Stark (26 page)

122: CONSPIRACY THEORIES

E
ver since discovering that there definitely was some form of covert co-operation between the world’s richest men, Chrissy had been casting desperately about, trying to find the vaguest hint as to what that co-operation might be. After all, it is not illegal for a large group of people to go out to dinner together. It might be boring if you get sat at the wrong end of the table, next to the wrong people. It might be annoying if you got lumbered trying to divide up the bill. Even more annoying if it is decided to just split the bill equally and you know that you only had a starter and that you didn’t drink because you were driving. It might be all those things, but it is not illegal.

The tiny scraps of information that she did manage to pick up, simply added to the confusion. Using the information contained in Linda’s final letter to her, she had been able to follow up one or two of the purchases that her target personalities had made during the first hours of the crash. But this had only made her more confused. For instance, the last thing that Slampacker had bought was a vast quantity of dried food, whilst Nagasyu was involved heavily in the jumble sale sell-off of the West European Space Group.

WESG had collapsed with the concentration of the satellite market, immediately following the crash. It had been hugely wealthy but only in the long-term. Being an entirely civil organization it had been able to concentrate purely on the commercial development of space, whilst both NASA and the Soviets had a huge military commitment. Unfortunately, the whole thing had been financed on credit, selling launch space for pay-loads that would not take flight for half a decade. With the wholesale cancelling most of these contracts, WESG found itself suddenly bankrupt. As it became apparent that the world was entering a decade of low consumer spending ability, all the new TV channels, private phone links, and mass satellite communication stuff had to be shelved. Nobody rents another TV channel when the cupboard’s bare.

The Stark Consortium had been aware that this would happen and had jumped in early to asset-strip the agency. This had been the last major move that Chrissy had been able to observe, after that the transactions dried up. Unbeknownst to her, the reason for this was that Durf was now centralizing the preparations in order to speed things up. Obviously neither Durf, nor his assorted buyers, were in Linda’s original computer program, so their dealings went unobserved.

But none the less, the few snippets she did uncover were enough to scare her even more deeply than she had been before. Chrissy was a good financial journalist, she understood money flow, she had even read parts of Capital. Of course, she did not agree with most of the social conclusions that Marx drew. She knew that the yuppies would do for themselves with cocaine, long before the dictatorship of the proletariat had time to inevitably succeed the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. She didn’t even know who the proletariat were anymore. On the other hand, she had always thought that there might be something in Marx’s idea that war was an inevitable part of the money cycle. Money needed war. And somebody very rich was buying rockets. The time had come to seek advice.

123: A LACK OF INTELLIGENCE

T
hat is the most preposterous lot of crap I have heard in all my years with the Agency,’ CIA man Toole admonished, ‘and I was the guy who wanted to poison Idi Amin by putting arsenic in his mistress’s bidet.’

Chrissy had not really known what to expect, but going to Toole was the only thing she could remotely think of to do. She supposed that maybe she had hoped that he would check the door and then inform her that the CIA were already on the case and that she could forget about it. Of course, Chrissy had no illusions about the extent of the CIA’s knowledge about anything. Like all intelligence agencies, they knew what they stumbled on, unfortunately they could never believe what they stumbled on because it could be a plant, so they spent all day getting headaches, trying to double-think an opponent they were not sure existed.

But what could Chrissy do? Who could she turn to?

‘I know it looks sort of weak but come on, Toole, we’ve known each other a long time. You’re the only agency man I’d talk to. You know I’m not one to start at shadows.’

‘Well, sure, but all this capitalist conspiracy stuff is pretty questionable you know, Chrissy,’ Toole replied. ‘I mean, maybe you should take it to the other side. It’s kind of more their game you know. Our lot like capitalism, that’s what we’re here to defend. If there is anything in this, which of course there isn’t, it is definitely a KGB brief, or maybe the Cubans. I can make a couple of calls if you want.’

‘I’m not talking about capital ism, I’m talking about capital ists, a small group of them, who may be trying to screw the rest of us. Look, you have got to agree that I have the evidence that they were together and you’ve also got to agree that that is real strange. I mean real strange. Now what is the world financial situation at the moment?’

‘It’s in crisis, Chrissy, even the Agency can read the papers.’

