2012 Part 17

'So what am I seeing over there - marching?'

'I don't really know. I'm getting all my cues from you. Remember I'm only the messenger. For me there's nothing here but you.'

'You mean everything is going on inside my head.'

'Exactly!'

'Then where am I, where's my body?'

'Not my department brother.'

'You're only the messenger!'

'That's right.'

'But why does it all feel so real, why am I cold standing here, why does it seem dark, why can I see people marching?'

'Like I said - too many unanswerable questions. In my opinion, and I say this only so that you understand, and don't go about the place saying Hermes knows the answers. I think you mortals need conceptual props to make sense of things that you can't grasp in the here and now. Because you can't think round the blind corners of the future and the past, you people them with images or ideas which you so grow to like that you actually give them lives like your own. It stops you going mad or becoming purely existentialist. What I find so depressing about you is the fact that most of the images of the past are so similar. So 'h.e.l.lish', if you will excuse the pun, and those of the future so 'heavenly'. But since you can't handle the ideas without the framework you share in common I suppose it's got its uses. You might as well stick with your conception of the past of Hades as h.e.l.l because your mission is to bring him to Zeus so he can outwit Yahweh who Zeus sees as some kind of Johnny come-lately in the Chief G.o.d Business and would prefer to keep things in the old Firm if he can. He wants to maintain the strength of the present and put the future into some kind of better relations.h.i.+p with it so as not to leave it in the hands of this rarefied One G.o.d and his Son who is full of unfulfillable promises. Basically, you see, it's easier to land a being of known substance than a chimera. So my lad, you stick with your images because that's what you know, and they will deliver you what you want. Keep changing them and you'll never find what you seek or ever get out of here. There is treasure here, but it's like all treasure - hard to find.'

Chapter 6.

Zeus was edgy. Hera thought he might be displeased and was cautious. They had journeyed to a particularly favourite timeline to bask in a sun-dappled olive grove overlooking the bay at Psathi. They lay side by side on beds of fragrant herbs, she facing him, he on his broad back gazing heavenwards. It was the time after the battle of the t.i.tans and before the advent of mortals. Normally in this place of unalloyed peace he would relax in the simple pre-existence of an un-peopled world. He particularly enjoyed the natural simplicity of Gaia's undemanding creation, and gloried in his victory and the divine reconciliation of the G.o.ds through which, he was made all powerful.

Hera saw the incipient frown. Felt the tension in the old, but vigorous body. She knew the signs and she worried about what he might do. She tentatively tried to engage him in a deep mind-meld.

'No wife, do not!'

She shrank inwardly at the force of his rebuff. She was afraid he might do something dramatic for the fun of making things happen. She had desperately disguised her misgivings about his plan though the maintenance of cordiality. Neither was it all pretence. Her admiration for the scope of his work was genuine. But now they were in uncharted territory and she was alarmed. She had no idea how much interference in the lives of mortals would be acceptable. A high meld might convinced him she had nothing to hide. It was risky, since if he called her bluff, he may well think she was taking too much on her own shoulders and by implication was plotting yet another challenge to his supremacy. Risky or not, she needed to deflect him from his apparent and growing belief that Alexander was making heavy weather of his mission and that he would inevitably have to intervene.

Zeus got up hurriedly, and paced on the shaded ground between the gnarled, squat olive trees. Suddenly as if he had had a great thought he turned to face Hera.

'Wife! Where's Persephone these latter days, is she up here or down there? The world's got so big and complicated with all these time-zones I can't keep up with her.'

'You know perfectly well that those old ideas don't work any more my Lord, she comes and goes more or less as she pleases nowadays and...'

'Well tell her, if she pleases, that I, Zeus want her here with me for a little while. We have things to discuss.'

'I will send Hermes to her my Lord, but it might take a while. Anyway you know how you upset Demeter when you intrude in her affairs.' There he goes, thought Hera, take great care my girl.

'Why does everyone argue with me nowadays! n.o.body does what I say any more! Can't you just do it without a song and dance? Or do I have to do everything round here myself!'

He turned his rage upon her so that the ground shook and the wind whistled in the trees turning the leaves to s.h.i.+vering silver. Fortunately Hera knew her husband well enough to know when to confront his innate unreasonableness and when to be prudent. This needed careful handling. He was clearly nervous. She knew he would never admit it and she needed to keep him under control.

