Blue,”
Blue let out a sigh of pent-up tension.
He had said the one thing that really worried him about the affair. If the Mysterons were holding Peter and
Eric, they would surely have been killed by now, to be recreated as the
automaton slaves of the implacable aliens.
If that had happened, all Spectrum officers knew there was no alternative
to killing them. No Mysteronised
individual – with the exception of Captain Scarlet – had ever been ‘recovered’
from their thraldom. The Svensons were the first members of any agent’s family
to be targeted in such a way – and even though the thought terrified him, Adam
knew he could never live with the guilt if he allowed anyone but himself to free
his relatives from their torment.
Together they went through to the boardroom and Scarlet spoke to the remaining
occupants of the room.
“Mr Svenson, the work on the virus is progressing
nicely. Captain Magenta thinks he will be ready - and able - to
devise a program to counteract its effects very shortly. Lieutenant Green has convinced the Securities and Exchange
Commission that everything is under control.
You might care to speak to the Hudson again, as I understand they are getting
tired of fielding complaints about the ATMs being out of commission and there is
no immediate prospect of them coming on-line, as yet. From what my colleagues have been able to discover, it seems that
every transaction undertaken through any system that has a link to SvenCorp
generates a charge on SvenCorp accounts - initially it was just the RCF
accounts, but once Green closed the link to the WG funds, the program looked
farther afield, and took credits from any account still in balance. That’s why your own accounts went into
the red. The funds were all
transferred to the JAOP Black Ventures portfolio – so Captain Magenta believes
that most should be recoverable, in time.”
John Svenson pursed his lips and shook his distinguished head. Scarlet continued before he could
reply, “Meanwhile, Captain Blue and I are going to try to find your cousin and
your younger son. Please remain
here, and if you should hear anything from Peter or Eric, let Symphony, Magenta
or Green know and they will contact us.”
“I’m coming with you,” Symphony said, rising from
her seat and coming to her lover’s side.
“No, you’re not,” Blue said crisply. “I need you
here. I need to know you are safe and I need to know that… if I
have to... if… the news is not good… someone who understands will be with my
family. Please, Karen, don’t argue
- there’s a good girl.”
“A what?” she gasped, affronted.
“There's
my girl,” he amended and kissed her
before she could reply. “Come on, Captain Scarlet.”
“SIG, Captain Blue.” Scarlet winked at Symphony.
“Look after him, Paul,” she begged.
“Don’t I always?” Scarlet teased, hurrying after
the rapidly disappearing figure of his best friend.
Captain Blue commandeered an SPV from the ground
staff and turned the heavy vehicle out into the speeding traffic.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Scarlet asked,
punching up a road map on the dashboard computer.
“Naturally.” Blue threw on the brakes. “Moron,” he
shouted, “if you had the brain of a stunned amoeba, you’d know better than to
argue with a frigging tank.”
The other driver blew a fanfare on the car horn.
“Same to you, sunshine!” Blue yelled, apparently uncaring that he couldn’t be
heard. “The drivers around here don’t get any better,” he said conversationally,
as he changed lanes to more blaring car horns.
“No,” Scarlet said weakly. “You’re usually a much
better driver than this, what’s wrong?”
“This is Boston - I’m just driving like the
natives!” Adam laughed.
“Well, I guess you have more right than anyone
else.
Mind that lorry!”
“Calm down, he can see us - we’re bigger than he
is.”
“I hope we don’t have to go far...” Scarlet
murmured and closed his eyes.
Chapter Five: Brotherly Love
It
seemed an age before the SPV came to a halt and Captain Scarlet could open the
door and descend to the ground with a thankful sigh.
Captain Blue was already striding towards an office building across the
street and with a sigh Scarlet scurried after him.
It
wasn’t often that Blue really got the bit between his teeth, but when he did
there was no point arguing – you really just had to go with the flow and hope
you could keep up. They were both
experienced field-agents with a complementary array of skills that made them
perfect partners, but in certain situations, like this one, Captain Blue
reverted to Adam Svenson, head of the WAS Security Department and a one-man task
force.
Captain Scarlet followed him across the street with the rueful thought that, for
once, he was very much the ‘Indian’ to Blue’s ‘Big White Chief’….
Overhead, the sky was growing increasingly dark.
Two street lights had already come on, glowing flamingo-pink as the bulbs heated
– soon they would turn to the familiar fluorescent amber. The seemingly perpetual drizzle of sleet was picked out
against their glow. Scarlet
grinned. And I used to warn Adam that it rained at lot
back home, he thought ruefully,
no wonder he was always so blasé about it…
Along
from where the SPV was parked, one office building was ablaze with lights.
Others showed only the glow of sparsely occupied rooms. In the building
Blue was heading for, few lights showed, with the exception of the subdued
lighting up the central stairwell.
Blue
hesitated before the door and squinted at the name plates in the gloom. He gave a satisfied nod and pushed
against the door which - the electronic security lock being inoperative - opened
with a protesting squeak. The general impression was that the building was
deserted, or at least, very sparsely populated.
Immediately on their right was an empty front office; its surviving desk was
dusty and covered with scattered circulars and old post.
Along the gloomy corridor were empty rooms, some of the doors locked or
padlocked – obviously they were not in current use.
The
paint on the staircase was dirty and peeling and the stairwell was lit by a dim
and flickering light. A few tawdry Christmas decorations still hung along the
corridor. In the gloom of the
winter’s day they only added to the overall impression of dereliction.
Blue
led the way up the stairs, his long legs easily taking two of the shallow steps
in a stride. As he reached the
first landing he paused, and his hand went to his pistol.
Coming
along behind, Scarlet eased his gun in its holster too.
Some instinct was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He strained his ears for any sounds that might show that
there were people in the building.
Somewhere above their heads on an upper floor, a door slammed and footsteps
echoed down the stairwell, followed by another slamming door.
Blue
glanced across at him and indicated the door on the left of the landing. It bore
a laminated paper sign, which read ‘jp enterprises’.
“Looks deserted,” Scarlet whispered. He stepped before his partner and tried
the door, raising his eyebrows in surprise as it opened easily enough. The
small, poky office beyond it was deserted, but bore signs of a more recent
occupation than the downstairs rooms - the single desk was covered in an untidy
pile of papers.
Cautiously, and with as little noise as possible, they edged in, taking care
that the door did not slam behind them.
Scarlet holstered his gun and went to the desk to examine the papers, whilst
Blue moved towards the door of an inner office.
It had a frosted glass panel in the upper part, and he leant towards it, careful
to keep to one side, and frowned in concentration as he listened for any
movement.
Scarlet was still reading the documents on the desk.
“Blue,” he hissed, “these papers are talking about something called the
‘Ares Project’. Now correct
me if I’m wrong - which I know you will do anyway - but Ares is the Greek God of
War, right? Their equivalent of the
Roman God Mars?”
Blue
nodded.
“Well, then, that’s the link to the Mysterons. It seems as if your brother and
cousin have got themselves entangled in a Mysteron plot.
I am more and more convinced that whatever has been going on at SvenCorp
is part of their last threat. For some reason, the Mysterons have chosen to view
your family and their business as legitimate targets. ”
Blue
nodded again, but made no other response.
Scarlet looked across as if expecting an answer, but the American placed a
finger against his lips and moved slightly away from the door, before suddenly
kicking it open with one of his booted feet. The thin door crashed back on its
hinges, ricocheting back from the wall and slammed into Blue as he moved
through. He brushed it aside with his elbow
as Scarlet dropped the papers and drew his pistol again.
Why didn’t he wait or warn me he was about to do that?
he thought with some irritation, and then he
saw what Blue had somehow divined.
At the far end of the room, Peter Svenson was tied to a chair and gagged with
tape, his head hanging dejectedly on his chest.
The
prisoner’s head shot upright at the noise of the door, and his eyes widened in
terror. His face was grimy with the tracks of
tears, and he was covered in sweat, his fair hair clinging damply to his head. He struggled to say something, shaking
his head vehemently, but his brother didn’t wait.
Blue strode into the room, despite Scarlet’s warning call.
“Pete! Thank God you are safe!” he exclaimed.
As Blue strode towards his struggling brother,
Scarlet saw Eric Svenson emerging from the shadows, behind the door.
The gun in his hand was pointing straight at his cousins.
“Blue!” Scarlet yelled.
He fired off a shot towards Eric, and raced forward, intent on providing cover
for the brothers.
Although startled, Eric Svenson still managed to
dodge the bullet and, recovering his balance, he fired several shots at Scarlet.
One bullet caught the captain in the thigh and Scarlet gasped as, spun
around by the impact, he collapsed across the only desk in the room, sending
papers flying all around.
Turning back to the brothers, intent on killing them both, Eric’s face
momentarily registered shock as, without hesitation, the other Spectrum captain,
his instinct and training overcoming his surprise and grief, blasted several
rounds at him, each one hitting him in the chest.
The Mysteron agent reeled from the impact, a look
of complete surprise on his face.
“Adam?” he stammered in confusion, “w..what have you done?” He grimaced at the
pain and dropped to his knees.
On
the chair beside him, Peter was bleating with fear, struggling to free himself
of the ropes that bound him.
Blue holstered his gun and turned to his brother. “This will hurt - believe me,
I know,” he said and ripped the tape from Peter’s mouth in one swift movement.
“Adam, oh, my God - you killed him!” Peter gasped,
tears streaming down his face.
Adam ignored the remark, thinking
this has to be Pete – he’s still stating the frigging obvious. He fished his
penknife from his pocket and slashed the ropes binding Peter’s hands. “Are you
okay?” he asked.
“You killed him!” Peter repeated, unable to stop
staring at the body lying in the pool of blood.
“Yes,
Pete, I guess it must look that way – but I cannot even begin to explain here.
Did he hurt you?”
“No,
well… yes, they did. There were two
of them – Jack Palmer and another man – Black – he said he knew you. They… they hit me with something and when I came round, I was
tied up. Eric was here – I thought he was their prisoner too, that Palmer had
some mad scheme to ransom us – or something – but it soon became clear that Eric
was in it with them.” Peter wiped his hand over his face and stared in confusion
at his brother. “I asked him what he thought he was doing, getting involved in
such a mad scam and he said Dad owed him
after all these years – I …I didn’t understand.” Peter’s eyes closed against
the painful images that flooded into his mind’s eye. “Palmer started laughing –
he said ‘revenge was a powerful enough motive for any actions and that it could
be far more dangerous that anyone imagined’. I didn’t understand – I don’t understand! - but then, he drew a gun and, I thought he was
going to shoot me – I really did… I guess Eric did too, because he begged him
not to do it… Then Palmer just turned and shot him.
He shot Eric!”
Adam
crouched beside his brother, his arms around Peter’s shaking body as jagged sobs
tore through him. “I was scared,
Adz – so very scared - I thought I was next!
Palmer dragged Eric’s body out of the room – leaving me with that creep Black. God, that man was terrifying – I was
more frightened of him that I was of Palmer – who is so obviously deranged.”
Peter fought to re-establish his self control and drew away from his brother’s
comforting embrace.
“You
had every reason to be scared of him – Black is just about the most dangerous
man on the planet, right now,” Adam said, accepting Peter’s need to be left
alone with good grace. He placed a
hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Where did he go?”
“He
stayed here until Palmer came back.
That was so weird – he came back with Eric!
A walking, talking, living Eric! I couldn’t see the point of that charade
– of pretending to kill him – unless they wanted to frighten me? I mean, I really thought he was dead –
he had a huge hole in his chest…” Peter broke down again.
Adam
waited until his brother calmed down again.
“Where did Black go?” he asked again.
“He
and Palmer, they left, I think, went upstairs.
Black told Eric to stay here, to guard me and to kill me if I tried to get away
or to warn you. He said you were
coming with Spectrum and Eric was to kill you and any Spectrum agents with you. Eric didn’t sound like himself – he
said…” Peter barely needed to think to drag the chilling words from his memory,
“he said – the Mysterons’ orders will be
carried out. Who are the
Mysterons? What the hell is
happening?”
Adam
looked with pity at his brother.
Peter was almost hysterical with fear and confusion.
He put an arm around him. “It’s
okay, Pete, looks like you had a lucky escape.” Peter looked at his brother and
realised for the first time what he was seeing. Adam was wearing a Spectrum uniform – a pale blue uniform…
“Why
are you dressed like that?”
“I’ve
been recalled to duty – I’m back at work,” Adam replied abstractedly. “Now, let’s take a look at Scarlet.” He left his brother and went to see if
he could help his partner.
“You’re a colour captain with Spectrum?
Since when? I mean, I knew you worked with them…”
Peter asked as he trailed after his brother.
“Since I left the WAS.” Adam’s curt response effectively ended the conversation
and Peter held fire on the other questions he had.
Captain Blue examined the unconscious Scarlet carefully.
The bullet was lodged in Scarlet’s thigh and he suspected the bone might have
fractured too. He turned his
partner over, and sent Peter to fetch water from the drinking fountain in the
outer office. By the time his brother returned, the
glass was half empty – Peter’s hands were shaking so much. Blue sent him back
again, whilst he slowly dribbled water between Scarlet’s lips.
“Come
on, Paul, wake up,” he murmured, seeing the colour seep back into his friend’s
face. The intense-blue eyes flickered and
opened - pain immediately closing them again with a grimace.
“You
okay?” Scarlet asked, simultaneously with Blue’s identical question.
“Yep,
we’re both okay, thanks to you. I
shot… what was Eric,” Blue replied.
