Part 13 (1/2)

She watched Jose Condamine drive himself back from Markham in the hired car provided by JNO. He turned off the main road to find a village pub for a pint of cold draught Guinness, a luxury hard to get in Latin America. As he meandered into Woodleigh Bottom, the Six Bells was pretty much the part, crouched in black and white livery on the edge of the manicured village green, flanked by a post office and half a dozen cottages; three of them thatched. He never got over the way villages in the heart of England nestled into the landscape as if grown from the very soil. He spent most of his time in anonymous hotels in cities these days and loved the idiosyncrasy of these places. Maybe one day he'd buy a thatched cottage on a village green and see if he too could grow roots into the soil. He felt a bit lonely and his head was full of the import of the morning at Markham. It was past lunchtime and the pub was empty apart from the landlord.

'Ow do, sir, what'll it be then?' was the cheery welcome.

'Aha. Hi there Mr. Landlord, I'd like a measure of that Guinness beer you do in this country. Great stuff.'

'It's Irish as a matter of fact, sir. You're not from round here, I sees, sir. From Lunnon is it then?'

'In a kinda way, via Rio de Janeiro.' They both laughed.

'Not much Guinness, in Rio dee Janeerio, I don't suppose sir.'

'No sir, not at all.'

He sipped the amazing liquid and scanned the place for a telephone. The barman c.o.c.ked his head quizzically.

'You gotta 'phone here I kin use, Mr. Landlord, long distance.

'Certainly, we're modern here. Over there in the corner by the gaming machine. You can put in your credit card for expensive calls.'

'Thanks a bunch, watch after my beer I won't be long.'

He walked over to the 'phone and made an international call. In the quiet of the pub the landlord heard every word.

'Hi there, Pete?... Si, si, Jose, I'm in Europe...Si England...Yeah, How's it going there?...okay so, life's a b.i.t.c.h. Listen up now, y'know that report on that corned-beef thing, the prostaglandins hormone thing. The one you're sitting on. I want it released. I wanna scare people. I know I said keep it under wraps for a bit, well now's the time to let it go. Yeah, I know, but ranchin' out there's got a limited future anyway. Put it out through the networks, I'll make sure it gets the coverage. I tell you what, give it to Bill Watkins, yeah the McMa.n.u.s Press - so it's dynamite? I wanna see it on all the networks by the day after tomorrow. You got that Pete.....okay? Great. 'Bye now.' He replaced the receiver, thought for a moment and made a second call.

'I wanna speak to Frank Tyndall...Just tell him it's Condamine! Yes it's important!' he waited to be connected. 'Frankie, yeah, s'me. Okay, okay I'll be quick. Sell all you've got in beef. Yeah, beef. Hamburger's kinda goin' outa fas.h.i.+on...from tomorrow...I thought you wanted me to be quick...How much you got then? Phewee! If you pull out that much, stocks'll drop like s.h.i.+t down a well! Well I'd put it inta Dodona Agric instead...was I ever wrong Frankie?...Don't ask...trust me...and say h.e.l.lo to Myra for me, yeah....you too...so long.'

He replaced the receiver and went back to his drink. The landlord was polis.h.i.+ng gla.s.ses seeming thoroughly disinterested as people do when they are burning with curiosity. Condamine watched him and took a long pull at the black stuff. He smacked his lips.

'We got beer in Brazil but this is somthin' else man.'

'You in bisnis then sir?'

Condamine finished his drink and gazed at the barman. 'You could say that Mr. Landlord, you could most certainly say that I'm in business for the first time in my life. Really in business.' He leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered to the barman.'Say landlord, you gotta Ranch Burger round here somewheres? In the next town maybe?'

The landlord looked around the pub to be sure they weren't overheard and whispered back. 'If you mean Ranch Burger, sure sir, in the main street, I don't loike 'em moiself but the kids think they're great.'

