Program for a Puppet (2 page)

The minister had finished. He walked across to the front of the coffin and pushed an invisible button. The coffin was lowered on a conveyor belt. At that moment it really struck Graham. He had been thinking about the past. In seconds, Jane would be ashes. The shock of seeing the coffin slide away transformed all his emotions into anger. Anger, that he had left her, anger at her impatience, anger at her death and the person or persons responsible. Was it murder? he wondered almost aloud. He made up his mind there and then. He had to know the truth.

Outside in the afternoon sun, he spoke briefly with a few of Jane's close friends and relatives. In the solemn crowd he spotted Sir Alfred Ryder. If anyone knew anything it would be Sir Alfred. Graham edged his way through the crowd toward the tall, slightly stooped figure and was struck by the deterioration in his appearance. The last time Graham had seen him, he had been alert and bustling. Now he looked every bit his seventy-five years. The loss of his favorite grandchild had taken its toll, and Graham realized then that the older man's feelings of guilt were probably stronger than his because he had financed her abortive mission into investigative journalism.

Graham shook hands and gripped Sir Alfred's forearm as he did so. They had met through journalism eight years ago. A strong bond had been built between them in that time, and the publisher had introduced the Australian to Jane.

“Sir Alfred, I was wondering if we could have a talk before I return to Washington?”

As Graham entered the reading room of Sir Alfred's Pall Mall club and looked for him, the dignity and hallowed atmosphere reminded the Australian of the publisher's considerable influence. He had built a publishing empire over the last forty years which had spread its tentacles into twenty-five countries. He also had other financial and property interests around the world, and especially in France, which he regarded as his second home.

Sir Alfred rose from his armchair and greeted the Australian. They discussed the latter's American assignment and the battle for the presidency before Graham got quickly to the point of the meeting.

“I'm not convinced Jane's death was an accident.”

All the anguish of the last few days returned to the publisher's face. “I've had my doubts too,” he sighed. “The French police are doing everything they can.”

“What evidence have they got? Do they know what kind of car killed her?”

“Not yet.”

“But in a collision,” Graham began in an exasperated tone, “there must have been some damage to the car. A dented fender that has to be repaired in some garage, somewhere in Paris.”

“The French police will let me know the minute they have a lead. I've been on to the commissaire of police himself.”

“Did you know much about Jane's investigation?” Graham asked.

“I read some of her notes.”

“I've a feeling she was on to something very big indeed. The Soviet attempts to build their own super range of computers to compete with the best the Americans were producing; did she tell you about that?”

“Yes. She was under the impression they couldn't match American technology.” Sir Alfred frowned. “That was something I never really understood,” he said. “Why were the Russians behind?
I thought they were highly advanced in science, space, technology and so on.”

“Stalin's fault really. He set the Soviet Union back a decade in computer development when he claimed it ‘alienated man from his labor.' When the Soviets woke up at the end of the 1950s, they were way behind the Americans. The combination of tremendous computer development in the military and free enterprise, and spinoff and cross-pollination between them, pushed the Americans miles ahead.”

“So you think the Russians may be smuggling in computers to keep pace with the West?”

“That was Jane's theory. It could be right. Computers form the backbone of all scientific development. And that includes the military. You must have computers to fire weapons with precision and accuracy.”

“Haven't the Russians' missiles become more accurate lately?”

“Yes, and it fits Jane's theory. If the smuggling is going on, then the Russians will be getting the technology they so desperately want. Eventually they would have to reach parity with the U.S. in the precision use of all weapons. Then just watch the Russians begin to throw their weight around.”

Sir Alfred was suddenly agitated. “You think she may have been murdered?”

Graham stared at Sir Alfred. “I wouldn't discount it,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “You say you've contacted the French police. I'd like to talk with them before I head back to the States.”

“I think that could be arranged.” As an afterthought Sir Alfred added, “Was there anything in Jane's notes that gave you any clues to why she may have been killed?”