Scarlet opened his eyes, concerned at the pain he heard in Blue’s voice. He struggled to sit upright and gave a sharp intake of
breath. He glanced at Peter, who was hovering as
close to his brother as he could.
“And
your brother?”
“Pete’ll be okay. He’s in shock,
and he’s been bashed about, but he’s fundamentally sound.” Blue’s tone indicated
that he wasn’t open to argument on this one. “It seemed they targeted Eric.”
“Nevertheless,” Scarlet said, “we’ll have to get him checked over – can’t be too
careful.”
Blue
nodded his reluctant agreement.
“I
had nothing to do with it,” Peter protested, justifiably misunderstanding
Scarlet’s concern. “Can we go, please?” he pleaded, his
eyes returning to the body of his cousin on the floor.
Scarlet looked at Blue. Something
was telling him that this could not be all there was to the problem and the
expression on his partner’s face confirmed that he was not alone in his belief. Whatever he had learned from his brother
had not convinced Blue that the mission was over.
“Peter says Black was here,” Blue said, with some reluctance.
He was worried that Scarlet would insist on doing more than it was safe
for him to do, given his wounded state.
The capture of Captain Black had become something of an obsession with
his friend, and sometimes, Scarlet took too many risks in pursuit of that
objective. The wound in his leg was
going to hamper him, and until his retrometabolism had finished its work, Paul
was vulnerable – or at least, more vulnerable than usual.
“You get
Peter out of here, into the SPV, at least.
I want to check out the upper storeys, there was movement up there, it could be
Black – and even if it isn’t, we can’t leave that other guy - Palmer?
- running around taking pot shots at your family,” Scarlet said
decisively.
Blue
nodded. “I’m guessing that Jack Palmer is a
Mysteron too. I’ll see Pete is okay
and come back…”
“I’ll
be okay.” Scarlet heaved himself off the desk,
staggered slightly as his injured leg hit the floor, but he regained his balance
quickly enough and leant back against the desk.
“You
need to go to a hospital,” Peter said, with a hint of his usual officious tone.
“Yes,
I will… later,” Scarlet responded, gingerly testing his leg for its support.
Blue
made a move towards the door. “Come
on, Pete, I’ll let you into the SPV – but you’ll have to promise me that you
won’t touch anything…”
“Huh,
you don’t need to order me about… I know well enough when to leave things
alone.”
Blue’s look of exasperation made Scarlet chuckle and even as the brothers walked
out towards the stairwell, he could hear Peter complaining about something and
nothing, and Adam’s tone of exaggerated patience in reply.
I guess he knows him well enough to be sure he’s not a Mysteron;
I hope so, for his sake. There
ought to be a Mysteron detector in the SPV… Adam can check him out… if he
remembers, of course. What a day it’s been…
he thought ruefully.
Scarlet holstered his pistol and sat on the desk for a while, reading a few more
of the documents, until his leg felt able to take his weight without too much
discomfort. He learned how Palmer had set up the
business proposal he had presented to SvenCorp. References to ‘a new construction technique’ made Scarlet
smirk with wry humour. Perhaps the Mysterons are developing a sense of absurdity, he
thought, I wonder
if their new, cheap technique is retrometabolism?
His
attention was drawn to a sudden movement on the floor beside him, Eric Svenson’s
eyes had opened and moments later the man was lurching back to his feet. Scarlet could see through the
blood-soaked tears in his shirt that his wounds had healed. He knew better than
anyone that Mysteronised agents could never be considered truly dead until they
had been subjected to an electrical charge.
Spectrum had developed an electron rifle to deliver that charge and he
had been the first to see its effectiveness when he had had to use it on a
colleague who had fallen victim to a Mysteron attack. Ironically, Captain Indigo had been part of the team that had
developed the gun, as well as its first victim.
However, it was rare for agents to revive from even a non-electrical death if
the Mysterons had decided that the mission was completed, so this was
confirmation, if any were needed, that they still expected their agent to
complete the mission. That their power extended to
reviving a body already twice-dead was not that much of a surprise, but it was
inconvenient – to say the least.
Svenson
sprang at the Spectrum officer, his hands reaching for his neck.
Anticipating the attack, Scarlet slithered off the desk and Eric’s hands met his
polo-necked tunic sooner than expected. That simple surprise gave Scarlet all
the advantage he needed. He punched
the Mysteron in the stomach, putting all his weight behind the barrage of blows. Eric Svenson was fit enough for a man of
his age, but he was no match for a trained soldier. He gasped, his hands slipping down from Scarlet’s neck under
the relentless punishment. Finally,
a well-aimed uppercut to the jaw made the man stagger back. Scarlet moved in, landing punch after
punch on the now disorientated man.
Eric slipped to the floor and Scarlet kicked at him, his red boot connecting
with his jaw with a resounding crack, as the bone shattered.
The
Mysteronised Eric Svenson sank unconscious at his feet.
“And
stay there,” he muttered, rubbing his leg, which was pounding painfully with the
rhythm of his heartbeat at the exertion.
He
wondered when Blue would come back.
More than likely, it would not be until Peter was safely ensconced in the SPV
and possibly not until reinforcements from the Boston HQ were on their way. Meantime, the chances were that Captain Black, if he was
still in the building, would be getting away.
Still
limping slightly, he left the office, barricading the door with the reception
office desk, in case the Mysteronised Eric Svenson should show a further
inclination to attack. When the
ground force reinforcements arrived, they could finish the Mysteron off with one
of the electron guns.
After
checking out the offices on the other side of the corridor, he began to climb
the stairs, ignoring the protesting spear of pain jabbing into his leg with
every step. Although his enhanced
healing process worked quickly and enabled him to survive almost any injury, it
did not actually remove the pain of those injuries, until the healing was
complete. He wiped the sweat from
his face and gritted his teeth. The
nagging unease he was feeling was proof enough, for him, that Captain Black was
close by. Spectrum had been longing
to get their hands on Black, ever since he had returned from the ill-fated
Martian Expedition that had inadvertently started this war of nerves between the
Mysterons and the people of Earth.
Scarlet had more personal reasons to wish for Black’s capture.
His dreams were still peppered with nightmarish images of the car-crash
that had killed Captain Brown and led to his own death at the hands of his
erstwhile colleague – Conrad Turner.
He knew that Blue thought him too concerned with capturing Captain Black, but
even Blue would admit that - as he was the Mysterons’ senior agent – putting
Black out of action would be a major step towards defeating their alien foe. The
knowledge that his partner would be coming in as back-up bolstered his
confidence.
At
the second landing he paused and looked out into the street.
He could see that the SPV had been moved further along the street from
the building and was now facing the other way, so that its headlights
illuminated the frontage. He
smiled. Obviously Blue was anticipating that, at
some point, they might have to use the cannon on the building and raze it to the
ground. As he looked, the off-side
door panel slid open and he saw Captain Blue descend to the ground on the
hydraulic seat. It was obvious that Adam was still arguing with the occupant of
the vehicle and that he was not amused when the headlights flashed off and back
on again.
Shaking his head with a tolerant smile, Scarlet moved stealthily towards the
offices on this floor. He could
hear nothing – no sound of keyboards tapping, no telephones ringing, no murmur
of voices. He halted and relaxed for a moment, concentrating his sharp hearing
and waiting to see if anything triggered the nausea he associated with the
presence of Mysteron agents.
Below
him, he heard the rusty hinge of the street door protesting as it was pushed
open.
Blue’s here, he thought.
He heard nothing else – but he didn’t expect to – Blue could move as quietly as
a cat, when he had to.
He
went on towards the first office.
He dared not leave them unexplored, yet he resented having to be so cautious. The first room was identical to the
first floor office, except that it was empty.
A fine film of dust covered the floor.
It had been empty for some time, quite obviously, so no need to check the
office beyond that. There was a
small washroom, with a crudely chalked matchstick figure on the door, the
triangular skirt leading him to believe that it was meant to represent a female.
Sighing, Scarlet pushed the door open… he always hated having to check these
places out and - on the occasions when there were ladies in them - he felt like
some kind of pervert. This one
looked empty, but he pushed the doors to the two cubicles open – just in case. He doubted if Captain Black would allow
a little thing like gender to stand in the way of a good hiding place.
He
emerged from the toilets to see Blue striding up the stairs two at a time. He
saw Scarlet and nodded.
“There’s no-one here,” Scarlet whispered.
“Where’s Eric?”
“What? I left him
unconscious in the office. He
revived and attacked me, after you left… so I barricaded the door to prevent him
getting out again.”
“Well, he ain’t there now, buddy.”
“Isn’t the door still barricaded?”
Blue
shook his head. “It was wide open….
I expect he climbed over the desk you left there.” He smiled. “Your
retrometabolism has affected your brain, Paul, the door opened inwards,
remember?”
“Wonderful,” Scarlet grimaced. It
was often hard for him to keep his mind sharp whilst his body was healing
itself. Such was the enormous drain on his
energy that usually he would try to sleep, but now he had to keep going. He gave
an apologetic shrug, which Blue acknowledged with a smile. “Is there an electron gun in the SPV?”
he asked.
“There certainly should be – remember when Ochre was in Lisbon and the local
vehicle he was using didn’t have one?
After the rollicking the colonel gave every terrestrial base about keeping their
vehicles in operational order, I’d be surprised if this one wasn’t fully
equipped.”
“Did
you check Peter with the Mysteron Detector?” Scarlet asked as casually as he
could, but Blue still gave him a sharp glance.
“Yes,
I’m not that dumb.” He neglected to remark on his brother’s incensed reaction to
the test.
Scarlet nodded and left it at that.
He ought to have known that Blue was too thorough not to check his brother, even
if his instinct told him he was clear.
He changed tack slightly and said, “You had better fetch the gun. If Eric has been retrometabolised twice… something major is
going on.”
“I
should have brought it with me… it’s my fault.” Blue said with an irritated
sigh. He turned away and as he started down
the stairs he gave a low moan. “Paul…”
Scarlet hobbled over. In the
powerful glare of the SPV headlights, they could see the unmistakable figure of
Eric Svenson moving towards the SPV. Before he could begin to speak, Blue had
reacted and started racing down the stairs, two at a time, swinging round the
landings on the banister rails.
Scarlet hesitated – should he follow?
He had started to descend when he heard a door slam on the floor above him and
footsteps walking away along the corridor.
He activated his cap mic.
“Blue, you take care of Peter…chances are it’s Black up there on the next
storey…”
The
only answer was the protesting squeak of the street door.
Scarlet turned and raced upstairs, just as fast as his legs would take
him.
~oo0oo~
“…
and it just spilled out, all over the floor!
The colonel was furious…” Captain Magenta said, his dark eyes sparkling with
amusement at the uproarious laugh that burst from Lieutenant Green.
“I
wondered what the story behind that was… I knew Ochre got a right ticking off…”
“Oh
yeah, even he had to take it seriously that time.
But, it didn’t last long, he was already planning…” He broke off and his tone
changed completely. “Seymour, do you see what I’m seeing?”
Green
looked at his screen. “Jumping jelly-beans.
No way can that happen – it’s not possible.
You put so many walls around that thing…”
“Not
enough, obviously. It’s started
again…” Magenta started entering instructions into his machine. He considered the information that scrolled back at him and
said, “I don’t think it is quite the same thing.
This time it’s not only attacking the WG funds. That new link is to the Federal Reserve
Bank. It’s breaking out of the confines of the SvenCorp computers and their
links. Get onto the Hudson, Lieutenant; see if they have opened their ATMs.
Quickly!”
Green
staggered from the office and raced across to the boardroom.
Symphony was still talking to Katherine Svenson and smiling broadly at the
family history she was reliving for her amusement.
“I
don’t know all the stories,” Kate was saying, “I was too young to take much
interest, but I do remember that he was hopeless with girlfriends. He was always
getting dumped – but then he never seemed to care anyway.
I think he was nervous of them – the girls at college - he was the
youngest in his year – he was only sixteen when he started Harvard - and the
girls were all a couple of years older than him.
He never asked them out, I know that.
If he needed a Prom date, there was always Melissa. And anyway, even when he was supposed to be ‘dating’ someone, they
would usually end up going off in a huff pretty quickly - mostly because he’d
spend all his spare time under a car or stripping down his Harley Davidson -
instead of taking her somewhere nice…but I didn’t mind, because I could sit in
with that.”
Symphony chuckled. “He hasn’t changed much,” she confided,
“he still loves messing about with machines…”
She
looked up at Green’s unexpected entrance.
“Symphony, Miss Svenson – the virus has mutated and re-emerged in a new and
unexpected quarter - it is now attacking the Federal Reserve.
I need to know if the Hudson has opened any of their ATMs or if anyone
here has started transacting business recently.”
Katherine stood. “Come with me, Lieutenant, I can deal
with that… what exactly has started happening?”
“Well, it’s like this, Miss Svenson…”
“Kitty – my name is Kitty…”
“Well, the virus has started drawing from the funds – much as it did before -
but with new outside sources. Something must have triggered it and we need to
eliminate the possibilities before we can find the source…Kitty.”
“Lorrie – get me Ken Scott – now!”
“Yes,
Miss Kate…”
Symphony had followed them to the door and watched as the blonde swept into her
father’s office, Lieutenant Green in her wake.
As Lorrie put the call through, she asked,
“You
called her Kate – who calls her Kitty, around here?”
The
PA glanced at the young woman and pursed her lips. “Well, her brothers do –
sometimes - and her father, when he’s in a good mood.
I wouldn’t dare, I know that.”