A summons for Persephone meant he was going to dabble. Hera needed Persephone to help lead Alexander out of Hades, in his own time and at a pace he was able to handle. Zeus was likely to over-play his hand and get his own notions over to Hades and unintentionally compromise Alexander, making his task even more difficult and more than likely make things messier than they already were.

'Sire, all is in hand. Your son is in Hades and will do your will there. You are just a little impatient for action my Lord, you want things to happen now, when with a little patience all will be better done.'

'Don't humour me Hera, I won't have it! Not even from you. I'm very easy going but I will not be patronised - least of all by you! The boy is slow and weak, you know he is. The timeline lengthens. I still have to deal with Yahweh and I don't want Hades at work behind my back. Yahweh's going to take all my concentration: I don't have the energy to worry about that boy - it's alright for you, you don't have to make these executive decisions. It's a question of ultimate responsibility, Gaia can't wait - I must do what I said - I will...'

Hera gazed at him with soft, glistening eyes. She allowed the shoulder strap of her chiton slip a little and she spoke gently. No mortal could have resisted her and many G.o.ds would have given in. Her husband for all his protestations of business, actually had nothing better to do for the moment.

'My Lord, husband, you know me better than that. You want to know why nothing seems to be happening after your announcement should have turned everything upside down. Well believe me things are happening...'

'They are? Oh good! Tell me, wife of my loins, have I made a splash, are my ripples drifting outwards down the Chronosphere and is there resonance on the timelines? You know me. I am the impatient one, but I am not without subtlety, that is why I would not have you meld with me. I will not test you in this my little cuckoo - a deal is a deal, I have done my part. (she did not feel it was timely to remind him that his announcement was not part of any deal he had made with her and that the problems she faced were as a consequence) Gaia and I have agreed and she will not be harmed more! Tell me what doings are afoot.'

'See for yourself O Master, follow the timeline with me and enter the place called Markham where your English woman is.'

'No, no wife. No more recriminations in that direction if you please! I've given all that up for good. Don't start all that up again. It was necessary, you agreed it was. Look, you may travel the globe to your heart's content but I am weary. The doings of mortals now only interest me in the broad. I have not the energy for the games of before when I held sway over all their doings and Hades was small fry and Yhawhe wasn't even a figment of the imagination. In any case Markham is in that wet, damp land where his mother comes from is it not? I do not wish to go there, I never much liked the place. So tell me and I will lie back and listen for the voice of my beloved Gaia who will whisper in my ear and tell me how she feels today.'

'She will give you better cheer my Lord if the work of my chosen mortals continues to go as it does. They know this point on the timelines may be their last and they work to heal our Mother.'

'Do they do it well, my love? Do they have many enemies among those who do not see and who are allied to Hades and Yahweh?'

'Their enemies awake and have allies in many places.'

'Do your chosen ones know about us and our great plan?'

'Not yet and they are told nothing as you willed. But they are not stupid or we would not love them. Hephaestos helps them and Prometheus and Athena keep watch for their enemies. Pan and Themis watch over your son.'

'How does he do? My One Alone, my senses tell me he is no Heracles, no Ulysses. There is no fire in him, there's no sinew in these modern youths. What does Themis do to guide him, does he know his fate?'

'Shh! my Lord, trust in us. This is a modern world, here there is doubt and people have need of proofs for they no longer believe. There are too many choices in this world where everything is interconnected and outcomes are hard to discern. But let us listen to Gaia, what does she say?'

Hera drew her Lord into her bosom and together they listened to the wind rise through the trees. Bird-song littered the air, water rippled in an endless chain of sound sighing for a world without people. Nothing interfered with the harmony of the sphere and the great Zeus slept in the arms of his beloved listening to the heart-beat of their mother, far back on the timelines when all of Gaia's offspring nestled innocently in the vast breadth of her broad bosom.

Zeus slept like a baby. Hera summonsed nymphs in whose arms she left him coupled with the ineffable softness of the pre-existing Mother.

She moved to the timeline of Penny and Ric. Six times had the Earth pa.s.sed round the sun since Lucina met Alexander at the foot of the lift. Though for Alexander in Hades, time was stilled.

Penny too was troubled. She knew from Hep, Lucina and Thea that for the last six years Alexander was alive but inaccessible. They told her no more than that he was working undercover for the Firm and she was too busy to keep his prolonged absence as personal grief in the forefront of her mind. After all, children are supposed to grow up and leave home. The rest of the world thought him dead and that was an advantage to his mission, so there was nothing to be done but get on with her work.

