“Very commendable,” he smiled. “But you can’t carry a truck load of freight on your bike, can you?”
“Well, no,” she answered, reddening. “But we need to start somewhere and I’d like to believe you are thinking of your children’s future. You are, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “I think we should all stop driving cars and catching planes.” He laughed again. “We should all turn off the lights and grow our own vegetables. Is that what you want to hear? And I could ride my bike to New York and paddle my canoe to China, and that’s only this week. How’s that for starters?”
She was now angry at his flippancy. “I am serious, Mr Fromm. People my age are really frightened by this.”
He recognised her sincerity and relented. “Yes, I agree, we should sign up and the sooner the better, but that means huge adjustments and it will take more than five years.”
“So you agree that coal and oil industries are destroying the planet?”
He needed to hurry but wanted to please this earnest young person and smiled warmly. “Absolutely. Now I must go.”
Stepping aside, this time he kept walking. The camera followed him. As he passed her he whispered, “Keep up the good work.”
“Thank you Ambassador Fromm,” she called and turned to the camera to wind up her story.
He could no longer hear her words and soon forgot the interview. He would be reminded.
2. LANGLEY
The outside line flashed, but Cresswell Bunton let it wait while he completed his morning mantra, a daily prayer in which he accepted afresh his responsibility as God’s partner and co-protector of America. It ended as always with his adjusted version of the last lines of the seventy-fifth Psalm.
“‘All the horns of the ungodly will I break, and the horns of the righteous I will exalt. Amen.’”
He rocked forward in his chair to pick up the receiver, then back again to smile at God in solidarity. “Bunton!”
“Good morning, Cresswell.”
The readout confirmed what his ears told him: ‘Hank Delosa, CEO, Defense Dynamics’.
“Hi Hank, what’s up?”
He grabbed a pen as Delosa continued, “Cresswell, we have a problem. I’ve been talking to Magnus and he suggested I call you.”
“OK, Hank, how can I help?”
“Well, my problem is our export model of the JSF. The Australians won’t take delivery.”
“They’re contracted, aren’t they?”
“They’re contracted to take two hundred, but they have a case. We can’t get the son-of-a-bitch up to specs and they say, ‘no specs, no deal’.”
“So screw ’em! Do you really need to sell two hundred? Forget it!”
“It’s not that simple. These birds are a hundred knots under specs
and probably a hundred and fifty slower than the new Eurofighter scheduled for release next year. We can re-motor it…”
“So, re-motor it.”
“That takes time and we lose range. To the Aussies, range is a must-have and we need those sales now or we lose, big time.”
Bunton held the phone away from his ear, as he sought inspiration in his million-dollar reproduction of The Creation, copied to his own ceiling from the Sistine Chapel. In this reproduction, Adam’s face bore a striking resemblance to the young Bunton, but then, so did God’s.
After a few seconds, he sat forward again. “So, the Eurofighter won’t be ready for another year, the Australians don’t need anything right now, so they wait and play you off against the Consortium like before, right?”
“That’s it,” he agreed. “But there’s more. Japan, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, and of course much of Europe have orders in for this one. If the Aussies don’t buy, the others’ll be looking at the Euro too and have their lawyers checking their contracts. They can all opt out. We were desperate when the GFC hit, remember? So we agreed to escape clauses so they’d buy American. But we overestimated performance projections and that’s a deal breaker.”
“I see, so Magnus Devaurno says Defense won’t bail you out. You go bust and the competition is laughing.”
“I guess that’s about it. He threw it back at me and said talk to you.”
“What’ve you got in mind?”
“Well, nothing really, Magnus just said to talk to you.”
“OK, so let’s see what you need and I’ll see if the CIA has a role.”
“Well, we need Australia to take the fighters as they are. We hope that prompts the others to go ahead. Listen, Cresswell, it’s still the best performer around, but if the Aussies don’t buy, it could cost Dynamics trillions and as you say, without a huge bail-out we’d be ruined. For Chrissakes, Cresswell, Washington’s broke. We can’t go there again, so it’s sell or die. We need those sales now!”
“I see,” Bunton laughed. “So you want me to dream up something to force their hand.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it like that, I…”
“I bet you wouldn’t.” Bunton interrupted. “But that’s what you want.”
“I guess.”
“OK, can do, but it’ll cost.” He paused. “Who’s funding this?”
“Oh,” Delosa answered as if surprised. “If it costs, I guess we are.
How much do you need?”
The line remained silent while Bunton scribbled some figures. He picked up the receiver in time to hear, “Are you still there?” the tone revealing Delosa’s anxiety.
Bunton almost laughed. “Well, it’ll take a bit more work, but I’ve got a rough plan and costing.”
“OK,” he asked hopefully. “How much?”
“Well,” drawled Bunton, stretching the tension. “I’ll need to recruit a dozen or so new operatives, give them a mil each to crack the locks, plus another ten mil for expenses, another ten mil for unforseen glitches and ten for me. That’s about fifty in round figures and your problem’s solved.”
“That much!” he exclaimed. “I hadn’t expected quite…”
“Listen, you’ve got billions hanging on this. If you want to try something yourself,” Bunton looked up, saw that God was smiling and laughed, “be my guest!”
“No,” Delosa almost shouted. “Fifty’s OK. Say I transfer it to your account in Berne today and you can draw on it as you see fit. How’s that?”
“Listen,” Bunton laughed. “Write it off as consulting fees. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“How long before we see results, do you think?” Delosa asked, suspecting he may have been a bit hasty.
“Look,” Bunton said confidently. “Leave it to me. I’ve figured the deal and it’ll be quick as I can make it. OK?”
“But can you put a time frame around it?” Delosa asked anxiously. “We’ve got them coming off the line now.”
“You’ll see results within a few weeks, maybe two months tops.”
“No sooner?”
“What do you want, a miracle? Listen,” he