Symphony shrugged thoughtfully and strode across to the office Magenta was
using. She watched as he typed furiously,
grimacing at every failure of his attempts to prevent more damage. She walked round to watch the screen. It
was only then he acknowledged her presence.
“Something has started an even more virulent attack than the initial one. Every replicated file is attacking
another source of funds. This way,
if we don’t stop it, the whole banking system could collapse in hours…”
“Where is the money going?”
“A
hidden off-shore account… I suspect.
You know,” he said as he stopped typing and looked up at her, “I’ve done a lot
of this myself, in the past... but I’ve never seen something that worked this
fast and was so well hidden. I made
my name with tricky financial scams … and I’m flummoxed with this one.”
She
rested a hand on his shoulder. “I
don’t believe it, Pat. You’re the
measure of any computer clever-kid…”
She glanced at Green’s screen and frowned.
“What is Seymour checking?”
Magenta leaned across. He tapped a
few keys. “That’s Eric Svenson’s machine…” His
face showed his surprise. “It shouldn’t even be switched on.” With one accord the Spectrum
agents moved across to Eric’s office. On his desk his computer stood bleeping
quietly. Magenta reached down and moved the mouse.
Two
green rings moved slowly across the screen and dozens of files flashed as they
opened and closed, moving the millions of dollars from account to account.
“This is
now the command machine – they’ve switched,” he said.
“Both machines must have been infected and a time delay installed. This is a far more complex program.” Magenta started
inputting commands and trying to isolate the virus, but then he suddenly stopped
interfering and they watched, letting the machine run, so that they could track
the movement.
Symphony reached over his shoulder and
tapped a particularly active file on the desktop with her long fingernail.
“That’s where the money’s going…” They peered at the file and Magenta opened it. It bore the designation SvenCorp 28067005. “Jeez, Pat, the Svensons are being set up to take
the rap for all this,” she said sharply.
“Not
if I can help it,” Magenta said, as a sudden burst of understanding made him
smile. “You’re clever, Eric Svenson… almost too
clever… and that is why I now know how to beat you. You should never have opened up a second front. Concentrate all your resources on one
battlefield – isn’t that what they always tell you to do? The simplest ideas are often the best…” He slipped into the chair. “Now then, my little darlin’, let’s you
an’ me play a little game…”
Symphony grinned as he flexed his fingers and started typing orders into the
machine, with the rapidity of machine gun fire.
She had every faith that Pat could stop it.
He’d
better.
~oo0oo~
Captain Blue raced out into the street, drawing his pistol from his holster as
he did so. Panting he stopped and called,
“Eric! Stop right there!”
The
man he knew as Eric Svenson stopped and turned towards him.
“Adam? What are you doing here and why are you dressed like that? I came
to see Jack Palmer… with Peter. I slipped, I hurt my head…” he raised a hand to
his head and rubbed the back of it.
“I couldn’t see anyone inside the offices; I came outside to get help. Why are you pointing a gun at me, Adz? What am I supposed to have done wrong?”
“Get
down on the ground and don’t make any sudden moves!”
“What? What are you talking about? Adam, don’t play silly buggers… I have a
headache. Where’s Peter?”
“Get
down!” Adam cocked the pistol. “I will use this…”
“Of
course you won’t…don’t be silly.” Eric turned away, calling for Peter.
Adam
prayed his brother would stay quiet in the SPV. He fired a warning shot at the
ground in front of Eric. The man
turned, his face pale with what seemed to be genuine shock.
“Watch what you are doing! Do you have a permit for that gun? And what are you doing dressed as a
Spectrum agent? Honestly, Adz, you
make me so cross at times.”
“Eric, you have one last chance… get down on the ground.”
Eric
shrugged, a sly smile on his face.
“It was one last chance too many, Earthman. You have lost.”
The
bullet hit Blue in the back, sending him sprawling, his radio cap went spinning
across the wet street and his gun clattered from his hand.
As Peter opened the door of the SPV, Eric picked the gun up.
“Adam!” Peter was yelling. He scrambled from the vehicle before the hydraulic
lift delivered the seat to the ground, and raced to his brother.
He dropped to his knees at his side and gently turned the unconscious
man. He looked up at his cousin,
tears running unheeded down his face.
“I don’t know what kind of monster you are, but what the hell have you done to
him?”
“He
is dead, Earthman, as you will soon be.
Move from that spot and you will get the same.” Eric went to the SPV, treading
on the radio cap in his haste to reach the vehicle; he heaved himself on board
and returned minutes later with a cumbersome looking device. It had a metal harness, fixed to twin
red cylinders and supporting a long narrow barrel.
“I
have the Earthmen’s so-called electron gun…” Eric said.
Peter looked up, and turned around, but he could see no-one else on the
street.
“What
are you blathering about – earthmen? Adam needs to get to a hospital. In my jacket pocket is my cell
phone – call 911…”
“Forget him, he is dead…” Eric said callously.
“You will come with me. The Scarlet
individual will think twice before he attacks and risks getting you killed. Earthmen are unaccountably chary of
doing what needs to be done.”
Peter
started to argue, but Eric waved Adam’s gun at him. “Move, Peter, even the risk
that Scarlet might detect you as a Mysteron, isn’t enough to save you if you do
not co-operate. It really won’t
take much to make me shoot you… you should think of your little girls and your
wife, and do as I say…”
“You
bastard!” Peter shouted. “You double-dealing, yellow-bellied bastard! You’ve murdered my brother…”
“Move!” Eric snapped, kicking Peter to his feet.
Peter
looked down at the motionless body at his feet and drew a shaky breath. He looked at Eric and spat, “He’s a
better man dead, than you are living…” and turned to walk back towards the
office block, his head held high and his face set in a rigid expression. He would not disgrace his brother’s
memory by weeping – not here and not yet.
There would be time for that later – he hoped.
~oo0oo~
Captain Scarlet moved cautiously up to the third and final floor of the
building. He could hear nothing, but his unease was growing, along with a woozy
feeling that made him feel nauseous and which experience had taught him usually
presaged the presence of a Mysteron agent.
A sudden, more violent wave of nausea overcame him, and he stopped, head dropped
to his chest for a moment as a cold film of sweat covered his body. That strength of reaction only happened
in a very specific circumstance – the presence of Captain Black. He shuddered and clung to the banister,
waiting for the sensation to melt away.
Somewhere beyond the building he heard a shot. It sounded very loud, but he
surmised that Adam had shot the Mysteronised Eric once more.
As
the nausea subsided, he drew his pistol and advanced once more, every sense
straining for a clue to where his enemy might be.
Suddenly, away at the end of the poorly-lit corridor, an external door opened
and an unknown man walked in from the roof, carrying a rifle. Scarlet ducked below the top stair, out of the
man’s line of sight. The Mysteron –
for there was no doubt in Scarlet’s mind that he was a Mysteron – opened the
door of the right hand suite of offices and walked in. The door remained ajar, and Scarlet
could just hear the voices of the occupants.
“The
Mysterons’ orders have been carried out.
The individual known as Captain Blue has been eliminated. Eric has retrieved the electron gun from the SPV craft and is
bringing the human, Peter Svenson, to the building.”
“Good, we can move onto the next phase of the plan.”
Captain Black’s voice expressed neither sorrow nor pleasure at the news.
He was coldly and single-mindedly focused on performing his alien masters’ will.
Scarlet grasped the banister so tightly his knuckles went white.
He suppressed his gasp of outrage at the news that Adam was dead. He remembered the shot he had heard… it
must have come from the roof - that’s why it sounded so loud. In the street the headlights of the SPV
would have acted like spotlights, making Captain Blue an easy target for the
rooftop assassin.
He
swallowed compulsively as his throat constricted with the burning desire to
scream out his shock and grief. He took long, calming breaths – his military
training kicking in even in such circumstances.
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold…
he reminded himself, and he would need his wits about him, if Adam’s brother
wasn’t to suffer the same fate. A
steel determination gripped his mind. This time I will finish you, Black, with just
as much remorse as you have for ‘eliminating’ Captain Blue… Good God! - the man
was your partner and – probably- the best friend you ever had! He was the best
friend I ever had…. I swear -
this whole place will go up,
even if I have to go with it.
In
the early days of Spectrum, Scarlet had partnered Captain Brown - an officer
without experience of field work – and Captain Blue had been partnered with the
experienced Captain Black. Blue had
field officer experience, of course, but he also had the patience of a saint,
and Black had rubbed rather too many of the other senior officers up the wrong
way, in the days when he had been over-seeing their training. Given time, their resentment would probably have mellowed,
but Black – with his take-it-or-leave-it attitude – didn’t put much effort into
‘making friends and influencing people’.
Scarlet
had actively disliked the man – a feeling that he suspected was mutual – and
only the mediation of Captain Blue had kept them on polite, if edgy, terms.
Even
after it was confirmed that Black had defected to the Mysterons, it was Adam
who, whenever circumstances permitted doubt about Conrad Turner’s evil intent,
always made the case for the defence – as Scarlet thought of it. He had even argued that Black had made a conscious decision
not to kill and retrometabolise Symphony Angel when he had the chance at the
Culver Atomic Station. Scarlet – more cynical than his friend – preferred the
alternative theory that the radiation from the power station had weakened the
Mysterons’ hold, reducing their options.
Well, this killing proves once and for all, that you are a
heartless killer, Black. Too bad you won’t have Adam to argue your case for you
now,
he thought.
The
other implication of the overheard conversation gradually dawned on him. Eric Svenson – another Mysteron agent –
was coming up behind him, equipped with a stolen electron gun - the only weapon
that could certainly kill a Mysteronised person beyond all hope of recovery. It had always been a matter of largely
academic interest as to whether such a weapon would also be fatal in his own
case – for naturally, Spectrum had never attempted to find out.
He
was trapped. Quickly bringing all the force of his
military experience to bear on the problem, he assessed his options. He could storm the two men on the top
floor – he might manage to kill them both – although, given the Mysterons’
penchant for teleporting Black out of danger, that was a rather slender
certainty. He could go down and try to rescue Peter
and obtain the electron gun for himself.
Again, that was a dangerous option, one which might get Peter killed.
Ambush was a safer option.
The
thought had hardly finished formulating in his mind, before he had swivelled
round and was heading down the stairs with as much speed and silence as he
could.
On the
second floor, he peered over the banister and saw the street door swing open and
Peter Svenson stagger through, as if he had been pushed from behind.
Eric followed after him, Blue’s pistol in his hand and an electron gun
over his shoulders. Scarlet slipped
back into the ladies’ toilets, propping the door slightly ajar with the toilet
roll from the nearest cubicle. He stood to one side, so that he had a view of
the staircase.
He
could hear the reluctant footsteps of Peter as he climbed the stairs. There was the occasional sniff too, as
the man fought his grief. Scarlet felt a surge of sympathy – I know what you’re going through.
Just keep your wits about you, Peter, and we’ll see these bastards fry
for what they’ve done!
Peter’s head appeared around the twist in the landing, Eric following a few
steps behind. Scarlet watched the man slouch past, his
every step becoming more reluctant as he marched towards what he could not have
failed to realise was his own death.
Once
Eric had followed him, past the landing and on to the third and final part of
the staircase; Scarlet pushed the door wider and blasted four rounds of
ammunition into the older man’s stocky frame.
The Mysteron staggered, as the circles of rich, red blood spread across the back
of his white linen shirt. Peter
Svenson screamed, but then, with a commendable presence of mind, kicked Eric’s
legs from under him, so that the Mysteron fell down from the steps to sprawl on
the corridor floor. Scarlet flung
the door wide and beckoned Peter over, shoving him into the inadequate
protection afforded by the toilet cubicle.
“Take
cover, lock the door…” he ordered. He thrust his gun into Peter’s shaking hand.
“Use it if you have to… and shoot to kill.
Then, if you have the chance – don’t wait – get the hell out of here and don’t
stop running till you find a policeman.”
“W
-what can I do to help?” Peter squeaked. “There must be something…”
“You
can pray, Mr Svenson… because we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
Scarlet darted out from the doorway and roughly began to manhandle the electron
gun from Eric’s shoulders. “Give me
that, you scum,” he gasped.
Above
him he could hear the footsteps of the other Mysteron agents, attracted by his
gunshots. He was aware that he was in a direct line of fire from the stairwell,
and as he finally managed to get the electron rifle free from Eric’s body and
roll the body, with a vicious kick, towards the bottom of the upward flight of
the stairs, a bullet whizzed past his shoulder and buried itself in the wall. He started to move away, without even
waiting to straighten up. A second
bullet came close and then, with the inevitability of chance, the third bullet
struck his shoulder.
Then
he did straighten up; gasping and staggering as a fourth shot buried itself in
his back. He couldn’t feel his legs
and he stumbled, even as his impetus carried him forward another few feet. He
clutched the electron gun to his chest and, unable to go further, sank to his
knees, leaning into the faint he knew was coming, and ensuring the weapon was
covered by his body.
He
closed his eyes, and as he lost his battle for consciousness, his last thought
was, I’m sorry, Adam…I really
tried.
~oo0oo~
John
Svenson stood in his cousin’s office, watching as Captain Magenta’s flying
fingers input row after row of programming into the computer.
There was a slight, yet confident, smile on the man’s expressive lips and
his lustrous dark eyes sparkled with the thrill of the chase as he slowly, but
inexorably, closed down every loophole the alien virus had created. The flood of money started to dry up, as
it found every avenue in and out of the SvenCorp accounts blocked by an
impenetrable wall of counter instructions and loops.