His disappearance had been world news for a week. Teams of rescuers, a.s.sisted by Marina and her resources scoured the side canyons around Manny's hogan and the trail hit a dead end at Matkatamiba. The newspapers were full of maps and theories about how the two young men might have come to grief, probably as a result of Alexander's lack of experience in the canyons with its highly treacherous freak winds and sudden land slips. They had been travelling in obscure reaches of the Grand Canyon known mostly to only a few Navajo. They had travelled areas not well tracked, dangerous with ravines and subject to flash floods. Unwary travellers disappeared all the time in the mountain upside-down, and although most were eventually traced alive or dead, a few were never seen again. It was conjectured that the knowledgeable Navajo had come to grief rescuing his companion.

Life went on as usual. Marina, in particular, found it hard to believe Barboncito and Alexander had fallen into a ravine. Although this was the official conclusion, scuffed tracks at the far end of the cave where Matkatamiba ended at a barren wall of limestone put doubt in her mind about the ultimate fate of both young men. Manny's own lack of help and concern confirmed her own thoughts that if Alexander was a novice in the ways of the canyon, Barboncito and Manuelito were experts.

Manny was taciturn in the company of the rescue teams but with Marina this became an indifference which spoke volumes. This she confided in Penny who could do no more than nod her agreement.

Marina's suspicions were aroused. She hated mysteries. She also and unexpectedly, missed Alexander. She put down her unbidden sense of loss to the mysteriousness of the disappearance. Had she allowed herself to a.n.a.lyse her emotions she would have known the reason was more heartfelt than intellectual. However the situation plus Penny's reaction, set Marina's investigative nose into Manuelito Kanuho's past and that of all senior JNO personnel including Penny, Lucina, Thea and the dreadful Ljeschi.

As for Penny she was distracted from Alexander's absence by her work and the proximity of Ric. The work itself was totally absorbing leaving little time for either of them to express a developing but unspoken love, which hung between them like a fragrance in the air, sensed but unacknowledged.

Hep was a frequent visitor, working on refinements to both HIGO and GAIANET. For most of the last six years, including during the search for Alec and Barboncito, Penny and Ric remained closeted at Markham. The intensity of the work and their own burgeoning relations.h.i.+p made short work of the pa.s.sage of time. To maintain their advantage in the complex world of corporate and political activity, they needed to act invisibly through their networks of contacts using HIGO and GAIANET to inform the creation of increasingly accurate thrusts at the workings of the human world, to change the ideas, att.i.tudes and actions of key world players.

Gradually they arranged their disappearance from the business world with as little comment as possible. They correctly calculated that like all news, the doings of JNO had ephemeral value. Marina ensured that even the nosiest journalist was deflected from investigating Markham and they worked on in secret. As an added precaution, and as part of the overall plan, JNO the trading company, was gradually liquidated. Its a.s.sets sold off or raided by a multiplicity of companies owned or influenced by people like Jose Condamine or Chieko Terakoa. Deals were activated by Advisory Group members or their colleagues networking in such organisations as Johannesburg Airlines or Haifa Real Estate.

During the time JNO was being quietly and unheedingly absorbed, GRADE grew and grew, invisibly fed by the profits of the JNO businesses ploughed back by the Advisory Group.

GRADE was Largely Penny's work, while HIGO and GAIANET were Ric's. Acting together a gradual transformation was occurring to world trade with some consequences foreseen and others not. At the same time, the relentless march of technology had caught up with the early GAIANET magic and almost everyone could afford a mobile phone which linked anyone at rest or on the go, the latest models being linked to the internet, with satellite communication for all, on its way in the near future.

As the poorer third-world grew a little richer, thanks to GRADE, this included more and more people. Personal isolation and the sense of helplessness and remoteness was gradually being changed and was bit by bit, changing the face of human relations.h.i.+ps. The time was coming when everyone would be able to communicate with everyone else simply by saying h.e.l.lo in cybers.p.a.ce. HIGO however was not available to anyone except Ric, Penny and Hep and the Advisory Group. As information about everything became more and more available, the question of how to know what to access, to evaluate its value and then to decide what to do with it, if anything; was overwhelming. An even bigger unanswered question was how to exercise control over events fuelled by the availability of ever greater information.