‘That’s right, there is a world financial crisis. Decades of buying a new Hi-fi when you get bored with the record that’s on it, has peaked. The credit boom is crashing about our ears. At any other time in history there’d probably be a war. That’s what Marx said. The very nature of the system is growth, expansion and profit and the only way to keep that spiral moving upwards is to blow it apart with a war every now and then. Recreate demand, stimulate production, destroy old products, etc., etc. But it hasn’t happened has it? In terms of major power against major power, there has never been a longer period of peace in history. Marx didn’t know about nuclear weapons, he didn’t know that the very next century after his, people would get scared of war, so the war he predicted hasn’t happened, which leaves the world market in crisis…’

Toole interrupted her.

‘Chrissy, are you suggesting that a group of well-known and respected businessmen are fixing to start their own war in order to recreate a market for their goods, because they’re all good Marxists and he’s told them how to keep capitalism on course?’

‘I don’t know,’ Chrissy replied, angrily, ‘it’s just a suggestion. You try and explain what’s going on here. My friend was murdered…’

‘You think,’ corrected Toole.

‘She was murdered, whilst close to uncovering some kind of bizarre alliance between top money-biz fat cats. I pick up on the research and find that not only are they buying rocket fuel, but also half the West European Space Group…’

‘Along with about a million other things, Chrissy,’ Toole butted in again. ‘Look, I’ll do one thing for you and that is all. I’ll call London and see if they know anything more about your friend’s murder.’

Chrissy’s knuckles were white with frustration. Toole adopted a kinder note.

‘If you want my honest opinion, I’ll tell you. I think you’re probably on to something here. I agree that there are certain aspects that look a little strange, but no way in a billion years is this Marx business stuff cutting any ice with me, or anybody else. You’re going to have to do a whole lot better theory-wise than that.’

‘I haven’t got any other damn theories!’ Chrissy shouted. ‘I have no idea what is going on!’ They parted; she to go and get a drink; he to make the one call that he had promised to make. He was linked with an MI5 man called Carre. He knew him pretty well and reckoned there was a good chance that he wasn’t working for the Russians.

124: KEEPING A SECRET

S
ecret Services are a bit of a puzzle really. In the light of the various unsavoury discoveries made about them since the war, it is becoming extremely difficult to find any satisfactory reason for why they exist at all.

It now seems fairly clear that for most of the time since the Second World War, the KGB have completely penetrated and totally compromised British Intelligence. And what good has it done them. They have not, as known, invaded Britain, or blown up any of Her Majesty’s shipyards. They seem to have made no real profit out of their astonishing coup whatsoever. In fact, in the history of Britain, the audacious Russian penetration of our cloak and dagger boys will probably be deemed to have done little or no real damage at all, except perhaps to the egos of a few ex-public schoolboys. It has, on the other hand, sold an awful lot of novels. If the Soviets had thought to penetrate the West’s publishing houses at the same time that they were penetrating its espionage organizations, they might today have all the hard currency that they so desperately need.

Of late the CIA has got the publishing bug and it almost seems that operatives are writing their memoirs before completing their first mission; with the result of blowing the gaff on past and present colleagues. The whole concept of espionage is so totally riddled with doubt and betrayal that the suspicion cannot be avoided that the entire charade is an utter waste of money.

Except of course it isn’t, because the real purpose of national secret services is not to spy on foreigners but to spy on the people that pay for the thing in the first place; the population of the country in question. This is almost certainly the main job of the KGB and, if recently published memoirs are to be believed, is also the principal concern of MI5. The next John Le Carre novel should be about Smiley trying to penetrate a bunch of vegetarian members of CND in Islington.

125: THE GATHERING STORM

C
hrissy went home more frustrated than ever, wishing that her friend, Linda, had never come up with her observations in the first place. She passed a news stand.

One of the placards announced that the heat in the southern hemisphere was now so severe that the rise in the sea level, due to the meltdown in Antarctica, was now a day to day reality. Coastal towns would soon no longer be safe and the whole of Egypt and Bangladesh were directly threatened. In the early eighties, scientists around the globe had predicted that within forty years the human race would face the most drastic climatic changes since civilization began. It was all happening much sooner than anybody had expected.