Lieutenant Green had brought his Spectrum laptop across to the office and was on
the other side of the desk, busily mopping up the last few remaining links from
the original virus.
Symphony watched in quiet admiration as Spectrum’s premier computer-buffs sliced
through the Gordian knot of the Mysterons’ latest plot, with an air of complete
mastery. It is a case of lateral thinking… fighting fire with
fire… Patrick hasn’t really destroyed the virus, he’s
merely created a system of ‘firewalls’ that have forced it back on itself… sending the money round in
ever decreasing circles making a virtual spiral
that leads to a secure account, created purely to accommodate the influx.
A dead-end account.
She
smiled across at John. “Looks simple when you know how…” she said.
“I am
amazed, Captain Magenta, that you are able to outwit it so easily,” Svenson
agreed soberly. “If ever you want a
job…”
Magenta grinned. “Thanks, Mr Svenson, but I have one that suits me just fine. And besides, I’ve worked in finance
before and to be honest – it’s a tad boring at times.”
Katherine Svenson sniggered at her father’s astonished outrage. She was standing
at Green’s shoulder, her hand resting on the back of the young man’s chair. When he leant back with a sigh of
satisfaction and, unwittingly, leant against her hand, she did not attempt to
remove it.
“You
look pleased with yourself, my lad,” Magenta smiled, glancing over his computer
screen at the dark-skinned, good-humoured face opposite.
“It’s
finished,” Green explained. “I have
closed down every last link from the outside.
The virus has nowhere to go.”
“Good
work,” Magenta smiled. “Now, you only have to get it out of the system and you
can go out to play…”
Lieutenant Green bristled. “Captain,” he began formally, “I have no intention of
leaving a job half done…”
Magenta nodded, too busy with his own task to continue his teasing.
“If
you are going to be busy for much longer, I’ll fetch you coffee and some
sandwiches…” Katherine offered, slowly removing her hand from Green’s chair.
The
Trinidadian smiled up at her. “That
would be wonderful, Kitty.” He caught sight of John’s eyebrows rising over his
light-blue eyes and he turned back to his computer screen with his mouth
twitching in uncertainty. He was
flattered that such a beautiful woman was interested in him, but rather alarmed
at the same time. The Svensons
lived in a world so far removed from his own that it was daunting to even
imagine being involved in it – however fleetingly.
Katherine caught the smile in Symphony’s eyes and blushing slightly, hurried
from the room to order refreshments.
“You
know, John,” the Angel pilot said, “I think we should leave these two to get on
with it…” She deliberately left vague which two she was referring to. “Didn’t you say you had to speak to the
Hudson again?”
“Well… I ought to, but…” He frowned at Lieutenant Green.
Symphony moved to slip her arm under his.
“You know, I’ve always been fascinated by what it is –
exactly
– that a finance house, like this one, does… perhaps you could explain it all to
me? Adam is always rather vague
when I ask him about it.”
“You
have asked him about it?” John’s voice revealed his delight and surprise at her
words.
“Oh
yes… you know, I think he’s really rather proud of all this, although he won’t
admit it, of course.”
She
steered John Svenson out into the main office, well aware that – like father
like son – she might be opening a floodgate to a great deal more information
than she ever really wanted to know.
She hoped Lieutenant Green appreciated her sacrifice.
Chapter Six: All in a day’s work
Captain Black followed Jack Palmer down to the second landing. Stepping carefully over the body of Eric Svenson, where
it lay against the bottom step, Palmer examined the body and glanced up at
Captain Black, as he stood half way down the stairs surveying the scene before
him, waiting for further orders.
“Leave him, he is no longer needed,” Black said tonelessly.
He stared at Scarlet’s contorted body and a fleeting expression – that
might have been satisfaction – crossed his pallid face. “We have already achieved one of our
objectives. Captain Blue is dead,
and now, we can eliminate Captain Scarlet with the Earthman’s own weapon. It is fitting somehow that Spectrum
should develop the means of killing the man they have come to rely so heavily
on. Captain Scarlet has thwarted us for the
last time. The Mysterons’ order
will be carried out.”
Jack
Palmer echoed the last words. Then
Captain Black’s expressionless voice echoed across the bleak stairwell as he
intoned, “This is the voice of the Mysterons. Our retaliation for your attack on
our Martian complex will be slow, but nevertheless effective. It will mean the
ultimate destruction of life on Earth.
It is useless for you to resist.” He remained motionless on the staircase
drinking in the sight of Scarlet’s dead body – as if somehow his Mysteron
masters were gloating at the defeat of their arch enemy.
Even in death, Scarlet’s body was arched protectively over the electron
gun. “Get the gun,” Black ordered
flatly. “Then we will use it to
ensure that Captain Scarlet does not return to get in the way of our future
plans.”
“The
Mysterons’ orders will be carried out,” Palmer repeated.
He moved towards Scarlet, dropping his gun onto the landing as he bent
over the hunched figure. He knelt
down with the intention of turning the body and extended his hand to grasp
Scarlet’s tunic. To his complete
surprise, as he turned the body onto its back, Scarlet’s arm shot out and landed
a punch on his jaw that sent him reeling.
Scarlet rolled onto his backside, then using his barely functioning legs to push
himself across the floor he reached the nearest wall and used it to drag himself
upright – keeping one eye on the motionless Captain Black. As he caught his breath, he croaked,
“Shoot him, Peter, shoot him!”
Peter
Svenson moved out from the cubicle at a rush, firing wildly.
As if suddenly aware of his vulnerability from the hail of randomly aimed
bullets, Black retreated back up the stairs, using the banisters as a shield.
Peter
stopped beside Scarlet and saw Palmer lying unconscious on the floor. He extended his arm, pointing the gun at
the man, and said shakily, “This is for Adam.” Then he closed his eyes and
pulled the trigger, jumping with the recoil from the gun. Several of the bullets hit Palmer’s body.
“Well
done. Now go, get out of here, and run!” Scarlet ordered, as Peter turned back
to him.
“You
are hurt, Captain…God knows, I thought you were dead…not that that seems to stop
anyone anymore…” he gasped. “Come
on; let me help you, we’ll go together.”
“Do
as you are told and get out of here… I have to go after Captain Black…”
“You
are in no state to go anywhere, come with me…” Peter edged his shoulder under
Scarlet’s for support, and the Spectrum agent, weakened by his injuries and
encumbered by the electron gun, was hard pressed to avoid being carried along by
his over-zealous assistant.
Exasperated at the thought of wasting his precious energy, he pushed Peter away,
and turned shakily towards the figure of Jack Palmer, which was already stirring
back to life. Drawing in great
heaving gasps of air, Scarlet hefted the harness firmly onto his shoulder, and
said to Peter, “If you really want to help, let me brace myself against you…”
Obediently Peter made a solid support for the injured man.
“Look
away,” Scarlet ordered.
“Why?” Peter asked, as Scarlet, unable to delay any longer, pressed the trigger. The stream of electrons, concentrated by
prisms and projected at the speed of light along the reflective barrel,
bombarded the body of Jack Palmer, already half upright and growing stronger by
the second. The Mysteron shuddered
as the deadly beam spread through his body.
He convulsed, an inhuman, high-pitched wail escaping from his lips before
he collapsed, a rigid and scorched corpse, on the corridor floor.
Peter
Svenson groaned and moved away so swiftly, that Scarlet, still using him as a
support, staggered.
He
looked over his shoulder to where Peter was being violently sick against the
wall. “Because it isn’t nice – that’s why…” he muttered with a sympathetic
smile, in belated response to the last question.
Peter
looked up, wiping his mouth on a handkerchief.
“What is that? What does it do?”
“It’s
a gun and it kills…Mysterons. Now,
I’m telling you one more time – get out of here…”
“You’re weak, you need my help…”
”For
crying out loud, Peter!” Scarlet thundered.
“I am not Adam, I don’t have one tenth of
his patience – now, will you get the hell out of here? - before I use this thing
on you!”
Peter
straightened up and vainly tried to recover his lost dignity.
“Captain Scarlet…” he began.
His
next words were drowned out by the shot that echoed through the stairwell. The bullet struck the wall, close
to the office door.
“Get
back under cover,” Scarlet ordered, realising that if Peter went down the stairs
now he would be an easy target for Captain Black.
For once, Peter did not stop to question but scuttled back into the
comparative safety of the toilets.
Scarlet turned to see Captain Black standing at the curve of the last flight of
stairs. He wondered uneasily why Black didn’t
just shoot him – his legs were still not working well enough for him to escape. For long seconds the two antagonists
faced each other across the open landing, where the bodies of two men already
lay - a testament to the deadly purpose of the Mysterons. Scarlet shifted the electron gun to a more comfortable
position on his shoulder and the idea occurred to him that maybe Black wanted
the weapon badly enough not to be willing to risk it being damaged in a rash
frontal assault.
Slightly unnerved by the continuing silence which he somehow felt favoured the
Mysterons’ agent, he called out clearly enough to be heard by both Black and
Peter, “Now we come to it. It’s
just you and me, Conrad, as it should have always been. If your masters intend
to try to use me as they use you, they should know - I will not allow that to
happen… I would set this gun to overload first, and blow us all to smithereens. Believe me; one of us won’t be leaving here…”
Black
said, “You think I am scared because you have an electron rifle? I know how long they take to recharge… you are helpless,
Scarlet, and once I have killed you, I will finish you with your own weapon. There is no one left to help you now,
Scarlet. The Mysterons’ orders will
be carried out – there is nothing you can do to stop us.”
Scarlet grimaced - Black was right, the electron guns did take an age to
recharge. He glanced surreptitiously at the gauge
which showed its recharge was only about half way there. It wouldn’t even fire a reduced particle
beam until it was three-quarters charged. His only chance was to play for time,
as he was still too weak to risk hand-to-hand combat, and Black was armed.
Maybe, he thought, I can keep him talking, at least until I have a slim chance
of firing first. “I know what
you have done, Black – I know you ordered the death of Captain Blue. You are beneath contempt, you filthy
scumbag! You cold-bloodedly ordered
the murder of the only friend you’ve ever had…” he goaded the impassive man.
To
his surprise he saw a flicker of – what he could only call – emotion behind
Black’s seemingly dead expression.
He pressed his advantage. “You are
such a coward that you couldn’t do it yourself, could you?
You had to send one of your zombies
to do it! What’s wrong, Conrad? Are you going soft? Surely the
Mysterons’ premier agent wasn’t too weak-willed to shoot his best friend – his only friend - in the back?”
Captain Black’s mouth opened but he said nothing.
Scarlet was surprised to see any reaction – never mind such hesitation.
With some slight feeling of hope, he carried on spitting out his venomous words,
playing on the emotions he had never believed Black still possessed.
“You probably don’t realise how he defended you, how he made excuses for your
heartless actions… how he hoped you have might retained some atom of humanity
inside that Mysteronised automaton you’ve become.
Poor Adam, at least he died without knowing what
filth
his former partner has become…”
He
watched his adversary carefully, and saw some flicker of response in the dark,
normally soulless eyes as the heavy black brows twitched into the merest frown. He was about to speak again when Black
cut across him.
“Blue
had to die,” he said as if reciting a lesson learned by rote.
“You have to die. You are a
threat. Without both of you,
Spectrum will be weakened…” But there was hardly any conviction behind the words
– in fact, there seemed to be less assurance in his whole manner. The frown deepened between his black
brows and he blinked compulsively as if waking from some living trance.
Suddenly his hands went to his eyes and he gave a slow shake of his dark head.
When he looked up there was a whole new sentience behind the red-rimmed,
grey-enshrouded eyes. He stared at
Captain Scarlet with an expression that left no doubt as to the torment he was
in.
“Scarlet?”
he continued, but his voice was different, more emotional… more
human. He looked at his foe with an expression
that seemed to be pleading for something but Scarlet found it hard to believe it
might be forgiveness. He was surprised when Black continued to speak, his words
tumbling out in a torrent, his voice sounding tired and hoarse… it was the voice
of someone who had been screaming for a long time. “They do this – it is part of
my punishment. They let me see what
I have done; they let me understand the full horror of it and the loathing I see
in people’s faces because of what I have become!”
Scarlet remained silent, watching uneasily, too disbelieving to be lulled into
any feeling of security.
Black
drew a huge sigh and glanced around the landing, as if he saw the dead bodies
for the first time. He looked
at Scarlet, and was desperate to win his trust.
“The Mysterons want you dead – any opportunity to make sure you do not revive is
to be taken – whatever the cost.
They fear you… They cannot regain control of you nor can they understand why you
resist them.” He continued
urgently, knowing his respite from their control would be brief.
He addressed the revulsion he saw in Scarlet’s astonished face. “You must understand: they see
Spectrum as an entity like themselves, made of many, varied parts… the humans
who make the whole. They have no individuals – no concept of separateness – one
thought is everyone’s thought – there is no silence, no solitude – just the
eternal clamour of many minds.
Because we are not individuals to them, the sins of one are revenged on all… my
sin in attacking them must be paid for by everyone!
“To
them, each human is only a segment of an entity.