Simply knowing something is only part of the story; how to interpret the information and know that it is properly understood and in what context it may or may not be significant; is another. To corner a market in particular information blocks, was to control the received truth. If information confers power, knowledge of its veracity and control of its style, type and methods of accessibility conferred ultimate authority. HIGO in Ric and Hep's Hands gave them the ability to take as much information as was available at any point in time and interpret it against, or into, commercial, social or financial trends. While everyone else on the internet was interested mainly in their own bit of business, Ric used HIGO to put it all together and was able to interpret the global effect. Penny, by s.h.i.+fting judicious sums, sometimes large, though often surprisingly small, through GRADE agents and enterprises; was able to play ju-jitsu with big corporations, their middle men and raw-materials producers. She was able to effect their use of labour, their ability to exploit or develop people and resources.

The way that Jose Condamine had prevented an increase in the plunder of the forest in Brazil for large-scale export of beef, was now history. The biggest hamburger chains were forced into the more expensive home-reared beef or soya and bacterially produced subst.i.tutes - hamburgers were never the same again. The jungles of the rainforest were re-planted and Jose Condamine earned the n.o.bel Peace Prize for his work reinstating the Parakanan Tribes in the Tucurui region. GRADE stepped in with alternative projects and local a.s.sistance for development often routed through non-government agencies sometimes through partners.h.i.+ps with agencies of government and sometimes directly, through JNO's banking interests.

In six years, Brazil from being a nation dominated by foreign corporations for most of its agricultural output, was now finding it more profitable for its citizens to grow food for local and regional markets. Large owners of landholdings had been forced to sell to land-hungry peasants as their products became less profitable in the West. These same peasants were well on their way to becoming prosperous owner occupiers, a powerful yeomanry dedicated to local development. Similar developments were taking place in other South American states. Columbia had virtually ceased to grow cocaine except for the medical market as other crops became as profitable. The story in Africa and the Pacific was the same. The Third World was rapidly catching up with the first.

As Jose Condamine told Lyle Etchart at a World Bank meeting - there was going to be h.e.l.l to pay before it was all over. The Advisory Group was well aware their behaviour and the influence of Markham would put untold stress on the developed world to adapt to the loss of taken for granted resources, exploitable labour and compliant governments.

At a session on developments in Brazil, Condamine was chairing the UN's October conference on world trade called by the Big Eight. He took delight in telling the story of the HydroNorte crash, caused by his Agricom company buying up EletroNorte's debts through a consortium of Western banks, (much to their relief) and using the interest to fund the Parakanan's purchase of more and more of the land the company was forced to sell which it had cleared for cattle grazing. Eventually the hydro-electrical company's star dam produced less and less commercially viable electricity due to the incursion of the water hyacinth, and it was eventually closed. GRADE made a deal with the Brazilian Government on a dollar for dollar basis to tear down the dam, sell the salvaged machinery and metals and give the land back to the Parakanan on the basis they would use it for sustainable forest product cultivation. In four years the countryside showed signs of there never having been a dam. The overall cost to Agricom was $100m. $10m was received in interest on loans, $15m was received by GRADE from the Brazilians and Agricom would cover its costs over fifteen years from the marketing infrastructure it set up for Parakanan produce - mainly hardwoods and tourist artefacts - sold in Brazil and all over the world.

At Markham, Penny managed GRADE to support strikes, fund schools, colleges and universities, organise co-operatives in the Third-World and develop cadres of young people educated and dedicated to the husbandry of the earth's resources. JNO's ex-subsidiaries secretly poured profits from oil, gas and s.h.i.+pping into GRADE's coffers. Ric watched the effects as they rippled out into the wider world.

A hiatus was developing, small at first, but developing like a storm begins with the coming together of a few clouds and gradually adding to the ma.s.s until at last unable to contain the coalescing forces - it turns into a hurricane. This was one of the foreseen consequences of JNO's work but for which they deliberately had no ready-made, straight-forward antidote. They were approaching the critical point and knew they would have to play it by ear and see how the alliances of the Advisory Group held up and what deals could be struck. The great risk was that they would either succeed in riding the storm or be destroyed by their own creation.

Hep was called in to strengthen the capacity of HIGO to ensure they kept ahead of the game. Lyle Etchart at the World Bank used their information to keep a lid on the cauldron for as long as possible. Karl Khan, the munitions expert used the buying power of his subsidiaries from JNO to purchase as much of the world's armaments and their makers, as possible to head off potential military confrontations as tensions mounted. He secretly decommissioned them deep in the Urals thanks to help from Piotre Ulybin of Moscow oil.