Condamine beckoned him forward to whisper in his ear. 'They doin' okay?'

'They seem to be full whenevers I go by.'

'They're s.h.i.+t, and they're over. Yessir over. Just you watch the TV tomorra night if you don't believe me. Done for. You heard it first in the Six Bells. The only two people in the world who know today about the crippling of Ranch Burger is you and me, amigo. Watch it on the TV man.'

The landlord's chin was resting somewhere near his sternum. He nearly dropped his gla.s.s.

'And you are sir?'

'An absolute n.o.body Mr. Landlord. Just a street urchin. Well thanks for the beer. I must be on the road.'

Condamine saluted the man and tossed a five pound note on the bar top. 'Keep the change, I've enjoyed talking to ya. So long.'

The next day the landlord was serving his regulars when an item appeared on the nine o'clock news on the TV in the bar which drew his attention.

'That's him!' He pointed agitatedly to the screen. 'That's that big foreign bloke what was in 'ere the other day. The one I told you about. He made a couple of phone calls and said Ranch Burger had had it 'cos of him. Blimey it is 'i'm! Shut up you lot I want to listen.'

A shot of Jose Condamine descending from a horse in a dusty ranch somewhere in South America cut to a studio announcer speaking. 'Jose Condamine, well known rancher and hydro-electricity magnate has released a report condemning beef and beef products from Brazil. This controversial report is having long range effects on the price of Brazilian beef and is having a knock on effect on beef from other producers as the use of Lutalyse, a hormone prostaglandin is said to have been administered to cattle not only in Brazil but by veterinarians across the globe. The report says that Lutalyse is an agent that affects human respiration, blood clotting, digestion, circulation, nerve responses and reproduction. The British Veterinary a.s.sociation denies that it has any affect on humans. A Government spokesman said there are no reported adverse effects. He categorically a.s.serted that British beef was as 'safe as houses.' A clip of the him feeding his young daughter a hamburger at a village fete followed. Another clip followed of a spokesman for Ranch Burger. 'Yes, there has been a small reduction of customer numbers since the news broke but we a.s.sure all our valued customers that only the very best quality beef is in our burgers and there is absolutely nothing to prevent our customers enjoying the famous and nutritious food we always offer.'

When Condamine's report on the serious and long-term contamination of beef from Brazil hit the TV and papers, HIGO at Markham, silently and efficiently ensured the reduction of market prices of world-wide beef products. Stock-holders in companies involved in beef products as well as the fortunes of large ranching and meat transportation businesses were hit hard. At the same time every medical research agency known to have an interest in veterinary hormone production and their uses was alerted via JNO's media connections and the pharmaceutical corporations concerned with their manufacture were soon besieged by the media. Questions were asked in congresses and parliaments in every country where beef products were being sold, and where Brazilian beef in particular was exported. Questions were being asked about whether anyone could tell the origin of one dead and dismembered steer from another. Panic hit the whole beef industry everywhere. Questions were asked about domestic beef in European countries and the hormone product Lutalyse. By the time the boffins were able to get their counter arguments together, Ranch Burger and other outlets were being boycotted world-wide and beef cattle were being slaughtered for dog food by the tens of thousands in Brazil and elsewhere. Margins were too narrow for the ranches to change their rearing techniques. In six months there was hardly any beef production in the cleared rain-forests worth mentioning. People began talking about re-forestation for the first time. In the whole of the Western world, the call for safe animal husbandry was raised to screaming pitch, backed by donations from the many sources directly or indirectly supported by GRADE.

Condamine parked JNO's car in the National Car Park where he had been instructed by one of Marina's staff. He rode the Underground the few stops to the Dorchester Hotel which he entered through a back staff entrance. Making sure he was unseen, he rode the staff lift. Alighting at his floor, he made sure he was unseen and only then strode his way down the plush corridor to his suite. He noted the richness of the hardwood doors and mouldings, pillaged, no doubt, from his rain-forest. Hera smiled at the confidence of this stocky, well-kept figure, only just becoming a little fleshy now in his early forties. More leonine than handsome, his dark penetrating eyes fixed the world and made quick, usually accurate, judgements. He moved along the corridors at a clip of his extravagant cowboy boots more quickly than the cut of his figure suggested he was capable.