You embody Spectrum’s courage, its strength and its determination to fight. They deplore that in you, for their
logic tells them you cannot win – but they respect strength – they understand
what it is. Captain Blue … was also a threat, but of a different kind. He puzzled them – they could not
understand his attitude towards me and so they made me aware of his compassion. They cannot begin to comprehend that… so human of emotions – they are soulless,
they have no heart – no pity! So they wanted to understand - through my reaction
- what it was, this unknown
concept that they saw as a weakness, but there were consequences they failed to
expect. I rebelled. When they told me to kill Symphony I
couldn’t do it - Adam was my friend and her death would have caused him too much
pain. So they have come to realise the power of human emotion and…the
significance of the concept of friendship.” Black’s words came in a headlong rush as
he anticipated the re-establishment of the Mysterons’ stranglehold. Desperate to let his former colleagues
know as much as he could, he raced on.
“Your
mutual trust and loyalty makes you both - and every Spectrum officer - all the
more dangerous.” He grimaced and
appeared to be fighting to keep control.
“They do not understand why Spectrum allows its humans to think like this… and
always they fear what they do not understand.”
The struggle for Black’s mind was now mirrored in his eyes. He cried out, “No! Leave me alone! I beg
you, let me go….” He turned once
more to his silent companion and hissed in a voice growing ever weaker, “I shall
continue to rebel… but I succeed all too rarely in thwarting them.” In one final
desperate plea, he looked straight into Scarlet’s sapphire-blue eyes and said,
“Kill me, if you can – please - kill me!”
Scarlet watched with growing astonishment.
He was aware that there had been situations when - for some reason - Black had
not delivered the final coup de grâce. Adam had always cited not only the
events at Culver Atomic Station, but also the fact that the flight crew of the
plane they’d used to accompany Dr. Conrad, from Novena airport to his conference
at Lake Toma, had been left unconscious rather than killed. He had seen these all too rare instances
as proof that Conrad Turner was not entirely merciless and that he was
continually fighting against the Mysterons’ control.
No amount of arguing could dissuade Blue from that opinion, although his
partner had always dismissed the notion.
But… maybe there is something in
it, after all, Scarlet wondered.
He
had never expected to see this… this conflict, in Captain Black.
There seemed to be an all-too-aware consciousness beneath the hard shell
of the Mysteron. A consciousness,
eternally tormented by the very deeds they made him perform.
“Conrad?” he said quietly. The man’s eyes met his and Scarlet saw a fathomless
fear in them. “Fight them - come back to us!” he
urged.
“They
will win - I can’t fight them for long and if I do, they punish me, I have
already said too much and they are displeased.”
He gave a sad smile which ended in a grimace of pain, yet through gritted teeth
he continued, “Tell Charles, I am sorry for this war. I have begged them to be revenged only on me, but they ...
they are merciless. I am sorry – for everything – sorry… for Adam…”
Black’s eyes suddenly hardened and the light went from them, leaving them as
pits of darkness in his sallow face.
Scarlet realised that the Mysterons had regained their hold on Conrad Turner and
that – once more – he was the pitiless agent of their revenge.
Behind him, the mangled body of Eric Svenson began to raise itself for
the third time, ready to obey the instructions of its alien masters.
The
gauge on the electron gun had crept towards 80% - there would be enough power to
fire the weapon, but how effective it would be – especially against Captain
Black – was unknown. From behind
him, he heard Peter Svenson, whimpering with a new and, quite understandable,
terror.
He
tried once more to reach the man beneath the Mysteron armour. “Conrad, let Peter
go – let Adam’s brother go….” All the time Scarlet was watching the
two Mysterons warily, trying to find a way out of his dilemma that might just
give him a chance of surviving. I have one shot with the electron gun. I cannot kill them both, the electron
gun would not recharge in time and the pistol Palmer dropped is closer to Black
than to me… He knew it was his duty
to kill Black – even disregarding the appeal Turner had – seemingly – made to
him. And then, he thought with surprising calmness, Eric will shoot me, and finish me once this gun has
recharged. Peter will probably die too. What a bloody mess…
Even
as he resigned himself to his inevitable death, a gunshot rang out, causing Eric
to stagger and fall to his knees.
Startled, Black turned and fired wildly in the direction of the surprise attack,
the bullet crashed harmlessly through a window panel, making the stairwell ring
with the chime of broken glass.
Even the seemingly limitless power of the Mysterons couldn’t stop the
exclamation of confused emotion that breathed from his lips. “Blue!”
At
that, Scarlet took his eye off his enemy and glanced fearfully at the stairwell.
He blinked furiously and stared open-mouthed at the spectre before him. Seeing
Scarlet so distracted, Black took his chance and raced back upstairs.
At the
corner of the staircase rising from the first floor, a pale-faced Captain Blue
was standing. Bare-headed, his Spectrum tunic darkened
by the rain, he was panting with exertion and keeping himself upright by virtue
of a one-handed grip on the banister. It was impossible to tell if the beads of
moisture on his face were the result of sweat or exposure to the rain, but his
fair hair was plastered to his face, causing small rivulets to drip from his
jaw. In his other hand his gun
pointed at the floor, as if he hadn’t even the strength to raise it once more.
His
eyes met Scarlet’s and saw the bewilderment in them.
“I thought you might need some help…” he explained with a slight smile.
“I
thought you were dead…” Scarlet gasped in
response. His body stiffened at the
unwelcome thought that Blue had been Mysteronised, but gradually his logical
mind reasserted itself – the Mysterons retrometabolised fit and healthy agents –
however the poor victims had died.
This bedraggled man was far from fit…
“Now
you know how I feel, every time you bounce back like a jack-in the box…” Blue’s
tone was mildly facetious and he gave a wry smile at his partner. He knew there had always been an outside
chance that Scarlet would react instinctively to the sight of him and kill him,
believing him to have been Mysteronised.
Still he had dragged himself across to the building and up the seemingly
endless flights of stairs, driven by his concern for his brother and his friend.
When
he had seen his partner’s predicament, he had had to take the risk and kill Eric
before his cousin could attack, thereby giving Scarlet the chance to use the
electron rifle on Captain Black. He
hadn’t allowed for the fact that his partner’s all too human surprise would
permit their enemy a chance to escape.
He
stood unmoving, waiting the fatal strike from his friend.
To
his relief, Scarlet grinned. Then
as Eric moved again, he turned the electron gun on him. “I’m getting tired of
you,” he snarled and fired at the Mysteron.
At
the sound of his brother’s voice, Peter had emerged from his hiding place and
now he went to his side. “Why
aren’t you dead?” he demanded, as if Adam was somehow failing to keep a promise.
“Hello, Pete,” Adam said wryly.
“Because. Now, will you get the hell out of this
place? I have called for reinforcements… Magenta’s coming with ground staff, but
they’ll be hampered if they know a civilian is in here…Go downstairs and wait in
the SPV.”
Peter
glanced at Scarlet and back to his brother and then, with a quick nod of his
head, he began to run down the stairs.
“Go
carefully,” Adam called after him, with the inbred authority of his four years’
seniority. “You’ll break your damn neck at that
rate…”
“What
about Black?” Scarlet asked. His eyes gazed up to the top storey where the
Mysteron had retreated.
“Well, between us, we hardly qualify as one able-bodied man, and I heal much
slower than you do. I think we should cut and run – or at
least, stagger - though it pains me to say it. Besides, even if we crawl up to
the next floor, what makes you think he’ll be there? Five’ll get you ten – the
Mysterons have already teleported him out of here. Let Magenta and the
groundlings search the building.”
It
was easy to see that Blue was close to the end of his endurance. He was now holding the banister with both hands and his
breathing was laboured. Remembering
Black’s avowal of the consequence the Mysterons assigned to Blue and himself,
Scarlet nodded. Yet he couldn’t
help wondering how much of their conversation Blue had overheard, and whether
his friend was still making allowances for his former partner. It was impossible
to tell, for the American captain’s head was bowed and he would not meet his
companion’s eye.
As if
sensing that uncertainty about his motives, Blue added, “We’ll get him next
time, Paul.”
Scarlet grinned and nodded emphatically. “Yes, we will.
After all, tomorrow is another day…” he reasoned.
Blue
looked up at him, a sparkle in his eyes and replied, “And frankly, my dear
Scarlet, I don’t give a damn…” His
face broke into an uncontrollable grin.
“I’ve been waiting years to say that…”
“You’re mental…” Scarlet responded to Blue’s infectious grin with one of his
own. “If I hold you up, and you hold me, do
you think we’ll make it down the stairs without collapsing?”
“No,
but I want make sure I land on you, when we fall… “
“Huh,
come on then… the things I do for you…”
~oo0oo~
Captain Magenta’s SSC pulled up at the end of the street, about the same time as
two squad cars belonging to the Boston City Police Department arrived at the
other end. Behind him, a Spectrum transporter disgorged its complement of armed
ground-based agents. They fanned
out down the street, as their commanding officer made an announcement over the
loudhailer.
“This
is Spectrum. We are in pursuit of
suspected terrorists. Please remain
in your buildings… I repeat, do not come out your buildings…”
From
the other end of the street the police made an announcement of their own.
“This
is the police, you are surrounded… lay down your weapons and come out with your
hands up… please identify yourselves….”
“We
are Spectrum agents in the lawful pursuit of a suspect.
We are armed and will not surrender our weapons while people may in
danger.”
Shaking his head, Magenta left them to it and beckoning two officers to follow
him, he led the way to the office block.
As he approached the door, it swung open and Peter Svenson, his hands over his
head in surrender, walked out into the evening gloom.
“Don’t shoot!” he shouted.
“Mr
Peter Svenson?” Magenta asked.
“Glad to see you safe, sir.
Corporal, please take Mr Svenson to the safety of that SPV… and then go and
present my compliments to the cop on the loudhailer and tell him to shut his
mouth, would you? I’d do it myself, but I don’t feel
comfortable around the police…” he added elliptically.
Magenta pushed past, into the building.
As he climbed the stairs he heard two voices above him and stopped, pistol
raised. Blue had made reference to several
Mysterons in the building – and the possibility Captain Black was amongst them. Magenta wasn’t prepared to take anyone
on trust. He stiffened, and
strained his hearing as the voices became clearer and identifiable.
“Now
you…carefully!”
“Tch…
that hurt!”
“Lean
on me…”
“I’m
okay…”
“You
are not, you know…”
“But
you are, I suppose? How did you survive that gunshot?
I have to agree with Peter – you ought to be dead.”
“Ah,
well… I’ve been shadowing my dad, right?”
“Right…”
“So,
I have been wearing body-armour under my shirt… I still had it from my WAS
Security Department days… they never asked for it and I thought it might be
useful, so I kept it. Well, I had
it on today and when I suited up, I never took it off.
So, I had the protection of my Spectrum uniform as well as the body
armour. Neat, huh?”
“That’s it? It’s as mundane as that? You bloody belts-and-braces-man, you,”
Scarlet laughed in his relief. “Here was I wondering if some of my
retrometabolism was rubbing off on you… and you are wearing more body armour
than bloody Ivanhoe!”
“Hey,
my mom told me to be careful out on the streets… and I always listen to what my
mother tells me…”
“Of
course you do - not! … Ouch… be careful, Adam, I have
three bullets in me…”
“Sorry, I slipped.”
The
pair of them emerged from round the corner to see Magenta leaning against the
wall, an amused smile on his face.
“I thought you two were in deadly peril…” he said mischievously.
“We
are. I’m going to drop him any minute now. You need to go on a diet, Scarlet.”
“Well, you’re not exactly a light-weight yourself…”
Magenta shook his head. He couldn’t
imagine two Mysterons bickering like these two did… however perfect the copies
were meant to be. “Sergeant, give Captain Blue a hand,
would you? I’ll help Captain
Scarlet.”
They
had just got underway again, when Blue asked, “Hey, Magenta, did you sort out
the computers at SvenCorp? You
ought to get back there as soon as possible.”
“Yes,
I sorted them out… of course I did!
I left Lieutenant Green showing… Miss Svenson how to… sort things out.”
“Green? Well, that’s okay then. He won’t take any crap from Katz…”
Magenta winked at Scarlet. “Oh, I
wouldn’t be so sure of that …”
Scarlet’s dark brows rose in question.
Magenta nodded and rolled his eyes. “Damn these Svensons… you so quickly get used to having them around…” Scarlet muttered with a grin.
|
||
Captain Magenta had called for emergency medical backup as soon as he had
received Captain Blue’s radio message from the SPV.
Blue sounded in a bad way and that undoubtedly meant that Scarlet was as bad, if
not worse. Therefore, when
the Spectrum helijet landed in the street as close as it could to the office
block, Magenta escorted his colleagues to the machine – despite Blue’s agitation
about his brother.
“I
need to speak to my family – they have to know Eric is dead… even if I can’t
tell them how or why… and there is Peter to deal with… and…” his voice trailed
into confused silence. It was only
now; when the mission and the immediate danger were over, that the consequences
were beginning to make themselves felt.
“Hey,” the Irish-American said with an understanding smile, “I know you’re
worried, but leave that to me.
Right now it is more important we handle the security side of things, and you
and Scarlet get out of here, before the Boston PD gets too interested in who
shot whom… and Peter starts talking too openly about the Mysteronised members of
his family.”
Blue
started to argue, although Scarlet, rapidly tiring as his retrometabolism
started sapping his strength, said nothing and climbed stiffly into the helijet.
Magenta held up an authoritative hand. “Get in the helijet, Captain, before I
report you to the colonel for breaching your security cover…”
It
was against standard operational directives for Captain Scarlet to attend any
medical facility other than a Spectrum one – so concerned was Colonel White to
keep his officer’s unique abilities under wraps - and the pair were airlifted
from the street direct to the medical facilities on Cloudbase.
