20

The figure who emerged from the belly of the helicopter with his entourage of four young executives was not an impressive physical specimen – five feet six, balding with soft fleshy features. The kind of man who was chauffeured from one air-conditioned space to another, seldom seeing daylight. Nevertheless, he carried himself with the poise and certainty only possessed by the supremely self-assured. Carl Mathis had every reason to be confident. He was a self-made billionaire by the time of his fortieth birthday and had added over twenty billion more in the intervening fifteen years. He had made his money gambling on the next big thing, on technical innovations that he believed would sweep the world. From personal computers to personalized medicine, he had been right on the money every time.

Mathis had acquired Sabre Systèmes de Défence Internationale, as it was then called, from its French founder, Colonel Auguste Daladier, only four years before. He had since anglicized the company’s name and diversified its work in ways which even that short time ago would have seemed unimaginable. While Daladier continued to run the conventional arm of its business providing the services of highly trained mercenary forces, he had moved Mitch Brennan and Susan Drecker sideways to head up a new venture. In a skilful move for which he still congratulated himself, Mathis had based their operations deep in the South American jungle alongside another of his successful businesses. It had been a perfect fit. They weren’t yet in profit but their operational success had surpassed all expectations. If he had needed any confirmation of what he already knew to be true, the last few years had delivered it: money offered with a smile and the promise of more to come had proved able to buy almost anything or anyone.

Government agents of all stripes had proved particularly easy to corrupt. Salary men and women with no chance of ever attaining fame or fortune in their pedestrian careers could seldom resist the allure of easy cash. Scientists’ egos made them only slightly harder nuts to crack. Often they had spent years convincing themselves that status and recognition were what they valued most, but once the smell of dollar bills had filled their nostrils such ideals invariably dissolved. Given another year, no doubt the four scientists they had been forced to bring here against their will would have cooperated willingly, but Mathis couldn’t wait that long. His business plan required them to break even during the next twelve months and he had come for an update on progress.

Brennan and Drecker met their visitors at the edge of the landing area and led them the short distance through the tropical heat to the meeting room situated in the compound’s administration block. There they arranged the party around the large conference table in the welcome cool, Mathis flanked by his team of energetic young executives at one end and Brennan and Drecker at the other.

After a minute or two of polite chitchat to break the ice, Brennan proceeded to deliver an update on progress. ‘I am pleased to report that we have now successfully assembled our core team and aim to have an established proof of concept within three months.’

‘Let me ask you up front, Mr Brennan,’ Mathis interrupted in his soft Californian lilt, ‘Do we have the full cooperation of our team? Do they like the deals we’ve offered them?’

‘Yes, we now have their full cooperation,’ Brennan said. ‘After some initial resistance the financial packages have all been agreed and signed. They have begun the process of collaboration. Within a fortnight our laboratories will be fully equipped with everything that they need to get us to the next stage.’

‘A human trial?’

‘Yes, sir. The aim is to replicate Dr Holst’s experimental findings with a human subject but using Professor Kennedy and Dr Bellman’s delivery system. Their nanoparticles will be transported to the target areas of the brain and activated by frequencies to which they will have been programmed to respond.’

‘How are these frequencies transmitted?’ The question came from a woman Brennan guessed to be no more than twenty-five seated to Mathis’s left.

‘They could come from any number of sources, but in this instance a mobile phone,’ Brennan said. ‘The signal can be disguised in a sound or video file that causes the emission of something you might describe as the auditory equivalent of a barcode. The particles activate, deliver heat to the neurons to which they’re attached, causing them to fire and trigger the desired response.’

‘Initially the responses will be binary – positive or negative,’ Drecker interjected, ‘creating an attraction or aversion to a given stimulus.’

‘How confident are we of success?’ Mathis asked.

‘Each link in the chain has already been proved,’ Brennan said. ‘The only difficulty is putting them together. Fortunately, that’s a technical rather than a theoretical challenge.’

‘How do we propose getting the particles into the body in a real-world situation?’

Drecker took the lead. ‘There are several options. The particles can be inhaled, consumed by mouth, and they’re even small enough to be absorbed through the skin. For product association the latter is the obvious choice. For example, you unwrap your smartphone, swipe the screen and particles are taken in through the pores ready to be activated the moment you switch it on.’

Mathis exchanged glances with his team, then addressed himself to Brennan and Drecker. ‘This is all very exciting and precisely the kind of outcome my investment was designed to achieve, but since we’ve started work my team and I have been thinking more deeply about appropriate applications.’

‘Sir?’ Brennan said.

‘I’m a businessman, Mr Brennan. I never set out to be anything else. But by accident more than design I think I can say that over the last thirty years I’ve done more to improve the overall human condition than any politician. The problem with politicians is that they have many interests and progress is only one of them. The technology we are developing here has untold potential for good and also for evil. We consider it too powerful for broad commercial application or for licensing to governments, no matter how benign. We would like to reserve it exclusively for ourselves.’

There was a further exchange of glances between Mathis and his team.

‘For example,’ Mathis continued, ‘my mining operations on this site are critical to the scaling-up of my battery and super-conductor business. The president here knows it and he knows that his country is sitting on some of the largest deposits of exactly the natural resources we’re going to need to fuel the post-carbon economy – the coltan, the rare earth metals, ninety-eight per cent of which are still to be exploited. He’s sweetness and light for the moment, but in future I strongly suspect he may be tempted to hold me to ransom. Likewise, there are many politicians in the US, in the pockets of one lobby or another, who could cause me and the public I serve considerable inconvenience.’ He folded his hands on the desk in front of him. ‘I see this technology as a way of buying loyalty and influence. Loyalty to the aims of my wider business among those with the potential to stand in its way.’ He looked first Drecker then Brennan in the eye. ‘I want that as your objective. Do you think you can fulfil it?’

‘Of course, sir,’ Brennan said. ‘If I may say so, I consider it a very wise strategy.’

Less than an hour later Mathis and his retinue concluded their meeting and a helicopter took off for the airstrip forty miles to the west where their Learjet was waiting for them. They would be back in their Silicon Valley offices by evening. Brennan and Drecker stood side by side watching the Super Puma rise up from the ground, dip its nose and head out across the jungle canopy.

‘What do you think?’ Brennan said.

‘I think we keep playing the loyal servants,’ Drecker said.

Brennan nodded. They had an understanding.