'He enjoys the luxury, he feels guilt at the extravagance of his lifestyle now,' Hera said to Thea on L1. 'See how he remembers when he was a street child with his boyhood dreams. I see the boy on his timeline.'

Hera reminded herself of the development of this key performer in the JNO network of world players.

She saw the child of seven struggling up a steep hillside in Morro da Favela, which grew out of the empty slopes of the hill in the centre of Rio in the nineteen twenties and from which all other shanty and slum settlements got their name. Rio de Janeiro is the only city in the world where the poorest of the poor have the most spectacular views. The settlement was well established as an eyesore and problem area by the time Jose was born. Hera watched him carrying an olive oil can by a bar of wood nailed across its opening and which he had filled with grey water from a tap on a pipe flapping loosely from a wall. He had no idea of the source of the water, but was grateful it was not further down the hill. The hillside was seriously steep. So sheer that Mrs. Costa's little boy of three, pushed over while playing had rolled slowly at first so that his playmates started laughing, but he gathered speed so quickly that he was halfway down the vertiginous slopes before anyone realised the danger. His career was only ultimately arrested when he fell into a thirty foot ravine where he died, impaled by a tree branch. It had taken all afternoon for several men with ropes to get the little body up. Jose knew it was true because he and his two friends Luis and Edmo had watched the whole rescue from the edge of the ravine while hearing Mrs. Costa wailing and shouting fit to bust. Like a mountain goat he was used to the terrain and had no intention of falling off. Though after little Antonio Costa fell down he was more careful.

Jose, Luis and Edmo were inseparable. Luis and Edmo were brothers separated by little more than a year and were mistakenly known as twins. Collectively the three boys were the 'Gas Company'. n.o.body went to school, there was none in the favela. Even had there been, n.o.body could afford the luxury. Instead of school the boys earned a little money plying up and down the slopes fetching and carrying the butane gas bottles needed for cooking. The rest of the time they amused themselves wandering around the city, jumping on and off buses without paying, guarding the cars of rich people for cigarettes, some small scale shoplifting and theft from cars, anything that raised a little cash for cigarettes and maybe a bottle of beer. They knew about drugs but it was not until Jose had grown up that they became as common as tobacco and the main staple of the Favela economy.

Walking the corridors of the London Dorchester he smiled to himself remembering the time when luxury consisted of a tap with untreated water and something more or less leak-proof to carry it in. Although the 'Gas Company' roamed the streets full of tall buildings, they had no conception of a carpet, or a corridor. In their imaginations the tall buildings rising above Rio, seen from the perspective of their precarious tin and clay shacks, seemed hollow, made of many large rooms. The sheer poverty of perception of the boys in the Favela, made him smile wryly to himself. How large and complex the world had since become, while the world inside his head had by degrees of experience ripened into something amazingly and surprisingly simple. His current sophistication and flamboyance were mere appearances. Disguises he used to conceal important weapons of vengeance for his past, aimed with deadly accuracy at the world he currently inhabited.

He inserted his flat perforated security card-key into the slot of the door handle and on entering rea.s.sured himself there was no one in any of the rooms. He had learned the hard way to be careful. There was time for a shower and change of clothes and one or two other vital telephone calls he'd decided to make after the meeting. He ran over the events of the morning. He'd seen it coming and was glad the thing was started. Like Ric, whom he'd known for a while, he wasn't sure if the thirteen of them were enough. They were playing corporate ju-jitsu. They'd discussed it often enough. He knew that many world companies and organisations were unwieldy and it only needed judicious s.h.i.+fts here and there, specific share deals, leaked information and so on to bring them toppling. It wasn't that it couldn't be done. All organisations changed all the time. It was just a question of when and how. Doing it systematically and deliberately was a new thing. He wouldn't have thought about it if it hadn't been for JNO's box of tricks providing the underpinning strength to counteract the worst effects and put in alternative systems.