On
the whole, Doctor Fawn found it much easier to patch up the holes in Captains
Scarlet and Blue than Colonel White did to deal with the other consequences of
the ‘Hub affair’.
Captain Magenta took command in Boston and, in accordance with standard Spectrum
procedures, arranged for the bodies of the Mysteron agents to be disposed of
before the Boston Police gained access to the jp enterprises offices. When the real bodies of Eric Svenson and
Jack Palmer were found, unceremoniously dumped in an abandoned store room, he
handed them over to the civil authorities.
This
involved the colonel in discussions with Boston’s Chief of Police, who - left
with two dead bodies and Peter Svenson - was busily constructing a case against
the young man. Finally, tired
of wasting his valuable time in what he considered needless argument, Colonel
White resorted to pulling rank and slapped security notices on the events at the
‘jp enterprises’ office. Not
even the cantankerous Bostonian Commissioner could argue with a World Government
‘D notice’ and the case against Peter Svenson was dropped.
It
was only then that the families were told they could claim the bodies and bury
their dead.
Symphony reported that the entire Svenson family was in shock - at the death of
Eric, as well as the injuries to Adam, and Peter’s narrow escape – but that,
with an unexpected solidarity, they were supporting each other and presenting a
universally silent face to the World’s press, currently camped outside the
wrought-iron security gates where, on Magenta’s orders, a detachment of
Spectrum’s ground based officers were providing additional security.
Magenta was also dealing with the return of funds to the World Government
accounts, as well as to the ransacked accounts of the Hudson Guaranty Trust and
SvenCorp, with an authority not even John Svenson dared question. When the Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal
Reserve began to ask questions, Magenta supplied an answer that - whilst not
totally true - was impossible to disprove and which left the regulating
authorities without a case to pursue.
Colonel White was impressed by the quietly efficient way Magenta handled the
operation. He had always considered that the
captain was, perhaps, the least experienced in dealing with the nit-picking
details demanded by a self-serving bureaucracy - given his former ‘life of
crime’ – but, he reflected, maybe
he had done Patrick Donaghue a disservice.
After all, you don’t get to be head of a syndicate – criminal or otherwise – by
being quite as ditzy as Magenta sometimes gave the impression of being.
It
was thanks to Captain Magenta that the probity and security of SvenCorp and the
Hudson emerged unscathed, by and large, with both firms meeting the shortfalls
in their customers’ finances, as well as SvenCorp paying Spectrum compensation
to cover the delayed payment of their salary funds. Colonel White mused that
John Svenson must indeed be in shock to have agreed to that piece of financial
beneficence.
A
nagging doubt that, perhaps, Svenson knew nothing about it was quickly squashed,
and he concentrated on the competence with which his officer had dealt with the
situation.
He
agreed that Lieutenant Green could remain behind for as long as it took to
assist Katherine Svenson with a complete overhaul of the firm’s computer
security – which the Trinidadian argued was essential - presumably to ensure
that such a ploy could never be used again to put the World Government at risk
of financial embarrassment.
White thought it would be a small price to be without his right-hand man on the
communications desk for a fortnight, if it meant that John Svenson would be out
of his hair for the foreseeable future.
One Svenson at a time is more than enough to have to deal with,
he thought, grateful that
Captain Blue displayed so few of his father’s more abrasive personality traits.
~oo0oo~
Captain Scarlet was released from sick-bay before Captain Blue.
Although he had survived the bullet that should have killed him, Blue had
several damaged ribs and was – quite literally - black and blue over most of his
middle back. Doctor Fawn insisted
on doing numerous test and examinations to make sure no permanent damage had
been done to his spine. Once
Captain Scarlet’s retrometabolism had dealt with his injuries, Fawn allowed him
to go.
“After all,” Scarlet crowed at his bed-bound friend, “he has you to practise his
‘tests’ on this time!”
Back
in the Officers’ Lounge, Captain Scarlet reported, with impish glee, that Blue
was hating every minute he was stuck in sick bay and couldn’t wait to get out of
Fawn’s clutches. He cheerfully went
to great lengths to return the favour Blue did for him, on the many occasions he
had been confined to sick-bay by a Doctor Fawn eager to investigate every aspect
of his retrometabolic abilities.
He smuggled his friend a food parcel - and his hip flask, filled from his own
single malt supply – only to have Doctor Fawn return it, along with a severe
lecture, the same evening.
“You’re not thinking straight, Captain Scarlet!
You may be able to drink and not suffer the consequences, but Blue can’t do that
– especially not when he’s pumped full of analgesics!
I am not even sure I should allow you to do it… in fact, in future, I’ll turn a
blind eye to the odd chocolate bar but alcohol is not permitted! If I see that
hip-flask – or bottled beer - one more time, I’ll go to the colonel and put you
both on reprimand.”
For
Captain Blue, recovering from the effects of his injury, his time in sick bay
was a two-edged sword. Despite his
desire to get back to his family, he knew he needed time to recover, both
physically and emotionally, from the consequences of the ‘Hub Affair’, if he was
to help them understand and come to terms with what had happened. Once he was reassured that his family - and the company they
owned - was going to emerge unscathed from the Mysterons’ scheme, he began to
relax a little. It was only then
that he was then able to reflect on the fate of Eric Svenson.
He knew
within himself that he had not killed Eric – merely his Mysteron reconstruct -
but he was still desperately trying to convince himself that he was right to
believe that.
Scarlet, listening sympathetically to his friend’s guilt-ridden thoughts,
reaffirmed that reasoning. “We know that in order to retrometabolise a person
they must first kill. The first
Eric we met at the office was a Mysteron agent, so Eric – the real Eric, the one
you knew – must have been dead before then.
You had to consider Peter and how to save his life, Adam; you had to do exactly what you did.”
Scarlet watched the expressions flit across his friend’s face and
sighed. Blue had taken it all rather badly, but
then, he reminded himself, Eric was a close relative – one he had grown up with
– so perhaps it was not so surprising.
However, it did seem to him that Blue had been avoiding the topic of their
encounter with Captain Black and it was something Scarlet felt the need to
discuss. He determined to probe a little further into the matter and satisfy his
own curiosity.
“Tell
me,” he asked casually, dropping one of the grapes from the bunch beside Adam’s
bed into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully, “how long were you standing at the
turn in the stairs? Did you hear
all of what Black had to say?”
Blue
turned his perceptive gaze onto his partner but did not reply immediately. “I heard voices as I was climbing the
stairs,” he finally admitted, “but I couldn’t understand much of it.”
“How
much could you understand?” Scarlet persisted.
He was used to Blue’s evasion tactics when he did not want to answer a direct
question.
“Enough,” Blue admitted and fell silent.
Scarlet picked a few more grapes and ate one, smirking at his friend. He waited. He knew Adam knew he would carry on waiting until
he had an answer. Blue shifted in
his bed and sighed.
“To
be honest, I wonder now if we were being ‘set-up’,” he said quietly. Scarlet stopped eating and leaned
forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes studying Blue’s face as he
tried to read between the lines of his friend’s words. “I wonder if the
Mysterons realised I wasn’t dead - they do not seem to have tried to
retrometabolise me – as far as I can tell, anyway.
Maybe they were testing us both, Paul?
Or trying to drive some sort of wedge between us – knowing we differed about
just how much control they have over Conrad.
I wonder if it was all a big double-bluff.”
“Did
you believe what he said?”
“I
wanted to – I wanted to believe it was Conrad speaking to us,” Blue admitted.
Scarlet nodded. “I wanted to believe it too – at the
time.”
“The
part about their not understanding our emotions might well be true. They may
have been pushing to see if we were really capable of killing Conrad – a
penitent, human, Conrad - I certainly think they
are quite capable of using our emotions against us.” Blue looked away and shifted uneasily again. “They may have even deliberately allowed
us to see beneath the shell of the man Captain Black has become, in order to
engage our compassion.”
Scarlet considered a moment, and nodded slowly in agreement.
“You could be right,” he said. “Can you imagine any torment worse than
knowing you have done such terrible things?”
Blue
did not answer. For him, the
thought of Captain Black suffering that kind of mental torment was a thought too
far. He would prefer to think that Conrad Turner was oblivious to the true
horror of his existence – with no recollection of his actions, just as Paul had
no memory of his six hours under Mysteron control.
He sniffed. He could
rationalise what had happened until Kingdom Come – but it didn’t make it any
easier to accept.
At
the moment his main concern had to be his family.
He had postponed speaking to them and gratefully accepted the excuse Doctor Fawn
provided, that he needed rest before the doctor would allow the Svensons to
speak to their son.
He
was profoundly grateful when the doctor did not extend his ban to Symphony,
however. She came to see him on her return from
Boston, bearing loving messages from his family – as well as copious
instructions for his well-being from his mother.
“I’m
surprised at how well they do all seem to be coping, actually,” she told him,
bothered to see his despondency.
“Of course, they’ve been seen by the guys from Spectrum Intelligence now.” She
grinned. “I would have given good money to see how SI stood up to your Dad at
his most superior! They didn’t look
that pleased when they emerged from that interview.”
She chuckled, “I’d say it must’ve been: John Svenson - one, SI - nil.
Your dad is quite a guy…”
His
eyes widened in surprise and alarm.
“You like my dad? Jeez, Karen…”
“Let’s just say – we have agreed to co-exist peacefully.”
He
gave an ironic grimace, amazed yet again at her ability to charm any man she
chose. Still, it would make things easier if
his father was favourably inclined towards the woman he wanted to marry; his
mother was already on their side.
He settled back on the pillows she had just finished plumping up, and took her
hand.
“How’s Pete?” he asked, not meeting her eyes.
She
grimaced. “He had a much tougher time with SI, of course, but I think he came
through okay. His wife and kids are with him and they
are all stopping over at the family house, so that they can avoid the press. John’s jittery to get back to the
office, but at the moment SvenCorp is only dealing with essential business while
Kate and Seymour are working at putting the computers to rights. That work should be finished by the end
of the week, and then they are going to New York to ensure the links at the
Hudson’s end of the system are completely sound… at least, nominally that’s why
they are going to New York.”
“What?”
“Your
sister’s smitten with our lieutenant,” she confessed.
“Well, what d’ya’ know - poor little Greenie…”
She
grinned at him. “Oh, I think he’s
more than willing to run the risk…”
Finally, after five days in sick-bay, Blue was released as fit for light duties. His first port of call, after he had
called his mother, was the Amber Room, where the duty Angels threw an impromptu
‘welcome back’ party.
“Well, I won’t be here for long; I have to get down to Koala Base. Grey has been doing a fine job with the standby Angels’
training, but I have to get the rest of it underway,” he explained to Rhapsody,
as she plied him with crisps and fruit punch.
“When
do you leave?” she asked.
“The
colonel said I could have a long weekend to visit Boston.
I have to talk to my folks….
I was brought up to Cloudbase before I got a chance; I haven’t really spoken to
any of them… except my mom on the phone, just now.” He grimaced.
“What
are you going to say to them?” she asked.
He
shrugged. “Well, there’s little point in my pretending that I don’t work for
Spectrum any more – and in exactly what capacity I work for Spectrum…” He had had a sober discussion with Colonel White about
the consequences of his conduct whilst he was still in sick-bay. Whilst understanding the motivation
behind, and the effectiveness of, his actions, the colonel still deplored that
fact that he had breached his security cover even to the limited extent he had.
He
continued, “They’ve all been ‘de-briefed’ by Spectrum Intelligence – so I ought
to apologise for that at least…”
“That’s hardly your fault,” she soothed. “Besides, my guess is that SI are less
fierce with the general public than they are with us.”
“Try
telling my dad that. He’s been
complaining about it non-stop, according to my mother.”
Rhapsody laughed. “Don’t worry,
Adam. My guess is that they’ll be so pleased
to see you fit and well, they’ll forgive you almost anything.”
The
shift changed over, and Harmony was ready to take her place in Angel One. Symphony emerged from the hydraulic lift
to the welcome sight of her boyfriend, smiling at her from across the room.
Rhapsody tactfully withdrew to engage Destiny in conversation, as the American
Angel flew to his side and threw her arms around his neck.
Destiny smiled. “It is so sweet,” she said, flicking a
glance at the entwined couple on the sofa.
“You
shouldn’t be watching,” Rhapsody teased solemnly.
“It’s a big secret…”
Destiny’s peal of laughter went quite un-noticed by the lovers.
~oo0oo~
Sarah
Svenson set about preparing to receive her guests as soon as Adam’s call from
Cloudbase finished. She had
been frantic with worry about him ever since Peter had told them about how he
had been shot. No-one could - or would - tell her any
more, although Doctor Fawn had called them from the sick-bay on Cloudbase,
apparently at Adam’s request, and reassured them that he was going to be all
right. He had refused to let her speak to her
son, saying he needed complete rest, but Sarah - remembering Mary Metcalfe’s
disparaging remarks about the speed with which Fawn had allowed her own wounded
son to go back on duty, the first time they had become involved with Spectrum –
took little comfort from his diagnosis and continued to imagine the very worst
case scenario.
Her
fears had only finally been set to rest at the sight of him – grinning
sheepishly – calling from his own quarters to assure her he was doing fine. It had been wonderful to hear him say
that he and Karen were coming for a weekend’s leave, before he went to Australia
on secondment, although - in her opinion – a weekend was nowhere near long
enough.
She was finding it hard to come to terms with the
events of the recent past. Peter had been so badly shaken by what
had happened to him that he had withdrawn into himself – refusing to speak about
his experiences – which was not Peter’s way.