“No. But she did send me a letter a few weeks ago saying a public relations representative from a New York-based corporation approached her soon after she began her investigation. They didn't like her probing one little bit. They wanted to buy her off it, and offer a PR writing exercise for big money instead.”

“And?”

“She told them what they could do with their money.…”

“Which corporation was it?”

“Lasercomp.”

Clifford I. Brogan, Sr., a wiry eighty-one-year-old megalomaniac, had bullied, cajoled and preached Lasercomp into existence, starting from nothing as a door-to-door salesman in America's Midwest more than six decades ago.

He had pushed the corporation on the way to being the most secret, ruthless and ambitious of organizations and as big in financial terms as many medium-sized nations. It generated enough income to buy and sell a couple of Canadas, and had more political muscle than even bigger countries.

Brogan had made Lasercomp a nation unto itself with people and property, territory and assets, to be protected and expanded in a never-ending march to greater production, higher revenue and profit.

For most of the time Brogan's zeal had been the driving force behind an enterprise selling products ranging from foodstuffs to business equipment. The corporation was his religion, his god, his way of life.

Over the last two decades the other figure to have a major influence on Lasercomp was his ambitious son, fifty-seven-year-old Brogan Junior.

Where the father was volatile, crude in his business tactics and unpredictable, the son was urbane, subtle in his ways, cultured and conventional. He was a modern manager, Harvard educated, and trained in the unemotional decision-making necessary for survival in tomorrow's business world.

When the son first entered the corporation he was completely overshadowed by his father to the extent that he developed a speech impediment in the older man's presence.

In an attempt to make his own way in the corporation, Brogan Junior eventually showed even greater vision than his father. Instead of putting his faith in the corporation, and many products, he put it in the development of just one product: the computer.

Brogan Junior poached the best computer brains from other companies. If he couldn't buy them, he literally stole and patented their designs and ideas.

He finally won some funds from his father to test the new metal beasts in the marketplace. And when in the first two years computers dragged in more revenue than all the corporation's
other products combined, the old man agreed to concentrate resources on one product.

It marked the end of the one-man rule at Lasercomp.

Father and son, with their opposite but complementary styles, worked together to make the corporation one of the world's biggest computer manufacturers. But that wasn't enough for the Brogans. They wanted to be number one.

The chance came with the advent of laser technology. Brogan Junior suggested harnessing the new power to computers. He wanted to combine the coming era of even smaller silicon chips—where billions of pieces of information could be stored electronically on minute chips—with lasers so that information could be stored by powerful light concentration. The Old Man gave his blessing to expensive research and optimistically changed the corporation's name to Lasercomp to imbue its shareholders and the market pundits with confidence. More and more money was poured into laser development and it soon became one of the biggest gambles in American capitalism's history.

The promising laser beam proved a difficult wild horse to tame and train, not just in computers but in most areas of science. Lasercomp's machines carried laser technology but initially proved to be no better than others on the market. The Brogans, however, were confident that a breakthrough was around the corner.

Secretly and meticulously, using the developing laser technology and their own best scientific brains, they began to plan a master program to make Lasercomp the most powerful corporate force on earth.

The master program was the result of calculations that took into account literally billions of different factors affecting the market for computers and everything the corporation did. Lasercomp's scientists took the approach that if something existed, it could be quantified. Factors ranging from the financial position of a rival to Lasercomp's influence over a head of government were given a value and became part of the program, which could be continually updated. After a decade of developing a laser computer and the master program, Lasercomp finally came up with a computer that was a giant step ahead of the rest.

The Brogans called it the Cheetah.

Cheetah was a super computer that soon began to knock out all competition. It gave the master program credibility and the Brogans' ambitions took on a new dimension. Suddenly they were having visions of the future they never dared contemplate before. They began to look beyond the time when Lasercomp would be the world's number-one corporation, and to think in terms of a corporate dynasty, indestructible because of its hold on society, and indispensable because of its computer superiority.