Hera was pleased to note that Jose considered the meeting at Markham as a turning point in his already remarkable life. The boy from the tin-shack, now cattle baron and international entrepreneur with lucrative interests in logging, coffee and hydro-electricity; was about to become a busy 'eco-cop' for JNO. He chuckled at the idea, which had come from Penny. We are all eco-cops now, he thought. Driving back from Oxford, Jose's mind filled with thoughts about his developing role in the Advisory Group. Like most self-made men he was proud of his achievements. As someone for whom wealth was an merely an icon of his success, he cared nothing for money itself and had given away large fortunes without thinking of the numbers involved. Money meant accomplishment, doing something well. He had wanted to make his mark on the world. He wanted people to know that Jose Condamine, snotty-nosed ragam.u.f.fin, was indelible.

As the 'Gas Company' grew up they branched out into other activities. They learned how to tamper with the gas bottles of their rivals so they silently leaked before delivery and so were only half full. They guarded their own and ensured that way they got more deliveries than their rivals. Soon they farmed out the tiring delivery system to other children and made sure to get a cut from each child. Anyone not paying up was liable to have their shack blown up by a faulty gas bottle. A not uncommon natural occurrence in any case. They stole cigarettes and alcohol from downtown and sold the contraband in the Favela. By Jose's fourteenth birthday the 'Gas Company' was doing well. They had their own concealed lock-up full of goods. They controlled several younger kids and were getting noticed as a force. Jose was a king. His were the brains and the 'twins' supplied the brawn and managed the personnel. He began to feel he had value in a world where everything around him attested to the fact that his life was no more consequential than the flies which made their living from the putrefaction into which he was born. He affirmed his existence with every new dawn and every blue sky. He had money in his pockets and position in his world as a 'businessman'. Until he learned the hard way the precariousness of his position and how 'disposable' he was.

On the fourteenth of June 1960 the 'Gas Company' went into liquidation. As usual that day, the three boys had set off downtown. Word of a cigarette delivery to a warehouse in the Arcos de Lapa district had them setting off to check out the location and to think about the best way to break into the premises. As usual they hitched a ride on a bus. What the 'Gas Company' did not know was that the bus corporation, fed up with freeloading and often noisy kids had organised a private security company to clean up the buses. Recognising the 'Gas Company' from previous times the bus driver called the police to arrest the non-payers. The bus stopped at regular stop and a policeman ordered the boys off the bus. Luis got angry and was manhandled off by the policeman while Edmo and Jose tried to calm him down. Once off the bus, usually they'd simply run off. This sort of round-up thing happened from time to time and it wasn't worth making a fuss. Jose watched the bus set off and was worried. Something wasn't right. Usually the policeman sent them off sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a clip round the ear and an oath. This time the policeman levelled his pistol at them and barked, 'Hands on the wall! Legs apart!'

'C'mon man,' said Jose. We won't do it again.'

'Dead right you won't,' hissed the policeman. I'm arresting you and taking you downtown. You stay here till the patrol car gets here.'

