Revelation

24 Executive Lounge

Sunshine. And cappuccinos in little hill-town bars, and buzzing little motofurgonis carrying big flagons of wine. Clattering dishes and noisy Italian chatter. Monasteries in Greece, and creepy religious fanatics, and treacherous friends and strangulation in dark alleys. Findhorn woke up, the lurid pastiche from his dreamworld fading for ever. Grey London light peeked under the curtains and his watch said eight a.m. He dressed quickly, trying to put his mind into gear as he stumbled down the stairs. Past the dining room, where a few Italian tourists were enjoying a full English breakfast, adding a notch to their cholesterol counts. He skipped breakfast, settled with the lady of the house, a plump, grey-haired little woman, and headed out in search of a business centre, a cybercafe, anywhere to plug into his e-mail.

There was a new message, a single telephone number with an American code. He thought it might be New York and if so it would be three in the morning. He dialled through.

'Fred?' She sounded excited.

'Where are you?'

'La Guardia, in New York. I'm just about to board Concorde.'

'What?'

'Relax, Fred, your brother's financing me. Stefi and Doug are coming down from Edinburgh. We're all going to have a council of war at Heathrow in three hours. Where are you?'

Findhorn had to look around for a moment. 'London.'

'Terrific, we gambled on that. I'll see you in three hours, then. We'll rendezvous at the Pizza Hut in Terminal One.'

'The Pizza Hut. You'll probably get there before me.'

'Doug wants you to phone him as soon as you can. Must fly — ha ha.'

Findhorn dialled Doug's Edinburgh flat. 'Dougie?'

'Fred, you're alive. Okay listen, we're just leaving for the airport.'

'Romella explained. I'll see you shortly.'

'Yes, but listen. I've been working hard on your behalf. I've been into the green Merc question etcetera and I've got things to tell you.'

Findhorn smiled. Little Brother was psyching himself up for the financial pitch. 'I look forward to hearing it.'

'And I'm picking up the tab from here on.'

'All right, you greedy little sod, how much are you in for?'

'Thirty per cent of the action. I'm taking a risk, it could be thirty per cent of zero.'

'A risk? You don't know the meaning of the word. I've been climbing icebergs, avoiding assassins…'

'But, Mister Bond, do you have the shekels to keep going?'

'Without the diaries this thing would never have flown. Ten per cent.'

'Flown? Without me you've crash landed. My legal contacts are refreshing the parts other people can't reach. And there's my flat, a safe house if ever there was one. Twenty-five per cent.'

'I don't need you,' Findhorn lied. 'Twenty.'

'Done. See you shortly.'

In the event Findhorn was the first to reach the Pizza Hut. After his second coffee he got up and prowled around restlessly, wandering through the Sock Shop, the Tie Rack, Past Times and Thorntons. In W.H. Smith he browsed aimlessly. The blurb on one book, Nemesis, proclaimed that 'This may be the last thriller you ever read'. He put it back hastily; it threatened to be prophetic.

He was on his third coffee when Stefi and Doug emerged from the airport crowds. She was wearing a white fur coat and Findhorn marvelled at how she could do it on her post-graduate income. Doug bore little physical resemblance to Findhorn, except for a slight roundness of the jaw, inherited from the paternal line as far back as the family photographs went. He was shorter than Fred, stouter, had hair which was, surprisingly for a young man, already beginning to thin, and had thick black spectacles. He was wearing a pinstripe suit and a long dark Gucci trenchcoat, and was carrying an expensive-looking tanned leather briefcase.

Stefi pecked Findhorn on the cheek.

'Breakfast, quick,' said Doug.

Findhorn let them get on with hash browns, fried eggs and sausages without disturbing them. A family of five spread themselves over two adjacent tables, spilling drinks and squabbling. The children had runny noses, and the parents seemed to have given up on the discipline thing.

On their second coffee, Romella turned up with an overnight bag. A light blue greatcoat was draped over her shoulders, she was wearing a plain white blouse and a short black skirt, and she was looking ragged. Findhorn introduced his brother.