He had gratefully accepted her suggestion that his family stay with them,
rather than go back to their own house, and Cicely had confided to her that Pete
wasn’t sleeping very well.
She had tried to get him to open up and talk to her, but after the men from SI
had been to see them, Peter clammed up even more.
She hoped that Adam’s visit might loosen his tongue – or at least, that
Adam would tell her exactly what happened, so she could help her second son
exorcise his private demons.
She
had listened in disbelief to the news of Eric’s death and still steadfastly
refused to believe that he could be implicated in this terrible plot. She even
defended him against Peter’s damning testimony, arguing that he cared too much
about the whole family to ever connive in the imprisonment of one and the
shooting of another of her sons.
The
sour-faced men from Spectrum who had interviewed the whole family kept the
details of these incidents sketchy, and Peter’s garbled version made very little
sense. She suspected no-one had told her the
full story, and that, if she was ever to know the truth, she would have to wait
until her eldest son was ready to tell her. That he would not tell her was
unthinkable because - although it may take a little time - Adam always confided
in her. She was convinced
that he would be able to clear his cousin’s name.
John
Svenson watched his wife with concern.
The evidence Lieutenant Green and Kate were unearthing proved conclusively, to
his mind, that Eric had been involved in – at the least – a conspiracy to
defraud SvenCorp and that, although he may well have found himself unable to
withdraw from the wilder schemes Jack Palmer dreamt up, he was an integral
player in the plot.
John
admitted to himself that he had never liked his cousin much; he resented the way
Eric had been on better terms than he was with his kids, and he deplored what he
saw as his cousin’s over-familiarity with Sarah.
He could well credit that Eric had been involved in the disgraceful plot
to defraud SvenCorp and he had every intention of initiating a thorough audit of
every case his cousin had been involved in from the first day he started working
with them – once he was allowed back to work. That Eric had died in the fall-out
from the failure of his crime, was nothing more than he deserved, in John’s
critical eyes. Yet, part of
him was grateful there would be no criminal case dragging interminably through
the courts, exposing his family to the harsh glare of media speculation, and he
grudgingly credited Eric with saving them from that, at least.
He
was most concerned about how Sarah was weathering the resulting storm of this
catastrophe. She had, as usual, been a tower of
strength in the family crisis, providing comfort and unquestioning support for
the traumatised Peter. She had
managed to keep her anxiety for Adam hidden, although, in the privacy of their
bed, her self-control had slipped and he had found himself in the unusual role
of comforter. He suspected Sarah might be the person most affected by these
terrible events in the long-term – not only by the proof of Eric’s guilt but in
a subtle way she might not even have considered.
He
had had more opportunity than his wife to witness Adam and Karen together and
when news had reached them of Adam’s injuries and his return to Cloudbase, he
had seen how the colour drained from Karen’s face as her eyes flooded with
tears, and how she swallowed down her initial shock and distress. He’d been impressed with how quickly she overcame that
reaction, moving to reassure Katherine and himself that Adam was in the best
possible hands and everything would be done for his welfare and comfort.
All
in all, he found her a remarkable young woman and he had rapidly come to the
conclusion that Sarah’s previously unassailable position – as the most important
woman in her eldest son’s life – had finally and irrevocably been usurped by the
girl from Iowa. He recalled with
pain how his doubts about Adam’s previously chosen ‘partner’ had led to harsh
words and a serious breach with his son, when he had expressed them, so it was
strangely comforting to think he had no doubts about this one and could honestly
tell his son as much. That two such
indomitable spirits as Adam and Karen should form such a deep and – he hoped -
lasting relationship, seemed to him right and proper.
He saw in them a mirror of his own relationship with Sarah – a relationship
founded on mutual support, mutual understanding and – if he was any judge –
mutual passion.
As
long as Sarah felt the same, he could look forward to welcoming Karen Wainwright
into their family circle – when Adam finally got round to making it official,
that was…
~oo0oo~
By
the following afternoon, Sarah was anxiously watching the driveway. As the anonymous black car crept up to the house, she rushed
to greet it, and threw herself into Adam’s arms with an inarticulate cry of joy
as her son emerged from the passenger seat.
Adam
hugged her closely, as moved as she was to be together again. He glanced up towards the lighted doorway and saw his father
leading the family out to greet him.
John nodded a welcome and Kate gave him a wave; behind her, Davy was
grinning from ear to ear.
Peter, with Cicely gripping his hand tightly, came out behind the main group and
also nodded in welcome.
Sarah
finally released him and resorted to her usual tactics to cover her concern. “How are you? You look exhausted.
Has that doctor let you out before you are fit?
Mary Metcalfe is not convinced he knows what he is doing, you know? She was incensed that he allowed Paul
back on duty so soon after that incident when we were there. I am sure you have lost weight, you
cannot be eating properly – you never have liked hospital food… I bet you are
famished, I made Rosa prepare your favourite meal tonight… I don’t imagine they
have proper meals in Australia …all those beach barbecues…”
“I am
fine, Mom,” he protested as she drew breath.
“Doctor Fawn’s the best medical man on the planet and if I have lost weight it’s
only what I put on over Christmas because you insisted on force-feeding me every
day. Why don’t you say hello to
Karen? And Paul – he got the job of
driving us over…”
Sarah
let him go and enfolded Karen in her arms with a friendly wink.
John
Svenson came over and held out his hand to his son.
Adam shook it warmly. “Hello, Dad.”
“Hello, son, glad to see you fit again.”
He
moved on to shake Captain Scarlet’s hand, and as Adam went to greet the other
members of the family, he paused slightly to turn and watch his father greet
Karen. She took his hand and reached on tip-toe
to kiss his cheek. “Nice to see you
again, John,” he heard her say.
Then David grasped his hand and thumped his arm, and Adam cuffed his kid
brother’s ear playfully, before wrapping Kitty in a hug.
“Where’s Seymour?” he whispered.
She
laughed bashfully. “Indoors, he
didn’t want to intrude.”
“Hey,
he’s my buddy… he couldn’t intrude if he tried,” Adam replied. He gave his sister a stern look.
“Remember that, Kitty-Katz, Seymour’s a nice guy, so no messing him
about, okay?” Katherine
Svenson actually blushed – something her brother had not witnessed for years. He grinned and let her go. Turning to the remaining couple on the
steps, he suddenly found himself nervous, and to cover it, he dipped to plant a
kiss on his sister-in-law’s cheek.
“Hi there, Cissy, you look as pretty as ever!”
Cicely Svenson gawped at him and was, mercifully, speechless.
It
was only then that Adam’s eyes met Peter’s and the younger man’s fell, giving
the impression that he was uneasy in his brother’s company.
“Hi,
Pete,” Adam said, his voice betraying far more of his nervousness than he
imagined. Peter’s withdrawn expression and body language were making him fear
that the tentative understanding he hoped their shared experiences had created
were an illusion.
“Adam,
glad to see you up and about…” Peter’s tone was as offhand as usual, but when he
raised his eyes, Adam could see the hunger for reassurance in them.
With something of a shock, he began to realise that his brother was expecting to
take the blame for what had happened – as
if,
Adam thought with compassion, he could
have stopped the Mysterons from carrying out their threat. He glanced at his father, and
wondered if John had been blaming Peter for the introduction of the virus to the
company computers. Well, that’s between the pair of them and – frankly- I
don’t want to get involved. But
Peter must realise that what happened at Palmer’s offices was well beyond his
control.
Adam
suddenly knew that it was essential he speak to his brother alone if he was
going to stand a chance of having any kind of satisfactory relationship with him
in the future. “Let’s walk…” he
said abruptly. It wasn’t a question, nor yet a
request, and although Peter would usually have argued, he stepped into line
beside his brother and the pair walked into the house.
When Adam stopped in the lounge, to briefly greet the unaccountably
nervous Lieutenant Green, the other family members caught them up and so Adam
led the way into the conservatory, with the sort of casualness that, to an
observer, only highlights the underlying tension.
When
John began to follow them, Sarah stopped him, shaking her head. For a moment, both of them gazed after their problematical
sons in the mutual hope that the boys would come to some sort of harmonious
agreement. It was only when Adam,
accidentally on purpose, pushed the door closed behind them that his parents
came out of their reverie and turned back to their remaining family and guests.
Inside the conservatory the brothers stood gazing out into the snow-rimmed
garden in a portentous silence.
“What
really happened at Palmer’s offices?” Peter asked suddenly.
“I
was going to ask you the same thing… why was Eric involved with Jack Palmer? I
can understand how Jack might’ve got involved with Black…
but Eric?”
Peter
shrugged. “I asked him that, once I realised he
was implicated. He told me that he
had given SvenCorp over thirty years of his life and now Dad wanted him out –
because he had me and Kate now - he said he was ‘owed’. They’ve told you, I
suppose, that all the money was being drained into a new portfolio Eric had
created for Jack. Presumably, they
intended to move the money from there to offshore accounts. Dad has told the internal auditors
to go through Eric’s paperwork with a fine-toothed comb, any funds that had
already been moved offshore will be found and steps taken to recover them. Of course, it’ll be easier once your pal
Seymour has stopped playing around with the systems and given us back control of
our own computers.”
“Money?” Adam was sceptical. “You’re telling me all this was because Eric wanted
money?”
Peter
shrugged again. “Not everyone is as disinterested in financial remuneration as
you like to give the impression you are…” he jibed.
“Don’t start,” Adam warned. “It
just seems odd that Eric would suddenly care so much about money…I mean, I never
thought that was why he stayed in the first place…”
Peter
turned bewildered eyes on his brother.
“Why else would he stay? He could have moved elsewhere a dozen times… he had a
good reputation as a solid businessman.”
“You
never realised?” Adam was incredulous, but one glance at Peter confirmed his
surprised deduction. “Oh, well,
it’s academic now.”
“Don’t do that! Tell me, for God’s sake!
I hate it when you go all inscrutable.”
Adam
smiled. “Sorry, Pete, but I always thought it
was obvious. I could be
wrong, of course, although I don’t think
I am. It just always seemed to me that Eric
was in love with Mom…”
“That’s gross!”
“Why? She’s an attractive woman and Eric had
eyes, didn’t he? Besides, I didn’t say she reciprocated – or even that she
realised – although I’d be surprised if she didn’t know.
You have to admit, he would always do anything for her and he was forever
annoying Dad by being ‘over-attentive’…”
Peter’s eyebrows almost disappeared under his short fringe.
“Well, I never… I guess it makes sense, in a warped sort of way. But then, I never saw Eric’s devotion as
anything out of the ordinary – Mom has the knack of making people dance
attendance…”
Adam
grinned. “She sure does. I wonder if what really got to Eric was
the thought that, if he left the company, he might find himself cut off from the
family as well. The thought of
losing whatever relationship he had with Mom, might’ve … pushed him over the
edge, so to speak.”
Peter
considered the suggestion and grimaced.
“It’s a workable hypothesis,” he conceded.
“Gee,
thanks…”
“So
what did happen to Eric at ‘jp enterprises’?”
Peter insisted.
“What
did the Spectrum Intelligence guys tell you?”
“Oh,
them,” Peter said scornfully. “They
went on about doppelgangers… ringers, impostors… but it was all so much hogwash. I saw Palmer shoot Eric and then I saw
him walk back into the room without a scratch on him. And that was Eric –
I know my own cousin. He was shot
and then he walked back in, as right as rain.”
“It
just looked that way – maybe he wasn’t hurt that much…”
“He
was dead… he had a couple of enormous holes in his chest...” Peter looked
intently at his brother.
“You’re making too much of it, Pete.”
“I
had a ringside view, remember? I
don’t think any man – any normal man
that is - could have survived the wounds he had, let alone stand up and fight
again.” He glanced back to the main room, where he could see Paul sitting
talking to his mom – or rather – listening as Sarah talked to him. He turned to
Adam, who had followed the direction of his gaze and was biting his bottom lip
in a rare show of uncertainty. Peter pressed his advantage.
“That creep, Black, he was talking to Palmer, after they had shot
Scarlet. He said something about
revenge for an attack on a ‘Martian complex’ and ‘destroying life on earth.’
There’s something fishy going on and I want to know what.”
“Did
you tell the men from SI all this?” Adam asked in concern
“Did
I heck – they didn’t strike me as the type I should tell anything to – so I
didn’t. I told them Scarlet had hidden me in the
ladies’ washroom and I stayed there.
But you,” he turned to his brother and poked an aggressive finger into
his chest, “you owe me an explanation.”
“I
can’t tell you anything – because I don’t
know it,” Adam asserted in the face of Peter’s snort of disbelief. “The Mysterons turned up and threatened
the World President – we stopped that threat - but since then they have made
others. We have tried to negotiate with them –
they don’t listen. So, until they
stop their ‘war of nerves’, all Spectrum can do is oppose them. It isn’t easy and it isn’t safe… you were lucky, you faced
the worst they have to offer – Captain Black, a renegade Spectrum officer – and
you walked away in one piece. There
are not many men can say that, Pete.
I am telling what I know, because I trust you – as my brother – not to speak of
this to anyone – not even Dad and
certainly not Mom! Do I have
your word on it?”
Peter
nodded. “Sure you do, Adz,” he promised, staring with perplexity at his
brother’s stern expression.
Usually such a display of fraternal authority brought out the worst in Peter,
but this time, he sensed, Adam would not be forgiving if his orders – which is
what these words amounted to – were disregarded. He changed tack slightly. “Your friend out there, Captain Scarlet, he got pretty badly
shot up and he was walking about in no time…”
“Paul’s tough and Spectrum uniforms offer a lot more protection than you think.”