However, Markham's predictions of the medium-term future of world relations made Penny call an urgent meeting of the Advisory Group, this time in an obscure hotel in North London.

Marina, Penny and Ric left Markham for the meeting via the cellars, through a well maintained underground pa.s.sageway, which exited on the main London Road via a hidden, wildly overgrown, culvert. Barely fifteen yards from the exit, round a sharp bend, was a bus shelter with a seat, into which someone coming through the tunnel from Markham could slip unnoticed from the road. Anyone already in the shelter would have thought they had come from round the corner in the normal way. Once in the shelter the dirty gla.s.s hid the occupants from the view of any casual observer. From here they could be picked up by one of Marina's staff on the open road, or simply slip into a pre-parked vehicle once the coast was clear. They returned via a different culvert which led to the same pa.s.sage.

They left separately, mildly disguised and by various routes, and planned a rendezvous at the same safe-house Marina had used for Alexander, where they were to check and finalise the agenda. All contacts with anyone outside Markham happened away from the house and grounds to ensure a cold trail to their headquarters. Since Markham was to all intents 'invisible' - to keep it so, any trail left by these three, must lead anywhere but Markham. Penny parked her non-descript, ma.s.s produced Ford two streets away. Operation 'Denial' had to have total secrecy if the advisory group were not to be picked off one by one like ripe cherries and exposed or destroyed.

Since the hacker Barboncito, had gone missing with Alexander, there had been no more incidents. Marina however, kept her weather eye on Fourthworld and Manny Kanuho. Manny, so far had not put a foot wrong and his network had played a crucial role in the reinstatement of the Parakanan and other similar projects.

Penny entered the living room of the safe house from the garden entrance using her DNA code to open the bomb-proof, plate-gla.s.s door. Suburban Mock-Tudor may not be her preferred style, she thought, but as medium into which to disappear - it was perfect. She smiled at the thought of the neighbours being unaware of the world shattering planning and discussions held in the fake Jacobean panelling of the lounge of des-res 36, Hillpark, Stanmore.

She was met by the concierge and her husband, both employees trained at Markham by Marina, who as far as the neighbours were concerned, lived the lives of prosperous retired stockbrokers. She was glad of the break from Markham. Simply to drive in the cold crisp air was a joy after the close confinement she had experienced for so long. It had been months since any of them had ventured forth, although her work had sent her virtually round the globe many times.

Since the beginning of Operation Denial - she had been in a state of heightened awareness, living on adrenaline, excited, frightened, exhausted and totally immersed. In the little time available to consider anything other than the particular problem in front of her; she was amazed at the positive effects of their work in such a relatively short time.

She found it hard to believe it had been so easy to trip up the largest and best organised companies merely by making it impossible for the local populations to be blackmailed or coerced by other interests. The speed with which GRADE investment in education, health and administration had ushered in political and social change in otherwise dependent peoples and countries had astonished even she who was doing it. The effect on the rest of the world was only just being realised.

Their calculation was that the process of change only became visible to a critical ma.s.s of people after the event; so what people thought was still only potential had in fact pa.s.sed the point of no return and had already happened. Many people merely responded to change and told themselves they were in the vanguard of events, the ma.s.s were simply buffeted - only a very few made trends happen.

Intellectually she was as highly stimulated as it was possible to be. Emotionally she was in a bad way and knew it. Alexander's disappearance was a constant background worry, her relations.h.i.+p with Ric was causing turmoil in parts of her psyche she preferred not to visit. The responsibility she was taking to reframe the relations.h.i.+p of production to the owners.h.i.+p of the natural resources of the earth in the development of sustainability, caused her sleepless nights.

She knew what the coming storm contained, and was worried sick that JNO would not survive and was paradoxically as concerned that it would. In many ways it would be easier to fail. The world would go on and she would be relieved of her burden. What gave her the right to interfere? Without Hep and his presence maintaining her link to Lucina, she would easily be able to stop what she was doing even if it meant throwing away the work of many years. But their a.s.sumption of the rightness of what she did brooked no slackening of effort, especially now. Even Hep wore a frown more often than not. Lucina was as tight as bow-string and on the rare occasions she saw her, she found it even more impossible to gaze directly into her eye.