'Okay,' said Findhorn, 'shall we confab here?'

Romella waved away the menu which Doug proffered her. 'If you like. But I can get us into the BA executive lounge on my Concorde ticket.'

There was a rapid exodus.

'Me first,' Findhorn said. 'I've discovered the nature of the Petrosian machine.' And he told them about the energy of the vacuum, how it might be nothing or vast beyond comprehension, and how Petrosian had found some way — or thought he'd found some way — of tapping into it, and that it might be the dawn of a new world or, depending on unknown physics, the end of it. He told them about the near miss with the atom bomb and how he thought that Petrosian's mind had been sensitized to instability by the experience. And he told them how he, Findhorn, was worried about instability in complex systems too, although in a much smaller way and in a different field. And he told them that he had failed to find the secret, the actual mechanism whereby Petrosian believed the vacuum energy could be tapped.

Stefi was wide-eyed. 'I'm overwhelmed, Fred. If you're right, and this is some machine for getting energy from nothing, it could turn the world on its head.'

Doug was open-mouthed. 'The financial possibilities are unbelievable.'

'Remember the caveat. It would need to be examined for stability.'

'Stefi and I think we know who kidnapped Romella, and who's lying behind the effort to get the diaries. And what you're telling us fits beautifully with what we've found. It provides the motive.'

'Surely it's the Temple of Celestial Truth?'

'I think they're just stooges. I believe they've been triggered by a much more powerful outfit.'

Findhorn felt his scalp prickling slightly. He leaned forward. Doug pulled a square white envelope from his briefcase. He glanced surreptitiously around the lounge before handing it over. 'These were taken by security cameras in the Edinburgh Sheraton. Anyone you recognize in them?'

The lens was wide-angle and gave a full view of a hotel corridor at the cost of a slight distortion of the field. Little numbers in the top right hand corner of the black and white pictures recorded the time. Findhorn flicked through the first half-dozen, recognized nobody. Numbers seven through eleven amounted to a series of stills; they recorded an inebriated man emerging from an elevator, standing in a confused attitude, making his way to a door, vanishing. The time on the last picture was 23.47. Edinburgh pubs closed at eleven thirty.

'Captain Hansen,' said Findhorn.

The next photograph was marked 01.07. The elevator had disgorged a man and a woman. The man had a broad-brimmed hat, a long coat and sunglasses, none of which could disguise the small, bulky frame. The woman's face was likewise adorned with dark glasses but it was long, it had a turned-down mouth and the same grim demeanour. She too was wearing a long coat which reminded Findhorn of something he'd seen in a movie about Wyatt Earp.

The next few stills showed them moving along the corridor, stopping at Hansen's door, the door opening although Hansen was out of view, and then, again, a blank corridor. The last two pictures were marked 05.33 and showed the same pair in the corridor, and then standing at the elevator, and then gone.

Findhorn closed the folder and slid it back. 'These are the people who tried to get Petrosian's briefcase from me. They claimed they were Norsk officials.'

'And they were in Hansen's room for over four hours.' Doug passed over another envelope. 'Here are some police photographs.'

'How did you get hold of them?'

'Santa popped them down the chimney. And this is the preliminary autopsy report. It's a rough draft and very technical, but it gives you an idea of what they were doing during those hours.' Findhorn flicked through the photographs. He felt himself going pale. 'The wire you see is telephone cable. There's evidence that he was gagged, I suppose to stop him screaming. The burn marks around his genitals suggest that they were using the room's electricity supply in some way. There are also pinhole marks around his stomach suggesting the same — look at plates three and four. And they drove things under his fingernails before they took them off — plates seven to ten. You don't want to look at the rest of it. Professor Hillion did the actual autopsy. His preliminary conclusion is that Hansen's heart gave out.'

Doug took the pictures and folder back from Findhorn's shaking hand.

'Why?'

'They were trying to find you, Fred.'

Findhorn said, 'These people weren't employed by Norsk. They said they'd come from Arendal. Norsk doesn't have an office in Arendal. I should know, I lived there for a year.'