“Yeah, and his middle name is Lazarus, no doubt.” Peter was scathing. “I
remember hearing about the man who kidnapped the World President.
They said he was an impostor - the ‘Captain Scarlet’ who was killed by
Captain Blue - I take it that was you, by the way?”
Adam
nodded. “I am the Captain Blue who did that,
yes.”
“So, the
Captain Scarlet in our living room is not the man who kidnapped President
Younger – or is he?” Peter persisted. “Look, Adam, I saw dead men get up and
walk – more than once – and you and Scarlet called them ‘Mysterons’.
The man who abducted Younger was called ‘an agent of the Mysterons’… so maybe he
could get and walk - as many times as he liked – however dead he was…just like
the man in there did…”
“It’s
complicated, Pete. All you need to know is that Captain Scarlet is my partner and my
friend. I trust him with my life on
an almost daily basis. You can take
my word for it – he’s okay.”
“And
he’s not one of these ‘Mysterons’?”
Adam shook his head vehemently and Peter grimaced thoughtfully. “That weapon he had, Scarlet said it killed Mysterons… the
people who killed Eric and Palmer and the same ones who make doppelgangers…
How could they do that so soon after Eric was killed – and why do you need a
special gun to kill them?”
Adam
sighed. He knew Peter too well to believe his
brother would stop worrying away at this topic until his curiosity was
satisfied. He also knew that – in
spite of everything – he could trust Peter to keep the secret. He went for the most basic answer he
could. “The Mysterons have an
ability to make exact copies of things – working models, if you like. They aren’t the same as the real thing,
but they look, and often act, like it… however, what they create is entirely at
their beck and call.”
“Neat,” Peter mused. “Presumably, they could replicate a labour force, which
would explain how they planned to do construction work in space at such paltry
costs… The technology behind such a process must be very advanced… Is that why
Scarlet used that electrical gun on Eric and Palmer… to short-circuit them, so
to speak?”
Adam
smiled to himself - trust Peter to link
everything to business! Still, it
looked as if the answer was enough to satisfy him, and vague enough to have
given his brother the wrong impression.
Peter was obviously visualising an android workforce. He nodded.
“I would imagine they had a replica of the real Eric all waiting to go.
Forget the stuff in the business plan, though - that was all so much trash -
they don’t use their skills for peaceful means.”
“These are the guys you are up against?”
Adam
nodded again. “Spectrum has the task of preventing them doing too much damage,
yes.”
“And
you intend to keep doing that? I
mean, you are not intending to marry that woman and come back here?”
Adam
glared down at his brother. “Keep a
civil tongue in your head when you are speaking of Karen… she’s someone very
special – not that I’d expect you to be able to appreciate that.”
Peter
grimaced. “Oh yes, you don’t rate my taste in
women much, do you?”
Adam
rolled his eyes. “What you choose to do with your life is your own business… I
may not understand why you chose to do it – but I would never deny you the right
to do as you want. Consequently, I
don’t expect you to comment on what I do, either.”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Peter sniped.
“You’re welcome to your lady-friend, she’s too fiery for my taste, bro; it can’t
be very restful around her? What’s the attraction – she good in the sack?”
Adam
suppressed the impulse to punch his brother, remembering, ruefully, that he had
used the same justification to explain Peter’s incomprehensible choice of a
wife. Besides, in an odd way, he was grateful
that Peter’s attention had shifted away from his awkward interest in the
Mysterons - and Captain Scarlet’s relationship to them – to the more prosaic
business of provoking his brother.
Rather surprised that he hadn’t received the expected punishment, Peter
continued in a more conciliatory tone, “That said, she seems like a nice enough
woman… Mom likes her. I expect
they’ll get on like a house on fire.
You still haven’t answered my question, though.
Are you planning to marry her and come back to Boston?”
“Yes
and no…”
“And
you do not want the company?”
“No, I never have. What
do you want me to do? Gift-wrap it
for you?”
“Dad
thinks you’ll change your mind…”
“Dad
is wrong. Whatever we do, Karen and I, it will not
include pushing paper for SvenCorp… but - before you even ask - I will not put that in writing, nor will
I sell out to you… I care enough to keep an eye on things… after all, who knows
what a mess you three will make of it, when the time comes?”
Peter
turned on him, his eyes blazing until he saw the laughter in his brother’s face. He made to punch him, but instinct
brought Adam’s arm up to block the blow and the two scuffled, much as they had
as kids. Suddenly, a painful
reminder of his recent accident made Adam give a sharp intake of breath.
Peter
stopped immediately, full of concern as he saw his brother tense up, holding
himself rigidly upright as the pain took its toll.
“You okay, Adz?” he asked, placing a hand on his brother’s arm. “Gee, I’m sorry…I never meant to hurt
you.”
Adam gave
a faint smile at the notion that Peter could hurt him – however hard he tried.
“I’ve felt worse,” he replied, struggling to keep the pain from his
voice, but his face had gone pale beneath his tanned complexion.
Peter
cursed his own forgetfulness and tried to mimic Adam’s stoical nonchalance.
“Yeah, I imagine you have, at that. Maybe, one day, you’ll tell me about
it? – what you do, I mean – not how many times you’ve been hurt… because I don’t
really want to know about that side of it. It seems madness to me that anyone would want to do a job
that carried so much risk.”
“It’s a
dirty job but someone has to do it,” Adam sighed.
“Someone like you and that man in there?”
Peter mused. “Rather you than me, Adz.”
“You
wouldn’t last a day, Pete, believe me.
Just be satisfied with doing what you know you are good at.”
“You
are a real son-of-a-gun, at times,” his brother said, straightening his tie.
“And
you are still a God-forsaken little troll…”
There
was a silence.
Peter
considered just how much of his brother’s life was beyond his ken…and his
imagination. He knew that his brother was – as he had
always been – physically much the stronger of the two, but to live every day,
knowing that something could happen – something even worse than being shot and injured as he had been - was …awesome. It took a kind of courage he could only marvel at with
humility, all the more because he had never realised his own brother possessed
it.
Just
as the silence threatened to become too ominous, Peter said in a much lighter
tone, “So, what will you do, when you get married?”
Adam
shrugged. “The World is my oyster, Pete…”
Peter
snorted. “I always thought this family was the
oyster… and that Mom and Dad saw you as the pearl,” he confessed.
Adam
sighed. “I can’t help it if you saw it that way, but I never have. I know I have
been a big disappointment - to Dad, at least – and even to Mom in some ways. She’d like me settled down - with 2.4
kids – even if I wasn’t working for the company.
But I can’t do it, Pete; I am not made in the same mould as you and Dad…
I guess you should blame Mom’s genes for stirring things up too much. I’ve tried for years to avoid everything
to do with SvenCorp… despite great provocation. What do I have to do to convince
this family I am not interested in playing bankers?“
“Well, that’s okay then,” Peter said with a satisfied intake of breath.
“Of
course, who knows if the Svenson genes won’t get the upper hand in my kids…? I
can see an Adam Junior muscling in twenty-five to thirty years from now…” He couldn’t help laughing at Peter’s
horrified expression.
“You
always have to have the last word, don’t you?” his brother protested, with just
a hint of amusement.
“Noted for it, Pete…”
~oo0oo~
In an
effort to ignore what might be happening in the conservatory, Sarah devoted
herself to her guests. “Let’s all
make ourselves comfortable, shall we?
Have you met my grand-daughters, Karen?
Come and say hello… oh well, they’ve gone all shy, it seems. Rosa, please would
you make us all some coffee – or perhaps Mr
Metcaff would like tea?”
Paul grinned, as he always did when confronted by
the vowel-mangling accents of Adam’s family. He nodded confirmation and sternly
reminded himself to behave. Settled
in a comfortable chair, with a decent cup of tea (for America) and an enormous
sticky bun, Paul listened to the chatter of Adam’s pretty nieces, their mother
and grandmother. Across the room,
David was busily wasting his time trying to charm Karen, and John Svenson - Paul
suspected under strict orders from his wife - was behaving with rather more
geniality than usual.
It was
not hard to see how involved Kate and Seymour were with each other.
They went to sit slightly away from the main group, the fair head and the dark
close together in earnest conversation.
Paul wondered how soon after his return to Cloudbase the colonel would realise
he had a lieutenant in love to cope with, and resign himself to yet another
officer given to periodic bouts of vagueness and regular requests for shore
leave…
He
glanced up as the conservatory door opened and Peter walked in, laughing over
his shoulder at something Adam had said.
His brother followed him, until his progress was halted by his eldest niece, who
ran to throw her arms around his legs and who prattled happily to him as he
swung her up in his arms. One
glance at his partner’s face was enough to tell Paul that the interview with
Peter – which Adam had been dreading – had gone better than expected.
Adam
strode across to the sofa Karen was on, and shooing his youngest brother away,
sat down beside her, his niece on his lap.
Captain Scarlet drew a satisfied breath –
it could so easily have been so much worse – I guess it’s just another example
of the ‘luck of the Svensons’… he mused, surveying the surprisingly
harmonious family scene before him.
The
dinner Sarah had ordered for them was a magnificent meal – and a welcome change
from the fare provided on Cloudbase.
The conversation was good natured and did not stray into any contentious areas. By the time it was over, Paul was as
full as he could remember being for some time, and feeling mellow from the
effects of the pleasant company – if not the excellent wines and liqueurs that
had accompanied the food. He was
even tempted into sampling one of John Svenson’s Havana cigars.
When
they moved back to the living room,
Seymour and Kate sat together on one sofa, his arm around her shoulder as she
leant against him. Adam and Karen
sat together on the other, in a similar pose.
Karen, finally tiring of Davy’s persistent flirting, rested her head against her
lover’s shoulder and closed her eyes, giving ill-concealed yawns every so often.
Adam gave Paul a wry glance and rolled his eyes.
Taking pity on them both, Paul said, “Mrs Svenson
– Sarah,” he corrected, in the light of her disapproving glance.
“That was the most wonderful meal I can remember eating in a long time and I am
sorry to be such a party-pooper but I do have to go back to base early tomorrow
and I ought to get some rest. So,
I’ll go up now, if no-one minds?”
“Of course, Paul, you must feel free to do as you
like here – we don’t stand on ceremony!
I hope you found everything you need in your room?” Sarah smiled.
“Absolutely, it is extremely comfortable.”
He stood and stretched slightly. “Well, I’ll say goodnight then.” He nodded to
Adam. “Will I see you in the morning, before I go?”
Adam shrugged, smiled at Karen and said dreamily,
“That all depends...”
She grinned up at Paul and held out her hand to
him. “Goodnight, Paul, sleep well,” she said.
“You too,” he replied with a wry smile and,
shaking his head, Captain Scarlet took himself off upstairs.
As he closed the bedroom door, he noticed that the other guest room wasn’t ready
for occupation, and grinned broadly.
It looked as if this time, no-one would be trying to conceal anything...
Soon
afterwards, he heard footsteps disappearing upstairs to the suites of rooms on
the upper level.
He could have sworn he heard Symphony’s soft laugh
as they passed his door.
Author’s notes:
The initial idea for this story came to me in the summer of 2002
and sat on my computer for a long time, undergoing various alterations and
re-workings. It was in July 2004, after Hazel Köhler
had read the remnants of the original story – all that was left after my PC
hard-disk had crashed – and encouraged me to finish it, that I turned back to it
with renewed enthusiasm.
Because I have written several other stories since I started this
one, finishing the story really meant a fundamental re-writing.
I re-set the period of the story and changed the ending. I now see this story as coming almost
immediately after the conclusion of my 2003 Halloween story –
A Charmed Life - and before my End Credits
Challenge story –
A Chapter of Accidents. There are also references to another story of mine –
The Passengers –
in which Symphony Angel meets Captain Blue’s mother (Sarah Svenson) for the
first time. None of these have to
be read in order to follow this story.
The characters of John, Sarah, Peter, Katherine
and David Svenson are not mine.
They were invented by Chris Bishop, in her wonderful story
A Symphony in Blue
and she has been kind enough to let me borrow them.
What I have done with them is, I hope, in the spirit of the people she created.
The technology that protects Spectrum Agents from
having their pictures taken was devised by Mary J Rudy in her marvellous story
‘Chance
for a Lifetime.’
The characters of Stefan and Eric Svenson are my own invention,
as is the history of the Svenson family which all stemmed from the slight
references made, in several sources, to the fact that Captain Blue’s father
disapproved of his son’s choice of career. I have made references to Blue’s
close relationship with his mother and his grandfather, as well as his turbulent
one with his father, in several other stories. It has no validity, except in my
fiction.
As far as I can discover there are no companies called SvenCorp
or The Hudson Guaranty Trust – and if there are – mine are purely fictional and
have no connections with any real companies.
The characters from the classic TV series, ‘Captain Scarlet
& The Mysterons’, who appear in this story, belong to the companies who
own the rights to the series. I
have only borrowed them too, so I hope they don’t mind.
As usual my thanks go to Chris Bishop, for her boundless
enthusiasm and encouragement and for providing me with a venue in which to share
my enjoyment of Captain Scarlet and his friends, and all their adventures. Thanks also to Caroline Smith for her
insightful comments and to Hazel Köhler for being the best beta-reader
imaginable.
I dedicate this to my long-suffering husband and my daughter, who
are sick to death of the sound of me typing at a keyboard.
Happy Christmas, sweethearts!
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Marion Woods
August – October 2004
Other stories from Marion Woods
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