There was no real choice but to go on into the unknown in an increasing internal panic. Internally she was close to emotional flight. She told herself there was nothing wrong that a rest would not cure. But rest right now was the last thing she could afford. Her emotional life was getting out of control and her late forties were not the time to be acting like a forlorn schoolgirl, especially now. She felt things with Ric were building up like flood waters filling a dam that was already weak from lack of maintenance and wondered if it would ultimately hold. The cruel irony she visited on Ric was that she falsely blamed him for this major a.s.sault on her defences.

Apart from Alexis no man had got through to her secret self. That part of her which true lovers give freely she had already given to Alexis and he had taken it with him. (Zeus never really realised the affect he had on the mortal women with whom he coupled - he considered them honoured and paid scant attention to the effect his proximity cost them emotionally. If he considered it at all, he supposed their super-infatuation must be functional as it enabled them to provide the exceptional support his offspring would inevitably need. In any case his jealousy would brook no rivals after him.) Alexis seemed to have wrapped all her emotional feelings into a ball, pocketed them and taken them away with him. She had hoped her son would provide a kind of subst.i.tute but somehow 'They' had kept him at arm's-length and Thea and Nemmi had had most of him.

Her non-work contacts with Ric were mostly in those few off-duty moments when they found themselves in the staff recreation lounge after work, or during periods of intensive activity when he and Hep brought HIGO and GRADE together to inform her next moves. In the little time she and Ric spent alone, she saw he had a pretty clear insight into the truth of her emotional condition. It made her think about spending more time alone with him as a human being rather than as a hard working colleague. These thoughts were a salve to her hardened heart while simultaneously making her feel she might weaken her grip on the workload. At the point when Alexis disappeared she had rejected all thoughts of other men from her feelings. She had done it then and so she could do it again. She was therefore surprised at the persistence of Ric's presence in her mind. After all, she was no youngster out for a fling. Thoughts of him intruded where no such thoughts had been these many years. Several times she had been on the threshold of declaring herself to him and had drawn back while chastising herself for stupid adolescent lapses. Alexander's disappearance weakened her further and she felt her mental dam shudder without quite shattering. A vague sense of loss swept over her and left her feeling totally alone.

Ric's sympathy communicated by looks and light touches, sped straight to the core of her emotions and she responded without knowing that she allowed him glimpses of her vulnerability. All the time she thought she was hardening herself against him, she revealed her condition to him more and more. Her fractured defences were already past repair. Even as she thrust all ideas of him from her, she desired him, wanted to lose herself in him and let the world go to h.e.l.l.

Sensing this, Ric allowed her to succ.u.mb enough to a.s.suage the pain of the contradiction and maintain the workload. She would be eternally grateful to him for his comprehension. Like many important relations.h.i.+p s.h.i.+fts, it had occurred in the workaday experience and only later did its full significance come home to her. For now, the work only became more intense. Only two days ago Ric had entered her department excited as she had ever seen him.

'Penny! Penny! Listen to this!' He waved an email print-out at her. 'It's from Ulybin - he's got the Tempests! That'll put the cat among the pigeons. See we can do it! Penny - we can do it!' He yelled out triumphantly. 'Manyathi did her bit well, whatta girl!'

Ex-pilots of the Johannesburg Airline, had successfully infiltrated the military establishment which delivered the new Tempest fighter bombers and had taken twenty of them on an unauthorised private journey to an unknown destination where Piotre Ulybin's people had dealt with them. This was the tenth disappearance of high-grade military equipment in a year and was by far the biggest. The news did not reach the world's press simply because the governments of the producing countries nor those of the bereft recipients' wanted it known that a third party was stealing their materiel. So far the secrecy of each country concealed the reality from each other, this could not last, hysteria was growing in a lot of ministries of defence and procurement around the world as they were beginning to suspect each other.

'Thank G.o.d for that!' was all the response she was able to manage. Coming close to where she was working at her computer screen he placed a hand on her shoulder.

'I'm sorry,' she said simply. 'I had to suspend Christopher Boltkin today, it wasn't that he did anything positive to endanger security but Marina had suspicions that overwork was getting to his sense of proportion and he was becoming a risk. She'll monitor him round the clock until he can be reinstated - or...'

She tailed off and turned her swivel chair to face him. They both knew that any breach of security at Markham could not be allowed and that Marina would do whatever was ultimately necessary to ensure the reliability of the workforce.

'The strain is getting to all of us,' he said quietly, keeping his hand on her shoulder longer than a mere pat of concern required, but not so long as to signal too great an intimacy.