Doug nodded. 'Norsk's head office is in Leiden.'

'I didn't know that.' Findhorn was unsettled, the images of Hansen were filling his mind.

'It's fairly standard, Fred. Lots of European companies have head offices with Netherlands addresses except that they're not really in the Netherlands. They're in the Dutch Antilles, Aruba to be precise, which is an island north of Venezuela.'

'You mean…'

'Norsk is owned by an offshore company. Find the owner of that offshore company, and you find the real power behind Norsk. Places like Aruba and Nassau act as black boxes. Officials in these offshore havens often adopt a laager mentality when it comes to enquiries about fiscal, tax and even criminal matters. It's all but impossible to penetrate the flow of cash in, through and out of them. However, you'll be glad to learn that your little brother not only knows people who know people with corruptible contacts in these places, the aforesaid people owe your little brother one or two favours.'

'You're surely not talking about criminals?' Romella asked, mock-innocent.

Doug's expression was pained. 'Clients, Romella, please. Anyway, I now know who really owns Norsk.' He gave a lawyer's pause, as if to let the fact sink in with the jury. 'And this knowledge has allowed me to identify your friends in the Sheraton photographs.'

Doug sipped at a tonic water and asked, 'What do you know about the Japanese Friendship Societies?'

Findhorn shook his head, and Doug continued: 'They're gangsters, the sokaiya in Japanese. They're a specialist branch of the yakusa. Originally they made their money by threatening to disrupt the annual meetings of large corporations unless they received large payoffs. It seems this was a legal activity in Japan until 1983. Anyway, I imagine payoffs continue to this day, legal or not. But now enter Darwinian evolution. A very strange relationship has grown up between the corporations that they used to prey on and these parasites. Now the corporations hire them to make sure nobody asks awkward questions at shareholders' meetings.'

'I have a horrible feeling,' Findhorn said.

'Aye, Fred. The nasties you met in the Whisky Club belong to a clan known as the Genyosha, the Dark Ocean Society. They're connected with a group known as Matsumo Holdings. Now the Genyosha have a track record. Their methods of friendly persuasion include limb breaking, finger amputation and the like. Rumour has it that the more stubborn shareholders have had a joyous early reunion with their ancestors.'

Findhorn said flatly, 'Look, Norsk asked me to get the diaries from that iceberg. Why didn't they just send regular company officials to collect them and be done with it?'

'Fred, I can think of only one explanation. Matsumo Holdings wants to do you harm.'

Findhorn blew out his cheeks. 'As in a joyous reunion with my ancestors?'

Doug nodded. 'It seems to be enough that you've been in contact with the diaries. And now, with this vacuum energy business you're telling us about, it all begins to fit.' He pulled a thick, glossy brochure out of his briefcase. 'I've dug up a group profile for Matsumo Holdings.'

'A group profile?'

'Yes. Matsumo took over the Fuyo group last year.'

'Means nothing to me,' said Findhorn.

'Don't get alarmed, Fred, I know you have the commercial acumen of a Tibetan monk. I'll keep it simple. The Fuyo group is centered round the zaibatsu.'' He raised his eyebrows interrogatively, and Findhorn looked blank. Doug said, 'Right,' in the tone of a man about to climb a steep hill. 'The zaibatsu were a pre-war conglomerate of companies. The US occupation forces broke them up because of their support for the Japanese military during the war. But the Japanese ran rings round their US masters.'

'How?'

'The power centres in Japan have always been linked by secret societies. The industrialists carried on wheeling and dealing as before but without a formal legal identity. This post-war group — a keiretsu, or conglomerate of companies — had the Fuji Bank at their core. The group included Nissan, Yasuda Trust and Banking, the Marubei Corporation and Yamaichi. With the Matsumo takeover the group now includes the big four Japanese brokerage houses — Nomura, Nikko, Daiwa and Yamaichi Securities — as well as another major bank, the Dai-Ichi Kangyo.'

'So Matsumo are big. I'm impressed.'