But Chrissy could not get worked up about it, she liked warm weather. She saw the second placard, it read:

126: DOUBLE EURO-NUKE TERROR; FRENCH REACTOR BLOWS; BRIT SUB FLOUNDERS.

C
hrissy bought a paper and learnt of the dreadful events that had happened on the previous day. She could not help but smile. If the world wasn’t careful it looked as if all her worries about money and the machinations of the world’s billionaires would be entirely academic since there would no longer be any life on the planet to worry about.

127: WARMING GLOW

T
he submarine in question, HMS Dogged Endurance, had hit trouble in a huge and unseasonal sea. The swell had been massive and Captain McEntoe had never seen the like before.

‘It’s those damn Americans mucking about with the weather,’ he remarked, sucking on his pipe. But it wasn’t. It was just the sort of storm that only comes very occasionally and nobody had really minded until the seas began to fill up with nuclear hardware which, once fractured, could poison extremely large areas for thousands of years.

HMS Dogged Endurance had been trying to leave harbour at its secret(ish) base in North Scotland when the weather had hit it and, despite its enormous power, the boat found itself drifting towards the rocks that formed the natural harbour. Three tugs had been called out immediately and had actually managed to get a rope onto the wallowing sub. However, to no avail and the side of the ship was breached on the fierce, craggy and soon-to-become extremely radioactive rocks of Scotland.

The weapons were not compromised but the small nuclear reactor, which powered Dogged Endurance, was. Within a matter of hours the major European frozen food companies were on the phones trying to get into the Pacific fish market.

The French power station was a much bigger disaster although, since the two incidents were only eight hundred miles apart, their effects became indistinguishable.

After the Chernobyl disaster the world was assured that with modern safety standards such terrible events were unlikely to happen again to a power station, even once in a thousand years. This, of course, was very little comfort because with the present proliferation of nuclear power it will not be long before there are a thousand nuclear power stations; which statistically suggests that one will go pop every year.

The disaster that Chrissy read about in New York made a large section of central France uninhabitable. Besides this, it cast a fall-out cloud that made all meat and vegetables, within a radius of five hundred miles, inedible. The argument for this form of power in the first place had been that it was cheap and clean. Of course, the cost of clearing up the appalling mess of this one disaster was uncomputable, and, with cancers running through many a generation, pretty open-ended.

128: CLOAK AND DAGGER DETENTE

T
oole went back to his office at the CIA New York station and phoned Carre in London.

Toole didn’t like Carre. Carre was a boring snob and because he worked for M15 he was obsessed with the idea that everybody would presume that he was gay. He therefore felt the need to continually pepper his conversation with sexual banter to demonstrate just what a clean knobbed heterosexual he was.

‘Hi Carre, it’s Toole. Still getting plenty?’

‘Christ, unbelievable, I mean just unbelievable. I am getting so much pussy at the moment. I don’t know what it is, but really, unbelievable…‘ Carre talked without moving his lips, in what he believed was a languid, public school drawl. An accent that only Prince Charles can carry off, and even he, only just…

‘I mean, honestly, I don’t think there are any poofs left in the firm these days. We all get so much pussy! especially me.’

‘Glad to hear it, bud. Hey listen, could you do something for me?’

‘Maybe. Thought you Yanks could pull your own birds,’ said Carre in a manner calculated to imply the guarded response of a cool, keen brain; but in fact implying, and implying clearly, that he was a fatuous git. Except in wartime, working for the secret service must be a particularly soul destroying occupation. It is such a useless job. You can never know if you’ve got anything right; and even if you did you’re not allowed to tell anyone. This is probably why secret civil servants have always invented fantasy lives for themselves; because their real ones are so dull. Carre hadn’t even done this with any flair. After all, pretending to get laid a lot is scarcely an original pose. The other thing he did was to sit in clubs full of other young men pretending to be old, saying things like, ‘Listen, if Hitler had gone to Eton he’d have made a bloody good minister of agriculture.’

Toole was aware of what a git Carre was, but Carre, being a slime and a toady, knew things, so he was the quickest way to laying Chrissy’s story to rest.

‘Listen,’ said Toole, ‘someone’s turned up a shot that I reckon is as long as they come, but I promised her I’d run it past your people. She has a major money conspiracy theory going round the death of a hack on the Financial Telegraph, called Linda Reeve. My source is convinced the girl was murdered because she was on the tail of some fat cats.’