'I'm tired and upset, but of course I'm elated by your news. Look, I need a break from this d.a.m.n screen - it's late, I'll just log-off and meet you for a G and T in the library in five minutes.'

He left with a friendly squeeze of her shoulder.

She entered the old, comfortable library, the oaken walls with their aged patina and well stacked shelves glowed warm with the gentle radiance of the log fire in its large dog- grate. Ric was at the antique j.a.pan cabinet where the spirits were stocked. He brought her drink to her on the deep sofa, her head back, eyes closed. She sensed his presence behind her and reached up for the gla.s.s. When she took it he c.h.i.n.ked his own against it in recognition of the success of the Tempest operation. She expected him to move round the sofa and take up his usual position on the armchair facing her. When he did not, she wanted to lift her face to him but was prevented by the tears that had welled into her eyes under closed lids.

Sheer fatigue and relief at the success of an operation which had taken weeks to mastermind, coupled with the warmth of the fire, the strong gin and the presence of a man she should love - was too much for even her. This was only one successful operation - there would need to be many more, some of which would inevitably go wrong and jeopardise the others. A sign of her deep trouble invisibly escaped and slipped the fortress of her mind. She needed all her strength of will to hold back further tears. She hoped he was unaware of the rogue droplets. She stood and walked over to the window to disguise her momentary lapse.

'HIGO's doing well, Ric. Well done to you and Hep.' She attempted airiness. 'Send a message to Manyathi in Jo'burg. I think we're at a watershed in the armaments situation. What's HIGO's estimate of the international reaction?'

While she spoke she was aware of a tension between them, as if she were one electrical pole and he the other and the potential between them was building. She tensed unconsciously waiting for the inevitable arc of energy to unite them. She sensed him come behind to stand close without daring to touch her. They both swore later that a crack of electrical power pa.s.sed between them for a split second and they made perfect contact. He said simply, 'HIGO is a wonder of Heps'. Without it we wouldn't have a chance.' He paused, aware there was another more important but unspoken, conversation taking place between them.

'It's time, Ric said. 'Time to make final decisions which will take us beyond anything we know.'

To himself he said it was not time to speak of what he felt.

They stood, very close but not touching. She felt his restraint and mentally thanked him for it, knowing she was unable to withstand more. He deliberately broke the spell once he sensed something in her resolve had broken for ever and she knew he knew it. It made her more vulnerable to him and he recognised he would have to take special care of her exposure and was glad for her as well as overjoyed for himself at her trust. He knew how near moral collapse she was and that she needed all her resolve and strength. There was no room for other distractions. He knew he loved her and had always done. He also recognised she had a mission which was so vital there was no place for human feelings to get in the way. At the same time he knew she was not made of the same indestructible stuff as Lucina and Thea. His love would need to remain unspoken if Penny was to succeed. The action they undertook demanded its own emotional toll. No one went where they trod without feelings of responsibility which could not be held alone.

She had to hold the moral cert.i.tude of what they were doing with all the powers at her disposal. He knew she got some of her strength from Lucina and Thea in a way he did not know. His own came from her and he was certain that to maintain his own efforts he would have to support her as the fountainhead. Although he believed utterly in what they did; he knew he did not have the internal certainty of Penny to believe as thoroughly in the inevitability of what they had to do. He was neither a tyrant hungry for power nor a fanatic with an irrational certainty in an external truth. An ordinary man of doubt, he could never have gone as far as they had already come. Although Penny's drive came from a conviction which he felt was right, like all such convictions he was prepared to mistrust it.

The source that emanated from Lucina and was present in Hep seemed however, too luminous and right for him to be churlishly mistrustful. He talked of it with Marina who trusted nothing for longer than five minutes at a time. He was partly the unwitting cause of her investigations. He was quite aware of Marina's total fearlessness and moral neutrality. And he also saw her as supremely efficient.

When Marina entered the drawing room of the safe-house about an hour later than Penny, soon to be followed by Ric, they found Penny fast asleep in the armchair by the coal-effect fire. The concierge had gently placed a cus.h.i.+on behind her head - they spoke softly so as not to wake her.

'Thea said she will take her to Psathi after the Advisory Group meeting,' whispered Marina, 'she needs a rest. I can't allow her to continue like she has, it's too dangerous for her. I think she can go on longer but there's no point if it leads to an eventual collapse. You'll have to take over or hold up operations for a while.'