Doug took another sip at his water. 'I'm glad you're impressed, Fred. Because these are the people who want you dead.'

Findhorn wondered whether, in that case, there was any place on earth where he would be safe.

Doug's expression was grim. 'And now we know why.'

Findhorn looked at his brother. 'As you say, I'm as streetwise as a Tibetan monk. Explain.'

Stefi said, 'It comes down to the people who asked you to get the diaries.'

'Norsk Advanced Technologies?'

She nodded. 'The child of Matsumo.' Stefi opened a thick, glossy booklet, the Annual Report and Accounts of Matsumo Holdings, English version. Its front cover showed a montage of famous Far Eastern constructions. Findhorn briefly recognized the four-kilometre Akashi Kaikyo suspension bridge, and the fifteen hundred foot tall Petronas twin towers of Kuala Lumpur: the world's longest and the world's highest.

'Fred, Matsumo Holdings may be huge, but they're vulnerable to something. They've been taking a massive gamble. Look at this list.' Under the heading Principal Group Companies, Stefi's fingernail scanned down a list with names like Energy America, Hickson Oil, Seafield Oil, Shell Africa, Expro-Borneo and Fortune Exploration.

'Oil. It's been Yoshi Matsumo's obsession for the past five years. He's sunk his organization's future in it,' Stefi said. 'Partly they've been doing this through acquisitions, partly through creating new oil exploration companies. The big spender is Norsk Advanced Techs — which we know to be ninety per cent Japanese. Look here at Matsumo's three-year summary.' She turned the pages to Profit and Loss Account. 'Norsk are into deep ocean oil exploration. As of 31 March they had fixed assets of 34 billion sterling, liabilities of 13 billion, and creditors' amounts falling due of 14 billion. All that risk, all that cash going out.'

Findhorn said, 'That sort of money is bigger than the GNP of some countries. They're taking a massively expensive gamble.'

'But it looks as if it's succeeding,' Stefi continued. 'The field they've discovered in the Norwegian sector is huge. Now the cost of getting oil out from under the Arctic is beyond the means of a little country like Norway, but it seems there's been a little horse-trading.' Stefi put a finger to his lips, as if she was about to reveal some great secret. 'But they need oil prices to stay high. If, hypothetically, oil prices were to take a steep plunge any time within the next few years, the consequences would be horrific. It would bring Matsumo Holdings down. The knock-on effect would collapse Far Eastern economies like dominoes, and the effects would be felt in the West. And something even worse.' Stefi paused dramatically.

'Tell me.'

'Mister Matsumo would be at the apex of this apocalyptic disaster. Think of his personal humiliation.'

Findhorn groaned.

Stefi said, 'Yoshi Matsumo can't afford you, Fred. He absolutely must bump you off before you get to the secret.'

'This is unreal. Nobody does a thing like that.'

'Fred, grow up.' Stefi's smile had an edge to it. 'There's a rumour that the war in Chechnya a few years ago was fomented by the Matsumo group to push up the price of oil. If they can engineer something like that, what's an Arctic explorer?'

Doug said, 'Half the industrialists in the world would kill to get this process, the other half would kill to destroy it. Think of oil companies like BP, Exxon, Shell being bankrupted overnight. Car manufacturers and all their tributaries going into recession. Look at the mass unemployment that would follow.'

Romella said, 'You're speaking from the perspective of the rich twenty per cent of humanity. What about the billion people who are short of water? What about fertilizer, infrastructure and medicine for the Third World? Free energy would let people distil sea water and pipe it to desert regions, and create nitrate fertilizers from the air.'

'Or Semtex,' said Stefi. 'Think of massive terrorism on the cheap. The population explosion, the imbalances in power that would result in the Middle East. It would suck everyone in.'

Doug's eyes were gleaming behind his thick spectacles. 'There are fortunes to be made here. Huge fortunes.'

Findhorn said, 'Hey, this is fun. Only without Petrosian's machine we're out of the game, and we don't have Petrosian's machine.'

Romella yawned and stretched. 'Be nice to me. I know where it is.'