‘What’s your source’s name and what’s her theory?’ Carre blurted out. Had he really been the cool hand he liked to think he was, he would have affected disinterest. Toole was very surprised indeed, clearly he had hit something.

‘Oh Christ, some mashed potatoes about corporate Armageddon,’ he mumbled cheerfully and evasively. ‘What about the Reeve girl?’

‘No, what about your source, who is it?’ Carre insisted.

Toole was astonished. Obviously there was a case to answer to after all, at the very least about Linda Reeve’s death. He reminded himself to apologize to Chrissy.

‘Never you mind about my source. What’s going on, Carre?’

‘Nothing that I know of,’ Carre said, finally managing to introduce a casual note into his voice. ‘You know me, always interested in totty…I recall the case. The girl was killed and the police asked us to look at it. It was a very professional burglary you see, they were surprised that whoever did it murdered the girl…’

‘Surely that would have gone to Special Branch…if that. More like local CID I’d have thought.’ Toole, of course, did not believe Carre. There was one rule above all others in espionage: the cops hated the spies. Cops never took kindly to getting their investigations taken away from them and would certainly never have voluntarily handed over a murder to M15

— no matter how suspicious. ‘Well, for some reason or other they gave it to us,’ Carre said, unconvincingly. ‘We drew a blank. I just wondered if you had anything, that was all.’ Toole could get nothing further out of Carre, who started trying to talk about totty again. When Toole put the phone down he was at a complete loss about what to do. He had this list of vaguely suspicious, but entirely legal, financial transactions, and a girl with an utterly absurd theory about corporate global manipulation. He had been all set to forget about the whole thing after one call, and now the Brit had as good as confirmed the basis of Chrissy’s theory; i.e. that Linda Reeve’s death was suspicious. That gave a tiny touch of credibility to the rest of Chrissy’s wild thinking. And what were the British doing? Certainly they knew something about this journalist’s death. Poor Toole was now as confused as Chrissy. He too shared with her the same pangs of fear.

Not for long though, as it turned out, because within two hours Toole was dead. His nemesis had appeared in the shape of the head of the CIA West European operation. A very big fish indeed, he had never come to see Toole before and when he entered — without knocking — Toole sprang respectfully to his feet.

‘Just been talking to London, Toole. You’ve stumbled on a big one. This Linda Reeve business, how did you get onto it?’ Toole explained about Chrissy Kelly; hoping like hell that he had not trodden on any major leaguer’s toes.

‘And that’s all?’ the big man asked, and was assured that it was. Then he pulled the gun with the silencer, bade Toole raise his hands, put the gun to Toole’s mouth, shot him and placed the gun in Toole’s lifeless hands — Toole had wondered when his boss entered the room why he was wearing gloves.

Nobody knew why Toole had killed himself. The body had been discovered by the head of the West European operation, who had gone over to question Toole about unauthorised conversations with dubious British agents who were known to boast openly about indiscreet sexual adventures. Maybe, people speculated, that was why Toole killed himself…Lacking any real motivating force in their lives, sex was a spur that secret service types always found tempting to fix on to. People whispered about Toole, pointing out that he had killed himself after talking to a man called Carre at MI5 — which everyone knew had been a den of queers since 1946. What’s more, it seemed that this Carre was fixated by demeaning and smutty talk about women — which CIA analysts claimed was probably a denial of his deeper and very different desires. Poor old Carre, the most terrible thing he could imagine happened: his CIA file got marked down as possible subversive homosexual.

Actually Toole died because both Carre and the big American Head of West European operations worked for Stark; although they had no idea of the real nature of their employment. They both presumed that they were simply involved in industrial espionage. Very rich men gave them orders and they carried them out. Carre had been instructed to keep an eye on the Reeve murder — in fact he had recruited a fellow who did it. Hence, he reported his conversation with Toole to Professor Durf’s people. They, in turn, asked their top CIA insider to find out what Toole knew, and then kill him. That was it. Five grand to Carre, a hundred grand to the American; money well spent, and the two men returned to their day jobs. Chrissy’s address was then faxed to a reliable New York operative.