Absolute power became the secret long-term aim and obsession. Nothing was going to be allowed to stop the advance. Even opposition from the American presidency—the biggest single threat to Lasercomp's plans—was being catered for. From its beginning, the Brogans had had built into the master program a plan to have their own man as President. They secretly selected him and called the ten-year plan the PPP—Program for a Potential President.

The night before Graham was due to fly to Paris, Sir Alfred phoned him at his apartment to confirm an appointment. But it wasn't the French police as planned.

“The investigation has been transferred to a special unit of French intelligence known as NAP 1,” Sir Alfred said with a note of concern.

“What's that?”

“It was set up in the mid-1970s to counter terrorism.”

“Why are they involved?”

“I'd better let NAP 1's chief tell you. He happens to be a personal contact of mine I first met in 1941 when he was over here with the French Resistance and I was in Army Intelligence. His name is Colonel Claude Guichard. Would you be able to meet him at noon tomorrow?”

Graham reached for a diary. “I think so. Where?”

“First floor, 93 Avenue Kleber. Oddly enough, the building was once occupied by the Gestapo for the Paris sector. Could you ring me as soon as you've spoken to him?”

“Of course.”

“Good night and good luck tomorrow.”

The Australian put the phone down slowly and stared at it for several seconds. What the hell had Jane stumbled onto? he wondered.

Graham arrived in Paris at 8:30
A.M
. He spent two hours reading Jane's notes once more, just in case they became relevant to his meeting with French Intelligence. Minutes before noon he arrived at the imposing, typically French baroque building on
Avenue Kleber. When Graham's arrival was announced over the desk intercom Colonel Guichard asked for five minutes before Graham was sent to his office.

The colonel felt he was one of the busiest men in France. Often he looked more than his sixty years. With his unsmiling, drawn features he had a permanent look of harassment about him. If it was not a minister of state hounding him, it might be the President of France making his life hell. His worries had made him bald and thin as a greyhound.

Yet he had always loved his work, first with the French Resistance, then during the troubled 1950s in the Algerian conflict, and latterly as a counterforce to French and foreign terrorists and assassins. The last two weeks, however, had been an exceptionally bitter time for him. News had come to him that hiding out in France was one of the world's most wanted men, a terrorist-assassin named Alexandro Emanuel Rodriguez. The colonel desperately wanted to see the man captured. Guichard had a personal score to settle.

Five years ago, his NAP 1 team had had the assassin cornered, but he had escaped, machine-gunning to death three NAP 1 men and one civilian hostage. Two of the NAP 1 team had been Claude Guichard's dearest friends.

Guichard was thorough in his dealings with the media. He had files on every French political journalist and many foreigners. Graham was one of them because of his writing about the French nuclear industry.

The colonel spent a few minutes skimming the limited computer printout dossier on Graham, which mainly contained articles written by the Australian. There were two photographs of him, both taken three years ago at an antinuclear rally in Paris. They showed him balancing precariously on scaffolding, preparing to photograph French police scuffling with students. Finally, he was satisfied and put the file in his desk drawer and buzzed his secretary to escort Graham from the receptionist to his office. The two men shook hands as they greeted each other, and Guichard felt his knuckles pressed close under the strength of the Australian's grip. He looked hard at Graham for several seconds. The Australian would win no beauty prizes, Guichard thought, yet there was an immediate substance about the man which commanded respect. This was perhaps accentuated by Graham's trim
and well-dressed appearance. The visitor was about medium height. His thick but not unruly, curly black hair, which failed to completely cover large ears, was swept back with no parting. The cheekbones were wide and flat, and seemingly disproportionate to a thin, bumped nose, which on second inspection was slightly crooked. The determinedly set jaw and upper lip, and the finely drawn slightly cruel mouth added to a face which showed more than a hint of aggression.