Jose didn't like the look of this. He liked things to be predictable. The police didn't have time to arrest kids for bus hopping. They weren't going to waste time in a police station with the likes of the 'Gas Company'. He scanned around him. He saw two men in black leather jackets approaching in a purposeful way. This was very wrong. The wall was no more than five feet high and not particularly solid. Pus.h.i.+ng with his hands he felt it give slightly. A hard shove and it would probably collapse. Especially if three of them shoved together. Edmo turned and spat at the officer. Jose leaned into the wall pushed it with the palms of his hands making it quiver slightly, thus indicating to Luis and Edmo to push together. They shoved, the wall fell in a cloud of dust and dried clay. Although the wall was low it overlooked a steep drop of some twenty feet on the other side into a tangle of undergrowth and debris. Luis shouted something. Edmo stood staring stupidly into the s.p.a.ce. Jose, launched himself into the void and winded but unhurt ran for all he was worth making for a narrow alley he guessed would lead him back to an adjoining road and into the crowds. Luis and Edmo didn't follow Jose. They couldn't. The two men in black seeing what was happening to the wall ran fast and grabbed the two boys who had hesitated before jumping the parapet. Jose was quicker having read the situation more clearly. He doubled back to the bus stop and lingered at the back of the crowd that had gathered, he was trying hard to appear nonchalant and control his breathing. Fortunately the crown were too busy watching his friends and the two men. The policeman had disappeared. The two men, who were later described as off duty policemen moonlighting as bus company security guards, stood the twins on the edge of the drop, drew their pistols and simply shot them in the back of the head. Their bodies fell forward and disappeared from view into the only grave they would ever have. One second they were there and then immediately they ceased to exist leaving no visible trace. It was if they had vanished into the air.

'They're just criminals,' one of the men said to the crowd. 'We have to kill them while they're young so they don't cause us a lot of bother after they grow up. They're sc.u.m from the Favela. They'll not be missed.'

There was a shocked and unnatural quiet in the crowd which began awkwardly to disperse. Unable to do anything for fear of being identified, and numbed with shock, Jose backed out of the crowd and ran. Tears were flowing down his face. He couldn't breathe. He stopped by a doorway and collapsed, huddled, sobbing. His mind was filled with the image of the simultaneous shots and the twins crumpling like puppets, the strings cut suddenly, vanis.h.i.+ng into air. He thought he would never get the surprise on Edmo's face out of his mind. His first thought was that he would have to go back and see if by any miracle either of them had survived. It was impossible. They were dead. Jose had seen death many times but not like this. He couldn't understand the matter of factness of it. The callousness. It was an execution. Pure and simple. For what? Freeloading on a bus! Is this what the twins lives were worth? Nothing! He would have been shot too. Some sixth sense had warned him to get out of there. He thought he was a king. King of what? The garbage? This was proof he was n.o.body, they were all n.o.body. They were debris, like the flies around the refuse of his home, they were nothing, to be exterminated as vermin. His first rational thoughts were to find these men and revenge himself. But the thought ran through his brain like fire. Even if he killed these casual murderers, there would be others to take their place. The fact was what they said to the crowd was the truth. Criminality was all they had and as long as the favela existed this was war and the kids were always going to be on the losing side. No he had to get away and deal with the cause of the problem. But how? What could he do?

'He is quick witted this Jose Condamine,' Hera said to n.o.body in particular at a point on Jose's timeline before Zeus consorted with Penny. I will support him, we will use him in the future. I will see to his experience. She had picked all the members of the Advisory Group by searching for faculties she admired in particular people and earmarking them for future use. Then often interfering in the natural course of their lives. She used the Morae sisters to check out Lifestrips for her and homed in on the unsuspecting mortals, making small adjustments here and there.

On this occasion she ensured Condamine was found by Father Ignatio. The doorway into which he had collapsed was the church from which the good Father was coming from hearing confessions. He tripped over the weeping, huddled figure and sprawled full length over him, letting out an unpriestly oath. Jose seeing that the man weighing down on him was a priest was struggling to get to his feet to run when he found his wrist was held in an iron grip. Father Ignatio sat heavily on the ground breathing hard but kept hold of Jose's wrist while he regained his breath. After a long minute he levered himself up from the floor, grunting loudly, using Jose as a counterweight to his own considerable bulk.

'Hold on my young scallywag! You don't get away from me so easily!' He gasped breathlessly. 'I've got two questions for you...and, and.... I will have them answered.'